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// Epilogue: Visiting an Old Friend 
// Story: Embracing the Night 
// by NightInk 
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	It’s been a month since the reburial of Nightmare Moon. I’ve been busy since then, arranging things with Celestia for me to have a permanent room in the Night Wing, helping reconstruct the roof, and explaining why I was deformed, winged, and in love with a pony to my parents at home, not to mention my friends and professors. Thanks to the time travel capabilities of the Element of Life, I’ve managed to keep up with the events of both worlds I call home, but there is one place I haven’t been back to yet.
Having finally gotten the hang of tossing my portal into existence (it’s harder than it sounds), I stepped easily into the Crossroads. I was a human at the time, wearing the amulet, the knife, and some clothes Rarity had made for me. Most of what I wore now was made by her, especially since she was the only seamstress I knew who really had the knack of making wing-holes in shirts. I’d bring some to her to be altered, but most of what she made was better quality and cheaper anyways. All I really bought that was human-made anymore was underwear and shoes.
Anyways, I went back to the Crossroads. The orange glow of the ditches was uplifting, almost. Especially since I was able to be here and still be alive. Ben was right where I had left him, sitting on his bench. This time he was carving a mask that looked like a skull out of a giant scale. I guess he just went from project to project, having so much spare time and all. He was really good at it too. For my only having been gone for a month, he was pretty far along in the rough details.
My portal had appeared right where I had arrived last time, in the clearing where there were a few streetlights. I approached him just like I had last time, slowly, like I was dead and didn’t know where I was. He knew everything that went on in his realm, though, and as I got closer he said, “Hey, there. Kudos on killing Nightmare Moon.”
I sat down next to him with a sigh. Oddly enough, my spot still felt warm. “Yeah, I did all right. Would have been nice to know that she couldn’t be hurt by the sword as she was, though.”
He kept working at his carving. “Yeah, but if I had told you that, it would have been cheating, now wouldn’t it?”
“I think one more broken rule wouldn’t have made much of a difference at that point.”
He chuckled a little bit. “You’d be surprised, kid.”
I gave him an odd look. “You know, my name isn’t kid.”
He flicked a particularly large piece of scale off his mask and said, “Yeah, but you’ve gone through this whole story without mentioning your name once. I figure I’ll let you keep it up.”
I shrugged. “Fair enough.” I looked at his mask. “You must spend a lot of time carving. Those are really good.”
He hummed indecisively. “Yeah, they’re decent. They should be though. Back on Earth that was my job, you know. I was a wood worker. I made masks and bits of precious for people. Did some rings, too, but they were never my best works.”
“So that’s where you were from originally? Old time Earth?” I asked, leaning forward in my seat.
“Yeah, that’s where I first called home. My story was actually a lot like yours. I was accidentally brought to Equestria and turned out to be somebody. My pony name has long been forgotten by the history books, though. At least I’m fairly sure. I don’t even clearly remember what I did. The biggest difference between you and me is that you are an alicorn, giving you some amount of their magical immortality, even in human form. I was just a unicorn. Don’t get me wrong, I was damn powerful, and could probably even give Twilight Sparkle a run for her money. I don’t know what she’s studied, though. Probably a little of everything. She does live in a library after all.”
I pulled an apple out of my pocket and began to peel it with my own bone knife. “Which reminds me, how’d you know so much about everyone? I realize that your death and you know about pretty much everyone, but I really figured that you would just know the basics, like our name, our cause of death, and if we were a good person or not. Yet you know a lot of little details, like Twi living in the library.”
“Well, I don’t just get the basic details. I also get little flashes into the lives of some ponies. And people. Never anything really solid, but just bits like hometowns and stuff.”
I cut a long strand of peel off the apple. “Huh. By the way, you got a trash can?”
He carelessly gestured with his knife toward the ground. “Just throw it anywhere. It gets zapped up to the surface and the nutrients in it get sent to needy plants. It’s how those plants that need to water every day but forget about live so long. They get the occasional boost from food scraps down here.”
I threw the peel on the ground and watched it shrivel into dust. “Wow. Pretty neat.”
He gave a grunt. “We’re a green company.”
I cut a piece off the apple and took a bite. “You know, you also didn’t tell me this only kills on contact when you want it to.”
He looked at me like I was lying. “How did you figure that out?”
I grinned a little and said, “I dropped in onto my foot when I was shaving the bark off of a log. I took Luna camping on Earth.”
He gave an insinuating chuckle. “Oh, ho. Did you now? You sly boots. Where’d you go?”
I took another bite and talked around the apple. “We went up to a place back home in Alaska, in the interior. Nice spot. Clearing on a little plateau, it looks over the forest. She got a kick out of it.”
“Alaska? Well, hell, that’s why you’re a tough little shit. You really grew up in that hellhole?”
I nodded. “Yep, and loved every minute. The cold was better than the humidity and heat to me. And I loved the forests and mountains over the sand and the sun. Didn’t make me tough, though. I faked all that as the opportunity came.”
“No way, bro. You took a full on blast from the Elements of Harmony, then drastically anatomically changed, then stood right up and faced Nightmare Moon. Ain’t no way a man can fake being that tough. Trust me. A lot of people tried to. They were the ones who were willing to give up a worlds worth of life to go party for a while. You’re probably tired of being talked up as a hero by now, but that really is something to be proud of.”
I threw the apple core onto the ground and leaned back, wiping the knife on my pant leg. “I guess. I just wish there had been another way to beat her besides killing her. At least, one that wouldn’t have put anyone else in danger.”
He chuckled a little bit again. “Well, maybe you did the right thing.”
I looked at him sideways. “I really hope you didn’t get some kind of sick satisfaction out of finally having her down here.”
He shook his head. “No, no, even better.” He put his hand into his hood, I guess where is mouth was, and let out a shrill whistle. Not thirty seconds later, Nightmare Moon came soaring out of one or the forks in the road, landing with a little jot to slow herself down.
My hand immediately went to my knife, which I had put back in its sheath, when she took a step back, smiled, and shook her head. “I’m not here to kill or even attack you. I’m here to apologize and thank you.” I was stunned. This was not the monster that I had fought a month ago. As if she had read my mind, she nodded and took a small step forward. “That’s right, I’ve changed. And to be honest, it wasn’t your killing me that did it. If I had been able to get out for that week, I would have gladly ground you into the dirt. It was what you did a week later.
“Burying me somewhere nice, and demanding that your body be laid with mine. Burying yourself must have been impossibly difficult, but turning it into a peace offering and a sign of forgiveness towards the pony who actually killed you without remorse? That is the truest showing of love for all creatures that I ever witnessed, even from the eyes of Princess Luna as her sister banished the one she loved most to end a kingdoms suffering. Obviously, change is not simply that easy, but I have been working to change my ways since I’ve been down here. Believe it or not, there is suffering even here in a land of peace. Helping to alleviate it is the last chance I have at any kind of redemption, and I have taken the most of it.”
I was dumbstruck. This was too weird to be possible. Well, it should have been. But I believed her. The light in her eyes had changed, and the evil that had been there was greatly weakened since the last time I had seen her. I had to give her this chance. And besides, she was dead. As she was, she couldn’t hurt me anyways. I stood and slowly walked towards her.
She made sure to stay still as I approached so that I wouldn’t get nervous. I stood directly in front of her and looked into her eyes again to be sure I was seeing the truth. I was. She really was reforming. She smiled quietly, and it was a pure smile. I couldn’t say anything for a moment. I just wrapped my arms around her, giving her a caring, knowing hug. Once I could talk, all I said was, “I’m so proud of you. You’ve grown so much in a month, and in all the right ways.”
She sniffled a little bit and after another few moments pulled back. She rolled her eyes a little, looking remarkably like Luna for a moment, and said, “Yeah. Thanks dad.”
All three of us laughed a good long time after that. After talking for a couple more minutes, Nightmare Moon flew off to visit a friend. The last thing she said as she disappeared into the darkness was, “Tell Luna I said ‘Hi’ and ‘Thank you’!”
I went back and sat back down next to Ben. This time I knew, my spot was still warm, and it should have cooled off. It just trapped any residual butt heat. Leaning back on the bench I looked up to the ‘sky’ above me and sighed. “It’s a great thing, isn’t it? Seeing someone who was that bad grow up that much?” I just nodded. He kept working on his mask for a while, and we sat enjoying the silence and the feeling of each other’s company. With a groan that made him sound like an old man who had been sitting too long, he reached under his seat and pulled out another white shell, just waiting to be turned into a mask. “You got a little time to kill?”









Authors Note: I freely admit, I’m a sucker for a happy ending, and I would like to think Nightmare Moon could have learned compassion. This is the end of the story, but I’m leaving it marked as incomplete because I may go back to flesh out the beginning and give him more background. But for all story line intents and purposes, it’s complete. Thanks for all your support during this learning period!