A voice, regal and powerful, echoed in the nothingness.
"A millennium ago, a war was fought: Darkness against Light. You know, by now, who was on each side, but so often the deeds of the unspoken heroes are ignored in the interests of extolling a few easily-remembered champions. Now is your chance to explore what REALLY happened all those years ago, to see what the battle meant to every single pony who lived through it."
Midnight. The thought occurred suddenly, intruding on the void. There was a sense of masculinity attached to it whereas the voice that had spoken had been distinctly feminine. Its sense of not belonging rapidly faded until it felt like it had been there for all time.
Midnight meant something once. It was the antithesis of day, the darkest hours of the night, when one would lay in bed, secure in the world of dreams. Midnight, of course, did not last forever; it was merely a stopping point on the way to a new dawn. Well, it used to not last forever.
“Come on, lift your hooves and keep moving!”
The words were hissed by a navy-blue unicorn stallion. He shook his head at the randomly intruding thought of this thrice-damned eternal midnight, as if it wasn't all the world was, now. His green eyes searched out his companion, a pale pink unicorn mare, her own blue eyes searching the brush ahead of them. She waved a hoof at him angrily. “Shut up, Dawn,” she whispered back forcefully. “I'm – we're – not moving till we're sure the coast is clear.”
Dawn Glory rolled his eyes. “You worry far too much, Dazz,” he muttered to the mare. She looked at him incredulously, before scoffing and returning to her incessant search of the bushes ahead. Her eyes seemed to pierce the vegetation as they darted back and forth. “Why don't you just cast a life-finding spell, if you're so damned anxious?”
Dazzle rolled her eyes yet again. “You know why, idiot,” she breathed. “But as a reminder: Firstly, they can't be found with low-powered life-finding spells. And secondly, because they can track magic use, if it's high enough, and a Dark-finding spell would certainly cross the threshold.”
“Only some of them,” he murmured in annoyance. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, the irritation clear on her face.
“The ones we really need to worry about? Those ones?”
Dawn sighed and shook his head. They were going on 20 hours, deep into enemy territory. The exchanges had grown more heated, albeit quieter, as they drew closer to their objective. Neither of them was too pleased with the other's company by this point, but their mission was critical. “Time is of the essence, we were told,” he reminded her quietly.
“You think I don't know that?” she replied. After a minute, she shook her head. “I don't see anything. Let's advance.”
The duo were a pair of deep-infiltration specialists. Their goal still lay some 500 meters away through the thick forest. They wore flexible, lightweight armor, proof against most physical weapons but nearly useless against magical attack. If they fell under attack, though, they would have already failed their mission. They slithered forward on their bellies, almost silent, through the thick undergrowth, ignoring the branches digging into them as they moved. The two had, through long years of the most dangerous work, become inured to such creature discomforts. And, despite their hostility, were actually close friends. Very close friends.
Dawn attempted to maintain a watch as they crawled forward, but he knew that any threat would be quickly located by Dazzle. She was the eyes of the team, just as he was the hands; his arcane knowledge surpassed almost all 'Light' Equestrians', and his power matched the breadth of his magical repertoire. This, however, was not a task for force, but subtlety. He knew it, but at this point was growing tired of the wilderness. To his credit, though, he only complained as a joke – most of the time.
The trees were growing thin as the pair's progress continued. Just as they seemed about to break the treeline, Dazzle whipped her hoof at Dawn and he immediately halted. Even though he couldn't see anything, himself, he trusted her instincts absolutely. It had saved both their lives more than once. She pointed at a distant ridgeline, and he strained his eyes at... nothing.
“What am I looking at, exactly?” he whispered drily. “There's nothing up there.”
Dazzle ground her teeth as she shook her head. “That's exactly the point,” she replied sardonically.
Dawn took a moment to comprehend what she said, and then started to really look at the skyline. He could see the stars, except in a few spots. Where there should have been shining points of light, there were what appeared to be rippling silhouettes of ponies against the open sky. And those shadows could only mean-
“Dark Ones,” he muttered, his muzzle twisting into a sneer.
She nodded. “I count at least five. Figure they maintain typical patrol patterns, there's one more beyond our sight, but that's also assuming they didn't beef up security around this place.”
“D'you think they would have?”
“Wouldn't you?” she asked rhetorically. “Given what it is, what it means to the enemy, by the nightmare yes, I'd guard it better. Double the numbers, at the least.”
“Front door's not an option, then, huh,” he stated rather than asked. For all his whining, Dawn's tactical sense was just as sound as Dazzle's. “Lucky for us, though, we're looking at the back door.”
She grimaced. “Yeah, and that's locked up just as tightly,” she said quietly. A thoughtful cast crossed her face. “This is just the outer perimeter, too. It'll only get worse as we close in.”
He shrugged, or at least made a slight motion to. The Dark Ones weren't looking in their direction, or at least didn't appear to be, but he didn't want to risk their position any more than need be. “Or we just happened to come across a patrol as it just happened to be passing our infil point.” She looked at him, and he threw his hooves up in exasperation. “What? Coincidences happen!”
“The day I believe in coincidences,” she murmured as she looked back at the ridge, “is the day I die.”
“Then keep your mind closed, hun.” He fell silent as the shadows began moving, shrinking as they moved back behind the ridge. “Seems I was right,” he said triumphantly, grinning at her. “They are just a patrol.”
She rolled her eyes and then poked her hoof out towards the hill twice in quick succession. He nodded, and the two of them silently rose to their hooves. After one more cursory glance around, Dazzle pointed once more and then took off in a gallop, Dawn immediately behind. Their hoofbeats were silent, courtesy of the high-end, enchanted infiltration suits they were wearing dispersing the sound evenly into the ground with each impact. Her head continued to swivel, watching for threats, as he kept his eyes on the ridge, ready to engage the known threat. Such was their synchronization.
They approached the crest, slowing down to a canter and then a slow trot, before finally coming to a stop and resuming their belly-down crawl. Dazzle's head was first over the ridge, of course, and she immediately began looking around. Dawn, at first, watched their rear, but gave a start when she poked him in the shoulder. He looked around, and she gestured forward without looking back at him. Eyebrows drawing down in confusion, he slowly peaked the hill, and then felt his jaw drop.
Laying in the valley beyond them was an immense construction, best described as a fort. Its walls were made of what appeared to be black onyx, a slight shine emanating from the walls due to the massive full moon laying directly overhead in the dark sky. The field between the walls and the unicorns was filled with inky, horse-shaped spaces, the Dark Ones easily picked out because of their complete lack of presence. One of them was unnerving enough, but... the space beyond the operatives was crawling with Dark Ones, more than either one could honestly say they had ever seen in one place. The sheer sense of wrongness was palpable.
“Look,” Dazzle muttered, gesturing with her chin, but Dawn already knew what she was indicating. A brown earth pony was being forced forward by a pair of unicornian Dark Ones, their horns at his or her throat, into a circle of other Dark Unicorns. As the pair of shadows stepped into place, completing the circle, they threw the pony forward unceremoniously, one hoof each, and the victim fell forward into the middle of the sinister figures. He or she got to their feet unsteadily, looking around wildly, like an animal in a trap. They charged at the edge of the circle, but were blocked by a wall of darkness, the Dark Ones throwing them back into the middle.
“NOT LIKE THIS!” he screamed, just beyond the range of Dawn's and Dazzle's hearing. So it was a stallion. “Please, I'll serve faithfully! I was promised to keep my life! To maintain my flesh and blood! This just can't be happening!”
The Dark Ones were silent, but their horns began glowing with spell-light. The midnight-blue luminescence complemented their jet-black appearance, emphasizing the sheer emptiness of their forms, as a circular beam of the same blue color began forming between their horns.
“I'LL BE ETERNALLY FAITHFUL!” he screeched in terror. “PLEASE, YOUR MAJESTY, DON'T DO THIS!”
The ring finally coalesced, and a ray of dark magic crept out of each Dark One's place in the circle, the ring itself closing in behind. The stallion fell on his back and pushed himself away from the nearest bolt of magic, before he looked back and jumped as he realized another beam was at his back. He scrabbled desperately from each tendril of energy, but his free space was quickly being reduced. He was unable to go between the beams, repulsed by the advancing wall of power, and he finally stopped moving and instead clutched himself with his front legs in the middle of the circle. He rocked back and forth as the magic came closer, and closer, and-
“NOOOOOOOAAHHHGGGGH-” His scream of horror was cut off abruptly, replaced by utter silence, as the circle finally tightened on him and each beam pierced into his body. The warm, real flesh grew dark wherever a ray impacted, the darkness spreading about his form, and he twitched disturbingly as the magic worked its way into his being. Slowly but surely, the darkness covered his entire body, every single part of him pure black, before the beams suddenly dissipated. All but one of the Dark Unicorns sat back on their haunches. That one paced forward slowly towards the motionless silhouette in the middle of the circle. It placed its horn right over where the heart would have been on the former pony, and bucked its head, stabbing into his body.
He flopped for a moment, before falling still again. The 'lead' Dark One withdrew and stood, apparently watching the stallion. He twitched once more, and then his figure began rippling like the other Dark Ones. The leader of the circle stepped back, and the newly-formed Dark One came to its hooves, stock-still, looking at its new immediate commander. The leader pointed with its hoof at a formation of Dark Ones standing stationary some distance away. Without any apparent acknowledgment of the order, the new Dark One turned and trotted away, the circle finally opening up to allow him – it – to pass.
Dawn jumped, despite himself, as Dazzle spoke. “Still as disturbing as the first time I watched it,” she murmured sadly. He nodded. “And they still plead to her as it happens, like she's actually gonna personally listen to their plight.”
“All the more reason to help end it,” he agreed.
“Come on,” she said, sliding back under the ridgeline before turning away. “I saw an alternate path.”
“You did?” he asked, bemused, as he followed her away. “I mean, not that I wasn't looking, just, uh-”
“Leave the thinking to me, dear,” she said cheerfully, stopping briefly to turn and pat him on the cheek.
The two unicorns were once again sliding through the forest, Dawn's reverie now thoroughly ended as he returned to muttering darkly about the annoying plant life. They came to the edge of the woods, and once more, he let Dazzle go first. When she gave him the all-clear, he moved forward before stopping, his face filled with shock. “That's, uh...”
“The wall of the fort?” She smiled. Indeed, towering in front of them was a rampart of the impressive structure, its glossy surface reflecting their images back at them. “Good job, I'm proud of you!”
“Oh, shut up,” he snapped back. His head scanned back and forth as he stepped forward to the wall, but no watchers were apparent. He paused as he came to the vertical surface, head crooking from side to side as he analyzed the material before them. He put out a hoof and tugged the glove off, using the sensitive frog to feel the stone. His eyes narrowed in thought, and he put his cheek to the wall, working up and down, attempting to get a fix on exactly of what material the fort had been constructed. Dazzle cleared her throat, and he looked at her, eyes still squinted. “Can you give me a second, please? Trying to do my job, nothing important.”
“Just enjoying the sight of you feeling up a wall, dear.”
His jaw jutted out and to one side in aggravation. “You're free to step up and do it your own nightmare-damned self,” he said mockingly, taking a half-step back and presenting the wall to her with his hoof. She pretended to shrug at him, and he shifted his chin to the other side, jaw cracking slightly. She shook with silent laughter as he sighed and returned to the task at hoof. “And it's feeling out.”
“Whatever.”
Dawn stepped back, slipping the glove back on before rubbing his chin with the same hoof. “Isn't a mineral I've ever seen,” he told her quietly. “Looks like, feels like, and seems like onyx, just like looking at it would suggest, but...” He trailed off and shook his head. “There's two enchantments in that wall. The first is nothing strong, obviously nothing physical, but I'm guessing it's some sort of detection spell. Breach it, and it points out to exactly where the intrusion took place. I suppose it's better, and more efficient, than filling up the battlements with a watch.”
Dazzle's own face took on a puzzled look. “I doubt they'd be stupid enough not to have a watch, though. The main Dark One conversion facility? And she's gonna trust a generic sorcery to keep it safe?” She snorted.
“Never said I didn't think there was a watch, hun,” Dawn said consolingly. “But this is also, as far as I know, the first fortification of this size with this type of enchantment. Doing the math,” he said, and he waved his hoof back and forth as he made each point, “Early-warning enchantment on the walls, this redoubt is for producing new soldiers, no point taking the newly-formed Dark Ones and putting them on garrison duty, I'm sorry hun,” he finished, dropping the hoof, “but it all points to a truncated guard force. As for that other enchantment...” he shrugged helplessly. “Something's missing, but I can't figure out what.”
“Damn.” She sat back on her haunches, deep in thought as she stared up at the wall. “So how do we get over it?”
Dawn shook his head, then mimed rubbing his ear out with one of his hooves. “Sorry, come again?” he said as he leaned forward with the 'clean' ear, pretending he hadn't heard her perfectly well the first time.
“You heard me, Dawn. Front gate, like always, is out – there'll be a posted watch. Can't get away with digging straight through like we normally do, given the detection spell. So, there's only one way to get in.” She snaked a hoof in an upside down-U shape to indicate what she meant.
Dawn shook his head as he waved his two front hooves at her frantically. “No, no, and no,” he said hurriedly. “There's no way that'll work. This wall has to be a good 15, 20 meters high, at least. To get up and over would require levitation or teleportation, and as you so eagerly reminded me earlier,” and his voice shifted to a mocking tone, “they can track magic use.”
Dazzle smacked her forehead with a hoof. “No, really? I wonder who you learned that from?” She sighed, and gestured at the wall with a hoof in frustration. “But I see no other option. We need to get in, and get the job done. There's no other way. We can't give up on the mission now.”
He looked at her, and their eyes met. It was more than just the mission, and both of them knew that; neither would let the other risk their life foolishly. There was far too much at stake, waiting for them safe back in Canterlot... but their duty was to the true ruler of Equestria, and to the quest to return daylight to the world. Compared to that, no personal matter could override the importance of their mission, no matter how very personal that matter was. He released a shuddering sigh and nodded, eyes closing as he thought about what they both stood to lose.
“Fine,” he said finally, “but I'm coming too. Not debating it,” he said in anticipation of her argument, and sure enough her mouth snapped closed as she glared at him. “I'm not letting you go in alone, and they're already going to be on me when they sense my magic, anyways.”
“But you do acknowledge that they will be coming, right?” she asked him, almost earnestly. “If you send me in, you can get away, and you know that I will accomplish our mission, no matter the cost.”
“That's what worries me,” he allowed grudgingly, “but like I said, we're not arguing the point. We're going to go in, get the job done, get out, and get our happy flanks all the way back to Canterlot. Sound like a deal?” He grinned at her, an expression which she returned.
“Deal.”
“Right, then,” he said. He flexed his neck back and forth, the motion serving no real function other than to calm his nerves. He waved Dazzle over with a hoof, and she trotted to his side, burrowing in comfortably. He couldn't stop himself from nuzzling her a bit, for which he got a hoof across the face, but he decided it was worth it as he rubbed the sore spot carefully. He looked up, fixing his eyes on a point along the wall where the parapet was notched away to provide a firing position for a defender. Taking a deep breath, he allowed magic energy to begin channeling through his horn, the sky-blue glow a wonderful contrast to the Dark Ones' evil energy. As with any good spellcaster, the weaves of arcane energy fell together with little thought. He reached his hoof over Dazzle's neck to ensure they were connected, released the breath, and allowed the power to release through the conduit.
Their vision flashed as the wall in front of them became open air, the ground beneath them changed from grass to not-onyx, and the empty space to Dawn's left became a startled Dark One. Dawn's head whipped around and he quickly lowered his horn to gore into the being's erstwhile heart. Its startlement lasted long enough for the horn to penetrate through to its dark core, and a quick blast of magic dispelled the energy maintaining its corporeality. It dispelled into a cloud of darkness before dissipating completely, no sign left of its existence.
“Dawn,” Dazzle said warningly, before grabbing him around the body and throwing him bodily to a part of the wall where the parapet rose inside to provide some cover from the courtyard. Bolts of dark-blue energy shot over the wall, and Dawn winced. It seemed they had landed themselves right in the hornets' nest.
“Stay down, Dazz,” he said pointlessly. She raised an eyebrow at him, expression flat, and in spite of the assault on their position he chuckled slightly. She obviously had no such plans. “Since we've already got a party anyways, can you pull out your bag of tricks?”
“Fine,” she said nervously. Now it was her turn for her horn to pulse with energy, this time pink. A green orb shot out from the tip, climbing into the sky before halting in mid-air and shooting a horizontal beam out into the fort proper. The energy traveled to and fro across the collected Dark Ones once before a blast of magic hit it. Dazzle gritted her teeth and flinched at the feedback.
“Are you all right?” Dawn asked urgently.
“Yeah, it just stung a bit.” Shaking her head quickly to clear it, she went on. “I counted about 50 of them, most unicornian, couple earth, and no pegasi that I could detect.”
“That's not good,” Dawn replied loudly over the sounds of the shots from the Dark Ones. “Pegasi could get up over this wall and hit us, and they'd be almost invisible against the sky. And if you didn't see any down there...”
“Already thought about that,” she said quickly, pushing another Dark-finding spell, this one intended to search out the sky. The green sphere happily shot its energy out into the space above the two unicorns, and she gleefully realized that nothing appeared to be above them. “Skies are clear.”
“Then we gotta move, and fast.” He tucked his foreleg around her again and looked around. There. His horn flashed as they teleported to the battlements directly opposite the fort from their previous location, right where the parapet met the inner sanctum of the settlement. He put his horn onto the bastion and began channeling energy. “Let's get in and get done with this, already. Keep an eye out, hun.”
“Of course,” she said quickly, watching the ground below. In the distance she could see the Dark Ones they had been fighting charging across the intermediate space. As they moved they shot out occasional blasts of energy that, between the galloping and distance involved, fell nowhere near the unicorns' position. Dazzle looked over at Dawn, still working at magically drilling the wall. “Any progress?”
“You could say that,” he said wearily, and fell back from the wall. She turned full-on and looked at him in shock. “I've just figured out that the wall is impenetrable to magic. THAT'S what I was missing before. There's no way we can dig through.”
“No,” Dazzle breathed. To come this far, to put this much at risk, to be foiled at the climax of their journey... She refused to accept it. “Come on,” she said urgently, putting her own horn against the wall. “Use my energy, too. Let's get this over with.”
“But...” Dawn couldn't finish the sentence. Dazzle was standing at the wall, head tilted sideways so that her horn rested on the smooth surface, but eyes looking back at him. “We can't protect ourselves, this way.”
“If that's what it takes,” she said, voice cracking slightly, “then that's what we'll do. Now it's your turn to stop debating and get over here, already.”
Dawn looked down at the closing Dark Ones, and felt his heart leap into his throat. He would gladly die for Dazzle, and she for him, but to throw away both of their lives so foolishly... Except she was right. This was the most important thing, getting the job done. He stepped forward and tilted his own head as he approached, muzzle-to-muzzle with her, and placed his horn gently at the exact same point on the wall as her. “One,” he said quietly, staring deeply into her eyes.
“Two,” she repeated, eyes peering into very soul.
“Three,” they said together, and a spark jumped between their horns as they both began conducting magic at the same time. A tiny purple ball of energy appeared at the junction between the two horns, before expanding rapidly to become a half-sphere burrowed into the wall. The energy crackled with arcane power as the spell dug into the enchanted material, fighting the dark hex with a more powerful type of magic – love.
The onyx melted away into nothingness as the bolt continued to grow larger, and as if by a miracle, their objective was immediately within the stronghold: a Night-Orb. A massive black sphere of void, this was one of the key instruments in the conversion of ponies to Dark Ones. Without a Night-Orb to renew the dark magics exhausted in the process of transforming a pony's soul into nothingness, the Dark Ones would be unable to continue their task, and their mistress would have to create a new one – an undertaking which would take her years.
“Are you thinking-” Dazzle shouted over the sound of the torrent of magic.
“- what I'm thinking?” Dawn finished, just as loudly. They were in perfect harmony, synced in a way that couldn't really be explained but made sense all the same. Together, they could do anything. The ball of energy gave one last shudder before shooting out from their joined horns, racing towards the Night-Orb. It seemed to pause as it reached the edge of the Orb's presence, but the hesitation was brief as it rammed into the Orb with a flash of purple light. A rainbow-hued pulse of energy spewed out of the impact crater, followed by another, a third one even sooner, until there was a cascade of brilliant color blasting out of the Orb as it was unmade from reality.
But something went wrong. Dawn noted a sharp pain in his side, but ignored it as he watched their magic fade and disappear, the Orb all but destroyed but not utterly erased as was their mission. He turned to look at Dazzle, and-
“NOOOOOOOO!” The pain in his side hadn't been his own. It had been the love-harmonic transferring the feelings from Dazzle into him... including the wound blasted into her ribcage by a Dark One's energy blast. “DAZZ, NO!”
He grabbed her and pulled her down behind the meager parapet, the energy bolts once again shooting past. But he didn't care about that, no, what he cared about was his injured partner, friend... wife.
“Dazz, please,” he pleaded with her, as if she had any choice in the matter. Tears began forming in his eyes and streaming, unbidden, down his cheeks. “Dazz, you can't...” He tossed his head from side to side and laid his horn gently on her flank, attempting to cast a healing spell; the Dark Ones' magic left wounds not curable by basic spells, though, and the Princess...
“That's it,” he muttered, voice breaking, “I'll take you to... take you to the Princess. She can... she'll...” She was too far away. Dazzle wouldn't make it that far. “Oh, by Celestia, no!”
“D-... Dawn?” Dazzle's azure eyes flickered open, and the pupils darted around wildly. Heedless of the enemy attacks still assaulting their position, Dawn maneuvered to place his face in her line of sight. As her eyes finally found his, she smiled tremulously. “Did... did we get it?”
“Yeah,” he breathed, “We got it.” His mouth quivered and his eyes scrunched up, tears nearly blinding him. “Dazz, please...”
“We... did it,” she said haltingly, and shook as she brought her hoof up to place against his mouth. “You know... when that wall fell, I...” she paused to take a deep, rattling breath. “I... thought it was a... coincidence.” She tried laughing, but fell into a coughing fit. “T-told you so,” she murmured once it had subsided. “The day I... believe in coincidences...”
Dawn looked around helplessly, nickering unconsciously, trying to think of something, anything, that would help. “Don't talk like that, Dazz” he said finally. “We'll get you back to Celestia, she'll know what to do. She'll get you back on your hooves, and you'll be all right. I promise.”
Dazzle didn't even try laughing, just closed her eyes as the small smile grew ever so slightly larger. “You know... that's a lie...” She coughed again. “I knew the... risks. We both d-did. Ahhhmmmmm!” She groaned as a wave of pain hit her.
He shook head, denying that this was the way it had to be. “Please, Dazz, you can't leave me. Our... Our foals,” he whispered, and regretted it instantly. Her face melted into sorrow, but true to form her voice stayed even.
“You can... take care of them,” she said in response. “That was the... deal, right? Hnnngh! Our foals will... have at least... one parent?”
“Yeah,” Dawn said sadly, brushing back her mane tenderly with a hoof. It was a subdued lavender shade, with streaks of purple and royal blue occurring naturally within it. She had said these streaks were a defining feature of her family tree, had been as long as the records had been kept, and indeed their two foals both had a few different shades in their mane, and even in my thoughts I'm babbling, Dawn thought to himself angrily. “I'll take good care of them, Dazz, I swear. Doubly good care.”
“Good. That's... good,” Dazzle sighed. Her eyes fluttered again, shifting in and out of focus. “I don't think... I don't... I...” The last 'I' hung in the air, and she drew and exhaled one last breath.
“Dazz?” Dawn shook her with his hooves. The Dark Ones' attacks were closing in, one singing his tail. With a roar at their disrespect at his wife's ill health, he leaned over her and teleported the two of them randomly. The nature of the spell led them to a haphazard spot somewhere he had been in the past hour, in this case deep in the woods. Satisfied that the distractions were gone, he shook her again. “Dazz, wake up, hun, you didn't finish what you were saying.” She didn't so much as stir. “Please,” he pleaded with her, knowing the truth but denying it to the end. “Don't do this to me. You can't. Not after all we've done together.” Still no answer. He leaned forward and buried his muzzle in her neck, weeping at her death.
“No more, please!”
Twilight Sparkle stepped back from the pedestal, the orb upon it still glimmering slightly from the magic it had been channeling. The lavender alicorn looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks, at the other pony in the room. Celestia's coat had turned white over the years, but her mane still rippled with the same multicolored sheen it had had once upon a time. She looked down at Twilight sadly.
“I understand your reluctance, Twilight, but it is critical that you do this.” Celestia bowed her head, eyes closed, as she spoke. “The Globe of Remembrance is one of the most important artifacts that Equestria possesses.”
“I understand, Celestia, but...” Twilight pointed at the Globe with one hoof, as if it had threatened her friends. “I didn't want to see that!” as she scrubbed tears from her face with the other hoof.
“What you see has nothing to do with personal desires, Twilight,” Celestia said consolingly. “It is what you need to know about your heritage to better perform your duties as a Princess of Equestria – the bad as well as the good.”
“So let me get this straight,” Twilight said, sniffing as she furrowed her brow, “Are you telling me that those two...”
“Do you recall what Dawn was thinking at the end?”
Twilight pursed her lips as she tried to remember. At the end, her thoughts – or rather, Dawn's thoughts, as he was the one who had contributed his memories to the Globe – had been so jumbled, and erratic, and... unorganized. But something did ring a bell for her.
“The... hair?” Twilight asked with an upward lilt, as if fishing for a correct answer on a test.
“Yes, Twilight,” Celestia replied proudly. “Dawn and Dazzle were, once upon a time, your great-ancestors. The streaks in your hair – and your brother's, and your mother's – are a trait passed down through your lineage, straight from Dazzle and her own antecedents.” Celestia smiled. “Your family has always been important to Equestria, in one way or another.”
Twilight kicked at the floor with a hoof. “So... what? Are you teaching me that I'm amazing just because of who my parents were?”
Celestia laughed softly. “No, nothing like that, Twilight. You are outstanding of your own accord. Dawn's presence during the Nightmare Wars just helps make the process of remembering these horrible events that much more palpable to you, as you don't have the benefit of being able to look at your own memories of the times.” Celestia's expression fell at that, and Twilight realized the memories she must use were her own.
“Okay,” Twilight said determinately. Celestia looked at her, and the lavender alicorn smiled slightly, but it faltered. “I'm ready for the next lesson. Is it after... after Dazzle...?” Even though it had just been a memory, and she didn't even really know the people whose lives she had just watched, she could still feel Dawn's emotions as if they were her own. The heartbreak still tore at her, and she wasn't sure she wanted to go back.
“Yes, Twilight,” Celestia said gravely, “Some time after, in fact. Dawn spent a few years in Canterlot after this mission, and was never the same; his destruction of the Night-Orb did hold back Nightmare Moon's forces for a bit longer, but it was at the cost of the light of his own world. It would be some time before he could bring himself to do anything more than raise his foals, not out of cowardice, but because it was his wife's dying wish.”
Twilight's face steeled itself. “Then... let's move on.”
Author's Note
Fun fact: Nocte Aeterna is Latin for "Eternal Night." Didn't see THAT one coming, huh?
