Dawn Over Midnight: C1 - The Night Is Dark
The ferns provided perfect cover, Lucent had decided. Both he and Sister Borealis had found a comfortable yet covert position at the base of a tall, aging oak tree. The undergrowth embraced the tree like a dying relative, all congregated around its deathbed to await the giant’s fall. Borealis caressed the trunk, finding that its bark crumbed beneath her hoof.
“Our quarry’s presence has had a terrible effect on these woods. There’s no doubt it’s close, those farmers at least had their wits about them.”
Lucent nodded, though Borealis could only see his sharp, emerald eyes beneath the lunar cloak he wore. She wore the same; a soft, velveteen fabric that deadened noise and allowed a pony to blend into the shadow like a spirit of the night. A gift from their order, amongst many others.
Lucent and Borealis were alike in many ways. Their coats both glinted a soft silver, though they were currently suppressed by their cloaks to hide their presence. Beneath their hoods, their manes were like stranded platinum, with a white horn extending from the crown of each of their heads. Atop each horn sat a small, pearlescent crystal, with tendrils of silver that wrapped themselves around the grooves. Only unicorns with exceptional magical abilities had been eligible for the Luminaries, and there were only a dozen of their generation left, those of the First Founding.
Their target was a rundown farmhouse, a more grandiose specimen than they were expecting, but its location was both a logical home for their prey, and backed by local tales. The ochre sands of the San Palomino desert stretched away into the horizon beyond it. Their small forest was barely holding against the encroaching sands, and the creature’s presence had sapped much of the life from the trees near the house. This forest would disappear in months if it was left to roam free.
They had been here almost a day now. Fasting, intent, not even daring to find water to drink. It could wait, and being alone and off-guard could become a problem if their prey turned predator. There were a dozen hamlets and villages close enough for it to attack, and so they had chosen to wait at its home, to catch the entity as it returned to rest.
Lucent tensed, and raise a single hoof to his head. Both Luminaries lowered themselves into the undergrowth, lying prone with eyes tracking the silhouette moving against the moon behind it. It had an incoherent, shadowy quality that confirmed their suspicions. They watched as it leapt up a wall on the old farmhouse, and clambered through a window inside.
Seconds later, they were sprinted through the sand towards the house like silent shadows themselves.
They darted through the forest of dead apple trees, many of whom were rotten, with branches splitting from the trunks. It provided sparse but hopefully sufficient cover. They needed to approach unnoticed, though tracking an entity like the prey they hunted now without it smelling them would be difficult. It had likely already sensed the aura of their life energies amidst the decaying landscape it had made its home in.
They entered the hall silently, finding the doors had rotted from its hinges and fallen into the house. The hallway stank of a heady scent of sweet decay told Lucent their quarry was close. A glow of magic surrounded Borealis’ cloak, and she removed it to unveil her coat. Her magical energies bled into every hair, causing them to glow with a pure, silver light that illuminated the room. Her soft glow following in his wake now assured him that Borealis was behind him, her watchful eyes and ears ensuring nothing followed them in turn.
The signs of the desert’s hungry advance were noticeable even inside the house.The carpet had long been choked with a thick layer of sand that mercifully deadened any hoofsteps that fell amongst it, with the creature’s clawprints leading them to the foot of the stairwell. The rest of the structure was in a dire state, the walls had been gnawed by ferocious sandstorms, with scarce scraps of wallpaper still grasping onto crumbling drywall. Furniture had collapsed in disrepair and decay, with only one picture managing to still cling to the wall. A kitchen was visible off to the side, though much of it was rusted to scrap by this point.
Their quarry would definitely have already felt them amidst such a dead backdrop, but Lucent held faith in his and Borealis’ abilities. The Luminaries never left things to optimistic hope, of course, but they had spent uncountable years working together. A scuffling at the top of the stairwell pulled their gaze upwards as they reached it, and Lucent briefly saw two moon-like disc eyes, that caught the soft silver of his glow. They reflected it brightly, giving the eyes an ethereal, cat-like presence. The entity leapt from the ceiling to the topmost landing, the advantage of surprise now lost for both parties. They would have to follow its lead now, and likely spring its trap.
Borealis ascended the stairs as Lucent uncloaked himself. Both their coats now burned a radiant silver in unison, casting aside any shadows that stood before them. Their manes did not light the world around them in the same way, but held their pearly glow amidst the forlorn farmhouse around them. They were an obvious target, and the creature they hunted had excellent night vision. Hiding their radiance wouldn’t help them here, so they would brandish it as a sword.
Borealis turned her head to smile at Lucent. It wasn’t a warm smile, simply a curt acknowledgement. “The way those eyes caught our light, I wager they’re sensitive to too much of it. Our radiance might be our strongest weapon.”
“It always has been, hasn’t it?” Lucent smiled in turn, a little more warmly. Their radiance was part practicality, and part statement. Wherever a Luminarie would tread, the shadows were rolled back in their presence, warding darkness from the land of Equestria.
They reached the floor below the creature’s lair. It was clearly a bedroom floor, Lucent spied the remains of a hastily-evicted household in each room. Abandoned toys, faded portraits and furniture collapsed into rotten mush, left behind so long ago that there was little story to make of it. The beast had been here some time, accelerating the process, judging by the mould growths spreading across the walls. Its aura drained whatever life energy it could find around it. Even long dead wood found itself rotting a little faster in its presence.
Borealis reached the foot of the last flight of stairs. Her radiance stretched out coldly, peeling back shadows with an inquisitive curiosity rather than the warming presence of sunlight. She set her hoof upon the first stair, the wood clearly rotted to the brink of holding a pony’s weight. The first step held, and then the second and third, though not without an ominous creaking noise that mingled with a slight snapping in the woodwork. There was a furtive scuffling from a room at the end of the landing, and Lucent followed her up the last staircase to hunt it.
They reached the top with only one stair having faltered underneath their weight, causing Lucent’s heart to leap into his throat. His right forehoof had gone through the brittle wood, and luckily he had easily extracted it before continuing. They reached the upper landing, casting their eyes around to assess their surroundings. Every surface on this floor was coated in dry, dying mould, leaving the walls flimsy to the gentle breeze. The roof was almost collapsed, roofing tiles littered the floorboards in fragments and great, gaping holes opened onto a moonless night. Their prey would have moved on soon, before this house collapsed on it. They had come in the nick of time.
Another scrabbling noise that was swiftly silenced emanated from the door at the furthest end of the landing. Borealis held out a hoof, and Lucent accepted the invitation to lead. The hour was midnight now, and the clouds had smothered Luna’s moon, leaving only their radiances to fend off the encroaching shadow. This fight would need to be swift, the creature was already sapping their energies with its hidden presence and dulling their glow.
Lucent reached the half-open door the scuffling had come from. He stood for a moment, his light illuminating a triangle in the room, revealing nothing more than more dilapidation and decay. He nudged the door with a hoof, and it did not budge. Hearing the grinding of the corroded hinges fighting against him, he levelled his horn at the door, and a ball of light built up around its tip.
“Casting away subtlety, then? Borealis spoke out behind him.Lucent turned his head slightly to link eyes with her, nodding before turning back.
“Yes, indeed.”
He released the ball of light, directing it into a brief cone of iridescent light. The door was blasted off its hinges and he galloped in its wake. His radiance burned, buoyed by adrenaline, yet their quarry was nowhere to be found, only a small bedroom with an open window, ragged curtains fluttering in the breeze.
A sudden realisation struck Lucent and he turned, crying out just as the creature leapt from a side room and into Borealis. In a brief instant he saw it illuminated in her radiance, a cruel mouth with just two long fangs, protruding from a twisted parody of a pony’s face. The limbs ended in clawed talons instead of hooves, and Borealis found herself in its embrace before she could turn to land a blow against it. It swiped at her, tearing out a portion of her coat and leaving shallow scratches in her withers. Lucent summoned his magic, but the scuffle was too frantic to line a shot on the beast. The melee lasted mere seconds before the landing cracked and split, the pair plummeting to the floor below.
Lucent sprinted into action, hooves landing too lightly and too swiftly to worry if what remained of the floorboards collapsed beneath him. He could hear and see the fight on the bottom floor, blasts of light and shadows danced. The creature fought in uncanny silence, though he heard its blows land from Borealis’ shouts amidst her spell casting. Lucent mantled the last bannister, landing amongst the deep sand at the base of the stairwell. The beast was ahead, picked out by Borealis’ diminishing radiance as it sapped her energies in the midst of the fight. Its shadowy outline fluttered like a tattered flag in the wind, only its eyes stayed solid, mournful orbs that parodied the light around them.. He could see claw wounds, some deeper than others, and the creature was poised above her with its fangs bared, ready to drain the last of her life.
Lucent didn’t waste a thought on hesitation. He summoned a lance of stunning light that cut through the creature, throwing it off Borealis and igniting the wall behind it in flame. The beast shrieked a high-pitched wail, leaping up as Borealis stumbled to her feet, her radiance fluttering like a candle in the breeze. It bared its fangs, baleful eyes wide open as though they needn’t ever blink, one claw holding the small hole in its shadowy form. It leapt into the kitchen, and Lucent abandoned all caution, tracing a path with a lance of light that cut through the walls and left fire in its path. There was no shriek, only the clattering of metal and junk as it dodged the white-hot beam.
Suddenly there was scuffling under the floorboards, buried deep under the sand. Borealis channeled her own magic, sending sharp beams of violet light into the sand, her rekindled rage giving her strength again. She was an indignant and deservedly prideful mare, she did not enjoy being outsmarted.
The Luminaries beams sliced through the sand and floorboards wherever the scratching sound of the target underneath was heard, smouldering the sand on top into glass. Their prey seemed to leap all over the room at random under the floor, even as the fires spread from Lucent’s missed spells. The beast now had as few places to run as they did, finding its path blocked by either encroaching flames, or the two Luminaries. After another short moment of the cat and mouse game, the entity made its choice.
There was a loud creak under Lucent’s hooves, and he barely managed to move an inch before the floorboards beneath him erupted in a plume of sand, claws and fangs. Borealis unleashed a lance of white-hot light that the creature dodged, leaping up to cling to the ceiling, before dropping down and grabbing Lucent. It held him between itself and Borealis, and she soon realised its intentions. Lucent fought against its grip, until sharp claws dug into his throat and he desisted. He felt it sapping his energies, dimming his world view and his radiance. He summoned his energy, turning to the creature and staring it in those eyes that showed no fear or remorse. He coughed, smiling as he spoke raspily to the creature.
“You’re not the first to try this tactic.”
For a moment, a brief, almost-imagined instant, the pale moon-eyes dulled and closed slightly. Then, a lance struck the creature squarely in the eye, blinding it and causing it to fling Lucent through a burning wall in its pain throes. He heard the sharp sizzling of lance after lance, each followed by a shriek from the creature. Hastily, he clambered back through the burning wreckage of the living room. The fire raged and was creeping up the dried-out timber in the ceiling. It was time to end this before they were all buried in fire and ruins. He leapt back out into the main hall, thanking his wits for evading the fire, and found Borealis and the creature already there.
Borealis had their prey in a corner, retreating and clearly wounded. One eye was now black as the shadow around it, dripping with a green ichor. The other seemed to follow Lucent as he walked to Borealis’ side. Both Luminaries were now ragged and tired. Borealis sported several severe claw wounds, but her radiance shone defiantly against the creature in the corner alongside Lucent’s. He nodded to Borealis, eyes widening to let her take the lead. In a prudent, authoritative voice, she recited the charges against their quarry.
“Creature of the night, we name you and your kin Striga. You are hunted for the deaths of four mares, two stallions, and eight foals. Your kind has been deemed to be unable to share Equestria by her Highness Princess Celestia, and her returned Highness Princess Luna. In this time of pony ascension, we can brook no quarter with a creature like you. You are sentenced to absolution through purgation, and we shall deliver it.”
Lucent wondered how much of the charges against it the beast even understood. Whether it knew of the return of Luna and the coronation of Princess Twilight. Whether it knew this meant a time of rising and reclamation of the night against the creatures ponies had barely held back before. The Striga was likely a hungry creature that simply ate its prey and thought little of their politics. As Lucent summoned his energies, feeling Borealis as she did the same, he wondered about that pale, wide-open eye that locked with his. Was it imploring for mercy, or wide open in fear? Was there truly nothing in the mind behind it worth redeeming?
He did not have to stare into that last, mournful eye of the broken Striga for long. Both his and Borealis’ horns erupted in pearly blasts of directed light, unleashing the fire of the sun onto the creature. After the light subsided, all that remained was an ashen hole in the wall, the creature removed from existence exactly as decreed. The building groaned and creaked in the aftermath of that final blast, lamenting the loss of what little structural support had remained. Both Lucent and Borealis collected their cloaks from the bottom of the stairwell, nullifying their radiances once more as they sprinted through the hole left by the Striga’s destruction. Planks fell smouldering from the ceiling in their wake, and the whole house roared with incandescent fury as cracks climbed the walls and scurried across the ceilings.
They managed to reach deep into the old orchard before the house finally collapsed. It had held against the desert for decades, but the Striga’s leeching had taken its toll on the framework. The timber was dried out, and within minutes the pile of firewood had been burnt to the head-height of a pony. The fire spread to the orchard, cascading up each weary trunk and bringing them down to the soil once more. It wouldn’t be long before the orchard would receive its last burial, the San Palomino desert was eager to embrace it under its golden sands.
Lucent turned back to Borealis, who once more was ahead of him climbing over the fallen fencing. She cocked her head forwards, urging him to move on. Canterlot was a long journey from here, especially for ponies like them who preferred the quieter roads.
Author's Note
Author's Notes? That's new. I hope you enjoyed reading the story, and commend you on your endurance if it turned out to be terrible but you finished it anyway!
Don't hesitate to leave your thoughts in the comments below, I would love constructive criticism on this after such a long hiatus!