Twilight Sparkle
Twilight's brain stuttered to a halt in the most magnificent fashion. Her jaw dropped, her right eye developed a twitch, and both her mane and tail erupted into tangles the likes of which would give Rarity cardiac arrest.
Sister. Sister. SISTER?!
"Ehhhuewhahe?" she stammered. "S-S-Sister?!"
Solar nodded, a wicked grin on her face. "Indeed. We aren't entirely sure how she got fused with your Luna, but whatever the case I'm quite happy she's home again."
Nightmare didn't mean to possess Luna. No, she's lying. Nightmare Moon's a pony? Solar Flare's a demon parasite? What? How?! We all thought she was... Princess Luna said...
"But... but..." she stammered.
"Oh, you look so surprised!" Solar cooed. "What's wrong? World turned upside down?"
Twilight nodded. "But... how? Are you... where is... eternal night, eternal day!" She let her head fall onto the table. "I'm so confused," she admitted ashamedly.
She glanced up to see Solar Flare lean in with a cheeky grin. "Gotcha."
You have got to be kidding me, she groaned in her head. "But... what?! How does that even work? Nightmare Moon is - "
"- a pony," Solar Flare cut off harshly. "Just like me. She always has been and hopefully always will be. A thousand years ago she vanished without a trace, and four years ago she just as suddenly returned. I think you can connect the dots."
Twilight took a moment to consider what she'd just been told. Nightmare Moon was... an actual pony, and lived in this alternate Equestria. And she'd... what? Somehow 'fused' with Princess Luna? What in the world could do that? And... she supposed it made sense that when she and her friends wielded the Elements properly, it sent the Nightmare back home. But even so... what the hay?
"I'm so confused," she complained.
"Just eat your dinner, we'll see about showing you the truth of the matter once your stomach's full."
"Okay," she whispered, lowering herself to her sandwiches.
The rest of dinner passed in silence, with her occasionally sneaking glances at Solar Flare, the alicorn who had just casually upturned everything everypony knew about Nightmare Moon. At one point she noticed Solar channeling orange magic along her horn, and the barriers on about half the paintings faded away. Twilight looked at them, and her stomach sank. The ones covered up all had Nightmare Moon depicted in some form or another. Standing above a crowd, leading at the forefront of an army, holding the moon while Solar held the sun. One painting in particular caught her attention.
Twilight Sparkle was no art enthusiast, but even she could tell that the painting was a masterpiece among masterpieces. No brush strokes were visible, depth was easy to see. In it, Nightmare Moon and Solar Flare - bereft of any garments - stood with their horns aglow and their backs to the viewer, atop of a slab of black stone. Said slab was riddled with red cracks, and there was a geyser of lava painted underneath it. The sky was, of all things, green.
From before the slab of stone was, to Twilight's surprise, Discord. He'd decorated his long, thin body with golden lines and held out his paw and claw. His lower half was obscured by the slab, and his face was even and expressionless as he stared down at the ponies. Nightmare Moon was firing a dark purple beam at him, which turned into licorice halfway there, and he held Solar Flare's beam of blue fire in his lion paw. Meanwhile, all around him were magical blades also under the control of the two alicorns, and Twilight realized that the gold streaks weren't decorations but wounds, bleeding immortal ichor, and that the same marks were present on the alicorns.
Solar Flare wasn't kidding, was she? But if the Nightmare was here, and was its own pony... then why had it fused with Luna? What would that even do to a pony's sanity? Twilight had some suspicions, none of them good.
She finished her meal before Solar Flare did, and then Queen noticed. "Finished already? Great. That means you can go to the next thing I have planned for you today." she said in a sinister tone.
"Planned?"
"Why of course." The Queen got up, magically banishing what remained of her meal. "As the visiting dignitary of your country, it falls to you to make good relations with the leaders of the nation you visit. You've already met me, and there's now somepony else you need to visit."
"You don't mean - " she stammered, going wide-eyed.
The larger alicorn got out of her seat and began shooing Twilight out of her own. "Oh yes I do. Come, Princess. You wanted to see the situation with Nightmare, didn't you? Well what better way than first-hoof experience?"
"But - "
All of a sudden Solar Flare's inferno burned much brighter. "That was not a request, Sparkle! Remember who holds the cards here!"
"Okay," she squeaked as she leaned back.
Solar's mane and tail dimmed. "Good. Follow me." The sun alicorn trotted out of the dining hall at a brisk pace, forcing Twilight to nearly gallop to keep up with her. They took a few turns, and Twilight had the impression that they were headed west. Soon, the fiery tones of the castle began to dim, turning to greens and blues, then blues and purples, and the sharp angles softened into circles. Twilight couldn't help but marvel; even the air temperature seemed to decline slightly. Solar Flare's fiery hair was much more noticeable in the dark hall.
The queen stopped before a large, decorative door. By then, the walls, ceiling and floor were all pitch black. The carpet was purple, and there were occasional streaks of the color throughout the hall. Twilight looked up at the door, and Twilight realized that the violet streaks formed a pattern, growing more and more numerous as they neared it, forming a spiral pattern that ended with a single point of bright color in the middle of the door. The resulting vortex was quite mesmerizing to look at, seeming to shift and change color each time she moved her head.
Then she saw the purple-and-moon cutie mark above the spiral, and her breath caught in her throat. All at once she knew who was behind the door. She knew who was waiting for her.
"Go on," Solar said. "Nightmare's waiting for you. She won't bite... hard."
There was a whoosh of teleportation as Solar vanished, and Twilight gulped. She started up at the door, contemplating leaving. But then Solar Flare would know, because Nightmare could tell her that Twilight hadn't come in.
"Not getting out of this," she told herself. "Come on Twilight, you're a big filly. You can do this." She pushed open the doors, and entered the chambers of Nightmare Moon.
The room was spectacular. The walls were pitch black and speckled with stars, and the entire place had a layout similar to that of a compass rose. On the floor was a large rug with the Nightmare's purple splotches and crescent moon on it. Over on the bed she spotted her. A large black form, with a perverted version of Princess Luna's cutie mark and a mane and tail of ever-shifting stars and nebulae, smoothly fading into the air. The alicorn had her back to her but when Twilight entered, the ears, black as sin, swiveled and the alicorn chuckled.
Behind Twilight, the door closed.
"So you're the surprise my sister told me about?" came that dark, sensuous voice of Luna's alter-ego (Who was looking to be less an alter-ego and more her own pony by the second) as Nightmare Moon moved out of bed, so smoothly Twilight could've sworn she floated. Nightmare was naked, as ponies usually were, with none of the trappings or the helm that Twilight had seen her in last time. It gave her a strange, otherworldly - ha! - look, and considering how scary the armor was on both Nightmare and Solar, Twilight decided she much preferred Nightmare Moon not to wear it. Beyond that she was exactly as she remembered her; dark, alluring, dangerous, embodying everything a moonless night was.
Nightmare Moon looked at Twilight and froze, the smile melting off her face. Twilight herself suddenly had the intense urge to search for a window and jump through it, anything to get away from those piercing dragon eyes. "You," she whispered.
"Um, uh..." Say something smart, you idiot! "Y-Yeah, me. Solar Flare led me here."
"Element of Magic," Nightmare Moon said, straightening up and letting her mane billow around aimlessly. "What is your name? I don't remember ever catching it."
"T-Twilight Sparkle."
"I see." Nightmare Moon hesitated, then stepped forward. She lowered herself to her hocks and bent her neck over.
It took a moment for Twilight to realize what was going on; Nightmare Moon was bowing to her and - Nightmare-Moon-is-bowing-to-me!
"What? Please don't, why are you - "
"Twilight Sparkle, I am eternally in your debt. Whatever you wish of me within reason, simply speak it and it will be done!" Nightmare Moon, the Usurper, the proud and arrogant Lady of Darkness, was bowing to her and claiming to be in her debt! Whatever was going on, it simply did not compute.
"Err, what? Please, you don't need to - "
"I don't, but I choose to! Twilight Sparkle, you saved me," Nightmare said, looking up at her. "You saved me and brought me back to my nation, my sister, my home. There is nothing I can do to repay you, but I can try. Speak what you wish and it shall be."
"U-Um..." This was about as far from what she'd expected as possible. Twilight had thought Nightmare Moon would desire vengeance against her, or at least be cold and indifferent. But this? The more she thought about it, the more it lined up with what Solar Flare said, with everything else. The enormous differences between her Equestria and this one weren't due to Nightmare arriving recently, the divergence point must've been centuries ago.
And the offer? What about it? She could refuse it, but however much Nightmare Moon was bowing to her she didn't feel it was smart to turn down her gift. What could she ask for? Twilight's stomach flip-flopped at the concept, it felt like she was being demanding, pushy. Either way, she opened her mouth and spoke. "Well, I was wondering if I could maybe get access to the, um, historical archives?"
Nightmare Moon shot to her hooves and pointed a foreleg to the ceiling. "Done!" She lowered her hoof and looked at her, then frowned. "You're afraid of me."
She pawed at the ground with a hoof. "Well, you know, our last meeting didn't really go too well."
Nightmare Moon didn't flinch, but her left eye did slightly twitch. "Yes, it didn't. I... must apologize for that. I wasn't entirely in my right mind back then."
"So... you don't really want eternal night?" she dared ask.
Nightmare shook her head, the nebulous mane scarcely affected at all. "Oh no, that is still one of my passions."
Twilight's throat tightened. "But... the environment! And, Solar Flare's eternal day!"
"We take turns," the taller alicorn said evenly. "Don't you know?" She shook her head, and Nightmare's expression grew deadpan. "Oh. My sister didn't tell you, did she? Just like her; she becomes stupidly obtuse whenever she sinks her fangs into a good joke. Well, I will tell you. Solar Flare and I came to an agreement long ago regarding the day and night cycle. She would get one year of day, and I would get one year of night, alternating. Careful control of wind currents keeps things from getting too hot or too cold quickly."
Twilight considered that with a hoof on her chin. "That... actually sounds like it could work." She wasn't entirely sure how plant growth worked during the night, but given how nopony was starving - that she saw - they'd likely worked out something. "Is that what you were going to do on my world?"
"No, just eternal night straight through." Nightmare Moon tapped the side of her head. "I wasn't all there at the time, remember. Merging with Luna wasn't really good for either of us."
"Um, uh, right. I think I'll just head to the history archives then, if it's alright with you. I'm really curious to see where our universes split."
Nightmare Moon smiled at her, and warmly at that! "Good idea, Twilight." Her horn lit up with dark purple magic, and a card with a stamp on it appeared. "This is my personal seal, use it to gain access to them whenever you wish." The black alicorn winked. "Though you may want to get some sleep beforehoof," she suggested.
Twilight considered that. "Yes, that might not hurt. It's been a long day."
"I can only imagine. Where are you staying?"
"Um, Ambassadorial Suite... E, why?"
"I'll send you back. We'll meet again, Twilight Sparkle." Nightmare Moon curtsied, and lit up her horn. Twilight only had time to open her mouth before the teleportation magic took hold of her, and carried her away from Nightmare Moon.
***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***
Nightmare Moon
Her Royal Majesty, Queen Nightmare Moon of the Glowing Night, grinned.
"Twilight Sparkle." She rolled the name around on her tongue, and decided she liked it. Yes, it was a very fitting name for her, the one who'd brought Night and Day back together in not one, but two worlds. Presumably; she wasn't entirely certain what had happened on Celestia's world, and the Elements may very well have killed Luna. Clearly, a lot had happened in Twilight's world because, while her memories of her time controlling Luna were hazy, she was absolutely certain Twilight hadn't been an alicorn back then. To be honest, she preferred her as an alicorn; she wore her wings very well.
"Twilight, Twilight, Twilight," she said over and over. Nightmare Moon chuckled to herself. Oh yes, she really liked that name. She could hardly wait to see the younger alicorn again. But that would come later. She wrapped herself in magic and transformed into a cloud of mist before zipping out of her room, through the halls, for a hooffull of seconds before finding Solar Flare in her own chambers. Nightmare Moon let her nebulous body whirl around for a moment before reforming, approaching her cheekily grinning sister.
"Well?" Solar asked. "What did you think of my surprise?"
She punched her sister in the shoulder. "You didn't tell me you were bringing the Element of Magic to me!"
Solar Flare betrayed no discomfort besides rubbing the area Nightmare had hit. "Well, how'd you hit it off? What do you think of her?"
"As much as I am indebted to her, I don't think I ever learned precisely what she's doing here. How did she even do that?"
"Apparently our counterparts found some sort of thread of your magic in Luna's cosmic link, and they sent her over to investigate." Solar chuckled. "Apparently they thought you were some evil, parasitic monster who chose to prey on poor Luna."
Nightmare Moon scoffed. She felt free to act however she wanted around Solar; they were sisters, after all, and virtually the only ones they could relax around. Around Solar, she could scoff as much as she wished. "Of course they did. Wonder if we owe any explanation to them."
"We don't owe those two anything, Nighty. Not after what they did to you."
She fixed Solar with a deadpan glare. Truly, she meant well, but... "Really Sola? Why do you even think they were the ones who did that to me?"
Nightmare's sister shuffled her wings and looked away. "I... I'll be honest, no reason. But still! I don't want to lose you again."
She sighed and stepped forward, reaching over to hug her sister. "Relax. We've got Twilight Sparkle on the case," she said half-jokingly. "What could possibly go mmph!"
Solar removed her hoof from Nightmare's mouth, glaring at her. If looks could kill. "Anyway, trust issues about those two aside, how do you feel about her?"
"I like her," Nightmare said wickedly. "I think I might spend some more time with her."
Solar smiled. "Good to hear. How about this... other Equestria? Conquer or ally?"
"Personally, I don't want anything to do with them ever again. Whether or not they meant to do what they did to me, I lost centuries of myself because of their very existence. I ever see them again, I'm shooting first."
"And Twilight?"
Nightmare frowned, laying down and shuffling her wings. Solar joined her, and Nightmare rested a wing over her twin's withers. "I don't know. I owe her more than I shall ever be able to give, Sola. I don't want her to think of me as... as some sort of parasite! If that's the legacy I've left in our counterparts' world then I feel I have to change it." She snarled. "Think of me a demon will they, I'll set them right." Nightmare realized that she was quickly changing her stance on the other Equestria back and forth. It was... frustrating to be so indecisive.
"But what if returning makes you fuse with Luna again?" Solar asked. She moved her wing out from under Nightmare's and draped it over her withers. "What if it makes me fuse with Celestia?"
"We'll just need to make sure it doesn't. Twilight, obviously, doesn't have a counterpart on our world. Wherever our worlds diverged it was too long ago. Still, with her able to move to our world, she should be able to move back and forth. Maybe serve as correspondence."
"We still need to learn precisely what her country is like," Solar remarked, nuzzling in closer to Nightmare. "We may need to take over them. We may need to seal off our access to them entirely, given the existence of that superweapon. There are so many unknowns."
"So, ask Sparkle. She's friendly enough." Nightmare pondered it. "Go less for intimidation, and more for helpfulness with her, I'd say. She's already out of her element being in a new world, scaring her anymore is liable to freeze her up. Be helpful, and she'll loosen her tongue."
Solar Flare nodded. "I was thinking much the same, Nighty. Well then, I think I'll retire for now. Staying up to dreamstalk?"
Nightmare grinned wickedly, showing off her fangs. "You know it."
Solar returned the grin. "Excellent. Well, I'll see you later."
Lighting up her horn, Nightmare Moon faded into mist. "Sweet dreams, I'll make sure of it," she whisper-hissed, flowing away from her sister's room and into her own.
Once there she reformed, sunk into her soft, lovely bed, and closed her eyes. Nightmare Moon's breathing slowed, hitched a bit when she was overcome with the sensation of falling, then fell into the rhythm of sleep.
She opened her 'eyes' and found she was in the dreamscape, an endless void of flickering blues, greens and blacks, with bubbles suspended around her. Each bubble had a separate size to indicate the stability of the dream within; larger bubbles were less likely to suddenly awaken. Each one was colored differently, giving her insight into how the dream was. Before long she spotted her sister's dream, a small orb of silver potential. 'Moving' over to it, Nightmare tapped it with a 'hoof' and set the dream to golden wish-fulfillment. Then she turned her attention to the others, and set to work.
She'd long ago gotten used to dreamstalking's ins and outs. When there was a red nightmare, she pressed into it to see what the dream was about. If she was feeling merciful, she nudged it away to green peace or popped it and freed the dreamer from their terror. She inspected blue 'reality' dreams for hints of treason, memorizing the dreamer's name if she found any and pushing it towards a crimson nightmare.
Nightmare made sure to stay away from yellow dreams of lust, except for when it was the orangish-yellow of powerlust, in which case she popped in and sometimes made the decision to steer towards red. Obviously, Nightmare Moon couldn't visit every one of her subjects' dreams, but she'd learned over her centuries of ruling how to prioritize, and despite her millenium long absence, a few months was all that was needed to get back into the swing of it. She hopped from dream to dream, circling around Equestria and some places beyond.
She found one particular, seemingly innocuous nightmare and dove into it, the subconscious offering up the name Tough Cookie.
In it, an earth pony she identified as Tough Cookie was in Everfree. He was bound in chains and hoofcuffs, led by Nightmare Moon's Singularity Guard towards the castle. Nightmare Moon - invisible and unnoticeable - dove down and merged herself with the stallion. The drawback was that she was unable to see anything other than what he did, but the advantage was that she gained changeling-like insight into his emotions, and he would still be none the wiser.
He was led up to a platform, with caricatures of Nightmare and her sister staring down at him. Around him was the jeering of crowds of faceless dream-ponies, shouting noiseless horrors at him that made Nightmare Moon feel terror run down his spine. He looked up at the images of the queens, while Nightmare Moon inspected his emotions closely. Hatred, revulsion, and primal terror. Ah, so he was one of the ponies who disapproved of their rule and wished they were more lenient, like the Zebra Council. Curious.
She and her sister were saying something, in perfect sync. "Find you guilty of jumping llamas and the green cake eats November!" Of course, it was a dream. It didn't make any sense to Nightmare Moon, but apparently it made perfect sense to Tough Cookie.
A pony who hadn't been there before - not that Cookie would realize that - walked forward. She wore Coronal Guard armor, but was not under the influence of the disguise spell. This one was a mare, a few decades younger than Tough Cookie. Her features were blurred, the colors and cutie marks shifting, but Nightmare simply had to read his emotions to ascertain that the unicorn was Lime Jelly, daughter.
Hmm, she pondered. A possible rebeller, perhaps with a personal grudge against us? I might have to put him on the list.
Lime Jelly's dreamself stepped closer and her horn lit up with ocean blue light, summoning an axe out of dreamstuff. Tough Cookie began to talk, begging her to stop, but the caricature stepped closer and brought the axe down on his neck. The dream popped, sending Nightmare Moon out into the dreamscape.
That was... interesting. Apparently one of his deepest fears was the two of them. Nightmare Moon resolved to search for records on a 'Lime Jelly', then tomorrow maybe she'd go pay Tough Cookie a little visit incognito. Maybe add him to the list of ponies to keep an eye out for, or even outright throw him in the dungeons if he was dangerous to their rule.
Turning back to the dreams in Everfree Castle, Nightmare spotted one specific dream signature: Twilight Sparkle's. Her dream was an orb like all the others, rapidly shifting between nightmares, purple memories, and transparent incoherence. Suddenly feeling protective, Nightmare Moon dove right in.
The dream was rather hard to make heads or tails of. Nightmare kept herself invisible, watching as Twilight went through her dream almost dumbly, pulled around in all directions. She read a book, a page of which flew out and turned into a test the size of a library. One of the multiple choice bubbles flew out and grew fangs, swallowing Twilight whole. Twilight was tossed around through senseless brain-vomit hallucinations, and before long Nightmare Moon grew tired of it.
With a wave of her cloaked hoof, the dream stabilized. Twilight was back inside a library, humming as she read. Nightmare Moon floated over; the page was blank except for the ever-moving portion that the smaller alicorn read, and its sentence progression didn't make any sense. Either way, Twilight read, occasionally humming in pleasure. Nightmare Moon couldn't help but smile, watching her at ease.
Deciding that she wasn't really that busy, Nightmare Moon forced more of her essence into the dream and manifested next to Twilight. Her very presence stabilized the dream even more, made it practically impossible to distinguish from reality, save for the lack of details in some places.
"Hello, Twilight," she said, deciding against forming her armor out of dreamstuff.
The purple alicorn jumped and looked up at her. Without her attention on it, the book began to dissipate."N-Nightmare Moon?" she asked, panicked. "What are you doing here? I thought you were - "
She held up a hoof. "Twilight, you are dreaming. You came to my chambers and, after our discussion, went to go sleep before you head to the historical archives."
"Oh," she said abashedly. "So you're a dreamwalker too, huh? I suppose it's obvious, given that Luna's also a dreamwalker and you're her alternate self."
Nightmare Moon smiled. "You're taking this a lot better than you were before. I'm glad to see it," she said with a dip of her head.
She shrugged, getting to her hooves. "When presented with evidence that contradicts your theory, you must change your theory. It's... still pretty strange, to be honest. Ever since my friends and I separated you from Luna, everypony's thought of you as some spirit of greed and jealousy that possessed Luna and drove her to attempt eternal night. But here... you're your own pony, with your own history, your own sister... everything! To find out there's suddenly so much more to you is almost overwhelming."
She nodded. "Yes, it must be. I was quite surprised myself when I first fused with Luna. She was in control at the time, so the entire experience was quite... jarring. It also didn't help that both our mental states began to rapidly degrade afterwards."
"Hmm, odd," Twilight said. "Wonder what did that. I mean, your old body was destroyed while you were in Princess Luna's head, right? Matter can't be created or destroyed, maybe it was converted into energy, and that was used to bring you over the dimensional divide. But then what would even do that in the first place? Hmm..."
"Think about it when you wake up," Nightmare said. "You don't want to try complex math in a dream."
Twilight Sparkle shivered. "Oh, you're right. Two plus two can equal fish here really easily, no matter how much I don't want it to do so." Twilight looked up at her, met her eyes briefly, then averted her gaze. "I'll... I'll need to send a report back to the other princesses soon. Let them know about the reality of the situation."
Nightmare scowled. "Yes, the other princesses. Wouldn't want them to worry. Why can't you simply... send them a letter? Surely you've found a way to keep a channel open, yes?" While she was thinking about it, Nightmare Moon added Investigate possible tether of magic with Luna to her mental checklist.
Twilight nodded. "I have, but the problem is that it ends up in the corresponding location in my home. If I send it here, the letter will just appear in the middle of the Everfree Forest."
Nightmare Moon rolled her eyes. Right, the Everfree Forest, which her counterparts for some reason had never clear-cut. "You do not have to worry about that, Sparkle. If you need travel somewhere, our guards will provide a chariot for you freely. Keeping correspondence with your... fellow princesses is important so that they do not worry." And if they don't worry, they can't come over here with those Elements and convince you to blast us again.
Twilight blushed. "Oh... oh! That's very generous of you, thank you."
She waved a hoof. "It is of no concern. Now, is there anything else you need?"
The little pony blushed, which made Nightmare Moon feel mischievously happy. "Oh, um no, thank you for the offer, you've already done, heheh, a lot more for me than I thought." She scuffed a forehoof along the floor. "Sorry about planning to come here and destroy you."
Nightmare Moon's mouth momentarily flickered into a frown. "You were doing the best you could by the information you had available. Please don't try it again, Twilight. If you're truly okay, then I'll be taking my leave now. Right after I fix this dream a bit..." She lifted a bare hoof and stomped it on the floor, but instead of hitting wood she hit dreamstuff and twisted the color into from blue to gold. Before the changes could take effect and Nightmare saw something she might not have wanted to, she fled the dream, swam through the dreamscape, back into her own body.
Nightmare Moon's eyelids fluttered as they opened. She felt refreshed and renewed after that; dreamstalking was the equivalent of sleeping, after all. She rolled around in her bed, humming as the soft mattresses flexed and bent around her spine. What a day. What a day! Contact had been again made with the alternate world that she'd wanted nothing to do with. With it brought a method to go there, possibly to other worlds, new territories to conquer, new countries to intimidate into allegiance. With it came a way to see her old friends Celestia and Luna, ensure they would never harm her or Solar ever again.
And with it came Twilight Sparkle, the wonderful mare with a beautiful soul who'd saved her life. She could give that alicorn everything she had and it would never be enough. Surely there was something...
... oh yes, there was. It was mutually beneficial too. Nightmare Moon chuckled. "Oh Twilight, I think I'll bring you along to see my day job." Not yet, though. Solar Flare would want to introduce Twilight to the populace, show off their discovery for everypony to know, and Nightmare agreed with that wholeheartedly. Let the little ponies know that there was not just the two alicorns, but five.
Teach those who would dare rebel that they could never win.
