Luna dropped to the floor beside the dusty pegasus and hugged her tightly, unaware that she was holding on just a little too tight. Smoky leant against her despite her crushed lungs and closed her eyes against the curious gazes of the other ponies in the room. Her thoughts moved sluggishly through a growing headache and she would have liked nothing more than to sleep.
“I missed you,” Luna murmured, just barely loud enough for Smoky to hear.
Smoky smiled into her dear friend’s mane, even as lonely memories tried to swim up through her woozy mind at the thought of how much she had missed her teacher. Instead of letting them become too focused she pushed them firmly away. Luna pulled away at the same moment and for a moment Smoky wondered if the princess could hear her thoughts.
“How could you do that?” Luna demanded. Her angry eyes sparkled wetly. “You must be insane!”
Smoky laughed, or tried to. It started weak and ended in a cough. Her lungs felt as though they had been coated in gravel. “That’s what Tia said,”
“She was right! What in Equestria made you think that spell was safe? What if you had starved inside that statue, or continued to age?”
“I knew it was safe because we tested it.”
“How did you test it?” Twilight asked curiously, drawing the ponies’ attention.
Smoky blinked slowly up at the purple unicorn with the golden tiara perched atop her head and was momentarily confused by her lack of wings. The only other ponies she had ever seen wearing a tiara were Luna and Celestia, and yet this strange pony appeared not to be an alicorn.
Seeing the confusion on her face, Celestia stepped forward to introduce Smoky Nights to the bearers of the elements.
“This is my student, Twilight Sparkle, and her friends, who bear the Elements of Harmony with her,” Celestia said, and then gestured to each pony in turn as she named them. Smoky nodded to each, since she was pinned down and unable to bow properly. “I’m afraid I have already told them some of your story, Smoky.”
“I know,” she replied, “I could sort of hear things while I was in the statue; as if it was coming through a waterfall.” She tilted her head to the side just enough to see Twilight through a parting in her fringe. “We tested the spell by casting it on plants and then releasing them some months later to see if they were still healthy. All of them survived.”
“It was still too large a risk,” Luna insisted.
“Would you rather I died a thousand years ago?”
Luna recoiled and got to her hooves. “Until yesterday I thought you had, and I accepted it.”
Smoky forcefully ignored the painful tingling in her legs and clambered up. Her entire body shook with the effort. She took a breath to argue with the princess and was interrupted by Luna’s shocked gasp.
“What happened to you?” she demanded, touching her hoof gingerly to Smoky’s shoulder.
Smoky glanced down at the rough black scar that radiated out from the centre of her chest to touch her shoulders and forelegs. The fur at the edges of it still looked charred. She had no feeling in the scar itself, only a tightness in the skin around it. She would have tried to hide it from view if she didn’t need all four legs to stay standing.
“That’s, uh,” she glanced worriedly at Celestia, “Didn’t you tell her?”
Celestia shook her head sadly. “I’m so sorry, Smoky. I completely forgot.”
“What is it?” Luna asked, glancing from one to the other.
Smoky’s gaze drifted away from her friend as she explained. “That’s where Nightmare Moon struck me,”
Luna turned pale with horror. She snatched her hoof away and backed up, as if the dangers of her nightmares still lingered. Smoky sat down, too tired to stand. She tried to remember the words she had practised before Celestia turned her to stone, but they wouldn’t come. Her mind was still struggling to catch up after the dream-like state she had spent the last thousand years in. Before she or anyone else could think of what to say Luna turned and ran from the room.
Rarity stepped carefully between the rubble and put her hoof on Smoky’s shoulder, saying, “Don’t worry, darling, we can cover it up with a shawl or even a scarf, whatever you like.”
Smoky looked down at the ugly mark and sighed. “I suppose I should.” Suddenly she remembered what else the pretty unicorn and her friends had done for her today and smiled up at them. “I’m sorry, I haven’t even thanked you all yet.”
“It was no problem,” Twilight Sparkle insisted, shaking her head.
“Perhaps, but I feel I owe you all even so. If there’s ever anything I can do for you all, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Oh, well,” Twilight blushed when her friends’ eyebrows rose in her direction, “I would love to study your eyes, when you have time. I’ve read about your talent some time ago, and it sounds fascinating, especially since you’re a pegasus.”
Smoky tried to laugh, though it didn’t come out easily. “You’re not the first to want to study me.” She glanced over at Celestia. “Do you remember that unicorn that tried to find a spell that would copy my talent to him? His name escapes me.”
“Sticky Toffee,” Celestia replied without hesitation. She shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid he was still blind when last I saw him.”
“Oh,”
Twilight laughed nervously. “Well, I’ll rule that experiment off my list,”
“That would be wise.”
Smoky tried to hide a yawn behind a smile and her hoof, but it was hard to hide anything with six ponies and a princess staring at her.
“Why don’t I find you somewhere to sleep?” Celestia offered, “And a visit with a doctor would not go astray, I think.”
The pegasus nodded gratefully. She thanked the bearers of the elements one last time before they left and then stumbled to her hooves to follow Celestia deeper into the palace. She trudged down the vaguely familiar halls at a snail’s pace with her head hanging so low that her pigtails dragged across the marble. Celestia guided her with a wing across her shoulders.
“I’m glad to have you back,” the princess said as they walked.
Smoky lifted her head just enough to peak at Celestia through her dusty fringe. “So you’ve forgiven me, then?”
“Not quite.”