After I had washed the blood from my feathers, and the smell of death didn’t follow me, I walked to Luna’s room. I stopped to knock on the door but stopped myself. I don’t think I can be with Luna after what has happened tonight. Luna wasn’t aware of the battle. She had heard the yells and screams of course, but she didn’t know what was happening. Celestia had made sure of that. So I continued walking aimlessly through the castle, looking out the large windows and into the night sky. For a kid Luna sure is a good artist. I watched as a few shooting stars streaked across the sky.
Eventually I ended up in the medical wing. I looked around as I realized where I was. I was directly outside of Starswirl’s room. I sighed and entered to check on the still sleeping unicorn. “It is about time you showed up!” Starswirl yelled at me. I just stood in the door choking as I stared at him. “What is it now? I go to sleep for a few days and I wake up to the sounds of mana explosions and battle!” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Well? I’m waiting.” I just rushed up to him and gave him a hug. “Ow! Ok ok!” I pulled back to see him smiling. “It’s good to see you to Night. How are the sisters?”
‘Wonderful! Have they seen you yet!?’ I excitedly flashed across my feathers.
“All in due time Night. Now, explain to me what has happened.” And so I did. I explained the response from Overia, and the battle resulting from it.
‘I have many regrets Starswirl. I regret we weren’t able to peacefully settle the matter. I regret not being here when you were hurt. And I regret how cruelly I killed Over Time.’ I sighed as I sat beside his bed. I opened up the bag around my neck and dumped the horn onto the bed before Swirl. ‘I kept this. To remind me of the unneeded pain I caused.’ Starswirl attempted to pick the horn up in his magic, only for his horn to fizzle out and stop glowing.
“That will take getting used to.” He looked up at his horn in irritation. Then he picked up the horn I had placed on the bed. “Hmm.” He looked at the horn then back at me. He looked back to the horn as he spun it in his hooves. “Did I ever tell you about the time I beat a bully in school?” He asked all of a sudden.
‘Um, no?’ I rubbed my head, confused. ‘What does that have to do with anything-‘
“WHEN I was a young colt.” He interrupted me. “I enrolled in the magic university. Now, I was by no means a strong colt. I was thin and weak. The only thing strong about me was my magic.” He paused as he looked at the horn in front of him in deep thought. His brow furrowed as he continued. “Now, due to my scrawny nature, I was the subject of much bullying. One colt in particular loved to bully me. He would shove me into walls, steal my lunch, whatever he felt like doing. And one day I had enough.” He looked in my eyes now. “I snapped. He came up to me one day and threw me into a wall. And I shot a bolt of magic into his side.” He looked down in regret. “Now, I was never bullied again. I had earned the respect of everyone in the university.” He looked back at me with a pain in his eyes. “And I hated every minute of it. When that poor colt came back to school he was not the same. He could hardly walk. He had permanent scarring on his side. And he had never been strong with magic. He didn’t last a year in the university. When he was kicked out....I never saw him again. He ran from home, off to wherever.” His gaze hardened as he looked into my eyes. “I had ruined that colts life forever. Because I did not control my power. Sometimes, in some situations, those with power have it harder than those without. You have to keep your senses, you can not let it go to your head. And sometimes, even when you are in the right, you have to restrain yourself.” He sighed and looked back at the horn. “No one is going to fault you for what you did. In fact, some may praise you for it. But the question is, how do you feel about what you did? Did it bring you any real satisfaction? Did it fix what was already done? Think about it, and let the answer decide how you handle similar situations in the future.” He handed me back the horn and I slid it back into the bag.
Did I get any satisfaction from giving him a cruel death? Did it really solve any problems? No. It ended the same as it would have had I just killed him quickly. “Now!” Swirl exclaimed making me look up. “Let us go get some food shall we? I am starving.” He hopped out of bed and started walking towards the door. He looked back at me when he noticed I wasn’t following. “Come on! I want to leave before the nurse gets back.” He turned back around. “Darn mare will not even let me go to the bathroom by myself.” He muttered under his breath.
I hadn’t used my bed much since I woke up from the Elements. But tonight was one of the few times I decided to use it. After Swirl had gotten some food he went back to sleep. And with nothing more for me to do, I decided I might as well sleep. The bed was amazingly soft anyways. Cloud beds for the win.
Third Person
Somewhere in a desert far away, a pony paced back and forth in a large throne room. “Are you sure he saw you?” They asked the smaller ponynin front of them.
“Yes my queen!” The smaller one had a serious expression on their face. “What are your orders?” The queen thought for a moment.
“Prepare a small group of warriors. Staying unknown is what keeps us alive. This creature endangers us. Try and remove the memories without harming it. But if that fails.....you know what to do.”
“Yes my queen.”
Love the new chapters keep up the good work
"I’m not sure about this chapter. Did I get to deep into the moral side of things? What do you all think?"
Hard to tell, we all have our own point of view about that right? Sometimes there is no point to dwell too deep :) But it is your story, and it is your choice how deep you want to go XD
love the new chapter
No, this was awesome.... I could feel the feels
Deep chapter if you look at it right.
Deep chapter. Really good points made too. Though there was a typo where:
Think that was supposed to be bolt. Either way, this chapter is really good and if that is who I think they are in the end they are making a huge mistake there.
They either succeed with memory wipe, or die :P
Such adorable little critters going all sneaky like making a small problem so much bigger. But this have the smell of bad times so I am going to guess they fail, Night being immortal/eternal and all (he would not be a very good guardian if he toke a blow/magic to the head and lost all his memories), and the hunt start early or night finds new allies if he decides not to kill all of them.
There doomed to fail. I doubt any memory trick will stick for long even if it dose work at first. And they cant kill him, that wont work for long either.
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Or they ended up with a secret pact with our hawk. Nightie love cuddle cute buggy.
My real question is why they bothered showing up in the battle field between ponies to begin with. Not to mention seemingly defended Nightwing's side.
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They actually have a good reason for being in the battle. It will be explained soon.
Loving these frequent short updates, keep it up!
Great job as always. Was that the changlings? Are they gonna assassinate Night? So many questions!
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Yes I’m aware, I’ll go correct those mistakes. Sorry about that. And I always forget the to and too. I do believe I’m improving though.
Sorry, this is "too" as well, it also means "as well" or "also" in addition to "in excess."
Edit: Here, just have this.
I'm gonna call it quits here, this is a damn good early effort though. At another time or place I likely would have stuck with it, but time is short for me nowadays.
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The part where he said wing in your first comment? That was him expressing confusion over the fact that he had a wing.
Who are you strange ponynin and why does this queen wish her kingdom to be secret.
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Fairly clear they're changelings, but if it's Chrysalis or not is up for debate.
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Hmm hmm hmm. You’ll just have to wait and seeee.
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Hm, now that I think about it.... Yeah. most likely.
I like how nobody knows about the fact that he is a space Phoenix
Oh my god this story is the best thing since the summer of 2017!
Quick somepony throw Flufflepuff stat that will distract the lings
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Honestly his death wasn't that cruel. He died relatively quickly.
Not really seeing the excessive cruelty here. Overtime happened to be the leader, but he was not the only pony to die that day, and surely not the worst death either. Night did not go out of his way to torture him to death or anything. I think he's more reacting to killing at all rather than the specific manner of it, but taking trophies like that is always a bit creepy even when hunters do it, let alone soldiers.
That was a wise speech you gave Starswirl. I never pictured him as a piny for actually saying wise things, but you made it fit.
Stop being so utilitarian and think about utility AND justice.