Midnight Sky- The Abridged Biography

Midnight Sky

Author’s Note:

Midnight's backstory follows along Equestrian Dawn’s History of Equestria, so you might want to read that first if you haven’t already. I would also like to warn you that this story is hella depressing. I’m not very good at writing happy things. ‘Nuff said. Enjoy…

-Midnight Sky: The Abridged Biography-

Midnight Sky (Occasionally referred to by his nickname “Night”, or “Night Sky Komet” in recognition of his mother’s maiden name) was an Alicorn born to Daylight Sky and his wife, Stardust Sky (formerly Stardust Komet), at the end of the first age. Daylight was a respected physician and Stardust was a businesspony. They were both very successful, and were wealthy enough to afford first class accommodations at the Alicorn capital palace. When Night was 4 years old, Daylight died of a sudden heart attack. At the time, Midnight was too young to comprehend what had happened, but as he grew older, he became more and more grief-stricken.

Night became paranoid of losing more of his loved ones (this paranoia eventually became more generalized—he was always inclined to expect the worst of any situation, and became suspicious and secretive though he hid this paranoia well, not wanting people to think him insane), and by age 6, he was clinically depressed. Desperate for a connection to his father, and in need of a distraction from his grief, he began studying medicine obsessively. His studies soon branched out into other things and before long he was a star student. He was frequently singled out for his academic achievements, his teachers wanted to use him to motivate his classmates, but they only succeeded in making them resent him. This, coupled with his comparatively short height and social ineptitude, meant that he was often bullied, a fact that he coped with by studying all the more. It didn’t help that, as he frequently embarrassed his teachers by pointing out flaws with their lessons, they didn’t take the time to hear him whenever he attempted to report the bullying, and he didn’t go to his mother for help, feeling she had enough on her mind as it was.

One day, when fleeing from a group of bullies, he found himself cornered against the edge of the island they were on. He panicked and jumped, despite having never flown before. Discovering a natural talent for flight, he managed to perform several aerobatic maneuvers in an attempt to shake his pursuers. Despite the effort, they would almost certainly have caught him had a Pegasus pony by the name of Skyknight Karaya not witnessed Midnight’s plight from an island below and saved him. Impressed by Midnight's display, Skyknight convinced him to join the Summer Academy for Gifted Aerobats (SAGA, for short), becoming admitted a week after his 9th birthday.

Midnight never forgot the thrill of his first flight—the terror of jumping off that island, and the euphoria he experienced when he spread his wings, feeling them lift him away from the unforgiving ground. He flew frequently from thereon, endlessly chasing that first adrenaline rush, and the sense of freedom that accompanied it. Soon, every spare moment he had, that  he didn’t spend studying, was dedicated to flying, and by the end of the first season he was ranked third-best in the academy. Skyknight was at the top, and second place was his sister, Blackbird. The three formed a team known as the Infinite Arrows, and began performing in various air-races and aerobatics displays, a fact that Night’s mother was far from happy about.

Stardust Sky didn’t take the loss of her husband any better that Midnight did. She became paranoid about losing the remaining member of her immediate family, and was thus pretty protective of him. Indeed, Midnight was only able to get her to allow him to join the academy by being deliberately vague about what it involved, and relying on the fact that she was too busy trying to maintain the family’s impressive finances (which were rapidly deteriorating without Daylight’s support) to research it properly. When the Infinite Arrows were formed, Stardust  finally found out just how dangerous Midnight’s flying was, and was understandably reluctant to allow him to fly but, pointing out that he had never once crashed (which was actually a lie, he had one crash that she never found out about), and with a promise from Syknight and Blackbird that they would keep him safe (at the time, Skynight was only 13, and Blackbird 12, but they acted like adults and she trusted them), she agreed to let them fly. The Infinite Arrows enjoyed massive success in the following years, winning dozens of airshows and aerobatics competitions, and netting several million bits, Midnight’s share of which was more than enough to restore his family’s finances. Not trusting the banks with their fortune, the Infinite Arrows elected instead to store it in a secret underground vault in the Alicorn Capital Palace.

The war with Discord started 7 years after the founding of the Infinite Arrows. Being regarded as some of the best flyers the Alicorns had, Skyknight (then age 20) and Blackbird (19) were quickly recruited into the army. Midnight wanted to join too, but his age (not to mention his mother) prevented him from doing so. Being a strategic genius (a fact which was no doubt responsible for her career’s success), Stardust joined as well, as a tactician, leaving Midnight home alone most of the time. Night became restless and, desperate to know what the war was like, he decided to see for himself.

One day, he followed Skyknight and Blackbird, without their knowledge, toward where the fight was. He was planning to observe it, from a distance, without getting involved, but was spotted by a fae archer, armed with a crossbow. Midnight survived the encounter, but was seriously injured. he was found by Skyknight and brought back to the Alicorn Capital, only to find that his mother had been assassinated by the fae.

Judging from what he saw, using strategic skills learned from his mother (they had spent many hours playing chess together and she took the opportunity to teach him advanced strategy, multi-step thinking, etc.) Midnight determined that victory was a tactical impossibility, and desperate for a way to contribute despite his youth and injuries preventing him from fighting, donned a set of magitech headphones, put on lengthy playlist and, over several hours of contemplative pacing, devised a plan to preserve the Alicorn race: He, Blackbird, and Skyknight would ingest a large dose of a powerful anesthesiological elixir he had been developing for his medical studies (though he studied many aspects of medicine, he had a particular interest in pain killers: his mother was suicidally depressed after his father died, and a perscription of antidepressants likely saved her life). He made this particular drug to eliminate the need to calculate a precise dosage of anesthesthetic to have it’s effect wear off at the right time, eliminating the potential for error in this regard. Night’s elixir was designed to put the patient to sleep indefinitely, until a second drug was administered to wake them up. However, should the second drug not be administered, the patient could theoretically be asleep for thousands of years (given a large enough dose): an effect that Midnight planned on exploiting.

The plan was as follows: They would each get their journals (Night and Blackbird, that is. Skyknight didn’t have one.), so as to preserve their memories--the elixir could greatly reduce the effect of entropic forces on the ponies, but Night hypothesized that a significant portion of their long-term memories would be wiped out whilst they were unconscious, go to the hidden vault in which they stored their cash, and drink the elixir. Outside of the Infinite Arrows, very few ever knew of the vault's existence, and those that did were all dead by then, so they could be fairly confident nopony would find them before they woke up. And by the time they woke up, the hope was that Discord would have been defeated, and the Alicorn population, though greatly diminished, would not be extinguished (they would have been preserved anyway, thanks to Celestia and Luna, but Night had no knowledge of this).

That was the plan, but it didn’t exactly work out that way: Midnight went in the early morning, before his friends were scheduled to leave for combat, to inform them of his plan. Blackbird was there, but Skyknight had left, against orders, on an early patrol. When Midnight told her what he wanted them to do, she refused to go without Skyknight (not that Night suggested otherwise). She went out to find him but Midnight, given the injuries to his wing, was unable to join her. Instead he volunteered as the test subject for the elixir, as it had never been used before. “I’ll take the elixir first,” he said, “When you arrive at the vault, take my pulse. In the unlikely event that I have none, assume the drug to be unsafe and disregard my plan. Otherwise, proceed as arranged." With that, he gave Blackbird a dose of the anesthetic for her and/or Skyknight to take should she/they be unable to make it back, hurried to the vault, consumed the anesthetic, and settled in for the longest nap in recorded history.

When he woke up, he came to the realization that his friends were not there—that they never made it back to vault. They could not have simply woken up before him and left--it was agreed that whoever woke up first would wake up the others with the briefly aforementioned second elixir, and he knew they would not have deviated from this. He dealt with his grief with enough dignity—They weren’t the first loved ones he ever lost, and he took comfort in knowing that they would probably be the last: He had none left.

Before revealing himself to society, Night stole, and thoroughly read, modern books on various topics, to confirm that Discord had been defeated, and to learn how society and the language had changed (he reinforced his knowledge of the latter, and regained some of his old memories, by using his diary as a reference and writing an autobiography in modern English).

He managed to uncover a journal, belonging to a member of the fae, that described a fight with two ponies matching Skyknight and Blackbird's descriptions. They had found Skyknight (as Midnight assumed him to be) alone, and attacked. Even though he was outnumbered six to one, Skyknight turned and fought. Despite the overwhelming odds, he managed to injure nearly everypony who attacked him, holding out for several minutes before Blackbird finally found him. She tried to intervene, but was shot down almost immediately. Skyknight continued fighting, succeeding in shooting down two of his attackers, but was ultimately shot down as well (the entry concluded by saying, in reference to Skyknight "his flying was wonderfull, his courage magnificant, and it is my opinion that he is the bravest Alicorn flyer whom it has been my privilage to see fight").

Midnight was hopefull: Skyknight was most certainly killed, the author of the journal had seen him die, but Blackbird might actually have survived. It wouldn't have been the first time she had cheated death--or even the third, for that matter--In that short conflict she had managed to get shot down on several occasions prior to this (she was nicknamed "9 lives" by her fellow flyers), and Midnight convinced himself that she would have cheated death once again, and would have used the elixer to carry out her part of the plan, but simply wasn't able to make it back to the vault with her injuries (the Alicorn capital was the highest of the islands, an injured pony would have serious trouble reaching it unnaided). He continues to cling to the belief that she's still alive, out there somewhere.

Epilogue:

Night suffers from continuing depression and survivor’s guilt, blaming himself for failing to save the only friends he ever had. As far as he’s concerned, he saved his own life, rather than doing the honorable thing and dying alongside his comrades. He inherited Blackbird and Skyknight’s share of the Infinite Arrows’ winnings by default, and used the money to commission the construction of a massive, 20,000 square-hoof palace, with memorials for Blackbird and Skyknight in the grounds (he lived in the vault while it was being built). Night was very philosophical, here are a few of the quotes he's made:

“Dying for anything is better than living for nothing... I wish I'd thought about that before I drank that potion.”

"Nopony is inherently good, nor are many inherently evil, it is our experiences that determine which path we follow. It is our responsibility to be consious of this--concious of what we are becoming--and render those around us similary enlightened, that we all may be good in our ways--that wars such as this will never happen again."

Most of the time, though, Midnight doesn't apear that depressed. His grief is largely unrealized, pushed, for the most part, into the back of his mind

Personality

In short: the odd combination of Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle, with elements of Artemis Fowl and Vinyl Scratch, and a semblance of the mannerisms of Shining Armor (Personality type apears to be INTJ).

Psychological Condition

In addition to his afforementioned paranoia, Midnight suffers from ADHD and bipolar disorder, not that one would know it to look at him. He controls the ADHD through sheer willpower, and the bipolar with a cocktail of potions concocted by a friend of his father's (it was witnessing the effects of this that helped spark his interest in potion-making).

Occupation

Aerobat, medical student, part-time musical composer.