The Taste Of Blood

by Shrink Laureate

Rating: teen
Tags: Horror, Death, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 7828

Twilight Sparkle has nightmares.

Twilight Sparkle has nightmares.

Published 2016-10-31 13:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-10-31 13:30:01 UTC

1. The statue garden

The gardens of Canterlot Castle were cool and calm at night. The distant trickle of a running stream mingled with a susurrus of birds and insects and the rustle of leaves nudged by the breeze.

Twilight found their familiarity comforting as she walked through them. She'd spent many hours in these gardens, day and night, reading, writing, thinking or simply talking with the Princess. She remembered every cracked tile in the paths, every offset stone in the short walls, every curve of the ivy clinging to the trellises, every sprig of moss growing on the statues. They each held special memories for her.

The moonlight shone bright and sharp, lighting up the whole gardens in calming cool white. The mare in the moon was clearly visible. She'd missed that, in a way, when she moved to Ponyville. She idly wondered why she could see it again now.

Ducking through an archway, she saw that the garden on the far side of the hedge was in daylight. Some afternoon tea was being served to her and Celestia on a round wooden table. It was a pleasant scene that she was sure to come back to again and again, but not right now

She hurried through a secluded grove packed with snow and bathed in a golden late afternoon into a much more pleasant patch of autumn evening: the statue garden. To her left stood a statue of Meadowbrook, quill in hoof. To her right, General Firefly, wings ready to launch her into the air. It struck her, as she ambled through them, how serious all of the statues here looked. So many of them were defiant, resolute or furious. She didn't see any that were cheerful.

She stopped in front of a different statue. It wasn't a pony, or even a gryphon or any other ordinary creature, but a baffling ensemble of disparate parts thrown together into one shape. She’d seen this statue before, and wondered what had possessed the sculptor to create it.

Something was strange though. She thought she remembered the statue's pose being a little different – wasn't it laughing before? Now it was recoiling. Its long body was contorted into a writhing shudder.

She stepped closer to get a better look, and as she did a faint sound caught her ear. A rustling, tapping, scraping? She leant around the statue to see if there was anything behind it, perhaps a tame animal or bird, but didn't see anything. Curious, she walked right around the statue and still saw no culprit.

Returning to the statue’s front, she heard it again and realised the sound was coming from the statue itself. Was there a crack in it, perhaps water dripping down inside? If so, Celestia's gardeners should be told so they could repair it.

She leaned in to listen but heard nothing. She leaned closer, head lowered near the creature's feet, to press her ear against the cold white stone.

“Twilight?”

A voice! She fell back in surprise. It had been distant and muffled, as if heard through a wall or from the bottom of a well.

She brought her head closer again. “Hello?”

“Is that Twilight Sparkle?”

“Who is that? Is somepony in trouble?”

“You don't … no, of course you don't remember me. I mean, who would?”

Twilight scoured her memory. “Are you somepony I should know?”

“I suppose not,” replied the voice, “I mean, you only met me once. You only broke through my enchantment - which was supposed to be impossible, by the way - rescued your friends, foiled my plan to rule Equestria, and imprisoned me here for what I assume is going be another thousand years or so. Probably all in a day's work for you, really.”

“You're trapped inside the statue?”

“Oh, yes,” the voice said patronisingly. “Or rather, you could say, if you wished to be entirely precise about the matter, pedantic even, that I am in fact trapped inside a statue again.” It loaded the last word with sarcastic vitriol.

Twilight looked the statue up and down for some key, some clue. “How would I even get you out? I mean, if I broke the statue, would that free you or would it hurt you?” A thought occurred to her, and she took a step back. This statue was in Celestia's garden. Celestia must know it was here, she knew everything. So … “How do I know you're not supposed to be in there?” she cautiously asked.

The voice dropped into a sneer. “You're going to leave me here, aren't you? Leave me trapped in this shape for centuries, just like she did. At least you'd better hope it's centuries.”

“Why?” asked Twilight anxiously.

“Because when I get out of here I'm going to KILL YOU!” the voice yelled in frustrated rage.

Twilight yelped, jumping back.

She cowered at the base of another podium, keeping her eyes on the statue ahead of her. She half expected it to jump down off its podium and lunge at her with those strange mismatched limbs, but it didn't move. It didn't even flinch, and she couldn't hear the voice any more.

Not wanting to get any closer, she strained to listen, hearing nothing but the sprinting pound of her heart and the rasp of her panicked breath. She held a hoof to her barrel, willing herself to calm down. She closed her eyes, focusing on her breath.

As the sound of her own frantic heartbeat faded from her ears, the noises of the garden came back: the rustling, scraping, shuffling of myriad tiny creatures in the night.

And behind her, faint as could be, the sound of a pony sobbing.

Twilight turned her head, looking back and up. Behind her, rearing overhead, was the statue of Chancellor Puddinghead. It was expertly made, but she'd never understood why the sculptor chose to give the chancellor such a shocked expression, or such anachronistic clothing. When asked about it Princess Celestia had explained that artists often used contemporary styles when depicting classical subjects in order to make the work more accessible to their audience, but Twilight hadn't really understood.

She also didn't understand why the statue would be crying.

She was hesitant about taking to another statue, after the last one was so unfriendly. She couldn't keep the trepidation out of her voice as she called out softly, “He- Hello? Is … somepony there?”

A mare replied, as if from the bottom of a well, “Hello? You … you can hear me?”

“I can,” confirmed Twilight. She looked up at the familiar statue of the Chancellor, and asked it, “Are you … Puddinghead?”

“What? That's a horrible thing to call me!” whined the statue.

“Oh. Then you're not the Chancellor of the Earth Pony tribe?”

The statue paused. “You mean from the old Hearth’s Warming story? Why would you even think that?”

Twilight indicated the plinth on which the statue stood. “You're kind of … labelled.”

“I'm just a gardener!” replied the statue. “My name's Blossomful, I work here at the palace, and I need to get to the Moondial Garden, quickly, but I'm trapped. Can you help me out? Please?”

Twilight was confused. Nothing this mare said made sense. She'd heard there once used to be a Moondial Garden, long ago, where the guard post now stood. There was a reason they built over the top of it. “Didn't I hear that the Moondial Garden was ruined or something?”

“It's not that bad!” insisted Blossomful. “I just got the potash levels a bit mixed up, but I can fix it, I swear. I just hope I can get to it before the princess notices, or she's going to be so angry.”

“How did you even make a mistake like that?”

The mare sniffed. “I left my apprentice Turncart doing the measurements. He gets confused by big numbers sometimes.”

Twilight thought she knew a pony called Turncart. He'd been an elderly gardener when she was just a filly.

Before she could confirm that though, they were interrupted by another voice asking, “Is anypony out there? Who is that?”

Twilight inspected the podium of the next statue over, a pegasus stallion crouched low with spread wings. “Lieutenant Thatch Weave?”

“What? No, my name's Wainscot. Can you help me out? I'm going to be late for my first day of work at the palace.”

Another voice joined them, “Can somepony get me out of here? I seem to be trapped.”

And another. “Can anypony hear me? Anypony at all?”

“You can't keep me here!”

“Hello? I need to get back to my foal, he's waiting for me!”

“Let me out, please, I'm sorry!”

“I'll pay for it, somehow, I'll pay!”

“Just you wait till I tell my father about this, you can't do this to me!”

“I was going to tell her soon, I swear it!”

“Please, Princess, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it!”

Twilight buried her head under her hooves to block out the growing cacophony of statues. Though they couldn't move, still they seemed to surround her. Everywhere she looked she saw another statue, another pony trapped in agony, begging for their freedom.

She glared at the mismatched creature in the middle of the garden, and though it hadn't moved a hair she couldn't help feeling it had a malicious glint in its eyes. “See, little one?” it shouted over the din, “See what your beloved mentor does with all the ponies that displease her? But you really shouldn't be surprised. After all, you've already taken your first step in her hoofsteps, haven't you?”

2. Nightmare's end

Twilight stepped carefully through the rubble.

This was one of the most damaged wings in the old castle, missing parts of walls and ceilings. This was where two alicorns had fought. It was impressive, really, that what remained of the castle after that battle had survived so well for a thousand years. Time and weather had taken their toll, but many of the ancient murals were intact. The builders of old had done their jobs well.

Ponies danced across the walls in light brushstrokes, telling the stories of their lives, mute but agile. A flight of pegasi met a herd of unicorns in battle. A trio of windigos besieged a cluster of ponies in colourful costumes, shivering the snow. A handsome pegasus flew from one wall to the other in front of her to woo a unicorn princess locked in a tower. A tribe of breezies migrated across the arched ceiling, weaving around one another, each barely more than a dab of coloured ink made with a narrow brush.

Some of the scenes Twilight recognised as depicting stories from history, myth and fairy tale. Others she couldn’t identify. Lost stories? Forgotten history? There was so much to learn here, left pressed between the pages of history. Twilight wondered if Princess Celestia might have deliberately allowed some of them to be forgotten, and would even object to her learning them. She shook her head. No, the Princess had never denied her learning.

Reaching a hoof gently to the wall, she allowed one brave figure to step lightly onto it. She grinned with the wonder of it. The proud earth pony warrior in dark blue armour perched on her hoof. He bowed to her before leaping back into the wall.

She stepped through a doorway into a larger chamber, one she recognised. This was the chamber that had once held the Elements of Harmony, on the now empty pedestal. At the far end, two stone thrones sat side by side, broken by time.

Half the roof had fallen in here, letting the moonlight shine through. The night sky above was alive with bright stars and nebulae scattered across a cloth of blues, purples and blacks that billowed like Princess Luna's mane.

Twilight stepped around the side of the room, entranced by the living stories playing out across its faded walls.

A gasp caught in her throat as she spotted something behind the pair of broken thrones. A dark shape, though in this light anything would look dark. She took a cautious step closer, peering into the shadows, and realised that it was a pony.

“Is somepony there? Are you hurt?” She trotted quickly over. As she got closer, the shape became more clear. The long legs and elongated muzzle, the elegant long horn and wings of an alicorn mare, the dark colour coat and blue mane. “Princess Luna? What’s wrong, are you—”

She stopped. The mare in front of her was not Luna. Her coat was darker, too dark, practically black. Her eyes were narrow, draconic and cruel.

“Nightmare Moon!”

Twilight backed up frantically until her rump hit the wall, sending two dozen mural ponies scampering away to different walls. “D-d-don’t... don’t...”

Frantically she conjured a shield, surrounding herself in a globe of magic. She held it, trembling in the middle of the shield. A squad of curious, brave pegasi ventured down from the ceiling to land on the shimmering, oily surface. Twilight stood there, defiance wavering on her nervous features, waiting for Nightmare Moon's attack.

It never came. The figure of Nightmare Moon didn’t move, even an inch. It lay slumped on the floor behind the two thrones, its legs and wings splayed uncomfortably.

Gathering her courage, Twilight dismissed her shield and stepped closer again. Still, the figure didn’t move. Stepping to one side she took in the figure’s face. That long noble muzzle, reminiscent of Princess Celestia's but covered in fine black hair. The mane filled with the night sky all its glory, laying flat against its neck. Its eyes, open but unfocused, staring at nothing, their surfaces dry and without sparkle. Its mouth hung agape, fangs evident, the defiant snarl she’d last seen on it replaced by an awkward, ugly expression that hung badly on the elegant muzzle. Its barrel lay low, the lungs empty and unmoving.

With a glance at the figure's flank, Twilight saw that Luna's moon cutie mark was gone, leaving a black and purple space. Even the figure's purpose had been taken.

Twilight sagged to the floor. Had the six of them done this? In freeing Luna from a millennium trapped under Nightmare Moon, had they in fact murdered her captor?

She sat there, not far from the figure – the corpse. She had a hundred questions, but it gave her no answers. It simply lay, gazing at the corner of the room. The moonlight flowed over the broken tops of the two thrones like mist over a waterfall to bring shine to that black hair.

It looked so much like Luna. Like the kind, vulnerable, sensitive mare that Twilight had discovered since her release. How far apart were they really, these two? How far removed from Luna's insecurity was Nightmare Moon's resentful grab for power? Could the mare before her, under different circumstances, have been just like Luna?

Twilight stood and stepped forward with slow, shaky hoofsteps. Part of her still expected the figure to leap up, to reveal it was all a trick, but it didn't.

On reaching the corpse, she slowly knelt down. With one hoof she gently closed one eyelid then the other. She nudged the mouth closed, and tucked the splayed wing into the barrel where it belonged. With this little ritual complete, she stood up straight and backed away.

Friezes full of ponies, caught in the act of history, turned to watch her as she walked slowly out of the chamber, shoulders and head held low.

The hole in the chamber's ceiling was briefly obscured by a shadow as Princess Luna sailed down into the hall from above, dark wings outstretched, landing with four quiet clops on the tiles. She snapped her wings shut neatly and walked quickly over to the body of Nightmare Moon behind the two thrones, taking in the respect paid to the old enemy.

After a moment paying her own respects, she looked up at the retreating form of Twilight Sparkle. With a small kindly smile, she closed her eyes and dipped her head in a curt bow of thanks.

3. Following her hoofsteps

She swam over fields of grass that were swaying in the breeze. She beat her left wing lazily and turned in a slow barrel roll, her mane brushing against the tips of the grass as she span. Returning to something close to upright, she drifted idly across the landscape.

A shoal of moles swam past her, pecking at the tufts of grass with their beaks and kicking the air with their flippers. Were they moles or platypuses, wondered Twilight, and was it platypuses or platypi?

Her attention was drawn, once again, to the setting sun as it spilled consecutive rings of colour across the sky. Passing by overhead was a swirling band of blues and pinks with thin silver stripes, but the sun was now shedding a cyclone of greens and yellows, flecked through with warm golden stars that danced erratically.

Realising she was about to drift into a tree, Twilight beat her wings too hard, sending her careening hoof over haunch into the sky. As her mane billowed past her eyes, she realised it too was full of stars.

She finally came to a stop quite high and surveyed the landscape from above. From here the trees and streams, hills and stones had shrunk into little carved models on a map. Reaching out a hoof, she nudged a small forest, and heard roots being torn from the ground as dozens, hundreds of trees were relocated downhill. She giggled at how easy it was.

In the middle of the forest, on a road that had been hidden by the trees she moved, she now spied a small boxy model with four crude wheels glued onto it. It was painted yellow with a red sloped roof, like a tiny cottage on wheels. Curious, she beat her wings and swam down to the ground.

Even from up close, the cart was small, about the size that one pony could pull. There was nopony in sight though, and the cart sat lonely in the road. It was a box type that could be locked, but the double doors at the back were open, the boxes inside strewn messily about. The luggage appeared to be that of a travelling show of some sort: costumes, make-up, scenery, props and sparklers shovelled haphazardly into boxes and cases.

Stepping around to the other side of the cart, Twilight saw why it was abandoned: one of the wheels had hit a stone in the road and broken its wooden axel. Too much weight had been placed on the rear axel over too many years, without any suspension to soften the impacts of bumpy roads. Eventually the wood had given up.

She saw a trail of hoofsteps leading away from the cart into the forest she'd relocated earlier. They were heavy, as if the pony had been carrying a lot. The smell of disturbed earth and roots reached her nostrils. If she was to find the pony this cart belonged to, she would have to follow that trail.

The trees closed over her head too easily as she stepped into the forest. Turning, she saw no sign of the clearing behind her. Everywhere the ground was turned over, trees hanging at angles, their massive roots arching through the air, clods of earth hanging from them, undergrowth and mosses and ferns in disarray, making it difficult to tread her way through it. The hoofsteps she was following sank deep into the damp soil.

She caught sight of a cave. The hoofsteps clearly led into it, so Twilight followed. She expected the cave to be dark, but as she trotted in she found its walls were lit by a gentle glow. Some sort of bioluminescent lichen, perhaps feeding off the magical aura and using the light to regulate its internal magical pressure? Whatever the light source, Twilight was grateful for it.

The tunnel was broad and easy to walk down, but wound around itself in convoluted twists. At one point she could see through the translucent walls that the passage was actually tied in a knot, that she trotted up, down and around, her hooves flowing over the walls, floor and ceiling. The further from the surface she got, the easier it became to see through the stone, revealing the seams of crystal, the cracks and leylines twisting their way through it, and the twists of the passage she followed. Far away below her burned the fires of magma bubbling up from deep in the earth, casting a red light from beneath.

She looked through the rock at the tunnel ahead, outlined in the same soft lichen glow. It looked like it ended in a huge, round cavern that had been fashioned into a cozy nest, padded with big soft leaves and wood shavings. Curled up in the middle of them snored the giant, cuddly form of an ursa.

Twilight smiled. She'd always been fond of ursas, ever since reading a book about astrofauna as a filly. The drawings had been crude and didn't do them justice, but the descriptions – that she'd later learned were copied near-verbatim from Starswirl’s travel journal – had captivated her imagination. The life cycle of the ursas was fascinating!

The warm, distant glow of the earth's mantle was above her now as she crested the last twist in the tunnel. A soft 'fwump’ sound drew her attention to her own hooves.

That was strange. She'd stepped on a hat. What was a big purple floppy hat doing all the way down here? Maybe the pony she was following had dropped it. She looked curiosity around for any sign of them, but saw none. She was nearing the end of the tunnel now, and that pony must have come down here. Where were they?

She stepped up to the opening where the tunnel joined the cavern and gazed up in awe. It was huge and darker in colour than the one she'd meet before, clearly an ursa major. Constellations swirled within its body. Starswirl had speculated that astrofauna like the ursas were higher-dimensional beings, and that the skies seen in their bodies were glimpses into other universes. Of course, nopony had ever persuaded an ursa to submit to study.

The sound of its snores filled the cavern, reverberating through Twilight's teeth and hooves. And the smell—

Twilight frowned. That wasn't right. She was expecting the smell of warm astral fur, but this was something different. Something sharper. What was that? Dropping her muzzle to the ground she sniffed. She quickly identified where the smell was stronger. Trotting up the wall, she knelt down to get a closer look. The strangely coloured light made it hard to see colours properly. Was it green? Black?

She still couldn't place the smell, but at least it didn't smell toxic. She gingerly extended her tongue to touch the tip of it against the stone. Withdrawing it she pondered the sharp, metallic taste.

The taste of blood.

Her eyes widened as she turned her head up to look at the massive ursa. There, beneath its front paws, she saw a torn fragment of bone, sharp jagged ends with the meat torn from them, and the barest patch of blue pony hair clinging to it.

She realised with a lurch that she was hanging above the ursa, that if she dropped here she'd land on it, waking it up. Her hooves started to lift off the face of the cavern as gravity slowly woke up and turned its ire on Twilight Sparkle.

With a flap of her wings she righted herself and headed for the tunnel, curving her path to avoid skimming the sleeping ursa's massive ear. The whoosh of air as she skidded past caused it to flinch. The sound of snoring turned into a snort, and then a snarl.

Twilight didn't stop. She careened around the slalom of winding tunnels leading back the surface, pushing her wings as hard as she could, knowing without looking that the beast was somewhere close behind. The sound of its hunger filled the tunnel. At points where the passage curved around itself, she could see it through the rock, though that gradually became more opaque as their chase neared the surface.

When she burst out into the forest, Twilight didn't bother retracing her path but instead flew straight up. Only when she was high in the sky did she look back down.

There, amid the cluster of little trees, was a wooden carving of a bear barely bigger than her hoof, painted dark blue and dotted with little white stars.

4. All for one

The sun beat down on the harsh red sand and rocks. The air wavered in the heat. It soaked through Twilight's hooves as she climbed the ridge, seeking a path through. She kept her head low, to pick her steps carefully and to avoid the unforgiving glare.

She glanced to her left. On the horizon sat the city of Canterlot, standing proud against the mountain. It was surrounded by a globe of rose coloured magic, bright even against the relentless desert sun. As well as being round, it was also spiky, like a ball stuck with a hundred needles. Thin, sharp traces of light emanated from the city in every direction.

She turned to the right, but Canterlot was there as well. Raising her head to look ahead of her, she found the city sitting in the distance beyond the ridge she was climbing.

Following a narrow, meandering gulley cut between two outcroppings, she was alarmed to see signs of life – or rather, signs of death. A creature of some sort had died here, crushed and deformed beyond recognition. She couldn’t tell if she was looking at a single limb or the whole animal. Parts of it were green, parts of it were purple, parts of it were black, parts of it were blue. Some of those parts were clearly inside parts rather than outside, but teezing apart which had been which was beyond Twilight's knowledge.

She carried on walking through the narrow gulley. Heat radiated off the stone walls to either side but it was at least shade, blessed relief from the baking sun. Turning a corner she found more parts, of the same creature and others, slowly frying. The next twist revealed more and more of them. Soon it was clear that hundreds of these creatures had died, somehow, their bodies torn apart and flung across this baked landscape. This wasn't a single creature's random death, part of the natural order. This was a slaughter.

A noise ahead and above drew her attention: an intermittent buzzing. Clambering up a scree slope, she found one of the creatures still alive, if barely. Its head was crushed, its clear blue eyes misshapenly both staring at the sky. Its wings were torn to tatters, its body scraped along the ground leaving a dark, messy trail.

Every few seconds the creature would be replaced with the flickering image of a pony, similarly broken. The illusion lasted only a second or two before it gave up. Then it gathered its strength, buzzing in concentration, and tried again. Each time it tried becoming a different pony, different colours and ages and builds and tribes, but all of them broken. No illusion could relieve the fatal injuries it had suffered.

“Twww—”

Twilight's head snapped up as she heard a voice. She scanned the horizon, strewn as it was with corpses, looking for where the voice had come from.

“Twwaah—”

She trotted towards the noise, and found a creature she recognised: the proud queen who had impersonated her foalsitter, seduced her brother, bested the princess, laughed at her friendship and nearly succeeded in conquering the whole country.

At least, most of her.

Her hindquarters were torn away, drawn across the rock in a messy line. Her hind legs and tail were missing, lost somewhere in the bloody trail. Hey fragile wings, like those of the thousands surrounding her, were torn to nothing. Twilight couldn't recognise the innards that had been drawn from the mare’s body.

Her eyes looked up into Twilight's. She breathed a word that Twilight couldn't hear. Cautiously, Twilight stepped closer, wanting to hear what she was saying.

“Shy…”

“What's that? Fluttershy?” She wondered what the queen could want with her quiet friend.

The mare moved her head slowly from side to side, indicating disagreement. She worked her parched lips, and took a trembling breath. With effort she lifted a hoof, though it was bent unnaturally. Twilight leaned closer, taking the hoof.

“…Shining Ar…r…”

The last breath faded from her throat and her hoof fell limp.

5. What a princess must

The sun washed gently across the balcony, reflecting off the freshly painted banister and the recently washed and quickly drying flagstones. It shone through Princess Celestia's hair as it was lifted by the breeze, and picked up highlights in the intricately painted teapot. The wooden table under Twilight's forehoof and the teacup held in her aura were reassuringly solid and real.

But Twilight had just one priority item on her checklist for the day. She gathered her strength and asked, “Princess Celestia, have you … have you ever killed somepony?”

Celestia's teacup paused in the air for barely a moment before she set it down. “So that's what it is. I’ve had an inkling that something was amiss from the tone in your letters recently. I take it this question has been troubling you?”

Twilight nodded, not meeting her mentor's eyes. “I've been—” She stopped, looking away, as if confessing a crime. “I've been having nightmares,” she whispered.

Celestia looked on kindly. “Nightmares? You know that's nothing to be ashamed of, Twilight. Everypony has nightmares. Tell me, what are they about?”

“They're about each the villains we've defeated. Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis …”

“You're worried they may come back?” Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but Celestia interrupted her. “It’s all right. It's quite normal, after experiencing conflict like that, for the memories of those emotions to remain with you. You aren't an emotionless statue, Twilight, and nor were the heroes we remember as having done great things in the past. Lingering fears are to be expected, and it doesn't make you any less courageous for having faced them. But I promise you, they are gone.”

Twilight still hadn't met her gaze. “That's not it, princess. It's something else.”

“Oh?”

“They're not dreams about losing, or the bad ponies coming back, they're about, well … winning.” The Princess frowned. “And then what happens after that.”

“After that?”

Twilight forced the words out of her. She could keep nothing from Celestia. “What happens, or happened, to those we've defeated. Whether they're trapped in stone, or imprisoned, or …” She swallowed. “… or dead.”

“Ah, I see,” said Celestia. She'd been prepared to comfort Twilight's fears, as she had for the filly before, but victor's guilt was a very different subject. She took a moment to let Twilight talk, and to consider the right approach.

“I'm being silly, I know,” said Twilight quickly. “I mean, Discord isn't even imprisoned any more. I saw him just the other day at Fluttershy’s cottage, laughing and messing with the gravity. Which, let me tell you, is less fun than it sounds when there are animal droppings in the room.”

Celestia chuckled.

“And Nightmare Moon was actually Princess Luna, who's alive and well and joining us for dinner later. But it's got me thinking. In just the last couple of years, we've had to face a bunch of different threats like that.”

“You have. And you've all done extraordinarily well,” Celestia reassured her.

Twilight frowned. “But before that, you had to deal with things like that alone. Any number of them in the last thousands years. And before that you and Luna faced them together.”

“We did.”

“And I can't help … wonder if you always had the luxury we did, of reforming or saving the villains you faced.”

“I think I understand. You're concerned about the price of victory. You're worried about what exactly my sister and I may have had to do in the past – what I've had to do,” she corrected herself, “in order to safeguard Equestria.”

Twilight nodded. “That's right.”

“Well, you've read the histories, Twilight. You should already know the answer to your question.”

“I know,” admitted Twilight, tapping her hooves together nervously, “but I always, kind of…read around those bits.”

“Because you didn't want to read anything negative about me?”

“Uh-huh,” she confirmed.

Celestia paused, considering. “Tell me, what can you remember about the Nightmare Wars?”

The name sounded ominous, but still Twilight perked up. A history question! This she could handle. “Well, it's the name given to a cluster of minor wars and rebellions that all occurred in the early years AC – which is to say, around a thousand years ago, give or take,” she replied promptly. “They don't represent a single concerted campaign, but rather a short period of a few months or years marked by a number of otherwise isolated conflicts.”

Celestia dipped her head to her student. “Broadly true, but missing some vital details.” Twilight's face fell slightly – she hated being wrong. “These conflicts didn't simply happen a thousand years ago. They began immediately after my own banishment of Nightmare Moon. In fact, the Long Night and our battle at the Castle of the Two Sisters could be considered the first of the Nightmare Wars. The first military action between city states began just two weeks after that.”

Twilight was surprised. “The books I read didn't say anything about that at all! They described each of the local campaigns as happening on its own, for some other reason. Reports from the time often disagreed over the exact cause of each conflict, but they each appear to have arisen out of purely local grudges.”

“That isn't entirely surprising. History is written by the winners, and there were no winners in the Nightmare Wars. Tell me though, what drives ponies to wage war?”

Despite some trepidation over where this conversation could be headed, Twilight endeavored to answer her mentor's question. “Well, no sane pony would go to war on a whim. The cost of war, in money, casualties, and lost production and culture, inevitably outweighs any practical benefits, so it should only be possible when ponies believe the consequences of inaction to be worse than that cost of action. This typically happens only when they're responding to an outside threat.”

“That would be true of a single rational pony, but again you're missing a key aspect of it.” Twilight pouted a little. “Very rarely is the decision to wage war made by just a single pony. No ruler can declare war without the support of their population, or a large portion of it at least. It simply wouldn't be possible. So?” she prompted.

Twilight picked up the cue. “So, what would cause a population of ponies to think war was necessary?” Celestia nodded. “Um. Large groups tend not to think as rationally as individuals, so…the same thing, but on a less…rational level, I suppose? Ponies would have to believe that there was a threat of some sort. A threat that must be faced, or else they’d face worse consequences.”

“Fear,” clarified Celestia. “For war to happen, there needs to be an atmosphere of desperate fear in the population. It matters little if the cause of that fear is rational, or even true. And a particularly skilled public speaker can change the mood of a group to their advantage, stirring up fear and creating an environment suitable for war, but they need something to work with first. There needs to be an undercurrent of fear amid the population that they can dredge to the surface.”

“But some wars are necessary, princess! There are times ponies have had to defend themselves.”

“Some are, yes. But fewer than you imagine. Most wars do not have a clear good and evil, an aggressor and a victim, but instead occur between two forces that each believe themselves to be defending what they must.”

Twilight felt increasingly uneasy. This wasn't a topic the princess had ever talked to her about, nor one she felt prepared for. Yet the desire to learn and to please her mentor kept her attentive.

“With that in mind,” continued Celestia, “what do you think may have caused the Nightmare Wars?”

Twilight obediently connected the dots. “A lot of ponies, all across Equestria, must have been afraid all at once. After Luna turned into Nightmare Moon, and you banished her, they…lost confidence that you could protect them?”

“That’s right. Much of the mistrust was stirred up by troublesome ponies who saw a chance to profit from the conflict, but the seeds of that fear were planted during the Long Night.”

“Was that really enough reason for … millions of ponies to feel so afraid? Was that all it took?”

“Think of it from their perspective, Twilight, and remember that the Long Night was in fact nearly a week long. A whole week of darkness across all Equestria. A week during which the certain, regular motion of the sun and moon across the sky, that they'd taken for granted all their lives, simply went away, with no explanation. A week when warm autumn turned suddenly into frozen winter, threatening their crops. A week when they couldn't travel or spread news. A week of huddling together in the cold, unsure of what was happening or if it would ever end.”

“But you brought the sun back, princess! You put everything right.”

Celestia shook her head. “Not everything. I had the power to put the sun and moon back in the heavens, but I could not restore the trust that had been lost. Ponies no longer believed that I could protect them. Some feared invasion from the gryphons, or the yaks, or the arimaspi, or the return of the Crystal Empire. Others feared the avarice the saw in each other, even as a reflection of their own.”

“But those fears were unfounded!”

“Were they? The gryphon invasion of Cloudsdale in 314 AC would suggest otherwise.” Twilight grumbled quietly acknowledgement. Celestia continued, “And so, each kingdom felt the need to defend itself. They gathered up arms and armour, recruited or conscripted or hired soldiers, and began preparing for the worst.”

“Wouldn't that just mean they each sat waiting for the other to act? A stalemate?”

“It would, but when a bow has been pulled so tight it needs only the slightest touch to release it. Each kingdom saw the preparations their neighbours were making and was nervous about what they were planning. Each city divided saw the other side preparing for conflict. It took only a single pony to voice the thought that ‘we need to strike them before they are ready to strike against us’. The defending nation called on their allies to help them hit back against the attacker, while the other side called on its own allies in turn. One by one the dominos fell, and before long, sides and alliances were forgotten, as the whole of Equestria descended into war.”

“But you stopped them, right? You must have done. It's been centuries since there was a war in Equestria.”

“Indeed I did, though it wasn't easy.”

“What did you do?” asked Twilight. She almost expected a magic artefact or spell to restore faith in the power of friendship.

“I issued a Royal Decree that no armed force was to leave its own territory, no matter the circumstances, without the agreement of a council of kingdoms. Any army found leaving its home land to attack another would be stopped, with lethal force if necessary.”

Twilight was disappointed. “That's it?”

“The decree served a dual purpose: not only to prevent any kingdom from launching an invasion against another, but more importantly to mitigate the fear of invasion from other kingdoms. Without that fear, the desire and conditions for conflict would eventually subside.”

“And they all followed it?”

“I'm afraid not. Nor did I truly expect them to, though I'd hoped the truce would last at least a little longer than it did. In fact it was less than a moon before my bluff was called, and in my own back yard: the armies of Cloudsdale led by General White Lightning, and those of Canterlot let by Prince Nebula, marched to face each other.”

“What did you do?”

“I had no choice. If my decree was to mean anything at all, it needed to be seen to be enforced decisively. I had to act.”

“So your own army engaged them?”

Celestia shook her head. “No. Remember, Twilight, if the rule of law is to protect anypony, it must apply to everypony, without exception – even for a princess. My own army were subject to the same law as all the others, which is why they had to stay at home in Everfree. Besides, they were tired out from their own recent battles. Instead I flew out to stop them on my own. It took some persuading, since many of my soldiers wished to defend their princess.”

“You faced both armies without any force of your own? All alone?” asked Twilight incredulously.

Celestia nodded, and picked up her teacup. With an even voice, she calmly stated, “I killed fourteen thousand pegasi and eleven thousand unicorns that day.”

Twilight was dumbfounded. Her world dropped away. She sat there, unable to speak or move, caught between shock, incomprehension and a growing terror. Every detail of the garden around them snapped into focus: the wooden table, the tea set, the smell of flowers and tea and earth and pony, the breath in her nostrils, they all flooded into her brain as it sought something, anything to think about beyond the horrible truth of that statement.

Her eyes flicked from the floating teacup held in a golden aura, to Celestia's long, tapered horn. Magnificent compared to any mere unicorn's horn, Twilight had always admired it. She had such fond memories of embracing the princess, and feeling that horn rest against the side of her head. It was the instrument she used to raise the sun each day. The same instrument she'd used to kill thousands upon thousands of ponies. So many of them, so quickly, that she couldn't even have been aware of each one.

She thought of all the ponies she knew in Ponyville, passed by every day, waved ‘good morning’ to. She thought of all those lives ending, suddenly, all at once. She tried to think of that a hundred times over, but she couldn't. The number simply didn't feel like a real thing.

Worst of all, Twilight realised with rising disgust that a part of her was still curious about it, that she wanted to know why Cloudsdale had fielded the larger force, how their forces had been arrayed in the field, exactly where and when this battle had happened, what socioeconomic forces had driven it, and what magic the princess had used to…

To kill. To slaughter. To decimate. To murder. To indiscriminately end so many lives.

She felt sick. The tea sat uncomfortably in her stomach. Across from her the princess still sat, calm and unmoved, with that same classic smile. The smile that Twilight Sparkle loved. That she now realised she hated. Bile gathered in her throat, threatening to block it.

“Excuse me,” she mumbled as she staggered out of the chair and along the path leading through the palace gardens.

6. Epilogue

Celestia sat at the table and watched her student leave.

Luna trotted up to the table, her expression dour. Her eyes followed the dejected young princess winding through the gardens to her tower. “I believe you may have broken her heart.”

“I have no doubt that I did,” said Celestia with a sigh, allowing her façade to fall and dropping her head in dejection.

“Was that strictly necessary? You realise that her nightmares will only get worse now.”

“For a few short years, yes. And some of them will inevitably contain myself, cast as an agent of destruction. I shall have to entrust the care of her during those times to you, dear sister. But some day, when the time comes for her to defend this land against a true threat, one beyond the reach of mercy, she will be better prepared for it.” She turned to look into Luna’s eyes. “More prepared than we ever were.”

“You would inflict such hardship on her now to save her from worse in the future?”

“I would do what a princess must.”

“’Tis a ruthless gamble. You realise that the repercussions of this choice will affect to the other five bearers of the Elements, and through them countless other ponies. Though they may never understand why, they shan’t be the same again.”

“Even so, dear sister. As before, as always, I will do whatever I must to safeguard the future of my children.”

“Even at the cost of Twilight's heart?”

“Even so.”

Luna sat down in the adjacent seat. “You have become altogether too cunning in your dotage, sister. I cannot say that I approve. But tell me something.” She leaned close to her sister's ear. “What truly happened on the field of battle that day?”

A small smile returned to Celestia's downcast features. “I reminded Prince Nebula of his embarrassing infatuation with one of my hoofmaidens some years previously, and General White Rainbow of the quite substantial amount of money she owed me. Under the circumstances, they both reluctantly agreed to stand down. No battle was fought, and nopony died on that field.”

Luna released the nervous breath she was holding. “I am much relieved to hear it. I remember young Nebula as a colt, chasing butterflies amid our legs.” They shared a nostalgic smile.

“He went on to chair the reformed Equestrian Council, which helped to restore peace to the land.”

“And why did you choose to relate to her a false incident, when there are enough real ones you could have used? For example, during the gryphon war you mentioned. Some day she is sure to realise your deceit.”

“That is precisely why. When that day comes, her fear of me will be shaken, allowing us to gain a degree of reconciliation.”

“You are ever optimistic, sister.”

Celestia nodded, her expression serious. “I do believe in ponies. And particularly, I believe in her.”

“I can see why. Still, I fear your memory may have betrayed you over one trifling matter.”

“Oh?”

“’Twas one of my hoofmaidens with whom he was enamoured, not thine,” replied Luna playfully.

“I think not,” cautioned Celestia.

“Ah, ’tis such a shame when an old nag’s memory fails her,” lamented Luna.