Beyond this link lies darkness!
A shadow descended on Ponyville, swooping low near the outside of town. It moved silently, swiftly, unseen by the citizens below. For a time, it had a vague shape, but then became without form or substance, a cloud of shadowy smoke.
It flew low over a chicken coop, the hazy cloud of shadow entering a cottage through an opened window.
It drifted through a nursery with sunflowers on the walls. The cradle was empty. A few toys littered the floor. The shadow paused. The moonlight streaming through the window caused the insubstantial cloud within the room to project an image upon the wall, something vaguely pony shaped, with bat like wings.
The misty form sank to the floor and flowed under the door, entering a hallway. It drifted down the hall, finally reaching a door, where it flowed under the door, entering a bedroom.
There was a custard yellow pony in the bed, with a pink mane. She looked serene, beautiful, her features truly at rest. In her forelegs was something strange. Something not a pony. Not quite. The shadow hovered near for a moment, observing the sleepers. They seemed untroubled.
The shadowy form drifted away, escaping through the window, and hurried away into the night.
Something was wrong in Ponyville. Something dark had come to the town. And something even darker had come to hunt it.
Nightfisher, known as Mare Imbrium when she was on duty, landed silently upon a rooftop. She gazed out over the town, her nostrils flaring. She could sense something. Something she didn’t like. Something that made her hackles rise. She wished that Mare Frigoris was here, as annoying as she might be, Frigoris was an excellent hunter with fine instincts. Imbrium was solid now, taking rest, watching.
Lunar pegasi had long since lost the ability to manipulate the clouds and weather. Imbrium, like all of her kind, worked in shadow, able to manipulate and bend the dark, even becoming the dark. Everywhere the darkness fell, Imbrium had domain.
Imbrium was not wearing her armor. It was mostly for show anyways. Armor would not help her against the prey she was seeking this night.
She leapt from the roof, gliding silently between buildings, and then she shadow dove into an incorporeal form. She drifted between buildings, silent, unseen, and searching. She knew her prey was close. Somewhere. In this town. Probably feeding, growing stronger, living on the fear of others, probably some foal, or, perhaps, an adult easily given to fear.
Imbrium prowled, her hooves never touching the ground, her body now a shapeless mass.
Her Mistress’s moon shone upon her, renewing her strength, allowing her to stay submerged in shadow longer. She eased her way up an alley between buildings.
It was close now. Imbrium could feel it. The very wrongness of it offended her being. Corrupted shadow, gone foul, and now poisoning the beautiful night all around it. She flowed forward, tracking her prey.
She stopped outside of a window, open only a crack for fresh air. It was all she needed. She slipped through, entering a room.
In the room was a crib. In the crib was a magenta pegasus foal. He looked terrified. He whimpered slightly in the chill of the room, to afraid to even cry out to his parents, choked with fear.
Imbrium revealed herself to the foal. He gazed at her, mouth open, his eyes flooded with tears, the smell of fear radiating from him in the form of urine.
“Be still,” Imbrium commanded, “and don’t be afraid.” Her voice was a velvet whisper, heard more in dreams than in the real world, and it drifted through the foal’s mind more than his ears. The faint whimpers ceased.
“Where is it?” Imbrium asked. “Is it under your bed?”
The foal pointed downward with his hoof, his tiny barrel hitching with restrained sobs and fear.
“Hush now, quiet now, it’s time to go to bed.” She cooed, reaching forward with the central knuckle of her bat-like wing. She extended her grasping digit. She reached over the rail of the crib and touched the foal on the top of his head, between his ears. The foal’s eyes rolled back into his head and he fell over, limp, his chest rising and falling. He was sleeping the sleep of the innocent.
Imbrium’s prey was trapped under the crib. There was nowhere it could go. She dove under the crib, shadow diving as she dropped, a mass of writhing black shadow creeping under the bed.
The room was completely silent. The foal slumbered, finally at peace. After a moment, the shadowy mass emerged from under the bed, drifted toward the window, and escaped out into the night.
Imbrium emerged from shadow near the edge of town, holding something hideous in her fanged mouth. It was like a cross between a rat and a snake, long, limp, with two wings similar to Imbrium’s own bat-like wings. It wasn’t moving. She spat it out on the ground, and then continued to spit a few times. There was an awful taste in her mouth, like sipping from a sewer pipe with a straw.
She stomped it under her hoof for good measure. Imbrium hated her foe, loathed it with every fibre of her being. She hated what it represented, what it did, and what it could become. She hated what they did to ponies.
“Thank you.” Said a voice, causing Imbrium to almost jump out of her skin. It was almost impossible to sneak up on her, yet it had just happened. She whirled to face a bright pink pony, standing in the moonlight, gazing at her.
“I knew it was here,” the pink pony added, “I do all I can to keep them away. This one found a way though.”
Imbrium gazed at the crushed shadowling, and then at the pink pony.
“I’m Pinkie Pie!” The pink pony announced. “The Element of Laughter. Usually, laughter keeps these sorts of things far away. They don’t like laughter. They can’t feed off of laughter. Laughter weakens them. My granny taught me that. Giggle at the ghosties.” The pink pony giggled.
Imbrium bowed her head slightly, and then raised her self back up to her full height, towering over the pink mare.
“You’re big!” Pinkie announced. “Real big!”
Imbrium nodded.
“I guess you have to be big to keep us all safe. Thank you, by the way. For keeping us all safe.”
“What are you doing out at this time of night solar mare? Most of your kind would be scared senseless of the dark at this hour.”
“I was taking a midnight walk,” Pinkie commented, “and all of a sudden my Pinkie sense told me that a really big spook had entered town and there was a little spook already in town, and I was really really worried that something might be up, because big spooks usually mean trouble, so I started to head over to Twilight’s place to go wake her up and let her know that something really big and gross and something small and gross were in town, I mean, it was practically like an invasion of spooky gross things invading Ponyville and I was worried that there would be trouble.” Pinkie paused to take a big breath. “Only you weren’t here to cause trouble, you came to end the trouble. I felt the small one fade out and saw a shadow among the shadows, so I followed you here and now we are standing here talking.” Pinkie halted for a moment. “Oh, and you’re not really all that gross, but you are big. I guess you are still a spook though.”
“You could see me?!” Imbrium exclaimed in disbelief.
“Yeah, silly, my granny taught me what to look for when trying to spot shades.”
Imbrium stood silent, shocked.
Pinkie Pie giggle-snorted and bounced in place.
“I do not know what to say. I am honoured to be in the presence of the Element of Laughter, to have an ally in my fight against the creeping darkness.” Imbrium offered her hoof.
Pinkie knocked it with her own, and then craned her head to look up at Imbrium.
“I’ll keep watch over Ponyville,” Pinkie said, “and maybe we can work out a means to communicate just in case there is ever trouble.”
“Send a letter to Mare Imbrium, care of Luna, Guardian of Night and all Shadowy Realms. I will receive it. I will check on you as well, at some time when I am off duty. My name is Nightfisher. I hope we can be friends.”
“Of course!” Pinkie beamed, “Friends are good! You can find me at Sugarcube Corner!”
Imbrium looked down at the fell creature on the ground. It was already crumbling into dust. She stomped it again, grinding the gritty remains into the ground. She then spread her wings and took to the air.
“Goodbye Pinkie,” Imbrium called, “Keep Luna’s subjects safe and happy.”
And then Imbrium was gone. She had not flown away, she simply vanished, becoming one with the night and popping out of existence.
“Will do!” Pinkie answered, even though nopony was there to hear it.
The pink pony turned back toward home and bounced away into the night.
