//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10 
// Story: Realms Undreamed Of 
// by Ardashir 
//------------------------------//


Realms Undreamed Of


Chapter 10


 


“JOHN, DON’T! SHE’S A FRIEND!”
“Her?” I stepped maybe one or two steps back, keeping myself between Twilight and that devil-horse, the one that minded me more than I liked of Thorne from when we’d first met. She gave me the meanest look where she rose up over me, big as any real horse you’d nair care to see. I just made sure to be a-holding my silver-strung guitar out atween us to keep her back. I said, and reckoned on how stupid I must be a-sounding, “I thought you told me those Nightmare ponies were no friends to air soul.”
A wind blew from behind, and another little horse leaped over me; Twilight – with wings like Rainbow Dash? I must have gopped at the sight as she landed to stand wings spread between me and that big devil-horse in silver armor with the ebon coat and purple-lidded blue eyes and mane and tail that looked like the clouds scientist fellows tell us are out somewheres in space, where new stars get theirselves a-born. 
“Stand aside, Twilight Sparkle!” She snapped those words out. I saw how the teeth in her mouth clashed together as she said them. They looked sharp and gleaming like new-made knives, like they belonged in the head of some wolf and no horse. Her wings made to ruffle themselves up like some old rooster getting hisself ready to fight. “I have already faced some of thy enemies from this world, and if this one seeks to aid the Shonokin against us as well –”
“Now you hold on there, whatair your name is,” I responded her, not very polite. She maybe settled the least little bit as I said, “I’m noways a friend of those lowflung Shonokin. I came in here from outside, and I saw you a-standing over my friend Twilight and a-looking ready to eat her for all I knew.” I swept my fingers along the strings of my guitar. That Nightmare just looked a little more settled at their sound. “I came to defend a friend of mine. If I’ve made a mistake, then I ask your pardon, whoair you are.”
She looked from me to Twilight, cocking the one eyebrow like any human woman who wonders at what a man says.
“Twilight, is he indeed the human you spoke to me of? The one called John?”
“He is,” Twilight slumped like she relaxed. She turned to me, pointed her hoof at the Nightmare. “John, this is Princess Luna, Celestia’s sister. She’s the one who brought me into your dreams in the first place.”
“I remember on her now,” I told Twilight. I’d seen her Princess Celestia once, an angel-horse white as snow, bright as day as this one was dark as a moonless night. Still keeping a wary eye on the Nightmare where she stood aside that broken altar, I said, “But I thought you told me you and your friends took the evil out of her?”
“They did in truth do that,” The Nightmare, or Luna I reckon, said to me. “It was the first great heroic deed Princess Twilight did, to my relief.” I saw how Twilight’s cheeks flushed. Luna said, “I resumed this form against my will – ‘tis a rule of Dream – as I led her fellow Elements into this realm again, seeking to aid both her and thee, John. I did not know they had turned from using thy dreams as their weapons to using hers.” She looked down the way those Shonokin had run and snorted, her ears pinning back. “Those creatures thought they could deal with the part of me that remembers being the Nightmare. They offered me – her, flattery and veneration in exchange for gifts of power. I forced myself to regain control and drove them away.” She looked at herself and made a frown. “The rules of this Dream keep me in her form.”
“Might could be something those Shonokin did,” I responded her. “They’ve been a-hunting and hounding Twilight and myself through one nightmare of mine after the other.”
“True,” she said, sounding thoughtful. “Yet if I am one again myself in mind, I should be myself in form as well…” She looked at me and bowed her head. “At any rate, on behalf of Equestria and my own self, I thank thee for what thou has done to aid Twilight.”
“She aided me more than the once,” I answered her, nodding my head back all my politest. I patted Twilight on her withers, between her wings. “I reckon I’d be dead for certain more than the once if she hadn’t been with me here.”
Twilight blushed again. “Thanks, both of you, but I’m sorry I wasn’t able to control myself back in that house. When I saw the Letters of Cold Fire again…” She shuddered. I gave her another pat, and Luna set her head down on her long neck and nuzzled her like a mare with her little filly. “Anyway, after that dream fell apart, I found myself in with the Shonokin leader. He wanted to talk to me about what he said were the real rights and wrongs of all of this.”
“Wait, before you speak, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said. “Better this should be told to us all at once, thy friends and John and myself.” 
Twilight blinked. “Okay, but where are they?”
“And where-all is Reuben Manco at?” I wondered myself. I saw how Twilight and Luna looked on me, so I explained, “He’s an old friend of mine who was helping me with those nightmares afore I met Twilight again. He came along with me to help, but when I found myself here there was nair sight nor sound of him.”
Then we heard some mighty angry neighs. And soft at first and then stronger, the sound of the world's biggest wings beating and hooves a-pounding that stone floor. If Twilight was here, I reckon I could lay certain money who was doing that flying and galloping.
Right the next moment I saw myself to be right when a blue streak with a rainbow mane and tail flew into the room. Dash stopped when she saw us a-standing there. Right behind her there came in the rest of them, laughing Pinkie and elegant Rarity, Applejack who was the first friend I made in Equestria and shy little Fluttershy a-bringing up the rear. And aside them a fellow I didn't know, a man dressed like wise old Sequoyah of the Cherokee with thick black hair long in back and feathers hanging from his hair tie. He looked right familiar to me.
“Twi! John!” Dash smiled to be seeing us. “Boy, are we glad to see you guys! We came here with Princess Luna, an' she vanished, an' –” The smile ran away off her face when she looked past us. “NIGHTMARE MOON!”
She shot right for Luna like a bullet from a gun. Luna stepped back with those cat eyes going wide. Maybe she meant to be doing some of their pony magic, but before she could a purple streak flew up and hit Dash enough so they both went tumbling through the air.
“Twi, are you nuts?” Dash tried fighting herself free. Twilight just held on to her. “That's Nightmare Moon! If Luna went nuts again we gotta stop her!”
“That's just it, she didn't!” Twilight held her back. “Dash, listen!”
Dash didn't look to want to be listening right then. Neither did the others. Soon as they saw Luna there they charged right for her, Applejack and Rarity in the front, Fluttershy a-looking scared to death but following right behind. The Cherokee man stayed close by, one hand clutching a tomahawk and getting ready to be chanting something.
“Mister John! Get away from her, quickly! Nightmare Moon is dangerous!”
“Rarity Belle! Applejack!” Luna cried aside me, something like sparkling purple mist gathering along her horn. “Listen! The truth is other than it appears!”
I got between them and Luna, hollering for them to stop while they came at me like a freight train. Applejack added her voice to Rarity's. “John! Run for it!  She ain't like other ponies, she's mean as they come!”
I jumped when Pinkie Pie popped up from the ground afore me, right in front of Applejack and Rarity.
“NO SHE ISN’T!”
Rarity dug in her hooves and squealed to a stop, just in time for Applejack to bump into her from behind and send them both rolling head over teakettle. Pinkie ignored them and bounced past me and up to Luna where she stood, big and black and still scary to look on.
“Hi Princess Luna who looks just like Black Snooty!” Pinkie bounced up and down, maybe just the least bit higher than she did in Equestria. “I don't know why you look like Nightmare Moon when you're not her! Besides the show usually only does that once a season!”
The Cherokee man caught up to me and, “Brother John,” he said, friendly and polite. 
“Chief Manco,” I greeted him back. When he looked at me with surprise, I added, “Who else would you be? I see you met the ladies here.” I pointed to the ponies. Pinkie was still bouncing between her friends as they got up, and Luna where she settled herself. Twilight came back down from above with a shamed-looking Rainbow Dash beside her. Twilight looked ready to say something, but then her friends just all piled on her, hugging her and a-telling her how worried they'd been.
“Brother John,” Chief Manco said again and smiled on Pinkie Pie and the rest. “I almost did not recognize you. It seems this dream-realm is better than those Hollywood surgeons for turning the years back.”
“The same here, chief,” I said as I looked on him. He looked younger, with face unlined and hair black instead of silver and hanging long in back and short before the way the old Cherokee did. His clothes matched what I've seen in old pictures too, a fine jacket secured with a beaded belt, pants that looked to be made from deer hide, Holly Christopher's elephant-head amulet hanging on his chest and that fine tomahawk of his in his hand. I took his other hand in mine and shook it. “I've rarely been as powerful happy to see air man or woman as you and these ponies right now.”
“That I can believe,” he said. He slid the tomahawk back into his belt and nodded to the ponies. “Perhaps we should see what these ladies know about this, share our knowledge. Sit down and have a pow-wow, like they said in the old movies.”
Twilight was talking to her friends, explaining what-all happened since the last she'd seen them. She waved one hoof at Luna where she stood. 
“It IS Princess Luna, she just looks like Nightmare Moon in this dream! She scared me, too!” Twilight looked back at that big black mare. “Er, maybe you can change back?”
“I cannot,” she said with a shake of her head, that mane of hers billowing like the Milky Way caught in a breeze. “As long as I am in this dream, I must assume her form. Tis a rule of Dream.”
“When entering a dream, I enter along a ‘path of least resistance’; I must become a part of the dream to fully manifest as myself and interact with the dreamer. If the dream already includes me, that path leads to that dream-version of me, and I enter as that dream-version. Yet if they dream instead of Nightmare Moon…” She bowed her head with that long horn, “This causes problems. Like in the nightmares of colts and fillies after Nightmare Night, dreaming of the foal-gobbling monster of that festival.”
Twilight looked ready to ask questions, but afore she could her friends near about tackled her. They all started a-talking at once, and I stepped back to let them tell her how sorry they were and what call did she have to go a-worrying them like this?
“Well, John,” Chief Manco said to me, his voice deep. “I imagine I owe you an apology.” He looked at the ponies where they talked, and at Princess Luna where she stood right by us. His eyes went a little wide, but he didn’t act the fool the way I did when I first saw Rainbow Dash or Twilight. He nodded and said, more like to his own self than me, “I’ve seen some strange sights in my life, but few to equal this.”
“Nair mind any apologizing, Chief,” I told him. I took his hand in mine and pumped it, and I felt right down happy to be a-doing it. “I’m just powerful pleased to be seeing you again. I wondered me if I’d ever see you again.”
“I wondered myself,” he answered me. He chuckled at what he saw. I looked and saw Pinkie Pie and the others scooped Twilight up and tossed her like they do sometimes at play-parties. “They seem like children in some ways.”
“My, I mean, my sister’s folk and mine are innocent by the standards of many worlds,” Luna said right then. Her eyes looked to burn in what little light there was, and I saw Manco’s eyes light up a bit as she said, “But they are not foals. We have a wisdom all our own, hard-earned though it has been at times.”
“’Gentle as doves and yet crafty as serpents’,” Reuben said, giving me a nod. “I seem to recall that’s how your holy book puts it, John, and it seems good advice to follow. Ah, I beg your pardon, madam,” he nodded gravely at Luna. “I mean no disrespect by staring, or by my words. I do admit I was highly surprised to see that everything John said about this place was true. I thought he’d been pulling my leg.”
“Pulling your leg?” Luna just looked confused. She shook her head and that star-gas mane of hers rippled like water. “It is of no import. When our friends are done, I fear we must decide how to deal with the Shonokin.” She snorted and looked like any angry horse. “They have dealt me and Twilight, and thy friend John, injuries that I would demand satisfaction for.”
“I doubt you’ll get it for the asking,” I told her. “I’ve dealt with these Shonokin aforetimes, and I was happy to think I’d nair see them again.”
“Me too,” Chief Manco said. “They fought me and my people, first with poison and witchery and murder in the dark, a long time ago. These days they prefer to use dishonest law courts and bad men that take money from anyone. But sometimes,” and he looked on both me and Luna, and I remembered how he wasn’t just a wise old man and a scholar from Dartmouth and a good friend, but a medicine man of the Cherokee, “sometimes, with other ways I’ve had to counter. Such as here.”
Afore he could say more I heard four sets of hooves and one pair of wings working, and I found myself surrounded by those other friends of mine I told you all about aforetimes. I set myself down to hello them and found them a-standing up to hug me. I tried to say something but for two-three moments long I couldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise.
“John! It’s great ta see y’all again!” 
“Oh, Mister John, we missed you!” 
“This time I hope you can stay for the party…!” 
“Good Mister John, there’s been so much since we met last; and thank you for helping poor Twilight!” 
“Heh, great to see you still got that beat-up old guitar with you, maybe we can hear more of it this time.”
“Ladies, I’m rightly happy to be seeing all of you again,” I saw how Reuben Manco smiled like he wanted not to laugh. “But I think right now we got some worse things to be a-talking about.” They all settled themselves down. I nodded at Twilight. “You said you spoke with the Shonokin leader, and that you thought what he said ought to be heard here.”
“That’s right,” Twilight said, stepping forward right into the middle of us all. I squatted down to listen, and I saw Chief Manco seat hisself with his legs folded, the way Indians do in the movies. Luna sank down on her belly like any normal horse you’d care to see. The rest of Twilight’s friends just stood there, a-looking at her, listening right careful to air word she had to say. And none of them were what you’d call good or happy things to hear, but they needed to be heard.


# #  #


	 

Twilight wished she could go into more detail about what she’d seen, but right now they needed to hurry. She kept it short, telling them about the Shonokin’s claim to be the first people in John’s homeland; how it was stolen from them, first by Chief Manco’s people and then by John’s; and how to the Shonokin justice demanded that they reclaim all that was taken from them by killing or trampling down every invader of their home and anypony and everypony who helped any of those invaders.
“Like me,” Twilight shivered as she remembered what she’d already been through of late. “He warned me to either abandon John, or else I’d suffer the fate they planned for him. I told him no and was able to escape.”
“Unless they allowed thee to escape,” Luna said. Twilight gulped as the Night Mare added, “Thou didst tell them much of Equestria, Twilight Sparkle. Perhaps enough to find it through the realms of Dream.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Twilight looked down at her hooves. The cracked stones of the street looked almost like pony bones. She shivered at the implications that thought raised in her head. “I’m sorry, Princess Luna, John, everypony. I just thought that if I could convince them to make peace the fight would be over.”
“It was a good thought you had,” Chief Manco said. She looked to see him watching her intently, “You are a decent young woman, but they used that against you. Now all we can do is to contain the damage they intend to inflict, both on my friend John and on your folk.” He looked thoughtful then. “But he did say you and your folk could go free from this if you left John and me to our own devices. Have you considered just doing as they said?”
Twilight blinked in shock. She heard her friends gasp behind her.
“What? No!” Her friends’ refusals joined hers as Twilight walked up to Chief Manco to look him directly in the eyes. “John’s our friend, we can’t leave him without even trying to help! And besides, even if we did, the Shonokin would hurt his people and yours too if we didn’t stop them.” She looked around at Applejack and Fluttershy and all the rest and saw them nod approval. “Our friends and innocents would be hurt if we didn’t help, so we don’t have any choice.”
Chief Manco looked at her, his eyes a little wider now. Then he relaxed and laughed softly.
“Young lady,” he said patting her on the withers, “I don’t know if all your folk are like you, but I wish more white men were. More of any kind of men, to be honest.” He looked at John. “Brother, tell me. Do her words sound right to you?”
“All that Twilight ever said sounds like the right thing to me, Chief,” John nodded agreement. Twilight blushed a little. He added, “What she just said sounds like airy thing Brooke Altic told me the one time we talked,” John added. He lightly strummed his guitar the way some ponies would scratch their chins when they thought. “How the Shonokin were the first owners of all the Americas, and airy thing other folks had were stolen from them.” He reached over and patted Twilight lightly on the shoulder. “I’m right happy that you didn’t get hurt worse, and that we found you again.”
“Thanks, but there’s more,” Twilight finished with the last part of the conversation she and the Shonokin leader had. “…And he finished by saying that they were going to kill John and everypony else that ever fought them.” Twilight let her friends gasp. Fluttershy and then Pinkie went to John, giving him reassuring nuzzles. He looked more embarrassed than anything else. She got the idea that John’s friend Manco was amused, but he simply kept a calm stoicism. Twilight directed the rest of what she had to say to the ebony alicorn. “And, Princess Luna, this part is almost as bad. He said that they would try to come to Equestria, even if just to find allies.”
“Allies?” Pinkie interrupted. She scratched her head and then gasped, her eyes going wide with joy. “Oh, you mean like new friends! Well, gosh, why is that a problem? I like making new friends.” She spun in place and when she stopped she held a banner reading WELCOME TO EQUESTRIA in her hooves and had a small cake sitting before her. 
Behind her Chief Manco blinked. Pointing at the banner, he said, “Wait, how did she do that?”
“Chief,” John said, sounding amused himself now, “It’s no ways useful to ask how Pinkie Pie does air thing she does.” He clapped his friend on the shoulder. He turned back to Pinkie Pie. “But I don’t think the Shonokin would like the kind of parties that either you or I do, Pinkie.”
“They wouldn’t?” Pinkie looked sad, for a moment. Then she brightened again. “Okay, then I’ll just have to do another ‘We Beat The Bad Guys’ party when it’s over.”
Twilight’s smile joined those of John, Luna, and Chief Manco as her other friends whickered laughter behind her. Pinkie looked delighted. 
“I doubt myself that they seek friendship,” Luna shook her head. “But thee, Twilight, said they sought ‘allies’.” Her gaze was cold and stern as Luna turned it on Twilight
Twilight lightly scraped one forehoof against the stones. 
“I…told them about Tartarus,” she looked away, unwilling to see the disappointment she felt sure to see in Luna’s eyes, and maybe those of the others as well. “The Shonokin leader said something about being able to conjure dead and evil spirits – like Thorn. And,” she looked at Luna, and as she spoke, she saw her eyes going wide with shock. “And, to prove it, he showed me a book from the human world, or the one that existed in his memories and, it showed a picture of you as Nightmare Moon. Princess, didn’t you once say that you vaguely remembered that as Nightmare Moon you were pulled into another world? Could it have been John’s?”
Luna looked all around at the ponies and two humans with her. She seemed to be wrestling with some decision, and finally nodded.
“’Tis true as I said, Twilight Sparkle. Once, long centuries before I was truly freed from my curse, I was called into a world of humans.”
“Like Twi an’ that mirror gate she’s got?” Applejack asked. 
“Nay,” Luna shook her head. “That was done by magic of Equestria, and subject to the laws of such magics. What I speak of was a conjuring from their realm,” she inclined her head slightly, pointing her horn at John and Chief Manco. “As I told thee before, Twilight Sparkle, but not these others, I was called by the human named Dee and his ally Kelley.” Her horn glowed and the mists from her mane swirled together to show them a pair of humans. One was tall and lean, with a long white beard that put her in mind of Starswirl, robed and trying to look controlling. Beside him stood another, stouter and younger with a shorter dark beard, dressed in clothes with puffs and lace and a hooded cap that completely covered his ears. The look in his face reminded her of those two swindlers Flim and Flam. They stood within one circle, and in another larger one Nightmare Moon faced them, angry and rearing inside the dome of a containment ward. She tossed her head and glared. Twilight wondered uneasily if she somehow saw her present company and it angered her.
“John Dee and Edward Kelley,” Chief Manco said, a tone of awe in his voice. They all looked at him as he rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. “Probably when they were both in exile at the court of Rudolph of Bohemia, experimenting with conjuring angels. You remember, John, I told you about this back in our world. The legend was that he summoned a demon or angel in the shape of a winged unicorn, black as night.” He laughed and bowed his head politely to Luna. “Not that I ever expected to meet the lady in question.”
“I remember it, Chief,” John answered. “I also mind me that you said she got chased away off back into her own place by that Puritan fellow, Abel or the like?”
“Yes,” Luna said. The illusion changed. Now the Nightmare stood with those two humans behind her. Before her several other men sprawled bonelessly on the ground. Above them and facing her stood a tall grim man, a bloodied rapier in one hand and in the other a wooden staff tipped with a cat’s head that reminded Twilight of some of the things she’d seen in Zecora’s hut. 
In the vision, the Nightmare snorted and whinnied, charging the grim man. He dashed first to the side, not quite swift enough to avoid Nightmare Moon’s horn as it gashed him. A wince of pain flashed over his face, but his eyes only hardened. Twilight heard her friends echo her gasps as she saw the Nightmare attack him again, sending the staff flying from his hands with her hooves, rearing and plunging to grind him into the wooden floor beneath him. He thrust upwards with the blade in his hand, and Twilight cringed to see it drive into Nightmare Moon’s chest as she plunged down.
The Nightmare retreated in the vision, tossing her head, her cries of agony mercifully unheard. The grim man turned from her and ran to the staff. The older man in the robes held back, but the younger and heftier one ran to stop the grim man. His reward was a punch in the mouth that sent him crashing to the floor. 
Behind them both, Nightmare Moon’s horn glowed and she slowly and painfully withdrew the sword from her chest. It clattered to the floor. She wheeled, her eyes blazing, and took to the air. Twilight heard Fluttershy’s gulp, and she set her wing over her to comfort. 
“She shoulda stayed on the ground,” she heard Dash mutter. “Too cramped in there to fly right. No room to maneuver…” 
“Dash, shush,” Rarity said. Twilight heard the blue Pegasus mutter an apology as the fight went on, with Nightmare Moon diving at the human as he scrambled for the staff.
Nightmare Moon charged the grim man as he rose back up, holding the staff reversed like a spear. Twilight saw now how the bottom end of it came to a point, capped in metal. She came on, and he dropped to one knee and braced the staff against the floor. The Nightmare pulled up short, not to be taken by the same trick twice. The man rose and grabbed at her near foreleg. The startled Nightmare rose anew as he clung like grim death, trying to bring the staff to bear. Finally he brought the head around and smashed it against her wing. Nightmare Moon shrieked in the vision and fell, and as she did, both human and Nightmare rolled across the floor. The grim man, battered and torn, raised the staff and brought it down like a spear thrust. And the vision ended.
“Hey, what happened next? Er, I mean,” Dash tried and failed to look innocent as everypony glared. She looked at Princess Luna. “What happened with that tall guy, and how did you live through it?”
“And why didn’t you use more magic?” Twilight asked, wondering now. “Does that world have less than Equestria’s, like the one through Star Swirl’s Mirror?”
“To answer thee first, Rainbow Dash, I survived but barely,” Luna shook herself, as at the memory of an old pain. “I know not what became of Dee and Kelley, or of the human Kane. I hope Dee and Kane did well; the former was but a foolish if well-meaning old man, and the latter did what he did to save others from my madness. As for Kelley,” her eyes darkened, “few ends would have been bad enough for him.”
“I can answer you there, your majesty,” Chief Manco said. “No one knows about Kane, but Dee finally died back home with his family and Kelley was killed after he tricked the wrong person.”
“Those words are good,” Luna returned to the previous subject. “As for magic, their world utterly lacks the flow of natural magical energy which permeates all Equestria. I retained only what intrinsic power I bore within myself, from my nature as an Alicorn Major. With no surrounding background magic to tap, my strength weakened to that of an Alicorn Minor at best.
“Had I possessed my full power as I would in Equestria, I would have used it to bring about the Endless Night there as I wished to do in Equestria, and slain any who did not worship me.” She frowned. “It did not please me, and I fear Dee and Kelley were not the least to suffer my anger over it.” She pointed back at the illusion. Twilight felt surprise to see that the ‘other’ Nightmare Moon still stood there as though watching them. The purple Alicorn Minor told herself that that vision did not have a look of sly craftiness in her eyes. 
“I regret not my defeat there any more than I do the one I took upon my return to Equestria. Both were for the best. I would have done great evil were I not stopped, so consumed was I by rage and envy towards my sister’s Day. I thought only of subjugating that world and raising an army to take Equestria back from my sister.” Luna stopped talking; Twilight wondered at the sudden wary look in her eyes, like she’d been about to say too much.
“It’s good to mind your mistakes,” John said, “so long as you don’t think they’re airy thing you ever did.” Twilight wondered if Luna flinched at John’s words. “But if I may ask, Chief, ladies, how do we get out of here to see about stopping the Shonokin?”
“We must follow their trail.” Luna rose from where she lay and walked out to stand before humans and ponies alike. “But before we can do that, this dream must end. And for that, I need the help of thee and thy friends, Twilight Sparkle.” She nodded at Twilight and the other Element Bearers.
“O-kay,” Twilight looked at her friends. The uncertain looks on their faces mirrored hers. “But how?”
The ebon Alicorn Major blinked in surprise. :”How else? As it ended before, in reality.” She walked several lengths out away before she turned to face them. She suddenly flared her wings out to either side, her eyes glowing. Twilight heard Fluttershy’s startled eep. Behind her, she caught John reassuring Chief Manco. “Thou must cleanse me with the Elements.”
“Sheesh, we already did that,” Dash hovered over Twilight. The blue Pegasus rolled her eyes. “An’ you’re not Nightmare Moon anymore! Can’t we just leave?”
Nightmare Moon, Luna, snorted and pinned her ears back. She almost looked like her old evil self for a moment.
“Do you not think I would have done that if ‘twere possible, Rainbow Dash?” She stomped one hoof, and stone cracked under it. Twilight felt wonder that even in a dream such small bits of reality were felt. Luna calmed herself and said, “This dream was done as a retelling, formed from Twilight’s memories of that night and used by the Shonokin. It cannot end until events go the way they normally do in her dream.” Twilight flinched and smiled nervously as everypony glanced at her. “Strip me of the Nightmare as ye did then and this realm shall fade. And we can track down the Shonokin before they do more wickedness to either John’s world or ours.”
Twilight sighed and stepped out in front of Nightmare Moon. Her friends gathered to either side, as they had that long-ago night. She looked behind her to see John and Chief Manco stepping back to stay clear while still watching intently.
Twilight blinked. Was it just the dark and her tiredness, or had she seen something moving in the shadows by the far wall of the old palace? Something that – she shuddered – slithered like a snake along the wall?
“Twi, you okay, darling?”
“Okay,” Twilight said. She closed her eyes and concentrated to remember.  Now what had she said? 
She looked directly at the expectant Luna. That thing she’d seen? Probably nothing.
“You think you can destroy the Elements of Harmony just like that? Well, you’re wrong, because the spirits of the Elements of Harmony are right here!”


#   # #


	 

“Princess Celestia!” Spike’s voice called from within the dome of the containment wards; the little dragon had entered with the last medical team, when Twilight had last convulsed with phantom puncture wounds. Since then, he’d remained inside, dividing his time between Twilight and Rarity, holding them, rearranging their cushions, stroking their manes, wiping the trickle of blood that still dripped from the former’s mouth. “What’s happening to them?”
Celestia looked in through the faintly-shining dome; the six Element Bearers twitched in unison, then Applejack’s mane and tail began to change, fluffing out, rainbow stripes like Dash’s overlaying its natural colors. The rainbow effect spread to the palomino’s hooves, then began to creep up her legs, shimmering over her coat.
Then Fluttershy followed suit.
Then Pinkie Pie.
Then Rarity.
Then Rainbow Dash, except her already-rainbow mane and tail only fluffed.
Is this good or bad? Facing down the enemy who did this? Or going down themselves?
“The Elements of Harmony, young Spike.” Celestia kept the wariness out of her voice. “They’re being awakened.”


# #  #


	 

I listened right careful while Twilight and her friends did what they’d all said that time afore that they’d told me of. She stood strong and proud, they all did, as they looked on Nightmare Moon. And I reckon she just looked like she wanted this over and done with so we could go and deal with the Shonokin who’d trapped us all like this. She was tapping her one forehoof against the stones all impatient-like, air way.
“Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of Honesty!”
I saw how my old friend Applejack seemed to grow a thicker mane and tail and turn even brighter colors as she started to a rise right up off the ground, like what some science folks call levitation or maybe telekinesis.
“I have to admit,” Chief Manco whispered to me, “this looks highly impressive. I know one or two scholars who I wish were here right now to maybe shed some more light on what we just heard.”
“I’m right proud you’re here, Chief,” I whispered him right back. I don’t know why I didn’t speak right out. It didn’t feel right then, some ways. It would have felt kindly like having a palaver during the Sunday sermon. Maybe just impolite, maybe worse than impolite. “I figured you for the one person I know who could make sense of this to me.” I looked around as I said it, seeing how sweet little Fluttershy and bouncy laughing Pinkie Pie followed Applejack into the air, all turning rainbow colors like she did. And I frowned.
Chief Manco caught that look on my face right off. Like the wise old hunter and woodsman he was, he didn’t say nair word. He just let his gaze follow where mine was a-pointing. I saw how his eyes went hard.
“Do you see that there, Chief?” I asked him as quiet as I ever asked air thing.
“I believe I do,” Chief Manco said. He nodded. “It looks rather familiar, doesn’t it?”
“Rarity,” I heard Twilight call out, and from the corner of my eye I saw Rarity go up like the others, “who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift, represents the spirit of generosity!”
And as she did, that thing Chief Manco and I saw started to move itself. It looked like a shadow, all long and pulled out of shape like the image in some funhouse mirror at the state fair. But not rightly like them either, as I saw how it slunk forward like it didn’t relish being seen, a-going from one dark spot to the next. Those reflections are just you, after all, stretched and squashed and made funny-looking, but just reflections. This was like one of those reflections that became its own self, I reckon, one just as twisted and turning and crooked inside as out now. 
And it looked to be creeping closer air second to where Nightmare Moon stood waiting to be saved by Twilight and her friends.
“Rainbow Dash, who refused to abandon her friends for her heart’s desire, represents the spirit of loyalty!” They all rose into the air now, and all of them a-looking at Nightmare Moon and nair other. And she just looked on them, shifting herself from the one hoof to the other like any impatient horse. And I saw how that long shadowy slithery thing crept nearer as Twilight said, “The spirits of these five ponies got us through every challenge you threw at us!”
“John.” Chief Manco took me sudden hard by the arm. He pointed at Nightmare Moon. The shadow went closer. “I strongly suspect we need to be stopping what’s going on here.”
“I reckon I think so too, chief,” I said, and I slung my guitar from my back and set my hand on its silver strings. I hurried myself right forward, Chief Manco close behind, as we both heard Twilight finish.
“You see, Nightmare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the spark, that resides in the heart of all, it creates the Sixth Element.” I caught how Luna’s look went from eager to confused as we hurried to put ourselves betwixt her and that shadow-snake-whatair that raced for her like some hoop snake a-ready to strike.
“John! Chieftain Manco! What madness do you assay –” Then she caught sight of that thing, whatair it was. Her eyes went wide and she whinnied panic like a horse about to go over a cliffside. “TANTIBUS!”
I doubt me they even heard her as Twilight called out the last of those words.
“The Element of Magic!”
And that long shadow slithered over us both and struck right at Luna just as that warm rainbow of light I recollected arched over and swept right down on her.
I heard Chief Manco start in on one of his medicine songs, the ones he knows as a wise man of the Cherokee. I started a-playing and a-singing a strong and good old song that helped me many the time afore.
I just hoped it’d work now as well.


#   #  #


Inside the containment ward, Luna jerked upright and SCREAMED, eyes wide and unseeing. “TANTIBUS!”
“AAAAAAA!” Spike shot half a length in the air without moving a single muscle; a belch of dragonfire splashed against the dome of the containment ward.
Golden sunlight danced on Celestia’s horn; the ward dispelled. 
“Spike! Get out of there – NOW!” 
The sunlight reached out, grabbing the little dragon before he could hit the floor, flinging him outside the containment circle as the Sun Princess rushed to her sister.
“LUNA!” The Moon Princess twisted in convulsions, shrinking before her eyes, her Prussian Blue coat losing its luster, her main and tail its nebulous nature. Around her, the six Element bearers slept, the rainbow effect of the Elements rippling along their coats.
Her horn lit up the room as Celestia cast another containment circle, probed with her magic, felt something she’d felt only once, two years ago – other, darker, alien “magick” like but not like that of Thorn, that Discord-charged warlock from John’s world. Feeding on Luna’s magic, leeching away her Alicorn power to who knew where. Like Tirek…
And braided with it, another, more familiar magic she’d last felt four years ago on that fateful Summer Sun Celebration – her sister’s memories of rage and jealousy. Nightmare Moon…
Wings flaring, Celestia thrust her own Alicorn magic into stopping the leech, blocking it. The dark magic split, flowing around her like she wasn’t there. She looked back, to where Spike squirmed in the auras of two Spellguard unicorns.
“Mages – to me! A Dark working steals my sister’s power, and it doesn’t need any more!” And is whatever is doing this trying to backtrack and enter Equestria?
The Spellguards dropped Spike, handing him off to Raven, and poured their own power into their Princess’s link. It wasn’t enough.
Luna began to shrivel beneath her, royal barding hanging loose on her shrinking body, the shadows of Night which had cloaked her since she regained her power dissipating.
Celestia remembered Twilight’s after-action report analyzing Thorn’s “magick” and how to counter it. The white Alicorn Major’s ears pinned, her cutie mark blazed, her mane and tail turned to sunfire as she brought that knowledge to bear, becoming her pupil’s pupil.  The smell of ozone filled the room; the power that commanded Equestria’s sun to rise and set focused on stopping that magical leech draining away not just Luna’s magic, but her life. 
The flow of magic slowed but didn’t stop.
“LUNAAAAA!”
Then through the link with her sister, she heard a song.
 
“Three Holy Kings, Four Holy Saints,
At Heaven’s high gate that stand,
Speak out and bid all evil wait,
And stir no foot or hand…”

Celestia felt other magic braiding into hers, a silver-strung guitar she recognized as John’s from the one time they’d met, braided with a rhythmic chant that sounded like but not like Buffalo. She recognized the feel of protection wards, and the flow of Alicorn magic from her sister slowed to a trickle.
Over two years ago, Twilight had written how she and John had jointly set a ward that night at Zecora’s hut, weaving her Equestrian magic into his alien warding. Now Celestia did the same. She braided her magic into the new wards’ alien structure, reinforcing them, singing the song of power within them, and the outflowing stopped. Luna dropped like a puppet with cut strings and lay still, flanks heaving and coat frothed with sweat.


# #  #


Maybe it did the least something, or Chief Manco’s words did, or maybe it was the neither of us. But that rainbow wrapped her up like in a whirlwind and tore all that wicked-bad magic she’d used as Nightmare Moon away from her. I saw what looked like a little filly staring at me out of it with wide frightened eyes. 
But that wasn’t what I paid my best attention to right then.
I saw how that magic, twisting and swirling in on itself, streaked purple and black and blue like some bad witch’s cauldron full of poison, raced to that shadowy thing like it was a lost child a-running home.
It gathered around that shadow, and a laugh came from it. Not a nice laugh either, but the kind you figure those two children in the story about the gingerbread house might could have heard.
I gopped, Chief Manco yelled. The poor little blue filly dropped, looking pure down tired to death. I heard how Twilight and her friends yelled as a hole opened itself up. The Shonokin leader stood on the other side of it.
“Come to us!” He called to that nasty cloud. “Come and accept the offer we made to you, O Terrible One!”
And afore I or Twilight or air other soul there could do a single blessed thing, it ran through that hole like some sort of nasty stream of water and was gone.


# #  #


Palace medical staff rushed in to examine the Princesses.
“I am well enough,” the Sun Princess whinnied, wishing her voice were stronger. “I have lost far less than my sister or these Mages.” She spread one white wing to indicate the Spellguards who swayed on their hooves, heads hanging low. “Aid them first while I see to Luna.”
Another two medics started checking the Element Bearers, who’d stopped rippling rainbows. Spike accompanied them, wringing his claws and rapid-firing questions.
Celestia lay down beside her sister, extended a wing over her and pulled her close. Luna still twitched, but far more gently, her form returned to what it had been four years ago when The Mare in the Moon had returned and been defeated, drained and healed by the Elements. Small as a mortal pony, her coat a paler blue, her mane and tail sky-blue natural hair instead of ethereal night sky, hanging still like the other six sleepers’ instead of billowing in an unseen breeze.
“Luna…” The Sun Princess nuzzled her younger sister, once more visibly her little sister. Just what in that other realm could have drained her so, cost her sister so much magic that it began feeding on her life force? Enough to almost kill an Immortal. Not even Tirek drained her this badly.
“Luna, Twilight, all of you,” she whickered, “be safe wherever you are.”