//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Visiting // Story: JANMMS // by Moterius //------------------------------// Angry at herself for accepting Nightmare’s offer a millennium ago, Luna stomped into her room. During her absence, not only their language had degraded, and she was the one speaking ‘weird’, but her sister had allowed dozens, if not hundreds of stupid laws to slip by her notice. If that was the only thing that stood in her way now, she may have been not as angry. But alas, those thrice-damned nobles now had enough political power to overrule her, too. “We never should have taken Nightmare’s offer,” she mused, a thought that was shared by the other being just about to arrive, but for far different reasons. Luna was harboring more of a mix of fear and respect for the being instead of anger, as it did exactly what she offered. Nonetheless, it stole her a millennium of her life. Stepping in her private chambers and slipping from her dress, she washed her face, and slipped into a nightgown. She had already closed the curtains so that the sun would not wake her when she realized something was… wrong. Realizing the magic buildup behind her, Luna whirled around, just in time to see an alicorn mare manifest in the air, one she knew all too well from the mirror. Luna knew that Nightmare was more than enough to overpower Celestia. Not wanting to confront her, she lit up a teleportation matrix, but before she could cast it, Nightmare slammed in the ground, the slight tremor disrupting the fragile spell. (It canceled itself due to it being shaken, but it amounted to the same result.) At the same time, a massive wave of energy got released, and Luna was flung against the wall. Since said wall was reinforced to withstand siege engines (and the occasional magic explosion), the princess only made a small dent in it, falling down afterward. Nightmare in turn noticed Luna, walking over to her. Luna was in too much pain to move, and quickly fell unconscious, not having enough sound of mind to warn her sister… “Damn it all,” I commented, gazing at the cracks in the wall and the unconscious princess. “Here? Why did I appear here, out of all places?” In any case, the dice were cast, and I had to move forward. Changing the past may be possible, but I was NOT planning on doing that anytime soon. Stay or go? … I decided to stay and clean up the mess my arrival had caused. Maybe I could find out why I appeared here, too. Picking up the princess, I quickly checked her for injuries (and no, I did not sneak a peek at her), before laying her down on the bed. It was not the small, crescent-moon-shaped thing from that one episode, but a normal, ‘king’-sized bed. There was a nasty bruise on her head, but it wasn’t too severe. I lit up my horn, projecting a simple healing spell between my hands. It glowed a golden color (and somehow felt as if it was trying to burn me, which I ignored). However, just a moment later, another summoning spell settled on me. It was not a powerful one, but not a weak one, either. Since I was already on Eques, the spell cancelled itself, but the energy had to go somewhere. A bright, golden flash of light filled the room, and I cursed, the overloaded spell having burnt into my hands. Magic enough to create a model star, all my reserves emptied in an instant, due to me still channeling the spell – and that other, foreign energy crashing into my magic’s metaphorical back. I was unaware at the time, but the healing spell was robust enough to convert all the magic leaving my body into ‘healing’, causing the healing effect to affect every single being in the city. Luna awoke to the sound of Nightmare cursing, deciding to take stock of the situation before doing anything. She could not feel any bindings on her body or magic, so she was reasonably sure that not much time had passed. “For Faust’s sake! This is the second time in the same number of days! Urgh, why do I even bother.” Remembering what happened, Luna carefully raised her head, not feeling uncomfortable. She remembered flying into a wall, but why wasn’t she in pain? Luna debated with herself for a moment if she wanted to speak up, then eventually decided to do so. Nightmare seemed, like the first time they spoke, sane, and more importantly, relatively docile. “Why didst thee return, if thee art an enemy of the state?” Nightmare stopped grumbling, instead turning around to face Luna. Grabbing a nearby chair with her magic, she sat down on it, fixating Luna with her eyes. “I do NOT have a choice on this matter, and I believe it’s your turn to cast a healing spell,” Nightmare said, holding out hands that looked little more like charcoal. How she wasn’t passing out from the pain, she did not know. They clearly were burnt, but the only magic Luna could feel around them was a healing spell. “What… ‘tis looks horrific! What hath happened?” she asked, her worries about Nightmare retaliating for what has happened gone, instead finding worry in her heart. Nightmare had offered power, and Luna had gotten drunk on it. At no point in time were her actions not at least heavily influenced by her own, free will. That was why she wasn’t attempting to deliver the black mare straight to the lowest layer of Tartarus. She shouldered equal, if not more blame for what had happened, and took Nightmare’s name as well. “After I had arrived here, I realized I had injured you. I attempted to heal you, but a summoning attempt was made on me, more specifically, the idea of ‘Nightmare Moon’. The magic caused my magic to go out of control, and the healing spell exploded.” “Tis’ can’t have happened, healing spells art unable to explode.” “A healing spell is a robust little thing. Pumping the power of approximately one and a half fully-grown alicorns into it, however, will destroy anything not designed to specifically withstand that sort of damage,” Nightmare replied, holding out her hands. “Please? Before the magic blocking the pain fails?” Luna lit up her horn, carefully prying the magic away from Nightmare’s hands. She noticed that Nightmare had spoken the truth – her hands were somehow burnt by the energy of the healing spell. “Thy have spoken the truth?” “Is that really this surprising?” “Nay, it was hardly believable, but we now see our error,” she shot back, prying away the last bits of magical residue, before starting to cast a high-level regeneration spell. What was left of Nightmare’s fur vanished from her hands, and slowly, the skin regenerated, as well as the muscles, tendons, and blood vessels, then new fur grew, leaving her hands sensitive and a bit weak for the time being, but functional. “Thy were not lying, but now we wonder why thee art here.” “This world still tries to drag us back, kicking and screaming,” Nightmare responded, scowling. “Again, and again. Twice now, it was attempted to summon me, the first time forcing me to visit Equestria to prevent myself from being bound to a master, the second causing the healing spell I was using to fail,” she elaborated, slumping down. “Thou art not acting like the nightmare we know,” Luna stated, curious as to why the mare in front of her was even bothered by it. “Do you know what it means to be ‘Nightmare’? It does not mean to be incorporeal, or to be a specific creature, or to act a specific way… instead, it means to carry the mark of the dark,” Nightmare stated, pointing at her flank. Holding out her palm, she summoned up a crystal reeking of dark magic, yet her eyes did not light up with black flames. “It means the ability to use shadow magic, without repercussions. The ability to remember any magic seen, even if only seen once. The ability to turn into smoke, the ability to enter dreams, the ability to cast powerful illusions. THAT is what it means to be ‘Nightmare’.” An odd smile graced the face of the mare sitting in front of Luna. “I have heard many a thing from my predecessor, one of which is that I have to visit this world from time to time to keep my freedom.” “This… art thee saying Nightmare Moon was not unique? There art more like her? And if thee art not whom we met a millennium ago, who art thou?” “That, I do not know. But I am indeed not whom you met, back then.” They sat in silence, and eventually Nightmare’s eyes started to wander over Luna’s body, before widening. “Have you still not healed from what the elements did to you?” “We art fine!” Luna responded, to which the mare in front of her sighed. “That is not true. I can see the magic in you, and that it is… stuck, for lack of a better term,” Nightmare responded, standing up and walking up to the bed, placing her hand on Luna’s head. For some reason or another, a spark of magic jumped from Luna’s head into Nightmare’s hand, and the black mare frowned. Luna, in turn, was confused. The elements had restored her to how she was before she had taken the power offered by Nightmare. “Your magic… it is incredibly stiff. You have cast spell after spell, and have never relaxed much, have you?” Not much, Luna found herself concluding, and apparently, the black mare understood what the small drop of her ears meant perfectly. “Can you spare the night?” “We have not yet taken up all our duties again. Night court shall not be held for another month,” Luna replied, cautiously. She still had to fulfill all her duties as alicorn but was not yet picking up her duties as princess again. “That’s a yes,” Nightmare deadpanned, taking ahold of Luna with her magic. She could sense a great deal of magic energy flow out of her body, and a scrying spell lit up around Nightmare’s horn. For some reason, she seemed unsatisfied with what she saw, as she dropped the spell afterwards, not saying a thing. Being dropped on her bed, she only had a moment before Nightmare had crawled atop of her. “Don’t tell me you had locked yourself away during ‘that’ time of the year, too?” It spoke lengths for Luna’s innocence that she did not understood what Nightmare meant; not at first.