//------------------------------//
// Aristarchus 
// Story: Fear Princess 
// by MythrilMoth 
//------------------------------//

Princess Cadance roused from a light, fitful, restless sleep, eyes crusty and bleary. "What...time is it?" she groaned.

"Time has no meaning when the night is eternal," Nightmare Moon said dismissively, before cracking a huge yawn and shifting her hooves around to lay her head upon.

Cadance blinked, then shook her head. "Eternal ni—no!" she said. "The sun must rise every day!" She stood, a brief flood of adrenaline restoring her to wakefulness. "We had a deal!"

Nightmare Moon cracked a sleepy eye. "Yes, and?"

Cadance blew on her frizzy mane in irritation. "Ponies need the sun, Luna. I don't know if you ever noticed? But literally everything we eat needs sunlight to grow. No sunlight, no crops. No crops, no harvest. No harvest, no food. No food, no ponies, and that includes you."

Nightmare Moon blinked. "Ah. Yes. You make an excellent point." She frowned. "Funny how that little detail slipped my mind." She shook her head. "Very well. See to the sun."

"As you wish, Your Majesty," Cadance said through her teeth before heading off to Celestia's tower.

Once the sun had risen, Cadance set the kitchen staff about preparing a lavish breakfast spread and a copious amount of strong coffee. Once breakfast was laid out, Nightmare Moon, Cadance, and Kibitz settled in to eat, with only the same guards posted at the exits to the dining room.

Nightmare Moon's eyes drifted over the very long scroll Kibitz had presented her upon arriving for the meal. She glared at him, narrowing her eyes to slits. "This is a joke, right?"

"No, this is Princess Celestia's schedule," Kibitz said. "Well, a reduced draft. We wish to limit the number of ponies who enter your presence, after all. For now, at least."

Nightmare Moon frowned.

"Of course, I do not expect you to deal with any of this today!" Kibitz added hastily. "This is simply to help prepare you! To understand what it means to rule Equestria!"

Nightmare Moon pursed her lips, scrutinizing the list again. "These are all the activities my sister performs in a week?"

"No, Your Majesty," Kibitz said. "This is a single day's schedule."

Nightmare Moon's jaw dropped. "One day?! But...how can she possibly..." She shook her head. "But when does she bask in the adulation of her subjects? When does she reap the rewards of being ruler of all she surveys?"

"She...she doesn't," Kibitz said softly. "Princess Celestia works very hard, then she sleeps. The few moments she finds to relax, she usually indulges in a simple baking exercise, perhaps samples an extra slice of cake, and reads a newspaper or a novel. Or..." His mustache twitched. "Or she plans some elaborate prank to play on somepony. It is one of her more irritating quirks."

Nightmare Moon snorted. "Celestia always was a prankster." She shook her head. "This will not do at all, seneschal! I command you to find somepony else to undertake these menial tasks!"

"Nothing would make me happier," Kibitz said drolly. "Perhaps for the time being, the dischargement of Princess Celestia's duties could be left to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza? It would be quite taxing on the young mare, but she does have a similar, ah, deportment to Princess Celestia."

"Yes, yes, very well," Nightmare Moon said offhandedly, waving her hoof in a shooing motion. "Now fetch the artisans, I require suitable tributes to my grandeur."

Cadance facehoofed. "That's your whole plan, isn't it?" she asked. "Sit on your throne doing nothing, commanding everypony to worship you, while the rest of us deal with doing all the hard work?"

"It is a good plan!" Nightmare Moon insisted imperiously, tilting her neck back and arching her wings.

"It isn't what a real leader does," Cadance said. "It absolutely isn't what a good ruler does. If you really want ponies to respect and adore you, you have to do more than bark orders and demands. And I don't mean making threats and showing off your power. I mean real, hard work."

Nightmare Moon frowned. "If you're implying I'm lazy—"

"I'm not implying anything," Cadance said. "I'm telling you what Princess Celestia does, has done every day for a thousand years."

Nightmare Moon pulled a face. "If that list is anything to go by, her days are full of boring and tiresome meetings," she said. "I would rather lead fearless armies into glorious combat! Lay our enemies low and bring their treasures home as trophies! Fell great monstrous beasts—"

"Nobody does that stuff anymore!" Cadance cried in exasperation, her wings flaring. "There aren't any wars! We don't have any enemies! The closest thing Equestria has to an enemy right now is what's left of the Griffon Kingdom, and they're basically a bunch of lazy, grouchy grumps that don't even like each other!"

Nightmare Moon frowned in confusion. "Truly? No enemies? No great campaigns? What about marauding beasts?"

"Only if you count parasprites in Salt Lick City as marauding beasts, and Princess Celestia got rid of them with the help of a mariachi band," Cadance said. She sighed. "Equestria...just isn't dangerous, Luna," she said. "I mean, real, serious trouble? Just...it just doesn't happen. The biggest trouble you're likely to find around here is pegasi scheduling too much rain or two nobles trying to book all the VIP seats for an opera."

Nightmare Moon sat in contemplative silence for a long moment, rump planted on the floor, lips pursed and brow furrowed. "Really?" she asked in an almost-whine.

"Welllll...we did just lose our beloved ruler to a magical portal to another world and accidentally woke up a sleeping ancient evil," Cadance said wryly. "But something tells me you wouldn't be too interested in helping fix that."

Nightmare Moon narrowed her eyes in irritation. "I hate you, Candy."

"Cadance."

"I shall call you Candy. You look like candy. Sickeningly sweet candy. A veritable walking toothache."

Cadance smiled thinly and mocked a bow. "As you wish, Your Majesty."


* * * * *


Shining Armor watched the anxious faces of his family at breakfast and prayed he wasn't lathering through his coat.

"What's going on, Shiny?" Twilight Velvet asked. "Something's going on, right?"

"You were at the Palace an awfully long time last night," Night Light said. "I don't think you were just making extra time with your marefriend."

"The sky's been all weird lately and now the moon's gone all weird," Twilight Sparkle wheedled plaintively, rocking an orange back and forth in her little hooves. "I had bad dreams last night, even sleeping with Mommy and Daddy."

Shining Armor sighed and took a deep breath. "I...I can't tell you what's going on," he said. "It's not my place, and...and ponies outside the castle shouldn't know about it."

"Is it about Princess Celestia being sick?" Velvet asked fretfully, ears pinned back. "Is—is she—?"

"Nothing like that," Shining Armor said hastily, holding up a placating hoof. "It's..." Brow furrowed, he paused for a long moment. At last, he sighed and said, "Before...before all this weird stuff started, Princess Celestia had a falling-out with her personal student. You know, Sunset Shimmer? I think you both met her once."

"The name rings a bell," Velvet said.

"Well, it was a bad fight," Shining Armor said. "Princess Celestia banished Sunset Shimmer from the castle. She...didn't take it well." He shrugged, peeling an orange with his magic. "The whole thing just sort of disrupted things up at the Palace. That's all."

"Oh...that poor dear," Velvet said. "So the sickness, it was really a heartsickness? From...from kicking her student out?"

"Something like that," Shining Armor said.

"But what's that got to do with the Mare in the Moon disappearing?" Velvet wondered. "I mean, I can see the sky being a little off balance if Her Majesty was too upset to move the sun and moon, but something like that wouldn't just change the moon, would it?"

"Ah..." Shining Armor sweated heavily. "I...wish I knew what to tell you about that, but I really don't." He swallowed half an orange in one gulp, then stood up. "And now I gotta run, Cadance is waiting for me, love you bye!"

As he bolted for the door, Velvet and Night Light shared a significant look. Unnoticed, Twilight Sparkle trotted out of the room, a studious and serious expression on her little face.

"Mare in the Moon?" she asked herself. "Where have I heard that before...?"