Princess Pariah

I met my sister on her balcony as the sun began to fade in the west, beckoning as a last glimmer of hope. She smiled, genuine in her happiness at my arrival. But my face grew long in her light and downcast at the thought of her counsel.

It was not a moment after I stepped off from my chariot that it dashed away into the violet sky. My sister followed the escaping militia with her eyes and her countenance dropped. “Is everything alright?” she asked, always the matron.

“We are well,” I said, but the shake in my voice exposed me as a fraud.

“Luna,” she began, delicately pushing on my shoulder with her hoof and touching her horn to mine. I looked up to meet her stare, dignified in its fuchsine hue, staring into my own lackluster heart. “You mustn’t hide from me.”

At the end of my rope, my reign, if there was ever a time to come forward to my sister, candid, it was now. “You are beautiful my sister, stalwart to the last, but we are tired. Forgive us if we lack the enthusiasm of our post and another night unaccompanied.”

The look of maternal concern took on its matriarchal countenance, expression growing strict with irritation. “Do not doubt yourself, sister, you are strong. Your position is as important as my own. I may bring light and warmth in the day, but you control the tides and give passage to seasons; it is your moon which tells the farmer when to reap his field. You are the beacon in the darkness, Luna; do not be consumed by it.”

“And what gives us the right to such power?” I callously broke away from her and turned out to overlook my falling hours of night. “From your view the farmer wakes, he tends to his field unabated, and returns home to his family for respite. Meanwhile another pony plots and waits and gathers material for a plan soon to be in motion. He departs only in the cover of darkness, for his actions would not stand in the light. And in the night the farmer is robbed by this stallion, or maimed, or murdered. Under our watch the atrocities are committed, though they may be discovered in yours.”

She took a cautious step in my direction. “Come to me in the day and I will show you, we are the same.” Her hooves wavered, unsure of their course. It was her intention to console me, but the effect seemed inversed.

“Again? We have seen it all before, a thousand times.” My moon was the only light remaining in the sky for only the residual shimmer of the sun lingered after its passing, blotting out the stars. By now the inhabitants of preternatural abysses were rising up to greet me. “There may be monsters in your realm, but our realm is that of monsters.”

“We ought not argue now.” She was growing weary, drained from the strain of maintaining the suns course through the day. “Meet me here, at early dawn, when there is time to discuss such things. Keep your head up Luna, I have faith in you.”

It was a curious offer, one more night of terror with the expectation of something after, something different. There were no promises made at the time, only my anticipation driving my imagination to thoughts of a different world. Perhaps the entirety of my being was naive as it would seem my very will struggled against itself with optimism.

Without another word I accepted her proposition, suppressing my questions for want of ignorance. “Agreed,” I said, turning to her with a disingenuous grin.

She retreated slowly into the halls of her fully lit keep in an all too fresh and familiar manner. “Good night,” she called behind her.

I contemplated the meaning of that phrase for what seemed an hour, not having taken the care or time to respond. It was in a certain sense good, being in some places placid. Perhaps it had been that in all these years I had wandered too long in the dissolute venues. So I set off, determined to find a dwelling during my shadowy rule.

Canterlot was asleep and I could hear the whistles and neighs of the hidden denizens through the open doors and windows. Most here assumed, with nothing yet to sully this belief, that they were safe. If not the diligent guard of my sister to protect them, then I could be called. But little did they know how exposed they slept as I crept out from the city that night, furtively unseen by the patrols and guard posts. Not because it required secrecy, but because I craved discretion in my quest for meaning. This once, I wanted to be alone.

Outside the wall, in the glacial air of the mountainside, nothing stirred save the lone, distant howl of a timber wolf. While the ancient pines took on a sinister stare in the harsh light of my moon, it was nothing I had not seen or others dreamt before. Bats scurried through the dense treetops, crackling at the leaves as they flew. They disgusted me with their piggish faces and thirst for blood. Of course, how much more sinister and interesting was it to believe they feasted on flesh than to know they hunted insects by screeching in my caliginous domain. It was the first sin of the night, the dwelling of the peculiar and unknown, the strangeness which drove lesser minds to draft legends.

In the shade of overgrown brush, at the base of the mountain, I notice a rustling in the leaves. On close inspection a burrowing form appears, though it burrows not into the ground but into a thick shell. The black shape of the creature contrasting the russet tortoise it fought to invade revealed it to be a ratel. With tenacity it wrenched the shell from the writhing creature's spine. In an instant, it was over.

I only stood idly by, silent in my observation and careful in my position. Behind the ratel I could see the glowing of eyes, pale green with daemonic intent. From the shadows stepped a pair of wooden monstrosities, jaws drooping with sentient hunger.

Without thought I slammed the nearest wolf against a tree with extreme prejudice. These vermin perhaps repulsed me the most, of all the eldritch beings roaming the countryside. Crawling from depths unknown, stalking in the forests for prey, their very existence a mystery, a wooden golem without master. Its arboreal bones glowed as they slowly moved together, reconstructing the host splinter by splinter. I held down every piece with the radiance of my horn, pressuring the carcass to give up its magick. The timber hissed like wet kindling, the essence of the creature rising like smoke from the smoldering ashes. When I had finished nothing remained but ash and charcoal, lifeless as well they should have been.

Before me now fought the wolf and the ratel, though the wolf seemed worse for the ware. His front left leg was all but missing and his jowl in heaps on the ground. In his favor though, was the ever present glow which drew together the tattered brute.

The whole ordeal was more of a curiosity and a testament of my lament than a vain attempt to save the beast. Summed up in the microcosmic war was one of the principles of the night which I loathed the most. The ratel, being naturally a diurnal creature, has undergone a change in my time. As the shackles of society lengthened their chains, as pony kind pushed its boundaries into the forests and hillsides, they uprooted the environment in place. To compensate for competition many species left or began to sleep in the waking hours of their tormentors. Then the ratel was thrust upon me with fear and caution, being known at the time for its cruelty, to dwell like myself in darkness and dishonor.

Shattered beyond recognition and still being gnawed on by the ratel, the wolf remained resilient against the odds. But being a daft creature, the ratel thought him dead, despite the crawling of wood and faint spark in the eyes. Attention, then, was turned back to me. Snarling defensively, unsure of my intention or biased, the ratel clawed feverishly in my direction. His fear may have been misdirected, and my pleading perhaps unbecoming of my authority, but I sincerely wished he would run from me. Beside the threat he posed to me, the wolf, which still assembled itself, posed a greater threat to us both.

I felt a pierce on my leg. Blood began to seep from a fresh wound; the sight of it caused my hesitation. There was another sharp pain just below, or even through, the first gash, but my vision was fading and the pain decreased. Another cut and further drifting away, all the while hearing the ill-fated hiss from ungrateful swine.

Suddenly I heard a whimper and the numbed waling on my leg ceased. A cracking noise followed, then laughter, not my own but from my mouth. My eyes opened slightly and my vision began to focus once more on the scene of a ratel, cast to the side of the clearing, neck bent at a harsh angle. It did not breathe or move, nor did the cinders of wolf which now replaced the once glowing arborous fragments. Then, all went silent and grew fainter in the void.