Squeak.
The mayor had returned to his office, but unlike earlier, he wanted to go back to that alicorn. He wanted to see just what she was capable of and what she could do. The soldiers weren't there for his amusement nor to act as servants, but the officers were currently discussing with the higher ups on whether or not they should install a permanent contingent in the city and follow the alicorn around. He jittered with glee. Just thinking back on that display of magic and her casting the spears away with no effort. He wondered if she had purposefully let herself get suppressed by the antimagic or if it just took her time to adapt and reject their effects.
"What now?" Candy Cane asked. "That thing is still here."
"And so she'll remain," the mayor responded.
The stallion checked his notepad and looked back up, his wings twitching. The Mayor heard the familiar ruffling of feathers and felt his eye twitch. Were they always pegasi? He had forgotten. Their fur blends them into their sides, and he'd never seen them fly. It didn't help that they were accidentally registered as earth ponies because of all of that.
"I don't understand. Shouldn't she be imprisoned for the damages she did, or cast out of the city?"
The twins saw a foreleg grow out of the side of the giant chair and tilt several times in place. "Not really. I don't know what she wants, but as long as she's here we'll be able to keep a close eye on her. That, and the student made me realize something important."
"And what is that?" Candied asked.
"She wants something, likely knowledge. Destroying everything here would go against her first steps into our world most likely." The mayor tried stroking his beard again and slammed his foreleg against the leg rest of his chair angrily.
"Then what's next? Once she gets everything she'll destroy everything!"
The mayor swiveled his chair, revealing his raised brow and jovial grin. "Not if she wants to rule all of ponykind, she won't."
The twins gave pause. "She what?" they asked in unison.
They were met with the elder stallion tapping his head with a hoof. "She wants to become our ruler, which means she needs subjects, otherwise she would just be another claimant yelling 'I wanna be queen!'." His demeanor turned sour. "Like so many of those other...nobles," he spat. "Every single one of them always claiming to be related to an alicorn." He leaned against the leg rest on the side of his chair, resting his head against his coronet, bored. Both he and the twins' eyes widened with gradual realization. "But we have an actual alicorn here."
"She could get rid of a lot of the most annoying ones!" Candied Cane shouted. "Stupendous!"
"Or, she just invalidates their claims of being descendants of alicorns," Candy Cane suggested instead.
His sister glared at him. "That's what I just said."
"Eeeh, you implied a more permanent solution."
"I did not!" she opposed.
"Candied has the right idea," the mayor said with a smile.
The mare spun her head towards him, her face glowing. "I do?!"
"Oh, I-I thought that...I meant the stallion," the mayor chuckled sheepishly.
Candied deflated. "Mayor, we've been working with you for three years. Why do you keep messing our names up?"
"Anyways, you both know how Equestria celebrates the Winterdrop Turning?"
"Hey, don't dodge the qu--" Candied was pushed down by her brother who shook his head.
"Drop it," he whispered to her. "We're aware of it," he responded flatly. "It's not like this has been a tradition for decades or anything."
"Ours is always one of the most extravagant and lavish ones." He tapped his chin. "We could use that alicorn to attract the attention of the nobles and royal family and have her personally judge their claims." He giggled. "I bet some of them would even claim that she's their ancestor." He ripped a drawer out from his desk and threw papers onto its surface. "But we have to act fast. We need her to have a good grasp of our language, or at least a modicum of it."
The twins exchanged worried glances.
"Are you sure about that, sir?" Candy asked. "It feels like you're trying to hold the sun in one hoof."
"Not to mention that I doubt we've seen the limits in the power of that creature," Candied added. "Wouldn't it be wise to gauge the limits of her powers first?"
The mayor had glued his face to the desk and was scribbling with a quill when the question was asked. He stopped and looked up, making a bizarre, smished face. "Ufff." He dumped the feather and dropped back into the embrace of his chair. "You have a point." He took a long, deep breath and jumped forward, wielding his 'weapon' again. "But why spoil the surprise? Surprises can be fun, too!" he stated maniacally.
Candy stomped a hoof on the desk. "Mr. Mayor! This isn't just some toy to break the monotony of bureaucracy! This can have serious consequences in the future if you don't act diplomatically and, most importantly, cautiously!"
The elder groaned. "Fine! I'll just write down everything I have planned, but she will be attending the festival, and I will have those nobles taken down several pegs by her."
"Not to mention that a lot are so big-headed that they'd outright claim she isn't a true alicorn," Candied noted. "I wonder what would happen to them?"
The young stallion pursed his lips when he noticed the only other two ponies in the office had some rather sinister looks on their faces. "Either I'm crazy or everyone else is...I vote everyone else. That will keep me sane," he thought to himself.
"Now I just have to figure out where to house her."
"Wh-what?!" Sunny stammered.
"Teach me your language." Nightmare Moon stood up and looked around. The place was hideous. "I need to know how to communicate with my future subjects. Grunts and pretty pictures won't cut it." Her disgust was waylaid by the anger she still felt within her, and she felt the energy her body sported thrum in tandem with every wave of anger that flowed through her.
"I can't! Not teaching! Studenting!"
The mare facehoofed. "I can teach you to speak my language more appropriately as well." A thought crossed her mind. "I could make my tongue that of the royal court and surround myself with only my most devout and subservient subjects," she thought to herself. She smiled, exposing her sharp fangs. "Now there's an idea," she thought aloud.
Sunny Dimples stood up and looked at the towering pony before him. Fear permeated his being. Everything was screaming at him to gallop away from her, but he didn't give in to his fears. Not when a golden opportunity to fix the grammar of a very old language presented itself. "Teach better speaking?"
The alicorn's eyelids became heavy suddenly. "Yes, me 'teach better speaking'," she mocked. "I'll allow you to have a moment of celebration to my generous offer."
Now Sunny didn't feel like celebrating, and yet, he would be the first to document the full account of an old version of his spoken tongue. How jubilating! And that's not even a word! "Thank you so much!" The alicorn's eyes started glowing white-hot again, burning holes into Dimple's soul. "I-I-I mean, thank you, queen?"
Her eyes dimmed. "Well, I suppose that's good enough for now," she complained while rubbing the back of her neck. "But it's 'Yes, My Queen'," she corrected aggressively. Sunny stared silently at her. "Repeat!" she bellowed.
"Y-Yes, my queen!"
"Again!"
"Yes, My Queen!"
"Again, and stop croaking your words!"
"Yes, My Queen!"
This went on for several minutes until the stallion collapsed from exhaustion and his voice growing hoarse. The soldiers called for the two to follow them back outside the hotel, but Sunny couldn't move. Instead of letting the soldiers pull him out, Nightmare Moon grabbed him with her magic and carried him out with her where the mayor and multiple guards awaited. The stallion wasn't as fortunate when the alicorn dropped him on the ground from her height.
"Are you okay?" the mayor asked Sunny. When he got up and nodded with some difficulty, the mayor continued. "We're going to bring her to the old castle just outside the city," he told the white pony.
"But, I thought we closed it down since almost no pony wanted to go there anymore," he said.
The mayor nodded. "That's true, but now we have an exceptional guest. We should tend to her needs whenever we can, and it'll be an excellent place to host the festival's nightly events," he said.
Sunny could feel the strangeness coming off of the mayor. An insidious plan brewing within him, and it wasn't because of the unicorn's horn and magic sensitivity. A sudden heatwave blew down from the mountains, buffeting the city and its many occupants. Gradually, the clouds began to disperse, revealing a blue sky and yellow sun filtered by the winter air.
"Feels like spring is announcing its arrival," one of the soldiers said.
"How do we take her to the castle, then?" Sunny asked.
"She can fly, can't she? If she doesn't want to she can walk. It's, like, twenty minutes of walking along the cliffs here anyways. We're in the mountains! It's good to walk here. Fresh air and grinds your hooves down."
Sure. That was why. Reluctant, the stallion faced Nightmare Moon and massaged his throat. He hadn't realized it, but he was sounding a little hoarse when he spoke. "Home. That way. C-Cuh...Cel...Um...Castel?"
"Castle,' Moon corrected. "And a castle? Here? I suppose it will have to do, and being in the mountains will make it exceptionally easy to fortify and defend from future enemies." She smiled. "Excellent. Where is it?"
Sunny pointed to the mountain peaks that could be seen just beyond the city limits. Unsure of the weather here and the strength of her wings, Nightmare Moon decided to go by hoof rather than try to fly. She would rather try flying within the safety of the castle walls than in the open air where strong currents could sweep her away. Moon couldn't help but grind her teeth together. Having to admit a weakness to something as pithy and simplistic as nature. Hmmph.
Accompanied by the soldiers, the mayor, and her new servant, the alicorn left the city, ignoring its contents and the citizens staring at her, and began to hike the rocky slopes. She had expected some differences to when she was still in Equestria; Some new colors, new types of stones, strange shapes, and animals, but everything was still the same. It was solace in familiarity but dismal in its lack of innovation. Grass interrupted by shards and 'growing' gray and black stones. Some thorny plants growing about the landscape giving it just barely a hint of change from the moss and grass.
In Nightmare Moon's imagination, it's what she wanted Canterlot to look like a decade after successfully invading and destroying it. She was going to savor every bit of destruction she was going to 'bestow' it. Chase the ponies out while their castle and city crumbled around their ears. Oh! The schadenfreude she would have had! Her elated feelings quickly faded and left way to a sense of emptiness and her lingering anger when Sunny called to her, bringing her back to reality.
Before her stood a castle. Well, the remains of a castle. It was somewhat larger than her old one near the Everfree, but its design was...off. Instead of large, solid stones, it was made of multiple tiny rectangles glued together with an unknown compound. Some patterns seemed to have been made in the walls using lighter colored stones, but just the color itself was an oddity: Jet black. A jet-black castle with smooth walls. The towers of the inner keep seemed strange as well, but whatever secret their rectangular figures held had collapsed with age and negligence. Just the shape intrigued the mare, not to mention the various additions to the top of the walls. Leading into the courtyard was a massive barbican fortifying the gates. The alicorn nearly started to froth at the mouth with excitement. Millennia that she was trapped, and castles had become so...so...!
"Glorious construct!" she cheered.
The alicorn galloped past the ponies in front of her to get a better looked at the damaged barbican, trying to see the best way to either reinforce it or add to it to leave her mark. A mark, of course! Using her cutie mark would be too simple-minded. She had done that in the past, but no longer was she pressed for time! She had all the time in the world! All the time she needed.
Nightmare Moon felt her body slump.