//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: The Dragon at the Gate // Story: Heir of the Nightmare // by Polaris501 //------------------------------// Canterlot Castle Royal Gardens One Minute After the Revelation Nightmare Moon It was with no small amount of pain that Nightmare watched her daughter flee, just catching a last glimpse of Twilight’s purple tail as she galloped away at full speed. Of course, she had expected Twilight to react like this in some form or fashion. One did not just reveal that you were their mother from a thousand years ago over a conversation without some tears flowing. It still hurt though. Sighing to herself, Nightmare put her helmet back on and sipped her tea. While she tried to calm down her racing heart, her magic pulled back the discarded Element of Honesty to her side. Sparing a glance at the golden necklace, the element was whisked away back into her dimensional pocked along with the other five elements, a loud ‘pop’ signaling its disappearance. Keeping the pocket open, Nightmare pulled out a small oak box that was lined with silver. The oak was dark, signifying its age, and yet it was very well preserved considering its age. Setting down the box on the tea table, it opened quietly with barely a squeak from its gilded iron hinges. Inside was a crown. It was not her own, nor was it one of her sister’s. This crown had been forged a millennium ago in total secrecy, and Nightmare had only just retrieved it a couple hours ago from a small hidey hole in Twilight’s foal room at the old castle. It was fashioned with a bright and shining silver, the metal purified of all contaminations and strengthened with powerful magic. It was curved upward in a gentle arc, engravings of moonflowers and twinkling stars dotting its surface. There on the brow was a single diamond. It was simply cut into a round shape and to most would have seemed unfulfilling if it was just the gem by itself. But it was not. When Nightmare had first made it, she had intended to cut it into a more regal shape. She had set her project down one night and when she had returned to it, a surprise had been waiting for her. A star had made its home inside the gem. To say Nightmare had been surprised would have been an understatement, and she had spent many a night looking for any missing stars in the night sky, to no avail. She never found out how the star entered the gem, or where it came from. She didn’t change the shape of the gem after that, as it was now more beautiful than any cut she could have shaped it into. Long did she stare at the plaque engraved on the pedestal on which the crown sat. Sitting quietly as the wind rustled her black fur gently. To my most beautiful flower. A few minutes may have passed as Nightmare stared at the box, but she did not know how much time had passed nor did she particularly care. Her thoughts were on Twilight and how to proceed. “Your majesty?” SNAP The box’s lid slammed shut, and if had not already been magically enforced, Nightmare was sure it would have shattered. Looking up, she met the eyes of Knight-Commander Noctis, her leader of the contingent of Lunar Pegasi. He was taller than the average pony but was still dwarfed when compared to her own height. Noctis had gray fur with the tufted ears along with the yellow draconic eyes that were unique to their branch of the Pegasus family. He bowed formally upon receiving her attention, his muzzle inches from the ground. His thick blue armor clanked as it shuffled from his movement. Annoyance flickering within her, Nightmare scowled and put the box back into her dimensional pocket before she addressed Noctis. “What is it Commander? We are very busy.” “My Empress,” he intoned reverently “there is a dragon at the gate.” Surprise and a brief spell of alarm coursed through her, her ears flickering and her back straightening into an alert position as she tried to pick up the sounds of a rampaging dragon. She heard nothing. Nightmare scowled again as she got to her hooves, and she stiffly put back on her iron horseshoes. “Do not play games with us Commander, you will find that we have lost our sense of humor after spending a millennium on the moon.” Still in a bow, Noctis spoke again in the same calm tone. “Forgive me my liege, it is but a baby dragon. Not a fully grown one. He is requesting permission to enter the castle, claiming to have residency here.” Nightmare was tired of getting surprised tonight, but she stood up and fanned out her wings anyway. She cast a longing gaze at the doors which Twilight had just fled through, but resolved herself to giving her daughter some time to reconcile the fact of her maternal heritage. “Very well Commander, let us go meet this…dragon.” Thrusting her wings downward, Nightmare lifted up quickly into the sky and angled herself towards the castle gates, the wind catching her black plumage. She was dimly aware of the sound of Noctis’s wings beating as he followed her. Nightmare’s eyes pierced though the darkness until she spotted a small purple and green figure next to a small gathering of her soldiers, illuminated by the glowing light of a lantern on the gatehouse. Holding her wings in tight to her body, she dived towards the ground at bone-breaking speeds. The figures were becoming bigger as the ground rushed up to meet her. She fanned out her wings so to slow her descent to where she could safely land without injuring herself. With a resounding crack upon the stone, she landed in the midst of her soldiers, who gave out surprised cries before they knelt as one in her presence. The dragon in the meantime, who was only knee-high to her, gaped in astonishment. Noctis landed silently next her, and approached the dragon. “Speak, for you are in the presence of her Imperial Majesty, Empress Nightmare Moon of Equestria.” The dragon said nothing, he merely stared up at her with wide green eyes and a mouth so wide it would catch flies if he didn’t close it soon. … “Speak!” “uuuhhh…” the dragon rasped, never taking his eyes off of Nightmare. A few chuckles could be heard behind her as the soldiers chuckled. They were silenced by a stern glare from Noctis before he returned his eyes to the dragon, a frown masking his face. The dragon seemed to come to his senses, shaking his head as if trying to banish the dark figures before him. He rocked on his feet as Nightmare watched him start visibly sweating. “Oh! Uuumm—I think I..have the wrong address! Yeah! Sorry boys—and her uhm-majesty—but I really must be going! You know how it is, gems to eat, cakes to make, and parchment to buy! So I’ll just be seeing you all later!” Turning around quicker than what Nightmare would have expected from a dragon, he took off running. He didn’t get far thought, for Nightmare had grabbed him in her magic. The dragon was lifted off the ground and he floated towards Nightmare, but oddly enough, he kept waving his arms and pumping his legs as if he was still on the ground fleeing. Nightmare let him hang in front of her while he tired himself out, beads of sweat dropping like rain to the street below. Finally, he fell limp in her magical grasp and beat a claw to his chest, panting from the effort. “O.K. You got me…(pant)…can you please put me down?” “Certainly.” THUMP! “Oooohhh…that rather hurt you know…” She had dropped him to the street, and the dragon was now rubbing his tail, which had received the brunt of his fall. He then reluctantly rose to his feet and stared at Nightmare once more. “We shall not ask again, dragon, for the reasons of your coming here.” Nightmare’s cold and unyielding voice seemed to prod the dragon into answering quickly. “Oh! I…uh…well I live here.” “Your statement is doubtful young wrym. Have you come to pillage the Royal Treasury upon hearing of my sister’s fall?” “No. I really live here.” Seeing the disbelieving looks on the faces surrounding him, he started to elaborate. “I came looking for my—uh—friend who I live with here in the one of the castle’s towers.” Nightmare had just about had it with his short answers and his obvious stalling. “You have precisely ten seconds to fully explain why you are here before my throne room sports a new dragon rug.” “O.K.!O.K.!TwilightSparklehatchedmewhenIwasandeggwhenshewasafillyandwegrewuptogetherhereinthecastle!TwilightisCelestia’sstudentandI’mlookingforherbecauseshedisappearedandnevercamebacktoPonyvilleandIheardthatNightmareMoonhadcapturedsomepony’scalledthebearersoftheelementsofharmonyandIknewthat’swhatTwilightwaslookingforbecauseshehadreadabouttheminabookIgaveherandsoIgotatrainandcameherewhenIwokeupand PLEASE, OH PLEASE DON’T TURN ME INTO A RUG!!!” The dragon fell on his knees and panted from all his rambling. Nightmare had listened closely to everything but only one thing truly grabbed her attention. “Did you say Twilight Sparkle?” The dragon looked up and nodded, a few whimpers escaping him as he awaited his fate. Gears were turning in Nightmare’s head as she went over her recent conversation with Twilight, for she remembered Twilight mentioning hatching a dragon’s egg when she was a filly. It clicked together that this was probably the same dragon. “What do you do with Twilight Sparkle?” Nightmare asked the dragon, leaning down so she could look him in the eye. “Oh, I’m her—um—Number One Assistant!” He seemed to take pride in saying that, perking up a little bit. “You are her servant?” The dragon let out a long suffering sigh, wilting back down again. He slammed a claw into his forward in exasperation. “No, well, kinda-yeah. I mean I do help her with basically everything, but I’m not her slave or anything. I’m really—“ “If you want to continue breathing, you will amend that statement.” “Slave is good.” The dragon replied quickly, his eyes frantically moving from side to side as he avoided her gaze. Nightmare thought it over. It was not hard to come to a conclusion. The dragon was so pathetic that it did not threaten her. And by letting him rejoin Twilight, she might gain a little gratitude from her daughter. Of course, some precautions had to be made. Reaching out with her magic, she summoned a collar and quickly enchanted it before snapping it firmly around the dragon’s neck. “This is to prevent your dragonfire, and also keep you from wandering off from the castle.” A sneer that could carve mountains covered her face, showing teeth longer and sharper than the dragon’s own fangs. “You will serve my daughter faithfully, and if you do anything to harm or disrespect her…”she pulled the dragon right up against her muzzle. “…losing your hide will be the least of the pain we shall inflict on you.” The dragon nodded quickly, more of his hide glistening with his sweat. But then his scaly face scrunched up in confusion. “Um…who’s your daughter?” Nightmare straightened up and turned away from the dragon, looking up towards the part of the castle she knew Twilight had probably retreated to, Celestia’s old chambers. “My daugh—“ BOOM!! She never finished, for a roaring thunderclap emanated from the castle, and to Nightmare’s complete and total shock, long lances of purple lightening began shooting across the city. They winked in and out of existence faster than her eyes could track. The magical power radiating from it was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Pain burst inside her head and her eyes flashed different colors as the magical explosion engulfed the city. She barely heard as her soldiers fell into a dead faint at her hooves from the magical pressure overcoming them. Nightmare looked up to see the source of the disturbance and broke into full gallop back towards the castle when she beheld it. It was coming from where Nightmare thought Twilight should have been. Canterlot Castle One Minute After the Revelation Twilight Her world was ending. Twilight ran at full gallop, falling several times to the floor in the hallway and knocking over the few furnishings Nightmare had left in her redesigning of the castle as she staggered and collapsed. She swayed back in forth in what could have been taken for as a confused stupor. Her mind was reeling, everything she had held for fact in her life was unraveling at the seams. Everything was thrown into question, her childhood, her family, her life, absolutely everything. Celestia lied to me… Though only minutes ago such a thing had seemed impossible, it seemed all too likely now. Nightmare Moon is my mother… Nothing fit together anymore, everything she had ever known seemed to burn away like dry wood in the inferno of that one revelation. I was adopted… That much was plainly obvious. She did not know why she had been taken in by Night Light and Twilight Velvet, but she now knew that somepony had concealed the truth from her. Celestia…Celestia knew…why didn’t she tell me? Since Twilight was Nightmare’s daughter, it only made sense that Celestia was her aunt. And since Celestia was the only pony that had lived here in Equestria over the past thousand years, she had to have known about her true nature and heritage. And she kept the truth from me… She collapsed once more in the hallway, and sat up only to raise her hooves to her face, watching them shake as fear and confusion consumed her. Born of a monster… Twilight screamed, her despair echoing off the castle walls a she shoved her hooves from her face, no longer wishing to see them. “Twilight! What’s wrong?!” Blearily, through the haze of tears, Twilight looked down the hallway and saw her brother— No, not my brother… She struggled to lift herself to her hooves and she swayed back and forth dangerously as she made her way to one of the ponies she thought was family. Will he hate me if he knows who I really am? That depressive thought consumed her as she staggered across the hallway, knocking over another vase to the floor. It shattered into hundreds of pieces but Twilight barely noticed, as her focus was on the white stallion at the end of the hallway. “Shining!” She moaned, her voice desperate and afraid. “Shining!” She yelled again, ripping the name out like it was her last hope for survival. Or her last hold on sanity. Twilight heard the sound of rushing hooves and felt a hoof land across her shoulder, gently guiding her back towards Celestia’s chamber. “It’s alright Twilight, your BBBFF is right here—“ At the sound of the silly old acronym they used when they were kids, fresh sobbing wracked her body as she wept pitifully onto the floor, her mane matting her face and her feathers in complete disarray from the force of her distress. “Cadence quick! Come help me!” Another sound of hooves, these sounded lighter and more graceful as they approached, and Twilight felt herself lifted onto Shining’s back, and they made their way back to the chamber. She never stopped weeping. “Is she injured anywhere Cadence?” “No, I don’t see anything…” Twilight heard the doors shut behind them as they entered the chamber. Shining lowered her to the floor gently, much like when he would tuck her in to bed after reading stories before bed-time. “Twilight?” Shining’s voice was almost pleading, and Twilight looked up from her position on the floor to glimpse the blurry face of her bro— Not my brother— A horrible sense of dread and suspicion rose within her, and she pointed a shaking hoof at Shining. “D--Did you know?” Shining looked confused, he looked across at Cadence who looked equally baffled. “I don’t understand, know wh—“ “T—That I’m…I’m a--adopted. Did you know?!” Horror washed over Twilight as Shining fell back from her, his ears flicking back and a guilty expression taking over his face. “You knew…” “Twilight, listen that’s no—“ “YOU KNEW!” She screamed, her eyes briefly glowing white as anger rose within her. They’ve…they’ve all lied to me… Celestia, Shining, Cadence, her ‘parents.’ They had all been in on it. Surely they had been. It all made sense, Night Light and Velvet were nobles so they had close connections with Celestia, Cadence foal-sat her when she was a filly to keep an eye on her. The same with Celestia when she got her mark. Is my whole life a lie? Anger coursed through her, giving her direction, giving her purpose. And she had the perfect target. With a blinding flash of light, a blazing beam of magic ignited from the tip of her horn and shot out at Shining. It slammed into the shocked stallion and the force of her magic sent him sailing across the room and into the opposite wall. Cadance gasped and ran up to Twilight. “Twilight?! What are—“ “GET OUT!” Twilight screamed, her face contorting with anger and sadness. “LEAVE ME!” Shining grunted as he came back to his hooves, he looked disoriented and stumbled back towards her. “Twilight please, just lis—“ “NO!! NO MORE LIES!” She was losing control, her magic was rolling off of her in waves of energy. The bed behind her caught fire, and the whole room was engulfed in red and orange light. Her eyes were flickering white and purple and her mane began to etherealize from the magic running through her. Sparks shot from her horn and the tips of her hooves, and she grinded her teeth as more anger and crushing despair consumed her. She only watched through pain-filled eyes as Shining and Cadence fled from her, witnessing their flight as their tails disappeared through the doorway. Magic was pouring from her like a river’s torrent. She had always been able to control her power, but she was too traumatized to try and take back control. Born of a monster… With that final thought, Twilight gave up trying to control herself, and let go. She screamed. And her world became fire.