Obscurum Descensus

Obscurum Decensus Epilogue

Rain started to sprinkle from the sky. It came down like a soft massage to faintly wet the grass and the trees that surrounded the gathered groups of ponies. A slight wind picked up the leaves that had fallen lazily onto the earth and created a beautiful display of reddish spirals and loops. A single cough could be heard from the back of the audience, the mourners, that broke the uneasy silence. All was quiet as a dark blue alicorn slowly walked up to the podium with only the amount of grace and authority that was appropriate for such an occasion.

Princess Luna turned to face the audience of Night Guard ponies that had gathered in the central square of Gallopfrey. The city was dedicated to the outlandish pony race and reflected their styles and tastes in both architecture and layout. Beautiful and eerie gothic buildings and fences filled the city which a magnificent cathedral at its center. The cathedral spires extended hundreds of feet into the air and dwarfed all other buildings in the vicinity. The central square was built in front of the cathedral across the wide street that Night Guards usually traversed during every hour of a normal day.

This day, however, was not normal. Princess Luna, one of the royal princesses of Equestria and the pony that nearly drove their race to extinction, was visiting the city on an important errand. She stood at the head of the two rows of Night Guards with her head held high but her face full of sorrow. The streets all around the cathedral had been cleared for the event that was about to begin. Luna cleared her throat and looked down at her notes.

She just stared and stared at what she had written before her. The seconds dragged on to minutes and the princess heard another pony give a cough in the back row again. She sighed and looked up across all of the ponies that had decided to attend. With a burst of her magic she burned the speech she had spent all night creating.

Luna’s voice was a mere whisper to the point where the ponies in the back had to strain to hear her. “There are consequences for every action made, for every decision carried out. It could be something as small as forgetting to take out the garbage and then your kitchen smells putrid the next day. It could be as large as fueling a nation’s war machine to the point of exhaustion. Consequences do not have to be bad, they do not have to be good, but they must always be present to ensure stability and harmony within the world.

“I have made many decisions I am not proud of. There is nothing truer or more pure of a sign of somepony’s mortality than making a mistake. I am of no exception. I stole a cookie from the royal kitchens and was scolded by my mother. I betrayed my sister for power and glory. I watched as my best friend was murdered before my eyes.”

She paused and looked down, a tear creeping along her eyes and slowly falling down her face. She spoke louder and with more enthusiasm. “His death did not go in vain, however. He had known the consequences of his actions ahead of time. He had made his decision and decided to make a commitment. Not only had Dime bought me the necessary time I needed to open the door to the Element of Chaos but he had protected the princess he had served with his very life. He upheld the oaths he swore down to the very letter and with the upmost amount of chivalry.

“That is not the reason Dime sacrificed his life for me, though. When I first returned from my banishment to the moon and separation from the Nightmare I had a very hard time fitting in. I could see the many ponies that still looked on at me with fear and contempt. I became an emotional wreck and had decided that I just wanted to stay cooped up in my room. I would not hold court and I would not make any more public appearances for anypony. There was one pony who walked into my chambers that day, however, that changed my mind. He stayed with me into the early morning hours comforting me and making me laugh the heartiest laughs I have expressed since my return.

“The reason why he sacrificed himself for me is because I was his closest friend.”

Princess Luna turned towards the empty casket that lay before her, tears now streaming freely down her face. “And Dime was my closest friend. I’ll miss you.” She said quietly to herself. She levitated a bouquet of flowers over from the table that was set up next to the casket and stared at the beautiful assortment of red tulips and white daisies.

With one last sigh she dropped the flowers into the casket and left the podium at a slow trot.

The Princess of the Night sat underneath the largest weeping willow in Gallopfrey’s central park. Her wings hung limp against the ground and she stared at the dirt at her hooves. All she could think about was the day that she had been found by her sister in the Tramplevanian Alps.

She had woken up to shouts coming from a distance. Her eyes had fluttered open slowly and she groaned from the pain that started to course through her body. There were more and more shouts and when she looked up to see the source of the noise she saw that there were a couple of pure white pegasi above her adorned in sparkling golden armor. One of them flew towards her, no doubt noticing she was awake…

~~~

“Princess Luna! Princess, are you alright?”

Luna only sobbed however. She burst into tears while an extraordinary amount of pain racked every part of her body. She felt sore, tired, maimed, and most of all she felt broken. Here she was, Princess Luna, getting rescued by one of the Royal Canterlot Guards while her friend, Dime, had been slain back inside the castle.

“Don’t worry princess, your sister is on her way. She should be here shortly.” The guard said in a gentle tone as he looked around. “We need to get you under some cover and out of the snow. C’mon, there is a tree close by.”

With that being said, the guard lifted Luna as gently as he could onto his back and carried her over to the tree. She winced at each step he took but she did not voice her complaints and instead continued to allow tears to stream down her face. Soon there was another guard that flew down to assist getting Luna to the tree and together they managed to get under cover in under a minute.

The princess was laid down on her sides and was being inspected by the new guard that had recently arrived. He appeared to be a medic as he was carrying saddlebags full of medical supplies. He started to tend to the wounds Luna had sustained while she continued to bury her face in her hooves and the dirt, completely oblivious to the steady stream of guards that started to arrive and set up a perimeter around the princess.

“Is she going to be alright?” Came a gentle and soothing voice above Luna.

“Well, she has sustained many injuries throughout her entire body as well as some fractures to her ribs and back left hoof. Her hoof needs to see medical attention immediately and even then I’m not sure it will ever fully heal again. She also seems to have experienced some emotional trauma.” A gruff voice replied.

“Please see to her hoof. If you guards wouldn’t mind, would you please give my sister and I some space?”

There was some shuffling in the light snow and soon Luna felt something warm and soft brush up against her side. She slowly looked up and saw that her sister was lying down next to her and staring off into the distance. She had a softness in her eyes that reminded Luna of their mother. She turned to look at what Celestia was looking at.

Across a valley sat the remnants of the Nazi Pony castle. It looked to be lying in ruins with its spires crumbling and its walls and towers either collapsed or missing all together. The whole castle was a total wreck from when Luna first entered. She sighed and looked back up to her sister.

“’Tia, I’m so sorry I…”

“There is no need to apologize, Luna. I know you have been through a lot. Just relax while Feather Spell tends to your injuries.” Celestia looked down at her sister with a sorrowful smile. Her eyes showed the pain she felt to see her sister left in the state she was in.

Luna turned her head back to look towards the castle and laid it down on top of her crossed hooves. She sniffled a little and mentally kicked herself for acting like such a foal in front of all of the guards and her sister. She spoke very softly. “Dime is dead, ‘Tia.”

A large and comforting wing spread over Luna’s body and embraced her with a gentle hug. The dark blue alicorn looked up at her bigger sister and brought her face up to nuzzle the base of Celestia’s neck. Her sister brought her head down to nuzzle her cheek on Luna’s. Celestia spoke just as softly. “I’m sure Dime made you proud, Woona. Never forget what he did for you.”

A few more tears escaped Luna’s eyes as she listened to her sister’s words. Her wings started to sag a little but she tried to hold onto her emotions. She couldn’t break down in front of her sister and the guards again. Soon, both princesses looked up as several hoofsteps started to draw near them.

“Greetings, Luna. I just wanted to see if you were alright.” Said Shadow in her usual soft and timid voice.

Luna gave her a slight and sad smile and beckoned her over. “I know I can’t hide anything from you. Please come sit next to me.”

Shadow complied and slowly lay down next to her princess. The Night Guard could only stare ahead at the grotesque looking castle. “Dime is really gone, isn’t he?”

Princess Luna only sighed and stared ahead with her friend.

~~~

There was the soft clop of hooves on grass that awoke Luna from her very recent memories. She slowly looked up and saw that Shadow was approaching her. The rain had really started to fall now and most of the Night Guards that had attended the funeral were now rushing home out of the storm. Shadow’s mane and coat were soaked. She stopped in front of Luna.

“We should probably start to head back to Canterlot, Luna. It would not be right of us to put off anymore of the wedding. And besides, you look absolutely soaked.”

Suddenly the princess felt the wetness that clung to her body. She visibly shivered and got to her hooves, standing now a head taller than her Night Guard. “Yes, you are right. Let us be off then”

The two ponies cleared the willow and took flight, speedily making their exit from the city of Gallopfrey and started their long trek north towards Canterlot. If they made good time with the wind behind their backs they should make it to the Royal Wedding before the late hours of the evening. Luna could not miss her own niece’s wedding.

As the two ponies reached just the very edges of the island that Gallopfrey was built upon the intensity of the storm started to grow. Rain was falling more heavily now, soaking both Shadow’s and Luna’s coats, while the wind was billowing in every direction. Luna flew closer to Shadow and had to shout above the roar of the winds.

“We should get above the clouds!”

Shadow nodded her head in agreement and the two ponies started their ascent above the clouds. In no later than five minutes their heads finally poked above the top of the dark clouds and they were washed over by the rays of the sun. Shadow and Luna leveled off so their hooves just brushed the very tips of the puffy clouds and both remained relatively silent for a long while.

Finally, as the storm clouds started to clear beneath their hooves and the first signs of the Equestrian coast was spotted off in the distance, Shadow finally broke the silence. “Luna?”

“Yes, Shadow?”

Shadow visibly hesitated as Luna looked over at her. “Do… Do you think you could tell me how Dime died?”

The princess looked back ahead of her and then down, watching as the Southern Beaches passed below them. “Yes. Yes, I guess you do deserve to know. Dime was as much a friend to me as he was to you. If you could please give me a moment.”

The two flew on a bit longer in silence, watching as rolling plains of grass flew under them. Luna did not speak again until the city of Fillydelphia came into view. “There are things I saw in that castle that I never wish to see again. Memories, visions, creatures. They were all horrifying and grotesque beyond imagination. Yet I lived through it. Dime didn’t live through it.

“He made his final stand against one of the creatures that threatened our lives. He pleaded for me to let him do his job, to follow his oaths, while I unlocked the door for both of us. When I finally succeeded, I turned around to see that it was too late. Dime’s previous injuries were already wearing him down while the creature seemed to be immune to pain no matter how many times Dime managed to get the upper hand on it. It managed to catch Dime off guard, stabbing a spike that replaced one of its legs through one of Dime’s hooves. It then tossed Dime like a rag doll across the room and finished him with a stab through the throat.”

The princess fell silent and stared at the city that passed underneath the two darkly colored ponies. Shadow looked over at Luna. “He died any way a Night Guard would wish to perish: in the midst of battle defending what he loves the most. He loved you just like a loved Equestria. There is no higher moral or greater act of chivalry than what Dime displayed that day. I am proud of what he did.

“And I know you are proud of what he did as well, Luna. You knew his motives. You knew he wasn’t trying to be a hero. You knew that he was protecting you and everything we love. He pushed aside all of the fears and the doubts that that occupied his mind and replaced them with you, with me, and with his home. He could have made no greater sacrifice.

“And so I say to you, Princess of the Night and Co-Ruler of Equestria, there is no need to wallow in self-pity and remorse over something that you could not have predicted or changed. Instead you should take pride and give respect to the feats that Dime has done over the course of his time as a Royal Night Guard, as a friend, and as a hero.”

Luna looked up and over to Shadow, a small smile forming on her face. “Both you and Dime always have sound advice in the times when I need some. A princess is not always wise and it was a real asset to have both you and Dime as my advisors to make up for that. I thank you, Shadow, for all that you have done for me.”

Shadow just blushed at the compliment from her princess and then flew on ahead a bit, looking back when she was still within shouting distance. “So, do you want to be late to your niece’s wedding or what?”

The princess grinned, accepting the challenge. “I’ll race you there”

“I don’t see how that’s fair being you’re a princess.”

“Okay, fine, I won’t use my magic.”