Princess Pariah

Luna, Luna, it whispered in my ear. Come my beloved, my precious one. Sleep.

But I awoke again to this dreary and windswept night. Every evening my will ebbed as I walked alone among the barren streets, hoof prints haunting my isolation. What few beasts dare trod in my domain only hunt and hide among the darkness. Fear lives in this place, and in me.

Though Celestia tried and calm my panic I know what she intends. Harmony is all she knows and all she can see. Any alteration I might bring against that would be met with much resistance. So I bore this weight alone, watching as the walls close in and overcome me.

As I sat in my sorrow a guard came to attend to me. He carried a lantern in his mouth and only bore me a stern look. He hung the lamp on a hook outside the door and shut it with the magick of his horn as we left, entombing the darkness inside my desolate room.

Between lit torches stood two Pegasi at attention. Their eyes are narrow and expectant, they await my will. But all I could see is the darkness across my kingdom, the stars shimmering in the vast distances, and the horizon which promises no return. They have come expecting a leader, and only found a withered shell.

“Princess?” inquired the Unicorn; his eyes questioning my authority with their condemning stare. “You have duties to attend to.” His reminder was a thorn in my side.

I had not the will to punish him, nor do I believe, the power. I heard it in the whispers of the night and in my dreams of the day. There is talk of treason rising in the ranks; a loyal Captain is not immune to promise of power and fame. Even then his silver gaze held mine and I could condemn him.

“Go,” I said to the first Pegasus, “and gather the others for our chariot. Await us on the balcony.” I spoke with as much nobility as my breaking voice could muster. Nevertheless, I saw it in their eyes, they know I falter. But it was not the time for a coup, for I had not yet broken and the Captain remained my own.

The second did not even try and hide his shame from me, stamping in impatience. My Captain lifted his hoof to protect my honor, striking at the ground with force, demanding notice. “Bow to your Princess,” he commanded.

There is a moment of hesitation within the Pegasus which my Captain detects. Without prompt or question my advocate's horn began to glow, lighting the rebel in turn. The Pegasus's legs stiffened, but the pressure upon him grew worse. It was not long before his front knees gave way and his snout is slammed to the ground. His muzzle was bloodied and the pool it created widened toward my hooves. I step back in disgust, though it would seem my Captain paid me no mind. His magick faded as he crept closer to inspect his work. The limp form of a pony collapsed before him, unconscious.

My beloved Captain called into the shadows, bringing forth another Pegasus. “The Princess has ordered this stallion questioned,” he muttered.

The guard pulled a collar from his satchel and bound the usurper to his hoof with lengths of chain. He backed into obscurity once more, dragging the hulking mass with him. In its wake was a tooth and a trail of crimson. The stone landing only caused the blood to roll in pearls to the uneven cracks, cementing its memory in the imperfections of my castle.

“So this is what it has come to,” I said in a whisper to ears I thought were kind.

“Show no weakness, my liege.” His face was inexpressive and cold, it was losing its confidence with years of repetition and strain. “Your subjects are naive, and less forgiving than I.”

We were both weary with age, but I had the shallow comfort of blackened trees and the echoed snores of ponies to accompany me by night. Here there was only darkness. A castle in the blackest corners of the moon, forever blocked from the warmth of the sun. I had founded it in my youth, in my hubris, but I regretted it all my waking hours. We left no blemish on the face of our patron body, and hid in the crevice of its back. Eternal damnation by mine own hand.

My cherished Captain snaps me from my pity, affirming loyalty with his hoof on mine. His look now seems to be of sadness, but not the same as I see in my struggling subjects as they saunter from their forsaken homes, no, his eyes well for me as we silently fear together.

“We haven’t time, Princess,” he whispered under a guised breath.

I only lit my horn and began a descent down the unkempt staircase. Tattered banners shuffled in the soft breeze of our movement reminding me of the days when they had shown in the light of a thousand horns. The main hall fared no better. What little remained of the once flowing Tyrian carpet was disheveled or riddled with holes. I spied dried flowers in engraved vases, their pedals as inert as their keeper.

More guards waited at the doors and pulled them open before me, feigning a reign. There was no illusion here as the doors opened upon an empty square. “Light the pyre,” I hissed to one of the attending stallions. My voice was not strong enough for demand, but my words could hold their venom.

In the center of my plaza sat a bowl, cracked at great length on one side but would not split for the forces which bore upon it. Dry, rotted wood had been stacked in the basin, gathered from the world below because none may dare flourish here. What evidence of life, above or below, now faced the fires held in the hooves of a guard. He dropped the torch without remorse, accustomed to the desecration of foreign treasures. Up went the flames, pining for the stars they could never seem to grasp. All of this by my decree, to gather what little, shivering followers I may have had, to warm their bodies and hearts. But they hid from my boon. Light and warmth, the things they and I longed for, I had given unto them, but they hid.

I believe the other ponies expected I drag the citizens from their homes, kicking and screaming. If I had learned anything by watching my sister govern the day I knew, in the least, this was not the way. Yet they looked down or turned their sight from me. My erroneous Captain looked to me for guidance and I knew he meant for me to treat them the way he had the unruly Pegasus. He could not see it gnawing at him as it did me, it did all of us. The darkness was as much the scenery as it was their souls.

“Put a lamp in every home,” I began, speaking to my attentive Captain, “and wake the masses before we return.”

He bowed and backed away into the growing number of huddled guards. It was this that finally broke my daze and forced me to see what was all around. For a moment it was nothing, a brief brush of paranoia, but then the horns began to glow. From the darkness came illuminated hatred, disgruntled faces and their shadow-caste silhouettes. I was beside myself, overwhelmed by the show of outright rebellion. Words were beyond me now.

I stumbled backward into the hall as the crowd outside festered. When I entered, the doors slammed shut, separating the darkness from the void and I was alone again. And for the moment I counted myself fortunate. Either by a little loyalty or by the pleading of my somber Captain, the brutes had spared me this night.

Each step up the winding staircase left an echoed clop in the empty halls. I had lived alone before in this fortress of stone, but as a bright and optimistic pony. And when my longing for light would grow, I would venture to the face of the moon, looking out on places unseen by mortal ponies in the world they themselves lived. Far corners of the globe untainted by the progress of time, beasts unchained, slumbering under my watchful eye.

Behind me my faithful flock would follow, abandoning the shackles of darkness for the glow of a full moon. Fillies would frolic in my presence, kicking up clouds of dust unique to us, silver and shimmering in the light only we knew. There was pride in our people and strength in their hearts.

But fate would play a cruel trick on my kindness and the weeks of dimness would outweigh the day of radiance in the spirits of lesser ponies. So a small faction would grow, disinterested in our kingdom or its ways. They would brood in the silence of the day, speaking in whisper when the loyalists were close. Soon they outnumbered my own and I dared not tread too close to the common districts.

It was then I thought all was lost and I heard the whispers for the first time. My sister would speak to me often of her subjects, joyous and faithful to no end. She would preach to me of methods and matriarchs, filling my mind with fanciful ideals. She who had not known sorrow, who had not watched the faces of her beloved loath, would speak to me of such things.

All was lost save my journeys to the face of our moon, ventures then made alone. But I once came upon another rolling in the dust as I had seen so long ago. He was young then, unabated by responsibility and full of vigor. A mere colt, whose wandering had led him to the tenderness of the sun, reflected on our empty rock. His face lit when he saw me, he shouted my name and ran to my side. I searched for his parents, in the town and in the darkness, but neither I nor my guards could find them.

I had myself been as barren as our moon and in the long wandering of life never labored a foal. My nobility in question and my kingdom engulfed, I took in the light as my own, the sun to my inky soul. So well had I raised him, grown apart from the ether of acrimony which plagued my kingdom, that he outshone the others in contest and in prose. Alone, he fought and clawed his way through my guard, yearning for my graces, though they were always his. Until before me he stood, knelt in the presence of my most resolute guard, knighted and honored as my precious Captain.

Happiness is more crushing than I had supposed as I found myself sauntering down the narrower halls of the upper floor. Servants quarters filled with cobwebs and dust remind me of their tenants. Some abandoned my castle early in the years of my downfall, others still waited with bated breath for my return to power, only to have their things now lay silent and unmoving in perpetual effigy. I had not the heart to move their possessions, what little remained reminding me of their company.

Through a stone arch I stepped out onto the balcony. The view of my kingdom obscured by the waiting Pegasi. From their perch they must have seen the frightful overthrow, if not been involved themselves. Taking advantage of a similar position I looked out again at the pyre below. However many the force had been, then dwindled only to a few now, watching the door for a sign of me or tending to the blaze.

A neigh calls my attention to the matters at hand and I take a seat in my polished chariot. It remains the one thing serene in this world, being buffed and well tended to on the earth below. I turn myself about-faced to watch the shrinking castle as we descend, but behind us stood my dear Captain, illuminated on the balcony alone.

Below him a fire was lit on the doors of my citadel and swallowed them up. Figures appeared in the light of the inferno, casting pitch on the remainder of my home. As the fire spread and grew he did not move, my naive Captain. And while the moon faded away I knew what had become of him, waiting for me in that nightmare.