Fangs
by Toratchi888
Fangs
Nightmare Moon loomed over Twilight Sparkle, the latter of whom was trembling in a corner of her new throne room. Luna’s light trickled in from a high window behind the Nightmare, wavering sickly where it struck Nightmare Moon’s glossy, onyx-black hide. Weird patterns danced on the crystal dome above the two mares, reflected up from Nightmare Moon’s croupiere and flanchards.
“Twilight Sparkle,” Nightmare purred. She smirked, lips drawing back from curved incisors that ran down to her chin. Those fangs glinted in the moon-light, the tiniest drops of saliva shining on their tips like diamonds.
“How… did you find me?” Twilight whispered.
“Oh, a little black birdie told me.” Nightmare waved her left hoof dismissively. “But, dear Twilight, it’s not as though I could have never found you.” Nightmare frowned, her slit eyes narrowing further behind her champron. “You DO realize your gigantic crystal-tree castle is shaped like your Cutie Mark, don’t you?”
Despite her peril, Twilight Sparkle could do aught but lay a hoof across her muzzle and sigh. “Quite.”
“Quite, indeed,” Nightmare snorted. “You have no idea why I’m here, do you?”
“I can guess!” Twilight lifted her chin defiantly, but Nightmare Moon could not miss the fear in her eyes. “I know my friends and I purged you with the Elements of Harmony, and now that the Elements are gone, you’ve come back to—” her voice wavered “—to… to kill me.”
Nightmare Moon peered down at Twilight. She swished her tail. “You are most incorrect.”
Twilight’s eyes widened hugely.
“Ahhhhh.” The corner of Nightmare’s mouth ticked up. “You must be frantically wondering, ‘What could I have missed?’ Is it not so, Twilight Sparkle?”
Without waiting for an answer, Nightmare Moon turned about and raised her head to peer at the high window. Scintillating bursts of moon-light danced off her peytral, champron, and hoof boots. Twilight’s head began to bob very slightly, following the starbursts as Nightmare Moon spoke:
“Firstly, while you are correct—you did ‘purge’ Luna of me—you did not purge me from me. I am; you cannot change that. Though—” she craned her neck left, smirking at Twilight, “—it seems keeping this form was a stroke of good luck; you are certainly affected.”
Nightmare Moon swung her head back around; Twilight followed the arc of Nightmare Moon’s neck before her eyes returned to the patterns on the crystal walls.
“Secondly, you assumed that purging me would have… what? Destroyed me? Banished me? Ridded Equestria of me?” Nightmare sighed. “Oh, silly filly. I am the Nightmare; I am as old as the first dreamer, and I shall remain until the world is no more.”
Nightmare Moon sniffed slightly at that, but when she resumed, her voice held no tremor. “Thirdly—and this seems to be the worst thing you overlooked—you assumed that I was gone and could not come back. That was your worst mistake—or it would be, if I was speaking from your perspective… and if I wished you harm.”
Twilight whimpered at the word “harm.” Nightmare Moon gave a gusty sigh of frustration. “Twilight Sparkle,” Nightmare said sternly, rounding on Twilight, “you pride yourself on your intelligence, but now, with your life on the line, you are frozen into inaction. Am I so much more dreadful than Tirek that you now cower before me in your own home and castle?
“Tell me, Twilight Sparkle: Do you believe for one moment that I, in fact, am so stupid as to have forgotten our last encounter, where you baited me into wasting my strength twice: once, when you tricked me into a frontal assault, leaving the Elements of Harmony unguarded; and again, when I allowed myself to gloat over the seeming impossibility of six random ponies harnessing their might? Do you think perhaps I might have learned not to gloat when I have you at my mercy?”
Twilight thrust her head down and put both her forelegs over her eyes, shaking.
Nightmare Moon’s next sigh was more of a growl. “Twilight Sparkle,” she grated out. “Answer me immediately: Do you want me to kill you?”
Twilight’s head snapped up, but—though she worked her jaw—no words came out.
“Answer me!”
“O-o-of course not…”
Nightmare Moon turned about again. “Of course not. Why would you want to die?”
Twilight could not see Nightmare Moon’s face, but when Nightmare Moon spoke again, Twilight could hear a smile in the other’s voice: “Happily for you, I offer you something besides death and enmity: I offer you knowledge.”
Twilight leaped to her feet with a gasp. “Y-y-you want to… teach me?!”
“Well…” Nightmare Moon lazily turned about to face Twilight again. “I admit, I’m curious about you, little pony; you have such great potential yet. But I’m not so sure… You were quite terrified of me.” She spoke with the tone of a mare soothing her restless foal.
“I… uh… ehehe…” Twilight blushed.
Nightmare Moon raised an eyebrow. “My, my… what a reversal. Tell me, Twilight Sparkle: Is the idea of new knowledge really all it takes to—” she smirked “—get in your good books?”
Twilight’s blush engulfed her whole face, and she bent her heard, hiding behind her mane.
Nightmare Moon walked to Twilight and bent her neck, peering at Twilight’s face. “I have millennia of knowledge,” she whispered, “knowledge lost from ponydom over time; knowledge gleaned from the far reaches of pony civilization; knowledge that has bled through the dreamscape and the nightmare reaches into my unconscious mind. It is greater in its scope than what you could ever learn from Celestia AND Luna put together.
“You, on the other hand, are the Element of Magic, the most gifted unicorn in generations; you are as bright as the sun to my second sight,” Nightmare continued, as she circled Twilight. “Indeed, even if I had wanted to, I could not have killed you; my magic was void after you ripped me from Luna. I need you—neigh, I desire you, just as you desire me, Twilight Sparkle.
“Will you risk it?” she hissed from behind Twilight, her voice a seductive caress. “Will you give yourself to me, to be known to me as you shall know me?”
“Y-y-yes…” Twilight whispered.
Nightmare Moon’s lips parted, and she let out a breath as she returned to Twilight’s front. “There is one thing you will do for me,” she said, her voice resonant, strong… dangerous, “one thing that will put your trust in me. You might live to regret it, and yet my soul would be forfeit should I ever turn on you afterwards. Will you risk this?”
Twilight squeaked out a “yes.”
“Good,” Nightmare smiled. She bent her muzzle between Twilight’s withers and left shoulder—“Then your magic… is mine.”
—and sunk in her fangs.