Mira woke in her familiar repose.
She should be used to the transition by now—but this was the first time she'd ever done it intentionally. There was no confusion and disorientation that came from "dying" and returning to life. She sat up, waking from her sleep as she'd done so many times before.
Her relaxation lasted all of five seconds, when she realized two-dozen bats were staring at her.
Somepony dropped an offering plate, scattering bits to the floor. Night, wearing an overly elaborate recreation of standard lunar monk robes.
"She's awake!" someone called, pointing in her direction with a wing. Ponies gasped, others dropped into a bow.
"The Wakeless Mare!" somepony else repeated. Mira remembered his voice—that was one of the city guards. Not the one she thought was cute.
"She who dreams of our future!" So they went, building each other up with repetition of her mythological persona.
Night recovered, scuttling to the front of the room. "She's awake!" she shouted. "At the completion of her quest, the brave mare returns! She's traveled the Dreaming from one end to another! Praise her!"
"Praise the Wakeless Mare," some whispered. Most ponies didn't understand the request, and looked on in confusion. Lunar worship had many things, but praise and ritual was not one of them. The ponies just looked baffled.
Mira wobbled, stepped past her shrine. These ponies were obviously waiting for her to speak. This was her one chance to stop them from slipping back into Night's grasp. She cleared her throat, then spoke. "I have a mission from the Moon Princess. It is urgent, and I need help to accomplish it before I return to the Dreaming."
More gasps. Did they not remember what she sounded like? Even Night seemed surprised. Maybe she thought Mira was going to reveal her deception to all of Understory.
She recovered far swifter than the rest of the audience. "A mission to spread her true faith to the world? To organize sacred missionaries? We've long waited for—"
"No," Mira snapped. The pretender might have the advantage of living in the waking world with these ponies, but Mira had grown up in Understory. She knew each one of them by name. "Hyacinth, stand up. You're the best stonemason in Understory. I need something sturdy, something that will survive for hundreds or thousands of years. Can you carve runes?"
Any second these ponies would realize that Mira was a kind of pretender too. She was the orphan, Kallisto's compassion project, not a chosen emissary of the moon. They knew her—her slight frame, her cutie mark, and her poverty.
Hyacinth rose to his hooves. "Of course, Wakeless Mare. I... have received commissions from unicorns for magical purposes. But if you wish for the greatest magical power, carving runes will not be enough. Metal should be set into the marks. If it is to last, it must be a metal that does not rust or canker."
"Gold," Mira finished for him. She skimmed the crowd, but didn't find who she was looking for. But that was one of his apprentices. "Kyros! Is your master still the best smith in Understory?"
He whimpered, wings falling slack under the attention. Was he really that afraid? How hard could it be to answer questions from a young mare without a family or any reputation of her own?
He managed. "Y-yes, miss. Does the princess of the moon require him?"
She strode past him. "Yes. I will need his skills with thaumcraft. The princess herself gave me the magic we must create. The rest of you—I trust you to say nothing of this. The tyrant is already searching for me. If she finds me, she will destroy our only chance to free the true ruler of Equestria. Say nothing."
Finally, her attention fell on Night. "I require more parchment, ink, and somewhere to work. More food, too. I will eat and write at the same time."
"O-of course, honored... illustrious... indomitable one," Night muttered, voice strained. "Let me take you there now!" She stalked over to Mira, then nudged her towards the exit. She was obviously trying to look respectful, but physically she muscled her out the door.
Once they were through, she slammed it closed, leaving the ponies beyond to burst into hushed conversation. Everything they were too afraid to say in front of Mira. But she didn't try to listen. Whether they believed her or not, she had to get this done. She would learn to carve it herself if she had to.
"What the buck are you playing at?" Night demanded, baring her fangs at Mira. "The goodwill of a group of ponies is a finite resource. If our religion makes them do things, they won't want to give."
Mira twitched, raising one hoof. More of Luna's knowledge flooded into her, readily filling her mind. Her stance became steadier, preparing to strike.
She lowered her hoof, relaxing. "There's a difference between you and me, Night. One of us is telling the truth. I don't care what you think about religion. When Kallisto still ran this place, it was a school. We don't worship. The doctrine was meant to teach us our birthright."
Night twisted to the side, and drew a slip of glittering metal in her wing—a dagger. She brandished it at Mira, threatening. "You are going back in there. You're going to tell them you were mistaken, that all you need is for them to tell their friends to keep the offerings flowing into the monastery. Then you're going back to bed."
Mira froze. Her eyes fixed on the blade, and its connection to Night's body. She saw her tension, the flow of force down her wings.
She kept her voice low, barely even a whisper. "Night. You are a fraud who built a nest in my house. You've been exploiting the desperation of these ponies with no one to stop you. But those lies can be replaced with something useful. You've organized the bats of Understory in useful ways that Kallisto never could. I'm going to give you this one chance. Stop impersonating a servant of the moon princess, and become one."
Night didn't move. She kept her dagger poised, a single wingspan away from Mira's face. "Or what? You're a filly who overslept."
The moon princess would not have shown mercy to such an unfaithful servant. But if Luna wanted to decide how the Lunar Kingdom was run, she shouldn't have got herself banished.
She didn't call on Luna's violence—instead, she called on her wisdom. She whispered a word. With it, Mira wedged a crack into the Dreaming. The sword of a Solar Guard dropped into her wing, flat side up. She caught it, slid back, and poised to impale her enemy.
If she ever saw those soldiers again, she would have to thank them for showing her a convenient weapon. "Or you die," Mira said flatly. "There's no time for trials with the princess gone. I'll rebuild their faith myself if I have to. Like I said—the difference between the two of us is that I'm actually what I say I am. Nightmare Moon sent me. Now get on my side, or get out of the way."
Night gasped. The dagger clattered from her grip to the stone. As Mira suspected, she barely even knew how to use it. A pony like her only used a blade in the kitchen. "H-how... where did you get that?"
"The Dreaming," she answered. Mira flipped it through the air, right past Night's head. It sunk into the door a few inches, then puffed away into a cloud of blue vapor. "Nightmare Moon gave me her knowledge, Night. She ordered me to set her free. If you think I'm going to ignore that to set up some worthless cult, you're wrong."
Night trembled, and her resolve finally broke. She dropped to one knee, tears streaming down her face. "I-I... I don't know if there's any salvation waiting for me, Mira. There's no paying back for all I've done. No way to settle the debt."
Mira rolled her eyes. She hurried forward, nudging the mare back to her hooves. "I don't care what you did or where you came from, Night. Help me do this—help me free the princess. With her, every bat in Equestria can get our birthright back."
Night whimpered. Her whole body shook under Mira's grip. At least she didn't pull another knife on her. The mare was lucky Mira's instincts hadn't snapped the second she saw the knife. "I don't... a-actually know anything. I just say things that sound good. I can't do magic, I didn't study with any monks."
"I don't need you to do any of that." Mira gestured back at the door. "Reassure those ponies. Get Hyacinth to come back here in a day, with the sturdiest single chunk of granite he can find. About..." She gestured. "This big. Then find me clean paper and bring it to my quarters."
Night nodded, then turned to go. "R-right. Yeah. Organize. I can... I can figure this out. I don't know what ponies will do when they find out you're awake. The news must be spreading already."
Mira hesitated. She almost said nothing, and let the false monk go off and make up her own story. It would be safer for the ponies of Understory.
But was it better to wither and die, or to take the chance of escape?
"When my teacher ruled here, she honored the princess's last request—to teach magic only sparingly, to protect ponies from Celestia's notice. I have... new orders. You can tell the ponies of Understory that they will get their birthright back. I will share the night magic with them. We'll become a strong tribe again. Strong enough that one day, we won't have to hide."
"Can you do that?" Night asked.
Mira turned her back on the mare, then set off down the stairs to her quarters. "I will do it, you don't have to. Just tell them what I said."
Mira left the door to her room open while she worked. In part because she wanted to know if Night tried to sneak past her and run off with the monastery’s gold, and also because she was expecting a visitor.
Pixie appeared after a few minutes, sauntering over to the desk and hopping up beside Mira's scroll. She scanned its contents, flicking her tail towards her nose. "Do you think this is a good idea, dreamer? Your kind are strongest when they work in secret. You just shared all our plans with a horse who makes her way in the world riding the backs of others. She might use it against you."
Mira set the quill pen back into her jar of ink. "You might be right. This isn't the safest plan. I just don't think bats can afford to be safe with our plans anymore. We've stayed safe for almost a century since the moon princess was banished. What did that get us? Hiding in the jungle, hunted by the Solar Guard. We forgot the magic that made us special. The only safe future is more of that. We'll keep the ember safe, but it will still go out. We'll die just the same."
The kitten paced around the edge of Mira's desk, studying her drawing. "I knew you were different when I met you, dreamer. I could go anywhere for bats, but I didn't want any bat. I wanted one with vision. I wanted a bat who wanted to change things."
She touched the kitten gently with her wing, grinning down at her. "You think we can do it? You believe in us?"
The cat laughed, a hissing sound strained so high that a non-bat probably couldn't even hear her. "It's not about winning, Mira. It's about trying. You have to make the world the way you want. And if the world is too strong, if you bounce off the side, then you gotta make the biggest, loudest mess you can when you go. Make sure they're hauling stories about you into the night for generations."
Mira tapped her pen again. "One way or another, Pixie... Equestria will remember what we did here."