Some days I would lose myself in my work, writing for hours on end, visualising a time of peace that I had never known. A world that lived in peace, and the Sun would give way to the moon at night. Instead we lived in an eternal day, the sun bringing the fear that its light would give us away. That was why spent all our time underground here. There were passage’s that connected us to almost every house in Ponyville, and these allowed us to secretly find those sympathetic to our cause, and to find the precious places that would work as a go-between for food. As I thought of food my stomach suffered the pains of hunger. A week had passed since the fateful expedition and the rations were running dangerously low. Even the most careful ponies had little more than a mouthful left, and still there was no way for us to find any. The guard patrols seemed to have doubled, and their methods of dealing with suspects had gone from torture to murder. Luna believed them to be trying to starve us to death, and if that is what they planned then it was working. We had lost six ponies this week during desperate attempts to steal food from those shops loyal to Celestia, and we could find no safe place to have food delivered to us. “Hey starfall, we’ve been summoned to speak to Luna” Darksolar called out to me from right outside my room. I swallowed with dread. When summoned by Luna it rarely meant she just wanted to talk to you, I knew that I had been chosen for the next food raid. An ominous shudder ran down my spine as I left the room and followed Darksolar, dreading what would come next. As I entered the meeting hall, where Luna would often be attempting to rekindle spikes memory, I noticed Spike standing in the corner of the room. I only just realized that he had been absent from the meeting last week as I saw faded tinges of red scattered on his body. He had grown quite a lot since the six had gone missing; now standing at least five feet tall if not more. For a brief instance I wondered if he would be joining us on the raid. My hopes were then quickly dashed as I saw the other assembled ponies. Ever since the deadly raid had occurred groups consisted of five and only five ponies. I recognized PH among them, and there was a male orange earth pony with a short red mane that I had shown my writings to a couple of times. The fifth member I did not know, they were a female Pegasus that had a pitch black mane yet somehow their body seemed even darker, they had a mark that closely resembled Celestia’s but was a dull purple. I could tell that most of the ponies were a bit fearful of her, though the orange pony seemed quite comfortable around her. I thought to myself that Darksolar’s named seemed to befit this mysterious Pegasus but decided that it mattered little and centred my attention on Luna. “I have gathered you five ponies here to send you on a dangerous and desperate mission. As you all are aware our food supplies have been running incredibly low, and unless we can find some more we are all likely to starve to death. That is why we must now undertake these measures.” There was a hesitation, as if reluctant to inform us of our mission. “I need you five to infiltrate Celestria’s castle and take all the food you can from the royal kitchen. Midnight has discovered that there is to be a great feast to be held tomorrow in the castle” She gestured towards the pitch black Pegasus “which means that if we can get in their fast enough we will be able to remedy our food problems for at least a week.” She looked towards each of us in term, and her expression darkened as she saw the fear inside our eyes. “In order to retain mobility, you’ll each take a lightweight bag with you, these bags have been enchanted by Moondancer to be able to hold large quantities of objects and still remain light enough to carry with ease. I can see that you are all scared, but do not let that impair you, hold onto your fear, but use it to keep yourself alive, do not let it weight you down.” And with those words we could tell we were dismissed, each of us took a pack and headed along the passageways to the outside world. There were no secret entrances that lead us straight into the castle, but we had discovered one that lead to a mine that had been created seventeen years ago. Nobody was quite sure why it had been made. One day Celestia had enlisted the Diamond Dogs to aid in the digging of the mines with the promise that any gems they found would be theirs to keep. That day was before everything went wrong, and Celestia managed to create a treaty with the Diamond Dogs, guaranteeing the safety of ponies from them with the only cost having been the jewels contained in the mine. Now this mine was the only unguarded entrance into the castle, and as we entered it we could see why. Years of disuse had caused the tunnels to start to collapse and, though not impassable, there was a distinct awkwardness to moving around in them. The dark tunnel slowly lit up with a dim light from Darksolar’s horn. It flickered and lit up little of the cave, but it provided us with the visibility we needed. I do not know how long we crawled through those horrible caverns before we made it out, the first signs we saw did not bode well for us though. As we began to hear the sounds of the castle I noticed an odd shape to the ground. “Darksolar, can I get some light here” As Darksolar’s tilted her horn towards the ground we were able to make out what had given the ground its strange shape. There were large hoof prints upon the earth, most likely made by Celestia herself, but beside those prints there was something else, a shape that none of us could distinguish. “What do you think it is?” the orange pony queried quietly. A whisper ran among us as each of us wondered at what could have made them. PH broke the murmuring with a hushed “I don’t think any of us know, and there’s no use standing here wondering about it...err what was your name?” “Flare” the orange pony replied instantaneously “Well Flare, the sooner we get the food and leave here, the sooner we can wonder what made these prints” There was a silent assent amongst the group and so it was that we snuck into Celestia’s castle. As we saw the insides of the castle the light coming from inside shone into our eyes and temporarily blinded us, we all scurried to hide, fearing that we had been spotted, until our eyes became accustomed to it and we saw it was only the light reflecting off the tiles. The castle was incredibly clean, with everything shining and our reflections mirrored off almost everything from the tables to the floors. It was beautiful, but it only made things more dangerous for us. If we could see our reflections coming around the corner then so could the guards, and if we were seen inside Celestia’s castle there would have been no mercy even before the killings had started. Unfortunately, there was no way we could sneak around the castle with our reflections roving ahead of us, almost as if they were trying to get us caught. We hurried across the hallways, trusting more that speed would get us through this since hiding was practically useless. Oddly enough though, there were very few guards in the castle, but this served to make us only more fearful. Luna had been right; the fear did keep us alive. We spotted a group of six guards patrolling through the reflecting walls, and managed to hide inside a nearby room before they could see us. It was odd how what we thought would be our greatest problem turned out to be our best advantage. The guards in the castle did not seem as alert as the ones in the town, and did not pay much attention if any to the reflections that the shining walls cast. I got the sense that Midnight spied on the castle a lot, as she seemed to know all of the fastest routes to get us to the kitchen, and even some secret passages that I doubted even the guards knew of. Before long we had arrived inside the kitchen, and we knew that if we escaped here it would be well worth the effort, the sheer quantity of food that lay here made me wonder just how many guests she had for this feast. All of a sudden a thought occurred to me “Midnight, what is this feast for?” Midnight turned to me, giving me a look as if I were a filly asking her what a word meant. Her expression then seemed to calm itself as she said “I do not know, supposedly some pony the queen had been looking for has been found, and so she’s hosting a feast” “But why all these guests?” Her answer only brought on more questions “This food looks like it’s enough to feed the whole town; surely no pony can be that important” “This pony is. Lately, while I’ve been spying on the castle I have discovered there exists a third sister. One that has been sealed away even longer than DisQord was. The odd thing is that I have never seen this pony around the castle, with all of the excitement the queen has shown it seems as if the queen has captured her, but she is nowhere to be found” I ceased in my endeavours to get more information out of her and began packing food into my lightweight bag. The enchantment must have been really powerful, as I could have sworn I stashed enough in there to feed thirty ponies for a week at the least, and I only began to notice it weighing anything once the last bits of food were going into it, and the pack looked as if it had been hardly filled at all. I resolved to write down some thoughts on unicorn magic when I got back to my small room. We were just about to leave the room when I noticed an odd curve that had been hidden inside the table, underneath an extraordinarily large object that I believe was called pie. We had never had pie before and my spirit’s lifted at the thought of this food back at the resistance. However I turned my attention towards the curve, signalling for the others to halt, after a bit of fiddling around with it, the curve was actually a little flap, which after digging my hoof into, I could push aside. Underneath the curve was a strange tiara with a star set atop it, deciding that if it was hidden it was important, I stuffed it into my bag and motioned for the others to go, quickly following behind. In our hurry to get back with our spoils we forgot our fear. As we rushed out into the hallway, A trio of guards spotted us, and soon the shouting brought another group of guards after us. We galloped back the way we had come, Midnight guiding us through every hiding passage she could find in the hopes of escaping the guards. Though we managed to lose some of the guards, now that the castle was alerted, more kept on coming. After rushing out of a dark passageway we found ourselves falling through a collapsing stone floor. Midnight had managed to lead us back to the cave but we still had to escape our pursuers, who I could already hear coming around the corner. As we fled into the cave the beats of the guards hooves grew quieter, some of them coming to a sudden stop. Until there was no longer any noise behind us at all. Regardless, we hurried through the narrow tunnels, which quickly began to become a fevered crawl, worrying that at any time the guards would catch up with us. But as we neared the tunnel back to the Lunar Republic we began to calm down, as none of us had heard the heavy falling of their hooves for quite some time. We should have learned from before that we should never let our guard down, but once again we did and the excitement of our spoils overtook us. All of the ponies smiled as they thought of the adulation they would receive for taking such a vital role in aiding The Lunar Republic. The loss of Heartbreak and Stormhoof still weighed heavily in my heart, but even I couldn’t help but feel glad at the thought of all those we would have saved from starvation. Everyone was snapped out of their daydreaming as a horrible noise rattled through the caves. I would have likened it to the growling Spike made whenever he was in pain but this was far worse. There was an agony in this noise that made it seem somewhere between howling agony and rage. From the direction we had just been heading towards came the noise again, and we all paused, we realized that we couldn’t run back, as the guards would have us, and I briefly wondered if the guards had known this would happen. The owner of that noise soon revealed themselves to us; a monster that looked like it could have once been a relative of Spikes. Its head looked like a cross between a dragon and an eagle, it’s body covered in scales with some occasional ruffs of feathers breaking up the otherwise even scaling. Blood oozed from these feathers, painting the scales a dark shade of red. The creature stood upright on two stumped legs, and had two long arms lined with sharp thorn-like quill’s, each ending in one hooked claw. The beast lunged straight after Midnight, and as we dodged around it we saw that it’s eyes were hollow, there was no life in this creature, and yet it sought to take our life from us. Midnight rushed through the legs, causing the beast to stumbled before a powerful kick from midnight caused it to topple. While on the ground Darksolar blasted the creatures with a beam of fire from her horn, before PH slammed down into its head with his hooves, delivering a crack that resounded around the caves. The monster seemed to hardly be phased by the attacks, and pushed itself back up off the ground, before beginning a mad charge at PH, flailing its claws wildly. Before It could make contact Flare charged into the side of the best, narrowly avoiding the swinging arms, the impact driving the creature into a crevice in the cave. The beast didn’t even seem to realise that it had been damaged, and as it struggled to make its way out of the crevice it’s head fell off. It was at that point that we knew we couldn’t defeat this opponent, and we all knew that our only option was to flee. As we ran back into the passageways of the Lunar Republic, Flare gave the entrance a kick, and an answering cascade of rocks sealed the cave with the monster inside it. All the way back along that passage, nobody talked. Everyone had been shaken by that hideous beast and at the same time nobody knew what it had been. Our triumph of taking the food seemed was heavily overshadowed by this new development. I felt tempted to ask Midnight if she had ever seen any beasts like that one the previous times she’d been to the castle but decided against it. If Midnight had encountered them on her own she would no longer have been alive. The silence seemed to only extend the amount of time we spent in that passage dwelling on what had transpired. I could not help but feel ashamed over how I had reacted; I had not even been able to help against that creature. I had just stood there and watched my friends risk their lives. My heart only grew heavier as a realised how useless I had been on this adventure. It had been Midnight that had guided us through the halls, was there anything at all that I had done right...? “The other set of prints!” Everybody turned to me as I breathed out these words. “Do you guys think it was that monster that had made the set of prints beside Celestia’s” “No idea” Replied Midnight “We were too busy fighting that creature to look at its feet” I could tell she had noticed I hadn’t fought by the emphasis she put into those words. “You do have a point there” PH said, I felt relieved that he didn’t hold it against me, though at the same time I felt I didn’t deserve such forgiveness. “Both of those prints looked to be pretty recent though” observed Flare “does that mean somehow Celestia is working with that thing?” Darksolar broke through our pondering “Well I don’t know and at the moment, I don’t really care. We got the food that we came here for, and quite a lot more than we expected, Isn’t that enough to be happy about?” And all of a sudden the cheer from before came back as we realised that we were finally safe and we had successfully completed our mission. We talked of our dreams and hopes as we walked back to deliver news of our success, and of the new problem we faced. We spoke of what we all hoped we would do once we were free. The best thing that I found out that day was from Flare actually. When I mentioned my hopes of being able to see the stars Flare said that he had once witnessed one of Luna’s beautiful nights, and promised to recount it to me once we got back. We were just entering back into the dens where the Lunar Resistance ponies lived when Midnight broke into our hopes and sent them crashing down. “Well we are never going to see the stars again, so many of us are dying and...with that, monster back there. How can you believe things are ever going to get better? How will they ever go back to the way they were? HOW?” As her voice broke on her last words she ran off, sobs escaping from her. The rest of us walked along slowly, feeling sad even as we did not know why. When we reached the meeting hall and found Luna we saw that Midnight had already come and gone. Luna’s eyes lit up as we came into the hall and I could have sworn she was about to explode with joy. “Thank you brave ponies, judging from the pack Midnight has brought back there should be enough to feed the whole resistance for a fortnight” she paused as we all gave her quizzical looks, unfamiliar with what she meant by a fortnight “A fortnight is two weeks, It was used as a term when there was actually a night...” her head drooped as she remembered those few years when she had been able to raise the moon. “Never mind that, Midnight seemed distressed about something, would you care to report what it is?” An awkward silence fell among us, and as the silence became worrying, I stepped forward and recounted what had happened, leaving out the actual battle for fear of what she would think of my cowardice. “This is grave news indeed; I recall those beasts being sealed away by...” Her voice trailed off and she seemed hesitant to speak more of them “They are called the Keln, they were once a rampant menace all throughout Equestria, and if you are correct and Celestia is working with them...Oh sister what have you become?” She said those last sad words to herself. I had not known that Luna could still feel so strongly for her sister after all of these years. It was strange how she was willingly to fight her elder sister with such conviction yet still love them. I wondered why she felt that way but decided to leave it as it was, some things were better left unsaid. We could all feel the dismissal in the air yet none of us left, the silence left me time to think of what had happened and I suddenly remembered the tiara I had found “Luna” I said digging out the tiara from the bag “there was one other thing we found” I presented it awkwardly to her, who then used her horn to levitate it into her sight at which both she and Spike gave let out a shocked gasp. The tiara stopped levitating and fell to the floor in the silence. “Is that-“ Luna began “It is!” Spike answered the question she had not yet asked Luna turned to address us “Ponies, what you have found is no ordinary tiara, it is one of the six Elements of Harmony, that the six used to once banish the darkness in my heart as nightmare moon. This was the one that Twilight Sparkle used to wield” A shocked silence now settled around the room, with Spike looking as if any moment he would lunge towards the element. “Give me some time to ponder on what you have brought me and told me, I shall summon you back when I have figured out a course of action” the prompt dismissal told me that there was more to this then I knew, yet we all left the hall and went back to our small room’s That night I got out a sheet of paper, and began writing my thoughts on what had happened There are strange monsters called Keln, supposedly sealed away over a thousand years ago, that are now returning to the world. These beasts can be recognized by their hollow eyes, but if you ever even hear one flee, for these creatures cannot die. They are not alive in the sense that we are. They can attack you, and have a will of their own, but they are not living, and therefore cannot be killed. Engaging these creatures alone will ensure certain death My writing’s were cut short as someone knocked on the wall of the cave, drawing my attention to Flare who had just entered the cramped room that was my home. “So you wanted to hear about Luna’s night if I recall?” I hastily nodded for fear that he may not tell me, as I myself had forgotten his knowledge of Luna’s night. “Be careful you don’t lose your head like that monster did” sometimes even when you’ve been through horrible experiences you can still laugh, this was one of those moments, It was a hollow laugh, but it helped to ease the pressure of today. Calming down, Flare began to tell me of what I had always dreamed of. “Luna’s nights were possibly one of the most beautiful things in equestrian, the moon would glow and cast an ethereal light along the trees that made them seem as if they were the most amazing shade of blue. The night sky was like a cast of dark blue silk across the sky, resplendent in all its shades and centring around the white shining moon. But the stars were always the best part, the way they shone in the sky, twinkling as if they might blink out of existence yet seemingly shining stronger than the moon itself. Occasionally one would shoot across the sky, and it would leave this trail of magnificent white light behind it. They were truly the most beautiful thing in Equestria” Flare left me there, while I imagined the night as he had seen it. I do not know how long I spent like that but I eventually fell asleep. That night I dreamed of a night full of stars, the moon shining upon them all, and the stars reflecting that light in turn. That night I felt as if there was no doubt we would make it out of this, and that I would finally be able to see the stars.
