//------------------------------// // 04 - House of Secrets // Story: Black Angel // by Zobeid //------------------------------// Cain fumed, as he often did. “Blistering idiot! How long can it take you to move a piece?” Abel rocked a bit in his chair, staring at the game board. “Hmm… I just… I’m still thuh-thinking.” “Thinking, is it? Is that what you call what you do with that lump of tapioca that fills the space between your ears?” Abel started to reach for a piece, but then drew back and shook his head. Cain quivered with outrage. “You sponge-wit! After I’ve done you the favor of inviting myself over to your shabby domicile, this is the hospitality you show? Quit stalling, blubber-belly!” Abel gulped and started to reach for a piece again, but was interrupted by muffled thumps. They both looked up. “What’s that?” Cain asked. “I, uh… I think it’s someone at the door. Well, something at the door, anyway…” Cain went tromping down the stairs, and Abel trailed behind. He called, “Buh-brother? Wait! D-don’t you think we ought to, uh, hmm, wait for a while? I, uh… I mmm… I mean, maybe it’ll go away on its own?” In a few moments they were at the front door. Cain spoke loudly, “Who’s there? Who is it?” “AAWURGHK!!” came the reply. Cain nodded. “That sounds like Gregory. He must have trailed me here. Let him in!” “Err, umm… Shouldn’t you? I muh-mean, uh, since he’s your gargoyle.” “And this is your house, you chicken-hearted milksop! Now go and answer your front door!” He gave Abel a shove towards the door. Abel gulped, then reached for the double doors and pulled, swinging them open. Entirely filling the large portal hulked a green-scaled beast with fleshy spines running down its back, and a pair of undersized wings. It was carrying something — something black, clutched in its jaws and its massive, clawed hands. The brothers blinked, trying to make sense of the dark shape. It was Abel who called it first. “It’s, um… some kind of a, a huh-horse?” Gregory turned loose the limbs he’d been holding, and spat out the midnight blue mane, dropping the creature onto the floor with a thud like a sack of potatoes. The creature stirred a little, a cyan-blue eye flickering half open. It weakly rasped, “help me… please…” When Nightmare Moon came to her senses, she slowly realized she was laying upon a bed, her armor gone, her usually spectral starry mane turned solid blue. She tried to turn her head to get a better look at her surroundings, but a jolt of pain forced a brief, stifled shriek from her. She couldn’t recall ever feeling so weak and sore. Instead of moving, she sniffed at the air. It smelled musty, like lost dreams and rotten fabric. A light flickered, a candle flame. This time forcing herself to ignore the stiffness and soreness, Nightmare Moon turned her head to see who approached. Clutching the base of the candle holder in his teeth, a stallion with rust-red coat and shiny black mane drew near. He set his candle on the side table and said, “Huh-hello?” “Where am I?” she breathed, barely more than a whisper. “This is my House of Secrets. I’m Abel. Gregory, uhm — that’s my brother Cain’s gargoyle — hmmm, he brought you here. He found you in the, uh, shifting zones. Whuh-what’s your name?” “It’s…” She hesitated. She had to fight down an impulse to say Luna. It was a name she’d wanted to leave behind, but now that it was no longer hers to claim, she felt a pang of loss. She sighed and said, “It’s Nightmare Moon.” “Nightmare Moon. I like that. Hmm… Let me fix you, uh, something to eat. And I’ll tell my buh-brother you’re awake.” He hurried out of the room, though he left the candle. She lay unmoving, a dull, tolerable ache throbbing through her body. The stillness was comforting, almost pleasant. In her mind, though, she was trying to piece together the jumble of what had happened to her and what it all meant. The tromp of hooves announced the return of Abel and his brother. Abel had a tray balanced on his back. “Can you, uh… sit up?” he asked. “I’ll try,” she muttered. She found she could still move as long as she gritted her teeth against the soreness of every muscle. After some struggle, with Abel trying rather ineffectually to help, she managed to sit up in bed, awkwardly, with her head propped against some pillows. Then she got her first good look at her host and his brother. As she’d noticed before, Abel was a stocky, chubby pony with a rust-red coat and shiny black mane, and she now saw his cutie mark: a magnifying glass. Black hairs around his muzzle sketched out a thin mustache and beard. Cain was taller, lanky, camel brown with an orange mane and a matching goatee sprouting from his chin like a worn-out paintbrush, as well as a white, comma-like mark on his forehead (unusual among ponies) and a pair of spectacles with small, round lenses perched upon his muzzle. His cutie mark was a dagger with blood dripping from it. Abel moved a tray table onto the bed and set the food onto it. “Thuh-there you go. I hope it’s, uh, something you like.” He lifted away the cover to reveal a bowl of oatmeal with apple slices and a glass of red grape juice. Nightmare Moon sniffed, then focused her magic — weak though it was — and managed to levitate the juice with only a slight wobble and take a sip. She nodded. “Yes… Thank you, Abel!” Next she looked up to the taller pony. “And you must be…” He bowed. “Cain, milady! Purveyor of penny dreadfuls, shilling shockers, blood and thunders and fust-rate nightmares!” “It seems I owe you both much.” “I’m sure that being able to assist is nothing but a pleasure for both of us. Especially for my fat ninny of a brother, since this is the only way he’d ever get a lady to visit him! Haha!” Nightmare frowned and glanced to Abel, but he paid no heed to the insult. Instead he said, “Come on, let’s, umm, give her some time to eat?” “I suppose we should. Lady, if you require anything just call and Abel will be here in a snap. Won’t you?” “Of course, of course! But we can, uh, finish our game while she eats? Muh-maybe?” “Oh yes, the game.” With a sly smile Cain turned and left the room, and Abel followed. Nightmare Moon sighed and levitated the spoon and tried the oatmeal, grateful she could at least maintain the dignity of eating with her magic. The food was good, and she began to feel a little stronger. She wondered why dream food gave her strength. Why did dream muscles feel weak and sore? Was it all just a metaphor for the psychic beatdown she took from the real Princess Luna? “You still retain the semblance of life,” Lucien had said. It was quite the persistent illusion, she mused. She looked down at herself and frowned inwardly. Although her mane and tail had become solid again, the rest of her hadn’t changed. This form, this imposing black body with dragon eyes, had been a glamour, a sort of magical costume. When she was knocked out, weakened, the disguise should have failed and returned her real shape and appearance. It should have turned her back into Luna. But it couldn’t do that now, could it? She wasn’t Luna anymore. “This is the real me now.” The thought gave her no comfort. After a time Abel and Cain returned. “Feeling better? I hope?” Abel asked, as he collected the food tray. “Yes, somewhat.” Cain spoke up, “I’d heard gossip of your arrival in The Dreaming. I must admit some surprise that you’ve managed to get in trouble so soon.” The question was implicit. She sighed and explained. “I sought out my former self, Princess Luna. She still lives, and she still dreams. I found her, confronted her… But she’s different now, in thrall to my abusive sister. Luna did not react well to my entreaties — to put it mildly. And thus, after the magical explosion, I found myself here.” Abel prompted, “Hmm… Your, uh, former self?” “It’s a long story, but the short of it is: I was Princess Luna of Equestria until I invented this, for lack of a better word, persona that I called Nightmare Moon. Everypony thought Luna was weak, timid, unimportant, a mere shadow of their beloved Princess Sola. So… Nightmare Moon would be strong and confident. She would command respect, and demand her due as ruler of Equestria.” She looked down at her hooves. “But my sister somehow corrupted the Elements of Harmony, the most powerful artifacts we possess, and turned them against me — twice. The first time I was banished into the moon for a thousand years. The second time, well… I ended up like this. Somehow they split me apart into two ponies, into Luna and Nightmare Moon. Luna still lives back in Equestria, while I am… whatever I am now. I’m still figuring that out.” Cain grunted and gave a slight nod. “It’s not entirely unknown for some people to persist in both the waking world and in the world of dreams, though I’ve never heard of it happening quite the way you describe.” Abel fidgeted and asked, “So, hmm… What will you do now, I wuh-wunder? When you’re feeling, uh, better, I mean?” Nightmare Moon looked up at him and started to say, “I…” She paused with her mouth open for a couple of seconds. “I don’t know. I thought I could bring Luna back to her senses, but it feels like she almost destroyed me. Whatever is left of me, I mean. I dare not try that again.” Cain smirked. “I heard that our fearless leader, the Prince of Stories, assigned you to nightmare duty. So, you have employment and a bit of psychic real estate in which to hang your hat. It’s not so bad.” Her face darkened. “Jumping out of the shadows to scare passerby? Chasing colts and fillies and threatening to gobble them up? That will not be my fate, I swear!” The brothers glanced at one another. Cain shook his head, a subtle gesture that Nightmare didn’t overlook. He looked to her and said, cautiously, “Perhaps you can figure something out. Just remember, though, that Lord Morpheus has absolute power in the Dreaming, and whatever you do must satisfy him. The purpose of a nightmare is to instill fear in the dreamers, steeling them for the inevitable, sharp vicissitudes of the waking world.” Abel spoke up, “That’s not all dreams can do, though! I mean, umm… I mean, you can inspire…” “SHUT IT!” shouted Cain. “You pusillanimous, simpering blabbermouth!” Abel cringed, but then he glanced up at Cain. “It… It’s my huh-house. Erm, the House of Secrets.” Features distorted in the flickering light, Cain’s face was twisted and grotesque. “That doesn’t mean you can hand secrets out like candy to everyone who passes your door.” He reared up on his hind legs. Abel pleaded, “No! Please no… Stop it. Cain. Please. NO!!” A hoof struck the side of his face with a sickening WHOK. He was staggered as Cain ranted, “Worthless!” WHOK! “Jabbering!” WHOK! “Button-burster!” WHOK! Nightmare Moon stared in wide-eyed horror. “No… Stop! Stop it!” she called out, but feebly, unable to find her commanding voice. She flailed to get out of bed, but her limbs, still weak, became tangled in sheets. An aura shimmered up and down her horn, but never came together in a coherent spell. Droplets of blood splashed across her face. After Cain dragged Abel away (all the while cursing his corpulence), Nightmare Moon lay curled up in bed for a little while, her eyes squeezed shut. When she eventually stirred, she muttered to herself, “I have to get out of here.” She kicked the sheets aside and rolled out of bed, landing on her hooves with a pained groan. With wobbly knees she staggered to the door and summoned just enough magic to swing it open. She paused to blow out the candle, then cast a light from her horn — dim, but enough for her night-sensitive eyes — and hobbled into the hallway. It was a long hallway. She couldn’t remember being brought in, didn’t know which way led out. She picked a direction and shuffled along. The hallway seemed to sway as her steps wandered from side to side. After what seemed like much too long, she reached the end of the hall. A dirty window presented a bleak view of the graveyard outside. From her vantage point she could tell she was on an upper floor. She regarded the window wistfully. If she had any strength at all, she could have knocked it out and flown away. She opened a side door, hoping for a stairwell. Instead she found an unfurnished room, apparently only used to store a few items: a dusty stack of books, an old, black, foal buggy, and a large plush tiger that looked like it had been partially burned. Unsettled, she backed out. Retracing her steps, the hallway seemed even longer going the other way. She noticed an ornate door and gave it a try. She found herself in a study with a writing desk, bookshelves, a fireplace. She paused to look at the painting of a stately, dark alicorn, or so it seemed at first glance. It struck a commanding pose. ”Is that supposed to be me,” she wondered? No… The pony in the painting was deep charcoal gray with luminous green eyes, a tattered green mane and tail, a gnarled horn and insect-like wings. A chirp distracted her. Peeking out from behind the desk was a tiny face, its color golden-yellow. Nightmare lowered her head for a closer look. “What’s this?” she asked softly. The little creature waddled forward into view, the claws on its oversized feet clicking on the floor. Its shape was vaguely birdlike, but its skin and bat-like wings bore no feathers. It blinked its weeny rufous eyes and chirped again, curiously. Was this a stratodon hatchling, perhaps, like the ones in the old stories? Nightmare nosed at it and sniffed — and then gasped as it hopped onto her muzzle and scrambled past her horn, settling on top of her head, between her ears. “Awwrk!” it squawked. Nightmare Moon stifled her first instinct to shake it off. She felt it latch onto her mane as she slowly raised her head. “Ah! Aheh… It seems I have finally gotten a golden crown of my own, though of a most curious fashion.” “Arkle!” the little creature agreed. She returned to the long hallway and proceeded down it. She was tiring, and the hall seemed to get longer every time she walked it. Her breath rasped in her throat. She found the stairwell, glared down at it. How had they even gotten her up it, she wondered? Or had they? She had enough experience with dreams to know the interior of the house might have shifted. She took a deep breath. She could do this. If she went slowly, one step at a time, and always kept three feet on the floor, she thought she could make it down the stairs. She leaned against the bannister railing. She carefully placed one front hoof on the next step down. She shifted her weight to it, lowered herself — faster than she meant, a jolt running up her shoulder. Her new friend’s little claws dug into her mane. She pushed on, always getting both front feet on the same step before tackling the next one, and doing likewise with her hind feet. It was an awkward, tedious, painfully slow descent. As she started down the final flight of the staircase, she felt she was getting the hang of it. Just about that time came a deep rumble from somewhere below: a groan, a roar, it was hard to characterize beyond saying it was loud, it obviously came from something huge, and it made the house shake. Nightmare Moon stumbled. Her front legs folded under her, and she shrieked as she went tumbling in a tangle of flailing limbs. The thumps and bumps ended with her in a heap at the base of the steps, while the hatchling fluttered to a much gentler landing nearby, a few black feathers settling around it. Nightmare moaned out her agony. She made a brief effort to get up, to no avail. She twitched a twinge of despair, ”Is this how the great Nightmare Moon ends — not with a blaze of glory, but a whimper?” She felt a tiny muzzle nosing at her, but she lapsed into semi-conscious delirium. Time passed, though hard to assess in her condition. She became dimly aware of a raspy voice. “Who’s there?” she muttered, and tried to perk up her ears. “It’s me, uh… Abel. What happened to you, Miss Moon? errm… I mean, uh, Princess Moon?” She stirred and opened her eyes. “Abel? I thought you were dead.” “I was for a while. My brother, he, uh, k-killed me.” A cyan dragon’s eye focused on him, eyebrow arched skeptically. “Really?” “I, uh… I got better.” She noted his pallor, and the bruises and the dark blood still oozing down his face. “Oh. Right. A zombie then. That’s just what I needed.” Abel shook his head, but winced as a sort of grinding noise came from somewhere in his neck. “Not really. Whenever Cain muh-murders me, I sort of come back to life after a while and start to, hmm, regenerate. Slowly. It, uh… It hurts a lot, but it’s better than staying dead.” “This happens often?” “Whenever Cain’s, uh… mad at me, or bored, or just in a lousy m-mood.” They were both quiet for a few moments. Then she said, “I fell down the stairs.” “I, uh… guessed that. I’ve been pushed down them enough times. Hmm… I see you met Goldie.” The little animal chirped in recognition of its name. Nightmare focused an eye on it. “Goldie?” “It’s my baby gargoyle. Cain g-gave it to me.” He sighed. “I, uh… I wanted to call him Irving, but Cain said gargoyle names always start with G. And then he, uh… you know. He d-did it.” “Abel… We’re both pretty messed up. Do you think if we work together, that we could get me back to bed?” “uh… OK, let’s try.” They both healed and recovered their strength. Lucien stopped by briefly to check on Nightmare Moon. His displeasure over her misadventure with Luna was evident, but he saw she was nowise fit to return to her duties. After Nightmare Moon was stronger and could move around the house on her own, she partook of supper with Abel in his dining room. She levitated a soup spoon and took a sip. Abel lowered his muzzle to his own soup and slurped it directly from the bowl, in the typical manner of ponies lacking magic. Nightmare ventured, “So… I’m still curious about what you started to tell me before Cain rudely interrupted.” “Oh, um… I’m not sure if I should.” “No? You said yourself, you are the master of this House of Secrets, and your brother isn’t here now.” “W-well… I suppose… It’s not one of the big secrets. I was just going to say that dreams can inspire, not just frighten. I mean, um… creativity, ideals, goals, solving problems. Just because someone calls you a nightmare, that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing you can do.” She set down her spoon. “I see. Should I have tried to inspire Luna? Somehow I do not think she was receptive to anything I could have said.” Abel shook his head. “She knows you too well. There’s nothing you could, hmm, show her that she hasn’t already seen. Seen and, um, rejected, I guess. But you could go to other dreamers.” Nightmare levitated a pea from her soup bowl and floated it over to Goldie, who snapped it up. “I could inspire other dreamers. But to what purpose? Could I foment unrest against my elder sister? A bit of revenge for my death, and for her many other transgressions against me? It seems… inadequate. Petty, even.” Abel shrugged and mumbled, “It was only an idea.” “No, it’s all right. I will have to think upon this. It sounds better than chasing foals. Spiting Sola is preferable to playing the part she wrote for me.” Abel stared at her and asked, softly, “Your sister… Is she really, uh… Is she really that bad. Did she huh-hurt you?” She met his gaze with a grim expression. “She never struck me with hoof or horn, but not all hurts are of the body. Living with my sister… Well, it was educational. She was a great teacher in the arts of lying, spying, conspiracy, broken promises, vicious rumors and betrayal.” She looked down into her bowl. “Many days and nights of sleep I lost, torn up with anxiety, wondering what she was scheming and when the other horseshoe would drop. And every time I stood up to her, I second-guessed myself, wondering if it was worth so much pain.” “Th-that’s awful.” “It was.” She looked at him again and said, “Abel, you have done me many favors unbidden, and shared with me a secret. May I tell you one?” “Oh… Please do!” “When I became Nightmare Moon, I became strong — or, perhaps, merely expressed the strength I’d always had somewhere in me. But strength is a double-edged sword. Being strong means you have one less excuse for inaction. You can no longer say: ‘This is wrong, but I am too weak to do anything about it.’ Then you have to act. It’s a scary thing.” “Hmm… I see. I hadn’t thought about it that way.” After the meal they went to the drawing room and Abel showed Nightmare his chess board. She grinned at the sight of it and demanded a game on the spot. After a little confusion over the opening (there had been changes to the rules over the last thousand years, as Abel explained), Nightmare Moon began to assert her skill and dominate the board with positional play. “This brings back memories,” she mused. “Do tell?” “From the time we were small, Sola and I were trained with the knowledge and skills we would need to rule our nation. We were taught games to cultivate a knowledge of logistics, strategy and diplomacy. Some of them were tedious, but a few such games we enjoyed. One of our favorites was Celestial Caesars, or simply Celest as we usually called it. Sola became expert at that game and often defeated me. She once joked that she won so often she should be called Princess Celest. It seemed like a harmless, good-natured taunt at the time. In retrospect, though, it chills me to think she might even then have been planning to shut me out and become the sole ruler of Equestria.” “And now…” She sighed. “I should have realized sooner that there was no room in her plans for a co-regent. Subordinates, yes, but never an equal. Well, now I imagine she has what she always wanted: a meek and compliant little sister, stripped of all that annoying ambition… independence… self-respect… A puppet that will lick Sola’s hooves and play whatever role she dictates.” Abel shuffled his hooves “C-could we, uh… talk about something else?” “I’m sorry. Yes, perhaps we should.” However, they merely lapsed into awkward silence. Nightmare Moon won the game easily. On the next night Abel stood with Nightmare Moon in the foyer of his home. Nightmare nuzzled him and said, “Abel! You have shown me great hospitality in my hour of need. I owe you a boon.” “It… erm… It was my pleasure, ruh-really!” She smiled. “Even so, do not hesitate to call upon me. Anything that is in my power, you need only ask.” “So, you’re, uh… going back to your castle now?” “Yes. I still haven’t even seen the interior, but it should be ready for me by this time. I do need to make a proper entrance of it.” Her horn glowed and, with a small ‘pop’, she conjured a compact and small brush and dabbed her eyelids with purple eye shadow while Abel shuffled his hooves and looked away. She smiled slyly, amused by his discomfort. She dispelled the makeup and conjured her set of armor with a considerably larger ‘pop’. She stepped into her sabatons, then levitated her gorget into place. As it settled around her neck, her mane and tail flared to life, transforming in a moment from midnight blue hair to an etherial, star-speckled cloud. “Oh, I’ve missed that!” she chuckled. She levitated her helmet onto her head at last, and then posed, wings lifted on display. “How do I look?” He gulped. “Uh… Amazing!” He’d never seen Nightmare Moon in her full glory until then, and she was a far cry from the battered and beaten pony Gregory had dropped in a heap upon his doorstep She lowered her wings and stepped closer, and nuzzled his mane, prompting him to blush. “My new home is close by, we are practically neighbors. I will see you again erelong.” “I… I’d like that. Buh-bye! Good luck!” “Fare well, Abel!” The door swung open by her magic, and she trotted out, spread her wings and took flight.