FimFiction Link - Short ID: 328030/her-soldiers-we
Published: May '16 — Aug '16
Her soldiers, We is a 45k word story starring night guard ocs. In this AU the nightguard were originally Lunas Pegasus honor guard who saw it as a punishment detail to serve the night shift. Luna took offense to this and with dark magic turned them into "Vesperquins" or what most fans call thestrals. Generations later they see themselves as partially responsible for Lunas fall and eagerly await her return, if its even coming.
The story picks up with sky diamond getting reamed by his CO for drinking on duty after being dumped by his girlfriend. Nebula, the CO has little care for that and rips into him over it. They're interrupted by celestia looking to speak with an old friend where she complains about her opacity with her student, and how she feels guilty for sending her to ponyville and dismissing her concerns. After this the story begins in earnest as the Night guard tries to keep order as the sun is late.
Theres a confrontation between star diamonds ex and a capricious Nightmare moon. Here we learn that she has absolute fundamental control over the "vesperquins" actions if not their minds and we move into the main conflict of the story.
Sky diamond, understandably sees Nightmare moon as a threat that would kill the world, and because of her absolute control over the nightguard thinks the only thing that can be done is to suicidallly attack the menace or to run.
In contrast Nebula Haze believes that the real luna is still in there, and that they need to be the friends that their ancestors were not, and she doesnt actually believe sky when he claims Nightmare has absolute control over the night guard.
The main drama is Nebula's unerring faith, if not optimism that she can make luna recall herself versus the very real fear that she is and always will be the worst kind of tyrant. We follow the events of Friendship is Magic from nightmare moons perspective and the story does a great job of recontextualizing it, as luna is slowly worn down.
There are some truly tragic moments and its one of the few stories that made me feel something, it does go a little out of its way to be bloodless which undermines the threat nightmare moon poses. we don't actually see an aftermath following the main cast, as it more or less abruptly ends following... uhh well the pilot episode. Nightmare moon does very little to earn Nebula's faith Especially after she uses her absolute control to nearly kill her but at that point the die had already been cast and the only way out was if Nebula was right so tactically I can see it as a little more reasonable. The story doesnt do the best job on making the main conflict personal to the characters beyond the barest of hints but its definitely a story i can recommend 7/10