I had been in Equestria for a little over a month by the time that incident happened; a month and seven days if you want to be precise. The weather was turning warmer and Celestia’s days were already becoming longer. The nights were filled with ponies wandering the streets of Canterlot, going out shopping. The nights were cool but not cold and made them a pleasure to be out in if one managed to get outside.
I couldn’t go outside due to Luna’s lessons. I remember feeling like some of the foals I could see occasionally watching the adults through their bedroom windows wishing their bedtimes weren’t so early; I could occasionally see Shining Armor and Cadence wandering around some of the nearby streets on those nights spending time with one another. They had frequently invited me on these outings, but I declined most of them either because I didn’t want to be a burden (I never felt like a third wheel; it was hard when your companions were ponies to really feel left out of anything) or because I had my lessons with Luna. Yet on the nights I had my lessons I sometimes wanted to go with them for a want of not having Luna breathing down my neck all the time.
She had become much more tolerable since the memory spell, but that had not kept her from assigning loads of homework. It wasn’t as much as the chapter two homework, but it was enough that I had to spend at least four hours a day on it from the moment she assigned it if I wanted to get it done. Dewey Decimal helped again as he had before and helped it be less of a burden. There were times with the amount of homework I was given if I had more paperwork to do than Luna did royal duties and the homework was merely a ploy to make it so that she didn’t have to watch me.
I doubted Luna watched me at all even though Celestia had made it her duty to. Cadence would check in on me every once in a while during the days to see if I was looking for stuff to do to keep me busy or if I needed any help on the homework; I often told her I was fine and she would leave me alone. Shining Armor stopped by more often than Cadence did, mostly for a friendly chat on days when his guard training finished early or if he didn’t have anything to do. Celestia seemed satisfied with whoever gave her the reports by the end of the day, whether it was Cadence or Shining Armor or occasionally myself, though she hadn’t forgotten about Luna and was constantly double-grading my papers after Luna had finished with them. And so, it was in this way that I went about with my studies of Equestrian history under Luna and my life in Canterlot Castle.
It was funny how much like home the place had become. Aside from Luna avoiding me at all costs, I had people who cared about me and a place I could actually retreat to if I didn’t want to speak with anyone. Of course, being the sort of creatures that they were, not many of the ponies left me alone for very long and all of them made me feel welcomed. I began to feel better about my predicament and, for the first time in a long time, I felt happy. Not overjoyed or even content with my life in Equestria, but things seemed to be looking upwards for me. It was fun to go walking about the gardens of Canterlot Castle, to go walking through the streets of Canterlot in the bright spring afternoons, to head out on the town with Shining Armor and Cadence at night, when we would go to restaurants for dinner and game rooms where we would play darts and shuffleboard and cards with some of the men from Shining Armor’s guard.
It wasn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. But… it was comforting. Pleasing. Enjoyable.
At least… for a week.
The week had gone by without hitch. Luna’s lessons covered chapter five in reasonable amount of time, and six was coming up. As we finished the end of the week and the end of chapter five, Luna gave me the homework for chapter six and sent me on my way. I decided to start reading ahead as I had developed a habit of doing and went to prep myself for the coming week of studies.
That’s when I noticed the chapter heading.
Chapter 6: Nightmare Moon and Luna’s Banishment.
Uh oh…
Almost as soon as I saw the chapter heading I bolted off to find Cadence and Shining Armor. Their counsel and advice over the time of my stay had become both valuable and, oddly enough, treasured at times. So I immediately went to find them the minute I saw the chapter heading and wondered what was I to do.
They were both as shocked and confused as I was.
“It certainly isn’t going to be easy,” Cadence said.
“It’s guaranteed to be a touchy subject,” Shining Armor agreed. “It seems that’s the one thing she hasn’t gotten over yet.”
“Well, if I was banished to the moon for a thousand years, I wouldn’t take kindly to it, either,” I remarked.
“You’re likely going to have to be on your best behavior,” Cadence said. “If you finish your work in time and lay low and quiet during class with as few comments as possible, I think you should be able to pass this portion without too much trouble.”
“I only hope she is willing to do the same,” I said.
* * *
Throughout the week, I remained quiet unless asked a question. I didn’t ask any questions and provided no disturbances. Luna at many points challenged me without a word to ask a question about the material, but I remained as firm as possible remembering the advice of Princess Cadence and kept silent.
I learned many things about Luna I don’t think she would have told me at any other time before then. A long time ago, she and Celestia used to be the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. It was Luna and Celestia who, one thousand years ago, had sealed the entity Discord in a stone prison and had trapped King Sombra in ice in the northern country after rescuing Princess Cadence from the fading of the Crystal Empire. In those days, as it was now, Celestia controlled the sun and its patterns, and Luna controlled the moon and the stars and their patterns. For a long time, Equestria thrived under their dual leadership and became prosperous; Luna tending the dreams of the citizens as they slept at night to make sure no nightmares plagued them.
But soon, Luna became jealous. The ponies worked and played during Celestia’s days, but as soon as Luna came out to give them the night, they would all retire and sleep until morning had come. Luna grew depressed and believed her elder sister was gaining more attention than she was. It was during this time that she became corrupted by a shadow and became the entity known as Nightmare Moon, which had accentuated her hatred and jealously of her elder sister. For a month, she blocked out the sun as she and Celestia waged war with each other. In a last ditch attempt, Celestia harness the Elements of Harmony on her own and used them against her corrupted sister, banishing her to the moon for a thousand years, though became ever-watchful of the chance that Nightmare Moon could return when a renowned magician of the time proposed that “the stars will aid in her escape, and once more she will bring nighttime eternal”. The Elements of Harmony, having lost their original users, faded away into stone and were eventually covered up by time for a thousand years until the new bearers came along that could properly wield them once again.
“For fifty years, Equestria entered a dark age caused by the appearance of Nightmare Moon,” Luna said. “Fear and terror ran rampant, and it took over seventy years and a new generation for Celestia to regain the trust of her citizens. The true horrors of the time eventually gave way to a series of myths and legends, purposely started by Celestia herself, that soon overcame the fears they had.”
I remained silent through there were plenty of questions I wanted to ask. Why, for example, would Celestia purposefully hide away the true events of what happened? Of course, reputation could be among the answers she gave me, or otherwise spite at her younger sister’s corruption and the power that she had been given with it.
“These fears and terrors still exist today, yet steps have been taken to recover the ill feelings that once shook through the population, steps such as public programs to make the nights safer and less threatening, the allowance of businesses to stay open after dark, and certain events that take place at night, such as meteor showers and the Nightmare Night festival that occurs in the fall after the harvesting season is over.”
I had to open my big fat mouth. “But what have you done?”
A fire erupted in Luna’s eyes. “You think that I have sat by idly? No! I have resumed my place as the Princess of the Night! I have returned to the spot that I was meant to hold by the destiny and responsibility given to me with my cutie mark! I have made the nights a safer place for ponies and less threatening to all!”
“But I never see you around at all.”
“A princess has work to do.”
“What sort of work?”
“I raise the moon! I create the stars! I create the patterns you see in the night sky!”
“Do you do anything with other ponies?”
“I— They are too afraid of me to let me approach them.”
“Have you tried?”
Luna’s voice lowered temporarily. “Well, no, not really…”
“Perhaps that’s the reason why you became Nightmare Moon: you didn’t have any friends. You were too angry and impatient with those that tried to be nice, so they all left you and went away and you didn’t realize that there were those that appreciated you. That’s probably the reason why you still don’t have any friends.”
That did it.
“DO NOT SAY THINGS THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW AND DO NOT CONCERN YOU, YOU IMPUDENT FOAL!!!”
If she said any more, I didn’t hear it. The desk went flying backwards so hard the window cracked, and when the gust from her voice lifted me out of the desk and onto the window the force was too much. The window gave way and the glass shattered. I flew out from the tower and started falling down, down, down to the courtyard below. I tried to scream, but the wind had come out from my lungs and I was straining to breathe. A dark figure began to swoosh out of the window and come rocketing towards me and I reached out a hand to grab onto it for safety. I nearly reached out and touched it whe
* * *
I found myself standing in the middle of Canterlot Castle. The day was bright outside and I wandered the empty halls. All the others had left for the day except for Celestia, who had been working on some important paperwork, and some guards who were patrolling the castle, but they were few and far in between. Overall, the day was pleasant and I considered going out for a stroll in the garden.
But, for some reason, it felt as though things were different. The halls were never this barren. When I went to see Celestia, her door was locked and it was known for never being locked. For that matter, she shouldn’t have been in her room in the first place, as it was during the daylight hours from early in the morning that Celestia held court. When I looked out a window to the barracks, the guard wasn’t training and the lights were all off and it always had a light in it even on the weekends.
What was more, when I did go out into the gardens the sun was not shining. The day certainly was nice and bright with a clear blue sky, but when I looked up into the sky I saw no sun but a large moon, full of holes and with the dark silhouette of a mare on its surface and close enough to the ground that I could have touched it from the castle’s tallest tower. I scrambled back inside and shot for the tallest tower that I knew of: Luna’s observatory.
I entered the observatory and found the bookshelves in complete disarray as though a great fight had taken place. Some of the shelves were toppled, while others simply had all the books taken out of them. Books large and small were strewn across the room and I clambered over the piles and up a nearby ladder towards a large telescope above the mess. Once at that level, I opened a door and went outside to see what in the world the moon was doing.
But once I got outside and reached a hand up to touch the moon, I found the moon had retreated somewhat and the sky had turned to night. Panic set in as I went back inside and shot back across the castle towards the gardens below, where the sky turned to day and the moon was once again sitting above Canterlot Castle.
Panic changed to desperation as I ran through the halls of the castle, calling the names of ponies I knew. “Shining Armor! Princess Cadence! Princess Celestia! Revenant Wings! Spitfire! Rainbow Dash! Someone! Anyone! Where are you!?” But no one answered me.
But fear overtook me when I came to the wing where Princess Cadence’s and Shining Armor’s suite was. A great shadow had come over the castle and began to engulf everything in its wake. I knew not where to go, but I turned and ran around the other direction anyways. I bolted through the halls of the castle, determined not to let the darkness overtake me.
“Princess Luna! Please! Help me!”
The sound of cold laughter answered me this time and I shot for the gardens, hoping that the light of day would make the shadows recede. I ran through the halls, my heart pounding in my chest and my feet pounding the floor as the shadow continued to approach me, nipping at my heels and threatening to pounce on me. I burst through the double doors into the garden and breathed a sigh of relief as I collapsed on the soft grass, looking up at the sky.
The moon was still there, but in its place above the highest tower in Canterlot Castle as before. The moon itself had changed; the design of the mare that had been on its face was now gone as the cold laughter returned. From far off I heard the sound of someone calling my name, but it was drowned out as a voice from the shadows began to speak.
“It’s funny how you called Princess Luna’s name,” the voice came, colder and darker than Luna’s ever had been. “You’ve never gotten to know her on good terms, and yet when trouble starts happening you manage to call out her name…”
A pair of dark blue eyes flashed out from the darkness, followed by a midnight black alicorn mare similar in shape to Luna emerging from the darkness with a mane and tail that appeared to be made from the night sky itself. She wore a set of dark blue armor that covered her head and her body. She emerged slowly from the shadows as though pulling herself free from entanglement until she finally leapt out and spread her wings wide; her wingspan was almost as long as I was tall, perhaps longer. She walked over to me as she clicked her tongue disapprovingly.
“She harbors a hatred against you and your kind, you know,” the mare said. “But she’s a hypocrite. She hates you, yet it was partially your kind that saved her. Someone long ago who pleaded for a sentence, who believed that the Luna they knew was still in there. And so she was merely banished instead of killed.”
I stared in fear at the alicorn, feebly pushing myself backwards and away from the alicorn. “Who… who are you? Why do you torment me?”
“Who am I indeed?” The alicorn laughed, flashing to the face of Princess Luna for a moment before changing back like a glitch in a computer. “I am the embodiment of night. I am your worst fears come to light. I am the one who takes pleasures in screams of fear from colts and fillies and mares and stallions in the dead of night.”
I got up and attempted to run away, but I tripped over an exposed root and fell right back down. “I am the one who tortures your psyche,” the alicorn continued, her shadow coming over me as I lay there on the grass. “I am the one who deals more mental pain than the worst of physical torture. I make grown stallions who have seen war and not shed a tear cry in fear through reliving events they’d rather not see again. I make mothers break down in fear of losing their children, and children scream in terror as I separate them from parents. I am Nightmare Moon, and it was I who was banished to the moon for a thousand years.”
I lay on the ground, shaking with fear.
“And now… now I have come again through your dreams, to torture you and to show you true fear.”
My dreams…
“But… if I am dreaming… does that mean I am asleep?”
“Why, of course!” the alicorn said, seemingly impressed, changing back to Luna’s face before the glitch came again and transformed back to the darker alicorn’s. “You certainly catch on quick for one who has hardly ever experienced the powers of one who walks through dreams.”
“Then… why can’t I wake up?”
“Because I have trapped you here,” the alicorn replied. “If I have dominion over night, then certainly I can trick your brain into staying asleep even when a person has figured out their true circumstances.”
The alicorn’s horn began to glow and I felt shadowy tendrils begin to wrap around my neck and arms and legs, lifting me up and restraining me. “It was… interesting. You put up a good fight for someone so weak, so unused to such strong magical power. But, you see, that’s my thing: the chase makes you better and more rewarding to catch.”
I pulled at the tendrils around my neck, choking and sweating as I heard voices from elsewhere in my brain. I struggled to speak, but the tendrils were too tight and it took all my energy to pull them off enough to breathe.
“I’m sorry, Nemo,” the alicorn chuckled darkly. “But it ends here.”
I finally managed to pull the tendrils enough away from my throat to scream out. “Princess Luna! Help me…!”
For a moment, it felt like it was no use. The mare backed away into the shadows that had overtaken Canterlot and pulled me back with her. I reached out for blades of grass and clumps of dirt, but nothing could hold me back from the darkness and the abyss of death.
Nothing but a blue streak that slammed down so hard it severed the tendrils of whatever had grabbed me and stood between me and the alicorn. “You are no longer a part of me,” the figure said. “Now get out before I destroy you myself!”
I wanted to see more of what was happening, but my vision was fading out. A steady beeping noise could be heard in the background and I felt a soft thing under me. My breath was fading into short gasps that barely took any breath in.
“But you nearly killed him. You were the one that did that, not I.”
“I never meant to kill him,” the figure responded, its voice fading away as I collapsed on the floor unable to move. “I lost my temper. But you… you are the one that nearly led him to his death. Now, stand back or be banished to the darkness of space!”
“You wouldn’t dare…! I was a part of you for a thousand years!”
“I would dare.” A bright blue light began to shine from the figure. “Stay away from him! He is my charge, and I will protect him from whatever may assault him. That was my duty, given to me by Celestia, and I will carry out my duty.”
The bright blue light enveloped as the alicorn screamed. The darkness receded and all was replaced with plain white and the continual beeping. I tried opening my eyes, but could not as it was too bright, the lights shining in my face blinding me and making it hard to see.
“He’s waking up,” I heard a voice say in the background.
“Nemo!” I heard another, deeper voice say. There was a clattering of hoofsteps in my direction and a white unicorn with a blue mane slowly faded into my field of vision. “Nemo! Thank Celestia, you’re awake!”
I blinked a few times but found it hard to respond.
“How is he, nurse?” I heard another voice ask.
“He’ll be okay,” an unfamiliar voice responded. “It was quite the fall, but he was rushed here quickly and magic has healed the majority of his wounds. I expect he’ll be in peak condition by tomorrow morning, but he will need to keep the bandages on his chest and arm for at least another week.”
Bandages… I must have been in a hospital wing. I turned my head to see Cadence standing next to a white unicorn pony with a white cap and red cross. I moved my head to see that an IV had been placed in my arm and my top had been taken off. I weakly raised a hand to my forehead to feel that a piece of cloth had been wrapped around me.
“Imagine falling out of the observatory tower…” I recognized the voice of Cadence talking to the nurse. “I… can’t believe that such a thing could happen.”
“It was Luna with the Royal Canterlot Voice,” the nurse replied. “I could hear it across the castle. Luna herself brought him in right away last night.”
I heard the doors bang open but was too weak to tilt my head any more.
“I can’t believe you were so rash to use the Royal Canterlot Voice…” I heard Celestia’s disapproving voice ring through the hall. “What’s more, Nemo had a point.”
“What do you mean!?” came Luna’s voice after her. “Why have you always taken his side since the moment he got here?”
“Because he’s brought up things that haven’t been talked about for a long time and needed to be talked about.” I saw Celestia walk into my field of vision. “At least he’s still alive after that little stunt.”
I felt two hooves grab one of my hands and the feeling of soft fur as Shining Armor nuzzled my hand. “Oh, thank Celestia you’re alive…” he said again.
Luna soon came into my vision, and the circle was completed with Cadence and the nurse coming up next to my bed.
“Nemo,” Princess Celestia said to me. “If you can hear me, please respond in some way.”
I weakly tapped my finger on Celestia’s hoof next to me.
“Nemo. I’ve come to a decision. You are going to be relocated until the end of your stay.”
“What!?” came the collective shout from Shining Armor and Princess Cadence.
“I cannot allow such incidents to continue any further. Shining Armor, I need you to write a letter to your sister in Ponyville and ask explain to her the circumstances. Ask her if Nemo can stay there for a few weeks until the Summer Sun Celebration.”
Shining Armor nodded and ran off. Luna followed him.
“You responded quickly,” Celestia called after her, “but that’s no excuse.”
Luna “hmph”ed and left. Princess Cadence left soon afterwards.
Princess Celestia sat down by the hospital bed until I had regained my movement later that afternoon. I turned to Celestia and asked her what happened.
“You were knocked unconscious after Luna’s voice threw you out of the observatory tower in her wing of the castle. However, Luna rushed down to prevent you from directly hitting.” She motioned to my bandages. “She was quick enough that your injuries were relatively minor.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“You’re going to be relocated until the Summer Sun Celebration. I hope the change of scenery will brighten your mood and the quiet of the small town will give you some time to rest. When the Summer Sun Celebration comes around, I will head over to Ponyville for the big ceremonies and will help you return a day or two afterwards.”
I nodded. “Please… get me out of here, before something worse happens.”
Celestia nodded. “I forgive you for your behavior,” she said gently. “Please, get better soon.” And she left me to rest.
Having little to do and being so weak, I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
* * *
I heard a familiar voice once again, soft and soothing…
Hush now, quiet now; it’s time to lay your sleepy head.
Hush now, quiet now; it’s time to go to bed…
I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...
End of Part I