I sat at my desk waiting for it to be five. There weren't many people in the library now, just me, Nightmare, Spike, and Twilight, who was still seething in rage after I threw a bug at her face in the morning. Not that I was too worried about that.
Nightmare had talked a lot and was in a pretty happy mood. I was still skeptical though since I didn't believe that she could have changed so much in just under two weeks. Or maybe I was being stupid. Whatever the case, I was too curious to not ask her. Fortunately, she hadn't left my side the entire day and if I had to guess, she'll probably want to follow me home.
"Yo, Nightmare, I have a question that you may not like," I said, announcing to the ex-villain who was sitting by me and playing with the moth. I should really give the moth a name, maybe something after how a pattern on its wings looked.
Nightmare looked to me, her smile a bit smaller now. "What... what is it?" she asked with a little fear in her voice.
"Okay, so, you remember how you were on the day of the celebration," I said, avoiding saying anything about whatever she tried to do since tht would make her sad. Nightmare nodded, her smile now gone, but I continued, "And if you look at now, its like your a completely different person. I don't really think its my place to ask this but I'm a bit worried about you, so, like, how'd you change that fast?
It's fine if you don't want to answer, I just want to make sure that you're fine."
Nightmare looked both relieved and uncomfortable. She looked around us before leaning in close to me.
"I... I know that it seems strange how far I changed but... but I just don't want to be like that, full of hate and anger all the time. Even though I was under the negative influence of that thi- that dark magic demon and angry and hateful, I was still conscious enough to hurt people.
I don't want to be like that again.
I just want to be loved, and no one likes me at all if I behave like how I did on that day. Being nice is better even if I don't want to be nice all the time," she answered nervously, as if she were scared that I'd not believe her or something.
"Hmm, okay, so you're not having any problems, right?"
"I guess I'm just... sad that everyone is still scared of me in some way, even though they're completely right about me not being good," she answered, ending on a very sad note. Ah, fuck, I've messed shit up once again and now I feel bad.
"Okay, number one, you're completely wrong about you being a bad person," I started, making her look up at me with how confident I sounded with my completely true and correct claim. I looked at the clock and saw it was five and continued," Second, the library's about to close, so, why don't you come with me? We could go get some icecream or something and maybe, if you're fine with it, I could introduce you to one of my friends since you'd probably get bored of talking to me."
Nightmare mulled it over before nodding her head slowly.
"Kay, let's go then," I said as I got up from my chair and put on my saddlebags. NIghtmare followed me, her speed not affected by the fact that she was holding the moth in her left arm. We were out of the library whose doors I locked on the way out and on the streets of Ponyville. Ther weren't many people outside at the time and those that were outside didn't seem to notice NIghtmare.
One of them did notice me though.
"Hey, Anya!" I heard the familiar voice of Brush call out from my right. Nightmare almost instinctively moved to my left as the brown cat-pony came up to me. She wordlessly pulled me into a hug which was how she seemed to greet me.
"Hi, Brush, how are you today?" I said, returning the hug. Brush pulled away and was about to start talking when she saw Nightmare next to me. She wasn't scared or anything, just curious in contrast to Nightmare who was nervous.
"I'm feeling well, how about you?" she replied, not taking her eyes off of Nightmare, who started to grow uncomfortable.
"Pretty good," I answered before I made my next move.
"Okay, so, Nightmare, this is Brush, and Brush, this is Nightmare," I said, introducing them to one another while hoping that this didn't go to shit.
"Hi! Nice to meet you!" Brush greeted happily, either not recognising Nightmare or just not being scared of her. Probably the former.
"Hello," Nightmare replied, not as nervous as earlier.
Brush then turned to me and asked, "What are you doing right now?"
"We're getting icecream or something," I answered before an idea came to my head. "Wanna come with us?"
"I'd love to!" Brush answered with a grin. Her positivity was clearing rubbing off onto Nightmare who was becoming less nervous by the second.
"Okay then, let's go," I said leading the two.
We wandered around for a bit, ultimately stopping at Wind's Convenience and buying some cone icecreams. Brush got butterscotch almost instantly while I looked for chocolate chocolate chip, which I was unable to find. I took mint chocolate chip instead and got vanilla for Nightmare who clearly knew nothing about icecream. I paid for it all since I was the only one carrying money.
We were presently just walking with no clear destination in mind.
"I'll pay you back for this later," Brush said as she hovered close to the ground and removed her butterscotch icecream from its wrapping.
"No need for that," I replied as I unwrapped my own icecream that I held in my magic.
"Can we find some place to sit down?" Nightmare said as she held her own icecream in her hoof, not having magic to open it, nor having flight with her damaged wings to hover like Brush and open it. That, along the moth crawling around on her mane, made us look around for somewhere to sit.
"There's a bench," Brush said as she pointed to a bench next to a fountain. We three headed over there and sat down. I was in the middle with Brush to my right and Nightmare to my left. Once we were seated, Nightmare pulled off the moth on her head.
"Foul creature, you should not do that again," she said to it as she looked it in the eye and scolded it for being a menace to her mane. The moth didn't seem to care. Nightmare then handed the moth to me or tried to, only for the bug to take flight and land in my unbraided mane. I wasn't bothered by it that much.
"So, Nightmare, are you new in Ponyville? Or are you just visiting?" Brush asked after she took a lick of her icecream.
"Uhm, I'm not new here but I am visiting," Nightmare answered a bit nervously as she unwrapped her icecream. I didn't say anything and took a bite out of my own.
"Did you just bite your icecream?" Brush asked me, clearly not knowing the true extent of my weirdness. Nightmare, who didn't know what icecream was, also took a bite out of her icecream at that moment and regretted it almost instantly. I'm pretty sure she got both sensitive teeth and brain freeze, a truly terrible duo.
"How do you eat this thing?" NIghtmare asked, a hoof to her forehead as she tried to nurse it from the brain freeze.
"Slowly. You don't bite it like I do," I answered with a small smile as I took another bite.
"Hey, Nightmare, you said you were visiting. Where are you coming from?" Brush asked.
Nightmare carefully licked her icecream this time, but not carefully enough to stop her nose from getting some vanilla on it. She put on a very serious face but the vanilla on her nose clashed with it hilariously.
"You do not seem to know me," Nightmare said, bringing a small frown to Brush's face, probably since it sounded like she was being narcissistic. Nightmare didn't notice that and continued, "I... I am Nightmare Moon."
The next few seconds were very tense, for Nightmare at least. Brush seemed to be deep in thought before she responded, "You're THE Nightmare Moon?"
"...yes," Nightmare replied, seeming to regret her earlier decision since she thought that Brush would get scared. I wanted to take control of the conversation but I waited to see how it would play out.
"That's... fine, I suppose," Brush finally said after several moments, making Nightmare look relieved. "Anya, do you happen to have any other surprises today?"
"Ya, surprise bug blast," I replied jokingly before I picked up the moth from my hair and held it up close to Brush. In doing this, I removed most of the tension from the atmosphere. Brush wasn't scared of the big like Twilight and in fact, she seemed to be happy to see the bug up close.
"What a cutie," Brush said as she poked the insect, making it squeak. "So, Nightmare Moon, is it fine if I just call you Moon?"
Nightmare nodded, letting Brush continue, "So, did princess Celestia forgive you that easily even though you tr-"
I put a hoof on Brush's shoulder and shook my head, silently conveying the message to not directly mention that. Brush seemed to understand.
"Not really, Lu- princess Luna had to convince her," Nightmare answered, shifting in her seat a bit, "Even then, I had a lot of 'escorts' assigned to me while I was in Canterlot. Here, I just have to answer to the element of magic, Twilight."
I didn't really believe that Celestia would leave Nightmare like that and thought that there would be a couple of people following her around. That idea made me look around. There weren't many people around us, and those that were there didn't look particularly sus. Except for that one mare with a blue and pink mane who seemed to have been staring at us until I looked her direction... or maybe I'm just overthinking it and that mare was probably staring at us since Nightmare Moon's here with us and not because she's a spy. I should stop being so brain-dead.
"Anya, do you want to come over to my place for dinner?" Brush asked me, pulling me out of my dumb thoughts. "And you can come as well if you want, Moon."
Huh, this was going a lot better than I expected and Brush was pretty nice to Nightmare. Everything was going well...
Not for long, unfortunately, but you see, that is the way of life.
"Hey!" I heard Twilight shout angrily. All the of us looked to our front where Twilight's voice has come from. There we saw Twilight advancing towards us very angrily with five ponies in tow. Brush was confused, Nightmare was a bit intimidated, while I was neutral.
"What's up, Twilight," I said, greeting her causally as she stopped right in front of us.
"What's up?!" she said angrily as she pointed an accusatory hoof at me, "You got Nightmare out of the library WITHOUT my permission! Princess Celestia has given me a duty to watch over her and you can't just do things like this!"
"Sounds like you need to cool down, why don't you have some icecream?" I replied as I took another bite out of my icecream.
Twilight was greatly angered by my suggestion.
"Cool down?!" Twilight started, but I immediately cut her off.
"Twilight, we're having icecream, not killing someone. There's no need to be that angry, unless you just want to ruin the mood," I said, increasing the volume of my voice a bit more than normal.
"I'll come back to the library," Nightmare said as she got up from her seat sadly. Unfortunately, Twilight was still angry.
"And you!", she said as she jabbed a hoof into Nightmare's chest, making her drop her icecream. Brush got up at that and I could see claws coming out of her paws, making it clear that she was angry at how Twilight behaved. She wanted to say something but I beat her to it and I was a lot more angry than she was.
"Hey hey hey, Twilight," I said, stopping her from going off on Nightmare. She turned to me to say something but I continued, "Could you like, stop?"
I hoped that she'd get the idea that she should clam down.
"Stop what? Being responsible?" she replied obnoxiously, clearly not getting the message.
"Stop being a... a dingus," I clarified, being a lot more direct than my previous attempt while avoiding calling her a bitch. "Like, being responsible is cool and all but you're blowing up over Nightmare going out for icecream and look at what you did now, you made her drop it."
I pointed at the dropped cone in front of Nightmare who looked sad. Twilight's anger started to fade.
I continued, my clarification becoming a lecture, "Like, what do you even get out of being this angry over her not telling you everything she's doing? Nightmare was going to go back to the library and tell you what she's gonna be out with us and I understand that she should have done that earlier but you just came out here and started shouting and going crazy, like, who does that?"
By the end of my lecture, Twilight looked somewhat sorry about what she did.
"Look, I've just not been having a good day and I want to finish this," Twilight said, frustrated.
"Sorry, I have to go," Nightmare said dejectedly as she turned to go back to the library. Twilight followed her, leaving me and Brush alone.
We were quiet for a bit until Brush spoke up, "You handled that a lot better than I would have."
"I was so close to calling her a slur," I said, "Guess we won't be having that dinner today."
Twilight walked into the library, right behind Nightmare Moon. Nightmare Moon didn't say anything and went upstairs, leaving Twilight downstairs to her own thoughts, which were currently centered on what happened some time back and how she had been.
Despite knowing that she'd be in the right when she marched the villain back to the library, she doubted that she had gone about the best way of doing it.
It was necessary to be harsh knowing what Nightmare Moon was capable of and what might happen if princess Celestia were to find out that she had let said villain out of her sight for even a moment but now that Twilight thought about the situation, she felt that she had been too harsh.
Nightmare Moon was incapable of magic or flight as of now, and she was just one letter away from being sent back to Canterlot and getting thrown into a dungeon forever, giving Twilight an enormous amount of power over her. Nightmare knew that as well and considering how much she hated being in the dungeon, she'd do her best to avoid it. If she went out for icecream, then she'd have thought it out pretty well.
The more Twilight thought about the whole thing, the more it seemed like she had overreacted, and despite how much she hated it, she had to admit that she was in the wrong this one time.
Perhaps it was the fact that Nightmare had gone out with Anya and her other friend with the cat paws without telling her, or maybe it was that she was still upset over having an over-sized bug thrown at her face. Whatever it was, it didn't matter much. She had been unkind to Nightmare, a terrible thing to do for an element bearer who was supposed to be looked up to.
"Spike!" Twilight called out. Spike came soon, letting Twilight instruct him to gather up the rest of the elements of harmony. They needed to be informed about Nightmare Moon's stay in Ponyville, and maybe she could use their help to try and apologise to Nightmare.