I stood within my tent with only my truest friend there across from me.

He knew me as well as any, my truest friend, and perhaps even better than most. As he gleamed within the candle-light, I looked upon his form, finding my own face glistening upon his hardened skin. A gift from my father was what he was, and a deeper sign of love I could never have asked for. Betrayal was not a feature to be found in my truest friend, like in those of lesser beings, nor were false-tongued words of poisonous honey. Instead, all I could find were the steady lines of stalwart courage, the firm edges of unabashed stubbornness, and the smooth, unmarred face of determination looking back at me like gazing once again upon the stern semblance of his maker.

It was so much unlike my own, that face. What with my inevitable ineptitudes and the unfounded beliefs in that which should not have been trusted, my own features were a mess of marks and blemishes from mistakes and trials gone by. It was a weak and pitiful thing to look at; the face of a foolish colt, now trying to wear the skin of a stallion and finding nothing to change his inescapable truth despite the scars and blackened coal with which he’d painted himself from horn to hoof.

All because of her and what she’d done.

“Sir?” came a voice of rusted nails.

When I took my gaze from my truest friend, there was some unicorn child—scarcely from her infancy by the looks of things—standing there behind me. A pair of my soldiers stood alongside her, glowering upon this mere girl like she might possess some hint of malicious danger, though none could I yet see; she simply did not have the needed ice in her heart, looking far too young and innocent to have seen what the world was truly capable of. Instead there was only fear and confusion and more fear. A gaze I would have recognized in myself all those years ago, had not the War shown me the depths of what real fear meant.

“Yes?” I asked, and the child fell to her face, splaying herself in an attempt to forestall some anger I did not yet have for her.

“Please. No more. You’ve won. W-we...” She looked up at me, eyes scarcely containing her tears in some sad gesture of impressing me on her courage. “We surrender... my lord.”

The impression failed as she again put her nose back to the ground of my temporary home, and I watched as the ground beneath her face grew wet in her tears. One soldier snarled, stalking forward in an attempt to remove her from my presence, but a simple wave from me halted him and, without question, they both left us. I waited for her to stop crying, though it seemed it should take many years before she should. Her sorrow fell thick and harsh, the cries of pain and loss admittedly finding some space in what little I allowed myself to call a heart. The rest had been torn away long before this girl sought to outmatch me.

The weeping grew less loud as the seconds became minutes, and the minutes became more. Yet still she could not stop herself and, when there were no more tears to shed, soon settled simply for a voice grown harsh and thin with her cries. Like a swan who has lost its love, she wept, keening for what could no longer be hers. Though I understood her pain, I equally knew I could do nothing for it, and so, when she finally paused her cries so that she might draw breath, I spoke for the first time in many hours.

“Why have you come?” I asked.

“T-to beg... ” she whimpered, and again looked upon me as a small hint of fire grew behind her emerald eyes. “Isn’t that what you want?” Her head fell back to the dirt as she moaned, “Can’t you leave us alone now?”

“No,” said I, and for a moment, she stared at me, fear now replacing her resignation. “I did not ask for your purpose in coming, though pleased I am to hear it, I was asking for your personal reason. Why have you come?”

“I’m in charge of the village.”

“And what of your father? Or perhaps your mother?”

I again caught the spark of something in her gaze, which I now knew all too well. Hatred, pure and all-consuming, though tempered at this time only by a love that was even greater than her hate. All that kept her from leaping for my throat was but a single prize, something she felt for far more deeply than her pain and her anger, powerful as they both were.

“I’m in charge of the village,” she spat between clenched teeth.

I turned to my truest friend, away from her hate, though I found no solace in his cold glower or his silence. “I am sorry,” said I.

“No, you’re not,” she snarled beneath her breath.

When she caught my gaze, she immediately moved a hoof to her mouth, as though to capture the words before they could reach my ears. However, the look of renewed fear in her face betrayed that she knew just as well as I that it was far too late. And now that fear was growing tall, devouring her earlier anger until it was all that stood between us. I again directed my gaze back to my truest friend, and heard her fight for breath before speaking once more.

“I’m sorry... m-my lord.” she muttered, falling back to her face in a gesture I already found quite tiresome. “Please. I-If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I promise it won’t happen again.”

For a while, I allowed the silence to grow. Her fear pawed at the doors now, searching to utterly consume her, and though I did not yet look, I heard her breath growing quicker as she fought to keep it out. There was a light scrape as she moved one of her legs as subtly as possible so that blood could flow into her cramped limbs again and a choked sneeze as the motion carried with it a bit of dust from my floor to her still downturned face. All I allowed myself to focus on was the gaze of my truest friend, consumed by the gleam of his milky features.

A small spark of anger was drawn from me at the sight it awoke in my mind, though none could I feel for him, my truest friend, for he was different. Though alabaster he wore, he was not like those who merely appeared so, as he was truly noble, honest, and pure of the filth which clouded the hearts of the living. Unlike his brother, who was bespeckled in the pollution of a life in service to a lie, he wore no such troubles upon his face. All he wished was to serve, and to protect, like I myself had vowed to do. It was all he knew, and it was all he would ever know. And, even should he be worn and injured and beaten, his cares and scrapes and hurts could be wiped away without a trace in but an instant. He would carry no memories to serve as the reminders to long forgotten scars, and I envied him for it very deeply.

“Why have you come?” I asked again.

“I–”

“Do not dare lie to me, girl, or you will find the extents of my patience. I know you are not sacrificing yourself for the fools out there who decided to try me, despite my most civil offers and dire warnings offered to the contrary, and would now cower behind the legs of a mere child. So why have you come?”

For a moment, I wondered if she would still try to decieve me, to insist that it was some duty to a fallen town of loathsome cowards which drove her here to beg my pardon of their insolence, no matter how it pained her to do so. No matter how much her very soul bled to speak with me, to sell her very world in so many cheapened words like a shameless street vendor, I wondered if she should still cling to what little pride she might still possess. But only for a moment did I suspect it, for when she looked into my face again, I saw her hope of escape fade from eyes gone glassy.

A despicable victory, perhaps, but one I knew would not be the last.

Her gaze fell back to the earth, and she choked over each word as though I drew them from her very marrow. “A little brother, and a very little sister,” she whispered, and new tears moistened the earth. “Please. Whatever else you want, just leave them be. I don’t care what happens to me, but they don’t deserve what you chose for us.”

I extended my magic to the vase I kept beside my bed, taking from it but a single magnolia blossom of white and setting it beside her. Her brow crinkled, and she looked at me as I turned back to my truest friend.

“Take this,” I told her. “And know that, so long as you and yours continue to display but a portion of this courage and wisdom, I shall find far more pleasant reasons to return in the future. I require only your loyalty, not your lives, and would but ask if some of yours might wish to join me instead of demand it. I do not require numbers. I only wish for strong hearts.”

She did not yet take the blossom, though it sat within easy reach.

“For what?” she asked bitterly. “Other villages broken, houses burned and homes shattered?” She drew tight about herself, curling into a ball to shield herself somewhat from the pain. “Was mine not enough? Where will it end?”

“It will end as soon as I can make it so, girl. You are not the only one with a duty that must come before yourself.” I took yet another bloom from my vase, watching it spin in the air and feeling some measure of joy find its way to my remaining heart. “Though mine must extend beyond family these days.”

“What do I do with it?”

“Plant it, burn it, eat it. Whatever you chose to do, know that this is a token of your acceptance into my fold. Before I return to Equestria, I shall conquer the Homeland and acquire an army that might face what I shall find awaiting me there. One by one shall the towns and villages fall before me, and then the cities, before the three nations become a single whole again. When I have finished with that, I shall return home and fulfill my duty.”

The child drew in a ragged breath, and I heard her attempt to swallow several times before she could speak again. “A-and what is your duty to?”

I brushed a leg against my throat, feeling there the cold moonstone necklace my mother had created for me on the day I had accepted this responsibility, at the behest of a teacher and a friend who could be no more.

“I have fought creatures you could never imagine, child, in pursuit of duty to a land that became my home during the War: beings of many faces, and with hearts as black as the darkened moon as powers of unquenchable hatred raged throughout hearths and homes. However, the monsters I faced then were nothing like those I must face now. Those in the shadows will destroy you, should you lack strength and courage.” Alabaster skin flashed through my eyes, and so I took another bloom to distract my anger, lest I unduly frighten the child still behind me. “But those in the light will take you into their embrace, caring for you and those you in turn care for like they are their own, and only when you have grown accustomed to the blinding glare of their love do you find the fangs they hide in their smiles.”

When I heard no voice from the child, I turned instead to my truest friend and regretfully placed my magnolias back into their temporary haven. He seemed to approve of my thoughts, though no expression did he make nor voice did he lift in either praise or complaint. But, unlike those who walk and breath, he would never lie to me, nor would he lead me astray. He would only be there to protect me, should I but desire it, and shield my body as well as the remnants of what little heart I had kept for myself over the years. Only he, my father’s creation of my father’s labor, proved that trust was possible, if given only to those who knew what true love and loyalty meant.

And, though my duty fell short of that standard, it was nonetheless my duty to fulfill. I had fought alongside her in the War, as well as by the side of my mentor and now truest enemy, and, though we had won that battle for the good of those beneath their love, I should have known that it could not last. Peace cannot be kept eternally bright, as can neither justice nor truth. They must be fought for, and continuously brought up from the depths of darkness. And though each time wears us down and strips away another layer of that naive veneer we attempt to coat our hearts within, we shall continue to fight for the true light as long as we live and breath.

So, though family was life, my duty was to my assigned ward, given quite ironically by my enemy, and so I could not let her suffer while I still drew breath. As first Captain of the Shadow Guard, I would not rest until my lady again walked this plane and breathed its air. I could not and would not, though to face those who I should call friends, and the one I would have once called both friend and teacher, pained the little heart I had anymore.

From his perch did I lift my truest friend and took his frigid weight upon my shoulders so that he might keep me grounded in the world against the base desires to reach for the unattainable. His iron legs became one with my skin as I stepped into his shoes so that I might bear the load of both my charge and my duty upon our shoulders and carry them to the end, whatever it might be.

And finally, his steeled face covered mine, that we could truly be born anew. No lips did he need, for words do not keep promises. No ears did he require, for my own had heard their share of lies and sorrow and no more of either should I wish to find souring them. No scars did he bear, for only the living make mistakes and pay the consequences. And no heart did he have, for to feel was to be broken, to be broken was to hurt, and to hurt was to fail when one needed to fight hardest.

Armor perfectly forged were we, he for myself, and I for my duty, and we looked upon our new subject through eyes of ruby, for none could escape our wrathful sight any longer, and she trembled before us as we loosed our voice from a hollow chest.

“Go home,” said we. “Return to those you love and fear no more. For now you are one of ours, and we shall watch over you like the moon, and forge into you new strength that shall never be broken. In the darkness, we are all one, and shall find our sight unimpeded by the light of a false love’s lie.”

With trembling legs did she again stand, backing away from us until she felt the tentflap brushing her hindquarters. Her eyes had grown wide, for now the beast of fear had battered down the doors and sunk its claws deep into her heart so that every step was a struggle.

We simply turned to my vase of sweet-scented magnolias as she finally turned and ran from our presence, back for the treasure best kept safe. The rumble of steel shod hooves and roar of fearless voices as our soldiers prepared for the long march to our next stop brought an unexpected weight upon our shoulders, but my truest friend kept my legs from bending and allowed us to move before a nearby mirror, that we might see what we were and prepare ourselves for the endless days ahead. Our gaze was hard and absolute, and so did we speak once more to the only one who truly needed to hear what we needed to say.

“You need not fear a Nightmare,” we growled at me, the eyes of crimson flashing hot. “But all will scream when they are found by Knight Terror.”