The Light in Darkness
By Scipio Smith
Luna spread her wings, casting a shadow upon the ground as she descended through the clouds to set her hooves down on the edge of Whitetail Wood. Behind her, she heard the soft thumping on the ground as a half-dozen guards landed behind her.
Luna regarded the dense woodland with apparent equanimity, save for a slight widening of her midnight blue eyes. This forest was not so large as the Everfree, nor was it so free of magic, but there was danger here greater than any manticore, and she had come to confront worse than monsters.
She had come to confront her shame.
Behind her, Captain Catseye of the Night Guard began to issue orders to her ponies. “Black Lightning, scout ahead. Starshine, Storm Cloud, stick close to the princess-“
“Nay, Captain,” Luna declared loudly. “Upon this path I’ll have no need of guards. Await me here, till haply I return.” Even if she did return it was unlikely to be happily, but it would not do to show her retainers any fear or guilt.
Catseye regarded Luna warily. “Your Highness, that wood is dangerous. I do not think that you should go alone.”
“I walked this land ere the stars kindled upon Ursa Major’s back,” Luna declared. “When colossi bestrode the world I looked them in the eye. Thy loyalty does credit to your heart, and thy concern is worthy of the guard, but in this I will overrule thee. This quest is mine alone, no matter how perilous.” Catseye seemed, in Luna’s brief acquaintance with her, a good soldier: brave, devoted, swift; her keen-eyed gaze surpassed any owl once darkness fell. But neither she, nor any other nightpony, could help her in this matter. It was the devotion of the night mares which brought her to this place, and she would not put her warriors at risk amongst these trees where there wings and bright eyes for the open field would avail them nothing. Enough ponies had suffered on her account.
Catseye bowed. “As Your Highness commands.”
The other guards bowed also, pressing their muzzles to the ground.
Luna placed a hoof on Catseye’s head. “Take heart, captain. Take heart, good ponies. If fate wills it that I shall return, then return I shall; but if inexorable destiny, which no mare can escape or avoid, decrees it should be otherwise…then there was nothing you could have done.” That was cold comfort to them, judging by the glum looks their visages bore, but it comforted Luna as she strode into the eaves of the forest. Whatever she did, or did not do; whether she succeeded or failed, all would occur as destiny ordained. All she had do was be ready, for the readiness was all.
If Celestia had understood that, she would not have so opposed my coming here, Luna thought as she advanced into the Whitetail Wood, weaving between majestic oaks and ducking beneath the branches of low hanging willows.
”It is too soon, Luna. Too soon and too dangerous; you need more time to rest, to recover your strength.”
“So you would have me wait here in this palace, knowing what I have wrought, knowing what wrongs I’ve left unrighted, until my stature hath returned and my magic glows brighter than the northern star once more and only then shall I, at my own convenience, deign to go forth and treat with those whose mothers I didst mortally wound?” Luna demanded. “Nay, sister, such would be called cowardice and rightly so. I would be shamed before the great-hearted ponies who dwell in the broad lands of Equestria if I did cower within this palace great, hiding from my sins.”
“But the danger-
“The danger I wrought with my own will, I now bring it on myself of my own choice,” Luna stated, her tone quietening as she turned away from Celestia. “And if the sword I crafted deals me a bitter bite, then it shall be no more than just.”
“Do not talk like that, sister,” Celestia said fiercely as she crossed the room to stand once more in front of Luna. “Do not even think it. After one thousand years you have returned to me, I cannot lose you again.”
“If you force me to stay, you’ll lose me just as sure,” Luna replied. “For shame will devour my soul and leave but a withered shell of the Luna that you love. I beg you, Celestia, deny me not, for my heart is set upon this trial.”
“Then let me come with you,” Celestia begged.
“Nay!” Luna cried, proudly. “The fault is mine, the task is mine, the recompense must be mine also. You trusted Twilight Sparkle to free me of my curse without thine aid. Am I so far fallen in thy love and trust that you deem me less brave in heart or capable in wit than this filly, a stranger to thee? Hath she a greater share in thy affection than I now command? Thine own sister?”
Celestia was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was that mingling of stern and soft that only she could achieve. “Such an accusation is unworthy of you, Luna. It is true that Twilight has my love; but you are my sister, and our bond has endured your absence for a thousand years. Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, but doubt me never.” She looked away. “Yet you are correct to accuse me of a lack of trust. If you are set on this then you must go. I will wait here for your return.”
So Luna had come, and now she advanced deeper and deeper into the forest. The trees pressed close around her, casting the forest floor in shadow. When the sun did shine through the cracks in the trees, it shone all the more beautifully for its general absence, catching the dew glistening upon spiders’ webs, or making dull rocks shine like diamonds.
Luna stepped over patches of rue and primrose, leapt over fallen logs that blocked her path and felt the soft moss underhoof. In the woods around she could hear the rustling of the undergrowth, the soft footfalls that spoke of someone tracking her.
Luna came to a halt in a small clearing, standing in a patch of sunlight as she faced the darkness all around. “It is I: Princess Luna!” she declared proudly. “I am Nightmare Moon no more. Come forth, and be not afeard.”
No one answered her challenge. She saw the undergrowth shifting this way and that, saw a glimpse of a gleaming yellow eye, and she saw shadowy figures moving through the distant trees. Their silhouettes were vague, but Luna believed she could guess who they were.
Wolves. True wolves. How they must hate me.
That was a reckoning overdue in its own right, but she more pressing matters to attend to first. She turned her back ostentatiously upon her lupine stalkers, and walked southwards, towards the deer holds. She was unsurprised when the wolves gave up their shadowing of her; however they might feel about her they lacked the strength to cross into the territory of the deerfolk.
And whose fault is that, pray? The greatest generals in history were fortunate to cripple their enemies for a generation; I have crippled my allies for a thousand years. In faith, I was the worst of tyrants. Come Tirek, come Grogar, come Sombra and the Sirens both and let me school thee in true malice. Sit at my hooves like eager schoolfoals, and I will such lessons in wickedness bestow upon thee as will turn you white with horror.
Luna kept going, until two stags stepped out from behind the trees to block her forward progress. She felt, rather than heard, another deer emerge from hiding behind her.
“Well met,” Luna said evenly.
The deer said nothing. Luna stared at them, and they in turn stared back until a fourth stag joined them. This one was older than the rest, his antlers fully flowered and his coat so thick it formed a sort of beard around his face and down his chin and neck. His hazel eyes stared into Luna’s midnight orbs for a moment, and then bowed his head.
“Well met, Princess Luna,” the stag said.
“You know me?” Luna asked in surprise, for after a thousand years her own kind had for the most part forgotten her.
“Your coming was foretold,” the stag replied, his voice calm and mellifluent. “The stars informed us of your impending arrival.”
“Divination, the art of the deerfolk,” Luna murmured. “Ah, yes; I had forgot.” The zebra of the plains hath her physic, the zebra of the empire her spear, the deer hath the stars to guide her, while the griffon she flies without peer. That was the lore of the elder races, those who had dominated the world when ponykind was young. She should have remembered it, but then she had learned it so very long ago upon her mother’s knee, before even her father had departed.
“I am Hearn, by some called Hunter,” Hearn said. “I know why you are here.”
Luna said, “And what think you of such knowledge?”
Hearn said, “My kind have sheltered yours for some two hundred years. I pity them. Beyond that, I cannot say.”
“For their services to my lost tribe, the deerfolk have my thanks,” Luna murmured.
“We acted not to gain advantages out of you,” Hearn said. “It was pity that moved us to act. What moves you here, Princess Luna?”
“Festering guilt,” Luna said, each word bearing the weight of ages as it fell from her mouth. “Like an unhealed wound, stinking and rotten. Now, will you take me to my children?”
Hearn bowed. “Of course. Follow me.”
It was no path he led her down, nor even a track winding between tall trees, but Hearn seemed to know exactly where he was going and Luna followed in the steps of his hooves. And indeed, as they walked it did seem that a trail was opening up for them, not marked or trodden down, but a path nonetheless.
“Where you not with me,” Hearn said. “You might seek a hundred years and never find the way. This forest has a magic all its own.”
“The forest, or you deerfolk who dwell within its eaves?” Luna asked.
Hearn was silent for a moment. “Perhaps it is both. I confess that I know not.”
“Much hath changed in the turning of a thousand years,” Luna said, as she followed Hearn past a solitary standing stone, the runes carved on it worn away, garlanded in moss and wildflowers. “When I last walked this earth, doubtless this stone was newly placed. Now that I have returned the world has altered in mine absence. The might of Grevyia is broken, while Quaggai waxes; the griffon dominion is shattered; and in the rolling fields of Equestria our great-hearted pony folk hath changed so much we could scarce recognise them: beasts of iron that gobble coal up as a dragon gorges himself on gems, earth ponies taking to the air on wings of steel, devices that may carry Celestia’s voice far and wind across Equestria. I confess, I had half thought to find my lost tribe vanished, along with so much else of the world I dwelt in that now is gone beyond recall.”
“Not yet, thanks in some small part to our own efforts,” Hearn replied.
Luna nodded. “And what of you deer? What changes hath the new world wrought on you? You dwell in the midst of Equestria, does that mean that you are become my sister’s subjects.”
“There is a treaty between our people and Celestia,” Hearn said. “It is renewed by each Great Prince of Forest, but we do not bow before the sun as ponies do. This wood is ours, gifted to us, and ponies do not trespass on our land as we do not trespass upon theirs.”
“Yet you have suffered me to trespass, and sheltered my folk here for generations.”
“Your folk are hardly ponies, nor have they been for a thousand years,” Hearn said sharply. “As for you, it is for them, and not for you, that you are permitted here. But it was wise of you to leave your guards at the edge of the forest.”
Luna’s eyes widened. “You observed me then? I had thought it was the wolves which dogged my steps.”
“The wolves you spotted,” Hearn replied. “The deer you did not see; and neither did the wolves themselves. These woods are ours, and the snarling beasts are deluded if they believe otherwise.”
“You hold them in contempt, yet shelter the victims of my misguided fury?” Luna asked.
“I pity your folk for the same reason the wolves hate them: because they fight. The true wolves are born to savagery and rejoice in it, revelling in the pain they cause to others. The werefolk have had savagery thrust upon them yet they strive to rise above it. They shame the wolves by their example and so the wolves seek to destroy them. And so we protect them.”
“Be not so swift to judge the true wolves,” Luna said, her voice heavy with the weight of regret. “They too have suffered at my hooves.”
“As we have suffered at their fangs,” Hearn stated loudly, his tone leaving no doubt that he was not describing suffering in the abstract. “Would you deny us our right to outrage, yes even to hatred?”
“I would prefer to see forgiveness flower, and chase hate’s cancer from the garden,” Luna murmured. How much might I have suffered, had Celestia decided to punish me for my crimes? How much would I have deserved to suffer?
Hearn paused, looking back at her. “Alas, Princess, we cannot all be ponies. We are nearly there, so I shall leave you here. Those you seek will find you soon enough, I think.”
“And if not I shall be marooned here,” Luna said dryly.
“The forest cannot hide the sky, Princess,” Hearn said, darting off into the thicket to his right. Luna soon lost sight and sound of him; evidently the stealth of the deerfolk was all that they believed it to be.
Alone, as far as she could tell, Luna closed her eyes and bowed her head. If fate be kind, let me be forgiven for my crimes, though I should bear their weight until time’s ending.
Time’s ending. Do you watch me still, father? What think you of your Luna now?
Would mother forgive me, as Celestia hath? Or am I blessed with a sister more loving than I deserve?
A twig snapped in front of her, and like the twig Luna’s eyes snapped open. She had no wings, nor horn, yet Luna knew at once that this was no ordinary earth pony; she could catch vague glimpses of the lizardlike crest that nightponies had in place of hair. She could not see much of it mind, because the mare who stood before her was wearing a wolf-pelt of silver-grey, draping over her dark blue body from head to tail, white fangs dropping down over her nose. Four eyes stared intently at the princess: the golden eyes of the mare, and the lifeless eyes of the wolf.
“Salutations,” Luna said. “Dare I ask from whence the wolf-pelt came?”
“A wolf that died without my help,” the mare said, simply but with a touch of combativeness in her tone. “We kill none for our second skins.”
“I rejoice to hear it.”
“What right would you have to judge us either way?” the mare demanded; both tone and temper flaring. “You’re the reason we’re stuck like this!”
“No right at all,” Luna conceded. “Save that…I am glad you have not fully embraced the beasts I cursed you to become.”
“And you think makes it okay, what you did to us?”
“No,” Luna repeated. “In thine orisons are all my past offences reflected on me. They always will be.”
Those golden eyes flashed bright with anger. “What are you even doing here?”
“I am come to apologise,” Luna whispered.
The mare growled, the rage in her expression subsiding into sullen resentment. “Grandmother sent me to come get you. Follow me.”
Luna nodded. “What is thy name, child?”
The mare snorted. “I’m called Silver Blaze, but don’t think we’re friends or anything. Now come on, I won’t come looking for you if you can’t keep up.”
While Hearn had set a gentle pace, Silver rushed through the forest so swiftly that Luna was almost forced to try and use her wings in the press of woodland in order to keep up. It took Luna a little while to realise that there was more than dislike for Luna driving Silver on: soon it would be time for the sun to set and for the moon to rise. Doubtless Silver had forgotten that it was Luna herself who commanded the moment of the moon’s rising.
And why should she not forget that? All her life the heavens have been safe under Celestia’s command. She has never known anything else. Nopony has ever known anything else, whether it be in the order of the sky or in the governance of the realm. I must recall that, if ever I grow impatient.
Silver Blaze led her to a large clearing; the largest in the forest in Luna was any judge, where a circle of standing stones marked out the boundaries beyond which the trees could not transgress. Luna was led into the centre of the clearing and the circle – the sun’s light fell through the trees, but left the space outside the circle shrouded in shadow, as though the standing stones could block even the passage of its rays – and then, like soldiers who have lured their opponents into a trap, Silver Blaze turned at bay.
“Here she is,” Silver yelled. “Princess Luna has arrived.”
They emerged from all sides, slipping out of the forest and into the circle of standing stones. They crept out of the trees and out of the dark in wave after wave, hundreds of them, wingless night ponies clad in wolf-pelts, their eyes gleaming, their hoof-falls soft. They surrounded her, many of them keeping low to the ground and baring their teeth as though they were in truth the wolves that she had cursed them to become.
Her children. Her legacy. The werewolves of Equestria.
One of the first things Luna had learned upon her return was that Celestia, bless her kind heart, had massaged the history surrounding Luna’s fall and Nightmare Moon’s rebellion far more than she had cause to do. In fact she had sliced the matter down to its barest details, like some griffon butcher carving off slices off ham until only the bone remained. All things were blamed upon Nightmare Moon, who had sprung fully formed into existence one night and been defeated by Celestia that same night before too much harm could be done. The truth did Luna far less credit. The process of her corruption had been a slow one, as envy and resentment had gnawed at her heart, as hate had spread where love had once been deepest, as jealousy had consumed her every waking thought.
Luna had been paranoid of Celestia’s influence upon her life, desperate for anything that she could claim as hers and only hers, and so she had opened her wings to any monster who would flatter her vanity, dance attendance on her, kiss her hoof and swear allegiance to her and only her. She had recruited vagabonds and villains to form the Shadowbolts, she had enlisted the wolves to her cause because they would worship her as a god, and all the while she had pushed away her true faithful, her night ponies, because they loved her too much to give her lies.
But there were limits, even to the loyalty of the night ponies. When she had finally succumbed to the worst parts of herself, when she had been consumed by Nightmare Moon, the night guard had fled in terror of her, pursued by all those wicked creatures who cared not whether Luna or Nightmare Moon gave them commands so long as she gave them licence to wreak evil as they pleased. Only one tribe of night ponies remained, and on their knees they had pleaded with her to renounce Nightmare Moon, to put her jealousy aside, to become Princess Luna once again.
But Nightmare had scorned them. More than that, she had called their loyalty treason, and calling upon her dark powers she had put a terrible curse on those whose only crime was to love her. She had ripped off the wings of those loyal night ponies and in place of flight she had given them a different gift, darker and more terrible: she had put the spirits of wolves in them, wild and savage and eager for blood, and she had made it so that every night, under the light of the moon that Nightmare had planned would never set again, these brave and selfless ponies would become monsters, fitting servants for one who was more than half monster herself.
Thus were the werewolves born, and now their descendants surrounded Luna in a great horde, eyes glaring at her from under wolf-skins, their silence hostile.
The crowd parted, a little, and an old mare of silver wearing a pelt of midnight black advanced through the ranks of the cursed ponies to stand eye to eye with Princess Luna.
“You are chief amongst these ponies?” Luna demanded.
“I am Moonshadow, the eldest. I speak for all as much as any mare does,” Moonshadow said. “Princess Luna, why have you come here?”
Luna bowed her head. “I come to seek forgiveness.”
“No!” Silver Blaze’s angry shout transformed into a roar even as Silver Blaze transformed before Luna’s very eyes. Her fur rippled and merged with the wolf pelt she wore across her back as she was transformed into a giant wolf the size of a bear, with fur so long and stiff that it looked almost like spikes. Her fangs were the size of knives, her eyes were bestial in their fury as she growled and howled, pacing up and down, first lunging towards Luna and then turning away, snapping and snarling at any pony within reach. The crowd backed away from her, all save Moonshadow who advanced upon a creature more than three times her size.
“Peace, Silver,” she murmured, shushing and whispering as though she were calming a crying foal, not staring down a monster. She reached out one trembling hoof, and touched the star-shaped silver mark on Silver’s forehead, between her eyes. “Peace, now. You are safe; there is no cause for rage.”
Silver Blaze growled softly, her eyes flickering between Moonshadow and Luna, before her fur rippled once more and she became again a pony wearing a wolf-pelt for a cloak.
“No cause?” Silver demanded; her voice was hoarse as tears streamed down her face. “I was born this way because of her. I didn’t ask for any of this. I’m angry all the time; so, so angry like you couldn’t imagine. I can’t ever leave this forest, I can’t see how other ponies live, I can’t choose my own path in life; I can’t meet any ponies outside the tribe because the risk is too great that I might hurt them. Every single night I turn into a monster and it’s all because of you! Because of what you did to us! And now you come here to have us tell you that it’s all okay, that we don’t mind, that you shouldn’t upset yourself on our account? No!”
Other ponies murmured their assent at Silver’s words, or else growled them as they too turned into wolves. Luna noticed that some of them turned into ordinary wolves, a little smaller than ponies, while other transformed into the same hulking monsters that Silver had become. Did I do that? I do not recall, nor see any reason why I would?
“Princess Luna,” Moonshadow intoned. “You have much to answer for.”
“That I knew ere I set foot in this forest,” Luna replied.
“After Celestia bound you in the moon she attempted to undo the curse you had cast upon our ancestors,” Moonshadow said. “But to no avail. Every night, when the moon rose, our people have become wild and uncontrollable beasts, barely able to exercise the least restraint. Since other ponies were not safe from us, we were forced to wander in the wilds far from civilisation. We took to wearing these wolf pelts so that other ponies might know the danger that we posed and avoid us. Our ancestors wandered from one end of Equestria to the other and beyond before fate led them to this forest, where the deer took pity on our people and offered us shelter in the Whitetail Wood alongside them.”
Moonshadow gestured with one hoof towards the standing stones. “These stones keep us confined: once the night has begun, we cannot leave until the sun has risen again. Even now, we cannot dwell amongst the deer: the danger to them is too great. And while we are here the true wolves hunt us whenever we cross into their domain. Nor is that all. Take off your pelts.”
“Grandma,” Silver protested.
“She must see in order to understand,” Moonshadow said.
There was a moment’s hesitation, then all the ponies let the wolf pelts fall from their backs.
Luna gasped. Her eyes widened. Every single flank was bare. There was not a cutie mark to be seen in the entire assembly.
“Sweet sister, no,” Luna murmured.
“As we can never leave this place, as we are trapped by our curse, not one of us can ever find out who we truly are, or who we were intended to become. Generations of us have lived within this wood without skill or purpose, barely better than beasts,” Moonshadow declared. “Our destinies were snuffed out centuries before we were even born.”
Luna sank to her knees, levitating dirt above her head and dropping it upon herself to cover her face and mane.
“What I have done…I do not deserve to be forgiven, yet you have my contrition nonetheless.”
“Can you undo our curse?” Silver Blaze demanded, as the ponies recovered their pelts.
“Nay,” Luna whispered.
“Then go,” Silver shouted. “Go away and leave us to our suffering.”
“Wait,” Moonshadow said.
“Why?” Silver demanded. “What can she do for us? Why should we listen to anything she has to say?”
“The wolves will listen,” Moonshadow said gravely. “Princess Luna, if you will spend the night here, with us when we transform, then you may put your case to the spirits within each of us, and we shall see if they accept anything you have to say. Or you may leave now, forget about us, and suffer no consequences for your acts.”
Luna stood up proudly. “I am not accustomed to fleeing my mistakes, nor to turning my back on those for whom I am responsible. I will do this thing you ask, and hazard all the dangers it presents.”
Moonshadow nodded. “Well spoken.”
Luna hesitated for a moment. "A question, if I may?"
"That depends on what you ask," Moonshadow said.
"Your grand-daughter, her rage transfigured her into so large a creature, scarce a wolf at all. And yet, some of your other kinsfolk..."
"A mystery we cannot solve," Moonshadow said. "Since we came here, since the wolves began to prey on us, some of our kind began to transform into creatures larger and more powerful than the rest, better able to protect the pack. It would see that when you cursed us, you did not leave us completely unable to protect ourselves. Yet you will forgive me if I do not thank you for the gift."
"If you did I would take it as mockery," Luna replied.
She waited where she stood an hour or two, the werewolves pointedly not including in their conversations as they all remained within the circle in the glade, waiting for the sun to set and the for the moon to ascend to take its place in the heavens' throne.
Luna looked up, even after a thousand years she had not lost her sense of the cycles of the celestial orbs, and watched as the sun descended lazily down the western sky before finally setting below the horizon.
Thank you for being so understanding, sister. I have expected you to come in search of me by now. Or send Twilight Sparkle in your stead.
Luna gathered her magic, mustering her strength within her soul as her horn began to glow with an azure aura.
"What are you doing?" Silver Blaze snapped. "What's she doing?"
"Raising the moon to set it in the crown of night and be a lantern in the dark for all the gentle-hearted ponies who in these broad lands dwell," Luna declared. "Hath you forgotten that I am princess of the night and true mistress of its wonders, and that the throne of night is mine by rights, and Celestia but the steward of it?"
"So, the legends are true," Moonshadow whispered. "The tales passed down by our ancestors said as much, but it has been so long..."
Luna bowed her head. "I reproach myself. I understand that I have been long absent from the world. Forgive my prickly pride, I beg."
"That's about the only thing I might forgive," Silver muttered.
Luna concentrated upon her magic once again, calling it to her before thrusting it forth with all her might, reaching out to the moon and calling upon it, Come to me, come to me. Rise, rise.
Slowly, like a great ship launched into a tempestuous sea, the moon rose into the darkened sky. Luna panted with the effort. In days of old, she could have done this easily. With good fortune, she would do so again. But in her weakened state, drained of power as well as evil by the Elements of Harmony, it tired her. Yet she would not yield this duty back to Celestia, nor even beg her assistance with it. She was Luna, Princess of the Night, and she would lift the moon into its sphere if she could do nothing else.
The ponies stared up at the moon as it rose above them; a low, throbbing hum issued from their throats, growing louder the higher the moon rose, until it reached the resting place where it would spend the night, and the humming of the ponies reached a crescendo, transforming into a furious howl, ripped from hundreds of throats, as they transformed in a wave rippling outwards, turning from ponies into wolves, and as each pony transformed their hum became a momentary cry of pain and anger, before it became a lupine howl matched only by a similar, less eerie sound, coming from the true wolves on the other side of the forest.
They were all wolves now, mostly the smaller, more wolfish forms, but with Silver Blaze and some of her kin now wearing the over-large, more warlike (and more warg-like, now that Luna thought upon it) forms that she had exploded into earlier. They threw back their heads and howled, a frightening cacophony assailing Luna's ears as she heard their frustration, their fear, their rage all poured into the discordant chorus.
I did this. the thought echoed over and over again in Luna's head as her mind throbbed with the incessant sound. I did this. It is my doing.
"I am sorry," she whispered. "I am so sorry."
The howling ceased. It was as though, having spoken, Luna had made the wolves aware of her, and she felt all their gleaming eyes turn upon her, fangs bared, growls gurgling up from hundreds of throats.
Silver Blaze took a step towards her, roaring angrily, making snapping motions with her jaws. Other werewolves began to growl, to snarl, to bare their teeth. The whole circle was filled with the sounds of anger, and from all sides the werewolves began to press closer towards her.
They are going to tear me apart, Luna thought. She was a little surprised to realise that she did not wish to fight or flee. She had wrought this curse upon these ponies' ancestors. If this was to be her end, it would be no more than poetic justice. Her only thought was to be glad that she had not allowed Catseye or the others to accompany her. For them to have been hurt would have been a tragedy.
Luna locked eyes with Silver, the hulking creature still advancing towards her. "Do with me as thou wilt. I daresay I have earned it a hundredfold."
Silver paused, her whole great body trembling. Her head rose up, jaws open, spittle flying from her throat, and Luna felt certain that she would pounce.
But she did not. Instead she rolled up into a ball, thrashing wildly as though in the grip of a fit, snapping at the air, growling at nothing, even sinking her teeth into her own leg more than once, sounds of pain mingling with her anger.
Nor was she the only werewolf who seemed suddenly seized by a kind of madness, attacking themselves or attacking their fellows. Where once a mob had threatened her, in an instant Luna was surrounded by those who appeared to wish nothing but to harm each other.
It took Luna a moment to realise what she was seeing. When she did, a tear rolled down her face.
Hearn had told her that the werewolves fought, that they strove to rise above their savagery in a way that the true wolves did not. Luna had not understood what he had meant at the time; she understood now.
The bestial savagery of their curse could not be banished, it was a part of them, a part that Luna had placed in them irrevocably. The only way that they could fight, that they could control themselves, was to turn their rage inwards upon themselves, to hurt themselves rather than hurt other ponies.
None of them wished to harm Luna, not even Silver Blaze. And so, rather than hurt her, they tore themselves to pieces instead.
"Oh, my children," Luna whispered, tears falling upon the ground. "Oh, children my heart breaks for thee. That one moment of my childish rage should have condemned thee to suffer such...I had no notion."
She knelt in their midst, her eyes closed but her ears open to the suffering all around her. "When I was young, I felt myself to be so wise. Now I am truly wise I know myself to be a fool, and a hundred times more foolish was I then. I wrought great evil and greater suffering to assuage my petty hurts and small frustrations. I betrayed those to whom I ought to be proved most loyal, I abandoned those who remained ever by my side. I severed all bonds of fellowship. I turned my back upon the very love I craved. I hoarded pride as though it were gold and gave only humiliation to those around me. I took all that was good and green and growing in my life and I burnt it all to ashes.
"And I destroyed you all.
"I had thought that my pain was great. I had thought my regrets deep enough to contain an ocean. I had thought the sum of my sorrows would, when piled one on another, tower o'er the mountains. But now that I see you, I realise that where my regrets one thousand times as great they would not be enough. For what I have done, for what you have endured and the long line of thine ancestors before thee, there is no forgiveness.
"My griefs are doubled. Spare thyselves, I beg; I am the one who ought to feel your fangs, not thine own selves."
Luna sobbed for a while, before she realised she could no longer hear the wolves savaging themselves.
She opened her eyes, to see trails of blue magical aura emerging from her horn and drifting out across the circle, falling like stardust upon the werewolves who sat up, wide eyed, staring at the magic which hovered above them like an aurora.
What is this? Luna wondered. What am I doing?
The magic faded from the sky, as one the werewolves stood up and began to howl once more. But this time their howl was different. They howled in harmony, an almost musical sound, rising and falling in perfect time with one another. It was as though a thousand feuding visions had suddenly become one, as though some invisible first artist was holding the orchestra in tune.
Moonshadow stepped close towards her. And then, wonder of wonders, she spoke in pony voice, "Princess...Luna."
Luna gasped. "You speak."
Moonshadow blinked. "I...can...think. I...speak. Anger...is less."
Luna smiled. Did I do this? Have I calmed their rage a little? But how? "I am...I...I know not what to say."
Moonshadow smiled as best a wolf could. "Forgiveness...forgiveness is not needed when...when contrition is clear. We...tha-"
Luna held up one hoof. "Do not thank me. Never thank me. I wish only that I could do more."
The wolves' howl became louder, more musical in its rhythm, more beautiful in its sound, more passionate in its intensity, and as they howled Luna could feel her grief and her regret being washed away, her spirit being raised up one wings larger and stronger than the ones she bore upon her flanks.
Do they mean to do this? Or do they not realise what they do, as I did not? One act of accidental magic in response to another, that would be appropriate would it not?
And Luna laughed aloud, for the first time since Nightmare Moon had consumed her, and she threw back her head and added her melodious voice to the chorus.
Night ended. The moon set, the sun rose up again, and the werewolves returned once more into their pony forms.
Many of them looked astonished by the events of the night, some of them were weeping openly.
"It was not what I wanted," Silver Blaze muttered. "But, thank you anyway." She still sounded more than a little sullen.
"You have done us a good service, Princess Luna," Moonshadow said. "You have our gratitude, even if you will not accept it."
"It was less than the least I owe you," Luna replied. "Will you depart the forest now?"
"No," Moonshadow said sadly. "We are still too wild, too dangerous for that. But, we can think now, we will no longer be completely lost to the monsters within us. But now it is time for you to leave, so take some advice from an old mare, if you will."
"Say what thou wilt," Luna declared. "If the advice be good, be sure that I will follow it."
"Never again forget who you are," Moonshadow said. "Be you, be Luna always. Remember yourself...and remember us."
"Always," Luna said softly, before she raised her voice to let it carry across the circle. "You are my children, descendants of my most faithful servants. Should you stand in need, then call on me and I will come."
"And you may call on us also, mistress of the moon," Moonshadow said. "Should you ever have need of werewolves."
Luna looked around them, her legacy, her doing. "May fortune bless you all," she said, before she spread her wings and rose up into the air, soaring above the forest and into the clouds.
It would be hard work, to overcome a legacy of wickedness and become the good princess, the loving ruler, that she should have been from the outset. But Luna would do it, no matter how hard the road was.
How could she not, when the expectations of so many ponies rode upon her?
Author's Note
This story was inspired by my friend SirViper and some ideas he had for another story of mine, Comes the Sunset. I hope he likes it, but I hope you all like it, too.
Being a werewolf in Equestria would really suck considering that its a full moon every single night.
