//------------------------------// // Meetings // Story: Left Behind: Sunny Disposition // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// Nightmare Moon looked on from the top of the keep, taking in the construction and restoration of her new castle. Three extra walls were being built around her castle, and each would be thicker and better defended than the last, but only the first would be partially hollow, allowing siege defense weaponry to be installed. Much to the alicorn's disappointment, none had been made yet. "They can make steam pipes but can't carve wood and tie some strings," she grumbled to herself. The alicorn was haunted by the battle eight months ago against the one that sought to erase her and all of Equestria's past. Her body tensed at the memories. He couldn't hold the magic in his body but he could wield it, and his declarations were cryptic at best. He was just a scapegoat for whatever group existed at the time, so they did something to the other immortals. She contemplated the information and groaned. While the current queen of changelings was receptive to Nightmare Moon's demands, she had no knowledge of the queens of the past beyond two generations. That broken pony couldn't have gone throughout the whole of Equestria on his own despite his immortality. His broken body wouldn't have allowed it, and others would have been quick to catch onto his actions. "Some are missing a piece to a puzzle they can't solve..." Moon muttered to herself. She grit her teeth. "I'm playing with a ten thousand-piece board and only have seven pieces in the box," she growled angrily. "Queen Nightmare Moon," a pegasus guard called out. The alicorn turned to face the armored pony bowing before her and rolled her eyes. "I told you to continue calling me 'princess' when you're in disguise. I need to be rid of the king and queen first before retaking the throne of Equestria and proclaiming my title. I thought I explained it all to you bugs." The 'guard' bowed their head. "Apologies, Princess. It was my own assumption that--" "Don't assume," Moon chastised firmly. "Until I say you can change your approach, you keep to the standard." She walked towards the edge of the keep and watched the masons arguing about a blueprint. "What do you want?" "I am just giving you a weekly report. Queen Hepetia wishes to inform you of the activities of the Equestrian Royal...Of the false royal family." "Hmmm...What is it? I have things to mull over." The changeling pulled out a scroll from its saddlebag and unfurled it. "It seems that he and the queen have divided themselves into two. Their campaign to disprove your existence continues, although we learned that they hadn't initiated it." Moon raised a brow and looked at the bug, intrigued. The changeling shrunk under her gaze. "We...We haven't been able to find who suggested it or if even any...pony suggested it at all. The king and queen stay in their chambers for a while then come back out with several sheets of paper. They let no one look at them." "And the queen is deaf, so there's no point in trying to hear what she has to say," Moon mused. "We also haven't found any traces of this so-called 'Solar Tyrant' or any other alicorns being born." Moon nodded. "Thank you, for this information. Now leave." The changeling nodded. "The queen will be meeting with you this afternoon," it said before leaving. The alicorn groaned and sat down, taking in her surroundings a little more. The outer two walls had yet to be fully built. The gatehouses covering the new bridges had been finished, sure, but only a few, very small sections were built up. The rest were just the foundations that had been dug out or built with extra stones to even them out with the trenches. Moon contemplated the broken pony again. For some reason that eluded her, even after all this time, he haunted her. His face, his behavior, his past. He was incompetent all the way through, and yet his life felt...familiar. A broken relic of a time long passed. It was worth a ballad of irony. Moon shook her head. She needed to focus. Now she had the king and queen to contend with, having dared to oppose her vassalization of their family and reclaiming of their kingdom. Perhaps the queen had more news regarding that and her unsavory allies with the griffins. The weird parrot creature that reeked of chaos and the minotaur. The alicorn felt a shock in her brain. 'Neutrality'. Whatever that meant. She mulled over the idea many times, but only after being reminded of the bird did she realize that the magics of Discord and Accord hadn't been destroyed, only the ones that wielded them. The bird was touched by chaos, but she wasn't completely saturated in it. "I'll have to take some notes..." Moon pondered aloud. Another guard came by, saluting the mare. "Your highness, Sunny is here. Should I bring him to you or will you join him within the throne room?" Moon hummed to herself before answering. "I will have him join me in the throne room." The guard nodded and jumped off the roof to glide down softly. Moon went down the steps leading to the roof and opened up into a small corridor meant to separate her room from the outside. Her room was currently filled with unfinished, wooden furniture. Woodworkers, sculptors, and seamstresses were deciding which wood to use, the color, the type of tissue to employ, and so forth. As long as they adhered to what the alicorn wanted, she didn't care what they did. The throne room, however, was a different story. It had been fully decorated. While no guards were guarding it yet, not that they had a reason to, everything Moon had wanted was installed. Well, all but the stained glass windows. A long, night blue carpet led all the way from the entrance to her new throne. Its sides were trimmed with silver, and the pathway itself had been decorated with sewn-in scenes of Nightmare Moon's exploits since she had returned, from the day of her awakening to her fight against the 'imposter'. She would commission a new carpet once there was more, and then she would have to think of an alternate way of surrounding herself with her successes. The ceiling was permanently enchanted by the alicorn's magic to always resemble the night sky and display the various moons she was now linked to. They would fade in and out of view as the magic changed itself and would reappear in different places in different positions. Immense banners had been hung to cover the long windows. Each displayed a single crescent moon on a night-blue background with silver-colored trim. It was simple, and Nightmare Moon wanted to change it, although she wasn't sure to what, yet. They had been woven with glow worm silk that helped illuminate the throne room in a silvery light. The natural glow of the silk plus the spell on the ceiling caused little white sprites to populate all the empty space they could reach, though they could not be interacted with. It was like hundreds of little fireflies chose the keep as their hive. Ironic, considering Moon's new allies. Nightmare Moon flew towards her throne and admired it briefly before sitting in it. The seat was elongated to allow her to lie down upon it if she so chose, but a backrest was still present to display her flying high and being surrounded by a vortex. It imitated her so-called 'rebirth' into the new era. As with the rest of the motif, the main stones of the throne had been painted a night blue. Several sparkling white dots made from gems were encrusted into the backrest, the sides, and the edges of the throne were made from silver molded into flowing, cloud-shaped patterns. The alicorn sat upon the blue cushion of her seat and snuggled herself in while sporting a silly smile. Had anyone but Sunny been present she would have executed them for having seen such an expression of joy and serenity. Moon raised a brow. "Graduated yet?" she asked Sunny. The unicorn chuckled nervously. "No. I just passed to the next year of my studies. Because of everything I learned from you they gave me bonus credits for next year. I'll only have to do half a year of work now," he said proudly. "A lot of the judges came from outside Snowfege so they didn't believe a lot of my thesis." Sunny Dimples was met with a confused head shake. "What are these 'credits'? Is it yet another currency I'm unaware of?" The unicorn was taken aback. "Wh...Didn't you have universities?" "We had theaters where the philosophers would take their students and whine about life," she said dismissively. "I can accelerate your graduation fr--" "No!" Sunny shouted. He noticed the alicorn's surprise and cleared his throat. "I would rather do the hard work myself for a sense of accomplishment." Moon grumbled in response. "Very well. That is a laudable goal. I would rather have one smart pony by my side than a dozen loyal imbeciles." She leaned to the side and trailed one of the floating lights with her eyes. "Your parents should be able to come here in a few months' time. The guest quarters are almost finished," she said. "Being partially responsible for mining operations in that area could prove valuable since everypony knows them already," she thought aloud. The unicorn's nervous fidgeting became annoying. "What is it? Do you need to go to the bathroom? Should I 'give you permission' like you're some kind of foal?" the alicorn bellowed angrily. "That's not it!" Sunny defended quickly. "I just feel nervous being at your castle again and being surrounded by all this weird magic." He glanced around his shoulders and cleared his throat. "I'm scared the king and queen are going to try and kill us again," the unicorn whispered to the alicorn. Moon sat upright and laughed. "They have already tried, Sunny!" Moon's nephew paled. "What? But I never...How? When?" "When my drones spotted the would-be assassins," a deep and feminine voice explained. Sunny turned to see giant green eyes looking straight at him. He screamed and rolled away inadvertently from the surprise, leaving the changeling queen to laugh heartily from the unexpected reaction. Nightmare Moon was less impressed and pressed her head against her hoof. "This is the one you wanted me to help defend?" She puffed at him, doing her best to hold back another laughing fit. "I have no idea what you see in him." "What is she?!" Sunny spouted. "She is Queen Hepetia of the changelings. Her hive is in the former castle of the Solar Tyrant," Moon presented. "I suggest you be on your best behavior around my guest and ally." "I'd rather not learn that he's another evil alicorn come to fight you and kill thousands of my drones in the crossfire because they couldn't escape to the lowest levels in time," the queen mused. Moon's eyes glowed fiercely. "You know I had no say in the matter." "What?" Sunny muttered with confusion. Moon grit her teeth. "I had a fight with a false alicorn next to their hive." She rubbed her forehead. "It got out of hoof and some...destruction followed suit. Landscapes destroyed, mountains melted, and so on." Sunny blinked several times and narrowed his gaze. "I think you're...I'm missing a lot of context here. Could you explain further?" The queen cracked her joints in response. "A big fight we weren't expecting, everything warped around us, we fled to the deepest levels of the castle. Many didn't survive and were caught in the crossfire. The end," she stated with contempt towards the young unicorn." She sat down and stared absent-mindedly at the orbs floating around. "We're still trying to fix what's left of the hive. Amusingly, its twisted layout has made it a better place to hide away in." Hepetia waved the anger away. "Water under the bridge. We have already recovered the losses, and then some." The queen paused and began sniffing the air. "It smells...like pine cones and cinnamon?" Annoyed groans reached the queen's ears. "I was hoping you wouldn't smell anything. The guards thought this place needed a new smell and burned something called 'incense' that comes from the east beyond the sea. I told them not to do it but they had to." "It's very hard not to notice it," Hepetia mocked. "It stings the nostrils." Sunny shrugged. "I still think it smells better than the dank, humid stench of rot and mushrooms this place had before." He shrunk away when the two giants looked at him. "I am just here to make sure my changelings are performing their tasks of subterfuge correctly," Hepetia explained. "They have been working efficiently, but some are disrespectful," she growled. Hepetia shrugged using her wings. "Not every creature is perfect, and I have hundreds of thousands of drones in my hive. I can't know how all of them will behave in any given situation." Moon exhaled loudly but relented. Even she couldn't argue with that. "As for the reward, it is still as promised, although I could have your kind officially revealed and instead into pony society instead. You wouldn't need to hide anymore and solutions could be found to feed you better." Sunny was shocked. The terrifying goddess of the moon was actually acting considerate towards somepony else, and they weren't even a pony! "Thank you but I would rather you refrain from doing that. We could no longer be efficient at our infiltration, and the chances we could properly acquire love is...well, it wouldn't be of the same quality, now would it?" She smiled. "And then individual bugs would become fat, complacent, and selfish, like ponies." "I would have said griffins," Moon said. The changeling gestured in agreement. "Although it's not great, sugar is a good substitute." Moon scratched her chin. "I looked into that. There seem to be several sugar farms south of here in the sea. If I retake and rejoin Equestria, we could do business in that regard." The queen glared at Moon and retook her stoic and proud stance. "I cannot, in good conscience, take the sugar from the hooves of my subjects for some unknowable goal. They would run out of business and you would no longer get any sugar to sustain your hive." Sunny grimaced. Moon was feigning sympathy just to irritate the changeling. It was strange to see two rulers being passive-aggressive towards each other while still being helpful towards their shared goals. Was this politics? Politics were stupid if this was all it was about. The unicorn sighed internally and wished the mayor were here. "Then I'll explore your h...city." The Queen was quick to correct herself. "Oh, and do come back to the hive. Your fight broke something beneath the castle. We have no idea what it is or means. Just a bunch of weird shapes melted into the walls and several red symbols scrawled all over." Moon raised a brow. "Then maybe your little friend there would be able to see the aftermath of a fight of a tall pony." She looked at the pony with a disturbing smile. "You can help us find victims. The rotting stench will clue you in," she mused. The white unicorn nodded nervously. He frowned when she turned to leave. "Hey wait," Sunny realized. "How did you get in here when there's a ton of guards and workers outside? I had to go through five different checkpoints just to get in." The queen faced Sunny and stared him down without blinking. "Look me in the eyes. No blinking," she said. "Okay?" Sunny struggled to keep his eyes open while the changeling stared at him, unflinching, like she was a statue. "Struggling, pony?" she asked him. "N-no." He eventually gave up and blinked, making his eyes burn in the process. Unfortunately for him, the changeling queen had vanished. The pony spun around, trying to find a trace of her, but she left nothing behind. "Where did she go?! How did she do that?!" Sunny worried. Nightmare Moon shrugged. "Now that that is out of the way, what should I start with?" she mused to herself. "Attacking anypony now would be pointless." She grimaced. "I'll annex the forest of the thestrals since they're loyal to me, and get my chef in the process. Hmm...preferably without poison in the food this time." "But...there's their hive and that strange thing hidden underneath it," Sunny said. "The thestrals aren't going anywhere." Moon gave Sunny a glance. "You're just saying that because you want to see their hive." "...Maybe, but I want to help them too." The two exchanged looks for a moment before Nightmare Moon gave in. "Fine!" she complained. "The portal is deep in the dungeons below, so nopony but I and the changelings can use it. We'll go now, so hurry up." Nightmare Moon grumbled as she moved the stones to the dungeon away, revealing a hole in the floor. "There's no stairs?" Sunny asked. "There are. This is just quicker." The dungeon had been mostly cleaned compared to when Sunny had first seen it when Nightmare Moon imprisoned that loud noble. There was no longer algae and slime sloughing off the walls. The metal bars of the prisons were no longer rusted. They were now brand new bars of black metal that stank of paint and heat for some odd reason. "It should be over here," Moon said. The two went down another set of stairs and past a metal door that Moon opened with her magic. It was still empty, telling Sunny that nothing was even remotely ready at the castle yet. The alicorn repeated the same action with the stones of her throne room's floor with one of the walls and revealed the gray portal made by the changelings. "That's the portal?" Sunny asked. He leaned forward from behind the alicorn. "Is it safe? It doesn't look...right." "You chose to postpone my annexation of the thestrals, you don't get to question anything. In you go," she ordered. The mare booted Sunny into the portal and followed in after the screaming unicorn.