Like every shift, Silent Night stood guard.

Like every shift, she entered first.

Like every shift, the invaders came after.

Silent Night thought the group of invaders made an odd impression. Each in turn gave him a warm smile and nodded their heads; an onlooker could have mistaken them for honored guests, perhaps from somewhere beyond Equestria.

Noticeably taller, their wide equine frames were not too dissimilar to the ponies of Canterlot. Yet there was something distinctly alien about them that Silent Night couldn't quite put his hoof on. Truthfully, there were many things he couldn't quite grasp these days.

He knew he was a Night Guard. He knew he served her Majesty Princess Luna. He knew his duty was to guard this room. Beyond that, things got hazy.

Silent Night turned to look out one of the palace windows. Canterlot stretched before him, its lights shining like stars under the spring moon. Some pegasi were playing with a storm cloud. Soft music drifted to his wary ears. A dog barked in the distance.

Which is more real: the world inside or outside these walls?

Everypony was living their regular lives. The Night Guards fulfilled their duties. The sun and moon continued their eternal dance. The weather proceeded on schedule. The food in the mess hall was warm and always served on time.

Yet Silent Night knew something was deeply wrong in Equestria. The invaders walked around as if they belonged. Nopony stopped them. Nopony seemed to care. When looking at his fellow ponies, Silent Night always sensed something infinitely subtle was missing. In their eyes, there was cold emptiness. Like reflections in a slightly bent mirror, they seemed broken.

But not her. No. Her eyes were burning like hungry embers. He saw her every night. She would enter the room. The invaders would enter the room. He would wait outside, dutifully turning the hourglass whenever it had run out. Some nights, he would turn it 3 times before they left. Some nights, it was 7 times. That night, it was somewhere in between.

When the invaders left the room, again, each rewarded him with a warm, grateful smile and a nod of their head. As was their way.

Glancing through the open door, Silent Night was struck by the scene before him. He was no artist, but the composition filled him with beauty and wonder. Pillows were scattered across the room in reckless disarray. The scented candles fought a losing battle against the odors of sweat and sex. Clothes, food and some items best not considered, added to the confusing mess. Its obvious, singular purpose made the room exude grimness and barbarity.

In the middle of this display stood the figure of a slim Sarosian mare. The lightning was spectacular. Grey shadows buried most of the interior, but a single ray of light from the waning moon was coming through the crystalline skylight, falling right on her. A soft glow lit up her dark coat and accented her piercing, yellow eyes. As though a single flower was blooming on a barren cliff after a violent thunderstorm.

Surprisingly, the whole world seemed to come alive. Like snapping awake from what griffins call ‘Sekundenschlaf,’ those terrifying moments when sleep steals over you for just a second, blurring the line between wakefulness and the oblivion of dreams. For a moment, the haze hanging over his thoughts evaporated, and everything was clear. Silent Night thought his fellow ponies were missing some part of their soul. Now, he knew that she had whatever they did not. Just as the feeling of enlightenment came, it vanished in a heartbeat.

She only considered him with a quick, curious glance while casually trotting out of the room and down the hall. Her hoof steps gradually fading into nothingness, long after her slender form was swallowed by the dark corridor.

Silent Night considered how he might seem to her. Was he a light, flickering in the barren wasteland of broken automatons and strange invaders, or was he just another ghost to her? Was he just as empty, just as hollow and just as lost as all the other ponies, following a set routine long after it had lost any of its purpose. He would have liked to ask her, but fate had found fit to leave him without voice.

As was his duty, Silent Night vigilantly stood guard for the rest of his shift, determinant to ignore the scents creeping out of the door and assaulting his nostrils with painful implications. Returning to his quarters, the impressions of that night lay heavily on his mind, as he drifted into an uneasy sleep filled with disturbing scenes.

Next night would be the same. As was every night. They flowed together and away from each other like fabric woven by a mad seamstress.

Silent Night had become adept in blocking out the sounds emanating from the room he guarded so diligently each shift. The rhythmic thumping seldom penetrated the shell of his wandering thoughts. Only when he was careless did he consider the barely audible ultrasonic waves crashing against the door like water on a beach. Every Sarosian knows that their high frequency echolocation has trouble penetrating walls and doors. However, standing right outside the room, his magically aided hearing was just able to pick it out against the other noises of the night.

Most ‘regular’ ponies are not aware that Sarosians tend to emit ultrasound when others would audibly laugh, scream or moan. From his schooling, Silent Night remembered that, just like their infamous teeth, this was due to a kind of evolutionary adaption, but not needed anymore in modern Equestria. Some Sarosians would even train themselves to get rid of this behavior to better fit in with other ponies, who tended to see their race as quiet and emotionless.

Several of his fellow ‘Bat Ponies’ even went so far as to get rid of their teeth, as to not unsettle the more squeamish city folk. Done magically, the procedure was painless but expensive, so some of them resorted to the ‘clipper’. Nightmare of any Sarosian filly and colt, as often threatened as punishment to misbehaving foals, the crude instrument could clip off the sharp, batlike fangs. Being extremely painful and somewhat dangerous, only the very desperate went that far.

Tonight, losing himself in these idle thoughts was not enough to drown out the noises from the room. They penetrated his mental defenses and made themselves known to his conscious mind. His last resort was the recitation of the Solace of the Night. The poem was said to have been composed by her majesty Princess Luna herself (before her banishment) and is supposed to contain some subtle magic to calm the mind. Any Night Guard worth their salt could recite those verses in their sleep if necessary.

*Thump* *Thump*

In the quiet hooves of night,
Where shadows softly weave,
I find a solace in the dark,
A place where dreams can breathe-

*Eeeeeeeeep*

The stars, like whispers, sing to me,
Their light a gentle guide,
And in the silence, peace unfolds,
As all the world subsides-

*Thump* *Thump*

The moon, a tender guardian,
Holds secrets in her glow,
And in her silver light, I find
A comfort few can know-

*Thump* *Thump* *Thump*

For in the stillness of the night,
When all is cloaked in deep,
I find the solace that I seek,
In night’s embrace-

*Eeeeeeeep*

The mantra was interrupted by a particularly forceful wave of ultrasonic sound.

Accepting that he would not find peace tonight, Silent Night surrendered his attention to the unrelenting rhythms. All he wanted now was to hear her voice. But each time she and he locked eyes for a moment, they had not spoken to each other. He because he couldn’t, she because she wouldn’t. He had never heard her voice.

After almost 6 turns of the hourglass, the door opened. The invaders leaving first and then she. Everything in the usual manner. Standing in the corridor alone once again, Silent Night was considering his situation with unusual clarity. Everything and everypony around him seemed broken. Still, he wasn’t doing anything other than what he had always been doing. There were many ponies smarter and more powerful than him. They must be aware of the plot.

Except they weren’t. His guard captain, Nightfall, was the sort who was afraid of nothing, not even the sky falling. If his superiors had ordered him to charge into a dragon’s cave, he would only have stopped to express his gratitude for the trust bestowed into him, before flying into almost certain death. As with all the others, none of Silent Night’s written letters and entreaties stirred him. Nightfall expertly navigated the guards along the familiar lines of routine as they always had been, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Strange thing was, Silent Night was unsure how all of this came into being in the first place. He could clearly remember his foalhood, his old friends, his schooldays. He could chart out his life from early memories until adulthood. There was, however, some formless curtain hanging in his mind between these memories and his current situation. Like in a dream, he knew who he was, but the precise circumstances of how he had ended up where he was at that time eluded him stubbornly.

The knowledge that an invasion had taken place was deeply rooted in his mind, like an unmoving rock in the shifting sands of a desert. How this knowledge came to him, Silent Night was unsure. He did not remember the events of the invasion, how Equestria had lost. Neither did his surroundings reflect this reality. There were no signs of conflict, no signs of struggle or destruction. Due to his profession, he was familiar with many ponies in the military. As far as he was aware all of them were accounted for, none had died in war or struggle recently.

Similarly, the exact nature of the enemy was eluding him. Though seeing them each night, he was not able to recall the exact details of their appearance, even their race was somewhat in question. They were tall and equine, yes, but everything else was lost beyond the haze. As with recalling the images of a fading dream, the more he clung to the memories, the faster they evaporated. Like soft mist in the dawn.

The only logical conclusion was that everypony was under some sort of spell. Some curse, some hex or some charm which trapped them into their daily routines. Surely the bearers of the elements, the princesses, or some other pony would make themselves known and free Equestria from this stranglehold. Even as he tried to cement these thoughts in his brain, Silent Night felt the gnawing of doubt. He had dealt with many victims of trauma. Denial and the creation of an alternate, fictional reality, in which all the problems would soon be solved by some miracle, was very common.

But how was she different? Why was she the only pony who seemed truly alive and intact in this nightmare world? Silent Night resolved to find out. Maybe she was the key to understanding whatever ills had befallen Equestria. Maybe through her they would be able to lift this curse that had been set upon ponykind. Finally, Silent Night decided that he needed to act even if nopony else was going to.

These thoughts clung to his mind and followed him through the end of his shift, to his quarters and ultimately to sleep.

The following night, while guarding his door, anxiety weighed upon his belly, like he had swallowed a hot, heavy stone. Silent Night considered the fact that he was armed, and the invaders were not. Even their powerful bodies would not be able to stand against a determined Night Guard with a weapon, he was sure of it. Then why did he not simply storm the room? Was it because it would go against his orders?

He considered that in his excitement, there was a different feeling as well. A feeling which he had been able to smother with great efficiency until now. Some part of him, hidden in the dark recesses of his consciousness, wanted to walk into that room, not to stop the proceedings. That part wanted to join in.

Feeling disgusted and ashamed, Silent Night could not stop a stirring in his stallionhood as this awareness finally fought its way to the surface of his mind.

No, he would wait until she was alone. And so he did. That night, the hourglass was turned only 3 times before the door opened. As the invaders receded from sight, after a moment’s hesitation, Silent Night entered the room. His hooves seemed to echo strangely off the empty walls and pillowed floor. Resolutely, he trotted up to the mare, who was simply sitting in her usual spot in the center of the room, her eyes dreamily looking upwards through the skylight.

Through gritted determination, Silent Night forced his mind not to linger on the wet stains on her body, forced his mind to ignore the white liquid dripping from her mouth and tail. Gingerly, he pulled a piece of paper out of his dark uniform and held it in his muzzle as he gently touched her shoulder to get her attention. The mare calmly turned her wistful face away from the skylight and considered the message.

I know that something is wrong, I can see that you are different. I want to help you to get out of here.

She lifted her gaze to look into his pleading eyes, but only gave him a soft, apologetic smile.

“I am free to leave, as are you. You must know this”, her quiet, steely voice contrasted and accentuated her seeming fragility. There was a force behind there like a meandering stream carving its way through a mountain. After finally hearing it, he knew that it was impossible for her to have had any other voice.

Truthfully, Silent Night was not wholly surprised. The invaders had not shown any sign of coercion towards her or anypony else. She came and went alone, unobserved, unguarded and unfollowed. He quickly scribbled down another message for her with his clumsy mouth.

Then why do you do this?

As she read this, a soft chuckle escaped her lips.

“Have you ever considered that maybe I because I want to?”, she asked with kindness but also a hint of mockery in her voice.

Not waiting for a reaction, her features softened again as she continued in a conspiratorial whisper:

“But no, you are right of course. I know that something is wrong. I was not able to contact her majesty or anypony high of station unaffected by this madness. This is why I have made it my mission to collect as much intelligence as possible on these invaders. As soon as whatever resistance is out there makes contact, I will be able to provide them with key information. I have compiled a list of strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics of approximately 148 individual invaders. This intelligence will be helpful to whoever will defeat them.”

Feeling impressed and shocked by this revelation, Silent Night’s face must have been an open book to the her.

“Any damage to my mind, body or soul is secondary to the mission, I will stop at nothing to see Equestria liberated”, her determined whisper was filled with terrible purpose.

Getting over his surprise, Silent Night resolutely scribbled another message.

How can I help?

“I can see that you too have retained something of yourself. Our positions as guards convey many strategic advantages. Observe their comings and goings, their routines. Make a note of everything, no matter how inconsequential or trivial it seems. Who knows what may be important. Most importantly, stay sane. Keep your head on straight. Retain whatever piece of yourself it is that keeps your eyes open. Hold it close to your heart like the treasure it is. And don’t let them notice.”

Author's Note

This is my first story on here. Any feedback and comment is welcome, let me know what you think.