Dawn Star watched the play with hidden loathing. He had seen productions of different parts of the play before, but seeing it all put together was almost too much. Most of the stories had been twisted to make Equestria the villains, while the rest were mostly fairy tails with a few shards of truth to hold it all together. As much as he would have liked to point out the problems with the play, that would only draw attention to him, And that would be unacceptable.

It had been 6 years ago that Dawn had failed to qualify for entry into Canterlot's Royal Guard. Luckily for him, before he had been forced to return to Hollow Shades a failure, he was approached by the Equestrian Bureau of Information. The bureau was always keeping tabs on the countries bordering Equestria, and since one of those countries had a large population of Thestrals, Dawn seemed like a good asset to have.

He had been given a full year of training on top of what he had already done before his attempt to join the guard. The training mostly consisted of him forgetting everything he knew about what most Equestrians called The Thestral Confederacy and re-learning correct information about The Night Kingdom. After that it was a train ride to Vanhoover, a few weeks of gathering any information he could find in Luna Bay and The Seal Islands and then the start of a whole new life as a secret agent.

His assumed backstory was simple enough, Night Kingdom Thestrals used their home town instead of a last name, so he became Dawn of Bone Town. Seeing as Bone Town was the last settlement before The Bone Road, a pilgrimage rout for dying moose, Not many asked questions about why he had left. He had gotten a job as a low level clerk at the Ministry of Housing, a small apartment in Old Capital, and had been reporting information to Equestria ever since.

In keeping up appearances, he had worked later than he had originally planned and was now waiting in Fallow until he could slip away during the feast. The plan was simple, make a high flight over the Dour Gate and he would be in Canterlot by sunrise two days from then. He'd taken two weeks off from work for the festival and shouldn't have been missed.

Now if he could just sit through the rest of this nonsense he would be set.

"Discord was a terrible dragon. He was taller than The Windy Gate, with rows upon rows of teeth the length of a thestral's leg, 100 pairs of antlers stretched from his head to his tail and armor made from the bones of the other old gods." the old storyteller shouted from the stage.

A massive dragon... thing seemed to rise up from the stage, mirroring the storytellers description of Discord. Dawn rolled his eyes, he had seen the statue of Discord in the royal gardens. While it was horrifying in an abomination of magic kind of way, this thing was clearly dreamed up to scare foals.

"Discord, with his terrible might and chaos magic, was able to break the seal on The Heart of Darkness, releasing the fog that had been sealed away for all those years covering everything inside The Fangs. The creature then returned to the south to sit on his skull throne and laugh at the misfortune of everyone."

the black crystal heart returned and fog billowed from off stage.

"But In the south there lived two powerful sisters, Alicorns with the power to move the sun and moon. When all seemed lost the sisters would summon the greatest power in the south, The Elements of Harmony."

The blue unicorn who had played The Sorceress earlier in the play gracefully returned to the stage. She now wore dark blue armor and had wings made of black feathers. Strangely absent from the scene was any reference to Celestia. A powerful beam of light shot from behind the "sisters" and fell upon the monstrous puppet.

"The power that these two sisters possessed was so great that it killed the monster instantly."

The monstrosity on the stage gave one last frightening bellow and collapsed. The filly to Dawn's right peaked out from behind her mothers wing, making sure the beast was finished.

"They then set about traveling the world fixing the problems that Discord had caused. It was Princess Luna who came to The Night Kingdom to solve the problem of the fog."

"My friends," the unicorn said," my name is Princess Luna. Princess of The Night and Moon. For too long this cursed heart has been a plague upon your people. With my power I will destroy it so that it will never trouble any creature again."

the old wolf storyteller spoke again. "Where the sorceress was great, she was still only a unicorn. The heart was so evil that it took everything she had, magic, body and spirit, just to contain it. But Luna was an alicorn with the power to move the moon its self. With her power and that of The Elements of Harmony, she was not only able to destroy the heart, but actually absorbed it into herself.

This part of the story always made Dawn nervous. He had developed a theory that if Princess Luna had absorbed the heart, then it, plus whatever remained of The Sorceress, could be partially responsible for Nightmare Moon. It was something he would never dare bring up to Princess Celestia, and even mentioning it to the scholars in Canterlot was more likely to just bring more scorn down on the Thestrals that still lived in Equestria.

After Princess Celestia banished Nightmare Moon, public opinion had turned against anything related to the former princess. Soon afterwords many of the Thestrals that were living in Equestia simply left and went to The Night Kingdom. There were stories about bags of mail left abandoned in the street and squads of Royal Night Guard going AWOL while on patrol. In the thousand years since the banishment things had gotten so bad for the Thestrals that stayed that they would likely be extinct within the next hundred years.

The story continued. "In the years that followed the leaders of The Night Kingdom swore fealty to Princess Luna and became a part of Equestria. But this upset the older of the two sisters, Celestia, Princess of The Sun. She demanded that, because she controlled the sun, everyone love her the most."

The Actress playing princes luna was joined onstage by one of the most offensive things Dawn had ever seen. Growing up in Hollow Shades he had been taught to respect, if not love, Princess Celestia. The actress who now took to the stage was a cow moose who had been painted white. Her wings and horn flopped limply as she walked, a massive fake belly hanging nearly to the stage. This was the final straw for Dawn.With the rest of the audience falling over themselves laughing it seemed like a good time to leave. As he made his exit he was almost impressed that the actress could actually speak her lines as she shoveled cake into her mouth. he hoped this place wasn't getting to him.

He slipped unnoticed through the crowd with one exception. As he was leaving he felt like he was being watched and froze. He turned and stared strait into the eyes of a small moose calf in a bundle on its fathers side. The calf stared at Dawn for a minute then yawned and turned its attention back to the stage.

Dawn would be back in Canterlot sooner than he expected.

Author's Note

And with that, It's done. just have an epilogue that should be up in another week or two.

I know it's not much, but it is the first story I've actually written to the end. I hope someone enjoys it.

As always, questions and comments are appreciated.