The Rays of the Moon

Hello. If you are reading this, I am dead. Maybe not physically, but definitely emotionally. How can I tell this you ask. Simple, I already am. Long ago my heart was

wrenched out by soldiers who didn’t do their job. Now I sit and start the story of myself,

one that isn’t meant to be told, but relived in my old age. For those to whom I may pass

this on, my name is Distant Nights, I am currently a staff sergeant in the New Lunar

Army, and I have seen the horror of war.

                The useful parts of my story don’t start until the battle for Stalliongrad, but I might need to give background in case this makes it into some third-tier museum. I was born to Canterlot nobility. This was before the split, and the kingdom was peaceful, if you discounted the scheming nobles. Because of this, I was trained from a young age into the arts of ‘background warfare’ as my father called it. I knew how to disguise, poison, and even slit some throats, if the need had arisen. My teaching was cut short however, when my parents were killed, Nopony knew who did it, but a noble who had recently risen in power mysteriously fell on his own knife blade. It was tragic.

        My childhood cut short, I moved on. As with most young stallions, I met a mare. We went out for a while, before the split came. The split itself was... odd. Luna decided the way to keep her personal demons in check was to make her own country and continue her duties from there. Her sister agreed, and they parted on amicable terms. I talked about it for a while with my marefriend, and revealed I would be joining the New Lunar Republic for a few years. She took it relatively well, made me promise to come back though. Not that it matters much now.

        I signed up for the army to help out the fledgling country. After all, every country besides Equestria was gunning for it. After a year of training I came out as a corporal. It seems low now, but at the time, I felt like a general. We started making defensive formations around our borders, with the least reinforced area being, surprise, the Equestrian border. I tried to point out the folly in this, but I was pretty low on the totem pole. I had to watch as it all burned down.

        I was stationed on the Equestrian border. We were a ragamuffin crew of patchwork soldiers. We called ourselves the Silent Knights, and each of us were also the most sure footed sons of whorses you ever met. I was one of about twenty pegasi in the three hundred pony force. I was a team leader in second platoon, first squad. We trained hard, and played harder. When Solar guards got close I even caught sight of an old friend. But that all changed on the night of tears.

        It was the start of a new month, and with it, a new paycheck. Half the force was gone, and would never come back. I can’t say I blame them. We got a notice from up top. A nation had declared war. I was in the comms room at the time, but before I heard much, I got kicked into formation. It was small, in fact I had the only full team there. Our three hundred had shrunk to maybe a hundred. Our captain got up and once the word patriotism escaped his lips I went numb. There were keywords for every species we fought. Not many ponies knew them, but they were there. For dragons it was bravery, since you have to be homicidally brave to take one on. For griffons it was hope, because with griffons you hope they get bored and fight someone else. With ponies, it was patriotism, because you had to believe you were killing for a good reason. I thought of all the countries that had ponies. A treaty with the Crystal Empire was already in effect, so I was left to mull over the rest. The news hit me right before our captain said it. The only country with a pony populace not yet in a treaty with us was Equestria. Suddenly those formations outside our base were a lot more threatening.

        The battle that followed was completely pointless, a lot of good ponies died due to an overzealous solar guard. I died that day, I was always a sucker for duty though, and couldn’t leave with this war raging. The Silent Knights got shuffled out. Our next big engagement was where we earned our names, and where most of us lost it.