Chapters The Twenty Nights Festival
Tug looked out past the stage onto the village of Fallow. The village usually bustled with activity because of the short distance from The Dour Gate, But over the past few days the population had nearly tripled. Both of the small inns had filled quickly, leaving late comers to either set up campsites or find board with some of the villagers. Two separate packs of wolf raiders had even set up camps just to the west, down a small hill so their particular festivities wouldn't bother the locals.
Tug had seen this many times before, never in Fallow mind you, but in many other parts of The Night Kingdom. It was the first day of The twenty Nights Festival. In less than an hour, the sun would creep beneath the peaks of The Fangs and would stay there for twenty nights of feasts, parties and religious ceremonies.
The old wolf wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his red and orange coat, the traditional clothing of a twenty Nights storyteller. though he had been putting on the same play since he was a pup, he still got nervous. every year the troupe was a little different, new members joined, old members changed parts, and it was all up to him, the troupe leader, to keep it all together.
Had they all been practicing their parts? Would they remember what costumes went to which scenes? Would the filly playing the sun witch burst into tears like the filly last year had? It was one of the hardest roles in the play, not for the acting required, but because of the slurs and projectiles hurled from the audience, so no one ever took the role twice. Tug just thanked the stars he had found someone willing to play Celestia more than once, though with some changes to the original script.
As the last glints of sunlight started to disappear, the crowd began to find their seats. the amphitheater construction could only make sense there. with the elevation of the seating changing between very low in the front for thestrals to lie in comfort, to mid range for wolves to sit, to massive gaps near the back allowing moose to see over each others antlers.
Tug knew to start the play as soon as the sun had disappeared. the play was always followed by the feast of the sorceress, the second largest of the feasts. To truly enjoy the meal, many in the audience would have skipped lunch. it was unwise to have too much hunger mix with the emotions the crowd would feel from the play.
With the sun now set, chrystals began to glow around the now full amphitheater. while most residents on The Night Kingdom had impressive night vision, the light allowed for certain effects to be used in the play. In the distance a horn echoed from The Dour Gate, signaling the sunset. the same was likely happening at all of the five gates to the kingdom.
And so, it was time.
"Citizens of the Night Kingdom", Tug shouted, his voice loud enough to frighten a few birds out of a nearby tree, " The tale you are about to see is one you have likely seen before, but on this, the first of the twenty nights, it is an important story to tell. It is the story of all of us".
Now was his time to shine. for the rest of the play there would be other actors onstage to keep the audiences attention, but now it was just an old gray wolf in old costume coat.
"Long ago, before Princess Luna's banishment, before the sorceress and even before the discovery of the mighty Fang Mountains, we all lived the same as the ponies in Equestria.
And with that, Tug stepped aside. A group of young ones took the stage, young thestrals with fake feather wings to represent peagsi. Moose calves, too young to have antlers, instead wore cardboard unicorn horns and deer antlers or nothing to represent earth ponies. a few wolf pups joined them, wearing costume collars and vests like those worn by their diamond dog ancestors.
While he was still there to guide the story, Tug now stood off to the left side of the stage.
"This was a time when the creatures of the north lived in conflict with each other, each having some job to do, but mistrusting the other groups. It was this conflict that would bring darker creatures into the fold".
The young ones had begun to stomp around the stage yelling at each other, until a terrifying scream stopped everything. another moose calf, this one covered in glowing blue paint, swung out across the stage on a wire. it was unclear whether his screams were attempts at the terrifying howl of the windigo, or screams from being swung 10 feet off the ground. The other young ones tried their best to look afraid, but were quickly starting to giggle. This also brought a few laughs guttural laughs from the audience and the surprised inhale from a frightened looking moose cow, likely the calf's mother. Luckily, Tug saw this, gave a signal to the wire operator and began his dialogue as the blue calf was pulled backstage and lowered to the ground.
"Uhh... the uhh... the windego brought with them freezing winds and snows that blotted out any light", he spoke quickly as there was no longer a windigo on the stage. "The creatures of the north were forced to make a great decision, leaving their homelands in search of a better place. The many tribes of pegasi, unicorn, earth pony, deer and diamond dogs split in different directions. most of them heading south to settle in Equestria. But some would go west and find an oasis from the cold protected by The Fang Mountains."
though it was a little earlier then planned the amphitheater went black at the mention of the Fangs. It was time for a set change.
Author's Note
whoo. super nervous. this is the first story I've written here. I hope someone likes it.
had to think for a minute what exactly you would call a group of young moose, thestral and wolves. children somehow doesn't seem appropriate.
The Twenty Nights Festival
Holly was ecstatic. The thestral filly and her mother had traveled to Fallow to see "The History of the Night Kingdom" after Holly had asked on her birthday a few days before. She loved listening to her parents tell her stories before bed, and her favorite story was the one about Princess Luna and the heart of darkness. when she heard that there was going to be real actors telling the story, she had begged her parents to go. As Thorn, her father, had drawn guard duty that night, it was just Holly and her mother, Hazel, who made to trip from The Dour Gate.
They arrived a little while before sundown on what the thestrals called First Night. The village was full of hustle and bustle. Holly had never seen this many creatures in the same place before. The Dour Gate was more of an outpost than a town, with a few dozen guards, their families as well as support staff, cooks and builders and things. Around a hundred thestrals lived there. The small school that Holly would start going after The Twenty Nights Festival only had 5 other students.
The two dark gray thestrals made their way through the crowd. "We'll go to the market and get something to eat before the play" Hazel said. Holly could only nod her head, her mouth agape at the sights and sounds of the village. Hazel stopped and closed her daughter's mouth with one of her hooves. "You'll catch flies walking around like that", she said. They both smiled and continued towards the marketplace in the center of town.
The market was a madhouse compared to what they were used to. Because of it's high walls, The Gate was a community of only thestrals. The size differences between Holly and all of the moose that lumbered through the market caused her to crawl onto her mothers back in fear of being stepped on. Hazel could understand this, only being half their size herself.
The insanity of the market was well worth it though. The sugary smells of baked goods and the sound of bubbling soups mixed with earthy smell of local produce and the hissing and spitting of various meats cooking over hot coals. Fallow was a predominantly moose village, relying mostly on farming and lumber but for the festival vendors from all over the area had come. What made Fallow's market truly different, was that It being so close to The Gate, and therefore Equestria, the moose actually had some trade with the pony villages beyond The Fangs. this brought some things to the market that were impossible to find elsewhere.
After some convincing from Hazel to try something new, the pair settled on two bowls of stew. The local recipe was made with various vegetables and barely. It was also made so thick that the moose at the counter made a point of turning the bowls upside down for a fraction of a second before giving them to the customers. while Holly was not impressed that there was no meat in the stew, this little act seemed to make up for it.
As they walked to the amphitheater to watch the play they made one last stop in the market. Thorn's only request was to check if Six Legs, a moose who passed through The Gate regularly to trade lumber for Equestrian products, had any zap apple jam to sell. As it happens, he did, though at a ridiculous price. And just like always, he gave the same old stories why it was so expensive. "Thirty miles through the snow dragging logs... lazy farm ponies not making enough... Cheap Equestrian glass breaking on the way back." They eventually settled on a reasonable price and Hazel and Holly continued toward the amphitheater.
They found seats just as the the sunset horn was blown at The Dour Gate, signaling the official start of the festivities. Holly cuddled up to her mother, still taking occasional mouthfuls of the thick stew and stared at the old wolf standing on the stage. She had never seen a wolf this close before, usually only seeing the packs of raiders passing below The Gate. The old wolf wiped the sleeve of his coat across his face, making Holly wonder why wolves only walked on their back paws even though their front paws touched the ground. She nearly spit out a mouthful of soup when the wolf on the stage began shouting.
"Citizens of the Night Kingdom", he shouted, " The tale you are about to see is one you have likely seen before, but on this, the first of the twenty nights, it is an important story to tell. It is the story of all of us".
From this point Holly half payed attention to the wolf in the red and orange coat. The other half of her attention drifted between the soup and asking her mother questions.
"What are ponies like? Were deer really that small? what does 'conflict' mean?
Hazel did her best to quietly answer her daughter's questions, but they were soon both reduced to fits of giggles as a moose calf was hoisted over the stage, screaming the whole time. the old wolf seemed to talk a little faster after that, and then the whole amphitheater went black.
Being thestrals, the pair had no problem seeing in the dark, but the quick transition between could take a moment to get used to. they were treated to a few seconds of backgrounds being changed before the lights came back up. Holly was amazed by what she saw. The new background depicted very well painted a forest. Hundreds of trees could be seen, all with slightly different shades of green for the leaves and underbrush. From The Gate, she had only ever seen two views, the white, treeless expanse of Northern Equestria and the permanent shades of red and yellow that earned the forests inside the Fangs the name Everfall.
The old wolf returned from behind a red curtain on the left side of the stage, his confidence had also returned.
"In the Fangs they found a land of plenty, with rich soil and hearty forests. Closer to the mountains and in some of the streams, gold, silver and gems were discovered. This was a place that offered everything required by the creatures that settled there."
The young ones now returned to the stage, still in their costumes, and began to take on the chores of their characters.
"The deer began growing crops and harvesting lumber, The diamond dogs soon found themselves richer than they could have imagined and the pegasi began constructing the gates that remain to this very day in order to protect this new land."
Holly began to giggle again as a group of "pegasi" attempted to move light wait blocks into the form of a gate, nearly knocking it over several times due to the size of the blocks.
"The three groups began to trade with each other. This trade soon turned into friendship, something that had been sorely missing in the ancient lands and something that would hold back the windigo once and for all. but this wouldn't be the last hardship for the three tribes in their new home, and the next danger would come out of the very mountains that protected them."
All but the wolf pup actors had left the stage. The pups, now wearing costume pieces made of gold and silver fabrics, acted out digging with their hands.They threw small rocks and clumps of dirt, mostly at each other.
"A generation after the founding of this land before the final completion of The Dour and Windy Gates, the diamond dogs found something " the old wolf continued, giving the pups a mean look. "Deep in their mines they found an artifact that would change this land for the rest of time.
"They discovered the heart of darkness."
From a small hole in the stage one of the pups pulled a large black crystal in the shape of a heart. at the sight of this a wave of silence fell over the crowd.
Holly had remained mostly quiet after the disappearance of the the blue calf. Her soup now finished, she cuddled closer to her mother in anticipation of what she knew was the next part of the story.
Author's Note
All right. chapter two. really happy with how this one came out.
So the basic reason I'm writing this is because I realized long ago that I have no ability to write emotion.
Also the actual play is going to become a longer part of the next few chapters.
The Twenty Nights Festival
Gar was bored. Bored and hungry. She had brought her pack into Fallow for the twenty nights for a much needed break from The North Ocean. They had made a good score stealing crates from the ships leaving Vanhoover. They would stay in town for the festival, then spend a week or two in Luna Bay. If too many crates went missing, the ponies started to get suspicious and hired more guards.
That was the cost of doing business her way. The Alpha before her, Mok, had once stolen an entire ship. Left the ponies on board in a rowboat. After that, it had been more than a year before the ships started to let their guard down. Before that happened Gar had challenged Mok for control of the pack. When Mok went to join the sky mother, Gar her pack had started stealing only a few crates off of ships. It made them enough that she remained alpha but not so much that it couldn't have been lost due to mis-shipping or a rogue wave.
Her pack had set up their camp to the west of the village. As hospitable as the local moose were when it came to opening their village to outsiders for the festival, they did have their limits. The wolves would enjoy the festival the same as everyone else up until the tenth day, then they would have their own feast. While the thestrals called it the moon and thought it was moved by the night princess, the wolves knew that the sky mother was alive. and so on the tenth day of the festivities they had a feast of raw meat to celebrate her.
So here they sat, watching the annual re-telling of the history of the night kingdom. Gar had heard the same old stories since she was a pup and didn't expect much. The pack had roared with laughter when a blue moose calf flew out over the stage on a wire. Nan, a younger wolf in her pack, laughed so hard he fell off the bleachers. he wandered back a few minutes later with a bit of a limp. Beyond that, Gar spent most of the early performance hoping a vendor would wander through the audience with some food, but no such luck. She tried to pay more attention to the play and less to her growling stomach.
"... They discovered the heart of darkness"
The mention of that cursed old relic brought silence to the crowd. Even generations later it was something creatures didn't talk about without good reason. One of the pups on the stage held up a prop of the black crystal and even Gar felt a bit of nervousness. The old wolf on the stage continued the story.
"The heart was made of a black crystal unlike anything the wolves had seen before and it gave of a feeling of worry to all who saw it. The wolves didn't know what to make of it, so they decided to take it to the leaders of the three groups in capital. they had kept the heart wrapped in cloth for the journey, but when they arrived in Brass Tower the city guards asked to see what they were carrying."
The pups were joined on stage by two adult thestrals dressed in brass armor, though still rearing the fake pegasus wings from earlier.
"It was there that the heart of darkness was exposed to the sun for the first time in what could have bean millions of years. And as soon as the sunlight touched it, a thick fog grew from the heart. The fog grew and grew until it covered everything within The Fangs."
fog began to billow from behind the curtains at the sides of the stage as the pups and thestrals gave worried looks.
"As the day went on, the fog didn't go away, and it was there the next day as well. all of the towns and villages were cloaked in the thick fog, but that wasn't the worst of it. Creatures all over the area began to report having terrible nightmares but could never remember what they were about."
The stage, now almost completely hidden in fog echoed with the screams of various actors.
"This went on for weeks, and it wasn't only The Fangs that were reporting nightmares, there were complaints from as far away as the Crystal Empire and Vanhoover. "
The fog on stage began to clear in order to tell the next part of the story. A filly near the front loudly questioned why the fog was going away and was answered with a wave of shh.
"This story happened long before the rise of the princess, and Equestria was not the nation it is today. This meant that two different groups arrived to try and solve the problem. One of these was the great order of the sun, a group of powerful unicorns who sent an army from what is now Canterlot."
Three moose cows walked onto a now empty stage. they were a little older than the calves from the early story and were all painted white with golden prop armor emblazoned with the image of the sun and fake unicorn horns. Strangely, the cow in the middle was in a mesh, wheeled cage being pushed by the other two.
The filly from before managed to get out, "Why is she in a" ,before a barrage of half eaten food and cups began to clatter against the cage. The debris came mostly from the wolf packs, along with a string of boos and vulgarity, the nicest of these being "sun witch"
The old wolf stepped closer to the center of the stage. "Please, there are young ones in the audience" he said.
Gar used a stern look and a few quick punches to bring her pack under control. She flashed a disdained look at Lop, the other pack leader, as an urge to do the same.
With the crowd back under control, the storyteller continued.
"The second group were the high mages, led by Clover the Clever, who surprisingly sent only a single sorceress to look into the problem"
The clearly unhappy cows on the stage were now joined by a single equine figure. She wore dark blue pointed hat with a wide brim and a cloak of the same color, both embroidered with small white stars. With the hat and the cloak it was impossible to make out anything but her hooves, which were a slightly lighter blue than her clothing. Something about the color felt familiar to Gar, but she quickly dismissed the idea.
"The sorceress arrived first at The Dour Gate. She spoke to the guards."
The sorceress now stepped forward and spoke in a voice that was like gravel in honey. As though a beautiful singer had screamed until her voice gave out the day before, still a beautiful voice but with a strange rasp to it.
"I've come on behalf of the high mages to help solve the problem of the nightmare mist, I wish to speak to your leaders so we might help end this problem together."
Her color was a tip off, but that was a voice Gar would never forget as long as she lived.
Author's Note
Chapter 3.
The Twenty Nights Festival
Tragedy was horrified. This was her last performance in The Night Kingdom. She would be leaving as soon as the play was over, a few minutes earlier if she was lucky. She had planned her rout, paid a moose to take her as far as Luna Bay and had saved up enough bits to take a boat home to Vanhoover, she hoped. But all her planning, all her hopes and dreams seemed to crack when she looked into the audience and saw the big wolf female who had saved her and then abandoned her.
But this was not the time to think about it. She had a part to play, a very important part, a part that would draw suspicion if she missed her cue. She pulled the pointed magicians hat a little lower over her face and walked onto the stage. Stepping carefully over the food and cups that had been thrown at her co-stars a few moments earlier, she stepped to her mark and began.
"I've come on behalf of the high mages to help solve the problem of the nightmare mist, I wish to speak to your leaders so we might help end this problem together."
A simple set of lines that she had spoken on and off stage a hundred times before, but with the importance of this showing and the familiar face in the audience she worried her voice would fail her. Luckily it did not.
Tug, the troupe director and storyteller for this play, spoke from the left side of the stage.
"The sorceress arrived at The Crystal Gate and was allowed to enter, as she was alone and seemed genuinely concerned with solving the problem. When the army from the south arrived at The Dour Gate, it was a much different story."
Tragedy silently moved to the right side of the stage as the two painted moose cows pushed their caged co-star a step forward.
"We have come on behalf of Equestria. We don't know what it is you're doing on the beyond these mountains, but it must stop. You may generate as much fog as you like, but we will not allow you to pollute the dreams of Equestrian citizens." shouted the actress in the cage in a mockingly slow voice of believed superiority.
While Tragedy hated to see ponies portrayed this way, she knew it was what the crowd wanted. Heroes were played strong and confident but never arrogant and villains were always played up so it was easy to boo them. She wondered if it it was the same in Equestria.
Tug continued. "While the army gathered at the gate after being refused entrance, the sorceress was able to make her way through the fog to Brass Tower, and meet with the leaders of the three groups. they had many discussions on how to stop the fog and nightmares."
a new background was pushed behind the right side of the stage depicting a city shrouded in deep fog with small buildings a gleaming tower, all barely visible. Tragedy was now joined by three of the young actors from before, their costumes representing the leaders of the Pegusi, Deer and Diamond Dogs. Being slightly older, Tragedy stood a bit taller than all of them even without her pointed hat. the four of them began to pantomime speaking, the young thestral simply repeating watermelon over and over again.
"After three days of studying the heart of darkness, the sorceress thought of a spell that might be able to stop the effects of the heart. The spell was not particularly powerful and would need to be repeated once every few months, but the fog and nightmares would stop."
The pantomime of the four actors continued but now Tragedy added a few animated gestures and the four of them nodded their heads in agreement. At the same time on the left side of the stage the three cows were joined by several other young moose with matching white paint and golden armor. They all wore helmets with the appearance of unicorn horns.
"At The Dour Gate the unicorn army had grown in size and frustration. They also developed a spell to stop the nightmares, but with no research into the cause it would need to be very powerful and be extremely dangerous."
This was one of the more difficult parts of the play and the three actors accompanying Tragedy made their way off the stage. She went to stand near the middle of the stage and set her hooves in wire lassos that would be invisible to the audience.
The old wolf spoke with incredible intensity as he told the next part of the story.
"In Brass Tower the sorceress cast her spell. While it would not have been a permanent fix it did work. The fog began to slowly clear from the area just as she thought it would. At the same time an army of unicorns also cast their spell, not aimed at the heart, but the fog."
"No one knows exactly what happened in the fog that day, but wizards and magicians have suggested that the spell cast into the fog traveled to it's source, breaking the spell cast by the sorceress and super charging the heart. From Brass Tower a wave of energy spread across the land, turning the fog a thick black color. Anyone in the fog fell into a deep sleep, while those outside like the unicorn army were thrown miles away by the force of the wave."
The moose in the cage was pushed offstage with a shove while the other moose actors dove after her, dramatically shouting as they did. This left only Tragedy and Tug on the stage.
"It would be many years before anyone figured out what happened that day, for when the residents woke up the next day the fog had disappeared. The Heart of Darkness had been locked in a containment spell more powerful than anyone had ever seen. but this spell came at a great cost. the sorceress had also disappeared, leaving only her cloak and hat. She had put all of her magic and the very fabric of her being into the spell. She had sacrificed herself to end the cursed heart's reign of terror."
As Tragedy removed her hat and cloak the audience gasped. Few of them had ever actually seen a unicorn before. two actors behind the curtain began to pull the wires. Tragedy kept her hooves planted giving the visual that she was being pulled off stage by some invisible force.
Her part finished, Tragedy crept into her small trailer. she needed to change costumes for her next scene, but only made it as far as the mirror. thoughts of the upcoming scene and the wolf in the audience brought back memories. She remembered the filly who was so happy to have gotten her cutie mark at an audition for a play. Little Tragic Tale, with the frowning tragedy mask for a mark had been very confused. She lived a happy life in Vanhoover, Her parents loved her and now she would be playing Nightmare Moon in the cities Hearth's Warming pageant. So why did her cutie mark seem so unhappy.
She could almost laugh about how innocent the filly had been. That innocence hadn't helped her. It hadn't saved her from the wolves who attacked the pageant. It hadn't stopped them from stealing her away from her family for "insulting the night princess". It had all but faded away after being chained to a boat for two years using her magic as a light for raiders. In that time Tragic Tale had become simply Tragedy
When she had cried the pack leader had laughed and made her drink salt water. She couldn't even remember what her voice used to sound like. When something had gone wrong he had hit her. things went wrong a lot more often near the end. In the end he had gotten so angry he smashed her horn with a rock against the side of the boat. she had blacked out from the pain.
She had woken up from being splashed with water. she had expected the pack leader, but instead she was staring at a big female who had never bothered to talk to her before.
"Mok has gone to meet the sky mother", the wolf had said. "I don't know where dead ponies go, but if you ever mention my name to ANYONE, i'll send you there too.
Tragedy had still been dazed from the rock, and didn't understand what was happening. "Wh... What are you going to do to me?" she whimpered.
"Nothing" the wolf had replied. "Your horn is broken. you magic is gone. you're no use to me"
And with that she had walked away. Tragedy hadn't even been sure where they were.
That had been more than a year ago. now she sat in a trailer, staring at the mirror. The happy filly that should have stared back had been replaced with a young mare who hated herself. A sharp splintered horn that had never healed correctly, no control of magic, a voice like sandpaper. If she made it home would they even want her back?
That thought was the final straw. her emotions hit her in a wave that crushed everything else. she cried and wailed and didn't care if they could hear it from the stage. she was so lost in her own world that she didn't notice her co-star behind her until she was locked in a deep hug.
"It's OK, it's OK," the white moose cow repeated with all the compassion of a mother. "It's your last show and then you'll be going home. There's a few minutes until we need to be on stage. you cry it out and then we can get you in costume."
If she weren't crying so hard Tragedy could have laughed at the irony of the situation, the last character she would play in The Night Kingdom was the same character she was sent here for playing.
Author's Note
Whoo. this chapter was tough. actually attempting to write emotion AND writing in past perfect tense.
anyway, this marks the penultimate (second to last) chapter.
As always, comments, concerns, questions, critiques and innuendo are always appreciated.
The Twenty Nights Festival
Six Legs was tired. He had been selling goods for the past several hours, but it was more than that. This was a different kind of tired, the kind where you want to just lie down and never get back up. In a few more days he hoped the ancients would allow him that.
He stood to the right of the stage watching the play. He didn't bother trying to climb the steps to the higher seating. Years of dirty looks and spit had taught him his place in the moose hierarchy. While he couldn't say what the top of that pyramid looked like, the bottom was reserved for ponies and the cursed. That was the reason Six Legs traded with the ponies in Luna Bay, There was money to be made and it was honest work. On top of that, it was the only place he'd ever been to where they treated him better than a dog. It was the place where he had met Snap.
The bundle hanging from his left side let out a small hiccup. Six legs turned his head and shifted the bundle of blankets with his mouth to reveal the drowsy face of a calf. She had been stumbling around his booth all day on those gangly legs of hers and had worn herself out. He gave the calf a few gentle licks before she yawned and settled back down to sleep.
"she's more red then she ought to be" he thought to himself. with calves getting darker as they grew, he figured she would probably be the same color as a bloodwood log when she was full grown, but those eyes, they shined a color Six Legs didn't have a word for before he met Snap. "Aquamarine", she had called it. That was where the sleeping calf had gotten her name.
when the Snap had gone into labor, Six Legs became a rabid animal. The midwife of the village they were in had refused to help them because of who they were. Six Legs had threatened to crush her skull. When the calf was born he had been outside the barn they were staying in, waiting for the villagers to arrive with torches and pitchforks. When he asked how his family was the midwife answered " She... she was too big, but she has bright eyes, like her mother's mane".
The terrified midwife had fled the barn soon after the birth. They named their daughter Bright Eyes.
A gasp from the audience brought Six Legs out of his thoughts. He re-bundled Bright Eyes in the thick blankets she'd need to make it to Luna Bay and turned back to face the stage in time to see a unicorn being pulled offstage by magic. At least it looked like magic, though he knew unicorn horns tended to glow whenever they did magic. The bigger question was if this was the pony who was paying him to take her to Luna Bay, and she had just left the stage, why did she want to stay until the end of the play?
"But the oasis inside the Fang Mountains was not left untouched by the last blast of power that escaped the Heart of Darkness", cried a voice Six Legs was too far to the right of the stage to see, though from the voice he could tell it belonged to a wolf.
" As the creatures of the oasis slept they were changing. The deer nearly doubled in size, their coats grew darker and their spiked antlers became massive battering rams. The diamond dogs grew thicker pelts and longer claws arms and snouts. The pegasi also grew thicker coats with darker more muted colors, their feathered wings were replaced by leathery membrane and their pupils became catlike slits."
Adult members of the three groups came onto the stage for the first time. these three were locals somehow chosen to represent their respectful groups. The big bull moose on stage smiled and took a quick glance across the crowd, stopping to flex his muscles and grunt at a few cows in the audience, showboating the same as his other two counterparts. after a quick sideways glance the moose cleared his throat as though her were about to speak, instead he turned his head and launched a mouthful of phlegm at Six Legs. While the spit didn't have enough force to make it all the way, the idea of it did, as several other bulls in the audience snorted and laughed.
The old wolf running the show walked from the left to the right side of the stage, only stopping to give the bull a quick bop to the snout. the bull gave a surprised snuff and glared daggers at the wolf, who ignored him and continued walking.
"The transformations affected every creature in the oasis. The trees lost their green leaves and took on shades of red yellow and orange, earning the forested regions the name Everfall. Crops became less effected by the cycle of day and night and seemed to grow at all hours. even the woodland creatures grew larger and had heavier pelts. but the most shocking change to the outside world was that the changed pegasi and diamond dogs began to eat meat as well as plants."
" The outside world was so shocked by this news that Equestria distanced its self from the area. the creatures of the region soon realized that they were so different from their former species that they couldn't even call themselves by their former names. And so new names were adopted, the changed deer became moose. the changed diamond dogs became wolves and the changed pegasi became thestrals."
Six Legs had ignored the taunt from the stage before, but the story being told ate at his very core. He had seen how deep the differences between creatures went. it was those differences and his own stupidity that had killed Snap less than a year ago. He should have stopped their relationship before it went to far. If he had been a thestral it might have worked out, but he wasn't. He was a moose, massive and stupid. Bright Eyes was small for a moose, but had been too big for a pony. After Snap had given birth she never recovered. Snap Apple hadn't lived to the end of the month.
Bright Eyes brought him back to reality. she wiggled in her bundle, letting him know that she was awake. She always fell asleep when he walked, so he shifted his weight between his left and right to seem like they were moving, hoping she would fall back asleep. The motion also waggled the two calves legs that hung from his right side. patches of his dark brown coat were missing all around where the small hooves rubbed against his sides.
When Six Legs was born the midwife had told the family that one calf had absorbed the other. there weren't many crimes worse than killing a child, but in his father's eyes there was nothing more evil than what Six Legs had done, and to his own brother no less. His parent's had abandoned him on the bone road soon after. He had been raised by a potion maker who found him among the skeletons. She hadn't taught him to brew potions, but she had taught him about family. The day Bright Eyes was born he swore to the ancients that his child would have a better life than him, and he was going to make that promise a reality as soon as they reached Luna Bay.
The shifting hadn't worked, so he moved the blankets to let Bright Eyes see what was happening. This would be one of the last times they would be together and he hoped that maybe she would remember something good. she smiled up at him and began to chew on the corner of the blanket.
when he was looking after Bright Eyes he had missed the story about how The Night Kingdom was named and how its distrust of Equestria had continued, things every moose calf was taught in school. but the old wolf continued.
"It was years later when a great terror would spread across the land. One of Equestria's old gods, Discord, the god of chaos, seized control of the southern lands and then set his eyes on The Night Kingdom."
A massive roar tore through the amphitheater. Bright eyes let out a terrified peep and tried her best hide her head in the blankets like a turtle.
"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."
As the wolf was talking, a truly horrible creature seemed to be rising from the left side of the stage. the creature was a massive puppet. while much smaller than the Discord in the story, the teeth were still as long as a moose's hoof and it had maybe 5 sets of antlers. It had a fearsome dragon like shape and was covered in a white clay with a spatter of red paint meant to represent bone and blood. All in all, It was extremely well built and it made Six legs wonder if that had been a good time to Bright Eyes to be watching.
Now, Six leg had traveled farther than most in the kingdom, and he'd heard three different versions of what Discord looked like and even he wasn't sure which one seemed more realistic. The Night Kingdom version was certainly told to scare the young ones, but the version he'd heard in Luna Bay was even stranger, horns, antlers, hooves and talons, how could something even move with that many different parts. the only thing he knew for sure was that the seals on White Coat Island had to be wrong, there was no way Discord was a giant lobster.
Before the old wolf could continued his story, another actor walked onto the stage. She was dressed in deep blue armor with a crown. she had a pair of shining black wings that had to be made of crow feathers, far better made than the cardboard worn by the foals in the early play. Even though the horn that protruded through her crown was splintered at the tip, the actress carried herself with a level of poise unseen anywhere in The Night Kingdom. Six Legs had seen the statue of the princess at her castle in Old Capital and was suddenly proud that one of the last times he would see his daughter she would be seeing this. He Knew that in Equestria she would learn all about Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon, but tonight she would learn the true story of Princess Luna, the immortal sovereign of The Night Kingdom.
Author's Note
Well, here we are chapter 5. man, this thing has really blown up from the originally planed 3 chapters and it's still not done yet. Don't worry though, there is a plan. At this point I can definitely say that there will be one more chapter and then an epilogue.
The Twenty Nights Festival
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.
The Twenty Nights Festival
epilogue
Less than a year after that night, Nightmare Moon returned from a thousand years of exile and was defeated by a group of friends bearing the Elements of Harmony. Stripped of all the hatred and anger that had created Nightmare, Princess Luna was finally returned to Equestria. She began a long and difficult road to recovery and, she hoped, redemption.
Luna made her first visit to The Night Kingdom during the Twenty Nights Festival the following year with hopes of mending the rift between the kingdom and Equestria. She was offered the position of ruler of the kingdom almost instantly. She accepted several conditions, most of which were met. She was amazed to find the castle built for her in Old Capital had been kept in perfect condition, her private wing looked as though she had just left. Personal items were still where she had put them a thousand years before, a brush left on a nightstand, a ballgown hanging in a wardrobe, a crayon drawing of her mailed by a child who had grown up and lived their entire life in her absence.
While re-joining Equestria would take many years, the kingdom did begin to change their laws and practices at the request of their returned princess. Slavery and piracy were outlawed, forcing many wolf packs to either make new lives for themselves within the new legal systems or keep to their old ways and leave the kingdom. The cast system used by the Moose was stripped of all legal power, though it would remain a cultural problem for years to come. And for the first time in a thousand years Thestrals were no longer forced to serve in the guard after they left school.
As time passed the kingdom became a territory of Equestria, its continued refusal to accept Celestia as leader kept it from gaining full status. The kingdom modernized by building tracks for the Great Northern Railway to connect to Luna Bay and Vanhoover to the south and later to the Crystal Empire and Yakyakistan to the east. Night Kingdom lumber was shipped across the continent, and the Equestrian Thestrals were able to bounce back from the brink of extinction.
After the play was completed and the feast eaten, Tug tore up Tragedy's contract and gave her a letter of exit, freeing her from his service and allowing her to return to Equestria. After the return of Princess Luna he continued performing in the Night Kingdom for many years despite other offers. He was old, set in his ways and fully intended to never leave. His decision was finally changed when he was offered a chance to play the storyteller in a multi city tour of an extended version of "The Sorceress and the Heart of Darkness". The tour took him to through all the major cities of equestria. After the final show of the tour, Tug passed away from old age in the bed of a presidential suite in a 5 star hotel in Manehatten, not bad for the runt of a litter from Bone Town.
Holly of the Dour Gate only attended school in her hometown for three years before she was given the opportunity of a lifetime. To help integrate the kingdom back into Equestria, Princess Luna started a an exchange program for students to travel to different cities and study there. Holly would receive the rest of here schooling in Cloudsdale and like many of the other foals there dreamed of becoming a Wonderbolt. Holly lacked the speed to join the elite group but made up for it in endurance, eventually setting a world record for circling all of Equestria in a single trip. As an adult she realized a way to turn her talent into a business. With their mission statement to deliver every package on time and to the correct address, the Dour Gate Courier Company is the only serious competition of the Equestrian Postal Service.
Gar hadn't been kidding all those years before when she threatened that little broken unicorn. If they had run into each other after the play, Gar would have killed her.she wouldn't have been the first and would by no means have been the last. When piracy was outlawed she refused to change her ways so she and her pack left The Night Kingdom forever. They kept to the Seal Islands for a few years, but too many close calls told her it was time for them to leave the continent. Gar disappeared from any records for the next five years before the Sultan of Saddle Arabia placed a 8,000 bit bounty on her head. A mercenary in Griffonstone claims to have traveled there, found her and chased her off of a cliff into the ocean. There have been no other reports since that time. The bounty remains unclaimed to this day.
Tragic Tale returned to her family's home in the middle of a cold December night. She had traveled nonstop for three days and collapsed from exhaustion before her parents could open the door. She awoke two days later in her childhood room as though her whole ordeal had been a nightmare, her broken horn and jagged voice were the only things to tell her it had been real. she refused to go outside for more than a month, causing doctors and later a therapist to visit her there. with proper medicine her horn eventually healed and her voice improved, though a slight rasp would stick with her for the rest of her life. with the help of therapy she was able to lead a normal life. She returned to acting and eventually moved to Manehatten to become a professional. She became a very popular actress, playing multitudes of roles with a particular flare for dramas. At one point, she was offered a part, and at the suggestion of her therapist, reprised her role as the Sorceress in a multi city production of "The Sorceress and the Heart of Darkness". In her opinion this was her greatest accomplishment, because she had beaten her past.
There is very little information on what happened to Six Legs after the festival. The same night Tragic Tale was found on her parent's doorstep, the Apple family in Vanhoover also received a visitor. After a knock at the door they found a foal wrapped in a blanket and a letter. It explained that the foal was half moose and the daughter of their daughter, Snap Apple. The letter went on to apologize that the writer couldn't be a better father or husband and that he had sold everything he owned to leave for Bright Eyes. They found several hundred bits in the blanket as well. The last time anyone saw Six Legs was a week later in Bone Town. Moose legends say that if you walk the Bone Road and are found worthy, you join the Ancients and become a mountain. When describing that area in the book "Daring Do and the Race to the North Pole", writer A. K. Yearling mentions a fight with a windigo on a mountain with two small waterfalls pouring out of its right side.
The Dawn Star file was sealed by royal order and will not be declassified for another 200 years.
Author's Note
And with that it's done. I'm actually really happy with how this came out in the end. I'll admit, there were a few times I thought about not finishing it, but here we are. is it the greatest story? no, but you know what, it's a start.
As always, questions, comments, concerns and subtle innuendo are always appreciated. Please, let me know what you think.