//------------------------------//
// Verse 20 
// Story: The Nightmare Knights Become A Band 
// by SwordTune 
//------------------------------//

The Nightmare Knights rode into the Crystal Empire on the wheels of a long carriage bus. Eight draft ponies hauled them down a road that ran parallel to the rail lines. The trip would have taken hours had they taken the full trip from Vanhoover, but Luna cut it short by teleporting them half an hour from the outskirts of the city.
“This thing has a fridge?” Lightning Dust popped open a compartment in the floor of the carriage.
“This isn’t a vacation,” Luna lifted the curtain on the carriage window. Outside, signs were posted notifying that the rails ahead were still closed. Each sign looked completely different from the other in design, size, even shape.
“There are protests happening here,” Luna said. “I may have retired, but I have to accept that my past carries a reputation, and it comes with responsibility whether I like it or not.”
“Are you sure?” Starlight asked. “You’ve done a lot to make a life for yourself in retirement.”
Luna shook her head. “This won’t be permanent.”
“Oh, take your time,” Poppin said, penning the last of her letters to potential concert hosts. “Setting up a tour’s not going to happen overnight, so the band should be free until I can get some responses.”
“Plus, it’d be nice to get back to work, right Fizzy?” Glitter Drops, as their number one fan, rode with them, sitting next to Tempest.
“Never thought I’d miss being so cold that I can’t feel my ears,” Tempest replied in agreement.
But Luna’s attention was focused forward at the crowd they were passing by. A row of dragons raised signs and stomped at yaks and ponies, the two sides being separated by a magical barrier. Luna recognized the spell immediately and scanned her eyes across the royal guards. She couldn’t pick him out, but she was certain Shining Armour was out there keeping the peace. Was it taking a toll on Candence, Luna wondered.
“Drivers!” She stuck her head out the window and called to the stallions pulling the carriage. “This will be fine!”
“What?” Svengallop perked up. “We’re at the edge of the city, you don’t expect us to walk the whole--woah.”
Their carriage screeched to a halt just past the barrier, on the pony side of the protests. Every single one of the Nightmare Knights stared out at what they saw. Even talkative Svengallop had no remarks.
Ponies argue.
It was just a fact of life that not everyone could get along.
Lightning Dust thought she was some pony who could thrive when things got hard.
And Tempest had seen a lot of strife in her time.
So they all thought they had seen enough of the world that anything short of a magical disaster would not surprise them. But they all wondered, if some pony were to look in their eyes, what would be seen in the reflection?
Svengallop’s voice trailed off completely. Even if he had something to say, his voice would have been a drop of water inside a hurricane. They were chaotic and separated, but every one of them had a claw or sign raised in solidarity as they chanted.
“Let us in.”
If the ponies pushed, the dragons pushed right back. Whatever was throw or said to counter the rage coming from the dragons was met was the same words.
Let us in.
“It’s like a war,” Starlight murmured. And indeed, it was. Faces twisted in anger from both sides were the least of the concerns. Dragons blew smoke and fire against the barrier as yaks crushed crystals and stones as a show of strength.
“I have to do something,” Luna stepped out of the carriage as soon as it stopped.
Starlight stopped her with a hoof. “Hold on, shouldn’t we talk to Cadence first? I want to help too, but I don’t think jumping in is the right move here.”
Luna shook her head. “The fuse is lit, Starlight. Do you not see that a single breeze will send it to its inevitable end? I have to stop it.”
“Or, you could end up being the breeze that sets it off,” Starlight replied. “I know your duty as a princess meant that you had to get involved with every pony’s nightmares. But this isn’t the same kind of nightmare. It doesn’t end when you wake up.”
Luna looked out to the crowd. It seemed impossible to reach the guards in the middle, a wall of crystal ponies and yaks had their backs to the road they had parked on. Still, she was certain that her presence alone was enough to clear the way. And if anything, she could teleport straight to the middle and find out more from Shining Armor.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “head to the palace if you must, I will have to catch up later.”





“We will not be treated like animals!”
“Tell that to the next house that burns down!” A crystal pony kicked a bottle at the barrier between them and the dragons. It was more symbolic than a real attack, as the glass bounced off and clunked around on the ground.
Standing above the yaks and ponies on a large wooden crate was a young yak carrying an oversized horn on his back. Though, this was no instrument.
“Will let one more scorched street?” He asked the crowd.
“No!”
“Will we let greed eat our very land?”
Again, they chanted. “No!”
The protesters didn’t say anything as Luna walked into their numbers, but each one who saw her knew who she was. Even the yaks, who were not all as informed, followed the lead of their pony comrades. They stepped out of the way silently, giving her a path to the barrier, before they resumed their jeering and bellowing.
She passed one pony that explained some of what she was hearing from both sides. The crystal mare held up a sign reading “protect us,” and below was a crudely painted image of a fire, encased by what looked like a muzzle.
Closer to the barrier, a yak held up another sign sporting an equal symbol placed between the phrases “Crystal Empire” and “crystal ponies.”
Shattered glass and crystals crunched under Luna’s hooves when she reached the edge of the barrier. The royal guards, having had seen her through the parting crowd, had already brought the stallion she expected to find.





“Luna, what are you doing here?” Shining Armor asked.
She flicked her eyes around at the chaos. “I could ask you the same thing. I never expected this to happen, not here within the bounds of the Crystal Heart.”
“I’m trying to stop this situation from exploding,” he gestured to his horn, “but it’s all I can do to stop the dragons and yaks from tearing the street apart.”
Very quickly he popped an opening through the barrier for Luna and shut it tight before any others could squeeze through. Once inside, the sounds of shouting were muffled, and if she didn’t look out, Luna could almost forget she was in the middle of a protest.
“Any po-- uh, has any creature been hurt?” Luna asked.
She let out a heavy breath she didn’t know she had been holding once Shining shook his head. “Luckily, no. We were able to get here before the worst of it started.”
“Okay, that’s good,” she said. “So how did this all happen?”
“Apparently, it was an argument,” Shining said. “Ask the yaks, and they’ll say the dragon started insulting one of them. Ask the dragons, and it’ll be the opposite. I haven’t been able to question any creature to get to the truth.”
There were a lot more than just a few yaks and dragons having a showdown. “How did that turn into this?”
Shining pointed to the side of the ponies. “They started showing up from the CNP office. That’s the, uh, Crystal Nation Party. They’re a group that’s been pushing Cadence this last month to put a fire-hazard tax on dragons.”
He turned around to the dragons. “Once they were here, dragons started coming off the street to support the first guy. Once a dozen or so were here, a whole group of them marched down from the Dragonland Consulate. We’ve been here all day since then.”
Just one argument? Luna couldn’t believe tensions had gotten so bad since she last visited. It had only been a few months, but the Crystal Empire seemed completely different. Part of her wanted to blame herself. She let this happen because of her inaction. But she had learned before that she couldn’t let her dark personality weigh her down.
“Right now,” she said, both to herself and Shining, “we need to break them up. I want to talk to Cadence to get the whole story, but I can’t just let this go on.”
A dragon spat out a ball of fire, which soared up and ricocheted off of Shining’s barrier, sizzling when it hit the ground. 
“Don’t need to tell me twice,” he winced, focusing on strengthening his spell. “I’m all out of ideas, so whatever you’re going to do, I’ll trust it.”
Luna rose up on the air beneath her wings, passing through the barrier as Shining opened it for her. Once again, voices began filling the air, but this time they were dragons. She descended until she was hovering just above them.
“Dragons!” Only her royal Canterlot voice would cut through their chanting. “Heed me now! You have been heard and must disperse. Change will not come in times of disharmony. All will be right, I personally promise--”
“We’re not going anywhere!” A few dragons blew smoke up at her.
Other dragons shot into the air. “You go tell that prissy pink princess that if the yaks can stay, so can we!”
Luna’s voice broke immediately. “I will, but you all have to calm down first.”
“Calm down?” Dozens of them huffed a cloud of smoke into the air. “Don’t tell us to calm down when you’re trying to take our fire away!”
Luna argued back. “Hey, I have done nothing of the sort. I--”
She gasped, trying to catch her breath. But with a pony on their side of the barrier, the dragons only grew more agitated. A blanket of smoke grew out of the mouths of the protesters. She was sure they could still hear her, but every breath she tried to take burned her throat with bitter-tasting soot.
A yank snagged her wings back and pulled her through the barrier. Two royal guards, no doubt ordered by Shining, pulled Luna out of the mess before it got worse.
“I’m fine,” she said once they had her back on the ground. “I just-- I don’t know what happened.”
“Sorry, I guess I should’ve mentioned it sooner,” Shining apologized, passing a bottle of water to her to wash out the smoke from her face and mouth. “On any normal day, the Canterlot voice might get them to listen, but staying here is a symbol of dragons staying in the Empire.”
“But as long as they stay, it’ll be impossible to get both sides to calm down,” she said. “Let me try again. I’ll just tell them to calm down, and maybe then the yaks and ponies will do the same too.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” he said. “Look, I can hold the fort here. I think Cadence will want to talk to you, maybe you two can figure out a better way to fix all this.” 
He opened a hole back to the pony side of the barrier. Her heart stirred at the thought of just walking away. But they shut her down so quickly, just by talking to Shining some of the dragons saw her as an enemy. 
She looked out the barrier to the yaks and ponies. She wondered if she could still fix it by asking them to leave. The dragons were furious, to be sure. But the ponies and yaks, what were they thinking? The possibility of peace lingered in her head until she stepped out of the barrier.
The yaks and ponies around her glared with suspicion. They had seen what she tried to do, and now looked at her as if she was about to force them to disperse as well. If she did try, Luna wondered, would she just be boiling everything up to another level?
Probably. 
Rushing in seemed like a good idea if she was up to date with the thoughts of the current generation. But Luna realized she still had a lot to catch up on. Gone were the days when a princess could command and be heard. Luna sighed. Of course those days were gone. She wasn’t a princess any more.