Prologue
The Abyss
When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
He had found his salvation at the bottom of a bottle. Gazing down into the abyss that Canterlot Castle overlooked, he could feel it piercing his soul, twisting and warping it into something beyond evil and ugly. But, he considered, perhaps it was already like that and this darkness only revealed his true nature.
He had used the last of his funds to come here tonight. For it was the fateful night of the Grand Galloping Gala and he wanted to see his sister play her cello one last time. She had not known of his presence, but for this he was quite, not happy no, not so foreign an emotion, but he was relieved of some of the burden. She would live none the wiser that she had been the last thing her lost brother cared about losing, before he had lost himself to the crutch that had fueled his life in recent months.
The mellow sound of the cello reverberated in his ears as he continued to peer downward, reflecting. He quietly began to sing a song he and his sister had shared when they were much younger. After he finished, he knew he would jump.
The Princess of the Night stood on her balcony, gazing up at her night sky. Ever since she had returned from her exile as Nightmare Moon, she had weaved a night more beautiful than anything her sister had created. This was truly her domain and no one could fill that void entirely like she could.
She had not felt up to going to the Grand Galloping Gala that night she was still wary of the ponies which she governed and they returned the sentiment. Nonetheless she had been quite amused to hear from her sister what a disaster the entire event had been. Truly there was nothing better than causing the always proper nobles great distress.
Interrupting the silence of the cool night at Canterlot Castle, she heard a few quiet notes drift up from the edge. She listened intently as the song commenced.
You and I used to be so close
Now we're here and I'm on my own
But even though these years
Have gone so poorly
I know that we wont ever truly
Be apart
Luna gasped as she listened closer. She knew this song! But it was ancient, even greater than her years, a remnant of a lost civilization well before the establishment of the Royal Pony Sisters.
Why'd you have to bring her down?
You were supposed to be her friend?
There was nothing for her, in the end
In that backwards town, you pushed her around
And now the world is crumbling down
She could hear the oppressive sadness of the singer, almost as if he were not merely singing a song, but telling his own life story. And hers. The song spoke so greatly to what she had felt during her imprisonment. Luna could feel that something was wrong here, why would someone be singing and sound so defeated this close to the edge of the castle. She began to race towards the voice fearing the worst.
So here we stand, on the edge of society
Looking in and seeing who you'd be
And it thrills our heart to see you smile
If only we had the courage to hang
With you for a while
The Princess of the Night arrived at the edge of Canterlot castle, just in time to hear the last five words sung. A gray unicorn stallion stood on the edge, looking down. All around him, on the balcony were multiple bottles, though Luna could not see them clearly, she could guess what they were.
She paused briefly, unsure how to approach the stallion before her. Little choice was left in the matter, when the stallion took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and jumped.
Time seemed to slow down for the Princess of the Night. One of her subjects, a stallion obviously in great distress, had just committed suicide in front of her.
A single anguished cry ripped through the Canterlot night, booming off the mountain and waking nearly the entire city.
“NO!”
Without a thought, without any idea what she was doing, Luna dove straight over the side of the balcony after the stallion.
With you for a while
As he sang the last line of the song, he thought briefly of all those who he truly wished were here. He did not hear the Princess come up behind him. He did not stop to reconsider his course, or what happened after death.
The only thing he considered was the irony of his name, Gallant Quill. There was nothing gallant about this.
He took a deep breath that he didn’t notice and jumped.
The world went black, and the abyss swallowed him.
“Luna who is….”
“… saved him”
“Tia… scores, he is…”
“…criminal, a smuggler…”
“worth… doesn’t deserve…”
Gallant Quill awoke with a start.
His first thought was that he was in heaven, thanks largely in part to the opulent bed in which he was laying. Then he observed the vomit that stained the side of bed. He had failed. He was alive, somewhere, for whatever reason. He was a failure in every aspect of his life. The thought crushed him down harder than ever before.
Or at least it would have, had the reason for his failure not spoken up.
“So thine hast finally decided to join us?” Gallant’s head swiveled towards voice, realization dawning on him that he was not alone. His eyes widened briefly as he beheld the Princess of the Night.
He did not speak his answer, merely giving a nod. Words were beyond him at this point.
“Why?” The single question asked to him was simple. And so very complex at the same time. The answer bore the weights of countless years of negligence and failure.
He did not answer at all this time. He could not. Sensing this, Luna spoke again, “Whatever thy reasons, thine life is worth more than death. Of that, we… I can assure thou.”
He still did not speak for a long time, instead merely staring off into space, considering the room and the world around him. Luna stayed with him in silence, thinking of what had been so bad as to have driven the stallion before her to try to take his own life. She looked towards to find him simply staring at her. Her eyes softened with pity.
She finally got a true response out of him, as his expression took on the form of rage.
“Don’t pity me. Don’t you dare pity me.” His voice was deep and gravelly, almost certainly still recovering from the binge drinking of the night before. He could see that the Princess cared and he was determined to turn that against her for having the gall to pity him.
“You want to know why I did it? Because I have nothing, because your guards-“ Luna cut him off with a single raised hoof. Despite his anger, and to his surprise, he obeyed, feeling like he was in school once again.
“We are aware of thine incident with the guards, thou was a smuggler, moving illegal goods free of taxation and government influence. But thou couldst have been so much more. We have seen thy test scores, top of the country in nearly every category, but bottom of thy class. Why didst thou not pursue higher education?”
Gallant was not surprised that she knew of his run in with the guards, but the questions about his schooling were more than a little surprising. He hardened his face back into a stoic mask. “I couldn’t afford college after I left home. How do you know about my scores?”
Luna nodded at the first thought, confirming what she had already guessed, “Thou has been unconscious for three days, we have reviewed thine records in that time. Thy art heavily in debt from the attempt thou didst have at school. We see that thou tried to join the Equestrian military, but thou were denied due to medical reasons. Why didst thou want to join the military?”
Realizing that the Princess had snooped through his files , probably learning a great deal about him, angered Gallant greatly. “You had no right to look through those records!”
Understanding immediately the misdirection in his anger, Luna shook her head before replying, “We did not look at anything personal, merely at those numerical values which showed the potential that thou hast. We ask again, why did you want to join the military?”
This calmed Gallant down enough for him to give a proper response, “I wanted to give myself a purpose in life, some sort of directive. When that failed, I turned to smuggling, thinking I could outsmart the guards and make decent money for the first time in my life.”
“What if we could give thou a direction in life?” Luna gazed solemnly at the stallion before her. His anger at her pity had impressed her slightly. Here was a stallion that refused to allow others to look down on him. That one could have pride even when faced with what she was sure he viewed as a shameful failure, was astounding. He would not allow himself to be defined as anything other than exactly who he was.
For his part, Gallant was both surprised and suspicious of Luna’s question, “What exactly do you mean ‘a direction’?”
“Thou has given the guards more trouble than any smuggler has ever given them before, we have seen Shining Armor’s reports on thy actions. Thou hast moved goods right underneath the guard’s noses, and even in plain sight of my sister and Shining. It took nearly a year for the guardsponies to find a way to catch thou, relying on the betrayal of a few of thy supposed allies and a sting operation involving nearly every guard in Canterlot. There has never been a smuggler who moved the nearly value and quantity of goods that thou didst.” Was that… was she praising him? He had been a thief and had essentially stolen vast amounts of money directly out of the royal treasury. At last his stoic mask broke, and he allowed himself a small smile at the effort the guards had gone to in order to take him down.
Luna noticed his smile, but declined to comment, finding it amusing that praise of his criminal activity had been what broke the mask, “What we are offering to thou is simple, become a guardspony.” Gallant snorted in incredulity at this, but stopped when Luna again held up a hoof, “Not just any guardspony, we wish thou to be a member of our guard, the Lunar Guard. Thou canst face trial for thy actions as a smuggler, or thou can join the Lunar Guard.”
Finding himself back into a corner, Gallant had no other option, “Fine, I’ll become a Lunar Guard.”
“Excellent! We know thou will make a fine guard.” Gallant once more balked at the thought of himself becoming a guard, but nonetheless knew it was an opportunity that he could not pass up.
“So when do I start?”
“Right the hell now.” A jet black bat pony with piercing yellow eyes stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the room, “Recruit Quill, I am Gunnery Sergeant Spectre. For the next 6 months you belong to me. We’re gonna turn your candy criminal ass into a hard warrior for the Princess, do I make myself clear?”
Ignoring the feeling in his stomach, Gallant shot out bed, partially in surprise, partially in fear, “Yes sir!”
“Don’t call me sir, Recruit! I work for a living! From this day forward until I see it fit that you can join my beloved Guard, you will speak only when spoken to, and you will answer every question with ‘Yes, drill Sergeant!’” The bat pony clearly meant to intimidate Gallant into submission, but the defiant side of the new recruit would not be suppressed entirely.
“What if someone other than you asks me a question?” The small smirk on the gray stallion’s face was quickly replaced by a look of pain. Sergeant Spectre had jabbed him in the side hard enough to leave him gasping for air. “Any more shit questions like that and I’ll make sure the next six months of your life are hell enough where you’re gonna wish you hadn’t survived.”
Without any warning the gray stallion teleported to Spectre’s blind spot moving to strike quickly at his unprotected side. He was easily blocked by the hardened military veteran. Undeterred, Gallant rapidly teleported to another location attempting to hit the bat pony. He was blocked again, this time with what looked to be slightly more effort. Again and again, the gray stallion teleported around the sergeant only to be blocked at every turn. Finally when it looked like a strike was going to hit the sergeant, he simply turned, grabbed Gallant’s outstretched hoof, and pinned him against the ground, breaking his concentration and not allowing him to cast spells.
“Looks like you’re not as much of a weakling as I thought, maybe in a few years you’ll actually hit me! Stay outside and wait while I talk to the Princess.” With that he threw Gallant through the doors to the bedchamber, who lay in the hallway for a moment, stunned that he had been bested so easily.
Spectre turned to face Luna once more. “He’ll be good, maybe one of the best, he’s faster than Shining already.”
Luna quickly smiled at this, but frowned once more as she considered Gallant, “Mold him Sergeant, make him loyal, but do not break him. There is a mind there greater, we think, than any of us are aware of. We have great plans for him; bring him to us as a leader.”
“You wish is my command, my lady.”
“And Dark, do try to refine that fighting style of his, we would see him greatly improved if he could actually hit his target.”