An Eternal Evening

Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,

I realized that I did not greet or close my last letter to you; I was frantically putting my words into parchment because I wasn’t sure if they would have held onto my memory if I had stalled any more. I found some irony in the situation, at least; I can memorize whole books and documents but when it comes to memory I’m worse than a goldfish. Fortunately, after sitting on my thoughts for a few days I seem to recall most of the events that occurred.

The first was that yelling out an order of evacuation stirs panic. Everypony scrambled for the exits, but the guards stepped in to prevent too much chaos. I started to trot to an exit but first glanced back at The Affliction.

She wore a look that I had only seen once before when we were both young fillies. We had both escaped our cottage in the middle of the night to gallop down to a creek. We had loads of fun until we both fell asleep and woke up the next morning to find out our mother was ready to destroy us. Luna, who was never a morning person, was still groggy. I blamed the whole outing on her and escaped with no problem. The look she gave me was the same as then: betrayal and anger.

I turned away and left the castle.

The Everfree wasn’t once so natural, and had a normal amount of trees for a forest. The brisk night air rushed in between them in a whir, with a moon so luminous I could see as clear as day.

Past the large outside staircase stood a large crowd all unified in confusion. As I stepped up onto the top staircase all eyes turned toward me.

I had to explain a situation I didn’t understand.

My posture became evidently lackluster; I eyed my hooves until reluctantly glancing up.

“I assume most of you want to know why you’ve been interrupted from your normal duties tonight, and I, uh, can explain why,” words flew out of my mouth, “We have a situation inside the castle that some of you are aware of. My sister, Princess Luna, has two hostages held against their will inside. She has requested that we build a statue and monument,” I turned toward the Northern Mountain, “On that mountain over there. We will start as soon as possible.”

I scanned the crowd for reactions; they were unconvinced.

“You’ve kicked us out of our home and expect us to go building? That’s not fair,” Somepony in the crowd stated, “I’m going to go to the farmhouse nearby and wait until this blows over. Who’s with me?”

Ponies started to turn around and walk away, and what was left of my confidence started to falter. Chefs, guards, workers, lawmen, and everypony else didn’t care enough to stay.

“That was not a suggestion! It was an order!” I yelled.

It didn’t work. The crowd was quickly dwindling down to a minute amount of ponies that were still watching me.

“If anyone thinks they can get away with this they are wrong! Come back now and there will be no punishments...” My voice trailed off. Eveypony was walking away, and more ponies started to drift out of view.

Is this what I had come to? Leadership, stability, and any semblance of normalcy I held had been thrown away in an amount of time shorter than a normal court session. I wonder now, looking back from the present, if every event transpired so fast. Has age and natural instinct shortened down how I view my life?

I can't say I remember everything I that went through my head back then; but I remember the words that came out of my muzzle.

“Fine! But if you leave, don’t consider yourself an Equestrian!”

There are right things to say in every situation, and I hit one. I straightened out my back and raised my head in a regal position.

“That’s right. All I—all we have worked for in Equestria is to build a nation not on war, destitution, or hatred. One thing that I have encouraged since day one is to work together and not give up on each other. We all share this castle as a home, and that means we are family. There is no possibility that not a single pony here cares about the two ponies that could be harmed or worse right now.”

Some ponies had stopped walking. One of them was an indigo-coated guard stallion.

“You!” I pointed a hoof at him. “Did you see the guard who is being held in there?”

He paused and glanced around. “I saw who it was, yes.”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes, I did.” Each guard spent more time in the lounge than actually on duty. The chances of a guard not knowing another would be rare. “We played hoofball together.”

“And what happens if you walk away tonight?” I stomped a hoof on the ground. “Goodbye hoofball, and goodbye to your friend. If I was the pony being held inside there, plenty of ponies would try and save their Princess. But when it’s a guard? By not helping another when something gets tough, we’re diminishing our own worth as Equestrians. If we give up on one another we’re damning ourselves to failure.”

Most of the ponies had turned back towards me or were already listening in. One pony yelled, “Why can’t you just fight her? It seems like an easier option!” The idea was tempting.

“My sister has never acted this way since before tonight, and I have known her longer than all of you have been alive. Our Luna wanted nothing but our nation to grow and to protect it. I’ve come to the conclusion that something sinister—an affliction, you could say—has attached itself to her with the intent to maim and destroy us. That is no longer Luna, but a monster who will not stop at any cost.” I didn’t know If The Affliction could hear me, but I hoped she could. “If I fight her and lose, there is nopony who can stand up to her and come out alive. Plus, going in to fight her would put both of the hostages in danger.

“We’re still thinking too far ahead; we need to get those ponies out of there, and the easiest course is to follow what The Affliction says. I need everypony to join together and help one another.”

Herd mentality is an interesting thing; the herd's leader had been reestablished and everypony was in front of me in a blink.

I scanned the full crowd all eagerly watching me. There was something about the way they all were engaged: it was lively and patriotic. I could feel the crowd’s excitement rush through me, and I blasted out with my loudest voice, “We can fight in our own way, and fight we will! Who will we fight for?” I paused.

Everypony was near jumping with excitement. I took in a great breath and the whole crowd exploded with unitedly noise,

“THE PONIES OF EQUESTRIA!”

I had done it; every member of the castle was ready to work on the monument. I could feel the adrenaline surging through me, and I was just as ecstatic as everyone else. The moment was, for lack of a better word, awesome.

My attention was drawn away from the crowd when I saw a small object appear in the air in front of me. It twinkled and fell to the ground with a clink. On closer inspection it was a small shard of a sanguine gem.

I didn’t want to admit to myself what I thought it was.

I picked the remnant up with my magical aura and started to examine it. The magical energy it was transferring to me just from holding it was enormous. I needed to keep this out of The Affliction’s knowledge and sight.

“Does anyone have a pair of saddlebags?”

After finding a pair that would fit my size, I gently placed the red shard at the bottom of my left pouch.

The ponies were starting to get jittery from the lack of work mixed with the excitement. A plan was needed.

"Okay everypony, listen up," I started, "I'll need three ponies to direct each species. Do we have any volunteers?"

Two stallions and one mare emerged from the crowd: Sky Flyer, the gray-coated weather manager, Mixed In, our head baker, and Clean Tome, the head unicorn librarian. I went down the steps and met them at the front of the crowd.

"Okay," I said, "Our goal is to build the foundation and outline of the monument on the mountain. If she wants to have half of it built and see it from inside the castle, it will need to be fairly large. So, we'll need materials."

"There are plenty of trees we can cut down," Sky Flyer suggested.

"That's what I was thinking," I responded, "All three of you should create teams of three to six ponies, send them out on a radius from this spot, and have them work their way back here. Make sure that they get as much material as possible."

"Wait," Mixed In interrupted, "We can't cut down everything. Leave trees that are of other uses, like apple trees, and anything that isn't worth picking up."

Clean Tome entered the conversation. "Speaking of apples, we'll need nourishment. You've still interrupted everypony's night, so food and rest are going to be necessary."

"You're right," I said. "Set up a camp here. Once you've made some groups, allow some to rest in shifts and others to go find food."

"Most importantly," Sky Flyer said, "What is this monument going to look like? We'll need building plans and ponies who understand construction."

I grimaced. "That's going to be the hard part. Eventually we're going to take some groups and split them up to start building. I'm going to go to the mountain now and see how we can build onto it."

Nopony continued on, so I nodded. "Get started then," I ordered without a smile.

They each nodded and turned around toward the ponies. As they started to organize, I took to the air.

The mountain was colossal, even from a far away distance. I flew through the night air above the blanket of trees and as the mountain took up more of my vision I began to make up some ideas.

Excavating or carving into the side was out of the picture; it would take too much time, and it was surrounded by problematic areas like a waterfall flowing down the side and a snowy apex.

I flew onto a perch on the side of the mountain. The cold stone echoed with each hoofstep I took.

A statue leaning on or being supported by the mountain could work. I imagined a mountain-sized Luna leaning against the side with a hoof, gazing across the landscape.

I couldn't see her without that look.

I turned away from the large view of the mountain and stared at ground far below me. Hoofsteps that were not my own grew louder and louder until they stopped right behind me. The unknown pony spoke.

"I loved the speech—it was very uplifting, and I would've done worse if our roles were reversed—but isn't it just a bit hypocritical?"

I looked up at the mare who had just spoken only to gawk in absolute shock.

The mare who Luna was holding hostage was right in front of me, completely free.

Princess Celestia