For Want of a Horseshoe

by PingZing


Chapter 2: You Know That I'm Unhappy But Something In Me's Burning

"We've accounted for planetary drift?"

"Yup! To within one times ten to the negative eleven AU. Worst-case scenario, you’ll end up somewhere in the troposphere, but eh, you have wings."

"What if I end up inside the planet?"

"Come on, don't you remember when we did all that research into teleportation spells? Most of them have a built in repulsory coefficient that prevents that. This is basically a modified teleport. With all the power we're putting into it, even if you aim this perfectly, you’ll probably end up a few meters off the ground."

"Right. Of course! Right. Chronological components?"

"Star and Star finished reviewing it. It checks out, and we confirmed that it’ll definitely split and parallelize correctly last night. Hm…though actually, you are forgetting something."

"I am? What?!"

"Snacks!"

"Snacks? Snacks?! I'm not going to need snacks when I'm dimensional time-traveling!"

"Pfff, you say that now. I always keep a little stash of gems whenever I have to go on a long flight. Nothing better than a midflight pick-me-up!"

"Fine, I’ll take, um…here, a daisy sandwich. Okay. Okay, what else?"

"Oh, come on, Twilight! You've been fretting all day, you're just stalling now. Just do it already!"


For Want of a Horseshoe

You Know That I'm Unhappy But Something In Me's Burning

Luna.

She hadn’t heard that name in years. And even then, she'd only ever heard it from one pony, the only living being who still knew it. Before that, she hadn’t heard it in a millennium. There was a strange alicorn in her room, and she knew Nightmare’s true—Nightmare’s old name.

She was a threat.

Nightmare formed a sizzling blade of magic and pressed it against the intruder’s throat. She forced the intruder onto the floor with her telekinesis, and into a supine position. Nightmare stepped forward and leaned down until she was muzzle-to-muzzle with the intruder.

"You have my attention. You might not live to regret it. Consider your next words very. Carefully," Nightmare breathed.

And the intruder did just that. Her brow furrowed, and her eyes darted upward to stare at the ceiling as she narrowed them and began muttering to herself under her breath. That was not quite the reaction Nightmare had expected. Finally, the intruder closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. She locked gazes with Nightmare and began.

"One week ago, you met a young alicorn who claimed to come from an alternate timeline. One in which she and her friends defeated you with the Elements of Harmony. When you attempted to force her to reveal the secret of time travel to you, she escaped," the intruder began.

Nightmare growled and pressed the blade harder against the intruder’s neck. There was a quiet sizzling sound, and the acrid scent of burnt fur filled her nostrils. "You are trying my patience. I know all this. Get. To the point."

The intruder smiled sadly. "That young alicorn went back into the past, defeated the villain, saved the day, and restored the timeline. And she went on with her life, thinking she'd made everything right. She went on to have many adventures, make many friends, right many wrongs, and fill in really obscene amounts of paperwork. Then, a month ago, she discovered that those alternate presents that she’d experienced all those years ago had never disappeared. All those terrible things she'd seen still existed, all that suffering was still happening. So…she gathered her friends, did some research—okay, a lot of research—and came up with a plan. All of this was her responsibility, so she had to find a way to make it right.

"And now…here I am," she finished, and lowered her gaze.

Nightmare stared down at the intruder—at Twilight Sparkle—and found that her chest was heaving as though she’d just run a race. She extinguished her blade, and withdrew.

"Stand," she commanded.

Twilight Sparkle looked up at her and frowned. She rolled to her hooves and stood. Nightmare noted with satisfaction that her earlier estimation had been correct. This Twilight Sparkle was as tall as Nightmare’s own weaker form.

"Explain. You have clearly seen many years since your previous visit, while I have experienced scarcely a week," Nightmare said.

Twilight Sparkle’s expression immediately brightened "Oh! That’s actually very interesting! You see, the chrono-distortion effect of the original spell actually had a weakening effect on the local timespace’s weave, which is how we found out about it in the first place!" She began pacing back and forth, growing more animated. "It was pretty lucky actually, we were conducting some completely unrelated experiments, but started getting interference we couldn’t explain, but then we expanded our probing spells to find the source, and oh, what a surprise but we found an entirely separate universe somehow entangled with ours! And then we—" She froze and cut herself off with an undignified squeak, having finally spotted Nightmare’s growing glower. "Um, long story short, we couldn’t interact with your universe except around the original point of intersection. Which was when I came here the first time. Some time around my original appearance was the only time it was possible for me to come back!" She said, finishing all in a rush.

Nightmare blinked once at this, then turned away. She walked slowly to the window, which overlooked the rear of the castle, and granted an uninhibited view of her moon, and a wide swath of untamed Everfree.

There was a long, tense silence while Nightmare contemplated what she'd heard.

"Why come back at all?" She asked, at length. "Your world is restored. You had no reason to fear reprisal from me. If I am such a 'terrible thing', why not simply eradicate me? You’ve made it quite clear that you possess sufficient power," she spat darkly.

From behind Nightmare came the sound of hooves shuffling uncomfortably. "That’s…not an easy question to answer," Twilight Sparkle said.

"Try," Nightmare growled.

"Have you…" Twilight Sparkle said, then paused. "I’m going to give you several names. If you tell me what you know about them, I’ll be able to answer your question."

This mare was beginning to try her patience. Nightmare sighed and reminded herself that so far this had cost her nothing. "Very well, ask."

"Okay. Discord."

Nightmare rolled her eyes. "Spirit of Chaos. Imprisoned in stone. An overconfident fool."

From behind Nightmare came the sound of a quill scratching on paper. She looked back and saw Twilight Sparkle writing something onto a paper resting on Nightmare’s desk and mumbling something around the quill held in her mouth. Nightmare was taken aback for a moment; most magic users she’d met could barely scribble by mouth, much less take detailed notes.

Twilight Sparkle spat the quill back out. "Blegh. Need to clean that saddlebag," she muttered to herself. "Okay! Next: Chrysalis?"

"I have never heard the name before," Nightmare said, turning to face Twilight Sparkle completely, beginning to grow curious in spite of herself.

The purple alicorn’s eyes widened in surprise before she resumed her earlier note-taking, now with more vigor. "That’s interesting," she muttered around the quill. "Ooooh-kay," she said, after finishing writing once more. "King Sombra?"

This time, Nightmare was the one to show surprise. "Vanished over a thousand years ago, in a fit of childish pique. Took his ill-gotten kingdom with him."

More scribbling. "Tirek?"

"A power-mad idiot with no imagination. Imprisoned in Tartarus for crimes against the crown."

Scribbling. "Starlight Glimmer?"

"Was that not unicorn who twisted your timeline in the first place?"

"Yes," Twilight Sparkle said, "Do you know her in your universe?"

Nightmare frowned. "No." Perhaps that is an oversight, she thought to herself. She spent a moment considering, before she sighed. "Does this have a point, or shall I simply throw you in the dungeons to save time?"

Twilight Sparkle finished writing, and tucked her notes and quill away into a saddlebag leaning against the wall that Nightmare hadn’t noticed earlier. She stood straight and faced Nightmare, staring directly into her eyes, and flared her wings. "Every one of those names had, at this point in my own timeline, represented a serious existential threat to Equestria. Every one of them was defeated, either at the hooves of myself and my friends, or with our direct intervention. Here, in your timeline, every single one of them is still extant, still a sword hanging over your neck." She stepped closer, still staring Nightmare in the eye. "If Discord broke free tomorrow, do you think you could stop him? If Tirek escaped? If Sombra reappeared with the entire Crystal Empire at his beck and call?"

Nightmare jerked away from the approaching alicorn, a sneer on her face. "I would strike them down, like I struck down my sister! The unconquered sun, indeed," she spat.

Twilight Sparkle pressed forward. "Your sister, who loves you? Your sister, who faithfully tended to your moon for a millennium? Your sister, who spent every single day of a thousand years missing you?"

A surge of hot anger blazed through Nightmare. "Oh, indeed!" She roared, darting forward until she was muzzle-to-muzzle with the other alicorn, horn crackling. "My sister who exiled me for those thousand years! Who endured a millennium of effusive love and praise! How miserable for her!"

Twilight Sparkle narrowed her eyes. "Your sister, who refused to fight you," she whispered.

Nightmare screamed, and a concussive wave of unfocused magic blasted Twilight Sparkle back into the wall next to the door. Nightmare moved to stand over Twilight Sparkle, horn blazing, fury etched into every line of her face. "I defeated her because she was weak!" She shrieked.

Twilight Sparkle couldn’t meet Nightmare’s gaze. She looked away, and whispered, "She didn’t even attack you, did she? I know things probably played out differently here, but I asked Celestia once what she would have done if she hadn't been able to find anypony to bear the Elements. She told me—" Her voice hitched briefly, "She told me that that if you were still angry enough to banish her, then she thought that maybe she deserved it." Another deep breath, and her voice came steadier. "Your sister loves you, Luna. She just wants you to be happy."

Nightmare’s horn sputtered out, and the oppressive pressure of gathered magic faded. She stared at Twilight Sparkle—who still had her face averted—for a long time, wearing an inscrutable expression. At length, she said, "Do not call me that."

Twilight Sparkle frowned. "What?"

"My name is Nightmare Moon."

Nightmare turned away and approached the window once more. She stared out at the ever-midnight landscape. Attempted to regain control of her breathing, her rapidly-beating heart. Attempted to avoid dwelling on old memories, old scars.

A magical twinkling from behind her prompted her to whirl around. The suppression ring was still safely lodged on Twilight Sparkle’s horn, but purple motes of light were drifting away from it nevertheless. They glittered upward toward the ceiling, where they began to revolve in lazy circles around Twilight Sparkle’s position.

"Oh no," The purple alicorn said, sounding forlorn. "We’re out of time. My spell has a failsafe that pulls me back home after a time limit. I guess that was it. I’ll be coming back, but if you have any last questions, you should ask them now," she said, and stood up, then retrieved her saddlebag and slung it across her back.

Nightmare opened her mouth, paused, and visibly struggled. Finally, she managed, "Why? Why do this? You dodged the question earlier. Why not just force me from power and take over, and ‘fix’ everything?"

The purple motes had formed a vortex-like shape and were swirling more rapidly now. A magical breeze began to pluck at Twilight Sparkle’s coat, and she gave Nightmare a sad smile. "Because that’s not how I work. I’m the Princess of Friendship. I’d like to be your friend."

With that, Twilight Sparkle was lifted off her hooves by a gale-force wind that touched nothing else. The purple vortex above her was now churning violently, and the point of the vortex began to extend into the ceiling of the room in ways that hurt to look at too closely. Nightmare could hear the distant clopping of hooves running on stone, and the cries of her guards.

"I’ll see you soon," said Twilight Sparkle, and was whisked into the vortex, and was gone.

When the guards finally burst through what remained of the shattered doorframe, they found their queen holding a single purple feather, staring at it pensively.