Brass couldn’t sleep. And it wasn’t because he was sharing the bed with Thunder. He was typical of most pegasii: loud, and full of energy while awake, but still and silent when asleep. Brass rolled his head over to stare at his bedfellow. With his gray coloration and with his head and wings tucked in tight to his body, he more closely resembled a well-weathered boulder than a sleeping pony. He didn’t even breathe loudly. Thunder – literally – slept like a rock.
Heaving a frustrated sigh, Brass got out of bed and made his way to the window of their tiny apartment. He drew the curtain aside and stared out at the moonlit palace. As he studied the turrets and grounds for movement, his conversation with Luna from the night before replayed in his mind. Specifically, her proposal to him.
“If thine and I were to join, together we would be a very powerful force! You know that your conspiracy to ransom me is a failure, but if you open your eyes to opportunity, you might become a valuable asset to a new Princess of Equestria!”
The very thought had terrified him then. He was no revolutionary. Quite the opposite, he had come to Canterlot with dreams of being chosen to serve Princess Celestia as one of her elite artisans. But that dream died in the admissions office of the Royal Technical University: Canterlot. Brass swallowed the ashen taste in his mouth as he recalled that green unicorn admissions officer.
“Listen, I’m sorry that you have to find out this way, but RTUC is a unicorn school. There must have been some unfortunate mistake regarding your personal invitation to this campus. You can of course file a petition with the Palace, but I’ve never heard back from any displaced student before. It must be that the Princess has far too many more important responsibilities of state to donate any of her attention to the university admission difficulties of a simple plow-pony.”
“I’m not a plow-pony!” Brass said aloud through clenched teeth as he recalled the memory of her belittling remark. Even now, about a year later, he still felt the tremors of his simmering rage.
“Oh, excuse me!” The patronizing green unicorn feigned regret. “I meant to say dirt-poor pit-pony. Do you need me to give you cab fare to the Palace?”
Brass felt his face burn now as it had then. However, she was right about his lowly roots, and about his current destitute condition. He was a mining pony from a tiny mining village, and his only asset at that moment was his dream and desire to become something better. Those irrefutable facts added to his indignation.
Fuming at the social injustice and humiliation he had just suffered, he had turned and left without another word. With scant hope for success but having no other options, he was making his way to the palace to file his petition when he met Silver. After talking with her, he made his first step in his transition from law-abiding subject, to political dissident.
Just one job stood between him and his dreams. Silver had made that clear. This wasn’t going to be some drawn-out affair. His life’s ambition lay within reach if he would join her team and perform his skill. It had all sounded so easy then, and while he still felt the sting of humiliation from his recent belittling at the RTUC, it was impossible for him to say no.
After all, what loyalty did he owe to Celestia? She probably didn’t even know his town existed. Yet he imagined her palace being heated through the winter using coal he and his family had mined. That unicorn in the admissions office made it clear that his personal invitation from Celestia to attend the most prestigious school in Equestria was a clerical error. The best Canterlot had to offer was reserved for unicorns. Earthies and birdies need not apply. Well if there were parts of Canterlot in which he was not welcome, then maybe it was time to make a change in Canterlot!
But would a change of leadership improve life for him? How could he be sure that Luna wasn’t the evil tyrant that history made her out to be?
He knew that the victors wrote the history books, and the history books say that Princess Luna became possessed by her selfishness and jealousy and became Nightmare Moon, an evil and twisted personality whose aim was to rule all of Equestria and bring about eternal night. But the great and powerful Princess Celestia rose up and defeated Nightmare Moon and banished her to the moon for a thousand years, saving them all from hopelessness and enslavement. The more he thought about it, the less it sounded like history and the more it sounded like the plot to a children’s book.
Eternal night? Preposterous! Crops still need sunlight to grow, and princesses as well as their subjects still need food. Most probably, the only noticeable change would have been a purple or indigo colored Royal Palace to reflect the nocturne leanings of the new head of state.
Or maybe it was true… A new thought delighted him. Princess Luna might be the champion of earth ponies! For if she had been successful in bringing about eternal night, then all the unicorns of Equestria would have been compelled to abandon their cities for the fields to use their magic to make the crops grow, or face starvation. That made sense! It flipped society upside-down. All unicorns would be forced into agriculture by means of necessity. All other ponies would fill the more prestigious and higher paying positions vacated by the now strictly agrarian unicorns.
No wonder history had been written to demonize the most powerful incarnation of Princess Luna in the historical record as the supreme villain. It was done to maintain the status quo of unicorn supremacy. Nightmare Moon must not have been a tyrannical villain at all. No, she must have been a revolutionary too dangerous to the caste system Princess Celestia and her precious unicorns first engineered and then made themselves the chief beneficiaries.
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. It was time for a change. No, he corrected himself, it was time for a revolution! The days of the current racist monarch must end. With Celestia deposed, surely the next thing to go would be her illustrious School for Gifted Unicorns! There was no greater example of her racist bias than that – members only temple to unicorn magic! His head nodded as his decision solidified in his mind. He was going to do it. If in three days they had no answer to their ransom demands, he was going to help install Princess Luna as Equestria’s sole ruler, and maybe after that, true justice and equality would finally reign throughout the land.
Finally! Tiara heard Millstone’s breathing fall into the deep, regular cycle of a pony who was sound asleep. She stifled a yawn and slowly, carefully slid away from his side.
“What time is it, Princess?” Tiara whispered once she successfully extracted herself.
“One hour till the middle of the night.” Luna responded quietly, rolling her shoulders. She had been quite fidgety tonight. Tiara suspected the noise from her squirming was part of the reason Millstone took so long to fall asleep.
Now it was time to enact her plan on keeping herself awake and alert while at the same time keeping Luna still and safely occupied while her teammate slept. Under the illumination of her horn, she made her way over to where they had put the camping stores in the cave. A minute or two later, she set a flat, square box in front of Luna. “Care for a game of checkers, Princess?”
Luna smiled, showing her teeth in a predatory manner. “If you believe me to be handicapped because of my blinders, you are in for a surprise.”
On their third game, Tiara still couldn’t find a way to best her opponent. “Oh forget it!” Tiara swept the board clear of the pieces and scowled. “You win this one too.”
“Despair not, Silver, you have played well and honorably.” Princess Luna stood and worked the kinks out of the joints she could move.
“If by ‘honorably’ you mean that I am a good loser, then I guess you are correct.” Tiara yawned as she picked up the loose checkers.
“That is not what I meant,” Luna said with amusement, “but you are a good loser.”
Tiara stuck out her tongue.
“Pray tell, do you have any chess pieces?”
Tiara looked up, shocked. “Yes, but how…” she stopped herself from asking one obvious question to blurting out another. “You can play chess…Blind?”
In response, Luna smiled, showing her teeth.
“As much as I am enjoying this, I have to wonder.” Luna asked as Tiara contemplated the game before them, “What are you hoping to gain by giving me so much attention.”
“I need to keep you from doing to my teammates the same thing you did to me.” Tiara rubbed her face and yawned. She was awake, but barely. It seemed to her that Luna was flaunting her mental acuity in the face of her fading alertness. “I’m moving my cloud castle to square one-four.”
Luna’s head tilted and moved in a small circle. Even the blinders couldn’t hide that obvious of an eye-roll. “Why do you believe that I have anything to do with your diminished mental state? Move my pegasus down and over to square two-six.”
“Arrgh.” Tiara moaned. Luna always seemed to know what her next move would be and took little time before announcing it. As a result, she was left feeling the pressure of trying to figure out her next move while her opponent waited. “I already told you. And nothing I have seen or experienced has changed my mind.” Tiara yawned again. There was something she wanted to say. Some question, or subject she wanted to talk about with the Princess… Her thoughts slogged along in the mud-bog of her mind. She had to remember! This was her job!
“Silver?”
Tiara opened her eyes and blinked slowly, wondering how much time Luna was giving her to decide. “Uh, my guard takes your guard. Um, square six-five, to square five-four.” She then made the trade using her mouth, not trusting her magical ability in her drowsy state.
“My alicorn takes your alicorn. Check.”
“What?” Tiara examined the board. The move was both possible and legal. “Oh, will you stop making it look so easy for you!” Tiara stretched her neck out again and moved the pieces. Now she had to think of a move to get her out of trouble. But then something else about alicorns clicked in her mind.
“Princess Celestia…”
“What?” Luna said at the unexpected utterance.
“If you are as unloved and unwanted by Princess Celestia as you maintain-“
“Doesn’t all the evidence point to that conclusion?” Luna interrupted.
Tiara ignored the interruption, “explain why she welcomed you back to the Palace?”
“Do you really desire a lesson in politics?” She sighed, sounding bored, like this was a subject she lectured on frequently.
Tiara surged to life, her anticipation burning away the fog. “Humor me, if you please.” She said evenly to mask the excitement she felt at that moment. It occurred to her that Luna had done a lot of side-stepping around answering her questions. A tactic often used by ponies who want to appear to answer an inquiry made by their interrogator and create misleading inferences. It seemed to her that she could smell the scent of vindication in the air. Without a reasonable and plausible explanation of Celestia’s reinstatement of her supposedly hated sister to the throne, the only logical conclusion was that her beliefs must be true and her plan to ransom Luna still viable!
“Very well, if you insist.” Luna sighed, “You must know that one does not hold on to power as long as my sister without acquiring a great deal of political savvy.”
“Of course.” She agreed, her excitement still high.
“Good. Have you heard the adage; ‘keep your friends close and your enemies even closer’?”
“I have.”
“Good.” Luna said simply, and was not quick to follow her answer.
“I hope you don’t expect me to accept that statement as your explanation. You’re going to have to do a bit of convincing for me to believe you.”
“Indeed, Silver,” Luna said, then she worked her jaw around in thought. “I know that you are intelligent and skeptical of everything I say, so let us say that you are the powerful ruler of all Equestria and your rebellious sister tries to remove you from the throne. What would you do?”
“Destroy her, of course. She committed treason, the law demands it, and she tried to destroy me.”
Luna’s head jerked back. “Do you have any siblings, Silver?”
In a momentary panic, Tiara held her breath while she contemplated the question and how revealing would her answer be. “No, I don’t.” She replied after she believed it safe.
Luna nodded once, apparently content with the answer. “Destroying your rival is one option of course, but another is to make her useful to you. So instead, you disable her and bring her back to the Palace where you can keep an eye on her while you make her an asset.”
“Why would I bring her into the Palace? I’d be asking for another attack.”
“Because you know that she saw something during her second attempt to seize the throne that she didn’t have time to witness on her first attempt. Something that scared her.”
Tiara smirked, unable to fathom what could possibly scare the Princess of the Moon so badly that she would give up her plans of Equestrian domination. “And that was?”
“Immediate and spontaneous popular uprising.”
Tiara took a moment to digest that. The threat of discontent and open rebellion is a major concern for any monarch. However, a new ruler with no allies or army of her own would find it terrifying. “Okay, but still, why would I bring my sister - whom I hate - back to the Palace and reinstate her?”
“Because you want to make use of her, but also to keep her in check and prevent her from building a power base.”
Tiara sat confused. “What use could I possibly make of a disloyal sister and co-regent?”
“As a check of loyalty of your cabinet to see who will court her favor, as a mouthpiece for unpopular news you want to keep at a distance from yourself, as a show of doubling of power players to discourage other states from hostile actions, as a bulwark against assassination, as a test of solidarity for the nation to see which elements, if any, make a fuss over what appears to be an arbitrary appointment–” Luna was wagging her head with each point and showing no signs of letting up.
“Okay,” Tiara interrupted, for she had more than adequately supported her point. “I guess there are some uses that I couldn’t think of.”
“Yes, and remember, that while she resides in your Palace, she is surrounded by those most loyal to you, who will keep track of all her meetings, dealings, and movements and make report to you." Luna sighed deeply. "She will be little more than a captive and a pawn. A bird kept in a golden cage.”
“But I will be forced to live with somepony I hate.”
Luna shook her head. “Celestia never truly hated me. She is too farsighted in her planning, too emotionless in her politics, and too...logical to let blinding emotions like hate prevent her from seeing opportunities in all situations.” Her breathing was labored, betraying the strong feelings she still felt. She took a few moments to calm down, but she still looked like she had swallowed a lemon. “To be truthful, it was I who hated her.”
Tiara found herself at a loss for words at the unsolicited confession. She just sat in silence with the Princess, unable to do or say anything.
Luna’s ears suddenly pricked up and her head swiveled to Millstone like she had heard some signal inaudible to Tiara. “Oh, no.” She said and set her jaw.
“What is it?” Tiara followed her stare, but could see nothing wrong.
“Silver, get up and get over to him, now.” Luna's voice had the commanding tone that didn't tolerate question or dissent.
“Why?” Tiara asked as she obediently stood.
“Because he’s dreaming, I thought it was benign, but it has turned. He’s having a nightmare and he’s going to wake up any moment now in a panic! Hurry!”
No sooner had she finished speaking that he had started to twitch and stir. If the troubled jerking movements by themselves hadn’t been able to show his distress, the hopeless sounds he made next would have removed any doubt. From deep down inside him came an unnerving howl, a chorus of tortured strings being drawn by a bassist driven mad by grief. Horror now had a voice, and the hearing of its unearthly moan made teeth set on edge and caused hackles to rise.
Tiara fell down beside him and ran her muzzle up and down his neck from his ear to his shoulder, desperate to soothe him and to keep his unseen demon from emerging. “It’s okay, I’m here. It’s just a dream, you’re only having a bad dream!” She spoke rapidly, her voice breathy and nervous.
“Let ‘em out! They can’t breathe! NO!” Millstone blurted aloud and shot up to his hooves so quickly that he knocked her back. In the darkness of the cave, the white of his eyes – opened wide and staring blindly – broadcast his panic as his head darted about. “No! Not me too! Mommy, Daddy, help me!” He screamed and threw hoof punches wildly in all directions at his invisible attackers.
“M, calm do-OW!” One of his hooves connected with her mouth. The shock of being hit made her retreat just out of his reach.
He was beyond help. His eyes were open, but they were not seeing anything in the cave. “Lemme go! Lemme go!” He shouted – though nopony was touching him – and scrambled about, clawing his way along the floor and, fortunately, toward the exit. “Don’t put me inna box too! I don’t wanna die!” His terror-stricken cries faded quickly as he fled out of the cave, leaving Tiara behind, panting and bewildered.
Tiara ran her tongue over her lip where she had been struck and winced at the sting. That was definitely going to swell. She tasted blood and deduced that he had split her lip. A sniffle from behind her made her sniff too in reflex. Sharp, fishy odors hit her. Urine. Millstone had truly experienced something terrifying.
Tiara whipped her head around to see Luna with her head down, and in the faint light from her horn, a tear glistened on her cheek.
A scowl spread on her face as her rage rose within her. “Don’t you dare shed any of your rockodile tears!” She spat, and lept to her hooves. “You did that to him!”
“No, Silver, you’re wrong I– AH!”
She didn’t allow her to finish. She was so tired of it all! She charged at Luna while she was speaking and swatted her in the face. “Don’t lie to me!” She screamed, “I’m sick of your lies!”
Luna struggled to stand. “I’m not lying! I had nothing–AH!”
Tiara slapped her again, knocking her back to the floor.
Luna pushed herself up and bared her teeth, “How dare you! We are– AH! AH! OW!”
With Luna blinded and prevented from offering any sort of defense by her shackles, every one of Tiara’s swings struck her target. “I’m the ringleader, and I’m a unicorn!” Tiara announced angrily, and she grabbed Luna’s horn with her hoof. “If you attack me, that’s fair. But you will leave him alone!” She released Luna’s horn with a shove and watched her swoon.
“Silver Chalice, We swear, we had nothing to do with his nightmare!” Luna doggedly maintained, keeping her head back as far as she could without falling over.
Tiara’s lip curled up as she ground her molars together, contemplating what to do next with her obstinate captive. A glimmer from an object on the shelf of the cave provided her answer. She crossed over to the wall with a few purposed, rapid steps and snatched the object that caught her eye. “Open your mouth!” she ordered.
Luna shuffled away. “No!” she answered through clenched teeth.
Tiara hooked one of her forelegs over Luna’s horn and under her neck, twisting her head to the side. “Urrrgh! I said open!” She huffed, discovering that, even bound as she was, Luna was still a formidable opponent. She realized that she would have to somehow force her to the floor. But the simple strategy was far more difficult to execute. She yelled and screeched as she wrestled, and Luna would stoically grunt in reply as she resisted. Tiara began to tire, Luna was proving too strong.
Suddenly, a battle cry echoed in the cave and a body crashed into Luna, knocking her over.
Bright strobes of lightning flared from Luna’s horn and flashed off the walls of the cave. Thunderclaps and magic pulsed through her body, but Tiara recognized them as harmless distractions. She seized her advantage and pried Luna’s lips open and back with the studded bit she held in her other hoof. Then using her magic, she uncorked the small jar and, drop by drop, measured the liquid into Luna’s mouth, taking care to not use it all.
Luna gave a muffled protest and began to thrash in earnest. She recognized the taste.
“You can’t win,” Tiara panted triumphantly, “the mouth is heavily vascularized. You’re absorbing this even if you don’t swallow.”
The struggle ended with Luna offering spasmodic jerks that decreased in force until she laid still. Tiara slowly counted to one-hundred before relaxing. “You can let her go now.” She announced to her teammate and stood up slowly.
Millstone was also breathing hard. “Is she dead?”
“Put your ear against her chest, low and behind her shoulder.” Tiara directed as she magically re-corked and levitated the small jar to check the amount of Moondrake essence remaining. “Whew, this should be enough for one more.”
Millstone rolled over and did as directed. “She’s breathing, and…yes, I hear her heart.” He stood up. “She’s alive.” He announced, rather unnecessarily.
Tiara looked down at him and saw something that made her blush. “Um, Millstone, you’re naked.”
He too, blushed and then stood quickly, angling his body away from her. “I took my undertail off…outside…because I, um…had an accident, when I…left.”
“Yes,” Tiara said awkwardly, “you must have had some nightmare.”
He looked away, his ears laid back. “It was, but it was one I had dreamt before. I wish I wasn’t such a coward!”
“Millstone?” Tiara stepped up to him and turned his head toward her with her hoof. “Do you realize what you just did?”
“Yes, I pissed myself and ran out of here because of a stupid dream!” Millstone jerked his head away and stepped back. “I abandoned you! I left you alone in here, with her!”
“No!” Tiara said sharply, “You fought your greatest fear and ran – naked – in here to help me fight an alicorn. Even though you didn’t know if she was capable of being subdued!”
Millstone looked at her askance, “You and I both know that she was in chains.”
“Was in chains, yes.” Tiara nodded emphatically. “And did you also hear us fighting?”
“Yes, I did,” He nodded back. “That was how I knew you needed my help.”
“So you heard a struggle, and then you set aside your fear and natural instincts for self-preservation, to charge into a dangerous situation of unknown severity.” Tiara said with finality as a smile crept on her face. “And you did this for me.”
Millstone swallowed, and chanced looking her in the eyes. There was no trace of mockery or insincerity. Finally, he felt safe enough to answer. “Yes, I guess I did that too.”
Tiara drew in a breath and bit her lip. Some questions she had set aside were finding their answers. “Millstone,” She said with a small quiver in her voice, “I think that you are the bravest pony I have ever met!”
Millstone blushed deeper and shuffled on his hooves. “Uh, thank you.” He answered her simply. He wanted to say more, but a horrible tightness in his throat threatened to crack his voice. Nopony had ever called him brave.
Tiara started forward to embrace her champion. Not caring that her vision was blurring or that her knees were weak. She had to show him how much she appreciated him!
“Well, Silver,” his voice stopped her far short of her goal, “what do we do now?”
Silver. The name was a dagger in her heart. But of course he called her ‘Silver’. She had never given him any other name. He doesn’t know her real name. He doesn’t know Tiara, and he doesn’t know what Tiara had done.
Tiara felt all the new hope in her die. Millstone could have been the one. But how would he react when he finds out that she had never trusted him with her real name? Then after he learns her real name, he’ll learn about her real past. What would he think of her then? What would she think about herself if she were him? Tiara couldn’t breathe. She was so close, but she couldn’t let herself believe that he was in love with her. He loved Silver Chalice. And Silver Chalice was not her, not really. So she mustn’t let her heart fool her into believing in an impossible outcome.
“Silver?” He was looking at her through squinting eyes, “are you okay?”
Tiara shook her head and blinked. “Uh, yes, I’m fine, just tired.” She looked down and saw the chess game scattered over the floor. “Um, I guess you’ll want to…uh…”
“Go clean myself. Right.” Millstone turned and left.
Tiara could have kicked herself! The dejected response he gave broke her heart. She knelt down and started picking up the scattered pieces of the game while mentally berating herself. Why, oh why, could she not think of anything else to say? All of the emotional progress he needed, and all of the positive reinforcement he could have enjoyed, was made waste in the span of her careless comment. Tiara sniffed and continued picking up the chess pieces and putting them in their case. A tear fell on the king as she reached for it. Something poignant about that hit her and, with great reverence, she picked up the king and studied it. Her horn glowed brighter, allowing her to notice that the chess piece had bits of it broken off, probably from her fight with Luna. She sighed and wiped away the tear, fumbling as she did. The king fell from her hoof onto the hard granite floor, where it snapped in two.
Tiara stared down at the broken king, wondering if she could possibly fix it somehow. She picked up the broken pieces and set them together. They didn’t mate. There was a thin shard missing in the middle. Her horn flared as bright as she could make it as she scoured the floor, intent on finding and fixing the king. But the missing shard was nowhere to be found. All she found, was tears.