//------------------------------// // First day in Equestria // Story: Empire on the Moon // by Kingless knight //------------------------------// Alecia had a warm smile, not wearing her veil. "Mother has told me so much about Celestia. It will be nice to meet her.” Shadow Swipe nodded, tired as his armor weighed on him. “Dear, you should take that off.” He shakes his head, eyes filled with determination and grit. “I’m the grand general! I will stand proudly in Uniform.” Shining armor looked impressed at his professionalism. “If she orders you to remove it?” She teased, and he answered. “I will put on my ceremonial uniform.” Alecia frowned, rolling her eyes. “And you should put on your veil.” She scoffed. “Mom’s immune to it, and so should her older sister.”  Luna rode with Celestia on the chariot, having her sister back, and then she almost had a heart attack after looking into Alecia’s eyes. Thousand years was guilt repeated, before her husband but on her vail back. “Who are you?!” She demanded, powering her horn. Luna jumped between her, and Alecia felt a little guilty. “She’s your Niece, Celestia.” Alecia waved with a smile. “I apologize, ''Celestia stares. “How?” she asked and saw the armored unicorn wearing an updated lunar guard armor from nearly a millennia ago. “Is he one of the soldiers of the lunar rebellion?” Luna shook her head, and then a shadow swipe saluted and spoke. “Hail the true princess of the Lunar United domes!” Celestia was getting a headache. Luna looked to the general. “Rest, Shadow swipe and remove that armor.” He nodded and left. Celestia took a long breath. “How about breakfast?” Alicia smiled. Celestia quickly made pancakes that were foreign to Alecia. “What are the colorful decorations?” She asked, poking the berries. “No, dear, those are berries,” Celestia said worriedly. “That’s a lot of malt sugar.” She said, cutting the pancake up and taking a bite. Her eyes turned massive, and then she started licking the plate. “Alecia, table manners.” Alecia giddily nodded. Easy to tell she was sugar high. “It’s nice she likes my cooking.” Cadence saw what was happening to Alecia and decided to take control. “How about we let you two be?” She led Alecia out of the dining room and, at that moment, flew out of the palace screaming. “The sky is beautiful!” She laughed, doing loops.  Shining armor walked next to Cadence with Shadow Swipe following him, who was eating a chocolate bar. “Wait, why are you, not Sugar High?” He swallowed, “Because we have malt sugar on the moon, Alecia was banned from eating sugar by the false queen.” They just watched the Alicorn of Justice giggling in the air. “I think it was because she was annoyed with her getting sugar high when she was a filly.” Cadence and shining armor just looked worried at her. “What do we do when she crashes?” As she jinxed it. Shadow swipes eyes widened when she started failing. He teleported, caught her, and used himself as a cushion. “Argh.” Alecia groaned, rolling on her back. Shadow Swipe stood up and helped her to her feet. “I’m sorry if I caused an inconvenience.” Shadow Swipe chuckled. “Protecting you is never an inconvenience, my princess.” She smiled before Cadence came to them and noticed Shadow Swipes’ uniform was damaged. She mended it with her magic and turned to cadence. “Are you two alright?” She stared at Shadow Swipe, who didn’t have a scrape on him. “We would like to see our rooms please.”  Luna rubbed her hooves. “So, how’s Equestria?” Celestia smiled. “Peaceful as ever! How about your kingdom? Tell me about it?” She was excited to hear about a nation on the moon.  “It’s peaceful, and I don’t know what the awake one looks like.” Celestia looked perplexed. “On the moon, the kingdom was split into the dream realm. It was a peaceful nation of hope and joy, but in the waking world, it was ruled by Nightmare Moon tyrannically with a concentrated effort on invading Equestria. I gave my ponies hope in the dream realm. They built their future. In the physical world, it was a never-ending grind for survival. Only in the last century did my ponies finally gain the ability to live without struggle.” Celestia looked with empathy. “I even got married and had a child in that realm, and it was a miracle that Alicia was born from a dream. She’s my little Miracle.” Celestia smiled, but she had to ask. “Why did I feel all my thousand years of guilt when I looked into her eyes?”  Luna cringed. “Yea, it’s her punishing gaze. She represents justice like her cutie mark.” Celestia remembered it being the sun and moon on a scale. “She has a hard time controlling it; people with guilt will experience their crime in an instant over and over until she looks away from you.” Celestia nodded and felt fear for the first time in a long while. “Wanna see her foal pictures?” Celestia was going to enjoy this as Luna pulled out her memories and turned them into images.   On the moon, the current head by rank looked over the paperwork. “The rock farmer union wants what?” She spoke in complete disgust. The Union leader answered. “To raise our wages.” Harvest Moon gave him a silent glare as if challenging him to ask again. “I will leave.” He said, shaking in fear. Harvest Moon was many things, the daughter of the galloping Shadows clan, master of the dark arts, and student to Alecia the Just, current headmistress of Lunar Magus academy, but what she wasn’t was a head of state. The door knocked, and she opened her horn. “Mistress of the night, I have some good news.” She let out a relieved sigh. “Your brother is alive.” The Watermelon red Unicorn jumped with full concentration at the runemaster. “From what we could find, it appears ponies of eques have stopped the usage of runes.” Harvest didn’t care; she wanted to know where her brother was. “His enhancements and protection runes activated, and it appears he fell from a great height.” He became confused and turned to worry, but not to her brother. “You don’t think—“ The runemaster interrupted. “No, I don’t believe the queen nor the princess all fell out of the sky. The star readers said the princess is safe, but they’re more worried about a different path.” She raised a brow. “A being of chaos will return and reign until the stars defeat him.” Harvest Moon Nodded. “Is the canon still operational?” The runemaster nodded. “How about we use that if this chaos thing harms our princesses.” He gulped and nodded. “What else is there to worry about?” He took out his notes. “The food supply is still worrying, and the population is questioning why their dreams aren't taking place in Elysium anymore, and the rock farmer union is requesting increased wages.” Harvest Moon hit her head on the desk. “Have crab apples concentrate all water to the agri dome. Tell them that till the true princess returns to set up dream catchers and have Spectator walkers fix any possible nightmares and increase the wages by 10 percent so I have one less Issue.” He wrote it down and left. She rubbed her head as the feeling of a threat got closer; she turned around and jumped out of the path of the nightmare. “No, you won’t!”  She fired at the black mist. “Call the lunar guard and the War mages!” Multiple guards entered the unicorns firing on the growing nightmare while the rest took their rune-powered staffs to fire a dome of light around it. “Pray the princess returns soon.” The war mages teleported and took off their cloaks, their foreheads cold branded with runes. She bowed, and they did the same. “May the art of magic never leave you.” She continued. “May the eternal stars bless you. Now contain that thing and launch it into the void.” The two teleported into the office and started to battle The Nightmare. Shadow Swipe took off his uniform, looking at the runes branded into his flesh. “You know that isn’t a sign of shame.” He still looked at it. “Maybe, but it’s unseemly here, isn’t it?” Alecia hugged him from the back. “You know I can punish them for hurting you, my Bubi bear.” He blushed at the nickname. “Daughter, we have found one who could help you create the Arachne ink.” Luna interrupted a possible love-making session. “Did I interrupt anything?” She asked with a glint in her eye. Alecia let go of her favorite stallion. “Celestia knows someone who can assist us in making contact with the moon.” Shadow Swipe let out a breath of relief. “Oh dear, have some trust in Harvest Moon.” Alicia berated him. “She’s your student, yet as her brother, I worry for her more than most.” Alicia pulled his check. “Come relax.”  Luna cleared her throat. “Yes, my daughter speaks the truth. You should put more trust in your sister.” He let out a sigh. Meanwhile, on the moon Harvest Moon and stood in a ritual room, with eight war mages keeping the weakened Nightmare contained in a flask. “If it were any other circumstances, I would love to study whatever you are. But.” The mages released lighting from their horns, causing an unbound measure of pain to the creature. “You corrupted our princess during her weakest hour and forced us into a millennia of pain and suffering. Now we will show you the treatment you gave us, and this room time moves at an accelerated point. An hour can feel like a day or a century." The war mages placed multiple crystals around the black mist. “Goodbye. Hope You’re no longer in existence once we return.” The door closed, and the mages heard the lighting erupt on the Nightmare. “Wasn’t that relaxing?” Harvest Moon teleported back to her office.