The Princess and her Lunar Guardsman
I am not a monster.
The Lunar Guardsman
is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fan Fiction by Crimmar. It follows the story of Princess Luna and the lone human, Raegdan, through the eyes of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, as they try to establish a proper power-base behind Princess Luna, while facing assassination attempts, a mistrustful nation, and their own villainous tendencies.
With the progression of the story come hints that it is not the current threats that endanger them but past actions and repercussions threatening to catch up with them, while in the rifts through which Raegdan arrived something may be stirring for a long time now...
This story provides examples of:
- The Ageless: Raegdan might be this. He has lived far longer than he should, and during all the time he spent in Equestria he hasn't aged a bit. When it comes to his attention and realizes it he faints and reverts to a past, survivalist personality for a while. It is part of the reason that he can't remember most of his past as his human, mortal mind cannot cope longevity of this scope.
- Amnesia Loop: Raegdan's knowledge that he is ageless. According to Celestia she has had to remind him of the fact many times already, but he completely forgets it once more after a while, probably because he can't handle the repercussions.
- And I Must Scream: Luna's banishment to the moon. She has nightmares about being back there, and the thought of being sent back there is enough to drive her to attempting suicide.
- Ascended to Carnivorism: Luna has learned to eat and even enjoy meat, a result of her obsession and fear of disappointing her sister that drove her to return to her as rarely as possible, thus learning to subside on the flesh of the same monsters she hunted.
- Attempted Rape: A griffin that has been sent to assault Rarity makes it plain he intends to take it one step further, and there is no one to stop him. That is, until Raegdan enters the alley with full armor, war hammer, and a bandolier full of grenades.
- Being Evil Sucks: Luna and Raegdan attest to that.
- Big Damn Heroes: There are a couple of examples.
- Raegdan does a couple. Once before the story started when he saved Twilight from kidnappers, and once when he saves Rarity from an assault that might have turned into a rape.
- The Mane Six and the Lunar Guards do one when they save Raegdan and Luna from Griffin assassins.
- A few of the girls are in a burning building, and Rarity has been trapped by debris which they can't move. Raegdan and Luna appear just in time and are able to move the debris that trapped Rarity with their help.
- The slaying of the Charybdis Leviathan is this in in-story terms of saving the coastal line of Equestria from complete destruction.
- Carry a Big Stick: Despite the fact that there are characters who are stronger than him, like the minotaurs or earth ponies, Raegdan uses his humanoid form to swing a war hammer to devastating effect.
- Central Theme: Change of character is one of them.
- Trust to and in your loved ones.
- The world is not shades of black and white, and there are situations where there is no right or happy answer.
- Violence with real bloodletting is horrifying, and it leaves marks on everyone involved.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Raegdan has been both victim and perpetrator. He is quite willing to torture if he sees the need or is driven mad enough. Disturbingly, he is quite as willing to suffer it if he has to.
- Covered with Scars:
- Raegdan's first appearance to Twilight's friends shock them with the number of them he has. His back especially has almost no spot uncovered with them. He has so many he doesn't even remember how he got most of them.
- Luna is also covered with them under her coat. Twilight realizes later that what she thought as a peculiarity of Luna's coat that swirled in strange patterns is actually her coat growing wrong because of the scars.
- Cuddle Bug: Luna and Raegdan often take the chance to cuddle together when they're alone.
- Deadly Disc: How Raegdan employs his shield to bring down the pegasus opponent in the arena.
- Disabled Snarker: Leaf Stream had her wings amputated after facing Raegdan in the arena. She copes by being this.
- Easter Egg: In chapter 38 we witness an organization that knows of the rifts briefing a potential recruit about the Enders. If the description about them doesn't quite hit the reader what they are supposed to resemble, then they hover over and click on the single, underlined letter in their designation for a hidden link to an image that shows the root of what they are supposed to be.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: The only thing Raegdan has held onto through every ordeal is a simple, cheap ring that doesn't fit him. The reason? His mother gave it to him as a gift when he was a child. It's the only thing he has left from his world. He openly admits how much he longs to see his mother again, and Twilight has heard him weep at how he misses her.
- Every Scar Has a Story: We slowly learn the story behind some of Raegdan's scars.
- He tells the Twilight and her friends of the time he and a dying, giant cat creature fought each other as each was the other's last chance for food. He won but he has its teeth marks on his arm when it bit him hard enough to break it.
- He has two large circular scars on his chest near his heart. One is from when one of Twilight's kidnappers shoved his horn in his chest. The larger one he got from a horn too, only this one he got from Celestia herself.
- A scar in his cheek is revealed to be from a bullet when he tried to kill himself.
- His missing pinkie finger. He forced Luna to bite it off as punishment.
- Later on it's shown that his skin is now chemically burnt and has had necrotic flesh flesh removed after passing through the gastric acids in Charybdis.
- Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Raegdan has unofficially adopted Twilight Sparkle and is considered kind of a third parent by everyone involved, and is Spike's sole father figure. He is astoundingly proud at how good and unlike him both of them have grown to be, and is not ashamed to admit it.
- Family of Choice: Raegdan made one, primarily out of Princess Celestia, Twilight, and Spike, long before the story begins.
- Fingore: Luna bites off one of Raegdan's fingers. The one who is wholly disturbed and doesn't want to go through with it is Luna herself.
- The Fog of Ages: Raegdan has fallen victim to this. He has forgotten most of his life through the rifts (as he says it was all too similar), and many other things, including his own name as there hadn't been anyone to call him by it for so long that it's completely gone for him.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Raegdan started off as a normal guy who went off to have fun with his friend. Before he arrived in Equestria he spent his time crossing through worlds and killing everyone in them on his own.
- Giant Equals Invincible: The main reason the Leviathans are considered unbeatable. When Luna asks what the slumbering third Leviathan looks like, Solid Charge asks her if she's seen a particular mountain range. Then he says that if she goes there now she will see an extra mountain.
- Greater-Scope Villain: There is something stirring beyond the rifts something that Raegdan may have met and describes as Morgoth, while an organization that systematically explores the rifts, based on another world, is facing up to the possibility that something actively destroys worlds to their entirety.
- Groin Attack: There have been plenty of those in the story so far.
- Raegdan is often the victim of those. He has been struck thrice by Princess Luna so far, and once by Leaf Stream as a reward for her performance in Baltimare.
- An unfortunate griffin found out in the worst way possible that Raegdan has added spikes on his armor's knees for more reasons than just the cool factor.
- Hero Killer: Raegdan hints that he has been this.
- Interrupted Suicide: Luna is interrupted from hanging herself by Raegdan who sneaked in her tower to kill her.
- Kill It with Fire: How the Lunar Guard kills the Forest Gunk monstrosity. Of course, being made of humid, rotten foliage and mud meant that they had to drain the water out of it first in order to burn.
- Knight Templar Parent: Raegdan to Twilight. One of the many reasons he wants to help Luna establish a Lunar Guard is so that he can, for more than that reason, get rid of the Elements of Harmony, by destroying them if he has to, since he sees them as something forcing his adopted daughter face threats that he could deal with his own way instead.
- Kraken and Leviathan: Two out of the four Leviathans. One of them is an underwater creature that creates a whirlpool to feed, much like Charybdis, and the other one is described as akin to a kraken, though according to Luna they only saw one tentacle before it smacked them away.
- Master Swordsman: An inversion. Raegdan is completely incompetent with a sword. According to Luna he almost cut off his own leg when she tried to teach him how to use one.
- Meaningful Rename: Raegdan. It looks meaningless but it actually means "Wrongdoer" in Sindarin, the language of the Elves in the Lord of the Rings, which Raegdan knows. He chose it since he doesn't remember his real one.
- Made of Iron: Luna and Raegdan once more.
- Luna fights off and kills a number of monsters in Charybdis' stomach while holding onto a piece of wreckage to act as an anchor to Raegdan so he can climb back up. Despite her horrendous injuries, when Raegdan finds her she is still holding on.
- Raegdan fights alone against eighteen griffins. He had lost consciousness for several days and only woke up hours ago, and is covered with acid burns all over his body under his armor. The griffins managed to hit him several times with their crossbows and strike him multiple times with his own hammer, and he still manages to kill eight of them before they come to his rescue. He never utters the slightest exclamation despite his pain and injuries.
- Raegdan fought against Solar Commander Steadfast Ray. He ends up with ribs broken, his left side practically shattered as both shoulder and arm are broken, his leg barely able to support him, and a lot more hits all over his body and head. Then, he gets a dagger shoved in his eye. Unfortunately for Steadfast Ray, he then makes the mistake of slapping Twilight Sparkle. Raegdan is once again up in seconds, behind him, and thoroughly pissed. Cue curbstomp.
- Misplaced Retribution: What Raegdan did when his adopted daughter died. Millions of innocent people paid the price, most of them not even in the same world as the one she died.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: What a few ponies in Baltimare try to invoke after the death of Charybdis and the damage it caused in Horseshoe Bay. Judging by the news articles, and the out pour of support and thankful letters sent to Luna however, it didn't quite take.
- Oblivious to His Own Description: Raegdan shares the story of Ulysses. He is completely oblivious to the parallel of a man trying to get back home and failing for years, even when called on it.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Luna and Raegdan's history and the reason they see themselves so alike.
- Raegdan stooped to increasingly worse acts to keep his friends who were with him safe, until they got sick of him and abandoned him. Then he did even worse with the excuse to keep himself alive and return home as soon as possible.
- Luna fought alone to keep the monsters and threats that plagued Equestria at bay for centuries, having to go to further extremes. She started recruiting civilians to use as bait or diversions, and when a plague hit Equestria she would kill and burn a whole village rather than try to give them aid and let it spread even a little further.
- Suicide by Cop: Raegdan attempted one with Celestia no less. He attacked her claiming he would kill her and then kill her ponies. Fortunately she saw through it.
- Suicide Pact: And inversion. Luna and Raegdan have made a pact to not kill themselves. When Luna attempts to break it by shielding Raegdan with her body instead of fighting the threat, he forces her to bite off one of his fingers, her punishment being to permanently maim him instead of doing anything to her.
- Soap Punishment: Twilight falls victim to one when she calls Raegdan what can only be assumed is a very bad word in his language. Her pleas for mercy go unheard.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Guess who?
- There's No Place Like Home:
- Raegdan's main goal for a long time before the story begins. It is possible it was never attainable as the rifts take him randomly through infinite worlds, and his family might have died of old age a long time ago.
- Luna deliberately kept herself away from hers, fearing that she might lose it forever if her sins came to light.
- Tranquil Fury: Raegdan has two obvious instances.
- Once was in the arena, when his opponents managed to wound him and went for the kill while he was trying to play nice.
- The second was when Commander Steadfast Ray slapped Twilight, after breaking a number of bones of Raegdan and putting a dagger through his eye. The view of what Raegdan did to him made the onlookers scream and puke.
- Twilight went into one twice as well. Both of them when she thought that Raegdan was killed.
- Raegdan was in one before the story starts. It's unknown how long it lasted.
- Bait-and-Switch: Pinkie Pie comes across an unconscious Raegdan. She veers into explaining, while her hooves run across his naked form, to noone about how there are things that daughters want to do to their fathers but can't, but he is different in that he acts like one to her in a fashion but would not be angry in a way as her real one would, so she takes the chance to draw on him with a pink marker.
