Nightfall woke instantly. She felt the magic wash over her from below with the same force she might’ve felt from the breaking of a dam. Even lying down on the pile of blankets that was serving for her makeshift bed, Nightfall Storm could feel it. It was rather like hearing the voice of an old friend from downstairs, only to remember that she’d actually tried to murder you the day before, and she probably still had a knife.
What was worse, she knew that the one that power belonged to. Princess Luna was downstairs. She’s here to kill me. She’s going to make sure Nightmare Moon is gone for good. She thought about running—but she was on the top floor, and wasn’t sure she remembered how to fly. She settled for covering herself up with the blanket and pretending very hard to be asleep. You can’t see me you can’t see me you can’t see me…
The seconds turned into minutes, and she realized that Luna wasn’t coming. She could hear her voice from far away, muffled by the house. She hadn’t come to kill her, she’d come to talk. Not to her, and not to Sapphire. That pony wouldn’t be living here until tomorrow, once the furniture arrived. What’s she telling Midnight?
Curiosity worked in Nightfall until she managed to peek up from the bed. She half expected a dozen of the Night Guard to be watching her from around the room, just waiting for a sign that she was awake to pounce.
But there was no Night Guard, and no pounce either. Only the huge room, and her comfortably warm blankets.
Nightfall rose slowly from her bed, aware that several of the boards around her would creak if she stepped on them by mistake. She had to be exceptionally careful, not to accidentally warn the princess that she was awake. If she made one mistake, Luna would realize. Either she would attack, or at least she wouldn’t say whatever it was Nightfall wanted to overhear.
She dared one tiny hoofstep at a time, testing each board before putting her weight on it. Slowly she crept to the door, before twisting the knob in her magic. It took ages, but eventually she swung it open, and she could creep down the hall towards the stairs, and the warm glow of electric lights.
Nightfall’s ears perked, and she strained, strained to hear what the princess had come to say. “But if you can ensure that Nightfall does not have weaknesses to exploit… if you can make her a better pony than I was… then we won’t need to fear the Nightmare at all.”
There was a flash, and Nightfall winced, as magic briefly filled the house, blinding her. Then it was gone, and Princess Luna with it.
She left, and she didn’t even attack me. Maybe I was wrong to be so afraid.
Maybe she had been, but she hadn’t been wrong to think she might be seen. Midnight Storm was standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring straight up at her. Their eyes met, and instantly Nightfall bolted. She dashed through her open bedroom door, smashing it closed behind her and diving headfirst back into bed as though the blankets were an ocean.
But her quick reactions weren’t quick enough—she could hear hoofsteps moving up the stairs. Not angry pounding, as she might’ve expected from a pony justifiably upset at being spied on. It was the same sound Midnight always made when she walked. A few seconds later and the door swung quietly open.
“Hey.” Midnight stepped inside, not shutting the door behind her. “I guess we woke you up. Sorry we weren’t quieter. I didn’t think we were going to have a visitor in the middle of the night.”
Nightfall dared to poke her head above the blankets—but she saw no anger on Midnight’s face. She wasn’t brandishing her blade. Everypony in the world doesn’t hate me. Midnight even defended me to Princess Celestia. Why would Luna be different? She relaxed a little, sitting up from where she’d hidden.
“I… I’m afraid of her,” she dared, her voice timid. “Luna. She… reminds me.”
“Yeah.” Midnight crossed the distance between them, then brushed her mane away from her face with one tender wing. “I guessed it was something like that. She doesn’t want to hurt you, you know. She just doesn’t… doesn’t want you to…”
“Doesn’t want Nightmare Moon,” Nightfall fished. “Nopony does. Not Celestia, not you… not me either.” She slumped against the Kirin, and not just because of her warmth.
“You shouldn’t have to think about this all the time,” Midnight said. “Nopony knows better than me what it’s like to live with a threat hanging over your head. It’s awful, and you shouldn’t do it.”
“You do?”
She nodded, lifting her tail a little so Nightfall could see. “Before Ponyville, I never let ponies know what I was. I would move into somewhere new, pretending to be a unicorn, keeping everything hidden. It was the worst in the summer… but it was worth it, since they would just look at me like anypony else. So long as I never got close enough with anypony that we became friends. But as soon as one pony found out, as soon as I slipped up or they came in on me unexpected—I’d have to pack up and move. Every day I was looking over my shoulder, wondering if it would be my last in town. It got so bad I moved out into the woods. That’s why I was out there to find you.”
The story was a sad one, though it didn’t reassure. Nightfall only felt more guilty, glancing across the room to the mostly empty closet. Empty except for the magical disguise she was relying on to convince all of Ponyville that she was a pegasus, so she could be normal. I’ve got that hanging over me too. Two things instead of one.
Midnight followed her gaze, and she winced visibly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to… look.” She scooted a little closer, lifting Nightfall’s face with a wing. “Just focus on who you are today, alright? You’re a good kid, I can tell. You don’t want to be Nightmare Moon. Just keep being as awesome as you are, and you won’t have anything to worry about. Tomorrow we’ll get you signed up for school, get everything taken care of here at home… it’ll be great. It’ll be great, and safe, and nothing bad will happen. You’re already doing better than I did at your age—you made some new friends on your first day!”
“Yeah,” Nightfall said, feeling a little better. “I guess I did.”
Nightfall was drifting again. Princess Luna’s sudden appearance had startled her awake, but it wasn’t enough to keep her that way. Now that the danger was gone, now that she felt safe again, she was starting to fade. A few more peaceful seconds were all it took for her to fall gently back to sleep, resting against the Kirin’s protective embrace.
Spell Nexus stepped slowly off the Canterlot express, conscious every moment of how empty the streets of Ponyville could be at night. Even for a pony such as himself, being alone was never a good idea. Particularly when he had such an important mission to accomplish.
Spell Nexus was a tall unicorn, wiry and thin with discipline and long study. He expected no interference as he made his way through the empty streets, and received none.
We were so close. Spell Nexus nodded politely to one of the Night Guards passing down a distant street—an obvious sign that the little town had now become a center for royal attention. Equestria’s true ruler should have had her coronation already. We were so close!
Were Spell Nexus a lesser unicorn, he might’ve let himself give in to despair. Princess Celestia now knew about their existence—even if the other servants of the organization had not revealed what they knew, even if few of them even could, that did little to reassure him. The precious reagents—the scraps of Nightmare Moon that had given them their sympathetic connection in the first place—had been consumed. There would be no attempting the spell again from the beginning. Not until they found what they had created.
I should have dealt with the dragon. If it weren’t for him, we would’ve won. But there was no sense going back now. The desire for revenge was a petty one, and it would only serve to distract from accomplishing his true goal. Energy can’t be destroyed—that magic went somewhere. He could feel a little satisfaction in that. Spell Nexus had done what only Equestria’s greatest scholars could ever dream of, and called life back from the void. Compared to his work, necromancy was a crude imitation.
Spell Nexus went straight for the Ponyville Inn. The night-guard would not harass him; a few even recognized him, and respected his position. Few unicorns in all Equestria had risen so high. But they would remember him here. As eager as ponies were to assume the best about those they met, they weren’t stupid. Nothing at all could happen while he visited, or else their enemy would eventually discover it.
Nexus already had a room reserved, the same one he always took when he was passing through—the top floor, so he could guarantee a skylight to appreciate his ruler’s night sky. He tipped handsomely, then made his way up the winding steps to the room.
He wasn’t surprised to see the room wasn’t empty. Smokescreen sat inside, pretending to read from an upside-down book. Nexus wasn’t actually sure if Smokescreen even knew how to read, which was part of what made him valuable. At least he couldn’t betray the Children of Nightmare by mail.
“Evening, Smokescreen,” Nexus said, shutting the door quietly behind him. He concentrated a moment, casting a few alarm spells on the stairwell, and a circle of silence around the room itself. Only when it was complete did he finally turn around.
“Hierophant, honor and pleasure be to… our ruler…” The pony snapped the book closed, not even bothering to feign enthusiasm through to the end of the sentence. “You get the idea.”
“I get something.” He set his suitcase down, turning to glare daggers at the earth pony. He waited, just long enough for him to see Smokescreen’s emerald eyes. Only when he was sure they shared the master’s gift could they converse about anything of meaning.
But the gift did not affect every pony quite the same way. This one had been an obstinate thief even before. Now that he’d been blessed, he was only more obstinate, and more of a thief. “Word is the ritual didn’t go so good. I dunno how I found that out—nopony important has been talking to me. Maybe it was that the sun kept rising. Or… maybe it’s the dozen royal guards crawling all over Ponyville, making it impossible for a dishonest pony to make a living.”
Nexus cleared his throat. “Do not waste my time, Smokescreen. If you’ve heard things didn’t go to plan, you know we must work swiftly. Princess Celestia has already called a meeting with me—her letter suggests she wishes for my help to interpret a dangerous spell. We can both guess which that will be.”
“Perfect,” Smokescreen said. “Couldn’t play into our hooves better if we asked. A brand-new food preparation spell, fresh from—”
Nexus silenced him with a glare. “Leave that to me.” It was impossible, though he wasn’t going to waste time explaining to a thief why that was. Smokescreen wouldn’t have understood. Anyway, the less he knew, the better. Not everypony who received the gift became completely trustworthy. “I want to know if you saw anything.”
“Anything… what, anything?” Smokescreen asked, grinning. “You’re going to have to be more specific, Hierophant. I’ve got two eyes, as it turns out, and they see an awful lot.”
“Let me be perfectly clear, then.” Nexus’s horn glowed, and he lifted Smokescreen gently off his chair. Towards the closed window. But slowly. “Something extremely valuable was consumed during the spell. Something that could only go away if we brought Equestria’s rightful ruler back. The ritual didn’t complete, but… somepony came back. Have you seen her?”
“Seen… our monarch?” He shook his head. “No, nothing like that.” His eyes widened the closer he got to the window. Despite his confidence, Smokescreen apparently didn’t realize that Nexus couldn’t actually toss him out. Even in the middle of the night, it would get noticed far too much. He’d used his real name coming here, after all. “I saw something else, though! Scariest royal guard in the world just got installed all incognito like in the center of town. Kirin, so they say. Didn’t get a good look, but the word was going around. Princess brought in the mythical creatures to look for us.”
Nexus dropped him. “Well, you best not let him find you, then.”
“Her, but… yeah. Naturally! She doesn’t have a clue.”
Nexus advanced on him. “Any questions to the guard would be suspicious, and anyone I sent into the Everfree would be discovered for certain. But you… you can be covert, yes? You can be discreet. She’ll be an Alicorn—beyond that, I don’t know. Her magic might be weak, her body might be half-formed… It is our responsibility to find her and insure that she can reclaim her throne. You are part of a noble purpose, Smokescreen.”