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// I Learn Never to Argue in Front of the Kids 
// Story: I Am The Night(mare)! And so is Luna? 
// by LordBrony2040 
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“Come on come on come on! Let’s go let’s go go go go!” I said as I skipped in place on Luna’s front legs while I waited for my toothpaste pony and her friend to get into the batmobile. Or the bat-themed chariot that I had talked Luna into approving.

Minuette giggled that little giggle of hers. “Wow Nighty, you sure are excited to go to Ponyville.”

“Well why shouldn’t I be?” I asked before looking back over to Twinkie. “Come on TS, I’m gonna die of old age before you even get on the chariot!”

The unicorn with the pink hair raised an eyebrow. “Uh...can that even happen to you?”

“Or Princess Luna?” Minuette added. “I know Princess Celestia is quadruple digit old, but you know what they say about assuming something.”

Luna took up the question. “While I am empowered by a celestial body as my sister is, Nightmare’s longevity is actually questionable,” she said before frowning a little. “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how she even came into being the way she did.”

I frowned. “Wait, I thought you said I was something you made that grew beyond its original scope.” Which seemed a bit par for the course when it came to Luna’s creations.

Everyone gave me a funny look, making me quickly realize that I had referred to the Nightmare as a separate entity. “Um, I mean-”

Luna didn’t let me finish. “What I am referring to is I am still not sure of what the mechanism for thy transformation was, Nighty. While mine own resentment was most definitely at the core for your...alteration, I’m not sure that it could have caused such a drastic effect on its own.”

The sudden addition of an unknown factor to my origin story made me nervous. I knew MLP had a penchant for just forgetting about important stuff for marketing reasons, but I wasn’t in a show. At least, I hoped I wasn’t. The thought of who knew how many people were watching me live Luna’s life because they had nothing better to do was creepy.

For a second I even considered the idea that I was in a fan fiction. One of the really bad ones written by one of those guys who couldn’t accept the direction that a show was going and decided to try writing their own version of events. And the guys who started doing it from episode one? Those were the worst.

“Ahem!” I said as I cleared my throat. “Now, let’s get going, shall we?”

Not even waiting for a reply from the other two, I snatched Minuette and Twinky up in a hug that got a grunt from both of the girls as I used Luna’s magic to grab their luggage and jumped onto the chariot. “Onward Luna’s little Ponies!”





Although it took us less than twenty minutes to get to Ponyville, I still found myself antsy with impatience until it came into view, what with an unusual amount of cloud cover blocking the town from my sight until we were practically on top of it.

When we did within visual range of the town, my ansty anticipation turned into something else. What I saw made me nervous. And what made me nervous was the dozen or more buildings under construction. I’m not talking about the ‘one of the Mane 6 just broke something and we need to replace it’ kind of construction. That sort of stuff happened about every other week in Ponyville. The kind of construction I’m talking about was the big, immaculate, expensive, ‘we actually think these buildings have a chance of lasting more than a month’ kind of construction only an idiot would build around Ponyville. Oh, there was also another large construction project on the southern end of town, but that looked to be more of the industrial office type of construction rather than the slightly smaller housing project that looked to be going on towards the eastern edge.

As soon as our chariot landed, I was tempted to cancel Minuette and Twinkie’s day off to have them find out what was going on, but thought better of it. It was Ponyville, the town with only about three hundred ponies, plus transients. It wouldn’t take me long to figure out what was going on.

But, it was their day off, and I knew enough ponies around town to find the answer myself soon enough. So, I decided to let them go do their thing.

“Okay girls, see you later today,” I told my friends before hesitating for a second and then sweeping them both up in another hug that lifted them both off the ground.

Minuette laughed as her cheeks were smooshed into mine. “Boy, Nighty. You sure are extra physical today.”

“Yep!” I agreed, then kissed them both on the cheek and let my girls go. With all the crap that had occured in Dog City, I needed to get back to Ponyville’s constant state of abnormality. Keeping other creatures from secretly killing ponies because of some hundred-year-plus old conflict was all well and dandy, but that was princess work.

Which I wasn’t!

I was a non-corporeal creature that was possessing a pony princess. There was a difference! It was a princess’s job to handle all of the unpleasant crap that came up in the need to keep Equestria safe and running smoothly. I was an unemployed mooch that was taking advantage of Luna’s massive amount of generosity! The only thing I should ever have to worry about is Celestia guilt-tripping me for being inside Luna when she didn’t want me there.

Once my girls had disappeared from view, I went looking someone to talk to. The sight of a trio of ponies drew my attention, and I rushed over to meet with Derpy’s family. “Hey girls!” I cried out before scooping Sparkler up in Luna’s forelegs to smother her with attention. “Mmmm! Missed my little Sparky pony!”

I would have grabbed Derpy and Dinky too, but the pegasus had a picnic basket balanced on her big bubble butt while the dinky unicorn was dealing with a half-eaten muffin.

“Gaaah!” my latest victim cried out in a muffled voice as her muzzle was filled with Luna’s chest fluff.

Derpy smiled up at me. “Good morning Princess Luna, good morning Nighty,” she greeted us before going into a respectful bow that nearly made her lose her picnic basket. She recovered in time though.

Sparkler worked her muzzle off of Luna’s barrel. “Did you need me for something today, Princess?”

“Neigh, loyal Sparkler,” Luna informed her. “Nighty simply wished to see her friends and I allowed her to set time aside for the endeavor.”

I decided to clarify Luna’s statement. “My bestest friends.”

To which Sparkler took issue with. “Uh, bestest isn’t really a word, Nighty.”

“It is if a princess says it is,” I told her. “Quick Luna, make bestest a word.”

Luna sighed. “Modern language has only just now become comfortable for me, Nighty. I shan’t take action to make it more complicated.”

To show my displeasure, I turned my attention to Luna cutie mark. “Well then,” I said before giving her a razberry.

“Princess Luna?” Dinky’s said with her dinky little voice, making me look down to see that she finished her muffin. “Can I get a hug too.”

Luna nodded with a serious expression. “Of course, my little pony. Nighty, unhoof our scheduler and attend to our most beloved little filly,” she commanded rather reagaly.

I gently set Sparkler down, then decided to play off Luna’s tone by sitting up straight and looking down at the tiny unicorn with an expression you’d see on Celestia’s face after a reformed student came back from another dimension seeking help. You know, overly stern and not at all friendly. “Young Dinky, are you fully prepared to accept this accolade, and everything that goes with it?”

Considering that I was dealing with a little girl, I don’t think she read the situation, because while her mother and sister were giving me little smrks, Dinky stood at attention. “I am ready, Princess Luna. Even if I don’t know what that word means.”

“Very well then,” I said. I waited for a second, then I stashed the little filly up a hug and held her close to Luna’s chest while squealing backing and forth. “Oh, you are just so, so, so, so cute!”

Then I lifted her up to my face. “Cute,” I said before kissing her on the cheek. “So cute!” Another kiss to the other cheek, along with another taste in my mouth. I held her back and smacked my lips before looking down at her. “Banana nut?”

Dinky nodded. “Yep!”

“Sorry, got distracted for a second.” Getting back on track, I laid Dinky on the grass with her belly facing up. “So cute!” I said again before moving to place Luna’s mouth on her and let out a prolonged breath.

The resulting sound and air rushing across Dinky’s belly got her laughing like crazy. “Okay! Enough ack-e-laids hahahaha! Too much ack-e-laids!”

With Dinky wanting to call it quits, I picked up the little filly and looked to Derpy. “Mind if I give her a pony ride as we trot and talk?” I asked. Derpy was obviously headed somewhere and I didn’t want to take up too much of her time.

“Of course not,” Derpy said.

I put dinky in position, and after making sure she was comfortable and properly situated, we were off. It took all of three seconds of me looking at the basket on Derpy’s butt for Luna to ask the obvious. “Pray tell, what is the basket for?” she asked. “While daylight activity is not our forte, tis quite late for breakfast, and much too soon for the noonday meal.”

“I’m just taking some muffins to Cheerilee to thank her for all the times she’s helped me with the girls lately,” Derpy explained.

A bad feeling started to creep into my gut. “You’ve been having trouble with Dinky?” I asked before glancing over to Sparkler. If the fandom was even half right when it came to Derpy, she probably worked more than one job. If Sparkler was called to Canterlot just about every day, well…

Fiscal stability or child rearing done by family members…

Coming to Ponyville was supposed to keep me away from these hard choices, damnit!

Derpy looked over to the construction going on. “Yeah, with so many new ponies wanting to come to Ponyville, the moving company has a ton of overtime up for grabs, so I’m trying to get in as much work as I can.”

“Mom, I’m old enough that I don’t need a foalsitter,” Sparkler told her mother.

As much as I wanted to backup my sassy minion on the subject of her maturity, the more important subject demanded my attention. “Why exactly are so many ponies moving to Ponyville now?”

The question got a thoughtful look from Derpy for a moment before she gave me a bright smile. “I have no idea!”





With my friendly contacts unable to help me with my investigation, I had to rely on the more traditional kind of informant. The kind that spent her time working the seedier bars where people got served dirty drinks and half the women the men went home with expected a paycheck when they were done.

Of course, since Ponville lacked such a place, I had to make do.

Noir-acceptable music was playing from the jukebox as I opened the door to the bakery with a bit extra force to show anypony who was around I meant business before walking into the building, but with it being that hour between late breakfast and early lunch, there weren’t any customers around beside the odd pair of stallions sitting in a booth to Luna’s left.

Like it’s name suggested, the interior was very sugary and somewhat cubed, what with its four corners. The baker behind the counter was one Pinkamena Diane Pie, Pinky to her friends, Ponvill’s office party pony. She had a sense for things around town and just about a big ear for gossip as Rarity.

She stood there, cleaning an empty ice cream float glass as I approached. “Hey there, Nightmare. Feels like years since you’ve been here,” Pinkie Pie said in a tone very much along the line of a somewhat friendly bartender from one of those noir detective shows before she loudly called up a bit of liquid and spit it into the glass she was cleaning. “What can I get’cha?”

It actually threw me off for a bit before I...well...it was Pinkie Pie, I could accept her deciding to spoof the exact same style I was doing at the same time as a  coincidence.

Luna took the question. “Gingered Ale, upon the candied rocks, with a side information, Lady Pie,” she said. “Information that Nighty believes that you are the best to provide.”

Pinkie nodded as she put a small glass on the counter, talking as she poured the drink. “Mmmm, I know where to point my ears most places.” Two pieces of peppermint were dropped into the glass. “Of course, information don’t come free.”

When Pinkie pointed up to the menu on the wall above her, I blinked. Right beneath the part of the sign that offered a sundae for four bits, it said…



info: negotiable.



I blinked. Had that always been there?

Luna took up the glass and I barely had time to position her mouth to drink it droperly. After downing the whole thing, she slammed the container back onto the counter. “Very well,” she agreed. “We wish to know the identity of all the new ponies in town, and their reasons for being here. Name thy price.”

“In that case, I want…” Pinkie paused as her eyes narrowed. “Snuggles. A whole sleepover’s worth of snuggles.”

There was a little screech on the record playing in the background, completely destroying the atmosphere. I blinked several times at the request. “Wait, you want to have a slumber party?” I asked in confusion.

Pinkie’s demeanor changed in an instant before she started speaking in a voice that was much closer to her usual cheer than the bartender act she had been putting on before. “Okay, first off, I said I wanted to have a sleepover with you, not a slumber party.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “There’s a difference?”

A loud gasp came from Pinkie. “You don’t know the difference between a sleepover and a slumber party?” she asked in shock before zooming up to my face. “Just what kind of Princess of the Night are you?”

With Pinkie giving acting all...Pinkie, I half-closed my eyes. “I’m not a princess. I’m an eldritch abomination, born of Luna’s magic, depression and darkness.” And maybe some X factor that Luna mentioned in passing, which was probably just a red herring.

No, make that a definite red herring.

Unless I was also something akin to the Pony of Shadows.

“I know of the difference between an event of shared sleeping arrangements and a celebration of slumber,” Luna said. “But, perhaps you should break it down for Nighty. Twould be good for her to know of such things.”

Pinkie gave a curt nod of agreement. “Okay then!” she said before pulling out a pointer from her mane and smacking one of two pictures on a chalkboard beside her that I was pretty certain wasn’t there two seconds ago despite no magical sound effect that should have announced its arrival when that particular space was out of my field of vision. “A slumberparty is when a bunch of friends get together and do lost of stuff all night, which rarely involves sleep. A sleepover is when two ponies go to sleep under the same roof, despite the place they sleep in belonging to only one of them.”

I nodded with absolute serious. “Okay, got it,” I replied. Don’t ask questions. Don’t ask questions. Don’t ask questions. I had seen where that particular path led.

Wanting to get off of this topic as soon as possible, I cleared my throat. “So uh, Pinkie. What’s with all the new construction around Ponyville?” Although the show had never really gone into specifics about the population, size, or even shape of the town, I was pretty sure it didn’t have many large-scale construction projects.

Well, except for that one in the episode that should not be named which almost killed several ponies with falling construction materials.

The question got a bright smile out of Pinkie. “Oh, that? Since Prin-er, Celly started staying here, a lot of really fancy ponies have been wanting to move in,” she said. “That reminds me, she’s also why I’m able to take the morning off, she’s going to be helping the Cakes with the bakery tomorrow.”

“Uh, are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked. While I couldn’t really comment on Celestia wanting to take a few days off and just be another normal pony, which was why she had come to Ponyville in the first place, Sunbutt working in a cake shop seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Memories of fan art featuring an overly fat Celestia stuffing her face gave me a shiver.

Pinkie nodded. “Celly’s been helping all of us around town. She spent her first day with Dashie. Then she was with Rarity in her shop and gave a hoof to Fluttershy with her animals, which she really needs these days since everypony wants her to wear all those clothes. And she’s helping Applejack with her chores today.”

“Sister is performing the duties of a farming peasant?” Luna asked in surprise before grinning. “Oh! We shant miss this!”





Even though Luna was excited to go to the farm in the hopes of giggling at Celestia’s labors, I felt a little uneasy about the whole thing. My human upbringing had given me plenty of practice when it came to ignoring things that I didn’t want to deal with, like what conditions my clothes were made under. But, such things had their limits.

Even if all the cows and sheep did was sit around all day eating, breeding, and...well, the cows got milked in the morning, and apparently got paid for something since I had seen some buy stuff from Sugarcube Corner…

But, uh...point is...slavery equals bad, and I didn’t want to deal with it since it was Luna’s job as a princess to take care of the tough stuff that didn’t exactly line up with Earth equivalents since I didn’t have talking animals that couldn't really do anything else but produce milk or wool competitively in comparison to the vast amount of ponies participating in the market back home. I was just in pony land to have fun.

When we got to Applejack’s place, well...it was just like anyone had bothered to see that one episode of AJ going to the spa before showing everyone just how devoid of common sense she was would expect. She was…

“brack...bawk bawk bawk...brack!”

...behaving like a chicken while the muddy pigs in the pen just laid there on their backs and Celestia stood off the side, giving the orange pony a look of utter confusion.

Tia didn’t even notice us approaching until we were right on top of her. And even then, she didn’t acknowledge our presence until after I landed Luna with extreme grace and poise.

For me, anyway. Which basically means that I managed to put hooves on the ground without doing the same to my face. “Greetings, dear sister,” Luna said when I finished steadying myself. “Tell me, has Applejack contracted a fowl madness?”

“That’s only affects pegasi, Luna,” Celestia replied before she looked over to us and...well...acted a little weird. This tightness appeared around her eyes that had me wondering if Luna took control of her ass to fart. “Hello Nightmare. Shouldn’t the two of you be in Canterlot? Judging by the correspondence I have received since arriving in Ponyville, I would have thought you needed to complete your subjugation of the diamond dogs.”

Luna looked back to Applejack. “We are here on business,” she said. “A letter from Rarity informed us that our dress for the Gala is nearly complete. We also wish to have a picture of you taken to use as a model for a poster that will help ensure obedience from the diamond dogs. As we have been informed that the most accomplished photographer in Equestria is also in Ponyville at this time, it is the perfect opportunity.”

After taking in a deep breath, Celestia let out a long burst of air from her nose. “We are going to need to have a long talk about that when I finish my vacation, Sister.”

“I agree,” Luna replied. “If a subjugated species openly mocks me in the street when I come to merit out justice, I fear what the nations that stand as our equals at the negotiating table are doing.”

Celestia frowned at the accusation. “We have no equals at the negotiating table,” she said. “As it said in the dossier on trade relations that you should have gone through during your first few days back in Equestria, while we are providing financial aid to the griffons to keep their entire society from collapsing into a bunch of scavengers that raid nearby communities for basic necessities, the minotaurs sell the resources they mine to us while the tariffs that all the other countries have imposed on their exports mean that our offer of free trade gives us easy access to their resources and the superior position since pony products are better made than anything they can produce. The centaurs and gargoyles continue to pay tribute for our imprisonment of Tirek in Tartarus, while the rest of the chaos-crafted keep well south of the borderlands. I’ll admit that I have lost contact with the hippogryphs these past years, but they are a rather withdrawn bunch.”

Hearing enough of the shop talk, especially since it was what I had come to Ponyville to get away from, I looked around for something that the girls could focus on. When I caught sight of Applejack on the roof of her barn, I gasped and pointed. “Oh no! Is Applejack going to jump?”

Celestia’s eyes widened. “What?” she shouted before she spun around and looked up at the orange pony in shock. “Applejack! Don’t do it! You have too much to live for!”

“Wha?” Luna’s amazing hearing picked up before a golden glow surrounded the earth pony and yanked her off the roof. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I tried to move, but Luna asserted control of her right foreleg in the middle of my first step before she shifted her attention back to her mouth. “Nighty, as we have the same eyes, I know that you saw Applejack was looking at a rope coiled up near the end the beam protruding from her barn.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “But you to talking about politics is really boring.”

As Luna let out a groan, Celestia stopped Applejack’s rapid descent and put her hooves on the orange pony’s shoulders as she floated in the air. “Applejack, trust me, I know what’s like to struggle through life. To have to put on a smiling face all the time when all you want to do is break down and cry. I know what it’s like to have all of your hopes and dreams crushed, then have your failure rubbed in your face day after day. I know But you can’t just give up, Applejack. Too many ponies are counting on you!”

Applejack blinked. “Uh...Celestia? What’re you talkin’ about?”

“Uh...weren’t you about to leap to your death because...um…” Celestia cleared her throat. “...the uh, odd insanity that had you opening and slamming a door for no reason, waving your forelegs at the pigs and dancing like a chicken just a moment ago?”

Before she answered, Applejack pointed up towards the top of her barn. “No, I was heading over to get the rope so I could swing down and feed the pigs.”

“Feed the pigs...with a rope?” Celestia asked in confusion. “Why in Equestria would you do that?”

Applejack pointed to the bucket of slop sitting on the fence of the pig’s pen. “Well, how else am I going to knock their food into the trough?”

In response to the question, Celestia turned around and trotted over to the bucket with Applejack floating behind her. She used her hooves to pick the food up, then dumped it in the long feeding bowl. “Like that,” the princess said as she looked back to the orange pony.

As the pigs ran up to start eating, Applejack blinked. “Well...uh…”

“Perhaps you should show me how you do the rest of your chores,” Celestia said before she looked back to us. “Sister, Nightmare, as much as I have enjoyed our time together, I think Applejack needs my assistance more than the two of you do right now. I will see the two of you later at Rarity’s boutique.”

Before Luna could say anything, I raised her hoof and waved. “Okay, talk to you later Tia!” I said before quickly turning to run away as fast as Luna’s legs would carry me.

“Nighty, just what do you think you are doing?” Luna demanded.

“Please tell me you at least a little worried after hearing your sister go on like that,” I said. If Tia wasn’t projecting just then, I was an anti-brony.

Luna frowned, narrowing my vision. “No. I knew that Applejack had no designs to do harm to herself. I am made aware of such ponies long before they get to that point,” she said. “Now, praytell, why are we departing?”

I let out a little frustrated sound and...slowed down when we got close to Ponyville. Trust was, I didn’t exactly know how to answer that.

Something had obviously happened to Tia during the past few days, but I had no fucking clue just what the hell that was! Sure, she had been a bit overworked and stressed when I saw her in Canterlot, but nothing like the mare that had been talking to Applejack. This whole Ponyville thing was supposed to help her relax!

So obviously, I needed to ask a pony that had been around her plenty just what the hell had happened.

Which meant I needed to talk to…

Um…

I looked around and saw a yellow pegasus mare with a blue main and a cutie mark depicting falling water on her butt trotting along with a smile on her face. Since everyone and their grandmother would be keeping track of Princess freaking Celestia, I was pretty sure that...uh...the pony whose name I couldn’t quite remember knew where she hung her hat for the night.

“You!” I as I pointed at the mare.

The mare looked over and me and got wide eyes. “Princess-oh, wait...um, am I still supposed to call you Princess? Because Celestia said she didn’t want to hear that word while she was in Ponyville and-I should probably stop rambling now, shouldn’t I?”

My announced must have been showing, because the poor little thing was shrinking in on herself. “Look, I’m sorry if I’m being...whatever,” I told her. “It’s just, do you know where Celestia is sleeping in Ponyville, miss...uh…”

“Raindrops,” the pony answered.

I blinked. “Really?” I asked before taking another look at her cutie mark that depicted three falling globs of water and then getting my mind back on track. “Okay, look. Sorry for frightening you again. I just really need to know where Celestia spends the night.”

Raindrops gave me a little smile. “It’s okay Princess Luna. And she’s staying with Rainbow Dash.”

Which I realized at that point I should have remembered, but...I wasn’t exactly in the bet mindset for a working memory. “Okay, good. And do you know where Dashie is?”

After blinking at my question, the yellow pony pointed up at something behind me. When I spun around to look, I saw Rainbow Dash flying through the air, dragging a banner that showed Fluttershy holding a glass of carrot juice in one hoof and smiling about it. “Ohhhh-kay, that’s a bit unexpected,” I mumbeled before looking back down at my little yellow pony. “Thanks, Raindrops.”

“You’re welcome “Prin-ahhh!” she managed to say before I snatched her up in a thank you hug.

The pony pony in my forelegs felt all soft and had that high moisture smell in her mane. Which, considering her name, I guess made sense. I nuzzled her mane in appreciation and-“Nighty?”

I blinked and pulled away from Raindrops. “Yeah Luna?”

“Mayhap we should give pursuit to Rainbow Dash before she vanishes from sight,” Luna told me.

After a few seconds, I reluctantly released the pony in Luna’s forelegs and sighed. Dog City had put me way behind my pony contact quota, and my landlady wasn’t making it any easier to get caught up. “Okay,” I agreed.

Luna was right though. I really needed to talk to Rainbow Dash as soon as possible since we still needed to get Tia’s picture and have Rarity feel us up while she gave that ‘I’m just measuring your royal rear’ excuse like the first time she put her paws on Luna’s plot during our biggest butt contest.

Which Celestia had such an unfair advantage to with all those years of overeating and low exercise. If she had been stuck on a giant rock without any food for a thousand years, her butt wouldn’t have been anywhere near as bloated as it was now.

I looked down at Raindrops, who had these really red cheeks. Which made me a bit embarrassed. I hadn’t meant to hug her that hard. “Oh! Sorry Rainy,” I said before leaning down to give her a little apology kiss on the cheek.

Raindrops got even more red and began to tremble a little before she let out a tiny whine and I...thought it best to get the heck out of dodge. Although most of Ponyville had gotten used to me and Luna walking around, but it looked like a few of them still had...issues.

So, I took to the air and headed after Rainbow Dash as she finished her fly over the town and landed near a large wagon next to Carrot Top before unhitching the banner. By the time I landed, which involved overshooting Dash’s landing spot and turning around thanks to my inability to stop flying on a dime at Rainbow’s usual speed, the little blue pony was slipping a nice bag of bits under her wing and Carrot Top was heading off into the distance with her wagon.

“Hey there Dash,” I said to get her attention as I trotted closer.

Rainbow turned around and smiled. “Hey there Luna. Hiya Nightmare. What’s up?”

Before I could get a word in, Luna took the conversation over. “Hail and well met, Rainbow Dash,” she greeted. “Tell me, why do you fly Fluttershy’s banner over the town?”

“Oh, Carrot Top paid Fluttershy and me to advertise her juice after it worked so well for Applejack,” she explained.

I had to force myself not to ask just what the hell was going on with Fluttershy and what she was doing in an ad campaign. But, there was something much closer to to home that I needed to talk about. “Say Dash,” I said before getting a little hesitant. How the hell are you supposed to ask if Celestia is in the middle of a mental breakdown?

“Is Tia...enjoying herself?” I finally asked, trying to be discreet.

While her mouth said nothing, Rainbow’s body went rigid and her eyes darted around nervously. “Uh...that um...well…”

Luna frowned down at the little pony. “Out with it already, Rainbow,” she demanded.

“Okay!” she said before looking around some more, turning her whole head this time. “Just...not here. Come on.”

We followed Dash into the air and over the town all the way to her house. Which I had seen before since you know, cloud house was someone any brony who found herself in Equestria would just have to see, but it was still an amazing thing to see. Still, needed to keep my mind on task. “Now, about Celestia…”

“Is my sister doing okay?” Luna asked.

Rainbow looked off to the empty space on our right. “Uh, well...not...really,” she answered before dropping her ears and head.

“What?” Luna demanded. “What do you mean, not really? What hath transpired during this respite? Tell us immediately.”

I wrestled with Luna for control of her mouth. “No wait. Start at the beginning. Tell us everything that happened from day one.” Not that I thought Dash was stupid or anything, but...well, hoping that the most oblivious member of the Mane Six would notice when someone was upset was...yeah…

Pinkie Pie had a better chance of sitting still for three hours than Rainbow did of noticing something was wrong before a pony was reduced to tears. Which...considering just how nervous Dash was on the subject of Celestia’s happiness…

Oh God, please tell me Tia just put the moves on Rainbow and got turned down, I begged.

“Okay, so...it all started out kind of awkward. Ya know, because Tia just got off the train and everypony was standing around looking at her like ‘holy horseshoes, it’s Princess Celestia. What’re we supposed to do?’ and stuff. And it didn’t stop as we moved through town, so she had the mayor call a town meeting…





Me and Twilight stuck around for the meeting since I would be having to show Tia my house later and work up something for her guest room and Twilight, uh...I’m not sure why the egghead stayed. Except maybe because she had the bag with all Celestia’s stuff, which wasn’t all that much. She’s not Rarity ya know, so it was only junk like her toothbrush and other...princess things.

“Thank you everypony for assembling so quickly,” Celestia said in that in charge kind of way that didn’t sound as lame as my old principal’s did when she wanted to get the whole school together for an announcement. “Now, as you are all wondering for my purpose here… With Luna having returned to Equestria, I can take my first vacation in a thousand years. And after visiting your lovely village, I can think of no place in Equestria as wonderful to spend my time off. On that note, I want to say that for the next week, I will not be your princess, but another pony that’s just a bit taller than the rest of you. As such, please do not bow or let me move to the front of the line. Of course, I will still be willing to help you with any problems I can, but I ask of you to refrain from petitioning me in matters involving government affairs. Princess Cadance and my sister will be taking care of such matters.”

As soon as she was done, there were a few ponies that asked a couple of lame questions, which totally bored me so much I couldn’t pay any attention to them. But I think it was mostly stuff like if it was okay to talk to her on the street and stuff. Although, one colt had the guts to ask if Tia would come to their school, and she was all like, yeah sure.

Anyway, after the snoozefest was done, we headed out into Ponyville, with Twilight behind us with that big grin of hers. “So Princess Celestia. I was thinking-”

“Twilight,” the awesome sun pony replied.

“I know Rainbow Dash has the biggest house and most awesome house and that makes it an attractive place to stay-”

“Twilight,” Celestia said for the second time.

“-but if we just use a space some big word I can't pronounce spell, we could just set up a little room in the treehouse and-”

Uh, Rainbow? I'm starting to have my doubts about the validity of this story based on things like your choice of spell names

Hey, are you telling this story, or am I?

You

Well then let me tell it. Don't sweat the small stuff.

“Twilight!” Tia exclaimed, making Twi totally jump out of her skin before she got on her belly.

Honestly, it was pretty freaky seeing her act like that. You know, because she’s always going on about how Tia’s supposed to be this super wise and beno-what’sit ruler and all? But she acts like Celestia’s gonna give her a spanking if she doesn’t do everything like, super perfect.

Celestia gave Twilight this little nod. “While I am aware there are numerous ways around the space limitations for skilled magic users, I remind you that preparing such spells are rather time-consuming in their preparation and uncomfortable to experience in the long term. It’s easier for me to just stay someplace that can accomodate my size,” she told Twilight. “And I would never ask for you to have to stop whatever project your working on now to make such adjustments to the library for me.” 

“Project?” Twilight asked as her eyes widened.

“Of course, I will also be more than happy to help you with whatever endeavor you have as well. I know you’ve always got something cooking in that lab of yours and would be delighted to see it while I’m in town,” Celestia told her. “Just tell me what time would be good for you, and we’ll set something up for later in the week.”

I could totally see some sweat around Twilight’s horn as she smiled up at the big pony. “Riiiight! My project! I uh...I’ll have it ready for you in, um...six, no! Five days! Come by Friday, and I’ll have something that’ll knock your horseshoes off!”

The purple pony disappeared in a flash almost as fast as I could leave a scene and I looked over to Tia. “Uh...that was…”

“I know,” Celestia told me before I could tell her how much of a mule she was being and started flying slowly towards my house. When we were up far enough that nopony else would hear us, she started talking again. “I know Twilight isn’t actually working on anything and that I’ve just sent her into a complete panic, but let’s be honest, how do you think Twilight would take me telling her I’d rather not see her for awhile?”

That got my wings up. Sure, Twilight was pretty annoying, I’d spent days stuck to her and let me tell ya, it got old in ten seconds flat, but I would never have done something like that. And just because Celestia was like, twice as big as me with a horn didn’t mean she could talk about one of my friends like that. “And why the hay not?”

Celestia reached up and rubbed her head. “Because she’s the type of pony I’m trying to get away from, Dash. No,” she said, suddenly stopping. “Actually, she’s both types of pony I’m trying to get away from.”

Not really following, I frowned at her some more as she jumped into the air and started flapping her wings. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked after catching up to her.

We got to my house and Tia touched down before planting her plot on my cloud. “In Canterlot, there are two types of ponies that I run into,” she said. “The first are the ponies that for whatever reason, fear me. I don’t understand why, but they do. They think the slightest showing of even the tiniest frown means I’m going to banish them from Equestria. It doesn’t matter how much I smile, how much I show everypony they have nothing to fear from me, how much I care for them. They just hear some old story from the days before Equestria was as nice as it is today, and think I’m like a volcano that’s waiting for an excuse to explode.”

I could get that. Hey, I’d seen it before.

And Twilight? Yeah, she was totally like that.

“And then there are the other types of ponies,” Celly went on with an annoyed look. “Those are the ponies that kiss my plot so much, I half expect to stop walking one day and end up with one of their heads stuck between my cheeks. Respect is one thing, but what they do is just...infuriating! They insult both me and themselves if they think I would fall for something like that or desire bla bla bla, more angry words! And the fact that Twilight truly believes what she says about me just makes it worse.”

You're doing it again.

No I'm not.

Dash, who says bla bla bla-

Angry words! LOTS of angry words!

Okay, okay fine! Just...get on with it.

So, after Tia got done talking about how she didn't like it that Twilight thought she was so awesome...

That, I couldn’t get. Who wouldn’t want somepony to follow you around and tell them how awesome you were?

Twilight knew Celestia was awesome, so she said it. End of story.

But since I didn’t want to argue with Princess bucking Celestia about that, crown or no crown, I just nodded to my house. “So uh, you want to come inside?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Celestia said before she trotted past me.

I gave her the tour of my house, you know, showing my stuff off and, uh...stuff. Celestia was pretty cool about the whole thing. She even put this spell on my bathroom’s raincloud that would make it pour hot water when I showered. Then, we got to the bedroom and Celestia looked around at the place. “Hmmm, you have quite the large bed, Rainbow.”

“Uh...yeah,” I said before hopping up on the thing. “It’s just another cloud I made.” I didn’t tell her that I change the thing up about once a month. One time I even made it look like a pillar. “So um, what do you want to do now?”

Celestia tapped her chin. “Well, how about we play a game?”

I looked at the door to my bedroom. “Well, I’ve got a few boardgames in the living room.”

“I was thinking of something a little more basic, what with you being the fastest pegasus ever,” Celestia told me before her horn lit up and everything around us disappeared.

The next thing I knew, we were standing on a cloud that was like, miles away from Ponyville. Like, a lot of miles. There were mountains all around us, and I had no idea where we were. “Uh...Princess Celestia-”

“Dashie, please,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s Celly, or Tia.”

“Okay then, uh...Tia.” Which felt a bit weird to say. I forgot which of the two she prefered, but if the Princess was gonna use my last name, I’d use the rear part of hers. I know, it was rude, or whatever, but if Celestia wanted to be treated like just another pony. “Where are we, and what’re we doing here?”

Tia smiled down at me. “Well, my little Dashie, with you being such an athlete, I want to see if you can actually keep up with me. So...boop!” the big alicorn said before she tapped me on the nose and turned to gallop away. “You’re it! Catch me if you can!”

I stood there for a bit before Celestia flapped her wings and started up into the sky. That got me out of my daze, and I worked up my wings to fly after her. “Oh! You are so mine!”

Okay so...I know there’s a few jerk out there that make fun of Celestia for being fat, or...ah...you know...kind of...talk about her big...round...sweet plot. But uh, anyway! She may be bigger than anypony around, but she is fast!

Well, not as fast as me, I’m like...maybe five percent faster, but uh...Celestia’s a better flier. With those big wings of hers, she can totally bank and turn better than me, and don’t get me started on her diving skills.

Ever time I would get even a little close, she would just juke and turn or pull off some other fancy move that left me going straight for a second or two while she was going off to the left or the right or wherever. And it just went on and on like that for what had to be an hour.

Then...okay, look. I’m fast, that’s my thing. But...stamina? Yeah, not so much. Celestia had me dashing this way and that at full speed. After an hour of that, it felt like my wings were gonna fall off.

I could still fly, but...you know, my wings felt like lead.

And Celestia? Yeah, by then, she was flying backwards with her forelegs behind her back. “Something wrong, Dashie?” she asked with this smile I totally would have wacked off her face if she wasn’t a princess.

“I’m...fine...just...catching...second...wind,” I said before breaths.

Celestia frowned. “Okay, this isn’t as fun as I thought it would be,” she told me before her horn lit up. White poofed into existence beneath us and the Princess reached forward to grab me and pinned me to the cloud. “Dashie, stop. I don’t want you to overexert yourself.”

I tried to push Celestia off of me but with as tired as I was, it wasn’t happening. “I...totally would have caught you,” I said before taking another breath. “Eventually.”

“Of course you would have,” she told me before laying down and letting out a soft laugh. “That was fun though, at the start at least. I haven’t been able to fly around with anypony like that for centuries.”

The Princess’s body began to push me down into the cloud. “Uh...Tia? I’m all sweaty.”

Celestia smiled and scooted around a little before she put her nose right on my barrel and took a deep breath through it. The whole thing left me going, “Uhhhhhhhhh.”

“Dashie, do you know how many ponies surround me with so much cologne and perfume I could gag?” she asked. “Getting to take in the natural scent of another pony after a long flight is a pleasure compared to all of that.”

I gulped as Celestia’s legs went into the cloud to wrap around before she rolled to the side and held me close under her chin. “C-Celestia?”

Then big white pony let out this loud sigh. “She’s right.”

“She who?” I asked, totally lost.

“Nightmare Moon,” Celestia told me. “She told me once that she likes to do this with ponies, just lie on her bed and hold them like this because it makes her feel good. She’s right. It does feel good to hold one of my little ponies close like this. Do you mind if we just...stay like this, just for a few minutes?”

So, it wasn’t as lame as being five and needing to sleep with your mom because there totally was a monster under your bed one night out of the week. “Knock yourself out, Tia.”

Celestia sighed. “Thank you, Dashie.”

We just kinda did nothing for a few minutes and I let out a yawn. What can I say? Your sister’s comfortable.

“I missed this,” Celestia whispered.

“Eh??” I asked.

Celestia gave me this loud gulp. “When I first became princess,” she told me, still with that whisper. “I used to play games like this with Luna and my other friends every day I could. I used to race and play tag with Hurricane. But as time went by, Luna and I were separated by our duties with the sun and moon, and I-I stopped being a pony others could be friends with and became unapproachable. And I thought, okay, that’s fine, that’s the way it should be. I was over two hundred by then, I couldn’t expect ponies to relate to somepony as old as me.

“I could take comfort in all the happiness my actions caused. If that meant that there was just one big lonely pony while the rest of Equestria was happy, it was worth it. Equestria got better and I managed to keep going by looking at all the successes my little ponies had but, but now, I...for some reason, I...I can’t,” she said before giving a sniffle. “These days, all I see when I look around are things like my little sister still being possessed by Nightmare Moon, my student being a combination of the two worst types of pony I know, a thousand problems with Equestria I had been ignoring for years and-and...then, there’s you.”

My muscles got at tense. “W-What did I do?”

“What?” Tia asked before she pushed me back and looked at me and I looked at her. When I actually got a look at Celestia, I kid you not, I got a little scared. She had tears falling from her eyes. Princess Celestia had been crying. “No, Rainbow, you didn’t do anything wrong! I’m the one who wronged you.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Uh...w-what’re you talking about?”

Celestia just looked at me for a few seconds and put her head down. “Rainbow...you’re my best friend,” she said before letting out a snort. “Ponyfeathers. That sounds even worse than I thought it would.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed back at her before remembering who I was talking to. “Uh...not that...um...actually, yeah. I’m gonna be mad about this, even to you. I’m an awesome friend!

Then Celestia gave me one of her smiles, and it got so much harder to stay mad at her. “Yes, you are,” she told me. “But I am a twelve hundred and fifty three year old alicorn. I was old before your great-grandfather was in diapers. I have known more ponies than you will ever meet, even in passing. Yet despite my age, despite all the ponies I’ve met, I feel closer to you than anypony I’ve been introduced to for over nine hundred years. And we aren’t really even that close.”

Okay, I really didn’t have a comeback for that one. “Uh…”

“But here I am, telling you things I shouldn’t be telling anypony,” Celestia said. “I’m bearing everything that I am to you and-and I know it’s selfish and unfair to you. You’re barely more than a newborn foal compared to me but I am placing the weight of all my burdens on your back just so I can tell somepony about it!”

She dropped her head back onto the cloud. “I’m pathetic.”

You know, before I actually met Princess Celestia, I thought she was this super awesome pony that nothing ever got to. After I met her the first few times, I thought like, super cool. She was old and wise and powerful and all, but also totally awesome.

After I heard that, well...okay, I still thought she was totally awesome. But even more so because, yeah...I wouldn’t have been able to do half the stuff she did if I was feeling half as bad as her.

“No you’re not,” I told her in a totally not-awesome voice. Just the restrained kind. She did just dump stuff all over me after all.

“Rainbow-”

“Hey,” I said before she could argue. I had gotten into arguments with Twilight before over Daring Do stuff and learned from those you don’t let the brainy pony get started before you got your point across. “Look, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say to make this better. But, um...you’re not pathetic. You’ve kept Equestria running for a thousand years despite all of that feeling stuff and it’s awesome! And, if you need somepony to talk to. Somepony to talk to when you’re feeling uneasy and need to just empty out your barrel of all the stuff weighing you down...I’ll do it,” I told her. “But, only if I get to really tell you how awesome you are too, okay? And only if you tell me how you’re going to pick yourself up and be awesome again, okay?”

Celestia blinked. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word awesome used that much in the span of five minutes.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed as I put some strength into my wings. “If you want some big pep talk that uses a bunch of big words, go see Twilight. I use awesome a lot because I’m awesome, and the word is awesome, and the pony I’m talking to is totally awesome, even if she’s got some lame ideas running  through her head right now. So...uh, awesome.”

A little snicker came from Tia’s nose. “I see.”

Then I got one of those ideas that is, you know, totally awesome, but also kinda...not. “So uh...do you...want a hug?”

Celestia nodded before reaching out with her forearms. “Yes. Yes I do.”





“Then we just kinda hugged and laid there for a bit and talked about...stuff,” Rainbow finished.

“Talked about what?” I asked despite not wanting to know the answer. I was afraid of where this was going.

Rainbow gave a little shrug of her shoulders. “Lot of things, really,” she answered. “The stuff with the diamond dogs and something that happened down south with buffalo have her really bummed out. She hates how hard it is to make friends with anypony like, well...me and her are friends, I guess. Oh, and you. She talked about you a lot.”

“To which one of us are you referring, Rainbow Dash?” Luna asked.

“Uh...both of you?” she said in an uncertain way. “I dunno, it’s confusing. She’s like, really super sad and angry, and a bunch of other things whenever she talks about the two of you. I just, ya know, let her hug me and cry...and stuff. But I have no idea what to say to her to make it better.”

Luna sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We understand, Rainbow Dash. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will handle it from here.”

A sigh of relief came from the blue speedster. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m good a cheering ponies up and all, but this is Princess Celestia were talking about here. I am way out of my depth here. She just shows up and start crying and...yeah. I don’t know what to do when normal ponies get all teary. And this is Celestia!”

“You have done exactly what you needed to do, Rainbow Dash,” Luna told her. “Sometimes, we all need a pony to lean on, even we alicorns. Although, I must ask you...what are your intentions towards my sister?”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “Huh?”

Luna frowned. “You are the type of mare that Celestia would desire in her younger years, a fit pegasus with a love of action,” she said. “After she has found herself out of this...state of mind, we would not be opposed to you becoming closer to our sister. Perhaps even a consort, if she is willing.”

As I just stood there after hearing that.

Rainbow was...much more...well, amenable to the situation.

“Um...okay. Thanks?” she said before cocking her head to the side. “But...what’s a consort?”

I raised a hoof to cover my face and groaned. “Let’s just say it’s a uh,” I lowered Luna’s hoof and did my best to try and make it as pleasant as I could. “It’s like a, uh...pony that’s really, really friendly with a royal pony.”

“Of course,” Luna said as her tone darkened. “If you were to use my sister’s current state of mind to take advantage of her. We would be very displeased.”

Rainbow Dash frowned right back at Luna. “Hey! I wouldn’t do something like that to Tia. She’s my friend, you know. I don’t need to have some fancy friendship title to be nice to her!”

And on that note, I thought it was best to get the heck out of Dodge before Luna explained to Rainbow she just gave Dash permission to bang her sister for the rest of a pegasus’s natural life. I held up Luna’s hooves and smiled down at her. “Hey Dash, it’s okay. Luna’s just being protective of her sister. How would you feel if somepony started offering Scootaloo some kind of fake cure for her wing problems?”

“Scoota-who?” Luna asked.

Rainbow frowned at me, but it was one of those quizzical ones. “You mean that little orange filly that Applejack and Rarity’s little sisters are always hanging out with?” she asked. “Why would I care about that?”

Yeah, that rather terrifying.

I just hoped we were still at the point in the plot where Dash hadn’t spent enough time with her yet. A place that was getting a bit harder to figure out as time went on since I had seen an Equestrian calendar and noticed that Fall didn’t follow Winter like the first season said it did.

“Uh...because…” I said as I thought up the perfect thing to say that would keep Luna and Rainbow from suspecting that I had some kind of future knowledge that was in extreme danger of becoming totally useless the more time I spent in Equestria. “Bye!”

And then I teleported away.





After talking with Luna a bit thanks to my ditching of Dashie, we got to Rarity’s store to find Celestia in there waiting for us in the near-center of the main room, standing next to a little step stool. I took the place that had been set aside for Luna, which was next to another step stool.

“Greetings Sister,” Luna said.

Celestia nodded. “Hello, Luna.”

“Tia, is there something bothering you?” I blurted out quickly.

Celestia’s knees locked as her whole body went still. “I...you...wha-what?” she asked.

The door to the back room slammed open and Rarity trotted out with a dress that had a rear big enough to completely cover her body. “Here we are Celly! Doesn’t it look-oh! Princess Luna, you’re here,” the marshmellow unicorn said as Celestia took the dress up in her magic. “Let me just go get your gown, and we can get started. Be right back.”

As soon as Rarity disappeared, Celestia slipped her dress on and looked back to us. “What are you talking about, Nightmare?” she asked tensely.

Before I could say anything, the front door slammed open and Fluttershy rushed in. “Rarity, I-oh! P-Princess Celestia. P-Princess Luna, um...I need you to hide me!” she said after a moment of desperate consideration.

Celestia lifted her rear left leg to create an opening in her gown. “Down here, Fluttershy.”

The little yellow pegasus dived under Celestia to be completely hidden by her dress a moment before the front door slammed open once again to admit a trio of ponies I had seen around Ponyville a second before Rarity trotted out of the back room with Luna’s dress in her magic. “Excuse me-”

“Is Fluttershy in here?” the mare in the lead asked before she looked around wildly and slowed down when she noticed me and Celestia standing there.

“No she is not!” Rarity snapped as Luna took our dress and I put it on. “And as you would have been aware if you bothered to read the sign on the door, I am with two very important clients. So get out!”

With Rarity’s snappy voice making even me want to take a few steps back. I put my Tia situation on hold for a second and looked over to Rarity. “Uh...something wrong, Rares?”

The question made Rarity seize up for a second before she looked back at me and Luna. “Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t know. Well, it’s just, well...a few days ago, Photo Finish came to Ponyville to take some pictures, she said she was looking for a new star to shine over Equestria.”

I blinked as my memories of the show were tickled. Oh crap….

“And I needed a mare to model for me,” Rarity went on.

Oh crap crap crap, I continued to think to myself as Rarity began a very familiar story.

Celestia looked over to the unicorn. “I did offer to model for you, Rarity.”

“And I was so thankful for the offer, Celestia,” Rarity replied. “But I only had one dress big enough for you and, well…” she gestured to the gown Tia had on. “It’s not even finished yet.”

My eyes darted to the floor between Celestia’s legs. “Um...that’s uh…” Crap crap CRAP!

Rarity frowned. “So, then I had the brilliant idea of asking Fluttershy for help.”

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!

Now, one would probably wonder, just why the hell is this mare having a mental breakdown over the fact Rarity is pissed off at Fluttershy for modeling for her. After all, as soon as Rarity find out that Fluttershy doesn’t like modeling, everything will go back to being normal. Everyone and their grandmother that knows anything about ponies would see that coming.

But, here’s the thing. The big important, character defining moment of that incident wasn’t about Fluttershy and Rarity being upfront about each other. It wasn’t even Twilight’s stupid letter to Sunbutt about being honest with friends before pretty much forget that lesson a few episodes later. The big thing that happened while Fluttershy was a model involved Rarity.

There was this one time that Fluttershy tried to get herself fired as a model by acting completely insane with Twilight’s help. Everyone else watched Fluttershy act like the horse she was, plus several other barn animals, and she was about to be booed off the stage. Then Rarity stepped in and cheered for her, and the ponies that were watching, what with them being basically sheep, joined in. Rarity learned to get over her jealousy and support her friend, even when that friend’s fame outstripped her own.

As the little white unicorn was acting like she had something long, pointy and barbed stuck up her butt, I seriously doubted that had happened yet.

“Oh really?” I asked, feigning interest. “Gosh Rarity, I’m surprised that Fluttershy would have agreed to that, what with her being so shy and all. Um...have you talked to one of your friends about this?”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “I’m talking to you about it, right now.”

“I mean somepony like Twilight!” I replied a little too quickly.

After taking a step back at the outburst, Rarity blinked. “I haven’t seen Twilight since the week began, actually.”

Tensed. Say what?

Wasn’t Twilight supposed to be having a mild aneurysm because she knew both of the girls involved hated Fluttershy being a model, but had promised not to tell thanks to a threat made on the part of Pinkie Pie?

“She’s been locked up in her lab, working on something for Princess Celestia,” Rarity explained.

CRAAA-I stopped myself. This was too important for something like that. So… Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

I pounded my front two hooves on the ground in a panic as I looked around for a solution to this horrible situation that had gone horribly awry. No Twilight meant no confidant for Rarity to talk to. No Twilight meant no magic spell on Fluttershy to make her act like a donkey during her show. No Twilight meant NO FRIENDSHIP REPORT!

Which could lead to something like NO ALICORNHOOD!

And no alicornhood meant that Tirek would win!

And Tirek winning would mean that the entire world was DOOOOOOOOMED!

“You know, if there’s something bothering you, Rarity, you could talk to Fluttershy about-”

“OH SHUT UP TIA NOPONY ASKED YOU!”

When I got done with the Canterlot-level interruption, the white alicorn’s hair had been blown back along with her dress, revealing the cowering pegasus underneath. But hey, I was on a panic-induced role about the future destruction of Equestria, something like that wasn’t going to stop me from running my mouth some more!

“Who the hay are you to give advice to a pony about telling somepony anything truthful!” I demanded as my mouth ran about ten miles ahead of my thoughts. “You trot around all day with a fake smile on your face while you doing a job you despise. Telling everypony how nice it is to see them when when you’d rather be doing anything else but having to deal with the idiocy that fills the Equestrian bureaucracy! Seriously, when have you ever, and I mean ever been honest with anypony?”

“Oh, so you want me to be honest?” Celestia asked as she frowned back at me. “You want me to tell ponies that I can’t stand the truth about them. Well fine!” Tia took in a deep breath and pointed at me.

	“I HATE YOU NIGHTMARE MOON!”

As Luna’s magical mane was blown back from the force of the shout, Rarity looked over to Celestia, then did a double-take when she noticed the yellow pegasus cowering beneath the sun goddess.

Fluttershy, being polite, waved back at her in a timid fashion.

I stood there in absolute shock as Celestia did the same for several seconds before a little smile started to creep up on her face. “I…” she said before smiling a little more. “I actually said it!”

“I...it...you...what?” I finally managed to get out.

“I hate you!” she said in a happy voice, which just made the thing incredibly  disturbing. “I hate you. I have everything about you!”

The continued display of joy from Celestia had me standing there as she let out a giddy laugh. “I...I actually did it!”

“W-What?” I asked, unable to do much else.

“I hate you!” Celestia told me with a smile and cheerful tone. “Yes, you’ve had your memory removed and you’ve been cleaned by the elements, but I still barely stand to look at you! You walk around in my sister’s body claiming to be good, all the while acting like a violent maniac and holding her hostage! I spent hundreds and hundreds of years waiting for my sister to return, and then you stick around, ruining all of my plans and preparations! Did you know that I spent years learning how to make pancakes for my sister in the mornings,, but when I tried to cook them, the very thought of you eating them made me physically ill to the point I couldn’t even go in the kitchen?”

Luna spoke. “Sister.”

“Every moment I see you makes me feel as if there are needles being stabbed into my eyes,” Celestia told me. “And while I was able to get by in Canterlot because I had so much to do, now that I’m here in Ponville and have some time to actually think about things, my stomach hasn’t stopped turning flips over the fact that Twilight and her friends failed to destroy you like they were supposed to!”

Rarity’s mouth dropped at the big pony’s words. “P-Princess?” she stuttered.

Completely ignoring the other pony, Celestia just went on. “So, in response to your question earlier, yes! There is something bothering me!” Celestia said as she began to become distraught. “You turning my sister into a slave! Twilight for failing me after all the years I spent teaching her! AND EVERY OTHER BUCKING PONY IN THIS WHOLE BUCKING WORLD FOR THINKING THAT I’D EVER BE HAPPY ABOUT IT!”

The rest of us stood mute as Celestia panted heavily as if she had just run a marathon. Then, she took in a deep breath and smiled. “My, that feels good to finally say.”

“EXCUSE ME!” Luna yelled. “How dare you speak in such a way to Nighty!”

As Celestia tensed, I held up a wing and moved in around in front of Luna’s face to keep her from going off too much. When she let go of her mouth, I looked over to the nearest mirror so that Luna could see her face. “Well, she’s got a point, Luna.” A point that I had made several times before, I might add. “I’m not all that happy about this possession thing either.”

“Oh, well I am so sorry that I don’t want to be sympathetic to my loving sister that just said she wished that her little assassin and the rest of her death squad had murdered you!” Luna spat before looking back to Celestia and frowning. “And you have my deepest apologies, Sister. I’m sorry that my best friend isn’t dead! I’m sorry that every little thing hasn’t worked out exactly as you wanted, boo-bucking-hoo!”

Celestia frowned. “Luna-”

“Do you want to know what I’d be doing right now if Nightmare Moon wasn’t here?” Luna demanded. “Do you?”

The demanded made Celestia’s eye dart about as she tried to avoid her sister’s gaze. “Um...well, I’m not completely sure, but-”

“Rotting in the ground!” Luna yelled at Celestia. “I WOULD HAVE DONE AWAY WITH MY LIFE LONG AGO IF IT WAS UP TO ME!”

Celestia stepped back as if Luna had slapped her in the face, and I wasn’t in a much better state. “Wha-what?” she stuttered. “Luna that’s...um...well-”

“What?” Luna demanded. “Crazy? Go ahead, say it!”

The white pony shook her head. “No, that’s not-why would you even think something like that?”

“BECAUSE OF YOU!” Luna yelled back at her.

I winced as Celestia’s eyes went wide. “I-what? Me? I...I don’t understand.”

“Well what other choice would I have had with this world you pull me back into?” Luna demanded. “Every year on the anniversary of my banishment, you hold the biggest celebration in Equestria! Everypony offers praise to the mare that saved them from the evil Nightmare Moon. And late in the year, foals run around in masks to avoid being eaten by me! Because apparently, I would escape from my imprisonment and set out to devour babies!”

Celestia shook her head. “No! I never endorsed that holiday, and whenever I tried to stop it, ponies would just-”

“DON’T GIVE ME THAT!” Luna shouted before going off on a rant of her own. “You have absolute authority of Equestria! Your word is law. You had nearly every record of me completely expunged to remove years of history pertaining to me, but left stories involving the five minutes Nightmare Moon existed Equestria completely intact so that they could breed a million more! I came back to a world that had nothing but fear and contempt for me. Something a hundred times worse than the ridicule and disrespect that plagued me when I left! My only choices were to become a pariah and once again trot down the path that would lead to me turning on the ponies that were raised by you to fear me, or ensure that they would never have to deal with the threat of me again!”

The implications of what Luna had just told her sister had Celestia looking worked. “Luna, I...I don’t think that you understand j-just what you’re saying.”

Luna glared at Celestia. “Oh, so now I am a gibbering moron as well, Sister? Unable to ascertain the meaning behind my own words? Fine, I shall put it another way,” she said as her frown deepened as much as it would go. “I would have ended my life a week upon my return to Equestria, rather than live in the kingdom that you created.”

Celestia’s breathing became quicker as tears began to form in her eyes. “L-Luna, I...I…”

“Nighty, let us depart,” Luna told me. “Being in the room with the same pony that wishes for your death turns my stomach.”

I...didn’t move.

A sob came from Celestia as she slunk lower to the ground, her forelegs trembling.

“Nighty, I said it is time to leave,” Luna said.

“Yeah, yeah. I heard you the first time!” I exclaimed at my landlady. “And I am not just going to let you leave your sister in tears!” With that, I stormed over to Celestia and wrapped Luna’s arms around her. “It’s okay Tia. She doesn’t really mean it.”

Luna voiced her disagreement. “Yes I do!”

Celestia collapsed into me, and I saw Fluttershy scamper out from under me as the big alicorn let out a cry of despair. “I just want my sister back!”

As Celestia broke down into sobs and I held onto her tightly, Rarity looked over to Fluttershy. “So, um...Fluttershy, you’re um...how’s the modeling business going?”

Fluttershy looked back at me and the crying alicorn before putting on a nervous smile. “It’s uh...great! Just...g-great,” the little yellow pegasus that had just seen the most together pony completely lose it after telling her sister what she really thought about something.





Celestia’s breakdown lasted a good five minutes before she went silent and limp in Luna’s pony-arms. For a little bit of privacy, we took her into the house section of Rarity’s boutique and used some cushions from her couch to make a seat for the two of us as I continued to offer physical support to Luna’s sister.

Which was pretty damn messed up, considering Celestia hated my guts. Eventually, she must have gotten fed up with Nightmare Moon being the one to comfort her, because she pulled away and sat back against the wall. She didn’t talk thought, just sat there with a far off look in her eyes.

As for Luna herself, she kept silent throughout the whole mess, refusing to speak with Celestia. Even to assure the big pony that she would in fact NOT have chosen suicide like I told her sister several times.

“I should have just kept my mouth shut,” Celestia mumbled in an empty voice as she leaned back against the wall with a vacant expression. “My sister was happy, I was-”

“Miserable?” I asked before Celestia could lie to herself some more. She looked over to me, and I turned my head away. “Not that I can blame you. You spend years looking for a pony that could save Luna and then this happens.”

Celestia sighed. “It’s not your fault,” she said before lowering her head and letting out a snort. “I say that. But, in all honesty, I don’t really… Nightmare?”

I looked back to the princess. “Yeah?”

“You can have my body, if you want,” she said.

The offer made me blink. “Say what?”

Celestia gulped and blinked away the remains of some tears. “Please, tell me that you’ve been fooling us this whole time,” she begged. “That you can leave Luna whenever you want.”

“Tia-”

“Because if you are, and you’re just afraid what will happen to you if you leave, then you can have me!” Celestia offered. “I won’t even pester you to do any of my duties! Please, just take me! Come inside me, Nightmare Moon!”

Before I could say anything, which probably would have taken a while after hearing that, Luna opted to say something. “So, you still think of her as a monster.”

Celestia flinched. “L-Luna, I’m just-”

“Repeating the same offer I gave her the first week we had returned?” Luna asked coldly. “Tell me, how are you allowed to offer yourself as a host to Nighty, while I am not?”

The question put Celestia’s ears down. “Because...you’re my little sister. I’m supposed to take care of you.”

“So I am like a foal that needs you to take care of her now?” Luna demanded. “Shall you wrap me in swaddling and force me to suck from your teats?! You are-bruth-Mmmruprth!”

I struggled for a few seconds to keep Luna’s mouth covered with her hooves until she stopped trying to talk. When she finally let go of her mouth, I sighed and hung her head. “Sorry Tia,” I apologized to the other pony. “Which...probably amounts to nothing, all things considered.”

Celestia shook her head. “I hear the words, but my heart...I don’t…” She sighed. “I talk about forgiveness time and time again, but when it comes to actually doing it myself…”

“Well I hardly think I should be forgiven for possessing your sister when I’m still inside her,” I told her. If she had a problem with it afterwards, then I’d take issue. But until then, I sided with Celestia in her non-forgiveness of me.

The problem with this whole thing was Luna. She got all pissed off over defending someone that didn’t want to be defended and...okay, that might make her feel like the closest person, or pony, she knows was teaming up with Celestia to oppose her.

Which...yeah, that probably didn’t make her want to listen to anything either of us had to say.

They needed something else to talk about.

Something that would give Celestia a bit of hope and make Luna talk about the issue.

Even if the idea in and of itself was pretty cringeworthy to me.

I took in a deep breath to steady myself. “Luna...does have a plan to give me a body of my own.”

Celestia’s head shot up to look at us with wide eyes. “What?” she asked. “Luna, you mean to tell me you could have gotten rid of Nightmare Moon this whole time?!”

Luna took back her head for a moment to quickly spin it away from Tia. “Humph!” Then she crossed one pony-arm over her barrel and followed through with the other one.

I sighed and looked back to Celestia. “Yeah, it’s just...complicated,” I told her. “And uh...well...okay, look...if we actually are going to try it...I uh, well...I want to try and ask Shining Armor to help with it first.”

“Help with what, exactly?” Celestia.

Luna took back control of her mouth. “How would Shining Armor provide help create your new vessel, Nighty?”

A question which made me very uncomfortable. “Uh...you know, by uh...ahem! H-Helping you, make one...the way uh, a-all ponies...do? Traditionally?”

“WHAT?” both Luna and Celestia yelled at the same time.

I sputtered. “W-Well, it doesn’t have to be Shiny. But, I don’t think we want to just get some pony from off the street and...uh…” Okay, I didn’t want to actually say Flurry Heart, but Shining Armor must have had some pretty damn good genes if his wife could make an alicorn with him as the sperm donor. And I had gotten pretty used to being able to fly and use magic, damnit!

A second later, Celestia shook off her shock. “Y-You’re going to breed a new pony for the Nightmare to inhabit?”

“No!” Luna exclaimed angrily to Tia. Then she looked around to her shoulder. “That is-I don’t-HOW COULD YOU EVEN THINK MY PLAN INVOLVED ANYTHING LIKE THAT?”

I cowered from Luna’s outburst, which was pretty hard considering that I was in her body. “B-But you said, uh...it would be unpleasant and, uh…”

“Yes!” Luna yelled at me. “To everypony else involved. Not to mention that thanks to my sister’s actions, my already dismil reputation will be completely destroyed.”

And just like that, Celestia took on the air of a kicked puppy. “I...Luna, I…”

So I quickly threw myself on that grenade by way of distraction. “Hey, remember when I volunteered to sleep Luna with your niece’s coltfriend to get her pregnant? Let’s go back to talking about that!”





By the time we got done and Luna told me just how the hell she planned to detach me from her body thanks to an odd workaround that probably would have destroyed Equestria if not for the extenuating circumstances of, you know, there being a good Nightmare Moon trotting around, we were both beat.

And, since we were a trio of girls that just finished getting all super emotional, that meant it was time to consume a copious amount of sweets and ice cream. Luckily, we were at Rarity’s, which meant that there was a ton of both. And being the Element of Generosity, we knew that she wouldn’t mind us eating all her stuff.

After putting half a gallon of the cold goop down Luna’s throat, I asked a question that had been nagging me since Dog City. “Celestia, I gotta know. What exactly was going through your head when you decided to shove the dogs that had lived in Equestria for years and the ones that you just captured into the same area?”

“That it was the only option,” Celestia told me.

I raised an eyebrow, making her go on. “If I had the refugees settle in their own area, it would have only created jealousy among both communities. The new canines would have had to work at building their own city, which would have required the help of the ponies of course. Which the older dogs that had lived peacefully in Equestria for generations would have seen as me taking favorites with newcomers that in their eyes. Many would have said that the newcomers wouldn’t have deserved the help because the last thing they had done was attempt to invade Equestria. The only thing I could do was put them together in the hopes that the dogs that had lived in Equestria for so long would help them integrate.”

Luna snorted. “You always were too soft, Sister.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow as she tossed a chocolate into her mouth. After swallowing it, the big pony spoke. “I prefer to put faith in others.”

Which...was probably Celestia’s greatest failing. Not that she had hope for the future, but...she treated all the species as if they were the same. While that might have worked when every sentient creature on the planet was human or pony or whatever, the difference in brain chemistry, lifespan and a dozen other things that couldn’t be willed into nonexistence through understanding meant that you couldn’t just do the same thing to everyone and expect the same result.

It was like having a pet tiger. A person could put one in a cage and raise it from day one, thinking that with enough love and attention, the big predator would just turn into a giant pussycat. And for awhile, it might even work. But one day, the tiger would remember that it was a predator, and the thing feeding it was also food to be eaten.

“For without faith-”

I stopped Celestia before she could finish. “Yeah, yeah, your the optimism and Luna’s the pessimism, two halves of the same coin, I got it the first time,” I grumbled. Which also made me wonder if ponies had their own insufficiencies in the behavioral department.

We went back to eating for a few minutes.

Then came the elephant in the room…

“I didn’t...I never meant to make the Summer Sun Celebration, you know,” Celestia said before tossing one of the chocolots we had taken from Rarity’s fridge into her mouth. “Honestly, I hated that stupid celebration. I hated it more than any other thing this this bucking world. At least Nightmare Night let foals get candy! The Celebration-”

Luna snorted before having me shovel some ice cream into her mouth. “Do not offer such excuses. I know you, Sister. Tis nothing more than a daylong testimate to thy ego!” she exclaimed.

“Do you have any idea what it was like before that?” Celestia grumbled. “Nightmare knocked down most of the castle but managed to avoid actually killing anypony since she kept the servants quarters unharmed. Then came all the stories about me banishing my evil sister to the moon. Two years later, I awoke in Canterlot to find this huge celebration in the castle to commemorate my victory. The sight of a banner showing me blasting the pony I loved most in this world to the moon on the anniversary of her banishment...I broke down into tears and ran away before my building rage would have forced me to turn all of the ponies that set the thing up to ash!”

The story didn’t get any sympathy from Luna. “Yes, that’s so much worse than the mindscape torture that Nightmare inflicted upon me every day when Equestria awoke and denied her access to their dreams,” she said sarcastically. “By the way, you can feel pain in a dream. A fact I was made aware of daily.”

Luna’s words made me want to groan. It seemed that she didn’t want to go into the whole kiss and makeup stage yet.

Celestia blinked. “Wh-What?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Luna told her after swallowing another bite of ice cream. “You were telling me how hearing everypony praise you for a thousand years was so horrible. Please, continue.”

The tone Luna was using got a gulp from Celestia. “I thought you...had no memory of that time.”

“Now Sister, this is about your suffering from too many ponies patting you on the back,” Luna said. “Nevermind my-”

“I changed it for you, Luna!” Celestia exclaimed. “I hated the Summer Sun Celebration being about my defeat of you, so I changed it to be something more akin to what you would have liked. Why do you think I told ponies to stay up all night in celebration instead of just waking up a little early to praise the sun and then leave shortly afterwards? I wanted to make it about enjoying your night, not me.”

Luna blinked. “Oh, well...um...that’s…” She paused and sighed before shaking her head.

As her sister stalled, Celestia kept going. “Luna, I’ll admit. I should have canceled it, I should have put my hoof down. But I didn’t, I put it off and put it off  until the thing had grown so big that stamping it would would have caused such a headache that I just decided to move it to the night and maybe even then I just told myself that it was for you when I just making it so I wouldn’t have to deal with an annual reminder that I had banished you.”

“Well, um…”

Celestia didn’t stop. “After five minutes!” she cried. “After five stupid minutes, I just went and grabbed the Elements b-because, I-I don’t even know anymore! You had transformed and you were beating me and I was so afraid and-and stupid! I could have taken the Elements and run away! I could have had faith in you to fight your way out of the Nightmare, but no! I took the easy way out. I always take the easy way out!

“Like with Nightmare Night,” Celestia went on. “After you disappeared, I got so fed up with ponies dirtying your name with stories that made you look worse and worse that I used my magic to erase all mention of you from the historical records and decreed that your name never be spoken again. Within a generation, nopony even knew I ever had a sister. But, while stories of Luna had disappeared within a generation, records of Nightmare Moon still existed, even if they were incomplete because they omitted you. From those stories, the traditions grew and eventually became what they were.”

The mention of her most hated of nights got a snort from Luna. “Would you quiet your prattling already, Sister?” she grumbled. “I understand that you had it rough, erasing all mention of my accomplishments so that the only thing left was a holiday that ingrained a deep seeded fear of me from foalhood! At the rate you were going, I was lucky the first meal I had ingested at the palace wasn’t poisoned to save Equestria from the foal eating monster!”

“Luna, I am trying to own up to my mistakes here!” Celestia said.

“No! You are fishing for forgiveness for everything you feel guilty for over the past century!” Luna shouted back at Celestia. “You remove every bit of positive information about me and leave nothing but exaggerated legends of evil deeds! You make it impossible to ever be thought of as a good pony or anything near your authoritative equal by the majority of Equestria, and you say this now because you want me to give you some blanket forgiveness for it like you did for me when I returned. Well I don’t! So congratulations, Sister. You’re the bigger pony once again. You can forgive me for going mad in my loneliness, when I had nothing. But I can not forgive you for erasing my legacy and ensuring that nopony would remember me when you had everything.”

Celestia took in a deep breath to let out a long sigh before she looked down at herself. “Luna, that’s...I...there’s nothing I can do about that now. I should have been a better sister instead of going off to parties. I should have intervened back then instead of leaving you alone. I should have kept the historical records intact instead of telling myself that it would be better if nopony knew about you. There are a million things that I should have done differently. I can’t change anything that happened before today. All I can do is try to be a better sister to you from here on out,” she said in an empty voice. “I know it’s not enough, but...but it’s all...I can...d-do f-for you now.”

“And what of Nightmare Moon?” Luna asked in a cold tone.

Celestia's eyes went wide and she turned as stiff as stone. “Ah...Nightmare...Moon,” she said before looking up at me.

I pushed off Luna’s scowl and gave Tia a bright smile. Might as well make this as easy as I could for her. “Yes, Tia?”

“...” The white pony’s lips trembled. “I...I’m sssss...I’m sorryIsentabunchofponiestotryandkillyou,” she said in a rush before mumbling something I couldn’t quite make out.

“Even if you did deserve it.”

“Wow, that was…” I honestly had no words. Forced apologies aren’t worth the air spent to make them and only really exist to let the guy forcing them out feel in control...which, okay, Luna really needed to feel, but...yeah, I wasn’t all that taken in by it.

Especially seeing as how I didn’t really think Celestia needed to apologize for her actions regarding Nightmare Moon, so… Crap, I’d have to fake enough sincerity for both of us.

“Oh, that’s okay Celestia,” I told her in a happy tone. “We forgive you...right?”

Luna went back to giving a half-frown. “I do not remember to agreeing to anything of the sort,” she said evenly. “But as Celestia said, there is nothing we can do about the past. So let us move on into the future. Now, let us return to our fitting. Nightmare, to the main room.”

I did as instructed, with Celestia following close behind. We found our dresses where we left them, but Rarity was absent both downstairs and up.

After we finished were checking Rarity’s upstairs bathroom for uh...okay, look. We had to use it, alright? Ice cream goes through ponies like water. Anyway, when we were done, Celestia called out from downstairs. “Luna, could you come down here for a moment? There’s um...just come down here.”

Luna talked me down the stairs meant for a much smaller pony and we looked over to the white pony with a worried look on her face that was standing at the open door. “What is it, Celestia?” she asked.

“There’s um...well, look,” she said before pointing out the doorway with her hoof.

I trotted up to join her and blinked at the assembled mass of ponies.

All the ponies.

Well, at least all the ponies in Ponyville. Including the construction ponies that didn’t know the names of but were pretty sure were construction ponies based on their little yellow hats. So...yeah, three-hundred ponies, plus transients were standing outside Rarity’s boutique.

Or was it Rarity’s Boutique? I’d have to ask her about that when she wasn’t the quivering mess I saw at the edge of the mob of ponies.

“Uh...what’s going on everypony?” I asked nervously.

There was a tense silence that had me glancing over to an equality confused Celestia before somebody in the crowd spoke up. “Are we gonna have a civil war?”

“WHAT?” Celestia cried out as she took a step back and threw out her wings in surprise.

“I call Nightmare Moon’s side!” a pony called out.

“No, we’d be on Princess Luna’s side.” another pony said.

“Wouldn’t that be Queen Luna, to us?” a third pony asked.

“I kinda like the title Empress Nightmare Luna,” a fourth chimed in.

A blue blur flew over to the group that was talking. “Hey, stop talking treason,” Rainbow Dash said before she zoomed over to Celestia. “Don’t worry Princess Tia, I’ve got your back. Me and my friends can just just get the elements and zap Nightmare Luna back to-”

“Uh Dashie,” Pinkie chimed in. “I’m siding with Empress Nightmare Luna. She’s giving me snuggles.”

I glanced over to Tia and winced when I saw an angry frown on her face. “WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT’S PONY ARE YOU ALL GOING ON ABOUT?” she demanded of the crowd. All of the ponies stopped talking about allegiances, Luna’s title and everything else as Celestia looked around before settling her angry gaze on the white unicorn near the front of the group. “Rarity, be so kind as to give me a-” was as far as Celestia got before the unicorn’s eyes rolled up in the back of her head and she collapsed into a stiff mess.

The sight made me blink. “Wow...she actually fainted,” I said before looking over to the pink earth pony that had it more together than most of the others around us. “Pinkie, what’s going on?”

“Oh, well ya see. A lot of ponies heard you and Princess, or not-right-now-Princess Celestia shouting at each other really, really loudly through the walls of Rarity’s house before Rarity and Fluttershy came out going on and on about how the two of you were fighting and it was the end of the world and stuff,” she said. “And then everypony started getting worried and talking about war and end of the world, and a lot of other stuff.”

At which Rainbow Dash decided to open her big dumb mouth. “Which is totally crazy!” she exclaimed. “We’d just smack some sense into Pinkie and use the Elements to banish your sis-ack!”

Celestia glared at Rainbow Dash as she held the pegasus in her magic an inch from her muzzle. “You do not want to finish that sentence.”

“Y-Yes Ma’am!” Rainbow Dash squeaked out.

Once she dropped Dash onto the ground, Celestia cleared her throat and stepped forward. “My little ponies. I am afraid that this has been taken a bit too heavily. My little sister and I were simply having a spat that got a bit out of hoof,” she said before looking back to us. “Right, little sister?”

“...Luna?” she asked again when no response came from the moon mare.

“Pray tell, how many of you would declare yourselves for me?” she asked.

Celestia gave us a frown. “L-Luna! Now is not the time for joke-” As several ponies raised their hooves, the white mare looked back to the crowd in disbelief.

“Upon seeing my numerical superiority, I would recommend surrender, Celestia,” Luna told her evenly.

“...you’re still angry with me, aren’t you?” the big sister asked.





So, the Great Equestrian Civil War was brought to a swift end, with the lowering of the sun in deference to the moon. The defeated party was taken to a local gazebo, while documents were drawn up in order to formalize her unconditional surrender and read Celestia the terms.

Which also confused the hell out of me, but I wasn’t about to get into a spat with Luna when she was in a mood. Then, when she finished dictating the document to Ponyville’s scribe, we brought it out to present it to Celestia via the local government official.

“...condition eight, the big sister with the word big being interchangeable with fat, mare known as Celestia shall no longer refer to her kin as little, and that part is italicized, Your Highness,” Mayor Mare said before looking back to the treaty that Luna had written out.

Celestia gave Luna a hurt look. “Luna, I...that’s a term of endearment. I-”

“Like to constantly remind me that I am your lesser?” Luna asked her in a cold tone. “Because no matter your intentions, that is how it is received.”

After sitting still for several seconds, Celestia dropped her head. “Alright. If that’s what you want, Luna. I’ll never do it again.”

Mayor Mare gave Celestia nervous look. “Um...item nine...Nightmare Night is-”

I cleared Luna’s throat. “Ahem! We uh, decided to not do that one, remember?”

“Ah, y-yes. Right,” Mayor Mare said before she put the document down on the table and struck a line through the final line. “There we are, Your Highness. Now ah...if you could just...sign here, please?”

Celestia looked down at the paper for a moment before quickly turning her attention back to us in worry. “You were going to abolish Nightmare Night?”

“Not about you Luna, foals really enjoy it, be the bigger pony here,” I very quickly mumbled before my landlord took back her mouth. “Indeed. Although...after hearing some of Nighty’s arguments, I will concede that the original purpose of the holiday for which it was made has been supplanted by a new one that I can...live with.”

Celestia completed her humiliation by signing the agreement while Photo Finish documented the event. After passing it back to the mayor, she let out a sigh. “Now that we’ve gotten that finished,” the white pony said before we heard a distant wailing that was punctuated by a soft pop.

Right before there was a louder one right on the table that left a purple unicorn standing in the space between us. “Wait! Princess Celestia! Don’t give up!” Twilight cried.  “We can rally the troops in Canterlot! We can form a resistance movement. We can-urmp!”

“Twilight, I’m going to ask you a question and remove my hoof, and then, you are going to answer that question without talking about anything else, understand?” Celestia asked. When Twilight nodded, she withdrew her hoof. “Are you just now getting here?”

The purple pony sat down and nodded. “Yes, Princess. I got hungry and had to leave my lab to find something to eat. One of the Loyalists near the construction zone told me that we had lost the war to Nightmare Luna’s forces,” she said before giving us a hesitant look and turning her attention back to Celestia. “Are we supposed to call her Empress, now?”

“That wasn’t part of the treaty,” Luna informed her.

“What have you been doing all this time while the entire town was gathering outside Rarity’s shop?” Celestia asked.

Twilight got a little worried as the bigger pony looked at her. “I was...working on my project. T-The one that I have to show you by the end of the week.”

The answer made Celestia wince. “Yes well…” she cleared her throat and recovered. “Twilight, you’re here to study friendship. While I have no problem with you having other areas of study, there is something wrong when your friends are pounding on the laboratory door that you’ve put a sound dampener on to keep from being interrupted.”

“Uh, but isn’t she working on the project that you told her to because you wanted her out of-”

Celestia spun around to look at Rainbow. “Not now Dash!”

“Ahem!” she began again. “You’re here to study friendship, Twilight. So, don’t lock the door when you’re friends are pounding on it and screaming for your help.”

Twilight hung her head. “Yes, Princess.”

“Although, I suppose that if you had intervened, I wouldn’t have learned what I did,” she went on.

That got my attention. So I looked up from the sad purple pony and over to the big fat one. “You actually learned something today, Tia?”

“Indeed,” she said with a nod. “I learned that it is never good to bottle up one’s emotions, especially those of the unpleasant nature. Like I’ve been doing with you for...well, if we go from your first existence, one-thousand years. So…” Celestia took in a deep breath. “I don’t like you, Nightmare Moon. I’ve tried, I’ve done everything I can to move past what you were but...I can’t. I know that you are a different pony now, but every time I look at you...all I can see is the monster that took my sister from me and that’s my failing, not yours.”

I had no idea what to say to that. “Oh...I, um...that’s...oh…”

“I should have said something from the beginning instead of just smiling and acting like everything was normal,” she said. “If I had done that, maybe I could have figured out a way to deal with my emotions better. But, I didn’t, and now we have come to this.”

“...I forgive you...Sister,” Luna said in a tired tone a little bit later. “For your actions of this day and...all of those during my absence. If you are willing to go through all of this, I suppose I can let go of my anger as well.”

“You know Luna, your sis never said she stopped hating-”

“I hate it that you got discovered as a model while I was left behind, Fluttershy!” Rarity cried out.

“Well I hate being a model, Rarity!” Fluttershy replied happily. “I only did it because you kept encouraging me!”

“I hate pies, Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash said. “Like, all the pies.”

The pink pony let out a horrified gasp. “How could you say that?” she cried out. “You never even met my family!”

“...and on that note, I think I’m gonna head back to Canterlot,” I told her before grabbing Pikie in Luna’s magic as Rainbow Dash gave her one of the pegasus’s pattentened WTF? looks.

“Twilight,” Celestia spoke up as I put Pinkie on my back and looked around for aides.

“Yes, Princess Celestia?”

When I found them I waved them over and gave them the signal for Luna’s chariot to be readied.

“This whole ordeal has left me feeling rather drained,” she said. “Let’s go get a bite to eat. I need to talk to you about your attitude towards me this past decade.”

As Twilight started making excuses for how she might have slipped in her level of decorum over the years, I made my exit in the skies above the crowd, catching a few confessions here and there.

“Ah can’t stand how the majority of the words coming out of your mouth are Eyeep and Nope!” a little filly told her elder brother. “Give me a real sentence more than twice a week.”

“I don’t like it that you’re always quiet about your past, Bon-Bon! I want you to let me in!” a minty unicorn told Ponyville’s resident secret agent...that I should probably talk Luna into giving permission to talk about her past. Not to mention create some sort of background security detail for the girls.

“I hate that everypony in this country thinks you need a gray mane to run for public office!”

As we pulled away from the little town, Luna smiled to herself. “I must say, that went over rather well,” Luna said.

Pinkie gave us a sniffle. “D-Dashie hates Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeees!” she cried out before letting the waterfalls loose.

“...for the most part,” I added before picking the pink pony up and holding her close as we flew towards the sunset.