"Yes! There's already some that came here with us!" the gold-eyed thestral continued.
Nightmare Moon stared at the new ponies with wide eyes. The Gan Ceann were the weird ponies with body parts attached to each other only by the glowing strings sown between them. They looked at the mare with wide eyes as well, but their eyes looked like hollow orbits with a single, tiny white speck far, far in the back of an impossible distance.
"These are the Gan Ceann," the thestral proclaimed with a huge smile.
Nightmare Moon groaned. "Yes. I understood."
"We are also known as dullahan," one of them said.
There were only four of the creatures amidst the group, and they stuck out like a sore hoof. The thestrals still fit in with other ponies despite their uniform coat colors being black. They just looked like an offshoot with bat wings, but the dullahan? Just looking at them forced Moon to squint. The strings hurt her eyes and made it hard to focus on these little creatures standing before her. It felt odd to be affected by something so simplistic. She overheard the thestral with pink stripes explaining her inability to fully speak and understand their language. She was lucky this wasn't any sort of political situation or she would have been doomed.
"We witnessed what you did at the festival," the dullahan explained as he approached. "We found that such a display of power was awe-inspiring, and we endeavored to come with the thestrals and meet you personally in...much calmer circumstances."
His words were focused and precise, avoiding any dulcet tones that might make him seem too 'kindly'. If all dullahan were like him, that could make for formidable opponents in negotiations. If only.
Another stepped forward. "I personally wanted to know if you were real or not," she stated snarkily.
The stallion pursed his lips and tilted his head while looking off to the side. "The effects were there. No regular pony, let alone another creature, could have caused such an effect. That requires multiple ponies all at once, and there were no traces of magic."
The mare raised a hoof while closing her eyes. "I just needed to be certain. Believing your eyes doesn't always work."
The stallion nodded. "Very true. Obsessive certainty is better than blind belief."
And they were philosophers. Fantastic...
"What can you offer me?" Nightmare Moon asked.
The gan ceann stallion shrugged. "Nothing for now. The thestrals would most likely have everything covered."
The golden-eyed thestral spoke up. "Provided you come to our home, we would be able to spread word of your presence and let our leaders make you into our queen, or empress, or whatever it is you want to be titled." She looked to the dullahan with a large smile. "They live with us, or rather, a lot of them do. It wouldn't be too difficult for them to understand why the alicorn of the night is best for all of us."
The alicorn raised a brow. "What do you mean?"
"Well, they don't really have their own place to call home like most of us do," the thestral explained.
"We're a relatively new tribe in Equestria, and as you've seen, it is very fractured," the male dullahan explained. He nodded to the bat ponies. "We have found a safe haven with the thestrals since we both have similar ways of life."
"We both live during the night and sleep during the day!" the thestral with a pink stripe cheered. He noticed Moon squinting at the dullahan. "Are you okay? You seem to have trouble looking at them," he worried.
"Strings hurt eyes," Moon managed to say after some struggling.
"You needn't worry," the mare dullahan explained. "This is just part of our innate magic."
"It's an illusion," the thestral with half an ear interjected. "You get used to it after a while." She looked to the new tribe and tilted her head left and right. "Although I do admit that it takes time. We just grew up with them so it's a natural adaptation for us."
The female scoffed. "I would have thought that our natural magic wouldn't affect an alicorn." She quickly found herself getting crushed underneath Moon's immense magical prowess. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! Don't squish me!"
Several of the thestrals laughed at her predicament. Their faith in Nightmare Moon was surprising, and a little disconcerting. These things that came out of nowhere saw Nightmare Moon's magical potential and suddenly wished to devote themselves to her. Was there a link to them that she was missing?
The golden-eyed thestral stood proudly and had pushed his chest out. "I personally want to extend an invitation to our village, so that you may see us as we truly live and grace our people with your existence, an existence we only ever imagined in the void as we slept."
"Now this sounds interesting," Moon thought to herself. "What mean by 'void' as you sleep?"
"Other pony tribes have dreams when they sleep, but our legends passed down from generations past say that we lost our dreams when we lost our alicorn."
"Did they return?" Moon asked.
The bat ponies exchanged silent glances and shook their heads.
The thestral missing half an ear spoke. "Most of us haven't, but one or two said they started to see things in their sleep. Might be dreaming?"
Nightmare Moon was realizing that there was a bigger picture that she had missed. In fact, there were many, many big pictures that she had missed. It seemed that she was intrinsically linked to this tribe, likely because of the source of her powers and their relationship to the moon.
"Others have issues no alicorns?" she asked. Moon couldn't help but cringe whenever she spoke. Slow, difficult, looking for her words.
It took the group a moment to process the question.
"Not that we have noticed. Maybe they forgot? Everypony seems to have no issues in their daily functions," the dullahan stallion said. He shrugged dismissively. "Well, none that I have heard of. They don't share tales like the thestrals and definitely not the eckan crue ponies."
Another tribe name. Nightmare Moon needed to focus. There was too much information flooding her mind.
"Enough!" she bellowed loudly. She grunted and rubbed her temples with a hoof. "Alicorns gone. Other long livings...um...don't die?" the alicorn pondered.
"Immortals?" one of the dullahan suggested.
"Yes! Immortals! Not alicorns..." She kept tapping her chin, trying to find the proper words. The ponies present waited patiently, but only the thestrals waited eagerly and with all smiles. "Not alicorns but immortals. Chaos thing. Discord. Order thing. Accord. Names. Dangerous."
If there was nothing keeping them sealed up, then it was definitely possible that the two had freed themselves and were up to no good, and this was the end result, but things would normally be far worse than they actually were.
"Never heard of them," the golden-eyed thestral said. "If they were from your time then they've definitely vanished along with the others."
The spells on them couldn't have lasted that long, could it? The spell for Moon was a 'simple' banishment spell, so that being tampered with made some modicum of sense, but the sealing spells on the draconequi were the strongest possible spells. She remembered, and they embodied the essence of order and chaos. That they would be tampered with seemed impossible. The mare scoffed at herself. As always, the answer lay in Canterlot. Their statues were there. If they had vanished then it was likely they freed themselves. If there was another event...well, she'd get there when she'd get there.
"Oh, but we haven't introduced ourselves," the golden-eyed pony said. "I'm Golden Honey. The pony with the pink stripes in his mane is Mango Malt, and the mare missing part of her ear is Cuttin' Clove."
Nightmare Moon glared at the mare with disdain.
"I changed my name to fit what happened to my ear!" Cuttin' protested.
The king and queen were sitting outside one of the many restaurants, watching as everypony put everything back in place. They were both eating a sausage made from tofu, nutmeg cream, cinnamon, and mint. It was a strange flavor mixture, but the king found it to be somewhat enjoyable. His wife, not so much.
They both stared at their table, angry. The king couldn't help but tremble, unaware of that fact. The soldiers were now finally escorting the royal family while they were present and had set themselves up around the tables, watching fervently.
The queen spat at them. "They defend us against regular creatures but not that alicorn," she said through her wings. Every 'word' was filled with venom.
"And she humiliated me in front of my own court!" the king bellowed. "This will not stand. I will not have my life be run by this...this so-called god of ponykind! There is no proof that she is anything more than a charlatan. She must have found several relics bloated with magical power that allows her to perform such acts."
The lights above them went out briefly, causing the king to bounce in fear and start screaming in a panic. When the colors finally came back on, he had partially collapsed onto the table, gasping for air. Creatures all around were staring at him, but with one look from the queen and they left well enough alone and made no comments.
"Look at me: I'm terrified of the darkness now. I keep seeing those...those things!" He heaved a sigh and ate another piece of sausage. "Some vacation this turned out to be."
"That she was still there means the assassin failed," the queen thought to herself. "How? He was one of our best."
"You seem preoccupied with something," the king called out. "I can assure you that I will be going through intense and rigorous training to overcome this fear, and then we'll get back at her," he reassured.
The mare shook her head. "No, that wasn't it, but I'm proud of you for making that claim. I know you don't take things half-hearted." She sighed and leaned forward in her chair. "Somepony like her seems to know what she's doing, but so do we."
The king pushed his empty plate away with his magic and cleaned his mouth with a napkin. "Maybe we should warn the rulers in the other territories."
Queen Majesty laughed at her husband, although it only came out as a raspy exhale. "We're not on good terms with them. You think that they would bother to listen to us?"
The king glared. "They would if they saw what she is capable of. With an army she could do many, many amazing things."
"Like take over our part of Equestria," The Queen acknowledged reluctantly. "Then I suppose it would be in our best interests to send a message out to all of them, for whatever good that does."
"Then it's just a matter of following her around and learning all we can about her goals and weaknesses," the king said with a smile. He leaned back and patted his swollen stomach. "Although I must admit that the local delicacies are quite a treat."
"That you haven't exploded yet is a surprise, honestly. Always stuffing your face and rarely gaining weight." She crossed her forelegs. "Quite unfair, but speaking of unfair, what do we do about the nobles?"
"Let's figure that out later," the king said. "Who do we start sending messages to? I believe that the ones closest to us would be best."
The queen groaned loudly, causing one of the soldiers to look back briefly. "We can already forget the thestrals. They've always been avid about their mythical alicorn of dreams."
King Gallant nodded. "Yes. Always saying they can't dream ever since she vanished and refusing to have many ties with other sections." He heaved a sigh. "They're so obsessed with finding her that they forego all present relationships." He sighed and forced a smile. "I wish things were different. We're all still ponies."
The two became silent, taking in everything around them. They could see several of the creatures around them resume the festivities while others continued to work, but...where were all the thestrals? There were some, but not many. Gradually, cold sweats started to drench the coats of the two royals, and they started to understand their stupidity. It was so obvious the whole time. They were so focused on what had just happened to their reputation and the king.
"Oh no," they both said in tandem.