Our species is known for many things. We’re the Children of the Night, servants to Princess Luna, and we serve as her Lunar Guard.
But like anything that claims to have completely cracked a code, that is merely a fraction of the full story. Nopony knows why we’re Children of the Night, or why we serve Princess Luna. They merely know that we do.
Most ponies can’t be bothered to view the batpony archives. However, it’s my job. Much like Celestia has a secretary, I, Io, am Princess Luna’s.
Contrary to popular belief, we aren’t all part of The Lunar Guard. There’s batponies who are carpenters, office workers, and obviously secretaries, as I am.
One of the draws of the job is to organize the history. Mother, or Princess Luna as you may know her, doesn’t really like when things are out of place.
Of course, I can’t help but to take a peek every now and then. Batponies are an interesting species, and the history of us includes accusations, rampant stereotyping, and us being outcasts in a modern Equestria.
It actually makes for good reading on particularly slow days.
Ah, but I’m sure that you want to learn about this history. Otherwise you wouldn’t have stuck around for this long.
Batponies go back thousands of years, all the way back to the original three-race split, back to earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi.
According to the rather old manuscripts, or what is still legible of them, batponies were witnesses to this split. However, we kept to ourselves, not wanting to deal with whatever the normal ponies were dealing with. We were quiet, and lived in solitude, and we liked it that way.
Even upon Mother taking over, Princess Celestia with her, we hadn’t found solace in her yet. We self-governed. The ponies thought that we were unusual creatures, keeping to ourselves. We weren’t built like normal ponies were, with our leathery wings and sharp fangs.
Now of course, there was a rumor mill on both sides. According to the batponies of old, Equestrians were bizzare creatures who valued togetherness over solitude, and would rather be privy to a leader who had the final say so long as they kept the society together.
Of course, nothing is confirmed, but according to the old manuscripts, Equestrians, or at least batponies’ view on what Equestrians viewed batponies as (complicated, I know), seemed to believe that batponies were antisocial creatures who were carnivorous and could eat foals if they so wished.
Division sows division. So, the two sects, that of Equestrians and that of batponies, grew further and further apart.
Soon, a few generations had passed, about a hundred or so years after Nightmare Moon’s banishment, to be exact. The batponies started to wonder why they were so apart from Equestrians.
A few batponies went over, tried to integrate. However, the years had not been kind to Equestrian perception. Some of the old manuscripts mentioned that those same few batponies came back to town, bloodied and bruised. One was even quoted as saying, “They came at us. They called us ponyhunters, derided our sharp fangs, and tried to burn our wings. We barely escaped.”
Many tried to fight back. Very few made it out.
It isn’t entirely wrong to assume that the batponies’ initial adverse reactions to Equestrians had a hoof in this, as I assume at least some of you are thinking. However, from the perspective of the batponies, they were ostracized and forbidden from getting a second chance.
Those thousand years passed quickly. The batponies grew ever more confined to their town as Equestria expanded. The bitterest of them claimed that the ponies were taking over and syphoning their freedom.
The relationship between species didn’t get any better. If anything, they only grew more cold, having had the stereotypical ideas of Equestrians baked into their minds from generations prior. However, this time, they weren’t overly friendly, and off-putting as a result. They were killers, oppressors, and expanding at a pace beyond anybat’s control.
The Equestrians incidentally thought the same thing, but it was because of the batponies that fought back. The ones who sank their fangs into the ponies without remorse.
The files repeat the same thing every decade in those thousand years, batponies growing ever more bitter at Equestrians. Every decade, anger makes it somewhere in there, sometimes as an aside, sometimes as the main point.
When Nightmare Moon returned, batponies rejoiced. Their Equestrian oppressors were finally getting pushed aside just like batponies had been for the past thousand years, finally getting defeated.
When Nightmare Moon was the one defeated instead, batponies wondered if their time was finally up.
As had been demonstrated for the past thousand years, it turned out that Equestrians didn’t have a heart of gold either. Our small town heard through the grapevine that
the new princess, Princess Luna, had been shunned, too. With nowhere else to go, she found herself in our little town.
What she saw was a bunch of angry batponies, raging against the sudden victory of the Equestrian race. She saw this, and she felt sympathy.
Not disgust, not anger with or at us, but sympathy.
She knew what it was like to be ousted, to be shunned. However, she endeavored not to fix our problems with violence, but with understanding.
A great portion of the colony grew attached to Luna, because they felt like she was validating their fears of Equestrians, given that she was an Equestrian. So, she took us under her wing.
That brings us back to the opening question. Why are we Children of the Night? Why do we serve in The Lunar Guard?
We did these things, and continue to still do them, because Mother offered to take us in. She offered to give a voice to the voiceless. Luna told the Equestrians that we were ponies, or at least ponylike creatures, too. She stood valiantly in criticism, and eventually, the Equestrians had to get used to it.
We are her Children of the Night as a sign of respect, for she knew what it was like to be shunned, and she sympathized with us. We, in return, offer to serve her as best we can, to pay it forward.
These manuscripts are old, but the meaning still remains. Mother has allowed the batponies to have a voice, and they have much less problems integrating. We still prefer to be alone, and that’s perfectly fine, but what we do know is that we didn’t need to shove Equestrians into a certain set of patterns, and they’ve learned to do the same for us. It just took some perseverance.
Mother has given us the freedom to live. For that, we are forever grateful. We will forever be her Lunar Guard, and her Children of the Night.
Author's Note
As stated, this was written for the QnS batponies contest, the prompt(s) were ‘stereotypes’, ‘The Lunar Guard’, and ‘flashlight’. I chose to write my story based around the first two.
I’m actually really happy with how this one came out, but as always, constructive criticism is allowed and encouraged.
