Never let it be said that Celestia doesn’t enjoy interesting company. In the present day, her Royal Guard Captains range from a former captain of the Wonderbolts, to the prince of the Crystal Empire, to a succubus heralding straight from Tartarus, bound in servitude to Celestia’s very soul.
 
In the past it was no different. Dirge Mellonicha was the Captain of Luna’s Dread Knights from the years 936AN to 951AN. She was always upbeat and happy, cracking jokes and keeping spirits high in her contingent’s fight against the demonic hordes. Obviously, the only kind of person who could hold such an odd facade in that line of work was an insane one. Mellonicha was insane. Considering she was like this even before she joined the Dread Knights, most attribute this to her race - Hippogryph. Pony-Griffon hybrids are notorious for having unstable minds. The mixture of ambition and predatory instincts with the ponies’ herd mentality and natural fear response usually doesn’t end well, though even then, Dirge had something else going on.
 
Dirge Mellonicha had a strange ability. Something no simple mortal like her should have possessed. “Opposition” was the simple name it was given; the ability to oppose to the user’s benefit. If a demon hurled a fireball at her, its hand would explode, if a succubus tried to drag her under its sway, Dirge would instead be dragging it back home, a gibbering wreck of its former self. She only got attacked by a cockatrice once in her life; the rest knew to stay far away from her after seeing what became of the first.
 
Because of this, Dirge gained a few “friends” along the way. Ghosts who tried to possess her, only to find themselves locked in place instead. In spite of her happy, crazy persona, Dirge still possessed the fragile mind of her race. Whether it was by choice of if the ghosts found a way past her ability, Dirge threw herself off a cliff and died in 951. Her post wouldn’t be filled for another ten years, and her kill count wouldn’t be challenged for another fifty.