//------------------------------//
// three.  he.  holdfast. 
// Story: he.  she.  we. 
// by Shinzakura 
//------------------------------//

There’s something you should probably understand about alicorns right now.

Never let a species that doesn’t wear clothing do your laundry.  I know she meant well, but I’m staring at my bright pink underwear – which used to be white, by the way – and wondering why my favorite shirt is two sizes too small now.

I toss the shirt in the items to be donated to Goodwill.  Well, at least she’s trying….





“Moon, would you please come out?  I have a present for you.”  As always, nothing.  I know she trusts me – she wouldn’t eat otherwise, and it’s obvious she likes me well enough, otherwise she would have left a long time ago.  Or maybe she can’t leave?  Maybe somehow she’s magically tied to this place?

Yeah, right, I tell myself.  Next thing I’m going to think is that she literally lived in the moon at one point.  But that’s silliness for another time, and I have a particular kind of silliness that I need to deal with right now.

I got her an iPod.  Yeah, I know, dumb.  But given the fact that since she learned how to operate the electronics in the house while I’m gone, half my CDs are missing, my subscription to eMusic doubled in cost, and the old boombox that I haven’t used since college suddenly found itself in the normally unused guest bedroom.  I think I’d be miffed about it all if it wasn’t for the fact that A., I find it cute, B., she clearly needs the distraction, and C., I’d have a hell of a time explaining to my bank why I have fraudulent charges on my cards from purchases coming from my house – I can see that explanation right now: “No, officer, I didn’t make those charges, it was the cute little invisible black alicorn in my house.  Why no, I didn’t plan on an extended stay at County/USC’s mental health wing – why do you ask?”

I sit on the couch, waiting for her to come out, hoping that this time, just this one time, she’ll give me a chance.  I mean, seriously, it’s not like I’m going to kick her out or anything.  There’s gotta be seriously bad karma for making an alicorn homeless, right?

After an hour, I give up, defeated.  “I’ll…just leave it on the kitchen table,” I tell her.  I have to get back to my article anyway; I promised Eddie that I’d have this thing done by Thursday.  I walk over to the kitchen, set the box down on the table, then go into the fridge to grab a beer.  Sure enough, she’s already gone through the two-liter bottle of Cherry Pepsi and I’m betting the rocky road I bought last night is also gone.  Never thought that I’d ever meet anyone with a worse sweet tooth than mine!  Heh, and Rachel always said that I had more sugar than blood in my veins.

As I turn to face the table, I notice the bag from the Apple Store’s gone already.  And before I can say something, I feel the slightest brush of feathers against my right hand.  I look down, but there’s nobody there – but a soft voice behind me suddenly says, “We thank thee for the gift, Sir North.”  And before I even bother to turn, I know she’s already gone.  But turning my attention back to the table, I see a huge-ass gemstone, the kind that’s usually in a museum, protected by lasers and guards and Batman standing on the roof watching through his Batnoculars or something.  It’s red, and I’m guessing it’s a ruby and…fuuuuuuuuuu….

Well, Mother’s Day is in a little over a week and I have no idea what to get Mom.  Maybe I can have this made into a pendant for her?





I grin at the look on Mom’s face when she sees the pendant.  Oh, has this been a hell of a week.  For starters, the gem Moon gave me turned out to be what’s called a fire ruby, a ruby with a golden asterism within it.  It’s so freaking rare that this is only the fourth one known on Earth.  Furthermore, the stone in itself is about sixteen carats – for comparison, the Burmese Ruby at the Smithsonian is twenty-three carats.  And that’s not a fire ruby, by the way.

First, the jeweler I brought it to tried to have me arrested – on the basis that it couldn’t be real, and if it was, it had to have been stolen.  That took an hour of talking to local authorities about.  Then, when I proved that it was on the up-and-up, the jeweler said he had a connection that would be willing to pay sixteen million dollars just for it.  When he found out that I already have way more than that in the bank, he tried the “old fashioned” method – tried to replace it with a piece of glass and rip me off.  Unfortunately for him, he’d been doing that to other clients enough that the Palm Springs Police Department had already been keeping an eye on him; that explained why the cops showed up so fast.

Fortunately, I got my gem back and the detective I talked to just happened to recommend a trustworthy jeweler in Costa Mesa who could do the job.  Hell, she ended up doing it all for just cost of materials, if she could cut off a tiny bit to use as a show piece; she promised it would be from the part she needed to cut anyway.  Sure enough, she was as good as her word, and the remaining twelve carats are in Mom’s shaking hands right now and South Coast Jewels has a very expensive pair of ruby earrings that are for display only – and still worth a cool million on their own.

Just seeing the look on my family’s face as Dad puts the necklace around Mom’s neck is worth it.  My sister-in-law looks right at me and jokes, “You know, there’s no way Don’s gift is going to top this.”

“There’s no competition, Tae,” I tell her with a straight face.

I am soooooooooooooooooooooo going to owe Moon for this one.  I really hope to make it up to her someday.





I hear the explosions and the percussive booms that sound like a rave is being held in mid-air and I groan.  It’s 4th of July and as usual, the city’s having its annual Blow Shit Up celebration with games and kids and fireworks and loud noise and a whole bunch of loud shit I really don’t want to deal with right now; hell, I’m guessing I’d probably make for simpatico with the Grinch right about now.  Admittedly, when I was just a kid, I used to love fireworks and all that, but unfortunately, I live in the State of California, where someone in Sacramento decided that fun must be banned in favor of political correctness.  And while some jurisdictions in the state allow fireworks, where I live isn’t one of them…nor is the People’s Republic of Santa Monica, where my parents reside.  And since there were no fireworks at our home and going to watch other people make boom wasn’t something I really cared about, I told my parents that I had a bad cold and stayed home.

Instead of working, I spent the day just watching movies, gaming and stuff, as well as hoping Moon would come out.  And frankly, after an afternoon of lackluster gaming (seriously, I was expecting King of Fighters XIII to be better than this), I find that I’m bored and I just really wish she would trust me.  I swear, having her living here and not coming out is like a couple in a really bad argument…and while Rachel and I had a few spats over the course of our time together, at least those ended up with us making up by the end of the night.  With Moon, I really don’t know how things will go.

Finally, I look at the clock and figure that I need to get some sleep – I’m driving down to San Diego tomorrow to do a lengthy interview, and the three-hour drive is already going to be hell on me.  Figuring that she’s not going to come out – she even skipped dinner tonight, unusual for her – I just make my way to bed.


A few minutes later, as I’m just on the verge of hanging out with Little Nemo in Slumberland, when I suddenly felt the sheets being pulled up slightly, followed by a warm form sliding in next to me.  Two arms wrapped around me, reminding me of how Rachel and I always used to spoon while sleeping.  But the difference this time was the warm, soft fur I felt against my face and the velvety black wing suddenly draping over me like a blanket.  A contented sigh was sounded behind me, as though something felt safe and perfect.

I stiffened in reaction: I hadn’t had anyone, much less anyone female, sleep in the same bed with me, not since Rachel – and here I was, now in the arms of someone not only female, but not even human!  I felt a stab of shame and betrayal at my wife’s memory, but a second later I dismissed it as silly.  I certainly had no intentions of doing anything with Moon; furthermore, she came to me, not vice versa, and I really doubt that she came with snu-snu in mind.  More likely, she was in need of comfort, one of a more physical need this time, no different than all the times I’d comforted Carrie when she was a little girl and needed it.

But as we lay there, curiosity got the better of me and I turned to look at the creature holding me.  I think after all this time, I deserved to see the alicorn that embraced me, whether for good or ill.  She’d removed her armor, but otherwise, she remained the same, though the calm look on her face showed no surprise at my presence.  As I continued my inspection, I saw that, up close, whatever force or forces had created her, had made her as far from equine as humans were from the other primates.  Hers was a lithe figure, almost reminding me of a whippet or some other sleek, swift creature.  The black wing she draped around me was very similar to that of a raptor or other bird of prey, one of a simple-but-effective design made to knife her way through the sky with the greatest of ease.  Her fur, from what I could feel, was soft and well-tended; though no insult was intended in my thoughts, it was at the care of a prize show animal’s.  Perhaps a better analogy would be that of a woman who took pride in her appearance, which fit the demeanor for what little I knew of Moon.

But the most curious thing about her was a stylized mark situated on her butt, or whatever it’s called on a horse-thing from another world.  It was an image of a glowing – yes, I mean glowing, as in a soft blue – crescent moon against violet clouds.  While it could serve as a tattoo or branding, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before.  It seemed unnatural and spooky, and yet on its own, it was a perfect semblance of her.

Her head, surprisingly, didn’t look like that of a normal equine; it was a lot rounder and closer to that of a person than a horse’s, as though whatever forces created this beautiful creature decided she needed the space for a larger brain capacity.  Her horn really wasn’t what one would think of as a traditional horn or antler; though it was grooved, it was the same hue as the rest of her body and covered with a soft, velvety fur, making it more, if anything, like a skull protuberance than anything else.  As for her eyes, they weren’t set in the usual placement that prey animals had, but instead were forward-set like a human’s were.

But the centerpiece was her billowy, smoky violet mane and the strange, twinkling star-like effect within.  Curious, I reached out and touched it; my fingers sank into what felt like viscous oil or thick syrup, though I had to admit the feeling wasn’t altogether unpleasant.  She seemed to coo at my touch, as though she enjoyed the sensation.  As I somehow expected, she pulled me close and nuzzled me softly, clearly a feeling of affection, though if I remember correctly, to equines, it’s like a kiss.  Needless to say that this was a situation that was both confusing as hell and just as easily comforting.

And as my eyelids became heavy, I drifted off to sleep.  I could have sworn that as I reached the demarcator from the waking world into the slumbering one, I thought I heard her voice utter, “We are glad to have thee as a friend, Sir North.”





The following morning, I was up at five, an hour I haven’t been awake at since my college days.  As I scooched from the bed, I was not entirely surprised to find that she was already gone.  Annoyed by that – I thought for a second we’d had a breakthrough! – I throw myself into the bathroom for a little 4S: shower, shampoo, shave, and shine, as my Dad called it.  Tossing on a suit, I gather up my gear for the long-ass trip to San Diego.  I got up this early so I’ll have time to stop at Ruby’s in Newport Beach for breakfast; it’s simply the best place in SoCal, bar none.  Plus, I absolutely hate eating in the car.

So it was a huge surprise when I came down to see a cheese omelette, fruits and a steaming-fresh mug of coffee laid out for me, as well as a note:





Touched, I sat down to eat.  Needless to say, it was delicious, the best I’d ever had.  I wanted to thank her, but she wasn’t present – or if she was, she was still somewhat afraid of me.  I wish she wouldn’t be; in the months since she’s been here, my life’s been much better.  I don’t have nightmares any longer and my life’s actually been improving.  Maybe I just needed a roommate to take away the gloom and doom I’ve been foisting on myself since Rachel’s death, I dunno.

I just wish Moon would trust me more.





“C’mon, Eddie!” I shout over the phone at my editor.  God, what a fucking ass – I still wish that Nash was the EIC, but noooooooooooooo he had to take that Senior Editor job over at Men’s Health and then management had to give us this Goddamn prick from Ireland whose previous job was the European editor for Ars Technica.  BFD.  “Look, you said I wasn’t going to have to attend SoutherNet this year!”

“Hey, boyo, I’m understaffed, okay?” he says in that accent that seems to drive the girls at the office wild for some reason – glad I’m a remote writer.  “Look, Derrick’s on holiday, Marie’s due to have her kid at any time and I have Jack attending the Sony conference in Honolulu.  Only lad I have to do this is you!”

“What about Nate?” I counter.  “Guy lives in Nashville for fuck’s sake – he should be the one to go!”  The line suddenly went dead quiet on that end; that was clearly all the answer I was going to get on that.  “You are seriously going to owe me for this.”

“Fine, fine, whatever – name your price in blood, for all I care…but I need someone there.  I’ll have Sarah FedEx you the conference passes.”

“Fine, I’m leaving!” I snarl into the phone, not even bothering to say goodbye.  I’m pissed as hell that Eddie couldn’t get Nate to do his friggin’ job and for a moment, I wish these were one of those old-fashioned phones you could slam down to shut off, if only so I could blow some steam off.

But instead, I suddenly hear the shattering of glass in the kitchen, followed by a very feminine gasp.  Rushing into the kitchen, I see her – Moon, finally awake and present, standing in pile of broken plates that she was apparently removing from the dishwasher – wait, when did she start doing the dishes?  There’s a horror-stricken look on her face and I don’t know what to say.

And then to make things worse – she finally speaks.  “Th-th-thou…art leaving?” she asked, as her eyes start to water up.

I have no idea what to say at all.  Part of me wants to be all cool and make some sort of suave, semi-funny statement, but I’m no comedian.  Another part of my wants to irritably accuse her of picking now, when I’m in a bad mood to make her official appearance...but I’m a little too surprised for that to happen.  Instead, I find my anger bleeding away along with my sense of humor as I’m looking at one frightened, shaking alicorn.

“Look, I gotta go to Atlanta fo—” are the only words out of my mouth as I’m suddenly tackled at high-speed by a terrified and bawling alicorn.  The fact that her horn isn’t poking out the other side of my body is something that’s going through my mind, at least until I feel my shirt being soaked from her tears.  This isn’t what she was like when she first arrived; no, it’s somehow worse.

Finally, after a few minutes, she looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes and whispers a single sentence: “Please do not leave us.”  She shudders, genuinely frightened of something.  Maybe this could have been avoided months ago if she just come out when she first arrived back in January, and not in the middle of the blistering August heat.  But that was then and she probably had her reasons for waiting until now.

Still, I have to do something.  I let my instincts take over, and as I look into those odd eyes of hers – funny, they don’t look so reptilian right now – and run my fingers through that strange mane of hers while my other hand pulls her closer.  I look her straight in the eye and ask her, “Why would I leave?  I live here!”

“But we heard….”  She stops looking at me and instead decides to be preoccupied with the tiles in the kitchen; obviously there’s an unspoken concern.

I lift her head and look at her intently.  “I think we need to talk.”  In turn, she nods her head, and it’s the biggest breakthrough we’ve had yet.	


A minute later, we’re sitting on the couch.  Well, I’m sitting.  I guess she’s sitting for how her kind does, though if you ask me it looks like she’s lying down.  Either way, she shuffles her hooves nervously, before she starts.  “We…we suppose that we should start first,” she says to me.  “We are…our name is Nightmare Moon, and we are…we are a nightmare.”  Before I ask what she means by that, she adds, “The nightmare, truth be told.”

“I’m sorry, Moon, but I don’t follow.”

And then she gets fully into her explanation, and honestly, what I’m hearing is absolutely nothing less than stunning.  Not about the part that she’s from another dimension or another world where the dominant species is based on horses; as weird as that is, I kinda got that part.  No, it’s the part that she’s a nightmare, and the fact that she doesn’t actually exist, as least as far as she’s concerned.  She explains that she’s the remains of the corrupted form of a princess of the realm she was from – that explains the “royal we”; I was beginning to wonder if I was dealing with some sort of hivemind.  That she was formed from the hatred and jealousy of Princess Luna and as Luna became Nightmare Moon, she began a war for control of Equestria – Equestria?  Okay, that name’s a bit on the nose there – against the ruling princess, her older sister Celestia.

And as I’m listening to this, I’m watching her emotional state.  Surprisingly, including her eyes, they’re very…well, human, reactions.  Despite the difference in species, her face showed anguish, sorrow, self-loathing, insecurity.  She cried throughout the whole of her explanation and it’s clear that whatever she was in the past, she regrets everything she’s done and everything that’s happened to her since.

Even still, it’s sobering that if she’s telling the truth without any embellishments, my little friend here is magnitudes worse than any dictator in human history.  Everlasting night?  Extinguishing the sun?  I’m no scientist, but I can’t imagine anything living on that eventually-frozen ball of rock that used to be a vibrant planet, had her plan succeeded.  Then there’s the bit about sororicide; would she have really done that?

“But we failed,” she told me, and I’m guessing this time she meant herself and Luna.  “And for our crimes were sentenced to the moon for a thousand years.”

“Wait, a thousand years?”  She can’t look a day over…hell if I can even guess what her age is; I can’t even remember the formula to translate dog years into human ones.

She nodded sadly.  “Celestia used the Elements of Harmony on us.”  It’s clear that my face is reading a blank, so she explains: “It’s a powerful set of magical amulets which embody the spirit of harmony itself.  Once used on an opponent, it becomes a fearsome weapon the likes which you have never seen.”

I’m trying to picture these Elements in my mind, and really, only one thing comes to mind.  “So…it’s like a direct hit from the Death Star?”

She raises an elegant eyebrow.  The mild confusion on her face is somewhat adorable, all things aside.  “We are…not familiar with this Star of Death you refer to.”

“Well, it’s a giant space station, an – waitaminit, we’re getting off track; I’ll just show you Star Wars later.”  If there’s a later, I wonder.  “Anyway, go ahead.”

“We…see.”  She scratches the back of her head and I’m amazed at the level of dexterity – is that the right word to use?  She doesn’t have hands, after all – that she has in her legs.  “In any case, after a thousand years, we returned with revenge in our hearts, but we were countered and defeated by the Elements of Harmony once more.  By Celestia’s daughter.  But this time, it was much worse for us.”  The look in her face suddenly changed from hurt to horrified.  “We were…painfully torn away from Luna, torn asunder by the very Elements themselves.  It…it hurt.”  She paused, bowing her head in silent tears.  I reached forward to help, but she gently brushed aside my hand.  “We thank thee, but…we must be strong on our own.”  She paused in silence for a few seconds more before finishing up with, “The next thing we remember aside was the very nightmare we were forced to live: being exiled here.

“And now we are here, a guest in thy manse – an unbidden, unwanted guest, no doubt.  And now…thou art leaving us, abandoning us as we deserve.”  The broken voice she spoke in was hard enough to take, but it was the naked look she gave me in that last second that said more than she had previously, a silent plea: Please don’t abandon me.

Still, there’s something that’s bothering me about all this, so I ask.  “Why did you choose to come out now?  Why not before?  You’ve obviously made yourself at home here, but you’ve never come out, even when I asked.  Why now?”

A look of what I assume is embarrassment comes over her face; that’s confirmed a second later by the fur around her cheeks bristling slightly and turning a slight reddish shade – wow, didn’t know fur could do that.  She then looks at me and answers, “When we first arrived, we thought thee a monster summoned by Celestia to eternally punish us for our sins…in our world, humans are to ponies as monsters are to thine; inequine beasts whose only purpose is to kill and terrorize.  But as we got to know thee, we realized thou art kind and gentle…and it is we who art the monster.”  At that, she uttered a choked sob, and it wrenched at my soul to hear it.  Nevertheless, she continued.  “Once we realized that we were the monster, we feared that thee would push us away once thou knew the truth.  That we would lose the only friend we have had since our punishment, just as we have lost so much already.”

“How could you think you’re a monster?”

“We no longer know what we are,” she said in a hushed voice.  “We were created from the pain and suffering of Princess Luna and now we have been ripped away from her.  What are we now?  What purpose do we have?  Are we even real?”

My answer comes simply enough: I embrace her, running my hands through her mane and asking her a simple question: “Do you feel real?”  She sighs again, saying nothing more, though I can feel her crying into my shirt; I feel her horn against my chest; she turned her head apparently as to not gore me accidentally, thankfully.  But I know I have to say something, because otherwise she’s going to be an emotional wreck forever: “Moon, you are no monster.  I don’t know where you get that.  If anything, what I see is a sad, lonely female in need of a friend.”

“Are we friends?” she asks me suddenly.  I look into those desperate eyes, and I simply nod.  In turn, she nuzzles me, clearly pleased with the answer.

It’s at this time that I look up, realizing that the whole day has gone by and that sunset has come to pass.  Well, this whole conversation, longer than expected, had to happen; I don’t think that things would have gone as well otherwise.  “You know, I’m famished.  Why don’t we just order in tonight.  Chinese okay with you?”

She looks at me oddly.  “Chinese?”





Okay, Dynasty – ain’t the greatest Chinese takeout in the world; I can think of a dozen places in Monterey Park or El Monte that are worlds better.  But when you’re up here in the mountains, your choices are kinda…limited.  And besides, like my Dad says, Chinese is meant to be eaten with friends – he just doesn’t say that around Tae.  I order the Imperial Combination Fried Rice and Crab Rangoon for myself, and for Moon, I got her the Kung Pao Tofu with some Spring Rolls.

We continue the conversation during dinner.  I’m drinking a Guinness; I probably shouldn’t, all things considered, but frankly, after this, I need this in order to relax.  She’s drinking wine; surprisingly, she’s into that merlot that I usually use for cooking.  I also found that she can use utensils – via magic!  She’s already mastered the chopsticks with ease, and I’m absolutely floored just watching the sticks move in a deep blue field of energy.

Since she told me everything about herself, I tell her everything about me; for some reason, she thought my last name was “Samsung”, and I have no idea where she got that idea.  I go over my life, then my college years, then meeting Rachel and our life together, then Russell and his atrocity.  I see a flash of anger in her eyes, and I know she’s going to do something; I ask her to refrain, as I want him to suffer the hell he’s already put himself into.  She looks at me oddly, but agrees.

Finally, as I get us some ice cream – amazed she didn’t eat all of it yet! – she looks as though she wants to say something.  I nod at her to continue.

“We have nowhere else to g—” she begins, but I silence her with a single finger pressed against her muzzle.

“You’re welcome to live with me,” I tell her.  And though I know it’s night outside, the smile that settles onto that muzzle?  It’s bright enough to rival the morning.





Later that night, for the first time in years, I’m willingly sharing a bed with a female that’s not a relative.  It’s not like anything’s happening anyway, but Moon needs the comfort tonight and for some reason, I’m compelled to provide it.  Maybe it’s just the emptiness in my life screaming out for something, or maybe it’s a message from Rachel, from beyond the grave, telling me that I need to open my heart again, even if just to another lonely soul who needs a friend.  Or maybe I’m just crazy.

In any case, Moon is glad to do so.  I feel bad that for the first few months, she actually slept in the basement, before moving to the guest room, and then finally to the couch during the one time I left a blanket and pillow there.  I promise her that the guest bedroom is hers, and that we’ll get her some furniture.  She, in turn, tells me about the time she and Luna – as one, I guess – had control over the moon on their world, controlling it and wishing that her people would have appreciated it more; I get the feeling that had they truly accepted her for the person she is, she wouldn’t have become what she was…but then, maybe there would only be a Luna and not a Moon, and my life would be strangely empty that way.

Then she sings a lullaby I’ve never heard of before in a language I’m not familiar with, and the next thing I know, I’m drifting off to sleep.


When I woke up the following morning, I saw her just laying there, watching me, as if she took a simple pleasure in watching me sleep.  At first I kinda freak out: that’s a rather stalkerish concept, if you ask me – but then I remember that’s something a human would do, and as much of a person as she’s acted so far, she’s not one, not completely.

She then looks at me and says, “Good morning, Sir North.”

“Morning, Moon,” I tell her back, giving her a half-awake smile.  “So what now?” I ask her.

She looks out the window, at the pines of the forest just beyond, then at the sun already making its way to the sky.

“I think I’ll live,” she says with a smile.





The next day I head to Atlanta.  She looks heartbroken that I’m leaving, but I promised I’d call and bring her something when I get back.  I called as soon as I got to the hotel, and she gushed about how nervous she was about being left alone for a week.  But I told her that she would be fine, there was enough food in the fridge to cover her, and I would be back soonest.

And when I’m back the following week, I have to admit, it’s good to have someone to come back to.  She absolutely loved the Atlanta Braves jersey I got her; I’ve started to notice that she takes a lot value in simple pleasures like that – maybe because they’re gifts and they’re for her, and not anything with strings attached or spoils of war from when she was the person – or pony or whatever – she was back then.

Plus, I have someone fresh I can talk to about my life with Rachel.  I’m guessing it’s what I needed.  Everyone else who knows me knows the hell I went through and usually walks on eggshells when they’re around me, but with Moon, I can just be honest in how I feel about all that.  Likewise, she’s told me more and more about her past and I get the feeling that she hopes to return to Equestria someday to make amends for what she’s done.  I get the feeling I’d miss her if she did.

I don’t know if I’m in hell like I used to be.  All I know is that both she and I are happy.