With bits of cake drooping off her face onto her chest, knees, and floor, Darkstar erupted in merry laughter which only helped to send more bits of cake falling down.
Nightmare Moon was far less obviously amused by the situation, sat opposite her sister in Darkstar's dark bedchambers. She used her magic to pull another plate of food from a collection on the floor to her right, and lifted the cover from it to reveal a plate of assorted vegetables laid out in a decorative manner.
The plate was quickly moved over her back to an empty space on her left, but the cover moved between the two Alicorn sisters, and the Queen used it to deftly shield herself from any pieces of cake flying her way.
As Nightmare Moon levitated a piece of celery from the plate to her left and moved it to her mouth, Darkstar was finally starting to show signs of calming down, and the former sun princess extended one of her, now dark wings to wipe the food from her eyes.
"It's not amusing in the least bit," Nightmare Moon huffed, then took a bite from the celery.
"Oh, phooey," Darkstar replied with a rogueish grin. "You're trying too hard to cling to your self-image from a half-finished transformation."
The Queen raised her right eye, and Darkstar saw it as a motion for her to continue.
"Luna fell to the darkness by way of Celestia taking to the limelight and casting a shadow over her, I get that," the recently-transformed mare suggested. "This led to your own transformation to becoming Nightmare Moon - borne to make Celestia rue the day and bring forth eternal night, true?"
Nightmare Moon swallowed her celery and gave a curt nod. "That is close to what happened, yes."
"And now you gave me the gift of being borne from Celestia to being Darkstar, your loyal advisor. And I am here to tell you; you are not done with your own transformation yet," Darkstar continued. "As I said before; your subjects are afraid of you now, but not in the way you want them to be. I get it now. Celestia only guessed at it, but I am one with the same darkness that you have within you."
"Do tell," Nightmare Moon remarked blankly, taking another bite out of her celery stick.
"You want them to respect you and your power over them. To think of you as their one-and-only true Queen, and to revere you as they did Celestia before," her sister explained. "You just need their undying loyalty, and I am the only one who can give you that without you second-guessing me. At least, I would think that that was the purpose of this gemstone merging with my being to this extent, sister?"
"I honestly did not expect that to happen," the Queen mumbled, "but I agree with you that it is easier for me to accept your loyalty as fact, than it is to do the same with the dayponies, or even my children."
"Celestia was already witness to the struggle which you have within yourself, Nightmare Moon," Darkstar revealed in a soft tone. "She tried to help you, but you would not listen to her because she tried to help from the viewpoint of her own agenda; keeping the day and night cycle mostly undisturbed."
"Yes, that agenda of hers was very obvious," Nightmare Moon decided. "Too obvious for my comfort. It is one of the reasons for my pushing her to accept the transformation."
"I am truly thankful for you to have given me this new life," her sister offered with a dip of her head forward, which made some leftover cake remains drop down. "I don't have the agenda Celestia had. I will do what I can to help you with yours instead."
"We can talk about that later," the Queen dismissed. "I am more interested in what you were talking about concerning my own 'unfinished' transformation."
"Yes, I am talking from my own experience here, even if I have only had a few hours since my transformation, so please bare with me," Darkstar started, looking difficult as she tried to figure out how to bring it. "Celestia was bothered by her own Element as you are by yours; a foreign object, lodged deep within her, refusing to be cut out of her by magic or otherwise."
Nightmare Moon stuffed her mouth with the remainder of her celery, but was clearly paying attention, so Darkstar continued.
"It was only after my transformation that I... well, I feel whole. It's not so much as if my body was invaded by something, but instead I am the Element of Loyalty as much as it is part of my body, and Cutiemark, now."
"Right," the Queen stated. "So you want me to merge with the Element that sits in place of my eye so I feel whole?"
"It may help you find the balance you need," Darkstar suggested calmly. "I mean, I don't want to keep seeing you struggle, sister. I am in this to help you any way I can. The sooner you realize this, the better I can help you rule this nation as you see fit."
Nightmare Moon looked away from her sister for the moment, attempting to make it look like she was simply trying to pick out another piece of vegetable to lift from the plate to her left. The conversation was wholly unsettling her. The last thing she wanted was to be fully at the mercy of that gemstone's influence, but her sister was right about her struggle causing moodswings no pony could be expected to anticipate.
She had seen it herself, even if she had tried to ignore it. The assault on Contrail, followed by her almost adopting her as her ward. The changing mannerisms while in conversation with others, like with her new Pegasus embassador Swiftwing.
One moment she was happy, the next she had a barely-withheld anger boiling just under the surface. It was difficult to keep her demeanor at times.
And here she sat, with her sister, who had willingly consented to becoming like her. To be one with the darkness, and by total accident also with the Element of Loyalty. Celestia's loyalty to her sister had continued in Darkstar, although how much of it was the gemstone's influence and how much had already been there was unclear.
"I might lose myself," Nightmare Moon whispered, looking sideways at her sister, "again."
"You might find yourself, sister," Darkstar whispered back, her smile now void of jokes; it was only genuine concern that the Queen saw through her pink right eye.
"You're trying to entrap me, I'm sure," the Queen mumbled slightly louder. "What good is kindness to a Nightmare?"
"The best lessons are learned through overcoming adversity," Darkstar stated calmly. "Your ponies will appreciate a little kindness after fighting off their inner demons."
There was something Nightmare Moon had not thought about yet, but now she had an ambassador flying around trying to get ponies to pray to her so she may visit them in their dreams again, it was something she truly needed to wrap her head around.
She closed her eyes again and let it roll around in her mind. Ponies learning lessons through fighting off demons within their nightmares, with their Queen as a kind ruler to fall back upon if those demons ended up being too strong for them? Knowing how Celestia took the hearts of the dayponies by taking credit for fighting off Discord, Nightmare Moon could see the wisdom in Darkstar's suggestion.
"Yes," she decided, trying to push away the feeling of dread that was trying to overtake her. "I can see how that might work."
Darkstar was still looking straight at her as the Queen opened her eyes and turned to face her properly, not a hint of an ulterior motive present in her expression.
"They might come to appreciate the nightmares," Nightmare Moon mused.
"Whatever you decide to do, sister, I will be here to help you," Darkstar stated again, dipping her head a little lower than that of her sister, the Queen.
"I need to sleep on this first," Nightmare Moon sighed, then glanced over the food strewn around the room. "I may have lost my appetite."
"I've had three meals before you joined me, sister," Darkstar chuckled. "I might pop if I tried eating even the cake crumbs still stuck to my muzzle."
"You should really clean yourself," her sister remarked.
"I don't have any magic to clean myself with," the cake-smeared one rebutted, "or I would have done so moments after you sent that cake flying into me."
Nightmare Moon broke a smile and reached out with her magic to grab one of the towels laid out on the dresser, next to a bowl and water jug. She poured a little water out from the jug into the bowl, dipped a corner of the towel in the latter, and then brought it over to her sister's face.
"You must have been imagining things," the Queen replied calmly, starting to dab at her sister's sticky fur with the damp cloth. "Obviously there was a third pony in the room with us, who was responsible for the attack upon your person."
"My Queen, your advisor wishes to advise you not to try leading her astray with falsehoods; she knows full well what happened," Darkstar tried, wriggling her nose as the towel tickled against it.
"Your Queen wishes to give you the choice of having your muzzle cleaned in silence, accepting she did not launch the attack upon you, or going to bed with a sticky snout," Nightmare Moon jabbed back.
"Okay, you win," Darkstar gave in with a smile. "It was obviously that cook who brought the food up in the first place. Maybe you should throw him in the dungeons?"
"Obviously the cook," Nightmare Moon agreed, breaking into a smile herself. "I might go after him in his dreams tonight. Now, sit still or I'll leave for my own chambers."
"Yes, my Queen, I'll do anything you ask," her magic-deprived sister replied merrily while the Queen continued to clean the remains of cake and frosting off her face.
The two sisters sat together for some time after, making idle talk between them and avoiding the earlier conversation topics like the plague. Nightmare Moon had needed someone like Darkstar to bond with again like Luna had with Celestia before her.
Celestia had stood no chance to do so with Nightmare Moon; she was still trying to get Luna back, while running her own agenda on the sidelines - contrary to her stating she was loyal to the new Queen.
The Queen kept returning to the thought on how much Celestia must have struggled with her own Element of Harmony, just as she was struggling with hers. If Darkstar had now truly merged with, and found peace within the Element of Loyalty... maybe Nightmare Moon could give the Element of Kindness a chance to become a true part of her as well?
There was something exciting to the prospect of being a kind ruler over everypony's Nightmares. Somepony to look up to, to run toward, to seek shelter with. She could show her subjects the strength she had within herself while helping them to fight off their inner demons.
Before leaving Darkstar's room, the Queen helped her sister into bed and tucked her in, something which the both of them had always done with their magic. Earthponies and Pegasi learned to do without since they never had it in the first place, but for a Unicorn or Alicorn, magic was just part of their daily routine: Being without, even for a short time, was like having to miss one's leg. It truly debilitated them.
Nightmare Moon stood in the doorway looking into the room where her sister had fallen asleep and slowly closed the door on her. The guards had changed since she had gone in, and there were two daypony guards now. There were internal questions that needed to be answered before their Queen could properly deal with them, so she instead turned away from them and made for her own bedroom.
Her bed, and the Dreamworld, were waiting for her.