The Empress and the Goose-Girl
She watches over our dreams, the Moon
She listens to all that you think, the Moon
If you call for her, child, she’ll be there, soon;
And if in you she sees light, it spells your doom.
The Empress, the Empress, Nightmare Moon.
The sky was a perfect dusky blue, fading to a midnight blue-black and spangled with stars the higher she looked. The small yellow mare sighed with contentment as she gazed up at the heavens, and on every side her charges honked softly to one another and rustled their feathers. Long white necks bent close to the ground, beaks nibbling here and there as the flock grazed, covering the whole pasture like snow speckled on a blanket.
Fluttershy’s ears rotated this way and that as she listened, and the goslings gathered in between her front legs cheeped to one another.
A fat pair of geese emerged from the crush to the left of where Fluttershy lay, and the taller honked a greeting to her.
“Welcome back, Mrs Snowfeather,” Fluttershy beamed. “Did you find the long grass alright? No weasels today, I hope? The flock would have told me though, I’m sure.”
The goose gave a bleat that could have been an affirmative, her eyes on the goslings, and Fluttershy nodded happily.
“Yes, they’re all here! All eight, just as you left them. Little Greybelly gave me a little bit of trouble — he thought my mane would make lovely nesting material, if he could pull it out! — but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. They’re all absolutely safe. Not a weasel in sight.”
The goose gave a rumble of pleasure, and half-extended her wings. The goslings leapt up and hurried to huddle beneath them, though the smallest one did pause to exchange a brief nuzzle with the pegasus.
“Thank you,” she giggled, waving goodbye to him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Greybelly. Make sure you stick close to your mother on the way home tonight.”
He cheeped, and Mrs Snowfeather and her family bustled away into the crowd of grey-and-white birds. Fluttershy let out a happy sigh, and settled back down into her grassy bed. She let her eyes wander back skywards, and though they lingered for a moment on that trace of blue near the horizon, she breathed out again and let the tension leave her.
Fluttershy thought that perhaps once there had been many ponies like her in Equestria, those able to learn the gift of animal-speaking. But she supposed that those ponies had dwindled in number as the centuries passed; or perhaps they had simply left. Maybe they had gone to be near the mountains, so far away on the northern horizon — maybe there was a place there where animals weren’t penned or caged, and ponies could be free to roam with them.
Or perhaps the simpler explanation was the true one; Fluttershy was just an oddity. That was alright with her — she had been thought so by her parents, by her brother. By everypony, ever since she was a foal.
She didn’t mind; it was true enough that she hadn’t been like the others. She had snuck away each day, down to the pond to listen to the ducks and geese quacking and honking. The ponies in her life had been strained and quiet, bowed down under the weight of their workload — or worse, brash and loud, their voices clamouring for her attention, enough to make the little yellow pegasus curl herself into a ball and cover her ears with her hooves. But the animals were different. They didn’t have such a complicated world. They didn’t need so many words, and they always said what they meant.
Fluttershy learned to listen to them, and be still — and when she was still, she began to understand. The tall white birds would greet one another, their funny voices rising and falling. And Fluttershy began to see the meaning in what they said — don’t swim there, the water is cold. The best weeds are over here. I’m glad to see you, friend. When she had first tried honking back they had stared, but eventually one of them had taken pity and rubbed its beak against her muzzle in a friendly way. After that, they had always been kind to her. Animals always were.
A gander sidled up next to her, and gave a soft beep. Fluttershy jumped. “Oh!” She looked up at the horizon, and her ears flattened on her head. A sliver of ashy blue now marred the perfect night; dawn was coming. “You’re right, Mister Featherfoot. We should be going.”
Moving quickly, she scrambled to her hooves, extending one wing to snag a shepherd's crook lying in the grass beside her. She transferred it to her hooves and took flight with a little hop, hovering above the flock.
“Um, excuse me, everybirdie — we need to head home now. Is everyone ready?” She flapped over their heads, one white neck after another rising to follow her passage. “Round up the goslings, Ms Widewing. And you, Yellowfoot — no dawdling today. You might get lost!”
She completed her lap of the flock and alighted at the rear, her eyes moving rapidly as she scanned her charges, searching for any missing faces. A sea of beady black eyes looked back at her, but she sighed, satisfied that everyone was accounted for.
“Alright, everyone — off we go! Mister Featherfoot, you know the way.”
The lead gander, feathers puffed up with pride, honked grandly and set off at a brisk waddle. His favourite goose came close behind, her goslings in a line after her, full of their own self-importance. After them came all of Fluttershy’s other friends, all one hundred and seventy-three of them. And at the very rear was Fluttershy, eyes constantly roving over the flock, keeping a wary eye out for any opportunistic predators or straggling goslings. Only last week she’d had to chase off a hungry fox — they were a long way from the city, here in the prime grazing spots, and she had to be careful. She’d never forgive herself if she lost a bird.
One by one, the geese rustled into motion, and the cavalcade of birds slowly wended its way toward civilisation. The pasture terminated in a rough track and the flock kicked up a dust cloud that would have made Fluttershy cough if she hadn’t spread her wings and floated just above it.
Fluttershy hastened them along as quickly as she could, and they made good progress down the hillside. But the sky grew inexorably lighter, shifting through one shade of grey to the next, ever closer to the pale orange that heralded the coming dawn.
Her heart thudding just a little too quickly, Fluttershy urged the geese on again. “Please hurry, everyone! I kept us daydreaming up there a little too long, but you know we can’t be out late!”
The forest reached out towards them, spreading tangled masses of wood out across the fields on either side of the road. The spires of the city jutted out from the darkness of the trees, and Fluttershy stooped to scoop up a few struggling goslings, placing them atop her back where they could snuggle safely into her mane.
The trees loomed higher on either side, and almost compulsively, she glanced to her left, knowing what she would find there. Beneath the twisting ivy and the tangled vines were strange, tortured shapes. The bodies of ponies, rearing or standing with wings flared wide. Soldiers in armour, nobles in full regalia, wizards in their robes. A thousand of them, buried beneath the forest, with only a stone hoof or an expertly-carved wing emerging here and there.
This was the graveyard of the statues, where even the memories of those who opposed the Empress were doomed to fade into oblivion.
And everywhere, the same graceful form, with long limbs and a flowing tail and an elongated spire of a horn. The face and the cutie mark were obscured, hacked off or gouged away, but the eyeless mare smiled on, watching Fluttershy from a hundred cracked visages half-obscured by the undergrowth.
Fluttershy felt the cold spike of fear in her stomach, and tried to focus on counting her geese. “Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight—” but her eyes kept returning to those ruined faces and shredded cutie marks.
The false queen watched her from every side, and those eyeless sockets and the strangely peaceful smiles frightened her more than even the oncoming dawn.
At least here under the shadow of the trees there was less risk. The Everfree grew thick and wild, and the branches were tangled together enough to protect the unwary or the latecomers from an accidental glance at the lightening sky.
More of the geese were slowing now, and their complaints grew louder. Their short legs ached, and had she forgotten that their wings were clipped? They couldn’t simply fly home like she could.
“I know, I know, my dears,” she whispered, using the shepherd’s crook to scoop up more and more goslings, until there was a veritable heap of grey fluff wobbling on her back. “I’m sorry. I won’t be so careless again. I was just tired — I was up too late yesterday. I promise I’ll do better tomorrow.”
They sped through the tumbled ruins and the twisted trees, and the road grew wider. The dirt track gave way to paved slabs of stone, and other ponies began to appear. Pale faces and dark clothing, everypony hurrying home to escape the first rays of the sun. The Nightguard were everywhere now, perched on rooftops and patrolling the streets, urging the malingerers on with a sharp word where needed. Looking upon the face of the diseased orb was forbidden, and nopony had any desire to break the rules. They all knew the penalty.
Fluttershy’s cluster of noisy, fractious geese drew some irritated glances, and she was hard pressed to keep all of her birds focused and moving forward. One merchant grew so irate when two squabbling ganders blocked the path of his cart that he tried to simply shoulder them aside, and Fluttershy had to almost dive-bomb him to protect them.
“Please, sir! Don’t hurt them!” She spread her wings wide to shield them — brash young Silverwing and foolish Quillion, both shocked into silence by the stallion’s charge — and he stomped his hoof in fury.
“Keep them out of my way, then, goose-girl!”
“Back to the others, Quillion,” Fluttershy murmured, struggling now to balance her load of goslings.
Panting with effort, the lead gander finally shoved his way through the flock to her side, ready to defend his errant sons. He fixed beady black eyes on the merchant, lowered his head, and hissed.
Fluttershy hastily stepped in. “Mister Featherfoot! Remember your manners. This — uh, nice pony was just leaving, weren’t you, sir?”
The stallion scowled and was about to retort when his eyes flicked to something behind Fluttershy. The fight left him suddenly, and he blinked before ducking his head. “That’s right.”
Startled by the sudden change in his demeanour, Fluttershy turned to follow his gaze, and her ears flattened when she saw. Hunched low on the battlements of the nearest building, hooked wings and tufted ears angled toward her, were a pair of Nightguards. She took an involuntary step backward, and there was an indignant honk as she bumped into one of the geese. She mumbled a hasty apology and quickly shepherded her charges away, and two pairs of slitted yellow eyes followed her as she went.
Once they finally made it out of the market, the streets were clearer. Most ponies would be home at this late hour, fast asleep with the windows safely shuttered. Fluttershy made quick progress through the maze of streets, following a string of well-known alleyways back towards one of the main spoke roads. These eight great roads cut through the otherwise chaotic buildings of Shady Hollow, leading like the strands of a spider’s web straight towards the centre.
The spoke road was broad, and the geese were finally able to spread out. There was a new spring in their step as they waddled the home stretch.
Fluttershy’s own energy seemed to wane as she looked down the boulevard, her pupils contracting and her hooves suddenly beginning to drag as the palace unfolded its shadowy form before her. Fluttershy bit her lip as she gazed up at the tallest tower, hewn from obsidian, with jagged minarets piercing the sky like knives.
The geese were so confident of their route that Fluttershy hardly needed to herd them at all. She just followed behind them, her steps slowing infinitesimally the closer they got. They drew near the palace gates, and the portcullis gleamed in the barbican like a mouthful of fangs. It yawned wide before them, and Fluttershy shuddered as it swallowed them whole.
The palace courtyard was black as night — the shields had been winched into place; profane daylight was never allowed to sully these gardens. Night orchids and moonblooms stretched their pale petals wide, and the geese chittered happily to each other as they headed for their pen. The grazing was good today, they said. The grass rich, the air clean. Now we will lay our eggs, now we will sleep.
Only Mister Featherfoot hesitated at the gate to the little lean-to building. He gave a quiet honk and Fluttershy smiled and reached down to fondle his head. “Now, Mister Featherfoot, don’t be like that. You know that the merchants don’t mean to be rude. They’re very busy ponies, that’s all.”
He chuffed air out through his nostrils, unconvinced, but then he padded happily enough after the flock, shoving a pair of younger males aside so that he could get to the water trough.
With a fond smile, Fluttershy watched him go, and deposited the very last of her gosling passengers with its mother. She lingered there a moment longer, watching them groom each other and live their peaceful, uncomplicated little lives. Then, reluctantly, she turned for home, the smile fading from her lips as she looked once more at the palace.
Fluttershy dwelt in a little shack close by the goose pen, constructed of wood and with little to cheer its bleak outlook but a pair of wilting night-lilies in a pot. Fluttershy’s wings hunched close to her shoulders as she approached the door, and it was almost with dread that she pushed it open.
But the room was empty. With a shiver, she let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding, and shut the door tight behind her. She slid the bolt home, though she knew it would give her but little protection against what was coming.
The interior of the shack was as sparsely decorated as the outside. The only furniture was her small bed and a single table and chair. The rest of the space was taken up with a vast rabbit hutch, and its small occupant had his face pressed against the wire, nose twitching eagerly as he waited for her to see him.
Fluttershy’s eyes fixed on him at last, and her face melted into a smile of pure relief. “Angel!”
Angel’s foot thudded against the straw of his hutch with excitement, and Fluttershy dashed across the room to fling open his cage and scoop him up.
“How was your day, you poor baby?” she asked him tenderly, turning him over to nose at his bandaged stomach. “How have you felt?”
Lonely! came the immediate answer. So many hours, all alone — so many hours since the last carrot was eaten! And you took so long!
She giggled. “Oh, silly boy. I was only gone a few hours. And it’s your own fault you can’t come with me like normal, isn’t it? I’ve told you not to bother the nesting mothers.”
His nose wrinkled in distaste. Stupid, smelly geese. So fat and feather-brained!
Fluttershy smoothed the rumpled fur on his head, and her expression grew more sombre. “And…and did anypony come in, while I was gone? Nopony left any notes, or came to bother you, or anything like that?”
No. Angel’s eyes narrowed. But it’s not too late for us to go. Go to the forest. We can leave all this.
Letting her eyes slip almost closed as she turned her face away from him, Fluttershy shook her head. “It’s…I can’t leave the flock, Angel. They need us.” But she knew he heard the words she left unsaid. It’s too late for me, Angel. It’s already too late.
Uneasy dreams, full of dark, endless corridors and silent screaming. A hammering against her skull, that went on and on and on —
Fluttershy jerked awake, heart pounding harder than the hoof knocking on her door.
“Goose-girl! Get up!”
Bile rose in her throat, acidic and painful. She had known it was coming. Her eyes flickered desperately from side to side, searching for a way out, though she knew there was none.
“Goose-girl!”
She glanced at Angel, tiny fists clenched around the mesh of his cage, eyes huge and luminous with fear. They made eye contact, and he spoke, desperation almost audible in his silent words. Don’t go. Let me out, so I can protect you. I’ll fight them!
Mutely, she hunched her shoulders. She had shut him in before bed precisely to avoid that. He would only get hurt. Neither of them were any match for what waited outside.
Wait, wait—!
His gestures grew wilder, his voice louder, but she turned away, cutting off his wordless communication. There was nothing either of them could do, except prolong the inevitable.
Resignation on her face, Fluttershy unbarred the door. Immediately, it was flung open, and a Nightguard glared in at her. He wore the same purple and black armour as all his fellows, and his eyes were the same black slits swimming in vast yellow pupils. When he opened his mouth to snap at her, his fangs shone with saliva.
“You’re wanted in the Midnight Spire,” he said bluntly. “You know the way.”
Fluttershy bowed her head and went to move past him, but he blocked her.
“Don’t keep me waiting so long next time.”
She didn’t answer him. It wasn’t worth it. Instead, she walked slowly out into the courtyard, shaking her mane over her face to veil her eyes. She tried to pretend that she didn’t hear Angel’s feet thumping futilely against the door of his cage.
“You needn’t look so hangdog,” the guard said to her retreating back, his voice acerbic. “The Empress has chosen you, goose-girl. You should be honoured.”
The courtyard and the gardens were dark as pitch, though Fluttershy knew that the world outside must be aflame with sunlight. She looked up at the rivets bolting the shield together beneath the black paint, and wondered for a moment what it would be like to see the light filtering through the leaves. To see it just once.
The Nightguard at the palace doors swung them wide to receive her, and she tried to put the image out of her mind. Such thoughts were dangerous, here in the palace of night. The birds that sang in the sunshine were long since gone. The only song that rang through the Everfree now was that of the nightingale. The same could just as easily happen to incautious ponies.
Fluttershy’s hooves clopped loudly on the stone stairs as she made her way up, moving a little slower with each step. She tried to slow her breathing, keep herself calm — but when she stopped at last outside those deep purple doors, carved from vast blocks of the darkest amethyst — she still felt a frisson of fear.
Two more Nightguards flanked the doors. They watched her with impassive yellow eyes, and swung the doors wide. Ducking her head, wishing she were brave enough to run, Fluttershy crept past them.
The room within was darker even than the courtyard. Vantablack walls, deep as the void, seemed like they could stretch on into infinity. The floor was black marble, peppered with thin veins of white, like rivers of starlight. Thick velvet curtains shielded the floor-to-ceiling windows that Fluttershy knew were there. Not even a hint of daylight was permitted into this room.
Not yet allowing herself to look at the vast bed that dominated the room, Fluttershy tilted her head back to look at the ceiling. She hated this room — hated it — but the ceiling was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
An illusion spell more complex than anything even the most powerful wizards could conceive of was laid upon it, and the walls appeared to simply fade into space. Constellations were up there, every one visible to the naked eye and a thousand more besides, reflected in painstaking, precise detail. Galaxies revolved in silent, achingly slow dances, and nebulae glittered far off in the distance. A hundred thousand pinpricks of light were scattered across the firmament, the night sky in more beauty than Fluttershy had ever seen, and the longer she looked the more it seemed to draw her in. She felt as though she could float up into it if she tried. Let it take her, and drift forever among the stars.
Then the shadows stirred.
Fluttershy gasped and stumbled backwards, but they flowed toward her, liquid night, and then twisted together, tighter and higher, growing taller and taller — until with a soft hiss of released magic, they resolved themselves into the form Fluttershy most dreaded.
The Empress. She stood easily twice Fluttershy's height. Her fur was the deepest blue, almost black, her wingspan more than four times wider than Fluttershy’s own. A vast mass of night floated behind her in place of a mane, spangled with stars, but it was her eyes that caught you. Drew you in just like the enchanted ceiling did. They were electric blue, with the same slitted pupils as her most trusted guards. Those eyes were older than Equestria itself, they had seen everything there was to see, but still they watched Fluttershy like a wolf watches a gosling.
Fluttershy hooded her eyes and studied her hooves. Let the Empress be the one to speak first. Let her be the one discomfited, for once.
“Good dusk, Fluttershy,” the Empress said at last, and her voice was smooth. Unruffled.
At least the formulaic greeting was easy to reply to. “Good dusk,” Fluttershy said, automatically, and added after a pause, “Your Dark Majesty.” The title still fell awkwardly from her tongue, but she knew the anger it caused when she forgot.
The Empress waited, but Fluttershy did not speak again. She traced the threads of white stone through the marble tiles beneath her hooves, stopping abruptly when they led her to the Empress’ black hooves. They were unshod, for once, the starmetal horseshoes and the rest of the regalia laid aside on a table by the door. That was unusual.
Fluttershy risked a brief glance upward and her cheeks coloured when she found the Empress waiting. Their eyes met. But she had been right; even the ubiquitous helmet was not on. The Empress was unarmored. That had never happened before. The Empress’ regalia was as much a part of her as the aura of fear she radiated to everypony who saw her.
“I’ve had a meal prepared for us,” the Empress said, her voice a little softer than it had been before. “My guards asked the pig boy. He said that your favourite was clover, so I had the chefs pick some fresh.”
Fluttershy looked up sharply, but the Empress’ face was as unreadable as ever. Poor Greenhoof, being questioned by the Nightguard! He was happiest when left alone with his pigs, and he hated crowds of ponies even more than Fluttershy herself. She could only hope they hadn’t scared him too much.
The Empress clearly expected a response, and Fluttershy fished around for a moment before finding one. “That was very…thoughtful of you, your Dark Majesty. Thank you.” To her surprise, she found that she meant it. The Empress was many things, but Fluttershy would never before have applied the word thoughtful to her.
The alicorn gestured to a table set in front of one of the covered windows, with midnight-blue cushions on either side. Two plates were laid out, each with clover artistically arranged and doused with sauce. Fluttershy swallowed hard, and followed the Empress to their seats. Whatever she had expected tonight, it had not been this.
They ate in near silence. When the Empress was quiet, she reminded Fluttershy of a cat. Seemingly bored, all lazy grace and lidded stare. But ever watchful. Ever ready to remind you that she was a predator, and you the prey.
“Tell me about your geese,” the Empress said at last, scooping up a forkful of clover with her magic. “I never…had the chance to ask you, last time.”
Fluttershy looked up from her slightly more awkward wielding of the fork in her feathers, bewildered. She had thought she was shielded by the operation of eating, but here was fresh danger. “My…my geese, Majesty?”
“Yes,” said the Empress, a touch of brusqueness entering her tone. “You have been at the palace ten years, correct? I read the records.”
“Yes, that’s right,” whispered Fluttershy, utterly lost. What had driven the Empress to look her up? Her blood ran a little colder. Was her job being obliquely threatened? She — she couldn’t leave the geese. The goslings needed her! And her parents needed the money. With Mama so overstretched, and Papa so ill — and Zephyr so Zephyr — they needed everything she could give.
“Tell me about when you first came here.” It was a command, delivered in the peremptory manner of one used to being obeyed.
Looking at her plate to cover her confusion, Fluttershy chewed and swallowed. How to describe to the ruler of a nation the process of slow starvation, the need to get a job to support one’s family when barely out of foalhood? The agonising process of leaving your family and your home. The horror a city held for somepony used to the quiet and the calm of the trees. The confusion and the pain, the nights spent weeping into your pillow.
“It was…I was honoured to be offered a job here at the palace,” she said at last. “Working here in any capacity is more than most ponies dream of.”
“Yes, of course.” The Empress waved a hoof. “But what do you think of it?”
Fluttershy flushed and hid behind her mane. Direct questions — she had clearly given an unsatisfactory answer — and she hardly knew where to look.
“Let me rephrase,” the Empress said suddenly. “I am fond of my geese. I have been ever since I was a foal. I like the way they…they stand up for one another. They’re not afraid, in the way other birds are. It doesn’t hurt that their eggs are delicious, either.”
Eyes widening with each consecutive word, Fluttershy stared. That had to be the longest statement she had ever heard the Empress give. And not an order in there.
Hesitantly, she raised a hoof to scratch at her hairline. “I…uh…I like that they protect each other too. When I was a foal, they protected me.”
“Protected you?” The Empress leant forward, intrigued, her dinner forgotten. “From whom?”
Fluttershy gulped and looked away. “Uhm — the other foals, I think. You know how foals can be.” Her voice trailed off.
“Do you recall their names?” the Empress asked, almost casually. “I can have them hung, if you like.”
“Oh!” Fluttershy gasped, and the Empress flinched at the sharp intake of breath.
“What?”
“N-no, thank you, your Dark Majesty,” stammered Fluttershy. “I don’t — I don’t remember their names, anyway.”
“I see.” The Empress turned back to her meal. “So tell me — what are the geese like? It’s been much too long since I’ve had a night free to follow them out to pasture.”
That had never happened in all Fluttershy’s time with the flock, and two generations of geese had grown to maturity and had eggs of their own since then. She shivered at the thought of the Empress following her out to the hilly meadows, those blue eyes watching her every move.
“Well,” she said carefully, “the lead gander right now is…well, I call him Mister Featherfoot. He’s quite old, for a goose. Nearly twelve. He’s still very strong, though, and he’s ever so kind. I think he’s a very good leader.”
The Empress turned her fork over in her magic without raising it to her lips. “Do you think I am a good leader, Fluttershy?”
Too late, Fluttershy realised the dangerous ground she had stumbled onto. “I — I — o-of course I — I mean—”
But the Empress was laughing, her hoof raised to her mouth as her starry mane undulated with the movement, and Fluttershy smiled weakly, trying to join in on the joke. She only wished she didn’t feel so sick when the Empress lowered her hoof and she caught a glimpse of those long white fangs.
“I knew you were special the moment I saw you,” the Empress said, calm again. “The way you managed them. The way they all looked to you, and listened as you spoke. You’re not a bad leader yourself.”
“Thank you,” Fluttershy murmured, and scooped the last of her clover into her mouth. “That’s very kind of you to say.”
“Did you enjoy your meal?” the Empress asked. “I believe my chef called it ‘a postmodern deconstruction of the traditional clover meal’ — but he’s Prench, so he says a great deal of ridiculous things like that.”
Fluttershy smiled again at the attempt at humour, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “It was a very nice meal,” she said politely. “Thank you very much for inviting me.”
The Empress’ mirth faded as she took in the other mare’s mood. “Did you not wish to come, Fluttershy?”
There was a pause. The silence hovered between them like a moth, struggling towards the light. And like a moth, those doomed, sinful little creatures that loved the light and shunned the dark they were born into, Fluttershy strove toward peace. Knowing how futile her efforts were even as she tried. “I…I always enjoy my visits to you, Majesty,” she lied, her voice hoarse with fear.
“I tried to make tonight pleasant for you.” There was danger in that voice now. It was crackling with something less than kindness. “I wanted to get to know you better.”
Fluttershy waited, eyes down, for the storm to break over her head. But the quiet stretched on, long and ominous.
“Please, your Dark Majesty,” she said at last, and though the words stuck in her craw, her voice was as soft and even as she could manage. “I would like to go home, now.”
“I am sorry, Fluttershy,” the Empress said, almost gentle now. “But you know what has to come next.”
Tears pooled in Fluttershy’s eyes and hung heavy on her lashes, but she did not let them fall. She would not let her win.
The Empress’ hoof cupped her cheek, trying to pull her face up so that their eyes could meet, but Fluttershy resolutely tucked her chin down. Though the Empress had more than enough strength to force her, she sighed and released her. “My people need me to be strong, Fluttershy,” she said softly. “They need a strong leader. But I am not like…I’m…I need help, to be strong.”
Fluttershy sat immobile. A statue, just like those shattered outside the city wall. If she were stone, she wouldn’t feel it happening. She wouldn’t feel anything.
The Empress was still talking. Almost pleading with her now. “The…the false queen…she fights me, even now. The sun itself fights me, Fluttershy. I need magic to force it into and out of the sky. And I must take the magic from somepony. And magic…it is strongest in…in…” She stopped, unable to complete the sentence.
It didn’t matter. Fluttershy knew how it ended.
The magic is strongest in the blood.
“I am sorry,” the Empress said again. “Truly. If there were another way…If I could do this without…I would. Know that, at least.”
Then her hoof left Fluttershy’s face, moving down her mane to sweep it aside, baring the skin beneath. The Empress lowered her head, leaning down until her muzzle brushed Fluttershy’s fur, soft as a lover’s kiss. Her mouth parted in a sigh. Fluttershy’s chest heaved, and she clenched her eyes tight shut.
And the Empress bit down.
When it was done, when it was finally over, they lay together in a sweaty tangle of sheets, and Fluttershy tried hard not to let her tears fall. The Empress’ face was wet, too, but the moisture slicking her midnight-black fur was red instead of clear.
She raised a hoof to wipe her mouth, but beads of ruby still clung to those shining fangs. She sighed, sated at last, and Fluttershy shut her eyes tight so she wouldn’t have to look anymore.
The Empress stroked a hoof idly over Fluttershy’s wings, the touch almost gentle now, a lover’s caress. “Tell me,” she said softly, and her voice was like the echo of starlight. Soft and silver as a dagger. “Have you ever looked at the sun, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy’s heart stuttered anew. Her blood ran colder than ice. To be asked that by the Empress of the Night, the Nightmare herself —
Nothing good could come of a question like that.
Trying to fight through the muddle of her thoughts and the horror of what had just happened — again — Fluttershy tried to ready herself to respond. The Empress’ mood had clearly shifted; no longer calm and conciliatory, now she was spiky, only an inch or two from that quiet fury that had led to horrors like the burning of Appleoosa, something that was still whispered about in the darkest parts of Shady Hollow.
“Remember,” the Empress whispered, “I’ll know if you lie to me, little one.”
They said the Empress could read your thoughts when you were close to her. They said she could watch the dreams of every pony in the world, and sniff out sedition before it was known even to the dreamer themselves.
“No,” Fluttershy croaked, her throat drier than the doomed Appleachian desert. “No, I’m — I’m a loyal citizen of the night. I’d never sin like that.”
The Empress almost purred at the words. “But would you like to see it?” she gestured lazily towards the curtained windows. “All I’d have to do is pull the cord, and then you’d feel the sunlight on your fur. I wouldn’t mind. It would be our little secret; a reward for the…help you give me.”
Fluttershy’s eyes flickered to the velvet-draped windows, and despite herself her traitorous heart beat a little faster. To see the golden-yellow sunlight her Mama’s stories had told her of. To feel the kiss of warmth on her bruised skin.
“Granted, it’s not what it once was,” the Empress smiled, stroking her mane once more. “It’s pale and weak now — I’ve worked hard to weaken it, after all. And a thousand years of breeding plants that use moonlight to photosynthesise means we don’t need it quite so much as we did. But it’s still…pretty, I suppose. In a way. Though nothing can match the splendour of the stars.”
“No, nothing can.” Fluttershy agreed automatically, her eyes still on those drapes. To see something no other pony got to see. To hear what the animals in the woods whispered of, when she got the chance to speak to them. And — and hadn’t she earned it? Hadn’t she suffered enough to be — to be worthy of this? Wasn’t this, in a way, the very least the Empress could give her?
“Go on,” the Empress encouraged her, nudging her toward the edge of the bed.
With trembling legs, looking back at the enigmatic smile of the alicorn on the bed more than once, Fluttershy made her way to the rope that pulled back the drapes. There she hesitated, steadying herself against the wall, woozy from the sudden movement after all she had endured. Was it a trap? Everything the Empress said was a trap, but she had never been more willing to walk into one than now. But…despite the longing to see it for herself — somehow, pulling that curtain back still seemed like a step too far.
The Empress rose, graceful as a lioness, and stalked across the room to stand beside her. “You can do it. I shan’t be angry.”
But her hoof wouldn’t move towards the rope. “I’m afraid,” she murmured at last, though she knew it was ridiculous. The most terrifying creature in all Equestria stood right beside her, and she was afraid of the sun?
But a lifetime of fear and tales of the great fireball in the sky and the way it could burn an unsuspecting pony’s skin were not so easily shrugged off.
“Afraid?” The Empress chuckled. “Very well. We’ll begin with just a little light.” She lit her horn, and gave the rope the tiniest tug.
A sliver opened between the curtains, and instantly, a thin knife of the palest gold cut its way into the gloom. It was…it was…it was beautiful. A colour Fluttershy had never seen before, brighter than any of her stolen glimpses of the dawn sky. This heady yellow-gold, brighter and purer than Fluttershy’s own coat even in the best lamplight, was unlike anything she had ever seen before. She stared, entranced, and she felt a smile lighting up her own face even as this brave little sliver of sunshine lit up the room.
The Empress smiled with her, and rested a companionable hoof on her back. “Perhaps next time you’re here we will open them all the way.”
The words took her completely off-guard. Fluttershy nearly collapsed. “N-next time?” Hadn’t she given enough? Was — was the Empress going to force them through this horrific dance until it killed her?
Abruptly, the Empress’ smile twisted into an ugly scowl. “You don’t wish to spend time with me, Fluttershy?”
How could she even ask?
The answer must have been obvious on her face, because the Empress’ face twisted again, and she slammed her hoof down hard enough to splinter the marble beneath her hooves. Blam!
The noise made Fluttershy flinch and stumble away, and the Empress advanced, suddenly blazing with incandescent fury. “Have I not been kind to you, Fluttershy? Have I not shown you every indulgence? Have I not granted your every wish? What more would you have of me?”
What more would I have? How about my life! My blood! My freedom!
But Fluttershy could not bring herself to say the words. Stars help her, she still wanted to live.
“Get out of my sight!” the Empress spat, eyes full of fire, and Fluttershy fled.
Bursting out the double doors and tearing down the corridor, leaving a pair of stunned Nightguard in her wake, Fluttershy ran. Down the spiral stairs, turn after turn. Half-galloping and half-flying as she took the steps eight or nine at a time. There was no purpose to her direction, no plan — nothing but the blind urge to get away. Away from those awful blue eyes, crystalline and cold as a glacier.
Her legs were trembling, and with each beat of her gallop she landed hard enough to shake flecks of foam loose from her lips.
Out through the palace doors, across the courtyard, shuttered and silent as always. Bursting through the door to her little shack, barring it behind her, shoving the table and the chair and the bed as well against it, anything to keep her out — and then finally, finally, taking Angel Bunny from his cage and curling up in the very furthest corner to weep together.
And his little paws touched the wounds on her neck, and his fur was red with her blood, and he took the bandage from his own stomach to press against her fur.
A bat. A hunter. Flying swift and sure through the night sky, stars overhead and a featureless world rushing by beneath. The thrill of flight, cutting through the air on swift featherless wings, turning in tight spirals and twists that a mere pegasus could never manage.
Her tufted ears were enormous, and they brought her every sound the night had to offer — hoots and chirps and rustles and whispers, an auditory smorgasbord. An intoxicating show that filled her mind from end to end, a song she could listen to forever —
— Until she caught that scent.
Dark, heady, earthy. It smelled…delicious.
Hardly knowing what she was doing, she followed her nose down, flapping through the clouds and the branches.
She knew the scent, knew what it would lead to. It would be dark and rich and red, and she would bite down and drink until she could drink no more, lap until she was full to bursting. She would —
—There! That little treehouse. The scent was coming from there. She swooped in, a hunter closing on her prey, and with trembling hooves she shoved the flimsy curtain aside. Here it was, here it was —
She stopped short.
The scent — that wonderful, delicious smell — it came from the bed. And in the bed lay a little foal. No more than five or six years old. A sleeping filly, her face filled with the innocence of childhood.
And all Fluttershy wanted to do, stars help her, was sink her teeth into that defenceless little throat.
No! No. What was she thinking? That was madness. Fluttershy wouldn’t hurt a foal. She would never do that.
But her legs were moving, against her will, and she was next to the bed now, and she could see the pulse thrumming in that sweet little jugular. She leaned in, closer and closer, and though she was screaming at herself to stop, her jaws were opening.
They were opening, and she was going to —
Fluttershy screamed, and a furry paw came down on her cheek in a stinging slap hard enough to make her eyes snap open.
Immediately, Angel Bunny was all contrition, snuggling close to her and snuffling his quiet comfort into her mane, nuzzling the spot he had injured.
Her sides heaving, Fluttershy automatically raised a hoof to hold him close. “N-no, it’s okay, Angel. Thank you for waking me. I was having the worst nightmare.”
Angel pressed his head against hers in mute comfort, and Fluttershy's nose was suddenly assailed with the smell of — of something. Metallic and repellent, like copper and salt all mixed together. But somehow it drew her in as well, and she turned her nose instinctively toward it – and found her muzzle pressed against the fresh-healed scab on Angel Bunny's belly.
Her stomach suddenly roiling, Fluttershy snatched herself away from him, crawling a few steps across the ground to vomit noisily into the corner.
Oblivious to the cause of her distress, Angel followed her, full of concern. It's alright,he said gently. I won't let the monster come for you again.
Fluttershy almost wanted to laugh. He was so brave, so noble – her truest friend. But he was a bunny. And not even the stars themselves could save her from the nightmare her world was fast becoming, or the Nightmare that haunted her dreams.
I mean it, Angel protested, paws on his hips. We're leaving. Enough is enough. We'll take the geese into the forest. Let them go. And then we can melt away as well. That bear, Harry, will hide us for the day. And we can make a start on our escape tomorrow.
Waving a hoof to silence him, Fluttershy tried to stand. It was ridiculous. The whole plan. She could no more take her helpless goslings out into the woods to starve than she could cut their throats. And trying to flee the Empress – the mare who could move the moon and the heavens above – the notion was laughable.
And worst of all, the terrible invasions on her senses had returned. It had happened before, the times when the Empress took too much too fast from her. The strange scents, the sickening impulses. It would fade if the Empress gave her a few days of peace, but in recent weeks an unbroken day's sleep was becoming more and more of a rarity.
She was lost already. She could see that as plain as the nose on her face. It was just a pity that Angel had not yet realised the same.
"We can't," was all she said to him. "It's no use, Angel."
But – but why are you just–
She looked away from him to wipe the bile from the corner of her mouth before climbing shakily to her hooves. "No more, Angel. I just...I don't want to think about it any more. We need to go. The geese will be awake by now."
I'm coming with you today. His response was immediate.
She didn't bother to fight him. Sweet, brave little Angel. He loved her, poor thing that he was.
Silently, she collected her geese from their pen and shepherded them out the palace gates, conscious all the time of the unseen eyes that might be watching her from the Midnight Spire even now.
She spent a listless day in the meadow, ignoring Angel's increasingly desperate pleas and doing her best not to look at the pulses beating in all those long white necks.
By the time Mister Featherfoot nudged her to remind her the hour grew late, she felt almost too weak to get up at all. The meadowgrass was so soft, surely a little longer couldn't hurt.
But the gander and Angel between them pulled her upright, and Angel made one last-ditch attempt to change her mind.
Please, Fluttershy. Let's run away. It's still not too late.
He was wrong. Who knew what corruption she carried in her blood now? Everywhere they went, she would be a danger to those around them. To Angel himself. When she thought of the way that scab and the fresh blood waiting beneath it made her mouth water, she wanted to vomit all over again.
"If we run away, where is the first place they will look?" she asked instead. "The Empress has read the records. She knows where my parents live, Angel. If we go...it'll be them that pays the price."
Angel gesticulated in mute frustration. It was her he cared about. He wanted to save her.
She answered him with a shrug. "I'm not sure it's possible anymore."
Better that the Empress drain her dry than hurt a hair on her family's heads. Better that than Fluttershy live to become a monster herself.
Just as she had known it would, the knock came that night on her door. Much earlier than last night. The moon was still high in the sky. The Empress had summoned her again.
With resignation that numbed her to her bones, Fluttershy climbed the stairs to that hideous tower. It was like walking through a dream. The same set of stairs, looping past her again and again. Perhaps she was already dead, and this was hell. Doomed to climb forever.
That conviction took root in her mind, and she became half-convinced until she rounded the final corner and saw those amethyst doors up ahead. Then she knew with an ironclad certainty that the stairs had not been hell. Hell waited behind those doors, with a smile full of lies and a plate of clover.
But when she stepped through the doors that the Nightguard held for her, the Empress was nowhere in sight.
Instead, the curtains were open, the windows thrown wide. A breeze filtered in, carrying with it the heavy scent of jasmine. The room was transformed. Where it had been close and oppressive before, now it was light and airy. Moonlight flooded in from every side, and the stars Fluttershy could see through the windows were not illusory.
"Come through, Fluttershy," the Empress called from somewhere just out of sight, and the spell of the moment was broken. The fear returned, stronger than before.
She found the Nightmare waiting on a small balcony, a lavish meal for two spread before her on a table, two chaise longues arranged for them to eat in the ancient style. The Empress sprawled catlike across the larger of the two, unarmoured again, and she looked up with a smile as Fluttershy hesitated at the doorway.
"Take a seat," she said, her voice warm. "You look so tired."
But Fluttershy was gazing past her, mouth open as she looked out over the towers of Shady Hollow and the trees beyond.
The Midnight Spire overlooked an ocean of treetops, each one rustling and swaying like waves in the gentlest of nighttime breezes. Every leaf was highlighted with argent light, and the moon hung low and huge, almost close enough to reach out and touch. The world was awash with silver, and stars speckled the velvet sky like diamonds.
It was the most beautiful sight Fluttershy had ever seen.
"Do you like it?" The Empress sounded almost shy. "I hoped you would. I thought it would be...like a chandelier, almost. For our meal."
Fluttershy moved slowly to her seat, drawn in despite herself. The Empress had...rearranged the night sky for her? Brought the very moon itself closer just to illuminate their meal? It was impossible, and yet she had done it.
"It's beautiful," she answered truthfully. "I didn't know it was possible."
"It's difficult," the Empress nodded. "But you...I wanted to apologise, Fluttershy. I have not treated you as kindly as I could have done. I was not kind last night. It was...well, I regret parting as we did. I wasn't even sure you would come tonight."
Fluttershy could have pointed out that if she had refused she would have been dragged here at spearpoint, but it didn't seem entirely politic, so she held her tongue.
"I appreciate the second chance," the Empress went on. "Or third, or fifth, or...whichever chance I'm on right now. I want to make it up to you." She looked down, her black cheeks tinged a little with red. "I want to get to know you."
Fluttershy shifted, the downy-soft cushions beneath her moulding themselves perfectly to her body. "I appreciate that, Your Dark Majesty."
The Empress waved a hoof. "I think we are safely past the point of 'your Dark Majesty', don't you? Nightmare Moon will be fine. Or...or Night, if you prefer."
Fluttershy swallowed. Her mouth felt almost dusty. "Thank you, your...Nightmare Moon."
"I had the chefs prepare one of my favourites tonight." The Empress sensed her discomfort and swiftly turned the conversation to safer waters. "Braised oatcakes in saffron crême. I used to eat them all the time when I was a foal." She looked down at the loaded plate before her, expression growing melancholic. "They were Tia's favourite too."
Her eyebrows rose sharply at that word, but Fluttershy didn't ask who that pony might be. She could guess well enough. She knew their face, after all, having passed it a hundred times a day for ten years, for all that the eyes were missing. After centuries of uncertainty and hidden debate, who would have expected the secret of the false queen's name to be uncovered so easily?
"It's a Roaman dish, then?" she asked, gesturing to the couches they lay on. She could do her part to keep the conversation on safe topics, too.
"Yes." The Empress looked pleased at her intuition. "Roam was a delightful place. When we had – when I had my capital there, we had...such wonderful feasts. And dancing that lasted all night long. It was a magical time. I think you might have liked it there."
Somehow Fluttershy doubted that a society that focused on a whirlwind schedule of feasts and parties would suit her, but she just nodded and smiled.
"The circus, I mean," the Empress amended. "There were hundreds of animals at the Coltiseum, magical creatures from every corner of the globe. It was wonderful going there and seeing them all. Ponies called it one of the great wonders of the world."
A little startled by this unexpected insight into her character, Fluttershy felt her face break into a tentative smile. Contrite, gentle, open – this was a side of the Empress she had not seen before.
She looked up, and their eyes met, but this time those crystal-clear eyes did not seem quite so cold as they once had. The Empress offered her a shy smile, and Fluttershy could not help but return it. The smiles still hovering on their lips, they lowered their heads to eat.
The oatcakes were cooked to perfection, seared to within an inch of their lives yet somehow still juicy. The saffron crême added a delightfully tangy touch of sweetness to the whole, and Fluttershy couldn't help but let out a sigh of delight as it melted on her tongue.
The Empress looked thrilled. "You like it?"
"I love it!" beamed Fluttershy, the deliciousness of it driving out the coppery hint of blood altogether from her tastebuds.
"I'm so glad!"
For an all-powerful monarch, the Empress seemed more thrilled than Fluttershy would have expected at the banal act of sharing a meal together – but who was she to judge? She would rather them share a meal than be the meal. The thought was an unpleasant reminder of what would surely follow their hollow simulacrum of a date, and the food suddenly took on the consistency of ash in Fluttershy's mouth.
"I want to do something for you," the Empress said abruptly, leaning forward. "Something concrete. A – a boon, if you'll excuse the archaic term. Tell me, Fluttershy, what would make your life better?"
Caught off-guard by the question, Fluttershy tried to consider it. Money for her parents perhaps. A bigger hutch for Angel. No, there was nothing she really wanted. Or rather, nothing she had wanted before the Empress had turned those piercing blue eyes her way. Fluttershy had been happy with her life, before. Her geese and her days in the meadow. Her infrequent trips home to see her beloved Mama and Papa, and her bratty little brother. Stupid Zephyr — she even missed him, now. Would she ever see him again? Would she ever see any of them again?
The Empress took her silence for indecision and began to list off suggestions. "You could have...hmm, a diamond, as big as your hoof. A carriage on retainer, to take you anywhere you like! I could even make a constellation in your honour."
Fluttershy smiled and demurred, all the while trying to work out a phrasing that would not end with the Empress simply blasting her off the balcony.
"I could make you a lady," offered the Empress impulsively, her smile growing as she warmed to her topic. "Give you lands and a castle of your own. Or – or I could give your parents a mansion here in town. I know you must miss them. I could give every goose in your flock an attendant to fan them all summer!" She laughed, and the sound was strangely charming. "Just name it, Fluttershy, and it's yours. Anything I can give to you, I will."
Fluttershy hesitated, but she could prevaricate no longer. She knew exactly the boon she wanted, and she knew it would be the only thing the Empress would not grant her. But for Angel, for her Mama, she had to at least make the attempt. In the end, what did she want more than her freedom? Her life returned to her. To sleep peacefully, without nightmares and blood. To hold those she loved without wanting to hurt them.
"I want...I would like it if you would…"
"Go on, what is it?" Nightmare Moon's voice was still playful, teasing. "Anything you like!"
"Please, Majesty," Fluttershy lowered her head into a bow, her voice into a whisper. "Let me go. That's all I want."
Silence. Utter silence. Fluttershy held her bow, her breath coming much too fast.
Finally, the Empress spoke. Her words were slow and unwieldy. Like she had to force them out. "You...you don't want to be with me?"
Fluttershy held her silence.
Keratin rang on stone as the Empress rose to her hooves. "Answer me. Don't you want to be with me?"
Helplessly, Fluttershy shook her head. "I want...I want to be free, your Dark Majesty. I want to go home."
For three heartbeats, four, the silence stretched taut as a bowstring. There was no sound but the ragged breathing of both mares, as they waited to see who would break first.
"How – how could you?" the Empress snarled at last. "How can you ask me that? I thought we were – I thought we–" she cut herself off, forcing out a laugh that held not an ounce of mirth. "No matter. I obviously thought wrong."
Fluttershy spread her wings low in supplication. Not daring to meet those burning icefire eyes. "Please, your Majesty, I–"
"Y-you ungrateful churl!" The Empress' anger was rising now, and tears sprang unbidden to Fluttershy's eyes as the maelstrom came down full force upon her. "Look at what I have done for you, you – illiterate peasant! Do you understand the significance of this?" She flung a wing skywards, jabbing it towards the enormous moon.
"What?" sobbed Fluttershy. "You raised the moon! You – you do it every night. You're the Empress!"
Nightmare Moon growled low and hungry as a wolf. “I brought the moon low for you! I flooded Baltimare and half of Manehattan, just for you! The mayor tells me the evacuation will cost millions, but like a lovesick idiot, I did it anyway!"
“But — but why?” Fluttershy felt like she would throw up. Hundreds of ponies, thrown out of their homes. Thousands of helpless little animals, rats and beetles and heaven knew what else, murdered without warning by the tides. Lives without number, sacrificed on the altar of this – this charade.
The moon hung like an overripe fruit above them, yellow and heavy and disgusting. Her eyes narrowed, and her teeth gritted against each other as she glared up at the Empress through the peach tangles of her mane.
“You…you’re angry?” The Empress appeared genuinely confused.
“You—you’re a murderer! And you’re blaming it on me!” Fluttershy sprang to her hooves, wings flared wide as she advanced on the Empress.
The queen of the night fell back before her, suddenly helpless against this furious onslaught.
"I never asked for it!" Fluttershy blazed. "I never asked you to do that!"
The Empress recovered herself a little and regained her footing. "I have killed no one," she said, her voice steely. "I do not harm my subjects."
Fluttershy jerked her chin upward into the air. "I'm not talking about them! I mean the animals. Cities are full of animals, pets and pests and wild creatures – they want to be close to us, and you've just killed them for it."
The Empress glowered, and as her eyes darkened Fluttershy felt the fight beginning to ebb out of her. The mare facing her was an immortal, older than time and stronger than any mage who had ever lived. She was an alicorn. What could one little pegasus hope to do against that, no matter how righteous her cause?
"Spare me your pathetic condemnation," the Empress spat. "I will not attempt to justify it. I won't try to explain the measures I took or the hope I held that it would make you happy. I canalready see the hate in your eyes."
Fluttershy's legs trembled as the Empress advanced on her, but she drew herself up to her full height. "Spare me the pretence that you care what I think," she snapped. She was through being quiescent. It didn't make this process any less agonising. If the Empress wanted to steal the life from her veins, fine, but she would at least know how much Fluttershy loathed her for it.
The Empress blinked in surprise at the fire in Fluttershy's expression. Something a little like respect floated in her eyes for a second before she shook it away and her face settled back into that familiar predatory smile. "Alright then," she smirked. "Have it your way. I don't care. I'm a heartless, bloodthirsty monster. I care nothing for my subjects and my kingdom. I feel nothing. I raise the moon and the accursed sun not for them, but for me. Because I love the power. And your blood will fuel that power."
Hoofstep after hoofstep, she prowled towards Fluttershy, and the little mare's bravado trembled and shrank before the oncoming night. Nightmare Moon loomed over the smaller pony, and a feral grin split her muzzle."Is this what you prefer, Fluttershy?" she murmured, and through her parted lips wickedly sharp teeth were visible, glittering in the unnaturally bright moonlight. "Does this better fit your narrative? Does this make you feel like a hero?"
In a sudden rush of movement, she seized Fluttershy's waist and swooped down, lips stopping just a millimetre short from her skin.
"Does it make you feel good about yourself?" panted Fluttershy, straining away from the monster at her throat. All caution, all restraint was gone now. Abandoned in the terrifying certainty that someday soon, the Empress would drink from her for the final time. "Does it make you happy, to have ponies fear you? Do you want me to beg for my life?"
Nightmare Moon paused, just for a second. Then the shutters came down again. "It is of little import what mortals think of me." Her tongue slithered over Fluttershy's flesh like a living thing, long and forked like a snake's.
"Then why hide it?" Fluttershy pushed, desperate now to find that fatal chink in the Nightmare's armour. Something, anything, to make her feel. "Why keep up the pretense of a wise and fair ruler? Why snatch innocent ponies to kill them in the dark? Why not just – just demand it openly? Force foals to open their veins to you in the throne room?"
The vice-like grip holding her suddenly released, and Fluttershy fell hard onto her rump as the Empress spun away, her feathers trembling in agitation. She leaned heavily against the balustrade, and Fluttershy could no longer see her face.
Shivering with fear, Fluttershy picked herself up, trying to calculate her chances of success if she dove off the balcony.
Her voice bleak and empty, the Empress spoke. "Stars, is that what you think of me? Do you truly believe me such a monster as that?"
The odds of survival were very, very slim, Fluttershy concluded. If the Empress didn't get her, the Nightguard certainly would. The air around the palace would be thick with them at this time of night, even if her poor night-vision could not make them out.
"What should I think, then?" she asked softly, concluding her best chance lay in somehow convincing or shaming the Empress into changing her mind.
Furiously, helplessly, the Empress shrugged her wings, their black tips trailing on the floor. "I love my ponies, Fluttershy. Everything I have done, everything I have ever done, has been for love of them. All I've ever wanted was for them to love me too. To love my night." She gestured with a wing at the beautiful array above them. "From – from the earliest moment of my rupture with the false queen, it was the love of all of you that motivated me."
With shaky limbs, Fluttershy scrambled back onto her chaise longue and leant weakly against the cushions. There was nothing for it but to keep her talking. "Do you think...things like this will make them love you?"
That was the wrong thing to say. The Empress turned, and her expression was flinty. "It hardly matters," she said distantly. "It doesn't change what needs to be done."
"Wait!" Fluttershy said desperately. "You – you don't have to do this. It doesn't need to be this way. Please, Dark Majesty, you're a – a good pony. I can see it in you. I've seen it. Things don't have to end this way."
The Empress spread her wings and smiled a bleak, terrible smile. "Things always end this way. It's an inevitability."
"But – but aren't you lonely?" pled Fluttershy. "I know you must be. Empress, I can be your friend! I could help you change–"
But the words came too late. In a rush of darkness and starlight, the Nightmare descended upon her, and fangs fastened on her throat.
Pain lanced through Fluttershy's body like a swarm of bees. A thousand thousand stings, all concentrated in those two holes on her throat, where the beast crouched over her, grunting low and guttural as it fed on her.
"Stop," gasped Fluttershy, and then as she would say to an animal, stop, you're hurting me.
But this monster was no animal, and it could not hear her words.
With failing strength Fluttershy tried to push it off her, but she was so, so weary. Her limbs were as floppy as blades of grass, and no matter how hard she tried to kick, nothing seemed to impact on the creature hunched over her.
Fluttershy felt herself begin to drift. She saw her Mama's face, heard her Papa singing a lullaby. Felt again the tug of little Zephyr's unpractised hooves in her mane as he twisted it into a bun.
She saw Angel, a baby bunny once more, stumbling lost from the woods and trying to steal a single carrot from their garden. Saw the shock on his face when she understood his tiny little curses, and the surprise when she pulled the carrot up for him.
Then just that one thought filled her mind. Angel. If she never came home, who was going to feed Angel his carrots at dusk when he woke up? Who would unlock his hutch? Would anyone come – or would he wither slowly away, waiting faithfully for her to return?
No.
She couldn't leave him. Not yet. Not like that.
Suddenly, her hooves found purchase against the Nightmare's forehead, and blindly she stabbed out with both forelegs. Her hooves connected, and with a gasp of pain, the Empress reared back, clutching her injured eye. An arc of blood shone for an instant in the air between them before it spattered Fluttershy's pale coat.
Breathing heavily, she staggered to her hooves. She looked up through her knotted mane at the slitted eyes of the Empress, and narrowed her own.
And then she launched herself at the black-winged monster, toppling them both over the balcony's edge.
They seemed to fall almost in slow motion. Fluttershy tried to spread her wings, to fly away – to at least die a free mare – but like iron bands, the Empress' forelegs closed around her, dragging her inexorably down. For a few seconds, Fluttershy struggled against it, but then she wrapped her own legs around the Nightmare. Let it come. At least she had proven that she was not a mere thing, a meal to be eaten and discarded.
Soft as a lover, the Empress cradled her close, and Fluttershy pressed her muzzle into the crook of that great black shoulder. The pulse beat beneath the skin, strong and vital, and somehow it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to simply bite down and drink.
It was like ambrosia. Nectar from heaven. Thick and rich and redolent with the metallic taste of copper, it flowed down her throat like it was made to be there, and stars, it was divine.
A sharp intake of pained breath, and the hooves that had held her close tried to shove her away. But Fluttershy's own forelegs were twined tight around that great black neck, holding them fast together.
The pitched obsidian rooves of the lower palace hurtled up to meet them, but Fluttershy was only dimly aware. The blood consumed her just as she consumed it. Angel was forgotten, Nightmare Moon forgotten, her very self forgotten in the blind biological need for more.
They hit the stone-tiled roof with an earth-shattering crash and the alicorn beneath Fluttershy let out a howl of pain as they ploughed through the tiles into the great hall below.
Fluttershy was thrown loose and landed hard on her side, the impact enough to knock the wind out of her.
Gasping for air, she dragged herself up and met the Empress' eyes with a baleful stare of her own. Blood plashed from the corners of her mouth onto the stone flags under her hooves.
The Empress spat out a mouthful of red fluid and stared at Fluttershy, flanks heaving. "I should kill you for that," she snarled, but as she looked down at Fluttershy, bloodstained and trembling with fury and the fresh beginnings of fear, something changed. She began to laugh. "But I won't, little goose girl."
Fluttershy bit her lip, and her new fangs cut deep. Her mouth filled again with the taste of blood, her own this time. Salty and metallic and somehow tainted.
The Empress leant in close, and a sharp-fanged smile split her muzzle from ear to ear. "I won't. Because now, you're just like me."
