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// [Interlude] A special nightmare night. 
// Story: Changing Fates 
// by Ulthor 
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*Four months after Luna returned, Nightmare Night*


Twilight was getting ready, as she had promised Luna to show her what this day was about when the lunar mare had heard of it and had asked if it was some kind of day meant to honor her since ancient days, perhaps to keep her appeased while on the moon, Twilight had then told her it was something like that originally, though more to ward her off and not honor her, she also said that it became a bit different over time and would show her on this day.

Spike had decided to go as a mummy, mostly because he had bought too much bandages a few days ago and his original costume got stuck between a door, which ripped it up. "Come on Twilight, we're going to miss the whole night if you take much longer." The little dragon quipped as he paced around downstairs.

"Just one more second Spike, I'm putting the finishing touches on my costume, just one more and… Done!" Twilight then came down the stairs wearing a wizard robe and hat with bells and a fake beard. "Well? What do you think?"

Spike just looked at her funny for a moment. "Are you that one kooky grandpa from Ponyville Retirement Village?" He then asked.

Twilight gasps "I'm Star Swirl the Bearded! Father of the amniomorphic spell? Did you even read that book I gave you about obscure unicorn history?" She asks as she seems slightly shocked he could even say so.

Before he could react though, a knock is heard and he seems relieved. "That must be Luna, I'll go get it." He then quickly proceeded to open the door and sure enough Luna was standing there.

Luna was dressed up as a samurai, with swords and all, the only thing missing would be a traditional demon like mask that was often used with such helmets. "Hello Spike, I was told to wear some kind of outfit, do you suppose this will do?" She asked him as she got inside.

"A samurai huh? It looks great, almost real." He replied.

"I thought of wearing the mask but wondered if it would be wise to completely be hidden underneath the armor, and I thought it was supposed to be real, was it not supposed to?" Luna responded as Spike was looking at one of her swords.

He instantly dropped the katana he had pulled out of it's sheath, luckily it just fell to the ground flatly and didn't harm anypony. "You mean you brought real swords!?" He seemed genuinely surprised.

Twilight now walked up to them as she levitated the katana towards her. "Oh don't be silly Spike, she wouldn't bring a real sw… This is a real sword, it's even an actual katana in fact, I didn't know there were any ponies left that still knew how to make one of this quality, the only place you normally see one of these, is in a museum these days… Oh, but we can't walk around with something that's too dangerous for fillies and colts, no matter how special it is." She would have likely said more, but the fillies and colts at the door had brought her back to reality as she then distributed some candy between them.

Once the door closed Luna took off the other blades she wore. "Sorry about that, I had one of my old armors brought over when you mentioned some of the more traditional costumes for this night, I hadn't realized that it was supposed to be a fake outfit." She then looked at Twilight. "You look just like your fa… My old friend Starswirl in that outfit… What's with the beard though?"

Twilight put her hoof up to the beard and looked at it. "You’re the first one to notice who I'm supposed to be, but what do you mean what's with the beard? He's always depicted with a beard in the books I read, he's even called the bearded." She replied as she took of the beard.

Luna looked at her and chuckled. "That's because it was his actual name, he couldn't grow a beard if he wanted to, he even tried to magic one up on several occasions, but they all resulted in mustaches at the most." The lunar mare let out a small laugh as she recalled those moments. "Why do you think there are several spells for that in his books rather then just the one?"

"I always did wonder about that actually… Huh, so even he wasn't able to do everything with magic then." Twilight sighed as if her image of him had completely been altered.

Luna realized what she had done. "Oh no, it's not like that, nopony is almighty, just look at my sister and I, we may have the power to move the heavens, but we still have our limits, we're mostly limited to alicorn magic which is similar yet more powerful then pony magic, but chaos magic for one is not something we would be able to use, and without the elements we can't use harmonious magic either, there's plenty of other magics aswell in fact."

Twilight seemed slightly confused at first, before her face lit up. "You mean there are more then one kind of magic? I always wondered why you and Celestia could change the day to night and vica versa, I had just thought it was a matter of raw magical power, but this changes everything!" She thought to herself for a moment. "But wait, doesn't that mean that there's no way for those of certain races to stand up to stronger ones? If that's the case then how come we're not all ruled by one absurdly strong being already?"

For a moment Luna was a bit taken back by her deductive reasoning and her questioning nature, she was so much like her father. "It's not like it's fully set in stone that the strong can't be beaten by the weak, Alicorns might be stronger then any one normal pony, but a whole horde could easily overtake us, plus there are some more talented then the ones that are supposed to be stronger by nature."

Luna seemed to lament on the past for a moment. "Starswirl for instance was far more gifted then my sister and I, he had actually learned far more spells then either one of us and made twice as many on his own, his magical potential was also far greater in terms of raw power and he had learned to use some other magics aswell, showing us that those barriers could be broken if one was just that talented and willing to learn, even if he was only able to use a small fraction of them… He may have been able to use it more if he had the chance aswell…" A deep sigh could be heard from Luna as she remembered his last moments. "But I suppose that is for another day, I believe we had plans already."

Twilight who had been scribbling down every bit of the renewed history on a piece of parchment she had gotten seemingly out of nowhere aswell as the quill she was writing with, suddenly jerked up her head and looked at Luna with almost puppy dog like eyes as if to ask for more, before shaking her head and realizing that now was not the time and Luna was right. "I suppose so, we can correct history some other time, let's go out and have some fun."

As they perused the stands and games set up by the locals, Luna had tried many of the games and treats while listening to Twilight about how the celebration was mostly just meant for fun these days, but that back in the day it was thought to appease 'Nightmare Moon', to make sure she wouldn't come to enact vengeance on those left behind, though she had to admit that with the recent knowledge of it all having even started the way it did, that perhaps it had a different meaning even further back and that this history might have been altered slightly aswell, she didn't like to think that books could contain wrong information however.

At more then one occasion Pinkie had shown up to scream and run away whenever she saw Luna, Luna had guessed it had something to do with her other self and the holiday itself, so she didn't mind, though she did think that perhaps her being dressed as a samurai should have at least have prevented at least one or two moments so they could talk a little.

Mostly everypony else seemed to have warmed up to her enough to not act as such, but some decided to do so, though Luna could see it was mostly just an act for the little foals they were trick or treating with, she even found herself wondering if perhaps she should act as so next year, perhaps organize some kind of event based around it even, it would be nice to have some kind of storyteller to rile them up before it aswell, but those were thoughts for another time, right now she just wanted to spend some quality time with her goddaughter.

All in all it was a fun day for all when it was time to head home, though Fluttershy hadn't shown up at all and from what Luna had seen over the time she spend here, she could understand why, she just hoped that Fluttershy at least had some fun at her own cottage with her animal friends, Twilight and Luna spend some more time talking about trivial things as they had walked back to the library to gather up the swords she had left behind and had by now returned to her own home as she recounted everything that had happened and smiled.

"I quite enjoy this holiday, even if the origin of it is questionable at best." Luna though to herself before she looked at the clock. "Hmm, still quite some time before I have to lower the moon, perhaps I'll see if I can still walk through the dreamscape, there might be a certain pink pony that could do with a fun scare~" She said out loud as she removed her 'costume'.