A New Beginning in a New Land

by REDACTED99999

Chapter 9

“… So, in short, the puns are a way to honor Starswirl the bearded and his love for wordplay.” Twilight finished as they approached a red barn in the middle of an apple orchard.
“Fascinating. A bearded pony with a love for puns. I like him, too bad he’s dead. Sounds like an interesting pony.”
Twilight smiled at him and was about to say something but Rainbow Dash was quicker.
“Yeah, so exciting. Now can we stop with the egghead talk? We’re almost there.”
Jax looked at the barn they were nearing. He went over to the door in front of the others, starting to open it. “Isn’t it a bit quiet for a party? There isn’t even any light in here. Are you sure this is the right-“
“SURPRISE!!!”
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!”
He jumped back into Rainbow Dash, who for the second time that day was positioned perfectly for him to trip over her.
“It’s a surprise party?!” He asked as he got himself up. “But I knew there was a party? I guess no one mention it was a surprise party… I did get pretty surprised… that’s actually kinda genius. Tell people there is a party but not that it’s a surprise party. No one will see it coming!” He contemplated, ending with a smile on his face.
“You sure didn’t” Rainbow snickered beside him as he dusted himself off.
“Thanks!” A pink pony appeared before him. “Everypony knows that I’ll throw a ‘welcome to ponyvile’ party to newcomers so ponies just tell them without thinking about it but that meant that the newcomers know about the party so I had to think of something for them to be surprised because we all know that you can’t have a surprise party if you know it’s a surprise party but then I realized that they didn’t know it was a surprise party so instead of making everypony pinkie promise not to say anything I just surprise them by having a surprise party instead of having a normal party they expect!” She finally took a breath, smiling up at Jax who was just staring at her. “And you were really surprised too! We were like ‘surprise!’ and you were like ‘holy fu-‘” Jax put his hand over her mouth before she could finish her sentence. She was standing on her hind legs, probably trying to imitate him, so he didn’t have to reach far down.
“Yes, Pinkie, I think we all witnessed that unfortunately.” He decided to change the subject quickly, hoping to avoid further blunders. “Nice to finally meet you. My name is Jax.” He took her hoof in his hand and gave it a shake, his other hand still on her mouth. “I really appreciate the welcome, but know that I’m often uncomfortable in the party scene, I want you to know that this has nothing to do with the quality of your party, but with me personally.” He lifted his hand off her mouth/muzzle, making her drop to all fours.
“That’s okay Jaxie, I’m sure you’ll like this one. Half the town turned up! And Lyra already explained how different you are, so no one is going to be afraid of you.” She gave him a giant smile, which he had to admit was kind of contagious, making him smile as well. He looked over the crowd of ponies looking at him.
“Hello everyone” He said awkwardly. Giving public speeches wasn’t his strong suit. “I want to thank you for coming and I would like to reassure everyone that- OH MY GOD IS THAT A CAKE?!” He interrupted himself as he pointed to a very tall cake on the table almost reaching the ‘welcome to Ponyvile’ banner that was hanging from a supporting beam overhead. It looked like somebody made a cake, then decided to make a cake on top of that cake and then continue to do so. Five times. It was the most beautiful thing Jax had ever seen.
A giggle sounded from above him, and he noticed that Pinkie had somehow climbed up on his shoulders without him noticing. “Of course it is silly filly. I made it for you! Well first I made one, then I remembered that you were really big, so you would probably be able to eat more than one, and I realized that I didn’t really know how much you could eat so I just made as many as I could because you probably haven’t gotten any cake in a while and everypony loves cake, but then I just had a lot of cakes and there wasn’t enough space, so I-“
She was interrupted from her explanation as Jax lifted her off his shoulder, looking at her with teary eyes. “Thank you Pinkie. Thank you so much for this. It’s beautiful.” He hugged her to his chest and she quickly returned the gesture.
“Let’s cut the cake!” Pinkie announced happily after the hug.
“How?” Jax asked with a huge smile that seemed to relax some ponies and unnerve others. Right now he didn’t care, all he cared about was finally eating cake again after so long… Well eating anything at this point would really be appreciated, but this was cake. The nights he didn’t have nightmares or dreamless rest, were nights filled with delicious cake. Cake and music were some of the things he missed the most, but at least he could sing to himself. Cake wasn’t easy to come by in the Everfree. Oh, also pizza. Can’t forget pizza.
“With a knife of course!” Pinkie stated, taking a knife out from someplace. She jumped up into the air towards the cake, and somehow managed to cut the perfect piece from the top of it, to the bottom. She got a plate from somewhere and handed the giant piece to him.
“Thanks Pinkie!” He said with a giant grin, ignoring the fact that it should be impossible for her to do as she did. He put the plate on the floor and started munching the cake from the top, not caring about how stupid he looked.
“ohhh… that’s good cake.” He said, in total bliss of the sugary treat.
A few ponies giggled at that, and Pinkie’s smile somehow became bigger.
“Heh, it’s a good thing ya so tall, partner.” An orangeish pony with a Stetson said. “otherwise that would be a pretty amazing feat.” He looked at her a bit, then around, noticing that the ponies had decided to cut the cake horizontally as well, so they had normal looking pieces on their plates. He almost felt dumb, until he took another bite that sent him straight back to heaven. Who cared what ponies thought of him right now. He had cake.
The Stetson-wearing pony only smiled brighter at him. “Name’s Applejack. Pleasure ta meet ya, Jax.” She said, as she put down a bottle she had somehow been holding in her hoof, and held out her hoof towards him. He looked down at his cake covered hand, which he had been using to make sure his piece didn’t fall over. With no paper in sight and his left hand occupied by his mighty stick of awesome, he decided to clench it into a fist and bump the pony on her outstretched hoof. “Hello Applejack, nice to meet you.” Somehow she took hold of his fist with her hoof and shook his hand with the strength of a… buffalo or something. How did she take hold of his hand with a hoof??
“Probably the same way she holds that beer or whatever it is. Just let it go Jax… Let it go…” He told himself. Wait… was that beer?
“Is that… is that alcohol?” He asked, not daring to believe, pointing down at Applejack’s bottle.
“This here is the best cider in all of Equestria.” She told him proudly. “I guess there is some alcohol in them. You would have to drink a whole lot to feel it though!”
Jax cracked his neck, getting cake in his hair in the process. “Challenge… Accepted!”

Back in Canterlot, Luna was waiting outside her sister’s chambers. The night guard on her right cleared his throat before speaking. “Princess Celestia sleeps pretty deeply, and hates being woken up. I suggest you knock a bit harder, your highness.”
“Thank you, my little pony.” She smiled at the helpful guard, who looked pretty pleased with himself. She knocked harder this time.
A minute passed and she contemplated whether to knock again or not, when her sister finally answered. “Come in.”
And that’s just what she did.
Her moon shone through the windows on the other side of the spacious room, illuminating it with its soft glow. The bed was a mess, but otherwise the room was tidy. Celestia stood in the middle, looking slightly annoyed, but otherwise like her usual self, nothing showing her recent rise from bed.
“Sister,” Luna started “Twilight Sparkle hath sent us a message” She always reverted back to her old speech pattern when she spoke with Celestia for some reason. She took out the message and showed it to her.

“A sapient creature from the Everfree…” Celestia mumbled while reading before giving a tired sigh. “I see that this is important, but couldn’t it wait until tomorrow Lulu? You know how much I dislike being awoken.” Celestia gave her sister a tired glance, but Luna didn’t look remorseful at all. In fact she looked excited. “Do you not see sister? ‘Tis surely the creature we told thee about a month ago! We have not dared go into its dreams again, but now we do not need to! We can meet muzzle to muzzle!…" Then realization struck. "Wait. What if it recognizes us? What if it resents us for going into its nightmare unbidden? ‘Tis surely from a different culture, and it was certainly not happy to see us last time. Maybe observe it from a distance?” Luna had started muttering to herself about which approach to take when Celestia spoke up again, with a serious tone.
“Luna. Remember how Tirek’s brother Scorpan reacted to being spied upon? We almost put distrust between us, and without his help, Tirek would have taken over. You have to be careful when dealing with new sapient creatures. We need to know what he, not it, has as motives. Twilight has already made contact, she will figure everything out.”
Luna looked at her for a bit before shaking her head. “We do not wish to figure everything out. We wish to become friends with it. Him.” She quickly corrected.
A smile spread on Celestia’s muzzle. “From a distance?”
Luna looked down, suddenly very interested in the red carpet. “Only in the beginning. We shall find the proper time to introduce ourself. Until then, we shall make sure that nothing goes wrong.”
Celestia still smiled at her. “I am thrilled to see you take an interest in friendship Lulu. But what of your court? And haven’t you begun helping ponies in their dreams? How long will it take for you to ‘find the right time’?”
Luna smiled sadly back at Celestia. “We do not know Tia. Be it a day, a month, a year, we shall wait. We both know that almost nopony visits my court in the night, and we can raise the moon and venture into dreams from Ponyvile. We… I am so sorry Tia, to let you bear the full burden of bureaucracy once again, but I feel… I feel like I must do this.” A look of determination entered her eyes. She didn’t fully know herself why she was so determined to become friends with this Jax, but since she entered his nightmare a month ago, she has thought about him a lot. She wondered how he behaved, what he liked and disliked, where he was from… and most importantly, what that nightmare had been about. It had been far more intense than any nightmare she had seen in a pony, so much in fact that it still gave her shivers thinking about it.
Celestia suddenly stepped forward and wrapped her into a tight hug. “You are the only family I have Luna, and yet I had to banish you for a thousand years. You can’t even begin to understand how much I regret not being there for you when you needed me the most. I was so terrified when you came back as Nightmare Moon and not Luna as I had hoped. I was so scared that the elements would send you back to the moon, or that Twilight would fail, or something else would go wrong…” She could feel Celestia’s tears fall down onto her coat, while her own were slowly filling her eyes. “And then everything went better than I could ever had hoped for! Twilight and her friends connected with the elements so strongly that when they used them on you, you were free of the Nightmare. I finally had you back after a thousand years… We could be a family again. I was, and will always be, so grateful for that.”
“Tia… Why art thou…?” her voice was shaky and her tears finally broke free and ran down her muzzle.
“Because nothing has changed. I govern the day, while you govern the night. Ponies play and work during my day, while they sleep through your night.” Luna knew this, but hearing her sister say it was like a punch to the stomach. Her tears started falling faster as Celestia continued.
“I tried for a thousand years to let them see the beauty that the night holds, even though it was not as amazing as when you brought it. The progress was so slow that I didn’t even notice it at first. It was like they were mocking me, telling stories about Nightmare Moon to scare their children, and before I knew what to do there was a holiday dedicated to my worst memory. Still I kept going. Still I tried to make them see. And slowly, oh so slowly, ponies took an interest. Astronomers were born, night clubs were created. I had hoped that you would see that and rejoice” Her voice was sown with so much sadness that Luna almost couldn’t take it. It was rare for her sister to show this much emotion.
“Why art thou telling us this sister?” Luna tried again, her voice no more than a whisper as the tears kept falling.
“Because I can see how sad you are Lulu… and I don’t know what to do about it. Nothing has changed, I sit on the sidelines while you suffer. I promised myself that if you would ever be sad again, I would be right there with you. But my presence did nothing for you except make you feel like you needed to force a smile for me.”
Luna was about to protest. Celestia’s presence had done more to ease her sadness than that, but Celestia went on with a smile in her voice.
“Then the most wonderful thing happen. You come back from Ponyvile… with a smile on your face! A real, genuine smile. How good it was to see you smile again, how happy it made me. Then time passed, and even though I could see that you were happier than before, that smile was nowhere to be seen.” Celestia pulled out of the long hug to look Luna in the eyes, tears visible on both their muzzles.
“I guess what I’m trying to say, in a very roundabout way, is… I want to see you smile Lulu. If going to Ponyvile will do that, then I am all for it.” Luna gave her a small smile.
“Roundabout? You couldn’t have gone more around if you danced in circles.” Celestia giggled at that as Luna dried the tears from her eyes. “But I think we both needed this. Thank you sister, it means a lot to me to have somepony like you to rely on. Even if I don’t always show it.” They hugged one more time before Luna left. She felt lighter somehow, knowing that Celestia had tried so hard for her. That her sister cared so much, even after all that Luna had done to her....
As she teleported back into her court, she saw something pretty rare. Her guards had huge grins on their faces.
“Did I miss something?” she asked curiously. Guards were pretty stoic most of the time. Both of them looked startled at her.
“Ehh… Shadow Wing just told a funny joke, that’s all Princess.” Night Guard stated. Shadow Wing looked at his fellow guard with shock evident in his eyes.
“Oh really? I could use a laugh, why don’t you repeat the joke?” She looked at Shadow Wing, who in turn looked close to panic.
“Ehh… It’s not so funny really. It’s more that it came out of the blue really, not funny at all when you expect it…”
“Ah, but we would love to hear it nonetheless. If you would be so kind?” Shadow Wing sighed in defeat. Then, after a moment: “Two ponies walk into a bar. Knock knock.”
Luna looked at Shadow Wing for a while. Then a smile came to her face. “Ah, I get it. It is a play on the word ‘bar’, which can be both a place where you eat and drink, and an object, which will make a knocking sound if you walk into it, combining knock knock jokes with bar jokes.” She smiled triumphantly as Shadow Wing nodded, relief clear on his muzzle. “I guess you could say,” She continued, smile still on her lips, “That they got knocked out.”
Two surprised faces looked at her, before Night Guard started laughing like it was the funniest joke he had ever heard, soon joined by Shadow Wing.
Luna waited with a smile on her muzzle until her two guards calmed down. It felt good to make others laugh, she would have to practice her jokes. She believed Twilight would have a book on the subject somewhere.
“I’m leaving the castle for an unknown amount of time and night court will be closed for the duration. I have already informed Captain Chipped Armor, every guard will be informed at the end of the night. I will be leaving immediately.”
Shadow Wing stepped forward, looking worried. “How long will you be gone Princess?”
“I do not know little pony. It will take more than a week I wager.”
“But surely not more than 5 months? Right?” He looked at her hopefully and she almost felt bad for not knowing.
“I do not know. It could. Why do you ask?” She asked curiously. It’s not everyday guards spoke this freely.
“Oh… umm…”
“He’s just worried your highness. We both are.” Night Guard said as he stepped forward. “We wish you a safe trip Princess Luna. May the stars light your path, wherever it may lead you.” He ended with a bow. Luna smiled down at them both. The two things keeping her morale up were her sister and her guards. They both showed their good intentions this night and that made her happier than she had been in a long time.
“I will try to finish within 5 months if it means so much to you.” Her smile widened as they both looked up in surprise. Shadow Wing stepped forward with a smile on his face. “Princess, you helped my nephew Tight Hug with a nightmare some time ago. He asked me to give you this.” He took out a folded piece of parchment from under his armor which Luna took with her magic. It was a drawing of a young colt, the words ‘me’ written over him, and Luna, who had the inscription “The best princess in the world,” which almost made her giggle. She seemed to be talking to the colt about something.
“I remember! Tight Hug was afraid of being alone. Such a sweet young colt… Thank you for bringing this to me Shadow Wing.” She said as she folded the parchment again, putting it under her collar. “Now then, I shall be off.” She stated as she turned around. Shadow Wing and Night Guard both saluted at their princess.