//------------------------------//
// A Shady Type of Magic 
// Story: Music of the Night 
// by CharlieOist 
//------------------------------//

	"Why does no pony love my beautiful night?" Luna screamed, slamming her head against the desk. She had magically sealed the doors, and could hear the guards yelling and kicking at it, attempting to get inside, worried that she may be trying to hurt herself again.

"I love it." Luna spun around, trying to see anything in the pitch blackness of her room, which she kept up because the light reminded her too much of her sister's day. Even artificial light intensified her hatred now, as her sister's subjects use of it took away from the beauty of her night.

"Who's there? Redtail, is that you? I'm not hurting myself again, so you can just leave." Her voice shook as she spoke, her eyes roaming the room. She thought she saw something shift in the corner, near her balcony doors, but she couldn't be sure.

"Someone who loves your night as much as you do, and wants to help you put that stuck-up sister of yours in her place. Someone who feels your pain, who has shared your last 1000 years with you, who's watched as your sister slowly took over everything, leaving your court empty. Are you ready?" Luna's eyes settled on the spot she had thought moved earlier, and, to her surprise, she saw the shadowed area seem to attempt to suck in the other shadows in the room.

"Well, y-yes, but I-"

"Excellent. I do need one small thing from you first, however." At Luna's puzzled look, the voice laughed. "Don't worry, it's nothing major. I just need a home. Oh, not just any home, of course. One inside your mind. A permanent one. On your Royal Promise, of course."

Luna almost told the voice she didn't know what it was talking about. How could it know about the Royal Promise? The only ponies in the world who knew about that were her and Celestia. And yet, somehow, it did not surprise her. "Very well then," she said instead, willing her voice not to shake with nervousness. Picking up the dagger she had on the desk beside her, and taking a deep breath, she began to recite the Promise.

"Cross my heart." At this, she took the knife and drew it across the skin over where her heart should be in a large X, producing a fairly large cut. "And taste our bloods." At this, she used her magic to open a drawer in the desk, pulling out a vial with a hand-etched sun on it. She pulled out the stopper with her teeth, then poured the red liquid within on the dagger, watching as it mingled with her already-aquired blood. "On my life as a ruler, I promise you you will always have a home in my mind."

The dagger seemed to fly out of her magic, soaring across the room to the shadows by the balcony. Suddenly, the shadows disappeared, and a large black alicorn wearing silver armor appeared in their place. Her large azure eyes fixed themselves on Luna, and she opened her mouth to reveal two rows of perfectly white, jagged, triangular teeth. Suddenly, a long, snakelike tongue shot out of the alicorn's mouth, latching itself on the dagger, which it began to lick clean.

The room was enveloped in silence until the larger alicorn had finished cleaning the dagger of blood. Luna finally found the courage to speak. "You are my shadows." It wasn't a question.

The black alicorn smiled. "Yes, my princess, I am. But together, we can be so much more!" Suddenly, the shadow mare's muzzle was up against Luna's, the snakelike tongue demanding entrance into the smaller alicorn's mouth.

Luna's mind reeled. She hadn't even seen the other alicorn cross the room. I shouldn't do this, was her last coherent thought before her mouth opened, and the shadows rushed in. She moaned in pleasure as they carressed every inch of her body, and her mind locked up in pleasure.

Before she passed out, she heard the other mare's voice in her head. "Now, we are Nightmare Moon."
*****
Luna's eyes flew open once more, and, for a moment, she didn't know where she was. All she knew was a deep, black terror had seized her, and she could do nothing to stop it.

The door to her room flew open, as it had that night, a millenia ago, and the guards shouted at her to stop screaming, to tell them what was wrong, to do anything  but be terrified. But she could not. Because there, in the corner of the room, she had seen a mouth, with sharp teeth that shone like moonlight, grinning.
*************

"Exactly what spell was that you used back there in the throne room? The one that made it seem to come alive around us? Was it some sort of illusion spell, or Starswirl's Memory Magic number 23, or..." As Twilight continued to rattle off a list of spells and spell combinations that might have produced the illusionary effect, Nightsong's smile grew. Finally, when she stopped to breathe, he chuckled.

"No, it was none of those. You see, I was never very good with the lighter magics. That was a Shadow Memory, a spell of my own creation, though it did not come easily. Shadows are everywhere, and they see things that very few people ever get to. They remember these things, storing them in nooks and crevices where the light can never go. My spell brings these memories out into the world, and the shadows of the present become a sort of theater troupe, complete with actors and stagecrew. The shadows act out these memories, and we- ponies, I mean- see them as they happened, albeit from a shadow's point of view. The spell does take an extensive pulse of power to cast, but once it's out, it doesn't cost very much to keep it going."

Twilight pondered this for a moment. It all made sense, but, somehow, at the same time, it felt.... wrong. "So you used shadow magic?"

Nightsong's chuckle was a bit louder this time. "Let me guess, your first thought was, 'This pony is completely insane'."

"Not exactly. After having lived with Pinkie Pie so long..." Twilight glanced ahead and up at the pink party mare, who was leaping back and forth on the hall's sheer stone walls, thirty feet over their heads. Sometime during the past thirty minutes, she'd managed to put on her black spandex spy suit, and every so often, she would pull some random gadget or gismo from somewhere, or vanish into some secret passage or go through some closed door into rooms that hadn't been opened to the outside in centuries, releasing foul, putrid air into the passage that left them all coughing and gasping. And sometimes, she would just appear back in the group, talking as though she hadn't just been doing immposible feats that defied every know law of science, before vanishing once more to the ceiling above. "However, it did surprise me. And that is no easy feat," she added, grinning.

"I imagine not." Nightsong and Pinkie said at the same time. Both unicorns jumped back in surprise, lashing out with simple attack spells, Twilight's utilizing more pure power while Nightsong's seemed to be bolts of shadowy lightning. Pinkie seemed to contort her body impossibly, dodging the attacks easily.

"Pinkie!" Nightsong and Twilight yelled out at the same time, Twilight's tone seeming annoyed, while Nightsong's was more amused.

"Sorry, guys." Pinkie actually did look sorry for startling them- for about two seconds. Then, she was back to her usual self. "Anyways, I found these really cool double doors with all sorts of crazy designs on them. They were really super-duper heavy, so I couldn't open them, but I thought we should check it out, because I can't imagine what sorts of fun things-"

Nightsong cut the pink mare off with his hoof. "That's it!" He said excitedly. "The Library of the Moon Sister! They had it moved here after the original building in the city collapsed in the third Wildfire Spellwave of the war." He added, seeing Twilight's confusion. He held up his hoof to stop the group. "Alright, friends, this is it. We're about to enter the library, one of the two main target areas in the temple. I don't know what state it will be in after so long, so be prepared for anything. Let's go!"

Nightsong watched the mares move on, and was about to follow when he was stopped by a hoof. He turned to find Twilight looking at him. "Could you...Could you teach me that spell some time? When we get back, perhaps?"

Nightsong smiled and nodded, then turned to follow the others. Twilight hung back for a moment, staring after the other unicorn uncertainly. With a shrug, she plucked up her courage and followed the group down the hall.