From the West They Came

Chapters

I – “And created Harmony for all the land”
II – Uninvited
III – Homing Bat
IV – Captain's Gambit
V – Sea Stories
VI – New Perspectives
VII – The Warning
VIII – Transgression
IX – Homecoming
X – Loose Ends
XII – The West
XIII – Below
XIV – Lost on the Moon
XI – Mare Incognitum

I – “And created Harmony for all the land”

As befits one of ponykind’s oldest and most cherished legends, every colt and filly has heard some variation of the Sisters’ tale. The details are rarely consistent. In some regions the Sisters are described sailing from beyond the horizon in a tiny boat made of pure gold, shining as bright as the Sun above their heads. Other ponies tell their young the stories about a crack in the sky far beyond the horizon, and the eclipse that lasted for four days. The reclusive tribes of northern Equestria believe that one of their own had once captured the queen of kelpies; when the creature promised to fulfill any three of her captor’s desires, the mare wished for safety, stability and justice in all of Equestria for the rest of time. Impressed by the magnanimous wish, the kelpie clapped her hooves and two shining stars fell from the sky in the west.

The west. It’s the one element that shows up in every version of the fable. And yet, over the course of our kingdom’s glorious history, none of the adventurous souls who attempted to venture westward found anything of note on the open sea. Among our wizards, sages and other learned ponies the prevailing opinion is that the ‘myth of the west’ is nothing more than a hollow remnant in the pony mind from our nomadic times when the Sun’s descent – ending in the west – guided our steps.

We, however, know better. Second Lieutenant Sky Haze, who was assigned to our Princess’s personal guard days before the war, swore that Her Highness often left her quarters to wander in the castle gardens, looking west with a gaze full of longing and nostalgia.

Despite the bravery and combat prowess of all our comrades, the war has been lost the moment our dearest Princess was sealed away. Unlike the majority of our forces, who gave up their arms and lost their will to fight mere hours after the final battle, we do not treat our pledge of loyalty lightly. If there’s any chance that the legendary west will help us set our Princess free, it’s our duty to pursue this goal.

The first weeks went by without any complications; the supplies we’ve managed to fit on Nocturne and Luna’s Grace – the two ships whose captains were willing to take the risk – would suffice for a month on the open sea. After all, we didn’t need to pack much of anything else. Two magically sealed barrels of explosive powder for emergencies and a couple crates full of complicated tools for the witch Midnight filled the remaining space in the hold.

At first even the weather was on our side, water remaining calm despite the wind blowing into our sails. Looking back at it now, the morale was also at its high point. We were anxious to act; to save our Princess who was unfairly taken away from us when we needed her the most. May history forget the defeatists who abandoned her cause at the first hushed rumors of amnesty – with Luna on our side we were sure we could succeed against all enemies.

The first incident happened twelve days after we left port. Many of our crew, batponies all, were wary of Midnight. She was a sorceress who worked closely with Her Highness on several secret magical projects during the war, earning her the name ‘Bat Witch’ among her unicorn kin. When Midnight found out about the derogatory title, she only smiled and asked the Princess to make those rumors come true. The Princess – at that time already bearing the form of Nightmare Moon – agreed, sensing an opportunity to strike fear into the hearts of the loyalist forces. Midnight’s long mane became as dark as a lightless night sky and her amethyst coat turned gray. Whenever she smiled one could notice two sharp fangs, though the general impression of her new sarosian form was undermined by the lack of leathery wings that all of us possess. In turn, she has kept her horn; a trade-off that any former unicorn would be more than happy to accept. The fact that the Bat Witch was one of the first to join our desperate mission made the recent discovery all the more puzzling.

On the morning of the twelfth day, one of the sailors found a curious item among the crates brought onto the ship by Midnight. A wrought iron cage connected to a small vial of dragonfire. The captain and I have seen similar devices during the war; they enabled a two-way communication between the user and a powerful unicorn a long distance away. Our generals used them to exchange strategic information and stay on top of the solars’ logistics – we suspected that Celestia’s army did the same to monitor us. The cage was simultaneously a receiver and a sender, its bars enchanted to contain the immeasurable heat of dragonfire needed to send a letter in the instant before it was destroyed.

Now, Captain Sea Worthy was an unparalleled leader despite her young age but if there’s anything she could never tolerate, it’s her crew hiding dangerous magical contraband on her ship. Midnight argued that having a way to send one letter to the mainland might prove useful but for our captain merely considering contacting Celestia – to whom the device was tuned – was bordering on treason. She ordered the contraption to be thrown overboard, but not before confiscating the vial and a single letter that arrived in the time since our departure.

How unfortunate that the letter wasn’t sunk with the cage! That night, four ponies were summoned by Sea Worthy. We gathered in silence in front of the doors to her state room at quarter past two, as the notes we’ve received instructed us to. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the possible scenarios requiring such secrecy. I opened my eyes again, taking a look at the ponies waiting with me.

Nocturne’s captain and her first officer were nervously pacing in the corridor, surprised in equal parts by the request and the grave concern expressed by Sea Worthy in those few words. Compared to them, Midnight was far more collected, quietly reading an old scroll she brought with her. Although her expression was entirely hidden beneath a wide and pointy purple hat that she never left her cabin without, she seemed quite unbemused by the situation, nonchalantly humming a well-known batpony ballad about a hero who left his clan to vanquish the mountains hiding the Moon during the day. Were it not for a lone drop of sweat that trickled down the visible part of her cheek, I might’ve been fooled by the act.

The doors opened and Sea Worthy gestured for us to come inside, closing the doors as soon as the last pony crossed the threshold. She swiftly pulled a tiny key from beneath the carpet and opened a concealed safe built into the wall. She gently pushed aside the confiscated vial of dragonfire and reached for an envelope that both me and Midnight had already seen. The rich golden paper was glistening in the candlelight, drawing attention to the two broken pieces of crimson wax hanging from the page. The first was the Solar Stalwart, Celestia’s personal seal reserved for documents of utmost importance. A cold chill crept up my spine as I suddenly felt small and utterly insignificant. I quickly averted my gaze and focused on the other seal which was—

“The Night’s Vigil! –“ Nocturne’s first officer cried out, breaking the ominous silence that befell the room “– It can’t be! After our Lady’s banishment the only one who was allowed to use it was Commander Star!”

“Our worst fears have come to pass,” said Sea Worthy, meeting our startled looks with eyes shining with purpose, “the command has completely surrendered and accepted the tyrant’s amnesty. The traitors – and by that I mean both our former superiors and the damned Sun monarch – asked us to abandon our mission, promising to forget about our deeds as soon as we disembark.

“Furthermore, Celestia had the audacity to warn us against sailing west. She said that these waters are traitorous and that her magic will not protect us on what she called a suicidal journey. Bah! As if we wanted her ‘protection’!”

Midnight pursed her lips. The Nocturne sailors stared at the floor with pale faces and trembling legs. I have seen enough broken troops to know better than to let this mood persist. I swallowed hard and stepped forward.

“You’re right, captain!” I said with as much confidence as I could muster given the circumstances, “Luna’s light will guide us to the ends of the world! We all knew what we were getting ourselves into, now is not the time for doubts!”

I caught a glimpse of a smile on Midnight’s face telling me that she saw through my overly dramatic performance. Thankfully the others weren’t as observant. Nocturne’s captain calmed down and said, “We… we could still turn back. It’s not co… cowardice to cut your losses early.”

“It is cowardice, my fellow captain, –“ Sea Worthy glared at the trembling mare “– and more than that, it would be a treason to leave our good Princess when she needs our help. I am the commander in chief on this mission and if I say that we’re not running away, that is my final decision. Did I make myself clear?”

“Of course,” the first officer boldly chimed in without looking Sea Worthy in the eyes, “but we should still tell the sailors about the letter. They have to know.”

“They most certainly shouldn’t!” I said, stomping on the carpeted floor for added emphasis, “Low morale is something we need to avoid at all costs.”

“I’m afraid our newly promoted friend is right,” Midnight finally let her opinion on the issue be known, “If we might be forced to fend off threats that can’t be easily defeated with blades and magic alone, every determined mind will be of use.”

Nocturne’s first officer glared at both of us. “You are afraid of your own sailors and you dare call us cowards? Why, you—”

“That’s enough.” Nocturne’s captain’s voice was as cold as ice. “We’ve been given an order. Comply with the request immediately.”

“Finally acting reasonably, I see. Officer Vigil,” Sea Worthy said to me with a nod, “escort our guests to their ship and report back. Midnight, stay here a bit longer. I have a few more questions for you.”

The three of us marched in silence interrupted only by the echoes of our hoofsteps and the distant swearing coming from the galley. Our cook always woke up in the middle of the night to prepare breakfast for the sailors; being alone in the kitchen didn’t stop Moon Shine from cursing everything and everypony that caught his attention.

Once we made it to the top deck, Nocturne’s first officer flew back to their ship, a task made significantly harder by the raging storm that started a couple hours ago. The captain, however, closed her wings, turned towards me and said, “It would be best if you headed back to Sea Worthy right now.”

She kept her eyes peeled to the deck but I couldn’t have missed the veiled threat in her words.

“Why would I?” I said, deciding to stall for time by playing dumb. “You’ll be off to your ship any moment now, won’t you?”

“They deserve to know,” The mare drew a short dagger from one of the purses in her jacket, “Right now, my first officer is almost done with waking up my crew to tell them that we’re coming home. As for yours, well, don’t make it any harder than it needs to be.”

I thought about running away. She was armed and determined, the blade she held in her wing making it clear what would happen were I to continue standing in her way. Thankfully, I heard quiet hoofsteps from down the hall. With some luck, all I needed to do was stall for a moment.

“Every mare and stallion on this ship willingly signed up knowing that our chances of success are tenuous at best.” I paused. “What gives you the authority to sabotage our mission?”

“My conscience,” she said, shifting her gaze to the Mare in the Moon. “If she was still here, she would’ve never asked us to lie to the very ponies we’re responsible for.”

“But she isn’t,” I interrupted, “and fixing that is why we’ve started this journey in the first place. I won’t let you take that last bit of hope from us.”

“I’m sorry,” she half-whispered and galloped at me.

She was fast, much faster than me. I dodged the slash of the dagger so narrowly that I felt it shave off some of the hair on my cheek. She pressed the advantage. I saw her dagger being thrown into the air, only for her to jump and dive at me with a lightning fast flap of her wings, catching the weapon mid flight. I ducked away.

Too slow. Before I could get up I felt a sharp sting on my flank and crimson drops mixed with the puddles of rain water on the deck. I thought that it was just a shallow cut but it bought her the time to once again close the distance and go for the finishing strike aimed at my neck.

I was saved by a frying pan. The unlikely projectile forced the traitor to make a hasty and imprecise dodge, which in turn left her open long enough for me to land a buck on her unguarded side. She flinched, dropping the dagger.

Apparently my hooves still had some strength left in them because the moment she left the ground to reposition herself, the wing I kicked bent in the wrong direction, sending the screaming pony crashing into the ship. She gritted her teeth and jumped at the cook who had just saved my life.

And then… she slipped. Before we could do anything, the ravenous waves devoured the poor mare. A loud thunder split the silence of the night as Moon Shine threw the rope into the blackness of the rough sea. It was a pointless endeavor – we both knew that – and yet we did it regardless. I fought through the pain and the dizziness that appeared in my head while the cook continued to stare at the waves. I could swear that he was paler than a ghost. His hooves were trembling so badly that I feared he might collapse any moment now.

“Damn it! I… I didn’t…” he stammered, “I swear… It was an accident…”

“You did nothing wrong,” I tried to assert, but my voice was less confident than I had hoped. “A shame it had to come to this but she was a tra– a misguided pony, and you saved my life.”

“Right, but” – Moon Shine averted his eyes from the sea – “Bloody Tartarus! Sir, you’re bleeding out!”

I looked at my flank; he might’ve been right. The dagger cut much deeper than I initially thought. Out of the corner of my eye I saw several startled sailors leaving their cabins downstairs, surely woken up by the fight.

“You there!” the cook bellowed at the nearest batpony. “Find the surgeon and bring him here immediately. We don’t have much time!”

“No need for that, I can walk there myself,” I said, and promptly fainted.

II – Uninvited

I woke up in a cozy room inside what seemed to be a normal log cabin. Its only distinguishing feature was a round oak table with three chairs spaced evenly around it. However, the room wasn’t normal in any capacity; for one, everything here was upside down, held to the fake floor by some unknown force. At least, that was my initial impression. I looked down and immediately realized my error. In this place I wasn’t a pony anymore, just a regular bat. Below my claws and in place of the roof stretched an endless vista of stars and galaxies that I’ve never seen before. I had to look away, for simply observing the sheer scale of it made my head spin worse than the blood loss that I’ve just experienced.

An even more troubling matter was the room’s size. At first the furniture seemed normal – if atypically shaped – but no matter how far I flew to reach it, I couldn’t seem to get even an inch closer. I suspected that some kind of a perception spell must’ve been cast on me or the room, otherwise the chair in front of me would have to be at least as large as the tallest of the mountain ranges.

Then I saw them, the giants who lived in this realm so similar and yet so unlike anything in Equestria. The one in front of me was a shifting and twisting mass of innumerable appendages, each coming from another creature and angled differently from the rest. I didn’t recognize almost any of the parts and the longer I looked, the less I understood. It had no discernible central part, its multitude of tails, fins, wings, heads, tentacles, legs, pincers and even more exotic limbs was arranged not just randomly; it gave the overwhelming impression of being wrong, a deliberate design to defy all Order. It wasn’t exactly “sitting” on the chair but the piece of furniture was marking roughly the point where the mass was the most volatile, sprouting and deforming new shapes faster than they could be observed.

The chair to its right hosted the Light.

I squinted, the sheer intensity of radiance singing my fur, burning through my eyelids and imprinting its mark on my eyes. Wherever I looked, a blazing web of runes and lines was overlaying my vision. There was Truth to these markings, a message of Law and Order, but it was not for my mind to comprehend. The luminous being was the same way; I could not tell if it had any substance beneath its powerful glow, and if it did, it didn’t need to show it. What little I did understand amounted to a simple realization that I originally underestimated its power. No, it didn’t simply tell the Truth, its words – wherever they shined – became the Truth. Despite its strength, it did not seek to dominate. Wherever it clashed with the ever-expanding filth violently expulsed by the other being, its rays would reestablish the Law, forcing it to retreat. They were evenly matched.

The third chair was empty, or so I thought until a splinter of a stray stream of thoughts struck me like a lightning bolt. The chair was empty – as it always has been – but at the same time I knew that it will be the throne of the third force, and that this, too, has always been true. Where the Two reside, so will the Third. Or perhaps the First, which it will become as soon as it exists. Not a passive observer, but a faction equally involved in all their proceedings since the beginning of time. It will hold power in its subtlety, like a wind over a mountain lake seen by no one, or a pleasant dream forgotten before sunrise; it will have equal power nonetheless.

“A fitting comparison,” it will whisper to me, for it will be the first of the Three to notice my presence in the halls of the divines, “Welcome, visitor. We will be seeing each other a few more times,” it will add.

I shook my head and looked at the empty chair. Sure enough, nothing about it has changed. But I have heard the words that were spoken (will be spoken, I corrected myself) and no longer doubted the invisible presence atop it.

A sickening feeling washed over my body. Thousands of mismatched eyes turned in my direction and a branching limb dragged me to the table in seconds.

The repulsive creature opened some of its mouths and a cacophony of noises filled my ears. “A bat, here?” Its attention shifted to the empty chair. “It’s your work, isn’t it? Or, excuse me, it will be your work.”

The proximity of the defiler made my organs shift, twist and churn. I did not know how much longer I could survive this ordeal.

“Whoever he is, leave him be.” A beam of light forced my captor to release me from his corrupting grasp.

“Eh, always so boring, aren’t you? Look,” – another mass of claws and tendrils sprouted upwards, reaching into the starlit ceiling and bringing one unlucky planet down – “I can do this however long I want to,” he said, smashing the planet in two. I could see squid-like creatures all over the destroyed world panicking at the sudden apocalypse that had struck them.

“Pointless. All will be restored.” Another beam of light illuminated the table and I could feel my insides drift back to their designated spots, completely undamaged.

Before my eyes, the globe was made whole again. On its surface everything from shattered buildings to the creatures torn asunder by the recent catastrophe was healed to its previous state, shocked gazes of the briefly dead squid-creatures the only proof of what transpired moments ago.

“How about another round of our favorite game, then? It’s been a good while since the last time and I’m getting bored,” the noise resumed its obscene melody. “But first, let me get rid of the pests.”

I heard a snapping noise and I was gone, banished from the room in the universe’s least normal log cabin.

III – Homing Bat

I was weak, confused and in pain. The air in the cabin was stale, soaked in the unmistakable stench of decay that reminded me of the field hospitals built after the bloody battle for Saddle Arabia. Half of my flank and my right hindleg were bandaged, and although the bandages were white as snow, the burning radiating from below them made it painfully obvious that I won’t quickly forget about the wound.

Still, I was alive and back from the strangest dream I ever had. I could still see faint remnants of runes everywhere I looked, growing less and less visible with every passing second. Waking up didn’t make them understandable but perhaps Midnight could decipher their meaning.

Luckily I was able to find a quill and some unsigned documents on a table next to my bed. ‘Last Will of the first officer Long Vigil’ and other similar nonsense, all prewritten and eagerly waiting for my signature. I chuckled, though the action released a new wave of pain pulsing from my wound. “You’ll have to try harder than that to get rid of me,” I said to myself.

Copying the runes proved to be more of a challenge than I expected. The patterns were exceedingly intricate and – after Luna-knows-how-long spent on a bed – my mouth and my wings struggled to keep the quill sufficiently steady during the process. I couldn’t rush it, either. If this was anything like the ancient symbolic language of the unicorns that it resembled, one wrong stroke could change or invert the meaning of the entire sentence. In the end, I only managed to copy three symbols. With nothing better to do, I drifted off to a calm and dreamless sleep.

“…don’t think it’s a good idea. He’s been grievously wounded in that fight. Frankly, it’s a miracle that he survived. When I got to him he looked like a tomato that someone squeezed all the juice out of.”

“If he survived that, a brief conversation won’t kill him.” A dark blue glow enveloped the doors to my cabin, opening them with a creak. “Oh my, what a rich aroma! I have to admit I only did a short course on modern medical practices, but I’ve never heard about the restorative benefits of pickling the wounded,” Midnight’s sarcastic tone put the other voice on the defensive.

“You don’t know the sea!” the other pony, an old stallion who couldn’t be anypony else but the ship’s surgeon, protested. “Invisible fumes of salt water seep through the cuts and into the flesh, driving ponies sea-mad! Everypony knows that!”

“Then maybe you should wear a hat –“ Midnight’s telekinetic field opened the porthole in my cabin “– because it seems that the same fumes seeped through your skull and into your brain, Sawbones.”

“Fine, fine! You’re too stubborn to listen to reason. Just don’t blame me if he suddenly decides that drowning seems like a good way to spend the afternoon.” He muttered some swears under his breath before leaving.

Midnight sat down on a bench opposite of my bed. She adjusted her hat, revealing a pair of viciously red irides. I wondered how many ponies had seen her eyes. Red was a very exotic color but it fit her rather well despite not having anything in common with her white cutie mark – crescent Moon and a bottle. I couldn't help but wonder if they were natural.

“No, and less than a dozen. Or maybe the other way around.” A smug smile crept across Midnight’s face upon seeing me almost jump in shock. “Don’t worry, I can’t read anypony’s thoughts yet, I just always get asked the same two questions. For the record, it was a gift from our beloved Princess. She decided that crimson fits me better than a boring blue-green.” She sniffed and scrunched her muzzle. “I’m sure you have many questions – so do I, trust me – but it’d be best if we first let the room air out a bit.”

We waited in silence for a few more minutes. Midnight levitated in a tome called “Ancient unicorn language and its dialects; an illustrated lexicon for use in summoning, study and secret rituals” and began comparing some of the illustrations in the book to the drawings that could be found on a crumbled page in front of her. After a while she closed the book and inhaled deeply.

“Much better,” she said. “That’s one of the first tricks you learn when opening fresh graves; don’t try reciting necromantic formulas until the dearly departed stops spoiling the surrounding air, ha ha.”

The rumors reached far and wide and she must’ve known that everypony on the ship has heard them at least once. She was probably only joking. Probably.

“In any case, consider yourself lucky.” She grinned. “Even though you probably feel like a corpse and this room smelled like a flooded graveyard, you get to ask questions. Reanimated dead don’t get such privileges.”

I tried to focus my thoughts. “How long…”

“Two weeks.” Midnight’s expression became more serious. “Many were already writing you off. At least the documents they brought with them were of some use,” she said, pointing at the paper she was studying earlier. It was one of the three runes I copied.

Two weeks! I shook my head with disbelief. “What happened to the trai–?”

“Shh.” Midnight looked left and right before casting a spell that enveloped the room in a dark blue aura. “A bubble of silence. What did you want to ask?”

“Where are we headed, how were we not imprisoned and, –” I scratched my head “– how did we avoid a mutiny?”

She nodded with a veiled smile. “Sea Worthy proved to be a wiser pony than her age would suggest. Immediately after you left to escort the Nocturne’s representatives, she ordered me to – just in case, she said – teleport onto their ship and hide on the path leading to the crew’s quarters. A bit later, their officer was walking in the same direction.” The smile on her face grew. “Unfortunately for her, she slipped. Head first into the wall, might I add. On a dry, even flooring. But what do you know, I just so happened to be nearby! I helped the terribly unlucky, unconscious pony. Who knows what could’ve happened if I wasn’t there! The situation might’ve been a lot more dangerous,” she finished with an exaggerated concern in her voice.

“I see where the rumors come from, Midnight. You’re quite a pony.”

“I’m pleased to hear that,” she said before mockingly bowing her head.

“And Nocturne’s first officer? Surely you didn’t, you know…” Instead of finishing the sentence, I made a cutting gesture near my neck.

She gasped, theatrically raising one hoof to her mouth in a way that didn’t not cover the exposed fangs. “Why, I’d never! Do you think I’m a monster?”

“So, what happened? Did he have a sudden change of heart?” At the bottom of the sea, I wanted to add.

“Actually, he turned out to be a very practical stallion,” she said. “We wanted to keep what happened that night a secret, he wanted an easy way for anypony to abandon the mission without being labeled a traitor. So we traded. The crew of both ships was told about the letter. The next day any sailors who no longer wanted to sail with us left on the Nocturne. It’s not ideal but I’d say we did our best given the situation.”

I closed my eyes preparing for the worst. “How many?”

“About two thirds. You’ll have to ask Sea Worthy for the names of those who remained, I don’t tend to waste my attention on the mundane details.” Her voice suggested that she was quickly losing interest in discussing the topic further.

“So we’re left on our own, but at least we can continue our journey.” I exhaled. “You’re right, it could’ve been a lot worse than that.”

A piece of paper with a familiar rune levitated close to my face.

“Do you remember this?” Midnight asked, carefully observing my response.

I nodded. “It’s written in the ancient unicorn language, isn’t it? Maybe this–“

Suddenly, all the light around us was extinguished. The veil of darkness was so thick that I couldn’t see my own hooves in front of my face. The room wasn’t just dark, the blackness devoured all sunlight in it. I screamed as loud as my pained lungs let me but the shadow’s silence devoured the sound before it could reach my ears.

Then, a lone and slowly growing blue spark lit up the darkness. With it, I could feel the oppressive veil of silence evaporate from the room, whispered words taking its place. As the spark revealed more of the cabin, I saw Midnight panting heavily – her horn ablaze in a dark, lightless flame.

“Dear Luna!” she sputtered, her breath slowly becoming more regular. “It may be easy to keep up but I completely forgot how exhausting this is to cast.”

“What did you do?!” I shouted.

Instead of responding, the Bat Witch slowly exhaled and conjured up a small mirror. She began slowly straightening her mane, making sure that the ridiculous hat was still resting firmly on her head. I could finally relax somewhat. Her putting on an act meant that at least we were not in any imminent danger. Once everything was in order, she lazily pointed at the ceiling. I looked up and saw many stars glimmering where the wooden roof should be.

“Time travel?” I dared to hazard a guess.

She shook her head and said, “No, just the little thing known as the Eternal Night. A very localized and ephemeral version of it, but the core principles are the same.”

I blinked a few times in disbelief of what I heard.

“What?” she responded, genuinely surprised by my reaction. “It’s harmless and exactly what we need now. Or did you forget that I worked with Her Highness to create this spell in the first place?”

Midnight stood up and gave me the remaining two pages containing the strange runes. “This isn’t the usual ancient unicornish. It’s written in a dialect that no ordinary batpony, pegasus, unicorn or earth pony could know. This doorstopper –“ she kicked the ’Ancient unicorn language and its dialects’ “– doesn’t mention it anywhere.”

“From your victorious tone I’m assuming that you happen to be the exception.”

“You’re assuming correctly,” she nodded, “Princess Luna has shown me how to read it. Her journal was written in the same script.”

“Is that why you went to all this trouble to make it night?” I asked. This topic, contrary to our crewponies’ fate, seemed to greatly interest Midnight. I couldn’t recall ever seeing her so invested in anything other than our journey west.

“No, it’s for our safety! See,” – she pointed to a part of a rune that resembled a squashed half-circle with rays coming out of it – “The script is the same but the contents… these are extraordinarily powerful Light invocations. When that fool Sawbones found it, he tried to translate it using a rudimentary knowledge of unicornish from his time in medical school. Luckily for us, he decided to test the spell after translating the first rune. If he waited, we’d end up at the bottom of the sea in a ship that got shredded to bits by a power we don’t understand!”

During her monologue, Midnight absent-mindedly kept walking towards me. By the time her speech had ended, I almost got one of my eyes gouged by her horn. She took three steps back and continued in a much calmer tone.

“Ah, let’s start from the top,” she said, grabbing one of the pages with her hoof. “Do you know what it says?”

I shook my head.

“Of course. Have you ever seen it before the recent accident?”

Another negative answer.

She nodded her head. “As I thought. Now for the open-ended question: Where did you see it long enough to make an exact copy?”

I sighed. Then again, in my current state anything was better than boredom.

By the end of my tale, Midnight stopped making new notes in her notepad. She simply sat on the ground nearby, and listened with eyes and a muzzle open in a barely disguised expression of wonder that didn’t suit her at all. I finished the story with her surprise visit.

“This changes everything!” the Witch euphorically exclaimed, “Here, take this.” A tiny bottle landed on the nearby desk. It looked like cough syrup, if cough syrup was glowing in an aggressively violet hue.

“Is this poison?” Knowing her, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

“No, I always make sure to keep poisons translucent and water-like.” Midnight rolled her eyes and laughed. “I mean, who’d drink a bottle of a mysterious violet liquid?”

“Yeah, that’s really reassuring,” I answered sarcastically. “What is it then, if not poison?”

“I don’t really know myself,” she said with a shrug. “Our Princess took a spoonful of it before every especially busy night in the dreamworld. It’s certainly a sleeping aid and – according to Her Highness’s notes – the sleep induced by these drops has paramount restorative properties. I gave you a teaspoon of it when the situation seemed hopeless.”

I knew that Princess Luna wouldn’t pick an evil pony as her apprentice. Perhaps I had to remind myself of that a bit more often in Midnight’s company, but you could count on her when it mattered most. “That means I have you to thank for my survival? Thank you! Though I can’t understand why you didn’t share this medicine with the rest of the world.”

“Right, I forgot to mention that there was a chance that it would have driven you insane on the spot.”

My admiration turned into shock faster than I could blink.

“That’s why Her Highness refused to test it on ponies,” she added. “But you? You were looking pretty dead already so I figured it was worth a shot.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” This was my turn to roll my eyes. “But what is in that thing? How would you even make a mind-corrupting healing potion?”

“Herbs and flowers, with a special spell cast on a full moon…” Midnight’s voice trailed off. “I remember: fresh daffodil, myrtle, stinging nettle, pure ethanol, moonflower and earth pony blood.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Ah, of course! Later on we discovered that one of the ingredients was unnecessary. Sadly, I’m not sure which one,” she said playfully.

“I really hope it’s–“

“Ethanol, I know!” Midnight interrupted me with a grin on her face. She licked one of her fangs. “Out of all of them, I can’t handle the taste of alcohol.”

It’s just another joke, I hoped, before asking her, “Why are you giving me this?”

“The Princess said that it will probably drive others to madness but if it didn’t, they would learn something that remained hidden even from her. It seems to work well for you, so consider taking a sip when you need to.”

“No obligations, snarky comments? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You can be nice when you want to.”

“You deserve it. After all, you risked your life for the success of our mission. I just crashed some stallion into a wall.” She turned her head towards the door. With a quiet pop the darkness dissipated and the sunlight greedily barged into the room. “Just don’t forget to share the results if you do use it!” she added, storming off with pages of runes held in her telekinetic grasp.

I smiled. Sawbones was right for once; I really needed to rest. Still, it was a very productive afternoon. Not to mention that– No, I must’ve just imagined it.

For a moment I was sure that Midnight was blushing when she left.

IV – Captain's Gambit

Seeing the sea from the deck was refreshing. I shook my right hindleg. It almost didn’t hurt anymore and yet Sawbones told me to keep the bandages for at least two more weeks, justifying his decision by saying something about getting salt water in the scars. The aged stallion was an incredibly superstitious fellow – even for a seasoned sailor – but if the crew respected his wisdom, it’d be foalish to entirely dismiss his warnings.

The atmosphere on the ship surprised me; great joviality was in the air and the spirits were high. The mystery was resolved somewhat when I noticed the other, bottled kind of spirits being quickly hidden from my sight by dexterous batponies. I made a mental note to ask the cook about the source of this unlicensed liquid happiness and trotted over to the nearby group of dice players. One of them, a tall mare with a well-kept mane – Nocturne’s former second mate if memory served me right – stepped forward from the group.

“Welcome back, sir!” she said. “We’re glad that you survived and can walk on your own, you looked half-dead when we saw you sprawled on the deck.”

“It'd take something more than a toothpick to do me in.” I tried to smile with confidence, less at the pony in front of me and more at the crowd which gathered to see the pony who narrowly escaped death. The persistent happiness I noticed earlier was still visible in their faces, except that now it was tinged with quiet respect. I hoped Sea Worthy didn’t build me up as a martyr-hero of our mission.

In a show of commendable courage, one of the visibly inebriated sailors wobbled her way to me with a full mug.

“Sweet cider with a hint of a strong rum,” she slurred. “Very good!” she enthusiastically added before extending the hoof with the drink towards me.

The crowd fell silent. They knew that I shouldn’t be openly tolerating day drinking on the ship, not when it was made so obvious. I looked around, two dozens of ponies observing my every move with worried expressions. Further away I saw calm sea in every direction, not a single cloud threatening a change of weather. I sighed.

“Don’t make this a habit, –” I took the mug and raised it to my mouth “– the next time I see any of you drunk on duty, I’ll have to notice. But today…” I dismissively waved a wing and took a large sip.

The cheering was almost deafening. In a blink of an eye everypony on the deck procured a full mug from seemingly nowhere. Toasts were raised, bets taken and laughter thundered across the sea. At the same time, my throat burned with an unquenchable fire.

“How strong did you make this?!” I screamed at the pony who gave me the drink.

The drunk bat suddenly looked extremely apologetic.

“Oh, I forgot we ran out of cider! Rum’s still good, no?”

She was more right that she could know. If my time in the army taught me anything, it was that low morale is far more dangerous to any organized group than some booze. When I managed to reach the staircase, my mug was already almost empty and I had answered more questions than I probably should’ve. A younger sailor asked me what business necessitating the use of a silencing spell did Midnight have with me – I had to awkwardly dismiss his question. A round of applause made me aware of how my response was inadvertently perceived.

I knocked on the doors to Sea Worthy’s suite and waited, carefully hiding the empty mug behind one of the nearby barrels.

Minutes later, a frazzled looking mare with saddlebags full of various charts stormed out of the room with a worried look in her eyes. She stopped for a second, nodded to me and continued her dash through the corridor.

“It’s you!” Sea Worthy’s expression softened. “Come in and take a seat.”

I closed the door behind me.

“Did you ever wonder why you were appointed as my second in command despite having next to no experience in the navy?” she asked in a probing tone.

“No, captain.”

She waved her hoof and said, “Please, call me Sea Worthy or even just Sea. I always hated these pointless formalities.”

“It was Midnight’s doing.” Sea Worthy sat behind her desk and took a sip of coffee. “She cashed in some very old favors claiming that our good Princess took interest in you soon before her banishment. According to her, our monarch was sure that she had seen you somewhere long ago. But I didn’t trust you yet. I needed to make sure that you’re dependable.”

“The letter!” I gasped. “It was a fake!”

She scrunched her muzzle. “No, it was sadly all very much the real thing. But you are right that it was convenient. The game I chose to play was costly, yes, but it was necessary.”

“You expected somepony to crack under the pressure and try a mutiny, didn’t you?” I asked with barely concealed disbelief.

“I did.” Sea nodded and looked me straight in the eyes without flinching. “Once you three left the room, I asked Midnight to stop anypony who may try to enter the crew’s quarters on either ship. Frankly, I expected that pony to be you.”

I decided to ignore the last remark. “And what if we all tried to betray you?” I inquired. “Surely not even Midnight’s magic would stop three ponies in close quarters.”

“If three of my closest allies decided to betray me, the mission was doomed from the start. Thankfully that didn’t happen, you passed with flying colors. Both the test that I set up and the one that I couldn’t expect. Speaking of, she –“ Sea Worthy sighed heavily “– was an excellent fighter, and an even better captain. She’ll be missed.”

“What happened to Moon Shine?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him anywhere today.”

“He wasn't hurt physically like you,” said the captain, “but seeing the accident crushed his spirit. He and the Nocturne’s captain were very close. He locked himself in the galley the day after the fight and since then he refuses to come out.”

“I should probably check if he’s alright,” I said and nodded.

“Do it, but take a look at these maps first,” she said, gesturing at a pile of scrolls on the desk. “According to the second mate, there’s something wrong with the stars. She says that we have less than a week of sailing west left before we’ll have to find a different way of keeping course. That's all we know. Any questions?”

“It’s unrelated to the charts,” I began, “but where did the crew get so much rum?”

“I see you’ve been to the deck already.” Sea Worthy chuckled. “Nocturne left some of their supplies before turning tail. Helps them get to the shore a day or two sooner and lets us explore even farther. Among the supplies, our valiant bats quickly found several barrels of alcohol.”

She stood up and trotted over to a porthole, looking at the western horizon. “Let them have it. Last weeks were hard on everypony, not just you and the cook, and something tells me things won’t stay good for long. Don’t you agree?”

“We are prepared for over a week of–“

“I don’t care about your estimates.” Sea interrupted harshly, “Something terrible hangs in the air. I can feel it, and experience taught me better than to ignore these sorts of omens.”

“I think it’s just the wind,” I weakly countered. “Relying on superstitions never gets one anywhere.”

“Superstitions! If I were a betting mare, I’d bet this ship on you changing your mind before the end of our journey. You can go now, but keep your eyes open for any solutions to the problem of navigation.” Sea Worthy sat at her desk and picked up a pile of reports.

I closed the door behind me and walked towards the galley. One problem at a time.

V – Sea Stories

“Moon Shine, are you there?” I cried out. Perhaps the previous three times he hadn’t heard me through the closed doors and the clanking of iron pans that I could hear from within.

The noise rang out one final time and stopped. Something heavy rattled and finally the doors opened just enough for me to see one of Moon Shine’s bloodshot eyes rapidly scanning my surroundings.

“Are you sure there’s no pony – and nothing – with you?” was all he managed to say in a trembling voice.

“Yes, I’m quite certain.” I reassured him again. “Now come out and tell me what happened.”

Moon Shine took a panicked step back. “I can’t! I won’t! She’ll get me!”

“She… who?” I slowly asked.

“She sings of mourning but don’t you dare listen to her, captain! Her words are pure venom and nothing more!”

“What are you talking about? The only music I’ve heard recently were the inappropriate songs sung by the sailors who drank too much rum.” I remembered the exotic tune carrying an even more exotic story. Sailors were much more creative than the army with their impromptu poetry. “Also, I’m not the captain, Moon Shine. It’s me, Long Vigil.”

“You didn’t hear her song?” The cook inhaled loudly, once again ignoring a part of what I’ve said. “Perhaps there’s some hope for you, then. For you, but not for this damned bat who can’t sleep due to her wailing.” His head hung low as he pointed at himself. “She won’t forgive me, not now and not ever. I’ll work as long as I can but my fate was already sealed when I first heard her. The noise only makes it easier to ignore.”

The pieces finally fell into place, and I risked a question. “You mean the former captain of Nocturne, don’t you?”

Defeated, the cook nodded.

“I… My condolences, Moon Shine, but she’s dead. I understand that coping with the grief–“

“You understand nothing!” he wailed, shutting the door.

If one listened closely to the cacophony of noises coming from the kitchen, it was hard to abandon the notion that the sounds formed a requiem, one meant to be played in a duet.

I shook my head. Maybe Sea Worthy was right; this ridiculous mindset was terribly infectious. I needed a second opinion on the subject and luckily there was at least one pony who I could trust to approach the situation logically.

I found Midnight arguing with Sawbones about some of the dubiously helpful practices he was employing. Finding them wasn’t a hard task, they – especially Midnight – could be heard from halfway across the ship. The two stood beside a knocked-out sailor resting on a bed with a bandaged leg.

“Go ahead, waste two thirds of pure alcohol and then wonder why you’re running out so quickly!” Midnight grabbed an empty bottle and turned it upside down to prove her point.

“Not a drop was wasted, young lady,” the old surgeon replied calmly. “One part for cleaning the wound, the second part for calming down the patient and last but not least, the final part poured overboard to distract the evil spirits that could infect the wound.”

“Evil spirits, really?” Midnight rolled her eyes. “Look, I know it’s been a long time since you’ve been to a university but you and your salt water fumes are an affront to all medicine!”

“I left academia precisely because of self-important and ignorant unicorns who dismissed everything they couldn’t prove. And don’t forget that they— Ha! Look who’s here. Ask him how he feels about jumping off the ship, you’ll see what I meant.” Sawbones triumphantly stomped on the floor.

“I’ll have to disappoint you, Sawbones. I feel better with every hour spent outside,” I said. “I’m here to ask someone qualified about Moon Shine’s condition.”

Midnight smiled under her hat and kept silent.

Sawbones brightened up and started talking. “I appreciate the vote of confidence but I can’t say I know much. He locked himself up the day you got cut up. At least he still cooks.”

“No, I managed to get something that resembled an explanation from him. But what he said confused me even more, which is why –“ Much to the surgeon's dismay, I reluctantly returned Midnight’s smile “– I wanted to ask her for her opinion.”

“Oh for Luna’s sake!” Sawbones’s cried out in disappointment. “Do as you want, I won’t interrupt you. I’m only curious what kind of conclusion will your bright, unbiased minds reach,” he added with more than a hint of sarcasm.

Midnight stepped closer, not omitting to flick her tail at the disgruntled surgeon. “What are we working with?”

“He’s deathly afraid that she will get him soon. That’s why he’s locked himself up,” I said.

“And the she is, I presume, our favorite dead captain,” Midnight stated.

“Correct. What’s weird is that he should be the last pony to be afraid of her. He saw her sink.” I scratched my chin and shook my head. “That’s not all. From what I’ve gathered, prior to the accident he was very close with her.”

“I would hate to spread the rumors,” Midnight looked around and added with an expression of exaggerated concern, “but I can confirm the last point. Ever since we’ve left the port, he used to sneak out to visit her suite late at night and–”

“So far it looks like a really bad case of grief, doesn’t it?” I cut her off before she could get into the details. “The one thing that doesn’t make sense is–“

“The noise.” Midnight made a point to return the favor with a smug smile. “But are you sure it’s important? He wouldn’t be the first one to hear the voice of their special somepony before coping properly. Wanting to silence it this way is excessive but perfectly understandable for somepony handling the loss so badly.”

I sighed. “You’re probably right but he was genuinely terrified. He even warned me not to listen to her, and I quote, ‘song of mourning’ because her words are supposedly ‘pure venom and nothing more’. That doesn’t sound like grieving to me.”

“Well, everypony reacts differently.” Midnight shrugged. “Give him time, as long as he hasn’t completely lost his mind, he should get better soon. Case solved, right, doc–”

Sawbones looked as if all blood left his face. The scalpel he was holding just a moment ago clanked against the floor. He looked at me and Midnight with wide eyes and when he finally spoke, not a trace of his usual patronizing tone could be heard.

“Pray to the Moon that you’re right, kids,” he said. “In all the years I spent serving on the sea, not once have I heard one of these stories end without a bloodshed.”

“What stories?” I dared to ask, cursing myself for my curiosity.

Midnight leaned in closer to me, deprived of her usual smile and the carefully maintained aura of superiority. She looked almost afraid; I had to fight the urge to wrap one of my wings around her.

Sawbones looked out the porthole with a sad smile. “The ones with a banshee.”

VI – New Perspectives

I heard a snapping noise and the bat I saw was gone, banished from the room in the universe’s least normal log cabin. The chaotic abomination in front of me flowed more than turned, until I found myself once again staring into its unholy core. Its mouths opened, resuming the deafening assault on my senses.

“That’s surprising,” it whispered louder than a thunder “I expected to never see you again. Let’s find out the cause of this sudden intrusion.”

Without a warning, the creature’s thoughts barged into my mind, probing for the answers that weren’t there. I felt as if a spiked, slimy tentacle wormed its way into my brain and started mashing my memories and my sense of self into a paste. It couldn’t have taken more than a fraction of a second and yet by the time the monster was finished, I felt dirtier than after the two days that my squad had once spent in the Fillydelphian sewers, waiting for relief troops to liberate the city from Celestia’s army.

“I accept.” A commanding flash of Light shined from within the nearby luminescent power. The gentle glow that surrounded me promised that all will be well and all manner of things will be well.

I gathered the courage to look up at the Light. Just like the last time, the Truth burned into my eyes. Unlike the last time, however, I didn’t look away; instead I focused my thoughts on a single lost ship that tried to sail west. Our ship. Many of the runes glowed even brighter, the connections between them imprinted deep into my retinas. I hoped that the stack of pages that I prepared before taking a spoonful of Midnight’s potion would be sufficient to write them down.

“I will join you, too,” a third voice will say.

“You? I can’t believe my ears! All seventy seven hundreds of them,” the disgusting mass mumbled. “Bah, I can’t stand talking to you like this.” A bundle of tentacles and arms procured a thick dark blue cloak mottled with black spots and threw it over the empty chair. The cloak remained suspended in the air, draped over an indistinguishable silhouette. “How exciting! I can’t wait to see what physical form will you choose.”

“You have always lacked subtlety,” the Third-who-will-be-First will one day whisper, smiling with a shimmer of the stars above. “But it indeed will be our first meeting. To commemorate the occasion, I would like to propose a new rule.”

At that very moment, a surging wind picked up and blew me from the table. “That will be enough for now. I believe you will have a job to do and a ship to command,” I will hear, and disappear.

I opened my eyes, feeling strangely dizzy. The bright marks were more faded than I had hoped, but if I was lucky, perhaps I could still commit the key ones to paper. I grabbed the quill in my mouth and reached for one of the pages.

I thought that – after what I’ve just seen – a long time would pass until something surprised me again. When I saw that every page has already been filled, I just stood there, unable to come up with any sort of a response. The mouthwriting was firm and precise but unmistakably mine. I flipped a couple pages to confirm that every scrap of paper in the stack contained one carefully drawn sigil.

I shook my head. I didn’t know how many of the runes had been transcribed but even if I missed some, it was unlikely I’d be able to spot the differences before my sight returned to normal. Not to mention that my amnesiac self somehow used up all the ink in the inkwell. I got off the bed, threw my officer’s coat on me and–

Every inch of the walls was covered in runes.

Most of them were written in blood.

After that, I saw the other hints. The tip of the quill had the brownish color of dried blood. A similarly-tinted puddle could be seen on my bed, where my left front hoof used to rest. I raised it to assess the damage near the suspected cut but all I found was an inconspicuous scab on the inner side of the leg, just below the knee.

I stumbled twice before unlocking the door. I really needed some fresh air.

Outside of my cabin, Midnight was arguing with a group of distressed sailors. One of them brought a crowbar. Thankfully, their expressions softened when they saw me walking towards them. Midnight, on the other hoof, silently cursed and stepped between the group and me.

“See, I told you he just needed to rest. Ask Sawbones, those were his orders in the first place. Now go bother somepony else, there’s nothing more to see here.” As she was talking, a pair of dark glasses materialized in the thin air and slowly levitated until they rested on my eyes.

“That’s a relief,” the tallest member of the group said. “But we still would like to know what are we supposed to do today.“

“I’m sure you can figure it out yourself.” Midnight waved her hoof. “And if you can’t, come back tomorrow morning. Long Vigil will be busy for a while,” she added with a seductive smile and a sway of her tail.

I almost crumbled under the jealous glances of the stallions and some of the mares in the crowd but the bluff had worked; the group dissipated in moments without anypony asking any other questions. As soon as the last sailor left the corridor, Midnight practically shoved me back into my cabin with her magic. She let herself in and locked the door behind her. Her behavior from just a moment ago was nowhere to be seen.

“I can’t believe that you wanted to show up on the ship like that! If anypony else saw your eyes they’d –“ Midnight looked at the walls and raised an eyebrow “– never mind, I see you’ve been busy. Is that… blood?”

I had a lot of things I wanted to say so I chose to start with the most obvious one, “Good evening, Midnight.”

“What? Ah yes, good evening to you as well, Long Vigil.” She inhaled, closed her eyes and slowly exhaled. “You’re right, we won’t get anywhere by rushing things. Come closer,” she ordered more than asked, pulling her hat back to reveal her face.

Midnight’s telekinetic grasp took off my new glasses. She made a few steps forward, stopping so close that our snouts were almost touching, and stared deep into my eyes.

“Wonderful!” she whispered to herself.

I smiled and whispered back, “Yours are very pretty, too.”

Midnight jumped back and puffed up her chest. The act looked very natural. I doubt that anypony who didn’t spend their pre-war days as a stage director in a theater would notice the slight exaggeration in her moves.

“I’m talking about the history we’re uncovering here, look!” she said with a visible – although not entirely honest – irritation as she levitated a small mirror to me. The fading runes that I could see everywhere weren’t just my imagination. Not only were they visible from the outside, they made my eyes glow like candles.

“These are the same symbols as the ones painted on the walls,” she concluded.

“So how long was–“

“Twenty six hours,” Midnight didn't even look back, absorbed by the symbols lining up the ceiling. “It's a good thing you woke up when you did, I'm not sure how much longer could I keep those ponies from barging in and seeing –“ she stopped, turned around and gestured at the walls “– all of this.”

I rolled my eyes. “No, I didn't bleed out writing these. Thanks for asking, though.”

“You're alive, right? Means that the potion's healing properties worked.” Midnight shrugged. “Had you been suffering from a heavy blood loss, you wouldn't be making sarcastic remarks.”

I sat down and sighed. “Flawless logic, as always. Do you know what these runes could mean?”

“I'll work on it. It’s complicated,” she said.

“Complicated, huh.” I raised a brow. “Even though Sawbones almost figured it out on his own, and as far I know he wasn’t trained by the Princess.”

“His ‘almost’ nearly cost us our lives!” She hissed and narrowed her eyes.

“You see, even the language it's based on is sometimes ambiguous, as pre-unification unicorns had a loathsome affinity for poetry,” she added, “but this dialect takes it to another level. Every sentence gets its own, unique symbol. Understanding them requires finding the root rune, which is usually a well-known noun or a verb in unicornish, and then examining the surrounding patterns for other familiar chunks. Relations between individual words are marked by their orientation relative to one another and stroke direction. Sometimes, additional stylistic structures are added to balance the sentence. They can’t be directly translated into Ponish but omitting them is an error that could, for example, cause an otherwise harmless invocation to rip our ship apart instead of calming the waves.”

“That’s all interesting but –“ I yawned “– I can already tell that none of these sigils could substitute a good night’s rest.”

“I’d advise against staying here for long,” Midnight warned me. ”It may not be safe.”

“In that case, I’ll have to spend the night in the mess hall.” I glanced at the bedding. My initial estimation has been true; the bloodstains made it look like somepony was murdered in their sleep. I couldn’t take it with me.

“Aren’t you forgetting about something, bright guy?” She pointed at her face.

“What? Are they still glowing?”

Midnight nodded and said, “No weaker compared to when you left the room.”

“I’ll stay on the deck, then. The issue with the eyes should fix itself before anypony finds me there.”

“An officer sleeping in the rain like a drunkard. Just lovely. And what if you run into another group of sailors waiting for their orders? No, –” Her horn began glowing “– I have a better idea. Don’t move.”

Midnight put down her notes and closed her eyes. In a flash of a dark blue light, I saw reality being unmade before my eyes. The room, the ship, the sea – all of them gone without a trace. The concept of time lost its meaning as the seconds stretched into minutes and hours. Suddenly, an unknown force found me in the space between dimensions and pulled me forward. Once the magical grasp weakened, the world manifested itself again. I blinked in confusion. Somehow I could feel that the process took less than a second.

The spell turned my cabin into an unlikely laboratory. Rows of safely secured bottles and extracts were lining up the walls while books and magical contraptions took up the rest of the place. The level of detail elevated this illusion over most I’ve seen during the war.

Midnight staggered to a wall. “It’s not an illusion, and we’re not in your cabin anymore,” she added. “It’s an experimental spell that the Princess dreamed up. Teleportation. She saw a kelpie in a sailor’s dream perform it once and spent the rest of the month trying to recreate it.”

“So we’re–”

She nodded. “Make yourself at home. Ideally without touching anything, but you can take the couch. I'd love to stay to chat,” she added with a playful grin, moving closer until the golden glow reflected in her own eyes, “but I need to make sure your scribbles aren't threatening the ship.”

VII – The Warning

“Long Vigil, quick, come to the main deck!”

The mare who grabbed the edge of my coat as soon as I left Midnight’s room was terrified. Her quick but uneven steps revealed that she was one of the soldiers who served in the army prior to our mission – the sailors had long since gotten used to the swaying floors. Dark circles under her eyes told of sleepless nights on the ship. I adapted to the new environment quickly; many soldiers weren’t so lucky.

“That fool, Rickety Board, tried fishing in the ocean,” she added.

“What was she trying to catch?” I asked, struggling to make sense of the situation so early in the morning.

“Fish, what else?” the mare replied. “We’re not blind, officer. We know that our food rations are dwindling and that the ship has been slowing down with no land in sight. We’re lost and soon we’ll be hungry, too. She promised he knew how to cook fish.”

“What went wrong?”

“See for yourself,” she said, pointing her wing at the group of sailors who gathered in a semicircle on the main deck.

Their attention was drawn towards the sea creature laying on the planks. It was hardly a fish; its body had the shape of an overgrown cucumber totaling roughly a meter in length, with two symmetric rows of spine-like fins on the opposite sides of the animal. A large protruding eye was located on one of its ends, gawking at the sailors with malicious intelligence.

It wriggled, letting out a sound not unlike the rattling of chains. Some of the more levelheaded batponies reached out for the anti-boarding spears hidden beneath a couple loose planks. The creature’s wails changed in pitch and frequency until they resembled pony language. Its voice was rough and its pronunciations drawn out, but the way the words were intoned was unlike any Equestrian language that I know. The sailors leaned in closer, greedily listening to what the alien creature had to say.

“Sea Worthy,” it began, stunning us with the deep regret that could be heard in its voice.

As the last syllable of our captain’s name echoed over the sea, Sawbones barged onto the deck, his disheveled gray hair proving that I wasn’t the only who overslept today.

“Moon Shine,” the creature sang with an even greater sadness, bringing some of the batponies to the verge of tears.

Sawbones galloped towards the sailors and the creature. He tried to pick it up with his wings but the “eye” blinked and suddenly opened itself to reveal rows and rows of sharp teeth hidden in its retina. The surgeon flinched, though he kept his composure and kicked the monster off the deck.

Flying through the air, the creature uttered half of Midnight’s name with a newfound hatred but sank before it could finish. Not wasting any time, Sawbones grabbed the makeshift fishing rod and flung it into the waves.

“It was a siren, you idiots!” he angrily spat out. “But I see you’d rather let us get killed than do anything to stop it!”

Nopony else said a word.

“I heard ‘Moon Shine’ but did it call anypony else by name? Did it, Luna save us, say anything about our ship’s fate?” Sawbones looked at the confusion painted on our faces and sighed with relief.

“We’re lucky at least one pony thought about waking me up.” He squinted his eyes. “These creatures put terrible curses on their prey and then feed on shipwrecks and their unlucky crews.”

“What about Moon Shine?” asked one of the mares in the crowd.

“We can’t do anything for him other than praying that I’m wrong about this,” Sawbones pursed his lips. “But he’s still locked in the galley, maybe that will protect him from the worst of it.”

The surgeon disappeared below the deck. I ordered everypony back to work and headed to my cabin to peruse the reports on my desk. The mare who ran into me earlier today was right; our situation was starting to become desperate. We had maybe a few days until the last barrels of food would run out, leaving us to starve in the middle of the sea. I opened the doors to my room trying to forget that possibility. Right or wrong, thinking about the coming doom would do us no good.

As I expected, Midnight was in a good mood when I found her. Hoof-written notes and old encyclopedias were strewn across the floor, the sarosian witch occasionally taking a look at one of the pages. She nodded with a smile and resumed scribbling something in her notebook.

“You’re late,” she said.

“Some fool tried fishing in the ocean. She caught a siren and almost got us all killed.” I blankly summarized the scene that I witnessed earlier.

Midnight laughed. “You really bought into Sawbones’s superstitions?”

“Normally I wouldn’t have,” I replied cautiously, “but I heard that creature speak, or rather sing, in ponish.”

“To me it sounds like the poor fish was desperately trying to breathe and you heard what you wanted to hear.” Midnight finished writing and levitated one of the piles of pages to the exit of the cabin. The first one was titled THERE ARE NO WAYS LEADING WESTin capital crimson letters. I raised a brow.

“That’s the first of the runes,” explained Midnight. “They’re all a part of the same source text. Translating them became almost trivial once I saw the connection!”

I repeatedly blinked in confusion. This was not the reaction I expected. “Why are you so cheerful about it?” I asked. “That is terrible news!”

“It’s not!” She flipped through the numerous pages, revealing detailed navigational instructions. “This is some kind of a map. If we follow the directions that you’ve drawn on the walls here, we will arrive at the farthest west without ever sailing that way.”

“Right.” I remained unconvinced. Surely she must’ve seen the contradiction. “Tell me, how exactly is this any different from what you earlier called ‘Sawbones’s superstitions’?”

“There’s nothing superstitious about this,” she immediately fired back. “That old surgeon relies on old mares’ tales and hearsay; we have actual proof. Or are you implying that your eyes are known to shine with some otherworldly light on a regular basis?”

She had a point. If there was ever a moment to reconsider not continuing Midnight’s research, we have long since passed it. I could no longer deny that the dreams I had were but a glimpse of something greater and that it was my duty to see this through to the end.

“Could you take these to Sea Worthy?” Midnight asked. “Convince her to follow the instructions, it’s the only chance we have. I’m not quite finished with the rest of the translations but that first stack should suffice for now.”

I picked up the thick pile of pages waiting near the exit. “And what if Sea Worthy decides to disregard this advice?”

“She’s a reasonable mare. Well, most of the time.” An eye twitch and a slightest hint of worry in her voice betrayed that she hadn’t considered this possibility. “I’m sure she will understand how important this is.”

Hollow laughter filled the room. “Sea Worthy ever listening to advice?” I said, “We’ve just been talking about sirens and Light-filled dreams but somehow you’ve managed to save the most improbable scenario for last.”

“We have to try,” she said in a strangely dejected tone devoid of her usual smugness. “Good luck.”

VIII – Transgression

“Absolutely not!” Sea Worthy slammed her hoof on the desk.

“Captain, if I may,” I said, putting down a stack of translated notes. “We don’t have any other leads and–“

“I’ve spent half my life on a ship and I will not take orders from a former soldier and a witch who still thinks like a unicorn!” the mare shouted and angrily batted her wings, sending the pages flying all over the room.

“The sailors are growing restless,” I calmly replied. “We need to reach the land, and quickly.”

“Which is why we have to keep going west.” Sea Worthy quickly trotted to the corner of the room and grabbed a chart from a nearby chest. She returned to the desk and unfurled the map. “The nearest recorded land is three weeks away, assuming we’d get lucky with the wind. But here, –” she pointed at the blank space on the western end of the chart “– we could find it as soon as tomorrow.”

“We won’t.” I looked up from the map and saw but a shadow of a pony who was once the bravest captain in the entirety of Princess Luna’s fleet. “You can blame it on magic or plain old sea currents, but we won’t find anything by going straight west. We’ll starve to death!”

Sea Worthy sighed and walked to the porthole. “My second officer is the best navigator I’ve ever known. If anypony can find the way, it’s her, not you.”

I pointed at the page which landed between me and the captain. “There are no ways leading west,” I quoted.

“You insist on that.” Sea Worthy took off her captain’s hat and sighed. She collected herself and cast a solemn look at the rank insignia attached to her uniform. “But I can’t risk the lives of everypony because of some magical delusions.”

“But–“

“No, we’re going west. That decision is final.” Sea Worthy stared into the setting sun on the horizon. “I’m sorry,” she added in a near-silent whisper.

The next three days were almost completely uneventful. The mood on the ship kept getting worse, in no small part due to meals getting thinner by the day and the cider rations getting diluted with water until the drink was nearly colorless. This far from Equestria, the proud winds wouldn’t accept pegasi sovereignty, instead bringing about a terrible storm that slowed us down almost to a standstill.

The overwhelmingly gloomy atmosphere eventually reached even the officers. After finishing her map and subsequently spending an entire day cursing Sea Worthy’s cowardice, Midnight locked herself in her cabin; occasional flashes of light and rumbling of thunder coming from within the only proof that she was still there. Sawbones became more apathetic. In the mornings and evenings he tended to the batponies wounded in various minor accidents on the ship, but none of his patients required any serious medical assistance, leaving the old surgeon with no tasks to fill his days with. Not wanting to join the sailors playing cards and dice in the empty hold, he preferred to sit in the rain for hours, his gaze fixated on the horizon in a silent prayer.

Moon Shine showed no signs of recovery and I started to fear that his sorry state might be permanent. Once we reacheded a friendly port – if we ever reach a friendly port, an unwelcome thought wormed its way into my mind – he’d need the help of those extravagantly clothed unicorns capable of healing the mind. Everypony had heard the rumors that those healers drill holes in the skulls of their patients but I doubt that Moon Shine would be in a position to be picky about his treatment.

The captain was the only one of us who at least kept up the appearances of having everything under her control. She was shouting orders and overseeing the work on the ship as if we had just left port. And yet the journey was clearly taking a toll on her, too. Every morning, her voice lost a fraction of its signature decisiveness and her stride became a tiny bit less confident. The changes were barely noticeable – I was made aware of them only due to my past acting experience – but it was a matter of days until the more perceptive among the sailors would start to take notice.

One night I took a few drops of the strange medicine I received from Midnight. I sought guidance in the dreams but found nothing. The next morning I woke up at the usual time and without the faintest recollection of any dreams I might’ve had. No new markings appeared on the walls of my cabin and I wasn’t tired in the least, either.

Our situation was dire. An overpowering apathy overcame all of us until we were left hopelessly waiting for a miracle. Eventually, we were forcibly wrested from our stupor, but not by the miracle that we were waiting for.

On the fourth day after Sea Worthy’s decision to stay the course, we gathered in the mess for breakfast. The tables were set but no food was being served. A cold shiver ran down my spine. I briefly doubted my calculations, worried that we ran out of supplies earlier than expected. The looks I was getting from the sailors only exacerbated this feeling so I stood up to check up on the galley. I nodded at Sawbones and the two nearest batponies to help me. Midnight also decided to join the investigation, likely in equal measure due to her curiosity and her unwillingness to idly sit by.

The galley was still closed shut from the inside but now it was deathly silent. Our attempts at knocking on the door and shouting for Moon Shine to open were met with no response. Taking a step back, I gestured at the two sailors – Rickety Board and a mare whose name escaped my memory – to force the door open.

It was a solid door made from high quality wood. Fortunately for us, it wasn’t designed to be tough enough to withstand an impromptu siege, and it split in two after the third hit from the sailors. We stepped inside, carefully avoiding the sharp splinters stuck to the door frame.

Rickety Board took one look at the scene and fainted. The other sailor caught her before she hit the ground but she wasn’t looking much better than her herself, and to be honest neither was I. I have served in Her Highness’s army since the beginning of the rebellion. I participated in several battles, both as a common soldier and as a commander. And yet I have never felt as sick as I did when I saw the inside of the galley.

Despite some wartime solar demagogues claiming otherwise, we were always ponies. We fought for what we believed was right – and most of us would do so again, given the chance – but we did what we could to minimize the casualties. Our weapons were primarily designed to incapacitate rather than to kill and all of our forces were supported by alchemists and unicorn healers capable of stabilizing even the seemingly fatally wounded soldiers. The solar army, to their credit, followed similar principles; our healers always helped the losing side after a battle.

It was still a war, of course, and not everypony was lucky enough to fully recover, or even recover at all. Firefly, the brave pegasus general who dove straight at our command during the second battle for Fillydelphia, will never fly again after losing her left wing to my sword. No matter how much we could try to justify ourselves, the statistics were always ruthless. Casualties on the level of one per a hundred soldiers participating in a battle tell the tales of hundreds of ponies whose lives were irreversibly severed.

What I saw in the galley, however, was like a nightmare that one can’t wake up from, vaguely familiar and yet alien in the most horrific way. Moon Shine lay on his back in a pool of blood, sprawled on the floor in the center of the room. His wings have been torn off and discarded in the corner, his legs bent in all the wrong places. The most unsightly part of the blood-soaked corpse was his chest; flesh and bones alike have been brutally ripped apart leaving a gaping hole where his heart used to be. A trail of blood ran from the door we’ve just opened to the poor cook’s body.

Sawbones whispered a quick prayer and moved in to examine the cadaver, crimson liquid splashing under his hooves. Midnight turned her attention to the frightened sailor mare and said in a cold, emotionless voice, “Can you and your friend maintain secrecy regarding what you saw here?”

“I… I could try and I thi… I think that she–“ she stammered, fighting the urge to faint, throw up or both.

Midnight sighed and repeated the question with a well-acted concern, stressing the importance of an honest answer. Meanwhile her horn started faintly glowing.

“Yes, I promise.” The sailor straightened her back and raised her head. “And I promise in Rickety’s name, too.”

“Good.” The glow around the witch’s horn dispersed. The backup plan that she had prepared – whatever it was – thankfully turned out to not be necessary. ”If anypony asks, what you saw here was a suicide. You’d best remember that.”

The other mare quickly nodded. “What about her?” she said, pointing at her unconscious companion.

“She’ll be fine in a minute.” Midnight waved a hoof. “Take her out of here and let her get some fresh air. Come back in half an hour to help us move the body somewhere more adequate.”

“Move him?” The mare’s eyes widened.

I stopped gawking at the ghastly scene and said, “There’s a bed near the wall, we’ll wrap him up in the sheets to avoid making a scene.”

“That’s– that’s not really reassuring.” The sailor showed a faint, fragile smile. “But it’ll have to do.” Rickety Board grumbled and shifted on the floor near her hooves. “Oh, I better get her out of here before she faints for the second time.”

With the immediate issue taken care of, Midnight and I joined Sawbones. The old stallion never left his cabinet without medical tools safely stored in his saddlebags. He cut a small fragment of the ruptured skin and examined it under a magnifying glass. After he gleaned all that he could from the tissue, he looked at us with a great deal of worry.

“Just as I feared, it was a banshee,” he said in a grave voice.

“How do you know?” I hastily asked, needing to keep my mind busy to avoid focusing on the scene.

“The marks were– ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.” Sawbones wiped his face with a clean piece of cloth. “It would be best to first establish what really happened here.”

“And you already have a theory,” Midnight scoffed. “Am I right?”

“In fact I do. Do you see the trail of blood starting near his bed?” The surgeon pointed at it with a scalpel. “He was asleep when the attack started. The specter woke him up by tearing his wings off in one pull.”

“How can you be sure of that?” I interrupted. “Maybe the wings have been, ugh, removed after his death.”

“Impossible,” said Sawbones. “They’re too clean. Aside from the base, there are no signs of struggle on them. No, he lost them before the assault really began.”

I shuddered. “Such strength!”

“A banshee’s appearance is deceptive,” said Sawbones. “They’re stronger and more magically capable than you’d think. This far from Equestria they don’t have a reason to hold back and lay low. As I said, the pain woke up Moon Shine and he desperately stumbled to the exit, painting the floor red. The monster knew that the doors were locked shut, most likely finding twisted satisfaction in watching him suffer. See those cracks in the wall next to the door? When Moon Shine realized that he won’t have the time to open it, he started frantically hitting it with all his strength. Then–“

“Are you implying we didn’t hear his fight? This –“ Midnight kicked a part of the destroyed door “– would wake up everypony on the ship.”

Sawbones raised a brow. “Didn’t I just say that the banshees are powerful sorceresses? A few days ago you cast a similar silencing spell yourself. Copying it was no hard task for the monster.”

Midnight bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. I prompted Sawbones to continue.

“She lifted him to the ceiling and slammed his body against the floor with incredible force. He slid a meter from the point of impact –“ Sawbones pointed his scalpel at a small crater of broken flooring next to the corpse “– but he was still alive, as evidenced by the last ditch effort to use a kitchen knife in self-defense.” Indeed, a knife could be seen in a puddle of blood near Moon Shine’s head.

Sawbones squinted. “He trashed for a while with only his front hooves, likely suffering from a broken spine, while the banshee continued to watch his futile efforts with glee. Then, when he was on the verge of bleeding out, she began clawing at his chest. If he was lucky, he lost consciousness before she dug through to his heart.”

“And the wounds?” My head was spinning. “What a brutal weapon!”

“These monster don’t wield any weapons,” said Sawbones. “I’ve seen similar cuts in the great griffon war. Those are claw marks.”

Midnight broke the silence that struck the room. She adjusted her hat, looked around, and said, “Even if I was willing to believe your little story, there’s one detail that you overlooked.”

If Sawbones was surprised by the sudden change of heart, he didn’t let it show. He leaned back and quietly asked, “And what would it be?”

“The door was closed from the inside when we opened it,” Midnight pointed out with much less confidence than before. “There was no way for that ‘banshee’ of yours to enter.”

“You’re right,” the surgeon conceded. “Not even a banshee can phase through solid matter, or she would’ve gotten Moon Shine much sooner. Still, I don’t see what other–“

My eyes widened and I gasped. “The porthole!”

Sawbones stopped his monologue and looked at the small, round window on one of the walls. It was open.

“After the accident he started closing it every evening – I saw him do it two days ago – but now it’s open,” I said.

Sawbones was perplexed by the recent discovery. “Are we to believe that he simply forgot to close it for the night?”

“I don’t think he forgot.” Midnight scrunched her muzzle under the hat. “Look, there's a note near the pots.” She levitated the scrap of paper and rotated it a couple times. “This hoofwriting is barely legible but I’ve seen worse. Let me see…”

“I’m sorry. I can’t resist her song any longer. Finding out that something protects Long Vigil made her even more furious, but she won’t be satisfied with just one victim. I’m sorry.” Midnight’s voice wavered as she parsed the text. “On that night, I committed a terrible crime. Nocturne’s captain didn’t slip. No, in my panic I pushed her off the ship. May her spirit show more mercy to you than I did to her. I’m sorry.”

The sarosian gently put the note back on the table. She cleared her throat and said with an obviously fake nonchalance, “What a coincidence, he believed in the same legend as Sawbones! Now excuse me, I’ll prepare some wards in case we’re attacked by an actual, non-imaginary threat.” As soon as she finished, she disappeared in a flash of dark blue magic.

Sawbones blinked a couple times. “I take it that she finally accepted a different point of view. Shame that the change required such a, in her mind, deadly threat to happen.”

“In her mind?!” I cried out. Sawbones’s words left me stuck halfway between shock and anger.

“Oh, the banshee is certainly real,” he said in a calm tone that, given the circumstances, sounded completely delusional. “But Midnight doesn’t have any reason to fear her more than anypony else.”

I once again stopped the old surgeon. “No reason? She was involved in the events of that night!”

“We know that, sir, but I doubt that this specter does. The captain was dead before Midnight did anything,” Sawbones refuted with a shake of his head.

“You may have a point.” Giving up, I decided to go with the old stallion's wisdom for now. “And it’s unlikely that the banshee will target regular sailors. Perhaps it would be best to order some of the crew to guard the corridors and other officers’ cabins at night.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Sawbones agreed, “but help me wrap Moon Shine before you storm off after her.”

IX – Homecoming

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful. The sailors handled the news better than I expected, as many of them already wrote Moon Shine off as a dead bat when he first locked himself up. Bringing up the idea of a temporary guard service earned me many questioning looks but eventually seven ponies volunteered – all six of the former Night Guard members on the ship, and Rickety Board, the latter still haunted by the guilt she felt after breaking the orders and fishing up a siren.

I wrote a short report to Sea Worthy – who at the time had been busy with trying to make sense of discrepancies in charts and maps she collected – and headed off to my cabin early in the evening. The possible threat of a banshee kept me awake so I decided to take a few drops of Midnight’s ‘sleeping aid’. As I had hoped, I quickly drifted off to sleep.

I woke up in that place again. The Law and Disorder sparred in the middle of the room and the reality shook with every principle established by the Radiance or overthrown by its hideous opponent. Just by watching them, I was suddenly bound by a Law that prohibited all movement. In turn, the unholy mass of limbs quickly boiled with anger that shattered this new decree and a few others. In particular I was not prepared for the sudden cessation of gravity and went spinning into the ether until the Light recovered from the blow and restored the laws of physics. I couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“No, the time is finally right,” I will hear the words carried by a gentle gust of wind that will envelop me. “Come with me before they notice your presence.”

A second, colder wind will blow following my wordless acceptance. It will not have a beginning, only a purpose. The world around me will fade away as I travel through eons untold, at last emerging in the same place that I left. The room will be empty, save for me and one Power shimmering on the verge of existence.

“When are we?” I will ask.

The wind will blow once more, granting me freedom and revealing an unidentifiable cloaked silhouette dressed in an infinite number of stars. I will not see her face but nonetheless she will smile.

“At the edge of infinity, where the Three became something less, so that we might become something more. Not unlike you, if it comes to that. You can speak freely here,” it replied in a voice I never expected to hear again.

To my surprise I discovered that I was once again a batpony, not a bat, and so I bowed down. “Are you… our Princess?”

“I needn’t see proof of your devotion,” she said, ordering me to stand up, “your journey says more than any fleeting gesture. I am not her, but she is me, in a manner of speaking.”

At this declaration, the wind revealed her name to me. I meekly asked, “What do you mean, Night?”

She conjured images of countless worlds full of creatures. “In a fraction of a second, I will shed most of what makes me who I am, and the tiny shard of myself that will emerge from the process will descend to your world as the Luna you know. That’s a part of the rules; at our full strength we’d unwillingly decimate the world, ending our game prematurely.” With a stomp, all the images dissolved into fog.

I felt a sharp prick of disappointment and instinctively scrunched up my muzzle. “Forgive my audacity, but are we just game pieces to you?” I hoped my voice didn't betray my agitation.

“To me as I am now?” The question surprised the starry being, whose voice became sharper. A new gust of wind chilled me to the bone. “No, you’re not game pieces. You’re dust or perhaps even less than dust.” She paused, letting her voice reverberate in the room. I didn’t dare to interrupt her silence.

When she at last spoke again, her voice was calm and caring. “But that is not true for Luna. She will truly care for all her subjects. I have no reason to disbelieve her judgement.”

I didn’t think she tried to confuse me but her every answer raised even more questions. Deciding on the most pressing one to ask, I said, “What about the ‘game’, then?”

“The other Two were playing it out of boredom since before Time came to exist. Their powers evenly matched, neither of them can ever claim supremacy over the other. For someone who lived longer than any galaxy, they’re awfully short-sighted sometimes.” She looked at me and in the millions of stars around her I saw the same conflict replay itself with minimal changes. The brightest of the stars, however, was empty. The Night exhaled and said, “I wanted change. Change for the better, I hope.”

Charmed by the glow of that mysterious star, I stood up straighter and focused on it until I saw Equestria reflected in it. “Is that why You– why Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon?”

“Believe me or not, that will be an unforeseen consequence. I did not see how this change would impact us.” The reflection of Equestria showed the history of the land and the ponies that lived there. When it reached the advent of the Sisters, the star became so foggy and unclear that I couldn’t see anything more. “But the potion that let us meet was also born from the same pursuit. The search for something greater, something that none of us could accomplish here, something… permanent.” She stressed the last word, sending the stars on her cloak into a flurry. Only reflection of Equestria remained in place.

“But you’ve said it yourself, your game here will eventually end and you’ll leave us, won’t you?”

“I have said all that I had to say about myself for now.” The stars swirled, replacing the floor and the walls of the cabin around us with a night sky. “Dust that you might be, your struggle has impressed me. Therefore I will grant you three wishes, as I believe is customary in your world. Choose wisely,” The Night added and waited for my response.

I reflected on the home that I left when the war started. I focused on our journey and the Equestria that we abandoned. I considered Princess Luna’s ideals that were never realized due to us losing the war. I thought about Princess Luna herself. Taking it all in, I decided on a wish.

Gathering my courage, I stared straight at the starry silhouette and said, “I wish for safety, stability and justice in all of Equestria for the rest of time, provided and assured by Princess Luna and Princess Celestia.”

The Night laughed in a melodious voice. “I promise you that I’ll try. This was as much of a test for you as it was for me.”

“Test?” I said, noticing that the Night began resembling a pony. “I don’t understand.”

“You asked me about the inevitable end of our game.” She gestured with a semi-transparent hoof and galaxies around us followed the movement. “If all three participants would agree, we could change the rules and postpone our return. Even permanently. To prevent that from happening, the Law forbade us from taking the desire for change with us. However, because of your wish, I hope that I am going to retain it. I would not dare to go against Light's word without a promise binding me to do so.”

I blinked twice, speechless.

“In simpler terms,” the Night concluded her explanation, “Your wish presents a loophole that could possibly let some part of us stay in Equestria.”

“Thank you, Night.” I smiled and bowed down again.

“No.” To my greatest surprise, she returned the gesture, looking more like our Princess by the minute. “It is I who should thank you. Tell me, do you still want to reach your Princess even knowing that, even if you succeed, you might end up on the moon just like her?”

“Yes,” I responded without a moment of hesitation.

“Then that will happen.” Her horn – which she didn’t have a moment ago – glowed as the bandages that I wore after my fight with Nocturne’s captain slid off my body. Beneath them was an intricate blue scar that emanated a warm pale glow.

“I… I recognize it,” I stammered. “Even though I’m quite sure I never saw it before. How is that possible?”

The Night’s ethereal mane was now flowing through the air. “It’s written in the language of the stars like the map you’ve brought from here earlier. It means homecoming, and as such everyone recognizes it in their heart,” she said as the black veil covering her eyes dissolved. “Our time has reached its end. Goodbye, captain!” she cried out.

A blinding flash of blue light erupted from the Night, dissolving her in the process. Those rays carried power and memories that she couldn’t fit in her new form. One of them hit me, severing my connection to the dream realm. As I was fading away, for the briefest moment I saw Princess Luna standing where the Night used to be. Our eyes met and her horn glowed with a stabilizing spell but I disappeared before she could cast it.

X – Loose Ends

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t expect to wake up with the bandages removed and the homecoming scar on my right flank. It retained its light but the glow was much more subtle than the burning runes that nearly blinded me after my previous excursion to wherever that place was.

Looking at the clock, I still had an hour until everypony else woke up. When my attempt at putting the bandages back on failed, I decided to see Sawbones. The old stallion hated waking up early and I wanted to keep my adventures a secret, but the alternative of walking all day with the eldritch rune on display for every sailor to see was far worse.

I reached his cabin without being spotted by anypony, or so I hoped. I knocked on the door, quietly at first, but I redoubled my efforts when I received no response. This time, the noise was loud enough to wake even the dead, if any were listening.

Yet nopony answered still.

Cold sweat ran down my neck. I remembered yesterday’s gruesome discovery and I instinctively imagined the terrible things that could’ve happened to Sawbones. He refused the guardsponies’ protection on account of being “not important enough”. What a healer could’ve done to incur banshee’s wrath was a mystery. Perhaps, if Moon Shine was right that I was safe from the monster, it was a revenge by proxy for saving my life.

I was interrupted by something tapping me on the shoulder. Startled, I jumped back, trying – and failing – to come up with a plan on dealing with an unholy spirit of vengeance. I tensed up, looked my opponent straight in the eyes–

–and relaxed when, instead of a bloodthirsty banshee, I saw Sawbones wearing a surprised expression and mismatched navy uniform.

“The one time I wake up early, somepony is trying to break the doors to my cabin. What happened?” he asked, seconds before noticing the missing bandage and scrunching his muzzle. “Strange, I thought I tied it well.” He walked to the empty sick bay and gestured to me to follow.

I sighed with relief. I should’ve known better than to panic and make hasty assumptions, but if anything, this was a proof of how nervous everypony on the ship was by this time.

“I bet it’s almost healed,” he added, digging through his luggage for a new roll of bandage and a pair of scissors. “No doubt it’ll leave a nasty scar but– dear Luna, it’s real!“ Sawbones cried out and froze in his tracks.

He was staring at my new scar which, to my surprise, still hadn’t lost its faint light. I cleared my throat and said, “It’s a… long story. Can you bandage it? Avoiding unnecessary unrest among the crew is a top priority.”

He gasped. “And hide it?! I’d never! Let them see that there’s still hope!”

“What are you talking about?” I blurted out, realizing that the past few days had me confused more times than the previous few years.

“You wear it on your flesh and you don’t know what it means?” Sawbones sounded almost offended. He put the medical supplies back into the crate and reverently took a scroll from a nearby bookshelf. The scroll contained a perfect sketch of my new scar.

“I see I’m not the first one, but what does it mean?”

“The legends call it Traveler's Promise. In the stories, the ponies marked by it were sure to safely return from the sea. Their wounds would never fester, they shrugged off skirmishes with vicious Griffonian pirates and even in the case of a shipwreck, the sea always dropped them off at a nearby beach.”

“You’re making things up, Sawbones,” I walked to the porthole and looked at the empty sea everywhere around us. “I’m no expert on pony history, but something like that would be mentioned by every history book, not just some dusty old scroll you’ve found Luna knows where.”

“The sea stories I speak of are older than your history books.” Sawbones closed his eyes, and his voice became deeper and more gravelly. Though he was now a surgeon, at that moment I was willing to bet my wings that the old stallion has told more stories in his life than anypony else in Equestria. “They come from a time before we made the land and the sky ours, before the Sisters came from the west. When Equestria brimmed with dangerous untamed energy and, for every cryptic blessing, ten more deadly threats waited for the unsuspecting pony.”

I nodded with some blooming understanding. “The Age of Heroes.” The history books that Sawbones looked down on did, in fact, mention this period of time very scantily, mainly due to the lack of reliable primary sources.

“That’s what we call it today, yes. But the ponies who lived in those times would never think to name it this way, for it was a harsh time and the ‘heroes’ we remember were born out of necessity. The most valiant among them would occasionally wake up to find themselves someplace distant, in an audience with forces beyond ponykind’s comprehension. None of them remembered much about the journey, though it’s likely that they were judged. Few of them must’ve been deemed worthy – they received a mark not unlike the one you have on your flank – and laid the foundations for the great Kingdom of Equestria. Or so the story says, anyway.”

Surprised at the sudden shift in the surgeon's tone, I blinked. “Was that disbelief I heard at the end?”

“Indeed it was.” He opened his eyes, looking somewhere far away with a concerned expression. “Because there’s more to this story, something that puts its credibility into question even for me. It is said that the last pony bearing the Traveler’s Promise was the leader of a group of batponies who accompanied Princess Luna when she came to Equestria. According to the story, when they arrived there were no other batponies in all the land. The most surprising part is the complete exclusion of her sister from this legend.”

“Not the first time I heard somepony make the connection between our kind and our good Princess. Scholars have been discussing it for centuries, arguing that without Luna’s light we’d turn into pegasi over a couple generations at most.” I shrugged. “If it’s a batpony story, maybe the ones responsible for it omitted the Sun monarch to bring some well-deserved attention to her sister.”

“That’s not impossible,” he said without much confidence. “Regardless, now we know why the Banshee couldn’t have killed you like she wanted.”

“No, I only got it today. Though actually, –“ I scratched my head “– it might’ve been several centuries ago, too.”

Sawbones didn’t hide his confusion. “Would you mind explaining that last part?”

“I might as well, there’s no point in keeping it secret anymore,” I said, before summarizing everything that I’ve witnessed in my dreams.

“Then she turned to me and said, ‘Goodbye, captain’ and I disappeared in a flash of blue light, catching a glimpse of her turning into Princess Luna as I left. I woke up and– Oh!” I gasped and looked at Sawbones, my face turning pale as I realized something I should’ve figured out an hour ago.

Sawbones had an equally concerned expression. He slid on his saddlebags and said only, “We need to see her immediately.”

We reached Sea Worthy’s cabin in full gallop. The guardspony next to the door greeted us with a nod. He looked very tired – as expected after standing on watch for several hours – but thankfully he was unharmed.

“Did something happen, sir?” he asked me, raising a brow in question.

“Maybe,” I quickly replied. “Have you seen or heard anything unexpected this night?”

“No, sir.”

“Then where’s the other volunteer?” Sawbones interjected in an authoritative voice more suiting a general than a surgeon. “You were supposed to stand guard in pairs.”

“Rickety Board?” The guard yawned. “She’s in there. The suite is locked from the inside so we figured it’d be better to have somepony on each side of the door.”

I raised a brow and said, “Sea Worthy didn’t object to the idea?”

“No, sir.” The guard shook his head and smiled. “I think she saw how sca– how determined we were to keep her safe, and she wanted us to calm down.”

“I see.” I knocked on the door and – for the second time this morning – my heartbeat sped up when the response I expected never came. “Open the door,” I ordered the guard.

“Sorry, sir, but I can’t.” The stallion gestured helplessly. “I just said that the only way to open the room is from the inside.”

“Then help us break it down.“ Sawbones took off his saddlebags and rolled up the sleeves on his hindlegs.

The anti-theft lock turned out to be no match for two former soldiers and a surgeon. We barged in prepared for a fight, Sawbones armed with a scalpel, me with a dagger in mouth. The stateroom, however, bore no signs of a struggle beyond the door we’ve broken. The guard was confused by our actions, but agreed to help us.

“The captain’s sleeping over there,” he said, pointing to a bed in a corner.

Sawbones’s face became a few shades paler. He whispered to himself, “Not sleeping.”

“Where’s Rickety?” The former soldier looked around.

“Here,” I said, trotting over to a batpony sitting on a chair behind the door. “But she’s–“

“Dead,” added Sawbones, “just like Sea Worthy.”

The guard was the first to break it the silence that followed. “No, no, no, NO!” he shouted. “This wasn’t supposed to happen! She should’ve opened the damn door the instant she saw a threat! I– I could’ve helped and now…”

“She never saw the threat coming,” I said, hoping to at least somewhat console him. “Her spear is still resting next to her. She died without realizing what happened. If you were here, the only difference would be a third corpse for us to find.”

The surgeon moved closer to Rickety’s body. “She died to a single wide slice on the neck but I don’t see blood anywhere. Rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet and her eyes aren’t clouded; looks like she died about an hour ago.”

His examination was interrupted by a malicious laughter. “My, my, what an observant little bat! Isn’t your kind supposed to be blind?”

We turned to the source of the sound. It was Sea Worthy– no, Sea Worthy’s corpse, a giant open wound on the neck proving that beyond any doubt. Nevertheless, the revenant stood next to Sea Worthy’s bed and looked at us with pitch black eyes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the guard slowly reach for his spear.

“Why the long faces?” The monster laughed. “I just wanted to say hi.”

“What do you want?” I drawled out through the clenched teeth.

“Me? Nothing! Aren’t you up for a chat between us two murderers?” she said, emphasizing the last word. “How does it feel to know that–“

“Now!” I cried out.

The three of us jumped at the banshee. She swiftly evaded every attack while singing a high note that paralyzed my companions. I adjusted my posture and, dagger in mouth, looked for an opening to strike.

The monster chuckled and said, “You’re joking! Though I can’t kill you, you’d have to be even more stupid than you look if you think you can harm me in any meaningful way. It’s not even my body!”

“Make it quick,” I said, standing between my companions and the revenant.

“Or else what?” She grinned. “Do tell me, please. I love hearing empty threats!”

I didn’t answer, which encouraged the banshee to continue.

“I’d simply kill to entertain your crew some more. I wonder who’d be next on the list; the navigator, the surgeon or that freakish witch?” The walking corpse blinked. “Oh, you glared at me right now. How adorable! Strange, was I wrong in thinking that you and the captain… Should I have targeted the mutant instead? What unusual tastes you have, Long Vigil!”

I gritted my teeth, fighting the urge to attack the specter. Though it would be pointless, it would’ve shut her up at least for a moment. But I stayed still, knowing that making a move would expose Sawbones and the other batpony to her counter-attack.

She pursed her lips and batted her empty eyes. “Do you really want to murder me a second time that badly? The feeling is no longer mutual, I swear! We’re even! Really!” She trotted to the large porthole and opened it. “As I said, it’s been a pleasure to play with you, but it’s only fair that I let you lead your own crew to their demise, too. Don’t worry though, I’ll be watching you as it happens! Bye!” With that, she squeezed herself through the porthole and sank beneath the waves.

Sawbones – no longer bound by the banshee’s spell – stood up and shut the window. He took a deep breath and said in a strangely calm tone, “So, what will be your next move, captain?”

XII – The West

Hunger. The meager breakfast failed to stave it off for long. I suspected as much in the morning and now that the scheduled lunch break came and went without a meal, it was painfully obvious how right I was. Since the kelpies abandoned the pursuit, we encountered no further surprises. The calm sea stretched in every direction, still and motionless, as far as the eye could see.

It was driving everypony insane.

We needed something, anything, to take our minds off the imminent threat whispered to us by the shadow of starvation. With nothing better to do, I decided to see how everypony else was doing.

No better than me, as I quickly found out. The wait was starting to drag on for all of us. A group of sailors was mechanically playing cards in the hold, constantly stealing glances at the empty crates of oats. Midnight was in her cabin absent-mindedly brewing potions and browsing the notes she’d compiled. With no wounded to take care of, Sawbones left the sick bay to clean his tools on the ship’s bow.

He was the first one to see our destination in the early evening.

“Land!” he cried out at the top of his lungs. “Land, captain!”

The navigator checked the charts and confirmed his observation. “The map leads there. Only… if I’m being honest I expected it to be larger.”

I saw what she meant as soon as I picked up the spyglass. The island was a tiny round piece of land sticking out from the sea. Not a single bush or a tree grew on it despite the seemingly trimmed grass neatly covering its surface. The island had a single pier, unsurprisingly pointed in our direction, but no other pony-made structures could be seen. The water in its proximity had a mysterious purple color.

“Dock there,” I commanded. “If there’s anything the west taught me thus far, it’s to not expect anything and prepare for everything.”

She shrugged. “As you say, captain. I suppose at the worst we could graze there.”

I took Midnight and Sawbones with me to explore this new island. The results were clear; probing the earth confirmed that there were no hidden entrances or illusion spells put on the island. It was a disheartening thing to find out but after everything we’ve been through, but I wasn’t about to give up so easily.

The idea of grazing on the island's grass was quickly rejected. Despite the gnawing hunger in our stomachs, not one of the sailors could bring themselves to eat the grass here. Everypony – even Midnight – agreed that for some reason it seemed wrong to them, sacrilegious even. Perhaps that was for the best as the purple water around the island turned out to be magically acidic and, according to Sawbones’s tests, capable of dissolving a pony unlucky enough to fall into it in seconds.

This was the right place, we were sure of that. The light of my homecoming mark was shining brighter than usual and Midnight found traces of ancient magical residue that resembled our Princess’s magic. We only needed to find a way to access the secrets hidden here.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on the bridge, entertaining various theories before ultimately dismissing them all. After several hours spent on this futile endeavor, when the Sun began to set, I heard the door behind me open. I turned around and saw Midnight, though she held her head lower than usual, and there was a hint of uncertainty in every step she made.

“Any ideas?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, at least nothing that could work. From the way you’re looking at me I’d guess it’s the same for you.”

“You have a keener eye than most, Vigil. That’s good.” She stopped by the wooden railing. “But your guesses could use some work.”

“I’d be honored to learn from the best,” I said with a shallow bow.

“Was that flattery, mockery or an offer?” Midnight smiled and took off her hat, her long dark blue mane blowing on the wind. “What makes me so unsure is that I have found the solution.”

“Judging from your tone, I hope you’re not planning on organizing ritual sacrifices –“ I paused and glanced east “– unless you want to row this boat back home yourself once we’re done here.”

“Home…” She sighed. “You’re putting a lot of stock in the promise of someone who doesn’t currently exist.”

“I do.” I nodded.

“I want to believe that you’re right,” Midnight sat right next to me and held my hoof. “Perhaps then…” She released my hoof and shook her head before pouting. “This island is making me sentimental.”

For a while, neither of us said anything.

“You’ve received the map to this island in the dreams,” she said wistfully, “wouldn’t it make sense if the place that it leads to would need to be found in the dreams, too? By everypony who wants to enter.”

“A shared dream?” I asked. “Can you really do something like that?”

“Of course not,” she said, “But normally you couldn’t dreamwalk, either, and yet that’s what you did under the effect of that potion I gave you. It contains a bit of the same magic that Princess Luna used. If we shared it among everypony…“

I raised a brow. “Haven’t you said that it can cause madness?”

“Aren’t we all mad for sailing here?” Midnight’s laughter rang hollow. “I did say that. But a strong centralizing signal – in our case the island’s resonance – could perhaps keep everypony from straying too far and getting lost in their nightmares.”

“How much time do you need to make more of the potion?” I paused. “Actually, can you even make more?”

“I don’t need to.” She smiled and levitated a large bottle from behind the door. “Not wanting to let it get into the wrong hooves, I took all of the supply with me.”

“I’ll gather the sailors and ask for volunteers. I won’t force anypony who doesn’t want to risk madness or worse.” I looked at the mysterious liquid and scrunched my muzzle. “Once again we’re doing something that can only be described as stupidly risky. Our luck is bound to run out soon.”

“If all goes well, this will be the last time we have to rely on luck.” Midnight stared into the sunset.

“Midnight?”

“What?”

“Before I go, can we stay here a moment longer?”

Midnight smiled weakly, and for once I could tell that the gesture was genuine. “I was afraid you wouldn’t ask.”

XIII – Below

I gathered the sailors in the mess and told them about Midnight’s current plan, not omitting to stress how dangerous it will be for everypony willing to participate. The whole crew volunteered on the spot. Even Sawbones – who was skeptical of Midnight’s alchemy – said it wouldn’t be right to quit now, when we’ve already come so far and paid for the journey with the blood of our comrades. I poured the potion into the remaining quarter of the last barrel of rum and raised a toast to the success of our mission, and to those who didn’t live to be with us on this fateful night.

After the toast we stood up from the table and quickly trotted to our cabins in silence, ignoring the air of restlessness that permeated the ship. I made sure to warn the sailors beforehoof that the sleeping draft is very potent. I reached my room by the time I was starting to feel weak, then collapsed on the bed and drifted off to sleep.

I opened my eyes in the middle of the night. A glimpse through the porthole revealed that this night was so dark that even my slitted eyes struggled to see the details on nearby objects. It was a proper full Moon and the Mare shone directly overhead, in the center of the sky. While I was looking at the painful reminder of our defeat, the dimmed runes still marked on my pupils from my first encounters with the Light moved and changed shape until they became different symbols. They started shining again, this time in the color matching the homecoming scar.

The restlessness sparked yesterday still hadn’t left me, prompting me to check if anypony’s dream journey went better than mine. I did not expect to find every cabin door in the officers’ wing open. Feeling a budding unease, I continued going forward. Sawbones, Midnight, my former soldiers – none of them could be found on the ship. I trotted up the stairs and looked around, briefly noticing a pony’s tail disappear down the plank connecting us to the island.

I followed it and breathed a sigh of relief. Nopony went missing; the crew have all gathered outside, by the ship. I asked one of the soldiers to report on the current situation.

“We woke up around the same time, captain,” he said. “And we all felt this nagging feeling that we should explore the island.”

“Not all of the sailors are here. Did they not survive?” I asked, keeping the tone of my voice as steady as I could.

“What?” The guard was surprised by the question. “Luna, no! Some just had the great idea to ignore everything weird and go back to sleep. We’ve already sent somepony to wake them back up and bring some weapons and lamps while they’re there.”

“Weapons? For what, fighting ants?” Unable to take any more ridiculousness, I cynically laughed. “This place is as empty as our ship’s hold!”

He calmly ignored the mockery and said, “You should turn around, sir. Something’s changed.”

It was an understatement. Where previously grass grew on an empty plain, a winding cobblestone path now led to a lone stone structure in the center of the island. It reminded me of a crypt entrance.

“There’s a stairway leading down inside of it, but we couldn’t see how far it goes,” the guard explained, “or if it even has an end.”

“Are we still asleep?” I suddenly asked, surprising both of us.

The question wasn’t directed at anyone in particular but the former soldier said, “That’s what I thought, sir, even bit myself on the tongue to make sure. It hurt like it should but I’m still unconvinced. Maybe that witch of yours will know more.” He scratched his chin. “And sir, I’m not sure how to put it, but your eyes are glowing.”

“I know, I know. That’s actually a good sign.” I said, further confusing the guard.

A few minutes later everypony was ready to set out. The sailors drew straws to see who’d wear the helmets with lamps; some of the others – including all six lunar soldiers – took weapons with them. We carefully began the descent into the unknown. When a scout reported that the stone stairs stretched for at least a mile, we sped up. The walls and the low ceiling were covered in chiseled scenes and inscriptions written in thousands of languages. The reliefs varied wildly but almost all of the scenes were focused on fights between two characters. Remembering my dreams, it was not difficult to deduce that the characters matched the Three whose conversation I saw.

It was impossible to judge the age of the structure; it gave the impression of being older than the oldest ruins in Equestria, but every bit of it was preserved so well that it looked brand new. One of the sailors saw a bas-relief showing the defeat of the Great Deceiver, standing out because of the inclusion of the third character in the scene. Another found an even more surprising and unsettling of a discovery – a depiction of Princess Luna’s defeat at the hooves of Celestia. The author included simplified silhouettes of two armies of ponies in the background; I wondered if that meant that we were forever immortalized here.

I do not know how long we walked; any amount of time between ten minutes and ten hours would be believable. At last, the stairs ended in a stone arch leading into a series of narrow corridors branching out into even more corridors. Three symbols were etched into the topmost part of the arch. I recognized the language.

“Wait,” commanded Midnight, gesturing for us to stop, “unless you want to walk into another trap.”

“Can you translate it without your references?” I asked.

The smug smile returned to her face. “Way ahead of you. It won’t win any poetry competitions, but I already did it. Let’s see… ‘The true passage — Promised Traveler’s Reward — False-paths of Oblivion’. It’s simple, really. We have to find the way that leads to this ‘Reward’ or face oblivion,” concluded Midnight.

“But they look identical!” protested one of the sailors. “How are we supposed to know which one is correct?”

“Following the right wall is guaranteed to lead us somewhere,” enthusiastically suggested another. “The right-wing rule always works!”

“You’re stupid,” one of the soldiers chided her, “the rule breaks if there are any walls not connected to the edges. Instead we should pull out a thread from one of the saddlebags and use it to mark the paths we’re taking.”

“Ahem.” Sawbones cleared his throat. “I doubt that any of these methods will work here. We have to–“

Among the chatter, a revelation struck me like a thunderbolt. I interrupted the surgeon and said, “We got it wrong. This isn’t ‘Promised Traveler’s Reward’. It must be ‘Homecoming’s Reward’. So how about ‘Homecoming’s reward leads through the true passage’?”

The rune on my flank blinked and I saw that one of the paths in the maze began glowing. I stepped forward.

“Where are you going, captain?” asked the sailor who proposed following the right wall a moment ago.

“Forward,” I answered. “The glowing path must be the right one.”

“Um, sir,” began the guard standing next to her. “Nothing is glowing aside from our torches and the mark on your flank.”

“No, I believe he’s right,” said Midnight, trotting behind me. “I can feel something changed. It's just that we can’t see it.”

After some grumbling from the less courageous sailors, we resumed our expedition into the unknown.

“How did you know?” whispered Midnight. “I don’t suppose you’ve learned unicornish overnight, did you?”

“It looked similar to the rune the Night gave me during our last meeting. Then I remembered that Sawbones mistakenly called the mark a Traveler’s Promise. I put the two and two together thanks to your lecture on the language.”

“Not bad,” she said with some appreciation, “for a soldier, that is.”

“Was that admiration or mockery?”

Instead of answering, Midnight smiled revealing her fangs.

Getting through the maze took as long as the stairs before it. We quickly discovered that the narrow corridors weren’t identical – although most of the labyrinth was carved in dark gray stone, occasionally we’d see a splotch of a lighter shade. The navigator identified those spots as markers reflecting the placement of the stars on the night sky.

“We’ve traveled very far from home, captain,” she said, “but I didn’t expect us to have to cross the sky.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Some have theorized that our Princess has been physically banished to the Moon. If we need to travel among the stars to reach her, we’ll do that, too.”

Eventually the corridor opened to a large ballroom. The walls were covered by silk draperies finished in gold. Near the ceiling they smoothly transitioned to impeccably painted murals decorating the marble ceiling. From it hung three great chandeliers chiseled out of the purest crystal I’ve ever seen. Below them stretched a checkered white and black floor; the white tiles were made out of ivory, the black ones – of impossibly large black opals.

The tables were placed next to the walls, leaving the center of the room empty. They were no less extravagant than the rest of the room. The table cloth resembled golden silk but it was something even more rare – byssus, the sea-silk, woven only by the legendary sea ponies of Maretlantis before their hubris brought their kingdom to ruin at the hooves of kelpies. The silverware was no less ornate, decorated with flawless diamonds and black pears, forged out of the incredibly rare and highly sought-after starsteel – a metal that could only be rarely found in the fallen stars that hit Equestria.

And yet, it was not the splendor of the room or the absurdly extravagant furniture that immediately grabbed our attention, nor were it the tables or the silverware. It was the food piling up high wherever we could see. One long table was almost bending below the weight of bowls of exotic-smelling soups in every color of the rainbow and twice more, while the next had plates of masterfully prepared sandwiches and salads. The bread gleamed like gold, and fresh lettuce sparkled like silver. I turned my gaze to the third table; this one hosted the most elaborate confectioneries, small pieces of candy prepared in fanciful shapes. I slowly started walking to the tables alongside all of my crew. The aroma of freshly-baked pies resting on the next table beside meter-high cakes was impossible to resist. I sped up. The fifth–

“Something’s not right,” said Sawbones in an alarmed tone.

Midnight pulled herself out of the trance. “You’re right, I’ll run a magic scan. Do not touch anything until I’m done.”

The sailors ignored her, moving ever closer to the delicacies. I shouted, “Don’t move an inch closer to the tables! This is an order!”

My words reached only the six former soldiers. They looked at each other with perplexed looks on their faces and promptly returned to the entrance where I, Midnight and Sawbones stood.

The sailors ignored my order. Chief among them my navigator, who said in a maddened voice, “Captain, this is our prize! We earned it! Gorge yourself, everypony!”

As she finished her command, the sailors broke into a mad dash to the tables and began devouring the food at an incredible pace. The soldiers looked at me, waiting for the next order. But before I could open my mouth, Midnight finished charging her spell and a wave of dispelling magic surged through the ballroom.

The illusion broke with the sound of shattered glass. What had been a ballroom a moment ago was now a derelict cave haphazardly dug in stone and mud. The banners on the walls rotted away into green scraps of seaweed and the chandelier fell to the floor where it promptly disappeared. The tables and the ‘silverware’ were made of rotten, jagged wood. And the food…

It was not food. Before I averted my eyes in horror, I saw soups of blood and bile, sandwiches with cuts of flesh and a dish full of bloodshot, distinctly pony eyeballs. Thousands of hair-thin strings hung from the ceiling above the table, each ending in a tiny rusted iron hook.

The eyes and manes of sailors who partook in the rancid feast were lifeless and gray, the ponies themselves connected to the ceiling by the countless threads coming from the hooks which sunk into their coats. With their meal interrupted, they turned towards us and began to shamble in our direction.

Midnight probed one of them with a weak spell. “They’re gone! Whatever they are now, they are no longer your crew, or ponies at all for that matter.”

The guards instinctively readied their weapons at the danger.

“There!” cried out Sawbones, “A way forward!” He pointed at a smaller door on the other side of the nightmarish room.

He was right, running away wasn’t an option. Even if the turned sailors couldn’t follow us out of the crypt – which I doubted – back on the ship we’d just starve to death.

I gestured for everypony to run to the next door. The pony-shaped monsters noticed it and shambled faster, somehow exceeding our galloping speed. We reached the door first, but the situation looked hopeless. Along the way one of the guards ran his wide spear through one creature’s neck. The sailor collapsed to the floor for the shortest of moments before a hard, lizard-like scale grew on the wound. The damned creature continued its march, now with its head sticking out at an unnatural angle.

The lunar soldiers instinctively assumed a defensive formation in the entrance to the corridor. “Go, sir,” said one of them, “we’ll hold them off here.”

“There’s thirty two of those things and six of you.” I firmly shook my head. “I’m staying with you.”

Sawbones picked up a dagger dropped by one of the sailors. “I wasn’t always a surgeon, you know, –“ He threw the weapon into the air with his left wing and skillfully caught it with the right one “– and I only swore to never harm ponies, which they are clearly not anymore.”

“So they’re resilient, big deal,” Midnight said nonchalantly as she conjured bright sparks from her horn, “we’ll see how they handle third degree magic burns.”

One of the creatures in the ballroom stumbled headfirst into a cave wall, causing a boulder to fall from the ceiling straight onto its hindlegs. The monster squealed and continued to drag itself across the floor with its two remaining hooves as if nothing happened to it.

“Go!” the guard drawled out through his gritted teeth. He drew his wide-bladed partisan. “We’ve faced worse odds in Fillydelphia, sir. We’ll stop them and catch up with you in a minute.”

It was then that I remembered him. Sergeant Straight Pike, one of the brave souls who led a frontal charge on the solar encampment that cut our escape path. He was an excellent fighter but, as it turned out just now, also a terrible liar. I wanted to stay with him and the other guards to fight to the bitter end together.

But we all have our duties. “Midnight, Sawbones, come with me! And you, brave soldiers of Princess Luna, thank you. We’ll come back for you as soon as we can.”

“I’m sure you will, Long Vigil,” said Pike with a sad smile.

We ran further into the darkness. Seconds later, the sound of slashing and piercing filled the corridor. Before we got far enough for our hoofsteps to drown out the fight, a pained scream echoed behind us. My scar flashed with a blue light and stung me with a spike of a fleeting cold. Somehow I understood. There were now only five soldiers left standing between us and the mindless horde.

XIV – Lost on the Moon

The deeper part of the cave was even more ancient. Unadorned walls of raw, black stone gave the impression of being as old as the world itself. We didn’t have the time to take a closer look because the corridor ended as unexpectedly as it started, with a simple wooden door. I carefully pushed it open.

The contrast between everything we’ve seen so far and this room was staggering. Or rather, it would have been staggering had I never visited it prior. Sawbones looked around and whispered, “Is this the place you’ve seen in your… visions?”

“It is,” I said. “Midnight?”

The sarosian finished her detection spell. “No illusions here.”

“Then let’s –“ another flash of light and numbing pain interrupted me “– go. Fast.”

Midnight and Sawbones exchanged concerned looks. Whatever was going to happen next, it’d be the end of our journey, one way or another. We stepped inside.

It was a lot smaller than what I saw in the dream – the table and the three chairs were almost pony-sized. The walls were made from plain logs just as I remembered them, and nothing appeared inside to greet us. The only peculiar sight was the starry sky above our heads.

The stars themselves were different and foreign. As we watched them, they moved to arrange themselves in specific shapes. Midnight was the first to notice the pattern.

“On the longest day on the thousandth year,” she smoothly began the translation.

“The stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal,” I finished, not even trying to understand how did I know what the words meant.

Midnight raised her brow, “A prediction? But I thought–”

Suddenly, somepony – no, something – clapped.

“Congratulations, little ponies,” a weak and distorted voice called out from very far away, ignoring that the room was the size of a large broom closet.

“Princess?” Sawbones asked fearfully.

The voice spoke again, this time much closer to us. “I’d prefer Prince, or a Lord, if you’d be so kind.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a malformed shadow skirt across the wall and onto one of the chairs.

“Show yourself!” demanded Midnight, her horn crackling with energy.

“What an arrogant little bat!” He laughed, and his laughter resembled the wailing of a thousand souls. “Trust me, you’d rather not see my handsome visage in this state. I am the spirit of chaos, the Great Deceiver, the Multifarious, and whatever other names my future subjects will call me.”

Sawbones took a step back. “Discord?” he said in a trembling voice. “It can’t be! You were defeated!”

“I was, wasn’t I? I think I might have forgotten!” his voices turned to a tone of mocking dismay. “Just like a certain someone you wished to find here. Terribly sorry, my dears, but your princess is not here at the moment. Just the old me. I am not exactly the one you call Discord, either, but the details can wait until you become my servants.”

I gritted my teeth. Sawbones stealthily reached into his saddlebags.

“Servants?!” Midnight looked at the gathering shadows with determination in her eyes and held her ground. “Never. I’ve sworn fealty to Princess Luna alone!”

“Oh, I know, I know, but you might wish to reconsider that part.” He laughed again. “After all, my victory is all but assured. Celestia doesn’t even know when her banishment spells will end but, as you saw yourselves, it's all written here. First, your princess will come back and catch her by surprise. I don’t care who wins, really. Either way when ‘Discord’ comes back there will be no one strong enough to stop him. So, what will it be?”

“Answer’s still no, monster.” She gritted her teeth.

“That’s so unfortunate! Do you know I can crush your world with a snap of my claws?”

“You can’t escape this prison.” I stepped forward, gathering the last of my courage. “The rules bind you, too. You’re just smoke and mirrors.”

I felt the thing’s attention shift and focus on me. It was like a downpour of filth assaulting every inch of my body.

“Is that… my favorite persistent little bat!” he said with genuine merriment. At the same time shadowy tentacles shot from the dark corners of the room and held me and Midnight in place. “So that’s how you found the way here. Sadly, it looks like I’ll have to teach you both some manners.”

An enormous fish eye opened in the air before us. It was the color of sulfur, with a red pupil of searing magma. Its gaze burned, turning the minds and the will of those who wished to disobey it to dust. I flailed my limbs trying to break free. I failed; the Deceiver already seized our minds.

As it began to dawn on me that my life was about to end here, in a place beyond places, a dagger flew through the air, striking the monster right in the middle of his giant eye. He shrieked and – in a moment of confusion – released us from its grasp, both physical and mental.

“Run!” shouted Sawbones as he threw his scalpel using his other wing.

We dashed to the exit but the amorphous thing was faster. As we were about to cross the threshold, he ensnared Sawbones and began dragging him back to the eye.

“Go! Don’t let it escape,” he cried out. “I am ready.”

We burst out of the room and I turned around to shut the door. Before I could close it, however, I saw dozens of shadowy spear-sized spikes launch itself at the surgeon. A small cloud of sparkly blue smoke left his lungs. The cloud drifted out of the room and to the exit of the dungeon. I felt the familiar cold sting in the homecoming rune.

“Even if you run, you cannot hope to escape my prison yourselves,” boomed a horrifying choir of a thousand disharmonious voices. “My new puppets will bring you to me and then I'll use your help to sail to Equestria, whether you submit willingly or not.”

We ran again. Somewhere along the way, two more waves of cold struck me. When we turned the corner, Straight Pike was desperately fighting with his back against the wall. When he heard us, he only glanced at the corridor blocked by at least two dozen creatures, and charged forward swinging his partisan like a madpony. Though he disappeared under the hateful pile of our former crew well before we could reach him, his sacrifice cleared the way for just barely long enough for us to gallop through, leaving the monsters that used to be ponies behind us. The flash of light and the stinging cold came seconds later.

With no other distractions, Discord’s puppets quickly identified us as the new targets. They began chasing us with unnatural speed, threatening to catch us in seconds. Midnight’s telekinesis pushed the tables and the rubble from the collapsed ceiling into the exit, creating a makeshift barricade in front of us. Her horn glowed again and she gestured for me to stop. Just as some of the former sailors jumped to reach us, we disappeared from the room and reappeared on the other side of the barricade, at the maze’s exit. I could still see the glowing path that led us to this hell.

Midnight lied down, breathing heavily. She took off her hat and said, “So that’s how it ends, huh?”

“Ends?” I lied next to her, supporting her as well as I could. “We’ve escaped them!”

“For how long? Ten minutes? Thirty? Listen close, those things are already starting to clear the rubble.” She looked me in the eyes. Despite her exhaustion, her eyes were almost glowing with crimson determination. “We cannot allow the Great Deceiver to reach Equestria, no matter the cost.”

“What are you saying?” I said in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

She winced and averted her eyes. “Even if I could still run – which I can’t – they’d catch us on the stairs. However, if they’re distracted for long enough, maybe you could–“

“No!” I shouted, “Not you, too!”

“You’ve said that ‘We all knew what we were getting ourselves into’, didn’t you?” asked Midnight.

“Yes but now that–“

She put her hoof on mine and smiled sadly. “It’s no big deal, really. I doubt any of us are getting out of this. Unless…” she trailed off.

“Unless what?” I raised my brow.

She sighed and said, “Unless the Night will keep her promise, somehow.”

Though the time was running short, neither of us could say anything else for a moment. Finally hearing faint noise of digging behind us, I said, “You know, with that sigil’s help I’ve seen something leave the bodies of Sawbones and the other fallen soldiers. Maybe she–“

“Shh –“ Midnight snuggled closer “– whatever happens, happens. Let’s not waste what little time we have talking about it.”

“I wish we’d met under different circumstances.” I draped a wing over her.

“So do I,” she said, grabbing her giant hat with her magic and putting it on my head.

“What are you doing?”

“Well, I can’t allow myself to be seen in public without my hat.” A single tear glistened in the corner of her eye. “Now that you have it, you’ll have to make it a priority to find me wherever we may meet next.”

“I promise I won’t forget,” I solemnly swore in a shaky voice.

“You better don’t!” Midnight tried to smile again. “You don’t want to make the famous Bat Witch angry, do you?”

The rumbling behind us grew louder.

Midnight stood up and sighed heavily. “I always hated farewells. Get moving already. I’ll buy you more time than anypony else could.”

“What’s your plan?” I asked, struggling to keep my mind from thinking about our immediate future.

Rather than respond, Midnight’s horn glowed and soon we found ourselves standing in complete darkness. The only visible elements were Midnight’s magic aura, the stars that appeared above us and the path leading through the maze.

She said, “Can you still see how to get out of here?”

I nodded.

“Good, because I’m sure that they can’t.” She took a few steps towards one of the wrong corridors.

Although I already knew the answer, I still had to ask, “But they can see your aura, can they not?” Everything about this situation was so surreal that I needed to hear it to believe it.

“Yes, but thankfully we’re in a maze. By the time they find me, you’ll hopefully already be out of here.” She took a dagger out of my saddlebags. “Is it sharp?”

“As sharp as it could be,” I answered. “Still, I doubt that a single dagger will help you much against dozens of those things.”

“I won’t be using it against them. See you, Vigil!” She waved her hoof and galloped into the darkness.

I waved back, though of course she couldn’t have seen the gesture. “See you, Midnight.”

Everything since then went by in a blur. The maze, the corridor, the path to the ship – it all happened less than an hour ago and I don’t remember any of it. No, that’s not entirely true. I remember that when I finally left the forsaken underground tomb, a blue sparkly cloud nimbly zipped past me and flew into the sky. In contrast to all the previous occurrences, this time it was my heart that hurt the most.

I already had a plan ready by the time I set my hooves on the ship. The two barrels of explosive powder we took for emergencies were still in the hold. A quarter of one could blow a sea serpent into pieces; two barrels would turn a ship into tiny splinters. I opened the barrels and evenly spread their contents in the hold. As for the source of fire, in a couple minutes I will go and retrieve the vial of dragonfire from the safe in Sea Worthy’s quarters and drop it onto this journal. The book – alongside some explosive powder, I apologize for that – will travel to you, Celestia, and the heat will set off the explosion.

If you’re wondering why I’m doing this, I need to stress that I am not sorry for what I and the other twice-damned sailors have done. We tried to help our Princess in the only way we could. With that in mind, I dare to ask of You, Celestia, two favors.

One, strike all records of the farthest west from history. No pony deserves to repeat our fate. Alter the legends and bury the records that hint at the mere possibility of something existing here. It will not be a lie; there is nothing for a sane pony to find in this place. Or, to put it another way, nothing that should be found by a sane pony.

Two, help our good Princess Luna leave her nightmarish state and stop the Great Deceiver when he comes back. You now know when she will return, so I beg of you, use the coming thousand years to prepare as well as you can.

I can hear the hoofsteps up above. Two dozen or more, the arrogant fool must’ve sent all of his servants after me. If the explosion won’t be enough to get rid of them, a bath in the acid should suffice.

My hoof is shaking. A part of me can’t believe that it has come down to this, but I suppose that if you’re reading this journal, you already know how this story ends. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable any longer. Farewell.

The last survivor and the captain of Luna’s Grace,

Long Vigil

XI – Mare Incognitum

The better part of the day went by in a blur. I remember bringing the maps that Midnight translated to the navigator and telling her to follow them to the letter regardless of how little sense they seemed to make. I told the crew about the banshee and Sea Worthy’s death as there was no point in hiding it any longer. I recall my reception as a new captain was rather positive, in large part thanks to Sawbones spinning them a longer version of the same story he told me in the morning.

After finding and correcting a minor error in the ledger, we were left with an extra barrel of rum left to distribute. Three or four rounds later the mood was sufficiently jovial to almost let everypony forget that it was also the last dinner that could’ve been prepared from our ship’s supplies. Having finished it, the new cook – Moon Shine’s former assistant – informed me that the next breakfast will fully clean out the hold of anything edible.

The day took an unexpected turn when my conversation with the boatswain and a group of other half-drunk sailors outside the mess was interrupted by Midnight.

“…and that is why it’s imperative that your bats keep an eye open for– What’s that?“

The crowd of batponies parted to let Midnight pass. Their initial hostility has long been replaced by respect, admiration and perhaps a hint of fear for the sarosian mare. “Nice hat,” she said with her signature smile plastered on her face. “I thought it’d look good on your head since the day we embarked.”

Murmurs from the crowd suggested that the joke wasn’t well-received on the very day of Sea Worthy’s death. Hoping to regain control of the situation, I said in a hushed voice, “Could you at least wait until I finish this conversation? I'll tell you later, when there's fewer prying eyes around.”

Instead of responding, Midnight moved closer to the point she was almost leaning on me, and faced the crowd. “Did you hear, everypony? Captain Long Vigil and I want some privacy.” Then, pretending to no longer notice the crowd, she turned to me and said, “So, how about we head to my cabin? Or – even better – your new stateroom, hmm?”

A moment and a dozen jealous looks later, the crowd began to thin out until me and Midnight were the only ones left in the corridor. I sighed. “If you can't wait even a minute, couldn’t you just teleport us away instead of playing this silly act?”

“I could, but that’s very exhausting,” she said with a mock pout, “and I admit that I do like to play it.”

I firmly put my hoof on the ground, at least as firmly as the rum in my blood let me. “Every time you do it, we become the object of the freshest rumors.”

“That's your problem?” She turned her head quizzically. “From a certain point of view, that’s just another form of respect.”

“Call me a hypocrite,” I said, “but now that I’m a captain, I’d rather not base the respect for myself on lies and other games.”

“Ha, maybe that was a bit too much.” Midnight laughed. Suddenly she leaned even closer, raised her head with her enormous hat and looked me straight in the eyes. Her eyes and her smile took a playfully predatory expression that clashed with the sweet tone of her voice. “Or, you know, we could solve this problem in another way. I don’t want to stop and you don’t want to lie to your crew. I think I quite like you, Long Vigil. It does not need to be just a game. My offer of finishing this conversation elsewhere was genuine.”

I stammered some half-words, taken by surprise.

“You’re blushing.” Midnight giggled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

She took a step back and regained her usual, confident posture. “Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. Good to see somepony with a functioning brain at the helm.”

“Sea Worthy was a brave captain,” I protested, having finally collected my thoughts enough to form a coherent reply.

“Brave? Indeed, she was so brave that her misguided stubbornness almost left us starving to death.” She scowled and looked away. “I knew her. She was... a friend. But the time for mourning will come after our mission is finished. Now tell me what you really saw that night. Sawbones’s account was no doubt filled with supernatural nonsense.”

“I can’t say it wasn’t,” I agreed. “In the actual dream, at first I was in the same room as in the previous–“

“There’s no point in idly standing here, is there?” Midnight cut me off, gesturing for me to follow her. “You can tell me everything along the way. And by the way, that runic sigil on your flank isn’t some ‘Traveler’s Promise’. It’s–”

“Homecoming, I know. She told me herself.”

“She?” Midnight raised a brow. “I thought I felt a faint echo of Luna’s magic but I was sure it was a fluke…”

“You’ll be able to take a closer look very soon,” I whispered, “but let's get someplace more private first.”

“See? When you try, you’re not so bad yourself, Vigil,” she said with a sly smile.

The next day Sawbones insisted that the sailors should eat breakfast in complete silence. He said that keeping quiet during the last meal on the sea has been reported to bring good luck. I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or if he made the story up to avoid uncomfortable questions that could decimate the scraps of morale that my decisiveness yesterday helped salvage.

All the silence did for me, however, was making me painfully aware of the gazes I’ve been receiving from nearly every other member of the crew. Some were anxious, others trusting and hopeful. I’ve also caught a glimpse of a few odd jealous glances, which wasn’t helped by the less-than-concealed looks I’ve been getting from Midnight whenever anypony turned in her direction. Still, there was something off about the room – it felt too empty, even considering the casualties we’ve suffered recently. I finished the modest meal and headed off to ask the navigator – and my new first officer – about the sailors. I found her looking at the translated charts.

“I have great news, captain!” Despite the bags under her eyes, the navigator sounded almost ecstatic. “Land!”

“The west?! Finally?” I asked in disbelief. “Are you sure it’s the place marked on the maps I gave you?”

“Not quite,” she said, “but this island is close to the designated course. With just a small detour, we can hope to find something edible.”

My face fell and I commanded in a steely tone, “Adjust the course and follow the maps as closely as you can, even if they told you to go through an island or to swim in circles.”

“But captain, I can’t.” Her ears dropped. “Four of our sailors took a longboat for reconnaissance.”

“They did what?!”

“They left in the middle of the night, telling the watch guards that they have your permission. Since you appeared to be busy, the guard let them go.”

Preparing myself for the worst, I asked, “What happened later?”

“I think their boat crashed and now they’re stuck. See for yourself, captain.” She gave me her spyglass and pointed at a flat cloud on the horizon.

She was right. What I took for a cloud was instead a small island. I saw the four unlucky castaways gathered around a massive word ‘HELP’ arranged on the beach from a collection of flotsam and seaweed. Larger pieces of a shattered longboat lay nearby. The batponies themselves were waving their hooves hoping to get anypony’s attention. Most of the island was covered by a forest, but between the branches I saw something that looked like a pond.

I returned the spyglass and said, “Back to the previous course, quick!”

The mare blinked rapidly, shocked by the order. “But, captain, they are our comrades!”

“You think they are?” I raised a brow in disbelief. “I’d expect better attention to detail from a navigator.”

“You saw them yourself!” she protested.

“No, I saw four supposedly winged creatures who spent hours building a sign instead of flying back here. How far are they anyway, five miles?”

“No more than ten –” She nodded “– but they could’ve gotten wounded in the crash.”

I pointedly stretched my wings and said, “All of them? They don’t look wounded to me. Even if one sprained a joint in their wing, why didn’t the other three ask for help directly?” The navigator remained silent, so I continued. “There’s more. Look at the broken boat again.”

She held the spyglass to her right eye. “I don’t see anything suspicious, captain. The boat seems to have struck something hard near the bow. It split all the way to the stern.” She lowered the spyglass and looked at me with a mix of doubt and concern. “While it’s unlikely that they would be moving fast enough to cause such massive damage, it wouldn’t be the first time I saw inexperienced and desperate sailors disrespect safety concerns near an unknown shore.”

“You’ve found something I overlooked, but that’s not it. I meant something even more obvious.” I nervously looked at the island slowly growing larger on the horizon. “Be quick.”

“I… I see! The inside of the wreck is completely dry!” she cried out. “Whatever destroyed the boat did so after it reached land.”

“Correct. Therefore the pieces scattered on the beach…”

“…were deliberately placed to make it look like an accident. No sailor would do this.” Her eyes went wide as the last pieces of the puzzle fell into place. She gasped. “It’s a trap!”

“Calm down,” I said, ”I don’t know what creature hunts like this but they wouldn’t bother setting up this act if they could threaten us here.”

She took three deep breaths and quickly made some corrections to the main chart. “We should be back on the previous course in half an hour. As for those four bats…”

My eyes wandered towards the island. I sighed. The words were stuck in my throat. Eventually, I coldly said, “They were dead before we woke up.” With nothing more to add, I went back to oversee the situation on the deck.

After climbing the stairs, I saw over a dozen sailors forming a small crowd by the starboard. One of the guards noticed me and cried, “Make way for the captain!”, sparing me the trouble. I joined Midnight and Sawbones who stood at the front of the group.

Between us and the island, roughly three miles away from the ship, a large group of black pony-like creatures with tattered manes the color of seaweed raged in the water. From time to time one would gracefully jump dozens of meters into the air, shapeshift into a pegasus or a batpony mid-air, and attempt to glide towards the ship riding some invisible current. Each of those maneuvers ended the same, with the creature suddenly pushed back by a gust of wind that sent them flying through the air back to their original location. Some of the larger among the herd reared and hurled lightning from their front hooves but that spell, too, was deflected long before it could reach the ship, resulting only in the wonderment of the sailors.

“Unbelievable,” whispered Sawbones. “I never thought I’d see a kelpie in my life, much less dozens of them!”

“I doubt anypony has ever seen this many,” added Midnight, too surprised to come up with a sarcastic remark or a joke. “Everything we know about them suggests that they’re extremely rare and highly territorial. Powerful beyond belief, too.”

“Thank Luna we’ve avoided their ambush,” I said, “and that they can’t cross whatever barrier separates us.”

“’Thank Luna’, huh?” Sawbones chuckled and pointed at my flank. “I believe your assessment was surprisingly on point.”

In the middle of all this commotion I failed to notice that the homecoming sigil went ablaze in a calming light blue hue. The flame danced whenever the barrier deflected a spell or averted a flying kelpie.

“I wonder what stops them from teleporting us, ship and all, outside the field.” Midnight scratched her head. “After all, the teleportation spell I’ve worked on with the Princess is based on a kelpie sorcery.”

“I think they haven’t learned it yet,” Sawbones suddenly said. “Those are just their young.”

“Their young?” I interjected before anypony else could. “There are no documented – or even rumored – cases of kelpie reproduction! The creatures themselves are half-mythical.”

“Captain, are you serious?” Sawbones made a surprised expression. “Have your parents never read to you ‘The Fishermare and a Kelpie’? If I remember right, the captured Kelpie Queen takes the mare to the kelpie kingdom in ‘the place beyond the fog where no pony ventured before’.”

“That’s a story for little colts and fillies!” I almost snapped back at the old surgeon. “It’s made up!”

“I’d agree with you even a couple days ago,” said Midnight in a strangely contemplative voice, “but it seems that the farther we go, the less of a difference there is between things that are real and those that shouldn’t ever be.”

“For once you’re speaking the truth.” Sawbones nodding his head. “Let’s hope that we’re far away from here by the time the Kelpie Queen comes back.”