Anon is standing in front of a door that he’s never seen before. Awhile ago Anon got bored with sitting inside of his own dream world, so he decided to walk around the room of doors for a while to practice his sensing powers. While it’s true that many ponies aren’t asleep right now, there are more than a few that daydream. So Anon walked around, felt some doors and got some much needed practice. What he found odd at the time was that Luna wasn’t anywhere to be found.
So that brings us to right now. Anon glances over to a door he’s seen before. Celestia’s door. It’s still chained shut so that none may enter. When he returns his gaze to the door before him, he finds it odd. At first glance Anon assumed it was Luna’s door. It has the same crescent moon just like her cutie mark, but it’s somehow different, he can’t put his finger on it. It’s true that Anon’s never seen Luna’s door before, but he knows that these doors always show the ponies cutie mark.
Anon can’t fight this feeling that something isn’t right. He rests the palm of his hand against the door and concentrates. He can feel a spike of loneliness race through his body. He feels something familiar about it and yet something so different. It’s as if he can feel Luna but also not. Another flux of emotions run through him, sadness, bitterness and anger.
He removes his hand and just stands there thinking. This very moment he has a choice to make. He either enters into this dream and hope this is Luna’s or ignore it and let whoever is in there suffer. Anon can feel a tugging inside of him. If it’s Luna, he doesn't want to leave her alone in a nightmare. Perhaps he can repay her for all the times she’s helped him with his nightmares?
With that thought, Anon knows what he must do. He gives himself one final nod, opens the door and without hesitation, steps inside.
Darkness. That’s all Anon can see. Everywhere he looks he finds nothing but darkness, but that’s not the only thing that’s here. The sound of someone crying quietly to themselves is in the air. Anon can’t shake a strong sense of wrongness that’s filling his insides right now. A certain feeling that he needs to run and leave as fast as he can.
That doesn’t matter, he needs to focus. Anon raises his hand and thinks of something that can help him right now. With a snap of his fingers a flashlight appears in the air before falling onto the floor. Anon picks up the light and sweeps it around to find anything in sight. There’s something wrong here. The darkness is moving away from his light, but never allowing him to see more than where his light is directly pointing.
This isn’t your normal everyday darkness. Anon cautiously walks forward unsure of where to go. As he looks around, he can’t see any landmarks or definable features. The floor beneath his feet is solid blackness, everything ahead of his flashlight is blackness, even the sky above him is devoid of a moon and stars. The only thing he can hear is that sound of crying.
Every step he takes he can hear it growing louder. It’s progress at the very least. Anon keeps focused and soon catches something at the edge of his flashlight. There’s something a few feet in front of him. It’s small, too small to be Luna, but whatever it is, it’s crying. Anon approaches the small creature until he’s standing next to it.
“Hello?”
A gasp leaves the creature. Slowly the small thing looks up at Anon.
“Luna?” Anon asks confused.
What he sees before him is a small faded blue filly. Anon can remember flashes of Luna’s memory when she was a child. It’s still hard for him to remember those times in her life, but it’s vaguely there. This is Luna when she was a filly.
“W-Who are you?” She asks, drying her eyes as she does so.
“Luna, it’s me. Are you alright?”
Luna looks down as her eyes start to moisten again.
“My sister hates me. My subjects hate me.”
So Anon was right, this is a nightmare. Yet he still finds his mind drift to the cutie mark on the door. There’s no time for that right now. He has to help her.
“Your sister loves you and your subjects are only afraid. They’ll understand if you give them time.”
She shakes her head. “They think I’m a monster. Maybe that’s what I am.”
“No, Luna. You’re not a monster. Just give it time.”
“They don’t know what monsters look like, sitting safely at home while I fight to keep them safe.” She says bitterly. “If they want a nightmare, then I’ll give them a nightmare!” She shouts in anger.
Anon backs up slightly as he sees the filly start to transform. Her pale blue coat turning as black as the night. Her smaller form growing to equal the size of Celestia. When she lifts her head, Anon can see the slits in her eyes and the long fangs hanging from her mouth as her mane turns into a blue mist. Whatever this pony is standing in front of him, it isn’t Luna. He needs to try and get her back into the right state of mind.
“Luna, it’s alrigh-”
“My name is Nightmare Moon!” The pony roars.
Anon’s light goes out, plunging him back into total darkness. It only takes a brief moment for Anon to take in that information. His worry slowly turning to anger. That was her. That was the pony that Luna’s kept from him. That was Nightmare Moon. Anon can only wonder how long Luna has been dealing with this nightmare. Well, not anymore. Anon doesn’t know how, but he’s going to return the favor. He raises his hand ready to put an end to this, but something unexpected happens.
The darkness splits open to show Nightmare Moon standing before him with her horn charged. She fires a blast into his chest sending him flying and landing on his back. He quickly grasps his chest in pain... He actually felt that!?
“It seems that Luna’s exotic taste in company hasn’t changed.”
Anon looks up to see Nightmare Moon looming over him as he lays on his back. She’s looking down at him with a smirk plastered on her face.
“You’re no ordinary nightmare.” Anon says with a sneer.
She raises a brow at him. “Hmmm? What’s with that look? Do you hate me?” She gives a throaty chuckle as she lays on top of him so they’re face to face. “What has Luna told you about me?”
“Not enough, but I’ve heard the story.”
“You should know that stories change depending on who’s telling them, Anon.”
Anon narrows his eyes at her. “How do you know my name?”
Another chuckle from Nightmare Moon. “There’s many things you still have to learn about Luna, but it’s not my place to say.” Nightmare Moon looks off into the distance. “I guess playtime is over.” She gives Anon a smirk. “Come again sometime.”
“Like I woul-”
Anon’s eyes shoot open as Nightmare Moon mashes her lips against his. Anon is so shocked that he can’t even think properly as she slips her tongue inside and gets a good feel. Nightmare Moon pulls away from him and can only chuckle at his expression. She gives him a wink and turns into a cloud of mist and retreats into the darkness. Anon doesn’t even notice Luna charging from the darkness with her horn lit. She quickly finds Anon still laying on the floor.
“Anon!” She gallops over to him. “What happened?”
Anon’s mind is still scrambled, but even he doesn’t know what happened.
“I-I think I’ve been molested.” He says honestly.
“What?!” Luna says with a blush on her muzzle.
Anon slowly gets to his feet. He needs to get out of here. He’s not able to process everything that just happened right now.
“I’ll talk to you later, Luna.”
Luna can only watch as Anon walks out the door that leads to her mind. Her worried expression quickly shifts to hate as she look over her withers towards the darkness in her mind.
“What did you do to him?” She asks.
Nightmare Moon materialises before Luna with a smirk on her face.
“Not much, just had a little fun.”
Luna gives a primal growl as she faces Nightmare Moon.
“Dare not lay a hoof on what is mine or I will make you regret such actions.”
“Is that so?” Nightmare Moon tests. When she sees Luna narrow her eyes she decides to wave her off. “Relax. Not like I can do anything since the Elements of Harmony locked me inside your mind.”
“If only they had destroyed you.” Luna mutters to herself.
Nightmare Moon ignores that. “However, should your little friend return, I cannot be blamed for what I do.” She licks her lips some. “I can think of many games we could play together.”
Luna can feel a blush on her face, understanding what Nightmare means.
“You’re incorrigible.” She says with a scoff.
“I’m a mare that knows what she wants. Can you claim the same thing?”
With a mocking laugh Nightmare Moon returns to the darkness. Luna’s feathers are rustled. Damn that mare for scaring Anon away. She knew that something like this would happen if she didn’t lock her dreams away, but it takes so long for her to move freely between realms. She lets out a snort. She needs to talk to Anon about what happened. As much as she dislikes this, she needs him to see the darker part of her past and the mare that resides in her mind.
Anon quickly sits up in shock as he awakes from his slumber. His labored breaths and cold sweat are the only things to greet him. He can’t ignore what he just experienced. He was frenched by a horse, Nightmare Moon no less! What is she doing in Luna’s head? Why hasn’t he seen her before? There’s just too many questions and only one pony with answers.
He needs to talk to Luna, but he’s going to put it off until later. He needs time to come to grips with what happened. The worst part is that he can still taste her. A bittersweet taste that’ll haunt him for longer than he’s willing to admit. That’s the first time he’s ever been kissed by anything! Anon quickly grasps his head in pain. That’s great, he still has a hangover to deal with. He wants to ask if his day can get any worse, but he already knows that it will. It’s just one of those days.
“Good to see you’re awake.”
Anon jumps up slightly in shock from the new voice. He quickly looks over to his bedside with a sigh.
“Blossom. It’s just you.”
“Who else were you expecting?” She asks.
“With what I’ve been through...” He lets out a sigh. “Just forget it. What do you want?”
“Just here to inform you that your shop is open and the ponies are training as we speak.”
That’s good to know. Anon looks around the room and realises that he’s in Bonbon and Lyra’s room. It then comes back to him on how he woke up this morning before going back to sleep.
“What’s the damage?” He asks Blossom.
A smirk slowly grows on her lips. “Nothing major, but I can’t wait for this day to start.”
Anon has a bad feeling about this.
“The sisters?”
“Fine. Celestia should be in morning court as we speak.”
“Good. So what are you going to do?”
She shrugs. “I’ll have a few knights watching you while I train a few ponies.”
“Alright. See you later, I guess.”
She chuckles. “Enjoy.”
“What do you mean by th-” Anon looks over to see that Blossom is nowhere to be found. “Damn bat pony.”
Anon lets out a long sigh and decides that he just needs to man up and face whatever is to come. Yet he can’t fight back this sinking feeling inside of him. He just knows that he’s going to regret last night... Then again, he’s already regretting stuff. Why not pile on?
Celestia is sitting on her throne as she look over the long line of ponies waiting to chat with her. The only problem is that every single one of them has a box laying on their backs. She takes a long breath in with her eyes closed and lets it out. She looks over to one of her guards that’s beside her to ask him a question.
“Can you explain why these ponies have boxes with them?”
The guard gives her a salute before answering.
“You informed us that anypony that wishes to speak to you must bring a cake with them for your consumption.”
Once again Celestia has to take a slow breath in through her nose and let it out of her mouth. It seems that she got into shenanigans because of that salt. She can only hope that this is the worst of it, but that feeling in the air is still there.
“Please bring Shining Armor to me. This is urgent.”
The guard gives a salute and quickly takes off. Another guard on the other side of Celestia speaks up.
“What about morning court?”
Celestia shakes her head some as she summons a large table beside the door.
“Send the first pony in and have them place their box on the table.”
He gives a salute and gallops to the door ready to accept each pony that wishes to speak.
“This is going to be a long day.” Celestia whispers to herself.
Anon walks down the stairs and into the store front. Lyra is already working the register as a few early regulars are placing orders for what they want. She turns to look over at the noise and notices Anon walking down the stairs. There’s a large blush on her face as she gives him a small wave before returning to help with her customer. Anon can only shake his head some as he walks past her and into the kitchen.
As Anon enters, he finds that everything is already running smoothly. All the ponies are at their stations and starting up their batches of candy for the day. He looks over to see Bonbon is also at her desk looking over some paperwork. Seeing no pony that needs assistance, he walks over and takes a seat beside Bonbon.
“You know, I don’t appreciate you falling asleep on our bed.” Bonbon says without looking up from her work. “Not like Lyra was complaining.”
Anon lets out a sigh at that. “Sorry about that, Bonbon. Got wasted with the princesses.”
That gets a reaction out of her. She looks up at him in surprise. She’s never heard of either of the princesses drinking before.
“I must say that’s rather surprising.” Bonbon admits.
“Yeah. Luna made some stuff from my world and we decided to celebrate a little.”
“That would explain some of the odd things I’ve been hearing.”
“Odd things?”
Bonbon nods. “I heard that if you go to morning court, you need to bring a cake with you.”
Anon tries to suppress it, but a large smile breaks out onto his face. That sounds like something Celestia would ask for while she was drunk.
“Hear anything else?”
“Nothing as of yet. The only reason I heard that is because some of our regulars were talking about it.”
That makes sense. Ponies tend to gossip at the shop a lot. Anon was surprised about how much he could learn just by sitting at a booth in the store. He’s not sure how much of it is true, but he does hear a lot of interesting things. Well, there’s nothing Anon can do about that right now, he might as well focus on his store.
“So how’re the ponies holding up?”
“Everything is going well. Even Butterhooves is doing alright.”
Anon looks over to Butterhooves’ station. He does seem to be less shaky today.
“Let’s hope he continues to do well. I’d hate to fire him.”
Bonbon scoffs. “You wouldn’t fire him.”
Anon shrugs. “Probably not. Need any help?”
“No, I’m fine. Lyra could use the help at the front.”
“Alright. Talk to you later, Bonbon.”
Anon casts one last glance over to the kitchen where the ponies are working hard. Seeing this does make him feel a bit better about today, but it’s still far from over.