//------------------------------// // The Mare in the Moon // Story: Left Behind // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// "You can't catch me, Luna," Celestia teased. She jumped over a dirt mound, a smile on her face, while her sister followed her. Her teeny tiny sister, Luna. The filly did her best to follow her sister, but trying to climb the small mound proved fruitless. She was too small to climb the wall, and her tiny hooves couldn't get a good enough grasp in the loose dirt to allow her to climb efficiently. She started hitting the obstacle angrily and sat down, crying. Celestia was quick to hop over and hug her sister, consoling her. "Don't worry Luna. Soon, you'll be big enough to climb every obstacle in front of you." She booped her teary-eyed, sniffling sister. "You just have to be patient." The ground of the throne room cracked as though squeezed angrily. Nightmare Moon's body was being enveloped in bright light as her anger at the memory permeated her body. "Always quick to look down on me," she grunted. She swiped a brick away. "I've outlasted her, so now I'm free to do whatever I feel I need to! No need to constantly watch her spell to prevent her from breaking away from the sun. Instead, all her focus would be on the moon and extending its reach across Equestria, and eventually the world, then it was just a matter of enjoying what she had. A thought crossed her mind, and with a swift spell teleported all the maps that had been left behind to her hooves. She had to focus excessively hard to bring them to her, as they had been left behind in the hotel when she followed the mayor. That he had such confidence that such documents would not be misplaced was a sign of sheer stubbornness and certainty of the safety of his city. Or he just forgot. Either way, the alicorn had the maps with her now and was poised to study them with her insultingly limited knowledge. The alicorn scattered the papers along the now cracked floor and wiped away small pieces of rock ruining the maps. "There must be some familiar features on these stupid pieces of paper." Nightmare Moon started growing frustrated. "Whoever said the cartographers were doing a real job are buffoons," she groaned. "Should be using pegasi or a scrying spell to see from above." A snort escaped her muzzle. "No, have to use math and geometry and all a bunch of little random symbols and colors." She checked two maps, one which had the mountains as various shades of orange that lightened when reaching higher altitudes, and another using darkening shades of green instead. "What even is this? Can these peasants not just agree on a standard for map displays." She lied down and rested her head against her arched foreleg. "With such stupidity in place of names, there's no way I could efficiently read these." The air became stagnant and brittle, as though any word could throw the alicorn into a panic. Canterlot was still around, or at least, its ruins were. These ponies didn't know Canterlot, which meant that it was as much a legend as her if not entirely forgotten. Nightmare Moon needed to be able to situate herself first before trying to reach its ruins. There were potentially a plethora of trophies she could bring in to decorate her new home. She could try teleporting, but whatever beacon made that easier for her and her wretched sister to reach it very easily had likely decayed into nothing. She flattened a map out with her magic and brought several others onto its corners. They looked like they had been drawn and colored by a toddler. "Teleporting...too dangerous anyways, and very difficult to accomplish." She got up while rolling her eyes. "And so exhausting to focus on only one thing. Easier to bring everypony else to me." Moon looked around, suddenly realizing she was alone. "I'm thinking aloud a lot lately." Her pupils glowed brighter. Nightmare Moon made for the courtyard when she was suddenly accosted by the mayor and his horrific sneer sliding in from one of the doorways. He tripped and tumbled along the floor, followed by his two Cane assistants that were quick to help him up. Sunny Dimples also appeared around the corner of what was once a hallway. He peeked at the sitting alicorn watching the jesters perform for her. The unicorn was just about ready to leave when Nightmare Moon's head spun towards him like an enchanted sentinel and covered him in that white light he detested so. "Y-your majesty," he stuttered. He gave her a sheepish smile. "Everything is poised for the festival in about two months," the mayor announced excitedly. The two ponies helped him up, and even Nightmare Moon cringed when his back made a loud cracking noise. "Ow. We...Sunny Dimples," he called out. "Uh, y-yes?" the stallion replied meekly. "Would you be able to translate what I say to the alicorn? I would hate to be announcing something so grandiose just for it to fly through her head." "I can try," Sunny said. He flew back when the mayor jolted towards him. "Fantastic! Oh, I'm so excited for all of this that I feel like a colt again!" "I'll start with translating what you just said here," Sunny said. The mayor nodded in acknowledgment. The mayor continued after. "The royal family will be sending professionals to help fix this castle, or at least the keep." "Um..." Sunny rubbed the back of his head as he felt his brain overheating. "How say...Princesses? Above princesses sent help for home." He gestured to the damaged throne room. "Will help rebuild for festival...celebrate...tion." The mayor frowned. "You're not very good at this." "It's a dialect that is thousands of years old! There's a lot of words we've forgotten! I don't even know a quarter of the ways of conjugating verbs and nouns, let alone--" "Okay, okay. Relax." The mayor spoke softly. "I apologize. That was an inconsiderate comment from me. I let my excitement get the best of me." He hummed pensively. "Is there a way that you could..." Nightmare Moon stared at him. "Get her to help you or something?" "She already proposed her help in the matter," Sunny answered. "Really? That will make things much easier." The mayor repeated what he had already said but stopped when Nightmare Moon raised a hoof. "Above princess?" she murmured. "You mean a queen?" she asked with a raised brow. She had already lied back down. Formalities seemed lost on her, something that the mayor was certain would bring amusement during the festival. "And other one," Sunny agreed. "A queen and a king?" She laughed, exposing her fangs. "Oh, this is rich. I thought we didn't use those terms anymore. I wonder what made you regress to such a thing." Her smile quickly went away. "Probably the same thing that made my sister disappear. Hm." "He says...they will come with lower ponies. Not princesses," Sunny continued. "Nobility? That still exists too?" Nightmare Moon looked back down at the maps and narrowed her eyes. "Or are you just a portion of the former Equestria that has gone back to the ideals of the monarchy and nobility?" She snorted. "A sentiment I'm not against, but should be the queen of the ponies, not some random peasants that have grown too big for their lands." She looked to Sunny. "Very well. Have them make me a throne as well so that I might meet these guests of my new home." "She says she wants a throne made for her and her new home," Sunny explained to the mayor. "Well, I didn't say she could stay here," he said to the young stallion. "I don't think she cares," Candied interjected. "She elected this to be her new home, so I think it best to just let her take it, no?" "No!" the mayor protested. "It's part of the city's heritage, even if we neglected it." Candied shook her head. "Again, I don't think it matters anymore." Things seemed to be slipping out of the hooves of the elder, but it wasn't completely lost. He just needed to modify things around the changes. A good plan was an adaptive plan, after all. All he needed to do was take into account how the alicorn behaved, so long as he could understand her. Conversations were going to resume when a brouhaha came from outside. Something was bothering the soldiers. "What's happening?" the mayor asked aloud. "We should go outside and check it out," Candy Cane suggested. He yawned loudly. "And then maybe go to bed afterwards. I'm exhausted. It's been a long day." "Tell me about it..." Sunny sighed. The unicorn was going to follow the others outside but found himself trotting in place and instantly knew why, although he wished it weren't the case and he was just too exhausted to actually move." "Where are you going, servant?" Nightmare Moon asked. She was levitating the stallion towards her without taking her eyes away from the maps. Dimples was quick to be let back onto his hooves in front of the alicorn. With his nerves wracked, he couldn't help but blurt something out. Something he knew he would regret. "Don't call me 'servant'," he demanded sternly. The alicorn still didn't take her eyes off of the maps and shuffled them around. "Excuse me?" Nightmare Moon asked calmly. "You hear! Don't call me servant!" Sunny Dimples repeated. The alicorn looked up. "Is that so?" She slowly got up to her hooves, dwarfing the young stallion the higher she stood. "Would you prefer slave, then?" she asked. The mare had lowered her head to the terrified stallion and was looking at him with a side glance, her pupils bright and her teeth sharp. "Maybe I should just bind you to me so you won't ever be able to leave my new castle grounds without something...nasty happening to you?" Sunny started to back up, but Nightmare Moon pursued. "Or perhaps I should just use you to start the foundation of my new throne, how does that sound?" she asked with a large grin. "I-I-I am s-s-servant!" the stallion was quick to correct. Meanwhile, outside the castle, the skies had mostly cleared and night was falling. The purples of the setting sun were still barely visible on the horizon, but what really garnered everypony's attention seemed to be in the sky. "What's going on?" the mayor asked one of the soldiers. The earth pony pointed to the sky. "It's the moon. It's bare," she mumbled. The mayor's jaw dropped. Indeed, the mare-in-the-moon had vanished. A shape on the moon that had been determined to just be its appearance. A lot of legends had shaped around it, the oldest being that a group of unicorns had drawn it on there to show how strong they were. Others were that it was the shadow of a being trapped in another reality, a gift by some greater entity, or simply the face of the moon as it watches everypony on the ground. All of a sudden, it became clear why the soldiers were upset. It wasn't that the face was missing, it was what caused it. They all silently realized that all of them had been wrong throughout the millennia. "Is it possible?" one of the soldiers asked. "She popped up earlier today, and now the moon has nothing left on it. It has to be that." "Th-then, she's the moon?" "Don't be stupid. She was on the moon." "In," another rebutted. "Guys! You don't seem to understand," a mare pegasus interjected. "That alicorn came from the moon. That means she's part of it." She looked around, her body shaking and her eyes darting about nervously. "What if there are others like her? From the sun? A mountain? A volcano?" "Well, that would explain a lot," Candy Cane told the mayor. "If she is really from the moon, then that could change things." The mayor nodded. "Like if she's the only one coming, and if not, if the others are aggressive like her." He exhaled for a while. "This is quite the pickle we're starting to find ourselves in." He looked at the soldiers starting to fight amongst each other and shook his head. "I'm not their commanding officer," he said. "They'll have to deal with that themselves." All of a sudden, his excitement had been abated by the new knowledge he had acquired. The change on the surface of the moon, which remained the same for millennia, would likely become a hard topic in Equestria. It was possible that the king would realize that the mayor's surprise was related to that, but the elder just needed to play his cards right and he'd be laughing it up with the royals when the more pig-headed nobles started proclaiming Nightmare Moon as their ancestor. He could imagine them now: Walking up to the alicorn and hugging her or putting a hoof on her legs. Patience. Patience. Nightmare Moon had waited so long that there was nothing left to wait for.