Chapter 13
___________________________________________________________
I blinked, looking around me. I was standing in a world of darkness.
Is this the Dream Space again? I asked myself. It was a bit like before I’d entered Pinkie’s dreams and found Pinkamena, but something was different and yet... familiar.
“Hello, Michael.”
I jumped and whirled around, coming face to face with what looked like golden bars. Behind them I could see eyes that looked a lot like mine.
I took a step back, realization hitting me like a ton of bricks.
“Y-you’re—” I stuttered, my legs trembling with fear. “Y-you’re— you’re—”
The eyes moved forward, a figure stepping into the light, causing me to gasp. It was her. Standing behind the bars was a mare who looked like an adult version of my current body. But, instead of the scary, evil pony I’d been told she was, she was looking at me with a sad face.
“I... am sorry.”
I blinked. Did she...? Did she just apologize? From what I’d been told over the week that was something she’d never do, even if it killed her.
She nodded, looking away. “Stuck in here, I have had much time to think about my actions; what I have done, not only to you, but to Luna, Celestia and all ponies.”
I took a step forward, then my eyes widened as I recognized her voice. “You’re the voice who was speaking back when I saved Pip from Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.”
She nodded.
I pointed a hoof at her. “And you’re the voice I heard before that strange surge of magic and I woke up on the floor, my horn really hurting and saw Pinkamena!”
She nodded again.
I frowned, cocking an eyebrow. “Why?”
She sighed and walked a little away into the area behind the bars. “Having spent the last six days trapped within you, all I could do was watch you as you went through each day. It...” she paused, then shook her head. “It has helped me to see just what I was missing. All my hate and spite, jealousy and rage, all of it was just keeping me from enjoying a real life.”
I took another step forward. “R-really?”
She turned to me, giving me a warm smile. “Really. Michael, watching you having to live through my eyes has made me understand how wrong I have been. Why the Eternal Night cannot and should not be. I thank you for that.”
I blushed a little at the praise, before something occurred to me and I looked up to her, frowning. “But, what happens to you now?”
She sighed and walked forwards again until she was at the very edge of the bars. “You’re spirit trapped me within my own body. However, once you have been returned home, the bars holding me back will break and I will have control of my body, as was meant to be.”
I grinned, a hope dancing in my chest. “Home? You mean, you can send me back right now?”
She nodded. “Yes, little one. I can return you to your family. They are all waiting for you and I wish to reunite you with them.”
“You Pinkie Promise you’re good and will send me back home?” I asked. In the short time since I’d been in Equestria, Sweetie Belle told me about the Pinkie Promise, named after the pink pony herself. It was a promise you could never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER break.
She nodded, then started doing the movements, a small something that I couldn’t place flashing across her face as she did so. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”
I squealed and danced around. She Pinkie Promised! She Pinkie Promised! This was the best news ever. Princess Luna and Princess Celestia had told Twilight something that made it sound like that I wouldn’t be able to go home for a long while, but it seemed this mare knew a way to send me back right now.
I stopped dancing around and looked to her, my grin so wide it almost hurt. “What do I do? How can you send me back?”
For a second I thought I saw something flash in her eye, but it was probably just my imagination.
“Come to the bars,” she said in a soothing voice.
I walked up to the bars and stood facing her from the other side. “Now what?”
Something about her smile tightened for a second, before it vanished. “Place your horn through one of the gaps in the bars. I will place my horn onto yours. This will let me access the well of magic deep within you, for it is my magic and, whilst in this cage, cannot access it. Once I have access to it, I will cast the spell that will send you back home and give me my body back.”
I bounced on my hooves. This was too good to be true. I was going home. I was going home!
“Just lean your horn in and I will handle the rest,” she said, her tone changing a little, though I paid no attention, leaning my horn towards a gap so that she could send me home.
My horn was about to pass through the gap in the bars— when I heard a popping sound and found myself back where I had been before walking towards the bars.
I blinked. What just happened?
Suddenly a third voice joined us, a man’s voice.
“Tut-tut-tut. Naughty, Moonie. Tricking a little filly into doing your dirty work? And here I thought you at least had some boundaries you wouldn't cross.”
There was another popping sound and a creature appeared between me and the bars. It was actually a whole bunch of creatures. Pieces of lots of different animals were a part of its body.
I recognized who it was right away thanks to Fluttershy telling me about him over breakfast the morning I’d left her house to go to school.
“D-Discord?” I asked, taking a step towards him.
He nodded and bowed to me, grinning. “A pleasure to meet you at last, Princess Stellar Nova.”
I blinked, before my mind caught up with me and shook my head.
But before I could say anything, a voice hissed, becoming cold and scary. “Discord! You disgusting patchwork of beasts! How dare you interfere, sticking your nose where it isn’t wanted!”
“Well, that’s kind of my thing, isn’t it?” Discord said, then gave a small giggle. “Really, Moonie, having been one with Luna I’d have thought you’d have her memories of when she and Sunbutt had to deal with me so long ago.”
She snarled. “Now the brat will have second thoughts about aiding in my escape! You’ve ruined everything!”
Discord just grinned. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. Still, I couldn’t just let you trick this filly into letting herself take your place now, could I?”
I blinked, then looked to Discord, confused by what he’d just said. “Take her place?”
“Don’t you dare say another word!” she snapped, bearing her fanged teeth and making me a little more anxious.
Discord nodded. “Had you let her touch her horn to yours, she would have used the magic to switch you with her. This would mean she would be in control of the body, while you remained trapped in her and had to watch all that happened from within, unable to do anything.”
It took a few seconds for what he’d said to go through my head before my eyes widened in horror and I started shivering. “Y-y-you mean... sh-she w-was going t-to—”
“Yes, you ignorant child!” she snapped, glaring at me as if she was going to kill me. “I was trying to fool you into surrendering yourself so I could finally take my vengeance!”
I stepped back, tears welling in my eyes. “B-but... you said you’d changed after watching me. Y-you... You Pinkie Promised—”
“A clever, if horrid ruse, if I do say so myself,” Discord said, folding his arms and glaring at her. “Trying to manipulate a child, and making a Pinkie Promise you fully intended to break to do it? Really Moonie? I knew you were low, but I didn’t think you’d go that low.”
“Don’t you talk, Chaos Bringer!” she snarled at him.
Discord just held up his arms. “I won’t hide or deny it; I know what I did in the past was horrible. Fun for me, but horrible, all the same. But I’m a changed draconequus now. Good to my core... well, mostly.”
She turned her eyes back to me and I withered under their gaze. “You worthless excuse for a living creature. When I am free you will be trapped in here as you watch me tear down everything those fake princesses think is so important and my night lasts for all time!”
I shake my head, tears sliding down my face. “No. I-I don’t want that. I-I don’t.”
“What you want is inconsequential, brat!” she practically shrieked. “You will never return home; I will rule this form and you will be forced to watch as everything you care about in this world is destroyed before your eyes, while you helplessly watch from within!”
I curled into myself, sniffling.
“I’d have thought this should be easier! Damn Luna and Twilight Sparkle for erasing your memories! With those in place, you were an empty shell, ready for me to—”
There was a snapping sound, like someone clicking their fingers and, while she continued to move her mouth as if screaming with fury at me, no sound came out.
“That’s quite enough out of you,” Discord said, giving her a cold glare, before he looked down to me, his face softening. “Are you okay, Stellar?”
I nodded, giving a small whimper. “Wh-what did she mean, I will never go home?”
Something flashed across his face. It was quick so I didn’t see what it was, but I saw it all the same. “Never mind. It’s not important right now. She’s a known liar and would say anything. She made a Pinkie Promise she had every intention of breaking, after all.”
I looked down. “B-but... she helped me free Pinkamena. Sh-she said she’d changed.”
Discord shook his head. “All a lie, I’m afraid. You see, after you first used those Dream Walking powers of yours to help Fluttershy, I must thank you for that, by the way, you opened a link to her thoughts. Realizing this, Moonie decided to play on your childhood innocence and good nature. Children always want to believe others can be nice, so she used that against you. She put her two bits in when you were arguing with that horrid Tiara and then played your soft-spot with Pinkamena. She knew, once that little pony was free, you would be so magically exhausted that your spirit would be sent here, where she would play on your innocence yet again and switch places with you. A horrible thing, really. I personally would never have stooped so low back in my day.”
I wipe my eyes and look up at him in confusion. “You’re day? You mean, back when you were bad?”
He nodded. “Yes. Now, how about you wake up, hmm? I know there’s somepony who’s very worried about you.”
I was about to agree, when something she’d said came back to me.
“She said Princess Luna and Twilight erased my memories, didn’t she?”
A small look of fear entered his eyes.
“But, I still remember everything from back home. How did they erase my memories if I still have them?”
The fear dimmed, but didn’t go away. “Well...” he scratched his neck with his eagle claw. “Oh, how should I put this? Um... well, this isn’t the first time you’ve spoken with Moonie.”
My eyes widen. “It... it isn’t?”
He shook his head, still looking unsure. “I can’t really tell you much, Pinkie made me Pinkie Promise, and unlike like Moonie I dare not even think about breaking one of those, but when you went to sleep at Applejack’s farm, you didn’t just sleep through the day. You had a dream in which you first spoke with Moonie.”
I startled to tremble. “I-I... I did?”
He nodded.
“Wh-what happened in the dream?”
“In that dream, she told you things that were so horrible you woke up and ran off into the Everfree Forest. There, you were almost killed by Timber Wolves— that’s what we call those wooden wolves, by the way.”
My eyes widened. “Fluttershy’s dream! She dreamt she found me in the woods, or I guess the Everfree Forest, dead and with a Timber Wolf about to finish her too.”
He nodded. “Fluttershy was the most rattled out of the Mane Six by that. Luna was trying, but she can’t always be there to help with nightmares.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Mane... Six?”
“Oh, right,” Discord rolled his eyes. “You’re from 1998. They haven’t even started it yet. Never mind, it’s just what that fandom calls Twilight and her friends.”
“Fandom? What's a fandom?” I continued to look at him in confusion, before something else he’d said caught my mind. If what he’d said meant Twilight and her five friends... “Do you mean... they were the only ones worried?”
Discord smiled. “No. There’s actually one pony who has been the most worried, both then, and now.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Who?”
Discord only shook his head. “That isn’t my place to say... even if it would be rather funny if you learned it now.” He chuckled, then coughed. “Anyway, as I was saying, you would have been eaten by a pack of Timber Wolves, had Luna not come to your rescue.”
I blinked. “Princess Luna saved me?”
He nodded. “After she saved you she did her best to comfort you, then left you with Applejack, hoping things would be alright.” His face saddened at that.
“It... wasn’t... was it?” I asked, my ear drooping.
Discord sighed. “I’d... rather not say just what happened to you after that. All I will say is that it got so bad that the only way to get you back to normal was by erasing the memories of both that first meeting with Moonie and everything after it.”
I looked down as a plopped down on my flank. Something bad had happened to me and the only way to fix it was for Princess Luna to erase a part of my memories?
Discord sighed again, then patted me on the head. “Now, don’t you worry that little black-furred, horned head of yours. Time to wake up.”
He clicked his clawed hand and the world suddenly went spinny.
___________________________________________________________
I was in a hospital bed. I knew that from the feeling of it. Having spent almost two weeks in hospital before, it wasn’t hard to tell. Plus, I could feel the hospital gown on me and knew full well I’d been naked when I passed out.
At once I felt a crippling fear. Something about waking up in a hospital bed scared me. Maybe it was something to do with those memories Princess Luna and Twilight erased?
I took notice that I still felt like a pony, so that hadn’t changed. Though, that being the case, I’d rather open my eyes and find I was waking up in a hospital in Equestria instead of back home.
I slowly opened my eyes, rubbing them with a hoof to get some of the sleep out, before using my mane to get at the little bits of sleep where my hooves couldn’t get to, then looked around.
Yep. Hospital room for one patient, just like my first time in hospital back home. Called it. From the look of the room I was still in Equestria, so that was good. Waking up in my world as a pony would’ve been really hard to explain to my family like that.
That did make me want to think about just how I was going to explain any of this when I did get home, but I shelved that in my mind for later. Something had caught my attention: I was not the only pony in the room.
However, what really got my attention wasn’t the fact that there was another pony in the room with me, it was just who that pony was.
Lying with her head and forehooves on the bed, sleeping, was Princess Luna.
Discord’s words echoed in my head.
There’s actually one pony who has been the most worried, both then, and now. Didn’t expect it to be her, did you?
I blinked, then shook my head and looked to the sleeping princess.
She had lines on her faces. I’d seen those kinds of lines before. My parents got them sometimes when they’d been worrying about stuff for days on end.
Was...? Had Discord meant Princess Luna had been worried about me? Why? I was just a human? Why would Princess Luna, a being that brought the night and raised the moon be worried about someone like me?
As I watched her, she started shifting. She lifted her head and turned to me. I gave her a weak smile.
What happened next I did not expect. Luna leapt forward and wrapped her forelegs around me in a tight hug. As she held me, I felt something wet touching me. She was crying.
“Um... Princess Luna?” I asked, worried.
“Stellar,” she sobbed, sniffling. “I was so worried. Nopony, not even an Alicorn foal should be using a spell that powerful. I thought... I thought...”
Not knowing what else to do, I wrapped my small legs around her as best I could to return the hug and try making her feel better.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, with me holding the princess and trying to comfort her, but I didn’t mind. If she’d been really worried about me, it’d be wrong of me to make her hold it all back.
After some time, she whispered something, so quietly I almost missed it.
“I’m so sorry, Stellar. This is all my fault.”
I blinked, frowning slightly. “No, it isn’t.”
She pulled back, looking me in the eye with her own bloodshot ones. “Yes, Stellar, it is. Night— That mare might have been the one to cast the spell that brought you here to Equestria, but it is my fault she even existed to do so. Had I not given into my hate, let her trick me into thinking she wanted to help me, you wouldn’t have to suffer everything you have.”
She’d tricked Princess Luna? Seriously? Well, it would explain that story I read, though I didn’t know all the details.
I looked down, shame entering my face, though I hide it by pressing my face into her face. “She... almost tricked me, too.”
Princess Luna’s body stiffened, which made me flinch. I slowly pulled my head away and looked up at her. Her face was filled with horror.
“She... she almost tricked you too?” she asked, her voice filled with just as much horror as her face.
I nodded, looking down. “She... she told me she’d changed after watching me the last six days. She... she said she could helped me go home.”
Princess Luna’s grip on me tightened a little.
“If Discord hadn’t come when he did I... she’d probably be attacking you right now.”
There was a popping sound and, speak of the devil, the mismatched being was standing on the opposite side of the bed.
Princess Luna pulled me closer, but in a soft way and looked to Discord. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice filled with what I could only guess as... relief? “Thank you for saving her from Nightmare.”
I squeaked at the name, followed by Princess Luna apologizing for saying it.
Discord bowed. “Trust me, Princess, I was happy to help. Fluttershy has grown very smitten with young Stellar in the short time she's known her and I know she’d have been the most devastated after yourself had Moonie taken over her.” He grinned. "Oh, I've also taken the liberty to seal of the connection to Moonie Stellar had. Aside from seeing her in a nightmare here and there, it'll be like she isn't even there."
Princess Luna nodded, there was another popping sound and he was gone.
“Princess?”
She looked down at me and smiled. “Yes, Stellar?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “I know the word dev-a-stated means hurt. Why would you have been more hurt than Fluttershy if N— if she took over me?”
A panicked look entered her eyes and she looked away. “I... It... Well... It is... hard to explain.”
My cocked eyebrow turned into a full frown of confusion. Why was it so hard to explain?
Our awkward talk, however, was cut off by a loud voice shouting, “Where is she? Let me see her?”
I blinked. That had sounded like... Pinkamena?
The door to my hospital room burst open and standing in the doorway was a pony wearing a hospital gown that looked I lot like Pinkie Pie, but the three rocks for a Cutie Mark told me at once who it was.
“Pinkamena?”
Before either Princess Luna or I could say anything, the pink pony bound forward, somehow threw Princess Luna off of me and pulled me into a tight, warm hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered and I felt tears sliding down her face as she nuzzled my cheeks with hers. “Thank you so much.”
“Miss Pie, please. You shouldn’t be overexerting yourself,” a stallion’s voice said.
I looked passed Pinkamena and saw a unicorn with a brown coat wearing a white doctor’s jacket walking in, looking annoyed. The name tag on his jacket said Doctor Stable. He glanced at Pinkamena holding me, then to Princess Luna and his face turned white. I could see it from his point of view. Princess Luna had come to check on the filly she was worried about only to be tossed aside by some random pony. That probably wouldn’t look too good.
Princess Luna, on the other hoof, while looking annoyed at having been thrown aside, gave an understanding smile to Pinkamena as she got up and came back over.
“I suppose I should have mentioned Miss Pinkamena was here, too,” she said, giving me a wink. “She has been trying to see you since you were brought here.”
That brought something to my mind. “Um, how long ago was I brought to hospital?”
Princess Luna sighed. “Two days, Stellar.”
My eyes widened. I’d been asleep for two days? Wow. No wonder I didn’t feel tired.
“I can’t thank you enough, Princess,” Pinkamena said, sniffling. “You saved me. Even Pinkie didn’t know how to let me out.”
I blinked before it hit me. I’d thought she was talking to Princess Luna when she said Princess, but she was actually talking to me, which took another second for me to remember that Twilight had said, because I’m an Alicorn, I technically am a princess in this world.
“It’s... it’s okay, Pinkamena,” I said quietly, trying to not think about why I’d been able to free her in the first place.
Princess Luna nodded, then chuckled. “Now, would you mind giving Stellar some room to breathe?”
Pinkamena pulled a little back, blinked down at me, then blushed furiously and pulled away completely. “Sorry,” she said, a small smile on her face and tears in her eyes. “I’m just... I’m just so happy.”
Doctor Stable coughed. “Miss Pie, I understand your wishing to thank Princess Stellar for helping you, but if your sisters find out I let you wander around when you should be resting, even all the princesses together won’t be able to save me from their wrath.”
Pinkamena sighed, looking disappointed and nodded, turning to go, but stopping to glance back at me one more time.
“Again, thank you, Princess. I’m forever in your debt.”
With that she walked out and let Doctor Stable lead her away down the hall as the door closed behind them.
I giggled, then turned to the princess, only for my smile to wither and my ears to fall flat against my head. She had a stern look on her face, one I’d seen on my parents’ faces whenever I did something bad.
She trotted over to my bed and sat down, closing her eyes. “Stellar,” she said, her voice making me wince from the tone, “do you know how dangerous that spell you cast was?”
I looked down, fiddling with my covers with my hooves. In all honesty, I didn’t really remember much about how I used the spell that brought Pinkamena out of Pinkie Pie. It just happened and I didn’t have any control over it.
“That spell is a very risky spell, to say the least, young filly,” she said, sounding more like my mum than a princess of Equestria. “You could have been hurt, permanently lost the connection to your magic, caused yourself to take Pinkamena’s place...”
She listed several more things that could’ve happened to me because of that spell, each one making me sink down more and more as I felt guiltier and guiltier. By the end of it, I was close to crying and she looked close to it as well.
“What do you have to say for yourself, young filly?” she asked, sounding both stern and like she was trying hard not to cry.
I sniffled as a few tears managed to seep from my eyes and trailed down my muzzle. “I-I’m sorry, Mummy, I just—” I stopped, putting my hooves over my mouth.
Oh, great. I’d gone and done it again. I’d gone and called someone my mum without meaning to. this wasn’t the first time. Twice after I’d first started school back home I’d called my first teacher mum and then in first grade I’d called my grandma mum right in front of the class, then again with my current teacher back home, Miss Euwing one time.
And now I’ve gone all called Princess Luna mum as well. She’s going to laugh her head off at me, I just know it.
But, when I looked to the princess, she was staring at me, a look of shock on her face.
Taking the chance I tried to stop the laugh fest before it began.
“Princess Luna, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I sometimes call others mum by accident. I’m so sorry.”
Something passed over her face at that. A slight sadness, but she smiled all the same.
“It... it is alright, Stellar,” she said, placing a hoof on mine. “You’ve... you’ve been through a lot recently. It will take some time.”
I nodded, then looked down, frowning. “Um... Princess?”
She chuckled. “Just call me Luna, dear. And yes?”
I fiddled with my covers again. “Um, how long before I can leave the hospital.”
Luna smiled warmly. “Two days, then they’ll let you out.”
I nodded, giving a small smile. I didn’t like being in hospital again. It must have had something to do with those memories I’d forgotten.
I blinked as that reminded me of something I’d wanted to ask after meeting Discord.
“Um, Prin— Uh, Luna?”
“Yes?” she replied.
I looked down, not meeting her eyes. “Discord said... you erased my memories... back when I was at Applejack’s.”
Luna stiffened, fear entering her eyes and the room seemed to get colder all of a suddenly.
“How...? How much did he tell you?” she asked, her voice quivering.
I shook my head and answered quietly, “Not much. Just that, the first time I met... her, things went bad and you had to erase it from my memory to save me.”
Luna was trembling now. “Stellar,” she began, her voice sounding strained, “please understand, if there was another way, I promise I would have—”
“Thank you.” Luna’s face went blank as I looked up at her, giving her a smile. “You saved me from... her. She said, if you hadn’t done it, I would have been an empty shell. But, because you did, you saved my life, meaning I can still go home.”
Something shifted in Luna’s eyes, before she leaned forward and held me in a tight hug.
“Why?” she whispered, and I could tell she was close to sobbing. “Why are you so forgiving to me, Stellar? You should hate me, just as she hates my sister and I. I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
I wrapped my hooves around her as best I could, smiling into her fur. “It’s okay, Luna. You saved me. Why would I hate you for that?”
“Because you wouldn’t have needed saving if not for my own actions so long ago,” she just barely managed to say without sobbing. “It’s my fault all of this is happening to you. It was my responsibility to save you, because you wouldn’t even be here if not for what I did. So, why? Why are you so kind to me when you should hate me to your core?”
I couldn’t help but giggle at that question, knowing the answer. “Because you’re a good pony. Why would I hate a good pony, especially when she’s been so nice to me?”
This only caused her to lose her hold and burst into sobs. I just held her, trying to make her feel better. She really did care about me, didn’t she? It made me feel guilty about how sad she’d be when I went home. Still, that wouldn’t be for a while, so I’d let her cry, let her enjoy her time with me while I was in her world.