Twilight had been in luna’s room before, but she’d never seen it like this. It was covered in books. So many books. Like, literally at least a hundred books. Luna didn’t appear to even notice Twilight entering, as the door was unlocked and five minutes of knocking yielded no results. The Princess was pacing around with a few books looking deep in thought.
“Uh, Princess?” Twilight asked. Luna snapped up and turned to face the sound and seemed surprised Twilight was standing there. She looked out of the window and looked like she wanted to facepalm.
“I think I lost track of time, my new Apprentice. I asked Tia what exactly your level of magical study was and when she said the highest I got excited. I’ve never been able to teach anyone more than the basics of this and… well... Time flies when you’re hunting books as you probably know.” Luna explained before smiling warmly and motioning for Twilight to sit on one of the two reading chairs in the room. As Twilight did, Luna took her own seat. Her expression hardened up a bit as she made to speak.
“First and foremost, I have to ask you again if you are sure you want to be my apprentice. This is not like Celestia’s tutorship, and it will most certainly not be safe.” Luna started. Twilight’s mind immediately went from ‘Yay Books!’ to ‘what’. “As my Apprentice, you will be sharing in my duties. Tell me, Twilight Sparkle, what do you know of my duties outside of court?” The princess continued. Twilight was going to answer immediately, but she realized something important.
She had no idea what Luna actually did outside of court.
“I don’t actually know… but I’m guessing it has something to do with why you only hold court once a week.” Twilight answered. Luna smiled and nodded.
“Celestia is the face of Equestria, I am the hand. She and her guard are the shield, my night guard and I are the sword. Before it used to be assassinations and war planning, among other things, but nowadays it’s diplomacy and secrecy. Celestia is certainly better at the former than I, but it’s not always safe for her to go. While she herself is a formidable opponent in battle, she cannot afford to tarnish her image with blood.” The Princess explained. That started to worry Twilight more than a little.
“Wait, so you’re telling me your job is to do the dirty work required to keep a kingdom running?” She asked after a little bit of thought. Luna nodded.
“It’s more than that, though. Those are my official duties. I have a lot that I do on the side as well. Namely…” Luna started as she used her magic to retrieve a very worn and unsettling tome from the desk. “... the study of dark magic. This will be the one part of old tradition I refuse to modify, you must learn and master this magic, at least in its basic form. Without it, you will not be able to follow where I go or survive the things we will come across.” The princess continued very seriously. Twilight accepted the tome cautiously. It felt… different. It was unsettling.
“This is my gift to you. I need more time to prepare your education. Read that and prove to me you have at least a basic understand of the magics held within and I will officially accept you as my apprentice. If you read through it and decide there’s probably something better for you to do then I will understand.” Luna explained. By her tone, though, it seemed she hoped against that particular outcome. Twilight was starting to worry just what she was getting herself into.
“I see… Do you mind if I stay here and do it then? If this is that important I wouldn’t want someone barging into the tower and reading over my shoulder.” The mage asked. Luna thought for a moment and shrugged.
“I don’t see why not, I have to go and hunt for a few more things anyways. Just try not to fall asleep in here, it’s terribly awkward carrying someone halfway across the palace in their sleep. For both parties.” The princess said with a smirk. Twilight nodded and cracked the book open.
She hardly even noticed Luna leave half an hour later, and she certainly didn’t notice the sun coming back up again. The only reason she really noticed Luna entering again was because that was about the time she hit the back cover. The tome may have been large, but so were the words and the pages rather bare. It wasn’t quite as bad as a spellbook, but it was about as detailed.
“Done for the night I see?” The princess asked with a tired smile as she dropped a large sack of what sounded like more books onto the ground and stretched. It was at about then that Twilight noticed that she had actually spent the entire night reading. Again.
“I think so. I just need to practice a bit. I saw that there was quite a bit of offensive magic in there, is that what you thought might scare me?” The mage asked. Luna seemed shocked.
“Well, sortof. It was more the source of the magic and just what the spells in there did… Are you telling me you finished it cover to cover in twelve hours?” The princess asked in slight disbelief. Twilight nodded.
“I can understand, definitely, but Dark Magic doesn’t seem to be all that bad. I mean yeah it uses a lot of negative emotion to fuel it rather than straight arcane power, but it’s got nothing on Black Magic or Necromancy.” She said somewhat casually. Luna just continued to stare at her.
“Wait… Black Magic… Necromancy? What the hell has Celestia been teaching you?” The princess asked, curious and a little worried.
“Oh, um… everything really. I have full access to the restricted sections of the library. As grueling and dirty as it was, I learned the basics of both so that I could better understand them in order to recognize and counter it. I’ve never heard of Dark Magic before.” Twilight answered cautiously. She hoped she wasn’t in trouble. Luna just stared at her for a little while before shaking a head and putting a finger to her chin in thought.
“Oh I suppose it makes sense. Tia wouldn’t just graduate and title you because you asked her to. I guess you really have mastered your position. Hell, you’ve probably mastered what’s needed of you as a Magus. I knew you were impressive, Twilight Sparkle, but I must say I’m rather flabbergasted right now. Do you understand it enough to summon it up?” The princess asked. Twilight thought for a moment and took a deep breath. She focused on what she read, even reread some of it mentally.
She let out her held breath and with it let what little negative emotion she had. The biggest one right now was frustration that she had to wait, but there was some underlying fear in there. Now that she thought about it, though, the fear was actually pretty strong. She was starting to understand why Luna was giving her a second chance to refuse the apprenticeship. If she’d have to use this kind of magic what the hell would they be getting into?
“Twilight, that’s enough. Can you stop it?” Luna’s voice broke her train of thought. She opened her eyes and realized she was holding a massive ball of dark energy nearly the size of her. In a panic she dropped it and they both scrambled to catch it. Neither of them managed to catch it and they both stared at it as it hit the floor and cracked.
“You really are an idiot.” A voice came out of the crack. An arm shot out of the massive orb and, like an egg hatching, the thing started breaking apart even more. “How the hell did you manage to drop that? And then not catch it? Geez, why do you put up with her Luna?” The voice continued as a head popped out. It was the Nightmare version of Twilight.
“Tch. So I did see you in the river of dreams then. I thought I was just imagining things. Please don’t start spouting terrible things, I will return you to your realm before you finish.” Luna said, pinching the bridge of her nose as she threatened the creature. It snorted.
“Pff I know, I’m not the idiot here. She’s the one who gave me this nice big doorway. I just wanted to say hello. See what it’s like to physically manifest. It's not exactly all it’s cracked up to be, I dunno what the hell your nightmare was on about.” The nightmare giggled. They both froze.
“You’ve spoken with my nightmare?” Luna asked. The creature started laughing.
“What? Hell no, she’d probably try to break me too. Nah, I just know what you tow have done together from this one’s knowledge and perspective. Do me a favor darling and don’t give me a doorway like that again unless you want me to make your life a living hell. They don’t call me Eris for nothing.” The nightmare replied.
“Who calls you Eris?” Twilight asked, confused.
“You know, stupid. See? I just tricked you into naming me something awesome. I’d thank you but being an idiot isn’t exactly impressive.” The nightmare answered. There was the slightest twitch in Twilight's’ expression before her fist was through the nightmare’s head. Literally. It just kinda shattered into dark energy.
“Ooh feisty. Good, I like that. I’d make a stupid reference here but you wouldn’t get it. Ta-ta for now.” The thing continued, though the voice coming from the malformed mass of energy that was now her head before it all shattered and shot back into Twilight. Disoriented, but no longer being called an idiot, Twilight plopped back down into her chair.
“Is that what it’s like? Celestia she was infuriating!” The girl growled. Luna probably would have laughed if what had happened didn’t actually just happen.
“It’s different for everyone. We all have our own nightmares, ours are just able to take individuality and physical form because of how powerful we are… Yours is apparently almost as chaotic as Discord.” Luna said, trying to rationalize everything. Yes, that made sense.
“Is it wrong that it felt really good punching her?” Twilight asked. Luna did laugh at that.
“Not wrong at all. She is your personal nightmare, your hell. It should feel good to vanquish her and suppress her. Mine just really hates the sun. We’ve come to an agreement that she stops trying to take over the day as long as I promise to only summon her in it if she gets to destroy things.” The princess replied. Twilight just groaned.
“I need to go to bed… I was already working on overdrive processing all of the information from that book and now this? What am I getting myself into…” The girl said. Luna chuckled a pit and put an arm around her.
“Nothing you can’t back out of. If you’re still interested tomorrow then meet me at the library when the sun goes down. Otherwise I’ll send over what’s safe for you to learn on your own and we’ll keep it at that.” The princess assured her. Twilight just nodded and slowly stood.
“Don’t worry. I faced down plenty things scarier than nightmares.” She said with a confident smile. Luna smiled back and walked her to the door. Twilight just sort of wandered off towards her own room, her own lack of sleep coming to bite her in the ass, while Luna decided now would be a good time to succumb to her own need to sleep.