Fly Me to The Moonby Somber StarChaptersDawn of an EraSound the DrumsLuna MarisThese Little Lights of OursThese Little Lights, Part IIDawn of an EraAct 1: Dawn of an Era When Princesses Celestia and Luna first took their thrones, everypony in Equestria fell somewhere on the spectrum of elated relief and anxious trepidation. Indeed, the two diametrically opposed emotions were not even mutually exclusive on some ponies' parts. They bore with them strange powers to which they had referred as the Elements of Harmony, and each could raise and lower the Sun or Moon at will, without the help of the rituals that once required dozens of powerful unicorns working as one. This, incidentally, was a threat to the unicorns' place in pony society. The ability to control the celestial bodies was the breed's primary contribution to Equestria, and the only weight they had to throw into interbreed disputes. Another worry was that such power had gained authority before, become or proven corrupted, and made life miserable for everypony. The fact that these two had defeated each of these other corrupted powers in turn did little to ease the tension, since it illustrated that they had far more strength than any prior threat to ponykind, and where there was little hope for a successful rebellion against the likes of Discord and King Sombra, there was absolutely none for the event that the Princesses should also prove to have dark hearts. Fortunately, this was revealed to not be the case as of yet. Princesses Celestia and Luna reigned with benevolence, grace, and kindness; although the elder sister did on occasion display an interest in having fun at the expense of others, it was never anything serious or lasting. So it was that the ponies of Equestria slept peacefully at night for once in their lives, knowing that such caring monarchs held sway over their skies. It was, ironically, here that the seeds of a real problem were sown. In light of the Royal Sisters' power and the fact that it was widely believed that nopony would dare risk threatening the peace they brought, a Royal Guard had not yet been established. During the day, this absence of arms and armor combined with Celestia's glowing presence made for a warm, welcoming environment within the castle walls. However, at night under Luna's reign, with nopony else awake to come visit, it made for a very empty and isolating atmosphere. Luna, aware of her elder sister's growing fondness for pranks as an escape from the tedium of her new-found royal duties and the grating nature of the upper crust of pony society, took it upon herself to start setting up little scare traps in various places around the castle. Celestia was elated at the new game, after her initial fright of course, and Luna was happy that in this way she could reconnect with her sister, her one and only companion for much of her life. She didn't want to admit it, but the young Princess had felt a rift growing between them due to their differing waking hours. So while Celestia spent the day steeped in administration and general government work, Luna spent the night making sure that her elder sister didn't lose herself to the position. One evening, looking up at the sky she reigned, barely lit as it was by the moon, Luna remembered how much the ponies of the land loved to look up at the clouds made in a joint effort between Celestia and the pegasi and make games of trying to see images in their shapes. She also remembered that, with her elder sister growing increasingly preoccupied with the tasks of rulership and the pegasi being horribly practically-minded, the clouds had taken on a tendency for rather boring shapes. Which in turn cost the ponies one of their precious few sources of entertainment, and as the bearer of the Element of Laughter, Luna could not abide by that. So it was that she decided to give everypony a new reason to look up at the sky. With that thought in mind, over the course of the night, she took some of the Moon's light and scattered it across the sky in tiny points of light that varied in intensity. With great care, she pushed, pulled, and dispersed these pinpoints of light until the brighter ones made vague shapes that were somewhat hidden by the dimmer ones. The Sun peeked over the horizon, at once obscuring her little lights and indicating that her elder sister had awakened and was expecting her to lower the Moon, which she did. Luna resigned herself to showing Celestia, to showing everypony the fruit of her artistic labors in the heavens, once Celestia had retired the Sun for the day. Luna was about to go and meet Celestia for their traditional twilight greeting, but a silhouette against the rising sun caught her eye. Immediately taken by curiosity, Luna trotted over to the silhouette and saw that it was a rather unusual-looking pegasus, one which did not seem overly fond of her sister's charge. When the pegasus saw her, he gave her a short bow before addressing her in a gravely serious tone. "Beloved Princess of the Night. Please forgive this humble servant's request, but we have dire need of thy aid." the areion spoke. "Do not fret, little one." Luna said, trying to get into the persona which the unicorns of Canterlot had built up for her, adjusting her stance to appear dominant and regal while trying to find a balance between talking down to her subject and showing that she really did care. For the first time in her life, she resented Celestia just a little, because the same demands were not made of her. "Thy pleas do not fall upon deaf ears. We would hear this dire need you have of us, and if we can, we will provide you this aid." "You honor and grace me with your regard, Your Majesty," the areion responded, bowing lower now that he knew for certain that this was not just another royal demanding respect, but one who might just be interested in actually earning it. "It is about the Moon, Your Grace. Your servants have accepted your power to make it rise and fall at your command, and it is a mighty power indeed, Your Highness. I only ask, however, if you might know what terrors lurk on your Moon, claiming it as their territory and home, and from there, haunting the nights and very dreams of everypony across Equestria?" "Show us." Luna said, scowling independently of her sister for the first time in her life. She was sorry she would have to give up their meetings, but if what this little bat-winged pegasus claimed was true, then taking effort to maintain their relationship was just going to have to wait. Sound the Drums"She's late!" Celestia hissed, having only just barely hidden her distress at her sister's unexplained absence during the dawn ceremony behind her trademark gentle smile. After all, just because she was alarmed, that didn't necessarily mean the populace of Equestria had to be. Luna was still able to do her job, as was indicated by the Moon's departure from the sky at the required time. For a moment before her Sun took its place, Celestia had thought she'd seen tiny sparks of light in the darkened sky. At first, she had believed that she was only seeing things, but as time passed and her beloved baby sister failed to show, the worry gnawing at the back of her mind led her to wonder if perhaps they might have had something to do with it. She had half a mind to set the Sun again and take another look at those lights, in the hopes of perhaps gleaning some understanding of them. But no, that would definitely tell everypony that something was wrong. Instead, Celestia did something she thought she'd never do in her time as Crown Regent of Equestria: she summoned her pegasus generals and her unicorn cadre, relics of the time before the ponies united under Equestria's banner. Given that nearly all of the unicorns lived in Canterlot, and the most privileged pegasi lived above it, it was no surprise that their representatives arrived by late morning. She wanted to break in the reason for her summons slowly, but judging by their greetings, Celestia was apparently failing to hide her growing distress. "Your Majesty, if I may be so bold..." Cinereus Lupe, the Sheriff of Trottingham began hesitantly. "You may. In fact, all of you are for the purposes of this forum permitted to speak to me with absolute candor." Celestia responded, receiving a collection of gasps for her efforts at facilitating communication through familiarity. She had the feeling she was never going to get used to all this pointless and counterproductive decorum. "Very well then... What ails you, Your Grace?" Lupe finished, looking like he feared committing the verbal equivalent of stepping into a viper's nest. "It is my younger sister, your Princess Luna. She has not greeted me this morning with the Sun's rise over the horizon." Celestia confessed, and for just one heartbeat she almost worried that her subjects would not take this matter as serious as she had, that they might believe her to be frivolous and needlessly worrisome. The next heartbeat, however, was greeted with reactions to the extreme contrary. At least from the pegasus generals, who were doing everything from trying to pass off fainting in a manly fashion to barking orders to begin a kingdom-wide search for the lost princess. The unicorn nobility, on the other hand, were visibly less upset about the matter. Well, either that, or less visibly upset. She couldn't tell. "Everypony, stop! Please!" Celestia shouted, earning instant, stunned silence from her immediate subordinates. "I appreciate your concern, but if we are to get to the bottom of my sister's absence, it is a matter that must be handled with proper organization and planning." "I am very sorry, Your Majesty," General Thunder Roll replied meekly, his voice still managing to do his name justice. "It is just that, from your reign until this point, Her Highness as greeted you with such regularity that we have researchers preparing a new time piece with your meetings as a standard. With that in mind, it concerns us greatly that she has deviated without explanation. Tardiness from a reliable pony means trouble! Rest assured, we will do everything in our power to find her and the reason for her absence posthaste!" "Thank you very much, General. And that goes for all of you here. Thank you so much for your willingness to-" Celestia's expression of gratitude was cut short by a darkening of the throne room and a brief vibration through its occupants' hooves. This sight and sensation were accompanied by yet another collection of gasps and a loud rustling of feathered wings, in addition to the magic aura she had been hoping to detect at dawn ...arriving just in time for lunch. The Sun Princess whirled toward the sound and immediately found herself joining the chorus. "Luna!" For her part, Luna was exhausted, terrified, sore, and finding herself recognizing for yet another occasion the value of armor. On one hoof, she did agree with her elder sister's desire to present a non-threatening monarchy. On the hoof holding her up at the moment, however, she was really starting to believe that self-preservation was far more important than not scaring the nobles and peasants. Her priorities had been set that way by the fact that her head hurt and so did breathing, her ears were ringing and she could barely see. And given that she couldn't be entirely certain of what position her wings were in at any given moment, she considered herself fortunate that she could transform into a cloud, or else she might not have made it home. After some time, the ringing became buzzing, and slowly wound its way down to something that resembled voices. That, combined with her eyes' adjustment to the painfully bright light, served to reduce her headache to a dull throb, which in turn allowed her body to localize its pain to areas near actual injuries. Then, and only then, was Luna able to sort out Celestia's face and voice from the small mob surrounding her. Considering how readily identifiable her sister was on most occasions, Luna realized that she might be in even worse shape than she thought. "Oh dear Harmony... Luna, you're awake! I was so worried about you! What happened?" Celestia rattled off, just barely managing to refrain from worsening her sister's injuries by jumping on her bed and giving her the biggest hug ever. She doubted that would go over well with Luna or her doctors, but that's what she wanted most right now. "What... what time is it?" Luna asked, as if trying to both imply that she was still fit to serve and dodge Celestia's question. "It's late afternoon, but-" Celestia tried, hoping that an answer would get her one. "Late afternoon? Oh no! The Moon! I must prepare to raise it!" Luna struggled to get out of her bed, but Celestia pinned her with a single hoof successfully despite greater focus on not harming her further, another indication to the elder that she was in no condition to try to do anything, least of all something as taxing as magically moving a celestial body. "Do not worry about the transition of Day into Night, dear Little Sister." Celestia said as quietly and reassuringly as she could manage. Little did she know that her subsequent words would reverberate across Equestria, and widen the as-yet-unseen gap between her and Luna just a little further: "I believe that I may be able to handle that on my own." "But-" Luna protested, clearly having far more to say. "Shh, rest now. Please, trust your big sister," Celestia said gently as she and the doctors left Luna's chambers. "I can handle it, and you need to rest and recover for now." After the door was closed, Luna tossed and turned, both unspoken words and an body wracked with pain keeping her from knowing rest. She watched the Sun set and the Moon rise to reveal the product of her work from the previous night, and as soon as the last of the former's traces disappeared from the horizon, she sent out a summons of her own. "Razor Wing," she half-whispered, her breath becoming a faint breeze that carried the name through the seams in her window and out into the night. It traveled into some dark caves in the hills near Canterlot that most of its residents were not even aware had existed and found its target: a sleeping areion who was stirred awake in an instant, and at the window moments later. Luna opened the window with her magic, allowing him in. "You have summoned me, Princess Luna?" Razor asked tentatively, bowing to her and trying not to cringe at what had become of the young princess who had followed him into one of the last great bastions of Darkness. He could not say whether or not he succeeded, since unlike Celestia, Luna could not be bothered to speak on her own condition, even reassuringly. "Gather anyone who will to spread this message to every city, town, and hamlet in Equestria, no matter how rural." Luna said as she used her magic to first write a letter, then duplicate it and finally place her royal seal on each. She then levitated her own personal saddlebags and dropped them onto Razor's back, after which she stuffed most of the letters inside, save for one which he stopped with a hoof so he could read it. "This is... a call to arms?" he inquired, trepidation rising as he considered the ramifications of the princess's actions. "Not as such, no." Luna replied, shifting again in her bed as she tried to get comfortable. Her regeneration was shifting the pressure points caused by her injuries, making the effort a constant work in progress. "We do not want to alarm the general public. I believe that what we are fighting on the Moon is fed by fear. Instead, I am seeking volunteers to go on an adventure. I think anypony properly prepared for one is also prepared for war." "Is that what we are heading into then, Princess? A war?" "Yes. Though it must not be released as public information until we have made enough headway, I am declaring war on the Forces of Nightmare. Now, go. I need to rest if I am to be ready to serve again by tomorrow evening." Luna said, turning away from the window as Razor Wing obeyed. The areion took off toward his home caves, to enlist the aid of his family and friends in spreading the Night Princess's "call for volunteers" over the course of the night. After relaying his story, he found no shortage of help from them, and before long the bat-winged ponies were spreading out over the land, distributing the scrolls as appropriately as they could manage. Still, the virtue of Luna's that had sold them on the notion also worried them most: she clearly saw her position and authority as a public service. Given her apparent youth, they couldn't help but wonder if she might forget to value her own well-being along the way. Meanwhile, on the grass outside the Palace and unaware of the actions of Luna and her servants, Celestia gazed up at the new night sky, having found herself lost in the magnificent display of painstakingly arranged little lights. Were it not for the harm her little sister had clearly suffered, Celestia might have believed that this was the reason for her absence and exhaustion. "It's... it's so..." she tried, but for the life of her she could not find a word that did what she was witnessing justice. 'Beautiful' hardly cut it, and 'stunning' as well, although not as much so. 'Breathtaking' came to mind, and was nearer to proper to what came prior, but still not good enough from Celestia's perspective. Ultimately, she decided she would find a proper word sometime later. After all, it had been a long day of keeping up the hopes of her little ponies, all while stressing over Luna's condition. And having to handle both the Sun and the Moon took a lot out of her. As she headed back inside to go to sleep, Celestia really hoped she wouldn't have to do that too many times in the future. Luna MarisInterlude: Tide of the Moonsea In the world of Equis, there is a force of darkness more ancient and powerful than even Discord. It is a force that is both formless and in possession of many forms. Its goals and motivations are unknown to ponykind, but its effects are unmistakable. For the most part it remains unseen, hiding in the shadows and the wild places such as the forest near Castle Everfree. However, with the help of tales told and horrors both remembered and imagined, this force has found substance in the dreams and memories of the ponies. And at the nexus of the Dreamscape, the Moon, this force coalesces into the forms of Nightmares. The force is that which plagues all of ponykind much of the time, but most especially at night: fear. To say that the Nightmares were frightening things would be both redundant and an understatement. They were born of fear, instigated it, and fed off it in a twisted perversion of symbiosis with the denizens of Equestria. A great many of them were the stuff of day-to-day fears such as spiders and shadows. There are more intense ones, such as the fear of losing loved ones, or of being lost. Those who ruled, however, were born of great fears. By some unknown combination of popularity, power of the original figures, and intensity of the collective fear itself, it was determined that a scant few were so inherently superior to the others that their reigns were a forgone conclusion. Almost. The Plague of Discord was the first such force to dominate the Nightmare Realm, and so long as his corporeal avatar terrorized those bound by flesh and bone, so did he reign over his empire of horrors with nigh-undisputed impunity. However, when a pair of intrepid Princesses imprisoned his corporeal counterpart in stone, so too did he lose power, making way for the Shadow King. And while this new monarch's power was not as great or widely distributed as his predecessor's, it had the unique quality of crushing nearly all hope wherever his influence reached. That was, of course, until a new Avatar of Terror took the shadowed reaches of the Moon quite literally by storm. She started off slowly, gradually expanding her power base and filling the pony populace with a new kind of dread: paranoia. Then, as word of her counterparts' feats spread, her power among the Nightmares billowed. The Shadow King had planned to stop her before she posed a threat to him, however, he was terminally undermined by the same Princesses who had previously defeated the Avatar of Discord also defeating his living counterpart: King Sombra. Now, with no other significant force of darkness save for the Changeling Queen to challenge her, all of her kind had no choice but to bow before their new reigning dictator: Nightmare Eclipse! And she, much like the Plague, was all too willing to allow ponykind to build up their hopes, to believe that they stood a chance of overcoming their fears. After all, in her mind, there was no victory quite so sweet as the one her enemies truly believed they had. These Little Lights of OursAct 3: Shine in the Darkest Days Part I Merrilie had always dreamed of being a teacher, ever since she was a filly. She wanted more than anything to spread the joy of learning as far and wide as she could manage. Unfortunately, fate had proven rather unkind. Even the times immediately following the Royal Sisters' rise to power were troubled ones, despite the Two's efforts to the contrary. Equestria was just too big and too damaged by its preceding rulers for them to save all of it in a timely manner. Merrilie's hometown of Whinnieapolis, for example, was all but wiped off the map by Discord's antics. There were enough survivors to patch together a semblance of civilization, but the nature of how she would realize her destiny of guiding young colts and fillies was changed forever. As was typical of Whinnieapolis residents before the disaster, Merrilie's charges were kind-hearted, hard-working, and resilient. The devastation, however, did a fair job of knocking off that first trait from the average townspony, unfortunately. The little ones she was to raise helped her build their new home with effort disproportionate to their youth. They handled their new lives and the reason for them almost disturbingly well, and invariably returned her own efforts with adoration and gratitude. Every once and a while, one or two would be taken in by new families, but it broke her heart whenever she thought about how seldom that happened due to the town's residents generally being too poor to take on extra mouths to feed. Unfortunately, these thoughts sprang up against her will during her daily dawntime walks for what necessities she could afford, and remained until she managed to fight them down by the time she got to her front door. In her efforts to steel herself for the sight of (ironically) too-many sleepy but generally cheerful faces, she was in no way prepared for what she saw once she opened the door and turned on the lights to wake up the children as she did every morning. The building was completely devoid of life, or much of anything really. The bunk beds and footlockers were still present, but stripped barren. Rationality slipped away from Merrilie rather swiftly, and she galloped around the empty sleeping room in a panic, tears streaming down her cheeks as some dark part of her mind assailed her with thoughts of the little ponies being abducted overnight, or perhaps having never existed at all. "SETTING MOON!" she shouted as hysterics began to set in, the last vestiges of her right-mindedness bidding her to call for the self-appointed but undisputed leader of the two dozen colts and fillies. The filly had the uncanny ability to know where all of the others were at any given point in time, and was a vital asset to have around whenever one or more of them went missing. Of course, when she went missing too, hope was all but lost. There was no response, so Merrilie burst out of the building, widening her spastic search pattern to include the full length and breadth of her property, shouting out the names of random colts and fillies as she did. "CHARLIE? LUCKY STRIKE? RAINY DAZE? FLASHFIRE? WHERE ARE ALL OF YOU!?" As fatigue and despair began to set in, she regained her bearings and headed back to her property's main building to search for clues like she should have done initially, but had failed to due to her panic. She heard a rustle as she shut the door behind her, and turned to see that a parchment note had been affixed to it. In that moment, it dawned on her just how much truth there was in the term 'blind panic', as she could not possibly have overlooked this parchment deliberately placed at her face's normal level on the door if her mind had been fully present. It read: "Dear Miss Merrilie, We will always be thankful to you for providing a home for us when nopony else would or could. We all love you and will always hold you in our hearts. But we must leave you now, because a Princess has asked for help and we know that the townsponies can't spare the time or take the risk. You were like a mother to all of us, so we ask that you please take pride in yourself and in us. We are certainly proud to have had you as our Teacher. We want you to know that without you, we would not have had the courage to face another day, let alone the amount needed to face this adventure. You taught us to love ourselves and to love others, and so we will, and we'll show our love by helping the Night Princess fight fear so that other ponies can sleep at night, and live better lives during the day. We will never forget you, Miss Merrilie, or the important lessons you taught us, even when we seemed unwilling to learn. Sincerely, Setting Moon" Merrilie almost didn't make it through the letter, having had to stop several times to hold it away from her face so the tears she'd thought she had long since run out of wouldn't fall on it and ruin the ink. She now knew why her charges were missing, and where they thought they were going, but she didn't have nearly enough confidence in their navigational skills to trust them to find their intended destination. And even if she did, the orphanage matron could hardly call herself a responsible adult if she just let a bunch of children go gallivanting off into the wilderness unsupervised. However, she had no idea where to begin looking, other than it was most certainly not within the confines of the orphanage's little campus. So she ran from one homestead to the next, nearly beating down the doors and asking the farmers and craftsponies if they'd seen any of her colts and fillies recently. It was not bad enough that they didn't have any positive answers, they didn't even seem to care that two dozen children were missing. All of them more or less blew her off as they prepared for the day's work, and Merrilie felt the hysterics creeping upon her once again, only this time they were of rage rather than fear. Well, nearly all of them, anyway. The blacksmith, Ashen Iron, seemed to be the only one who remembered what it was to have a warm heart. Unfortunately, Merrilie hadn't remembered that minor detail until after she had screamed the question she had been tearfully begging and pleading of every other townspony she had met prior to him. "DO YOU KNOW WHERE MY CHILDREN ARE!?" she wailed in his tired face, her throat becoming ragged and rendering her voice hoarse even as the question escaped her. She clamped up immediately and cringed, expecting the kind of response that kind of behavior normally warranted. Luckily for her, Ashen's kindness was as sturdy as his works, and he responded by pulling her into the embrace she'd needed all day. She sobbed over his shoulder, but at this point she really had run out of tears, another minor detail that the smith noticed. He held her in one foreleg as he reached out with the other hoof and ladled for her some of the cool, pure water he was planning to use for tempering. After two full servings, her thirst had been quenched enough for the tears to resume, but the wracking sobs had finally subsided. It was only then that he spoke. "Have you yet asked the Twins?" he asked gently, eliciting a gasp from the mare. It was times like this where Merrilie felt ashamed of herself for ever thinking she could be a teacher. Times when she utterly failed to notice or think of the obvious. Normally, these were also times when Setting Moon showed that her little heart was not quite as black as her beautiful but unsettling mane, and reminded Merrilie that her inability to think of the things that shouldn't require thought wasn't proof that she was stupid, just that some ponies' minds worked a little differently. However, normally the filly would be within sight of the would-be teacher, or at least somewhere from whence she could pop up unexpectedly. Now, however, she was gone and had taken the other children with her. At least now though, thanks to Ashen, her presence of mind had been returned to her, and she had been given an idea of what ponies to ask for help. "Not yet," she replied as she reluctantly worked her way free of his embrace, trying not to think about the notion that had it not been for the disaster, the two of them might have been together. Instead she focused on the Twins as she waved goodbye to Ashen and left his home/business to go find them. Protect and Serve were the result of one of those vanishingly rare cases wherein a pegasus and a unicorn were born as twins. Usually when twins were born, they either had matching coat and mane colors and patterns, or were chromatically opposed. Fortunately for the two, the latter case applied. More importantly, both of them shared a dream of a system of justice and peace within pony society and served as the town's guards. They spent their days with Protect patrolling the streets of Whinnieapolis and mitigating arguments that seemed on the verge of outright violence, but more often helping out here and there; and his winged sister flying the town's perimeter and immediate outskirts. She helped stabilize the weather, but also kept an eye out for monsters and suspicious activity. Both of them worked together to drive out those ponies who had resorted to banditry to overcome the poverty common to the area, and also to bring back those citizens who had gotten lost, which were more typically young colts and fillies. If there was anypony who could help her find the wayward orphans, it was these two. She galloped to their 'station', which was marked by the shield symbol that was a common trait of both siblings' Cutie Marks. These Little Lights, Part IIBurn gently in the coldest nights. It was the most important thing Snowbite had ever done in his young life. It had taken months of work with the temperamental and uncooperative ice crystals, but at long last he had finished it. And yet he only took the briefest of moments to admire his masterpiece before wrapping it in some brown cloth and tying the package in twine so that even the shape of the object he'd just created would be hidden. Once finished, the Windygo colt used his mouth to place the package in one of his saddlebags and took off like a gale toward his destination: Quartz Grotto, home of the Crystal Pony Refugees. Snowbite galloped so swiftly that he cleared a path slightly bigger than himself through the snow with his wake. Of course, it wouldn't be an hour before the Eternal Blizzard covered his trail again, but in the meantime, he felt like he was making his mark on the world. It was a pretty big feeling, and it led him to thinking that on top of making his friend happy, he might just be making the next small steps to improving relations between the Windygoes and the other ponies, which had previously been devastated by the actions of the destructive, hateful Renegades who had made a sport of freezing them to death and killing their crops. The trip took him half a day, but the Grotto was fairly unmistakable once one got close enough to see its silhouette against the snowy horizon, and Snowbite was so excited about the gift he intended to give his best friend ever that he never burned out, even once his charge was complicated by having to navigate the village's inexplicably labyrinthine streets. Having never seen the Empire itself, the colt didn't know that the Grotto was a pale, sad shadow of the Crystal Ponies' wondrous kingdom, and instead took its beauty at face value. Every last building and fixture was grown and carved from one lusterless crystal formation or another, and they inspired in his mind notions of dull but colorful snowflakes, as seen if viewed extremely closely. When he finally reached Alex's house, he was still so excited that he pounded on the front door with both of his little hooves in a harsh, rapid beat. There was some muffled, rushed stomping from the other side, indicative of a grown pony approaching the door at a full trot, which caused Snowbite to back away from it quickly. In a bare moment, Mrs. Chrys Beryl managed to somehow throw open the door only a few inches. She looked around in a panic until she saw the Windygo colt sitting just outside, then opened the door some more to address him. "Snowbite! Hello there! Where's the fire, hon?" she asked with a sweet smile, which quickly dissipated as she saw the colt's reaction. He had crouched down and flattened his ears like he was being scolded, his big gray eyes darting around in sheer terror. "FIRE!? WHERE!?" the colt's head whipped about himself so quickly that Mrs. Beryl feared he might give himself whiplash. "Hey, easy now, foal. That was an expression. It means 'what's all the fuss about'?" Chrys tried to reassure the colt, and his response left her wondering how she kept managing to forget that he flipped between emotions like a switch: springing from one to the other in a blur. "That said, what is all the fuss about. I don't imagine you trying to beat down my door just to say 'hi'..." "Oh, right! I'm here because I have a present for Alex! Where is he?" Snowbite asked as he perked back up to his previously bouncy state. Whatever had gotten into the colt, he was positively glowing. Mrs. Beryl noted that it was strange to see such warmth radiating from a naturally chilly breed of pony, but the sight was no less adorable for it. She was happy that her son had made such a nice friend. "He's up in his room. Just a moment, I'll call him down..." Chrys offered, and turned to suit action to word, "ALEXANDRITE! PLEASE COME DOWNSTAIRS! YOUR SNO-!" "I'lljustmeethimupthereMrs.Berylthankyouverymuch!" Snowbite rattled off as he blurred past the mare of the house and raced up the stairs to meet his friend. "What was that, Mother? I didn't- Oh hey there, Snowbi-oof!" For his part, the blood-red crystal pony with light green eyes had only just opened his bedroom door in time for his wintry friend to collide with him and send them both tumbling into the room, spilling the contents of the cold pony's saddle bags onto the rock-hard floor. Snowbite gasped, but fortunately the cloth wrapping had protected the precious object inside. "Hey Alex! I made you a present! I galloped all the way here just to give it to you!" "Oh! Well... thanks. But why now? It's not my birthday. Is it yours?" Alex asked, even though he was sure Snowbite's birthday wasn't for another few moons. "It's sure not!" Snowbite responded, as chipper as he was that morning. "It's also not a Crystal Pony holiday today." Alexandrite pressed, trying to sort out what the occasion for this random super-special present was. "Is it a Windygo holiday?" "Nope!" the frosty colt grinned. "Guess again!" "Um... I've got nothing. What's today?" "Today's the day it's been exactly one year since we decided to be friends! Wow, that's a mouthful. They should make a word for that. Is there a word for that? Oh, right! The present! Quick, open it up!" "Why, is it going to melt?" Alex asked with a half-smile as he used his magic to tug at the twine not. The smile disappeared when he saw that Snowbite was on the verge of tears, though. "What? What is it?" "I didn't think of that! It might melt! What if it melts? Your present will be ruined! And I worked so hard on it!" Snowbite half-shouted, working himself into near hysterics. Alex silenced him with a hoof, which allowed him to breathe and calm down. "Just relax. At least you thought to give me a present. That's better than I can say. I didn't even remember that today was important. Anyway..." Alexandrite tugged the knot the rest of the way apart with his mouth, then used his hoof to move the cloth until it revealed Snowbite's present. The sight of it made him cock his head to one side in slight confusion. "Is that a...?" "Yes! It's a crystal heart! An ice crystal heart! I made it myself! You see, Irememberedfromafewmonthsagobackwhenyourmomfirstacceptedtheideaofusebeingfriendsshewouldtellusstoriesaboutthingsfromtheyouponies'CrystalEmpirethingyandsoIgotthisideato-whoa! What are you doing? How are you doing that?" "Doing? Doing what? What am I doing?" Alex asked, unaware of actually doing anything but feeling happier and happier about this considerate gift his best friend had given him. There seemed to be a lot more light in the room, but at first he thought that was just due to his change in disposition from the usual Crystal Pony Depression. Now that Snowbite had alerted him to a change, however, he checked himself to see if he was twitching or doing anything else he was hitherto unaware of. Surprised by the sight of himself, he ran to look into the wash basin and was nearly blinded. Alexandrite had heard from his mother and some of the other adults that a sufficiently happy Crystal Pony underwent a transformation to their true form, but he'd always thought that was just a story they told themselves and each other to keep their spirits up. And yet, here he was, blazing. His once dull red coat now gleamed, and his mane had altered shape to make it look as though his head and neck were on fire. His new form shed light everywhere, both that refracted from around him, and... radiated from within. He was also kind of transparent now, which was a little creepy. "You look totally awesome, Alex!" Snowbite announced from behind him, returning the crystalline colt's attention to him. "I know, right? And it's all thanks to you! You're the best friend a colt could have!" Alex replied, trotting over to give Snowbite a big hug. After enjoying the moment for merely a moment, Snowbite's joy at seeing his friend happy with his gift faded into worry. It was so hard to keep that frosty colt in one mood, even happy, for long, one wondered why anypony even tried. But that he did was a testament to the kind of friend Alex was. "Alex, you're my very best friend." "And you're mine too, Snow." "And we'll always be friends forever, won't we" "Yeah, forever." Alexandrite gave Snowbite a playful jab in the shoulder with his hoof, then scampered back to his bedroom door. "Come on! Let's see if your Ice Crystal Heart can help our whole town!" "Yeah!"
Dawn of an EraAct 1: Dawn of an Era When Princesses Celestia and Luna first took their thrones, everypony in Equestria fell somewhere on the spectrum of elated relief and anxious trepidation. Indeed, the two diametrically opposed emotions were not even mutually exclusive on some ponies' parts. They bore with them strange powers to which they had referred as the Elements of Harmony, and each could raise and lower the Sun or Moon at will, without the help of the rituals that once required dozens of powerful unicorns working as one. This, incidentally, was a threat to the unicorns' place in pony society. The ability to control the celestial bodies was the breed's primary contribution to Equestria, and the only weight they had to throw into interbreed disputes. Another worry was that such power had gained authority before, become or proven corrupted, and made life miserable for everypony. The fact that these two had defeated each of these other corrupted powers in turn did little to ease the tension, since it illustrated that they had far more strength than any prior threat to ponykind, and where there was little hope for a successful rebellion against the likes of Discord and King Sombra, there was absolutely none for the event that the Princesses should also prove to have dark hearts. Fortunately, this was revealed to not be the case as of yet. Princesses Celestia and Luna reigned with benevolence, grace, and kindness; although the elder sister did on occasion display an interest in having fun at the expense of others, it was never anything serious or lasting. So it was that the ponies of Equestria slept peacefully at night for once in their lives, knowing that such caring monarchs held sway over their skies. It was, ironically, here that the seeds of a real problem were sown. In light of the Royal Sisters' power and the fact that it was widely believed that nopony would dare risk threatening the peace they brought, a Royal Guard had not yet been established. During the day, this absence of arms and armor combined with Celestia's glowing presence made for a warm, welcoming environment within the castle walls. However, at night under Luna's reign, with nopony else awake to come visit, it made for a very empty and isolating atmosphere. Luna, aware of her elder sister's growing fondness for pranks as an escape from the tedium of her new-found royal duties and the grating nature of the upper crust of pony society, took it upon herself to start setting up little scare traps in various places around the castle. Celestia was elated at the new game, after her initial fright of course, and Luna was happy that in this way she could reconnect with her sister, her one and only companion for much of her life. She didn't want to admit it, but the young Princess had felt a rift growing between them due to their differing waking hours. So while Celestia spent the day steeped in administration and general government work, Luna spent the night making sure that her elder sister didn't lose herself to the position. One evening, looking up at the sky she reigned, barely lit as it was by the moon, Luna remembered how much the ponies of the land loved to look up at the clouds made in a joint effort between Celestia and the pegasi and make games of trying to see images in their shapes. She also remembered that, with her elder sister growing increasingly preoccupied with the tasks of rulership and the pegasi being horribly practically-minded, the clouds had taken on a tendency for rather boring shapes. Which in turn cost the ponies one of their precious few sources of entertainment, and as the bearer of the Element of Laughter, Luna could not abide by that. So it was that she decided to give everypony a new reason to look up at the sky. With that thought in mind, over the course of the night, she took some of the Moon's light and scattered it across the sky in tiny points of light that varied in intensity. With great care, she pushed, pulled, and dispersed these pinpoints of light until the brighter ones made vague shapes that were somewhat hidden by the dimmer ones. The Sun peeked over the horizon, at once obscuring her little lights and indicating that her elder sister had awakened and was expecting her to lower the Moon, which she did. Luna resigned herself to showing Celestia, to showing everypony the fruit of her artistic labors in the heavens, once Celestia had retired the Sun for the day. Luna was about to go and meet Celestia for their traditional twilight greeting, but a silhouette against the rising sun caught her eye. Immediately taken by curiosity, Luna trotted over to the silhouette and saw that it was a rather unusual-looking pegasus, one which did not seem overly fond of her sister's charge. When the pegasus saw her, he gave her a short bow before addressing her in a gravely serious tone. "Beloved Princess of the Night. Please forgive this humble servant's request, but we have dire need of thy aid." the areion spoke. "Do not fret, little one." Luna said, trying to get into the persona which the unicorns of Canterlot had built up for her, adjusting her stance to appear dominant and regal while trying to find a balance between talking down to her subject and showing that she really did care. For the first time in her life, she resented Celestia just a little, because the same demands were not made of her. "Thy pleas do not fall upon deaf ears. We would hear this dire need you have of us, and if we can, we will provide you this aid." "You honor and grace me with your regard, Your Majesty," the areion responded, bowing lower now that he knew for certain that this was not just another royal demanding respect, but one who might just be interested in actually earning it. "It is about the Moon, Your Grace. Your servants have accepted your power to make it rise and fall at your command, and it is a mighty power indeed, Your Highness. I only ask, however, if you might know what terrors lurk on your Moon, claiming it as their territory and home, and from there, haunting the nights and very dreams of everypony across Equestria?" "Show us." Luna said, scowling independently of her sister for the first time in her life. She was sorry she would have to give up their meetings, but if what this little bat-winged pegasus claimed was true, then taking effort to maintain their relationship was just going to have to wait.
Sound the Drums"She's late!" Celestia hissed, having only just barely hidden her distress at her sister's unexplained absence during the dawn ceremony behind her trademark gentle smile. After all, just because she was alarmed, that didn't necessarily mean the populace of Equestria had to be. Luna was still able to do her job, as was indicated by the Moon's departure from the sky at the required time. For a moment before her Sun took its place, Celestia had thought she'd seen tiny sparks of light in the darkened sky. At first, she had believed that she was only seeing things, but as time passed and her beloved baby sister failed to show, the worry gnawing at the back of her mind led her to wonder if perhaps they might have had something to do with it. She had half a mind to set the Sun again and take another look at those lights, in the hopes of perhaps gleaning some understanding of them. But no, that would definitely tell everypony that something was wrong. Instead, Celestia did something she thought she'd never do in her time as Crown Regent of Equestria: she summoned her pegasus generals and her unicorn cadre, relics of the time before the ponies united under Equestria's banner. Given that nearly all of the unicorns lived in Canterlot, and the most privileged pegasi lived above it, it was no surprise that their representatives arrived by late morning. She wanted to break in the reason for her summons slowly, but judging by their greetings, Celestia was apparently failing to hide her growing distress. "Your Majesty, if I may be so bold..." Cinereus Lupe, the Sheriff of Trottingham began hesitantly. "You may. In fact, all of you are for the purposes of this forum permitted to speak to me with absolute candor." Celestia responded, receiving a collection of gasps for her efforts at facilitating communication through familiarity. She had the feeling she was never going to get used to all this pointless and counterproductive decorum. "Very well then... What ails you, Your Grace?" Lupe finished, looking like he feared committing the verbal equivalent of stepping into a viper's nest. "It is my younger sister, your Princess Luna. She has not greeted me this morning with the Sun's rise over the horizon." Celestia confessed, and for just one heartbeat she almost worried that her subjects would not take this matter as serious as she had, that they might believe her to be frivolous and needlessly worrisome. The next heartbeat, however, was greeted with reactions to the extreme contrary. At least from the pegasus generals, who were doing everything from trying to pass off fainting in a manly fashion to barking orders to begin a kingdom-wide search for the lost princess. The unicorn nobility, on the other hand, were visibly less upset about the matter. Well, either that, or less visibly upset. She couldn't tell. "Everypony, stop! Please!" Celestia shouted, earning instant, stunned silence from her immediate subordinates. "I appreciate your concern, but if we are to get to the bottom of my sister's absence, it is a matter that must be handled with proper organization and planning." "I am very sorry, Your Majesty," General Thunder Roll replied meekly, his voice still managing to do his name justice. "It is just that, from your reign until this point, Her Highness as greeted you with such regularity that we have researchers preparing a new time piece with your meetings as a standard. With that in mind, it concerns us greatly that she has deviated without explanation. Tardiness from a reliable pony means trouble! Rest assured, we will do everything in our power to find her and the reason for her absence posthaste!" "Thank you very much, General. And that goes for all of you here. Thank you so much for your willingness to-" Celestia's expression of gratitude was cut short by a darkening of the throne room and a brief vibration through its occupants' hooves. This sight and sensation were accompanied by yet another collection of gasps and a loud rustling of feathered wings, in addition to the magic aura she had been hoping to detect at dawn ...arriving just in time for lunch. The Sun Princess whirled toward the sound and immediately found herself joining the chorus. "Luna!" For her part, Luna was exhausted, terrified, sore, and finding herself recognizing for yet another occasion the value of armor. On one hoof, she did agree with her elder sister's desire to present a non-threatening monarchy. On the hoof holding her up at the moment, however, she was really starting to believe that self-preservation was far more important than not scaring the nobles and peasants. Her priorities had been set that way by the fact that her head hurt and so did breathing, her ears were ringing and she could barely see. And given that she couldn't be entirely certain of what position her wings were in at any given moment, she considered herself fortunate that she could transform into a cloud, or else she might not have made it home. After some time, the ringing became buzzing, and slowly wound its way down to something that resembled voices. That, combined with her eyes' adjustment to the painfully bright light, served to reduce her headache to a dull throb, which in turn allowed her body to localize its pain to areas near actual injuries. Then, and only then, was Luna able to sort out Celestia's face and voice from the small mob surrounding her. Considering how readily identifiable her sister was on most occasions, Luna realized that she might be in even worse shape than she thought. "Oh dear Harmony... Luna, you're awake! I was so worried about you! What happened?" Celestia rattled off, just barely managing to refrain from worsening her sister's injuries by jumping on her bed and giving her the biggest hug ever. She doubted that would go over well with Luna or her doctors, but that's what she wanted most right now. "What... what time is it?" Luna asked, as if trying to both imply that she was still fit to serve and dodge Celestia's question. "It's late afternoon, but-" Celestia tried, hoping that an answer would get her one. "Late afternoon? Oh no! The Moon! I must prepare to raise it!" Luna struggled to get out of her bed, but Celestia pinned her with a single hoof successfully despite greater focus on not harming her further, another indication to the elder that she was in no condition to try to do anything, least of all something as taxing as magically moving a celestial body. "Do not worry about the transition of Day into Night, dear Little Sister." Celestia said as quietly and reassuringly as she could manage. Little did she know that her subsequent words would reverberate across Equestria, and widen the as-yet-unseen gap between her and Luna just a little further: "I believe that I may be able to handle that on my own." "But-" Luna protested, clearly having far more to say. "Shh, rest now. Please, trust your big sister," Celestia said gently as she and the doctors left Luna's chambers. "I can handle it, and you need to rest and recover for now." After the door was closed, Luna tossed and turned, both unspoken words and an body wracked with pain keeping her from knowing rest. She watched the Sun set and the Moon rise to reveal the product of her work from the previous night, and as soon as the last of the former's traces disappeared from the horizon, she sent out a summons of her own. "Razor Wing," she half-whispered, her breath becoming a faint breeze that carried the name through the seams in her window and out into the night. It traveled into some dark caves in the hills near Canterlot that most of its residents were not even aware had existed and found its target: a sleeping areion who was stirred awake in an instant, and at the window moments later. Luna opened the window with her magic, allowing him in. "You have summoned me, Princess Luna?" Razor asked tentatively, bowing to her and trying not to cringe at what had become of the young princess who had followed him into one of the last great bastions of Darkness. He could not say whether or not he succeeded, since unlike Celestia, Luna could not be bothered to speak on her own condition, even reassuringly. "Gather anyone who will to spread this message to every city, town, and hamlet in Equestria, no matter how rural." Luna said as she used her magic to first write a letter, then duplicate it and finally place her royal seal on each. She then levitated her own personal saddlebags and dropped them onto Razor's back, after which she stuffed most of the letters inside, save for one which he stopped with a hoof so he could read it. "This is... a call to arms?" he inquired, trepidation rising as he considered the ramifications of the princess's actions. "Not as such, no." Luna replied, shifting again in her bed as she tried to get comfortable. Her regeneration was shifting the pressure points caused by her injuries, making the effort a constant work in progress. "We do not want to alarm the general public. I believe that what we are fighting on the Moon is fed by fear. Instead, I am seeking volunteers to go on an adventure. I think anypony properly prepared for one is also prepared for war." "Is that what we are heading into then, Princess? A war?" "Yes. Though it must not be released as public information until we have made enough headway, I am declaring war on the Forces of Nightmare. Now, go. I need to rest if I am to be ready to serve again by tomorrow evening." Luna said, turning away from the window as Razor Wing obeyed. The areion took off toward his home caves, to enlist the aid of his family and friends in spreading the Night Princess's "call for volunteers" over the course of the night. After relaying his story, he found no shortage of help from them, and before long the bat-winged ponies were spreading out over the land, distributing the scrolls as appropriately as they could manage. Still, the virtue of Luna's that had sold them on the notion also worried them most: she clearly saw her position and authority as a public service. Given her apparent youth, they couldn't help but wonder if she might forget to value her own well-being along the way. Meanwhile, on the grass outside the Palace and unaware of the actions of Luna and her servants, Celestia gazed up at the new night sky, having found herself lost in the magnificent display of painstakingly arranged little lights. Were it not for the harm her little sister had clearly suffered, Celestia might have believed that this was the reason for her absence and exhaustion. "It's... it's so..." she tried, but for the life of her she could not find a word that did what she was witnessing justice. 'Beautiful' hardly cut it, and 'stunning' as well, although not as much so. 'Breathtaking' came to mind, and was nearer to proper to what came prior, but still not good enough from Celestia's perspective. Ultimately, she decided she would find a proper word sometime later. After all, it had been a long day of keeping up the hopes of her little ponies, all while stressing over Luna's condition. And having to handle both the Sun and the Moon took a lot out of her. As she headed back inside to go to sleep, Celestia really hoped she wouldn't have to do that too many times in the future.
Luna MarisInterlude: Tide of the Moonsea In the world of Equis, there is a force of darkness more ancient and powerful than even Discord. It is a force that is both formless and in possession of many forms. Its goals and motivations are unknown to ponykind, but its effects are unmistakable. For the most part it remains unseen, hiding in the shadows and the wild places such as the forest near Castle Everfree. However, with the help of tales told and horrors both remembered and imagined, this force has found substance in the dreams and memories of the ponies. And at the nexus of the Dreamscape, the Moon, this force coalesces into the forms of Nightmares. The force is that which plagues all of ponykind much of the time, but most especially at night: fear. To say that the Nightmares were frightening things would be both redundant and an understatement. They were born of fear, instigated it, and fed off it in a twisted perversion of symbiosis with the denizens of Equestria. A great many of them were the stuff of day-to-day fears such as spiders and shadows. There are more intense ones, such as the fear of losing loved ones, or of being lost. Those who ruled, however, were born of great fears. By some unknown combination of popularity, power of the original figures, and intensity of the collective fear itself, it was determined that a scant few were so inherently superior to the others that their reigns were a forgone conclusion. Almost. The Plague of Discord was the first such force to dominate the Nightmare Realm, and so long as his corporeal avatar terrorized those bound by flesh and bone, so did he reign over his empire of horrors with nigh-undisputed impunity. However, when a pair of intrepid Princesses imprisoned his corporeal counterpart in stone, so too did he lose power, making way for the Shadow King. And while this new monarch's power was not as great or widely distributed as his predecessor's, it had the unique quality of crushing nearly all hope wherever his influence reached. That was, of course, until a new Avatar of Terror took the shadowed reaches of the Moon quite literally by storm. She started off slowly, gradually expanding her power base and filling the pony populace with a new kind of dread: paranoia. Then, as word of her counterparts' feats spread, her power among the Nightmares billowed. The Shadow King had planned to stop her before she posed a threat to him, however, he was terminally undermined by the same Princesses who had previously defeated the Avatar of Discord also defeating his living counterpart: King Sombra. Now, with no other significant force of darkness save for the Changeling Queen to challenge her, all of her kind had no choice but to bow before their new reigning dictator: Nightmare Eclipse! And she, much like the Plague, was all too willing to allow ponykind to build up their hopes, to believe that they stood a chance of overcoming their fears. After all, in her mind, there was no victory quite so sweet as the one her enemies truly believed they had.
These Little Lights of OursAct 3: Shine in the Darkest Days Part I Merrilie had always dreamed of being a teacher, ever since she was a filly. She wanted more than anything to spread the joy of learning as far and wide as she could manage. Unfortunately, fate had proven rather unkind. Even the times immediately following the Royal Sisters' rise to power were troubled ones, despite the Two's efforts to the contrary. Equestria was just too big and too damaged by its preceding rulers for them to save all of it in a timely manner. Merrilie's hometown of Whinnieapolis, for example, was all but wiped off the map by Discord's antics. There were enough survivors to patch together a semblance of civilization, but the nature of how she would realize her destiny of guiding young colts and fillies was changed forever. As was typical of Whinnieapolis residents before the disaster, Merrilie's charges were kind-hearted, hard-working, and resilient. The devastation, however, did a fair job of knocking off that first trait from the average townspony, unfortunately. The little ones she was to raise helped her build their new home with effort disproportionate to their youth. They handled their new lives and the reason for them almost disturbingly well, and invariably returned her own efforts with adoration and gratitude. Every once and a while, one or two would be taken in by new families, but it broke her heart whenever she thought about how seldom that happened due to the town's residents generally being too poor to take on extra mouths to feed. Unfortunately, these thoughts sprang up against her will during her daily dawntime walks for what necessities she could afford, and remained until she managed to fight them down by the time she got to her front door. In her efforts to steel herself for the sight of (ironically) too-many sleepy but generally cheerful faces, she was in no way prepared for what she saw once she opened the door and turned on the lights to wake up the children as she did every morning. The building was completely devoid of life, or much of anything really. The bunk beds and footlockers were still present, but stripped barren. Rationality slipped away from Merrilie rather swiftly, and she galloped around the empty sleeping room in a panic, tears streaming down her cheeks as some dark part of her mind assailed her with thoughts of the little ponies being abducted overnight, or perhaps having never existed at all. "SETTING MOON!" she shouted as hysterics began to set in, the last vestiges of her right-mindedness bidding her to call for the self-appointed but undisputed leader of the two dozen colts and fillies. The filly had the uncanny ability to know where all of the others were at any given point in time, and was a vital asset to have around whenever one or more of them went missing. Of course, when she went missing too, hope was all but lost. There was no response, so Merrilie burst out of the building, widening her spastic search pattern to include the full length and breadth of her property, shouting out the names of random colts and fillies as she did. "CHARLIE? LUCKY STRIKE? RAINY DAZE? FLASHFIRE? WHERE ARE ALL OF YOU!?" As fatigue and despair began to set in, she regained her bearings and headed back to her property's main building to search for clues like she should have done initially, but had failed to due to her panic. She heard a rustle as she shut the door behind her, and turned to see that a parchment note had been affixed to it. In that moment, it dawned on her just how much truth there was in the term 'blind panic', as she could not possibly have overlooked this parchment deliberately placed at her face's normal level on the door if her mind had been fully present. It read: "Dear Miss Merrilie, We will always be thankful to you for providing a home for us when nopony else would or could. We all love you and will always hold you in our hearts. But we must leave you now, because a Princess has asked for help and we know that the townsponies can't spare the time or take the risk. You were like a mother to all of us, so we ask that you please take pride in yourself and in us. We are certainly proud to have had you as our Teacher. We want you to know that without you, we would not have had the courage to face another day, let alone the amount needed to face this adventure. You taught us to love ourselves and to love others, and so we will, and we'll show our love by helping the Night Princess fight fear so that other ponies can sleep at night, and live better lives during the day. We will never forget you, Miss Merrilie, or the important lessons you taught us, even when we seemed unwilling to learn. Sincerely, Setting Moon" Merrilie almost didn't make it through the letter, having had to stop several times to hold it away from her face so the tears she'd thought she had long since run out of wouldn't fall on it and ruin the ink. She now knew why her charges were missing, and where they thought they were going, but she didn't have nearly enough confidence in their navigational skills to trust them to find their intended destination. And even if she did, the orphanage matron could hardly call herself a responsible adult if she just let a bunch of children go gallivanting off into the wilderness unsupervised. However, she had no idea where to begin looking, other than it was most certainly not within the confines of the orphanage's little campus. So she ran from one homestead to the next, nearly beating down the doors and asking the farmers and craftsponies if they'd seen any of her colts and fillies recently. It was not bad enough that they didn't have any positive answers, they didn't even seem to care that two dozen children were missing. All of them more or less blew her off as they prepared for the day's work, and Merrilie felt the hysterics creeping upon her once again, only this time they were of rage rather than fear. Well, nearly all of them, anyway. The blacksmith, Ashen Iron, seemed to be the only one who remembered what it was to have a warm heart. Unfortunately, Merrilie hadn't remembered that minor detail until after she had screamed the question she had been tearfully begging and pleading of every other townspony she had met prior to him. "DO YOU KNOW WHERE MY CHILDREN ARE!?" she wailed in his tired face, her throat becoming ragged and rendering her voice hoarse even as the question escaped her. She clamped up immediately and cringed, expecting the kind of response that kind of behavior normally warranted. Luckily for her, Ashen's kindness was as sturdy as his works, and he responded by pulling her into the embrace she'd needed all day. She sobbed over his shoulder, but at this point she really had run out of tears, another minor detail that the smith noticed. He held her in one foreleg as he reached out with the other hoof and ladled for her some of the cool, pure water he was planning to use for tempering. After two full servings, her thirst had been quenched enough for the tears to resume, but the wracking sobs had finally subsided. It was only then that he spoke. "Have you yet asked the Twins?" he asked gently, eliciting a gasp from the mare. It was times like this where Merrilie felt ashamed of herself for ever thinking she could be a teacher. Times when she utterly failed to notice or think of the obvious. Normally, these were also times when Setting Moon showed that her little heart was not quite as black as her beautiful but unsettling mane, and reminded Merrilie that her inability to think of the things that shouldn't require thought wasn't proof that she was stupid, just that some ponies' minds worked a little differently. However, normally the filly would be within sight of the would-be teacher, or at least somewhere from whence she could pop up unexpectedly. Now, however, she was gone and had taken the other children with her. At least now though, thanks to Ashen, her presence of mind had been returned to her, and she had been given an idea of what ponies to ask for help. "Not yet," she replied as she reluctantly worked her way free of his embrace, trying not to think about the notion that had it not been for the disaster, the two of them might have been together. Instead she focused on the Twins as she waved goodbye to Ashen and left his home/business to go find them. Protect and Serve were the result of one of those vanishingly rare cases wherein a pegasus and a unicorn were born as twins. Usually when twins were born, they either had matching coat and mane colors and patterns, or were chromatically opposed. Fortunately for the two, the latter case applied. More importantly, both of them shared a dream of a system of justice and peace within pony society and served as the town's guards. They spent their days with Protect patrolling the streets of Whinnieapolis and mitigating arguments that seemed on the verge of outright violence, but more often helping out here and there; and his winged sister flying the town's perimeter and immediate outskirts. She helped stabilize the weather, but also kept an eye out for monsters and suspicious activity. Both of them worked together to drive out those ponies who had resorted to banditry to overcome the poverty common to the area, and also to bring back those citizens who had gotten lost, which were more typically young colts and fillies. If there was anypony who could help her find the wayward orphans, it was these two. She galloped to their 'station', which was marked by the shield symbol that was a common trait of both siblings' Cutie Marks.
These Little Lights, Part IIBurn gently in the coldest nights. It was the most important thing Snowbite had ever done in his young life. It had taken months of work with the temperamental and uncooperative ice crystals, but at long last he had finished it. And yet he only took the briefest of moments to admire his masterpiece before wrapping it in some brown cloth and tying the package in twine so that even the shape of the object he'd just created would be hidden. Once finished, the Windygo colt used his mouth to place the package in one of his saddlebags and took off like a gale toward his destination: Quartz Grotto, home of the Crystal Pony Refugees. Snowbite galloped so swiftly that he cleared a path slightly bigger than himself through the snow with his wake. Of course, it wouldn't be an hour before the Eternal Blizzard covered his trail again, but in the meantime, he felt like he was making his mark on the world. It was a pretty big feeling, and it led him to thinking that on top of making his friend happy, he might just be making the next small steps to improving relations between the Windygoes and the other ponies, which had previously been devastated by the actions of the destructive, hateful Renegades who had made a sport of freezing them to death and killing their crops. The trip took him half a day, but the Grotto was fairly unmistakable once one got close enough to see its silhouette against the snowy horizon, and Snowbite was so excited about the gift he intended to give his best friend ever that he never burned out, even once his charge was complicated by having to navigate the village's inexplicably labyrinthine streets. Having never seen the Empire itself, the colt didn't know that the Grotto was a pale, sad shadow of the Crystal Ponies' wondrous kingdom, and instead took its beauty at face value. Every last building and fixture was grown and carved from one lusterless crystal formation or another, and they inspired in his mind notions of dull but colorful snowflakes, as seen if viewed extremely closely. When he finally reached Alex's house, he was still so excited that he pounded on the front door with both of his little hooves in a harsh, rapid beat. There was some muffled, rushed stomping from the other side, indicative of a grown pony approaching the door at a full trot, which caused Snowbite to back away from it quickly. In a bare moment, Mrs. Chrys Beryl managed to somehow throw open the door only a few inches. She looked around in a panic until she saw the Windygo colt sitting just outside, then opened the door some more to address him. "Snowbite! Hello there! Where's the fire, hon?" she asked with a sweet smile, which quickly dissipated as she saw the colt's reaction. He had crouched down and flattened his ears like he was being scolded, his big gray eyes darting around in sheer terror. "FIRE!? WHERE!?" the colt's head whipped about himself so quickly that Mrs. Beryl feared he might give himself whiplash. "Hey, easy now, foal. That was an expression. It means 'what's all the fuss about'?" Chrys tried to reassure the colt, and his response left her wondering how she kept managing to forget that he flipped between emotions like a switch: springing from one to the other in a blur. "That said, what is all the fuss about. I don't imagine you trying to beat down my door just to say 'hi'..." "Oh, right! I'm here because I have a present for Alex! Where is he?" Snowbite asked as he perked back up to his previously bouncy state. Whatever had gotten into the colt, he was positively glowing. Mrs. Beryl noted that it was strange to see such warmth radiating from a naturally chilly breed of pony, but the sight was no less adorable for it. She was happy that her son had made such a nice friend. "He's up in his room. Just a moment, I'll call him down..." Chrys offered, and turned to suit action to word, "ALEXANDRITE! PLEASE COME DOWNSTAIRS! YOUR SNO-!" "I'lljustmeethimupthereMrs.Berylthankyouverymuch!" Snowbite rattled off as he blurred past the mare of the house and raced up the stairs to meet his friend. "What was that, Mother? I didn't- Oh hey there, Snowbi-oof!" For his part, the blood-red crystal pony with light green eyes had only just opened his bedroom door in time for his wintry friend to collide with him and send them both tumbling into the room, spilling the contents of the cold pony's saddle bags onto the rock-hard floor. Snowbite gasped, but fortunately the cloth wrapping had protected the precious object inside. "Hey Alex! I made you a present! I galloped all the way here just to give it to you!" "Oh! Well... thanks. But why now? It's not my birthday. Is it yours?" Alex asked, even though he was sure Snowbite's birthday wasn't for another few moons. "It's sure not!" Snowbite responded, as chipper as he was that morning. "It's also not a Crystal Pony holiday today." Alexandrite pressed, trying to sort out what the occasion for this random super-special present was. "Is it a Windygo holiday?" "Nope!" the frosty colt grinned. "Guess again!" "Um... I've got nothing. What's today?" "Today's the day it's been exactly one year since we decided to be friends! Wow, that's a mouthful. They should make a word for that. Is there a word for that? Oh, right! The present! Quick, open it up!" "Why, is it going to melt?" Alex asked with a half-smile as he used his magic to tug at the twine not. The smile disappeared when he saw that Snowbite was on the verge of tears, though. "What? What is it?" "I didn't think of that! It might melt! What if it melts? Your present will be ruined! And I worked so hard on it!" Snowbite half-shouted, working himself into near hysterics. Alex silenced him with a hoof, which allowed him to breathe and calm down. "Just relax. At least you thought to give me a present. That's better than I can say. I didn't even remember that today was important. Anyway..." Alexandrite tugged the knot the rest of the way apart with his mouth, then used his hoof to move the cloth until it revealed Snowbite's present. The sight of it made him cock his head to one side in slight confusion. "Is that a...?" "Yes! It's a crystal heart! An ice crystal heart! I made it myself! You see, Irememberedfromafewmonthsagobackwhenyourmomfirstacceptedtheideaofusebeingfriendsshewouldtellusstoriesaboutthingsfromtheyouponies'CrystalEmpirethingyandsoIgotthisideato-whoa! What are you doing? How are you doing that?" "Doing? Doing what? What am I doing?" Alex asked, unaware of actually doing anything but feeling happier and happier about this considerate gift his best friend had given him. There seemed to be a lot more light in the room, but at first he thought that was just due to his change in disposition from the usual Crystal Pony Depression. Now that Snowbite had alerted him to a change, however, he checked himself to see if he was twitching or doing anything else he was hitherto unaware of. Surprised by the sight of himself, he ran to look into the wash basin and was nearly blinded. Alexandrite had heard from his mother and some of the other adults that a sufficiently happy Crystal Pony underwent a transformation to their true form, but he'd always thought that was just a story they told themselves and each other to keep their spirits up. And yet, here he was, blazing. His once dull red coat now gleamed, and his mane had altered shape to make it look as though his head and neck were on fire. His new form shed light everywhere, both that refracted from around him, and... radiated from within. He was also kind of transparent now, which was a little creepy. "You look totally awesome, Alex!" Snowbite announced from behind him, returning the crystalline colt's attention to him. "I know, right? And it's all thanks to you! You're the best friend a colt could have!" Alex replied, trotting over to give Snowbite a big hug. After enjoying the moment for merely a moment, Snowbite's joy at seeing his friend happy with his gift faded into worry. It was so hard to keep that frosty colt in one mood, even happy, for long, one wondered why anypony even tried. But that he did was a testament to the kind of friend Alex was. "Alex, you're my very best friend." "And you're mine too, Snow." "And we'll always be friends forever, won't we" "Yeah, forever." Alexandrite gave Snowbite a playful jab in the shoulder with his hoof, then scampered back to his bedroom door. "Come on! Let's see if your Ice Crystal Heart can help our whole town!" "Yeah!"
