//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: After the Nightmare // by CORACK //------------------------------// Luna woke up feeling much better. Her wing still hurt, but the pain of the bite was gone entirely. She was still extremely hungry and her throat was parched, but for the first time since arriving on this planet she was warm. The previous night had been very interesting. First she had been attacked by viscous creatures and then a small bipedal creature, clearly intelligent had shown up to help her. Perhaps it was a native of this world. It led her to a strange looking structure invited her in and even offered her a bed. Luna felt somewhat guilty about this, she didn't deserve to be treated so kindly by a complete stranger, even if that stranger had no idea about her past. Still, after a thousand years on the moon, the bed was too inviting to pass up. Thinking back to the structure that she now was in, she wondered what it was. Even in the darkness of the night, she could tell that it had fallen into disrepair. In all honesty, it looked like the thing had fallen from the sky, but Luna had no idea how something so large would have been up in the sky without a massive amount of magic holding it there. She didn't sense any magic in the immediate area at all though. She hadn't last night from Seh-lean, nor from the structure itself, though that might explain why it had apparently crashed to the ground. Speaking of magic, it was time to put hers to the test. She focused on the pillow in front of her, her horn lit up and the pillow floated into the air, she felt only a slight ache in her horn. It was a significant improvement, not being able to use her magic had left her feeling rather handicapped. It would take longer for her to regain her full strength, but it was obviously improving. She looked around the room wondering where Seh-lean had gone. Not seeing the creature she stood up and stretched her good wing. The door to the room was open, so she walked into the long corridor. She heard a noise coming from the large room across the hallway. She walked over towards the noise and saw Seh-lean sitting down at a table eating something. Luna remembered how Seh-lean had gone back to collect the carcasses of those monsters after the fight. "She must be a meat eater," Luna thought to herself. Carnivorous races were not unknown in Equestria. Griffons primarily ate meat, dragons ate both meat and gems, and although fairly rare, some ponies ate it. It might have been taboo in Equestria, but she personally had no problem with it. Before her banishment, many ponies believed that Luna, as the evil ruler of the night, was a ravenous flesh eater. Every night, she'd supposedly fly out and get her hooves on pets, livestock, or even wild animals, just to feed her insatiable lust for meat. The truth of the matter was Luna couldn't stand the taste of the stuff. Ironically it was Celestia that was a fan, though she never stalked the countryside. Luna tried to think back... how many times had her sister arranged a diplomatic meeting in the Griffon Kingdom, just so she could get her hooves on some bacon? Luna had lost count. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures, Luna felt hungry enough that anything would be welcome at this point. She trotted over to Seh-lean eager to see if she could get something to eat. Selene looked up from her breakfast and saw the pony standing there watching her eat breakfast. "She's probably hungry," Selene thought to herself. That was going to be an issue. Selene was pretty sure horses didn't eat meat, or at least didn't prefer it. The hydroponic bay of the ship had been almost totally destroyed in the crash. None of the equipment had been left working. The only thing that had really survived was the seed storage area. Selene was sitting on enough variety of seeds to start up a small colony, but nothing would grow on this damn planet. At first she thought it was the near perpetual winter, but even after spending a year retrofitting one of the ships bays to grow plants in, and hauling in hundreds of pounds of soil, she couldn't get anything to grow. For the first year she had lived off of stored food and emergency rations. That gave her time to learn how to hunt and by the end of that year she was getting fairly good at bringing in an adequate supply of meat. But that's all she could get. The last of the emergency rations ran out before her 16th birthday. All she had now was meat and a dwindling supply of vitamin supplement tablets, salvaged from the medical bay. "Still," she thought to herself. "Whatever this creature is, she just looks like a pony, maybe meat will be fine." Selene stood up and walked over to the small kitchen. She grabbed a plate and threw a few strips of rabbit jerky on it. The pony was watching her though the hole into the kitchen area. She set the plate down on the counter and then picked up a large glass and filled it with water. She was about to walk back when she looked at the pony, then at the glass and grabbed a large bowl instead. She dumped the water into the bowl and put the glass on the counter. She carefully walked back out into the main area carrying the bowl and the plate of jerky and set them down on the table. Chairs weren't going to work, so she pulled a couple of them out of the way, clearing a spot next to her. "Do you want to eat?" she asked, and pointed at the food then pointed at the pony. The pony walked up to the table, she eyed the jerky suspiciously and then turned to look at the bowl. Then she turned around and looked back at the glass Selene had put down on the counter. Her horn lit up and both it and the glass were surrounded with a pale blue aurora. The glass floated through the air and set itself down on the table. Then the bowl floated over to the glass and tipped sideways, letting the water flow into the glass. Selene dropped the piece of jerky she was holding and just stared at the pony. The pony, seemingly unaware that it was doing something impossible, floated the glass over to her mouth and took a sip. Selene watched the glass continue to float in front of the pony. She hesitantly reached out and poked at the glass with a finger. The glowing aurora felt tingly, but the glass didn't move. The pony looked at her and said something in its musical language. She then set the glass down and poked at the jerky with a hoof. Selene then watched as the pony picked up a piece of jerky and lifted it to her nose. Selene wasn't sure which was stranger, watching the jerky stick to the hoof when there was nothing visibly holding it there, or the impossible range of motion the pony was displaying with her foreleg. Luna wasn't sure what the strange stuff in front of her was, but it smelled awful. Still, she was starving and bad food was better than no food. So, she steeled herself and then took a bite. It took all her willpower to not spit the foul substance back out. If she hadn't just seen Seh-lean eat some of the same thing, she would have assumed it was poison. For all she knew, edible to Seh-lean was poison to her. Against her better judgment, she forced it down anyway, she suspected she would heal faster if what remained of her powers weren't busy sustaining her though starvation. She finished the plate, wincing at every bite. When she had finally finished, she guzzled the rest of her water, trying to wash the taste away. Trying to distract herself from the aftertaste of breakfast, she began to inspect Seh-lean. It was the first real good look she was able to get. The night before, in the forest, Seh-lean had been wearing heavy winter clothing. The reason for this quickly became apparent. Seh-lean was sitting at the table wearing what looked like her races version of short pants and a shirt. Seh-lean's arms and legs were mostly visible and her skin was bare. Seh-lean seemed to have no coat at all. The only place Luna could see any hair at all was on the top of Seh-lean's head. The mane didn't even extend down her neck. When Seh-lean stood up, it was a bit taller than Luna was, not including her horn. Luna wasn't quite used to that, apart from Celestia, she had been the tallest pony around. Still, she had noticed she had lost some height, it was almost as if she had regressed in age. A strange concept for an eternal being. Even her mane and tail, which normally billowed with magic, hung loosely, the starry field having vanished from them completely. She assumed this had something to do with her powers being so weak. Only time would tell if she would return to her normal self. Luna thought that it was rather strange that she had seen nopony else. The structure they were in was almost as big as her old castle. She would have expected to see hundreds of Seh-lean's race by now. Now that she thought of it, it did look rather old. Maybe it had been abandoned and Seh-lean was the only one left. This made her think of something else that had been bothering her. While she was extremely grateful for the food Seh-lean had shared, even if it did taste horrible, the portion had been tiny. Seh-lean had eaten an equally small amount as well. She didn't know what was normal for Seh-lean's race but Seh-lean was extremely thin, its appearance reminded Luna of ponies she had seen suffering from malnutrition. If that was true, it was no wonder she had so much trouble pulling the sled the night before, she was probably weak with hunger. Luna had too many questions and too few answers. It was starting to frustrate her. The answer was obvious, a translation spell should allow her to communicate with Seh-lean and then she could find out what was going on. The problem was translation spells were fairly complicated. Even levitating her drink was tiring, for now complicated spells were beyond her ability. Hopefully with some food in her stomach and some quality rest her magic would return faster. ##### The rest of the day involved Selene showing the pony around the ship, and doing her daily chores. For the most part, the pony follower here around and watched. After breakfast, she went out and skinned and gutted the bone-wolves. The pony had followed her into the shed, but as soon as she got to work, the pony ran back out and waited for her to finish. She then took the sled out, just in case any of the other carcasses were left, but they had already been picked clean, probably by another pack. She walked around the ship and checked traps that she had set. She hadn't caught anything that night, that was the 6th night in a row none of her traps had anything in them. What was more troublesome that this was becoming more and more of the norm. In the last year, catching anything had become more and more difficult. The bone-wolves were a godsend, with the meat she had now, she could have her first normal sized meal in months. After that it was time for lunch. More rabbit, this time roasted. This seemed to agree with the pony slightly more. Or she was just trying to be polite. Selene had no idea. She then headed back out to collect ice. She needed to haul in a pretty good amount, between drinking and cleaning she used a fair amount of water. Today was a bit easier though. The pony immediately caught on to what she was doing and assisted her. For her small stature, that pony was incredibly strong. She moved the sled around as if it was empty, her injured leg not slowing her down in the least. "Oh crap, the leg!" Selene smacked herself in the head. She had to check on that, the pony should not be pulling around sleds packed with ice with an injury like that. Selene got the pony to follow her into the mess. She crouched down and carefully unwrapped the bandages. Her jaw dropped, the wound was gone, not just healed, but completely gone, there wasn't even a scar. Even the pony's coat had grown back in. The pony dipped her head down and looked, but didn't seem surprised by the vanished wound. The only thing Selene really had left on her list was to setup a proper bed for the pony. That meant digging around in the old crew quarters until she found one that was more or less intact. She searched a few rooms until she found an extra large bed, and then spent the next 30 minutes disassembling it, and bringing the parts to one of the rooms near hers that actually had power. The pony and its wacky floating gimmick came in handy here. It followed her down the hallway, mattress floating behind it. Selene couldn't help but laugh at the sight. It was truly odd. Reassembly of the frame was actually quicker than disassembly. The pony picked up on what she was doing and used her telekinesis - Selene wasn't sure what else to call it - as a screwdriver. Which was great, because she had forgotten the real screwdriver back in the other room. She headed back to the mess, and cooked up some of the bone-wolf. It wasn't any better than the rabbit, but it was different. If she had to eat rabbit again she was going to flip out. The pony looked not to particularly thrilled at eating meat again, but managed to choke it down. If only Selene could get something to grow. Then she could have fresh veggies and even fruit. Of course if she was going to wish for impossible things, it wouldn't be wasted on growing some fruits and veggies, it would be to escape this damn planet. It was too late to do anything else productive, so Selene pulled out a book and started to read. She saw the pony sit down as well. Her horn started glowing brightly, but then dimmed. That cycle repeated for a while before she put her head down to rest. Selene wasn't sure what the pony had been doing, but it looked more tired now than it had earlier. She resumed reading for a while until her eyes started to lose focus on the text. She closed the book, got up and headed towards her room. The pony had immediately picked up on what the new bed was for, Selene didn't even have to walk her to the other room, Instead she trotted over to the open door, said something and then continued into the room. "Goodnight to you too." Selene said. She climbed into bed and went to sleep. The next few weeks went by in more or less the same fashion. Selene, sick of saying "Hey Pony" had started calling the Pony "Moon" on account of the image on her butt. Moon had finally figured out Selene's name was Selene, not Seh-lean, and more importantly she had picked up the ability to say a few simple phrases, though Moon did have a bit of a volume problem at first. Selene wasn't sure how something so small could produce such noise. Eventually Moon seemed to grasp that shouting was no way to make up for lack of vocabulary and toned it down a bit. In any case, it was a good thing that Moon had picked up some words, because her language was completely beyond Selene. She wasn't even sure if she was capable of making some of the sounds Moon made. The extra food from the bone-wolves had run out, and Selene was back down to heavily rationing what she was able to catch. It was made worse because she was sharing with Moon, but on the other hand, Moon had pretty much taken over most of the heavy lifting, so Selene could get by eating less. What was worse was when Moon noticed that the meal sizes had been reduced, she stared refusing to eat and gave her food back to Selene. The most Selene had been able to talk Moon into was eating one meal a day. The odd thing was, even with skipping her meals, Moon seemed to be getting stronger. Selene could even swear that Moon was growing larger. She was sure the pony had been a bit shorter than her 5'4" height when they first met, but now when Moon stood up next to her they were eye to eye. Selene received another shock when one day while they were out gathering food, Moon stretched her wings and took off into the sky. It didn't make any sense, the wingspan was way too small to support her size, but Moon didn't seem to care for the laws of physics. After landing, Moon explained in broken English that her wind had been injured and was now healed up enough to use. Every night they'd retire to the mess. Selene picked some of the easier books she had from her childhood that she still had and would read to Moon. Moon sat by and listened, her horn pulsing on and off. Selene could even swear that the glow was getting brighter every day. She tried to ask Moon about it, but either the pony didn't understand the question, or she knew she wouldn't be able to explain with her limited vocabulary. Instead she would just respond "Not yet." ##### Twilight had returned to Canterlot with Princess Celestia the very next day. She and the princess headed to the Royal Archives so they could go over the spell Celestia had created. She had been staring at that very spell for the last 15 hours. Twilight sighed and turned to Celestia. "You were right Princess, I can barely wrap my head around this, never-mind figure out what went wrong. How long did this take you to write?" "I have been working that revision of the spell for the last century." Celestia said. Twilight just stared at her for a moment. "Maybe we're going about this the wrong way," she said. "Instead of me trying to understand the entire spell, can you break it down into individual components? "That is a good idea Twilight, here let me take a look." "There are three goals for this spell, the first is to use the power of the Elements to suppress enough of Luna's immortality enough to render her somewhat vulnerable to physical harm. She still wouldn't be able to die, any wounds she took would regenerate, though depending on the severity of the wound the regeneration could take some time." "This is actually the most complicated part of the spell, it is covered by these sections." Celestia then spent an hour going over the finer details of that section of the spell. "You said it rendered her vulnerable to physical harm. What if Rainbow Dash was right? What if Luna had absorbed so much magical energy that she simply exploded. You said she would regenerate, is it simply possible that she was too far gone to regenerate, or perhaps the regeneration is taking a while?" Twilight asked. "No Twilight, the very nature of Luna's immortality would prevent it. This spell is right at the limits of what can be done to one of us. No amount of magic would be sufficient to destroy, before that point was reached, her immortality would reassert itself and prevent further damage." "The next goal of the spell is to physically burn away a large portion of her brain, the damage done will quickly regenerate but combined with the Harmony from the Elements, this would not just be a physical burn, it would also burn away the parts of Luna's psyche that had fallen out of Harmony. In simplest terms, it would burn away the evil that was Nightmare Moon, leaving only Luna." "The last section of the spell is to accelerate the return of her powers. This is what left me so very drained. I put a large amount of my own energy into the spell so it would not take Luna centuries for her to return to her full strength. Instead she should quickly regain a good portion of her abilities, perhaps as quickly as a year or two. After that, the process will slow down, with Luna reaching her full power less than ten years." "This is about the same time frame that it will take me to regain full use of my power as well. I felt it was important to accelerate the return of her power so we could rule together as equals. If she had to spend the next 100 years watching me rule while she was powerless, I was afraid that it would bring about a repeat of what started this mess." "What would cause such a variation in her initial recovery time?" Twilight asked. "A lot of it has to do with her emotional state. All of us, even immortals, are driven by our emotions and the amount of power we can use at any given time is somewhat depended on our strength of will. A prime example of this is Nightmare Moon herself. Luna and I are normally equals, yet Nightmare Moon, driven by an intense hatred was able to wrench control of the sun away from me so she could bring about her eternal night. I could have fought her for this control, and eventually, I would have been able to bring her to a standstill, but in the initial conflict, her madness meant that she was wielding her powers without restraint and that gave her an edge." For the next few weeks, Twilight would take the train to Canterlot every evening. There she would meet with Celestia and they spent much of the night going over every section of the spell. Twilight would then head back to Ponyville in the morning so she could continue her duties as librarian. The longer they studied the spell, the more they were convinced that it could not account for Luna's disappearance. Celestia was sitting in the Archives, waiting for Twilight to arrive. She was in the process of reviewing the notes from the last session when she heard a the clopping of hooves in the hallway, quickly approaching her position. Twilight cantered into the room, slightly out of breath. "Celestia, good, you're here. I thought of something on the ride here, and I want to run it by you. I think we've been looking at this the wrong way," Twilight said, panting. "What you do you mean?" "Well, the whole time we've been trying to find out if there was any way your spell could have caused this. But what happens if it wasn't your spell?" "Well, it wasn't caused by the Elements either, that is not how they work." "That's not what I meant, what I meant is what if it was the result of a spell Nightmare Moon cast." "Hmm, well in her state she should not have been able to cast anything. The initial assault by the Elements should have prevented it." "Yeah I got that impression based on what you showed me, but the thing is, I could feel Nightmare Moon though the Elements, and she was casting something when the Elements were first activated. In fact, it wasn't till the second surge of power, which I now know came from you, that it felt like we were even getting through." "That... well that should not have been possible, are you sure of what you felt?" "I'm pretty sure, and this just gave me an idea. Let's assume that Nightmare Moon had been able to resist the initial assault. What would she do next?" "Well, she would fight back if she thought she had any chance of winning, but I added my own power to the attack mere moments after the Elements did, so even if she had been able to resist, it would have been for seconds at most, she would have had time to realize she had been beaten, and not much else." "What if she had time to cast one spell. What would she do?" "Well, she would have assumed I was sending her back to the moon, so my guess is she would try to flee." "So what if she teleported away?" "I... I do not know, I suppose it is possible, though extremely unlikely, still though, my sister and I share a bond, I should be able to sense her presence and I cannot." "Is there any way she could hide herself from you?" "I do not think so, I would still feel something, but I didn't think she'd be able to resist the Elements either. There is a way we can find out, we will have to return to the castle, If she cast a teleport spell, I will be able to detect it." "When do you want to go?" Twilight asked. "Now, let me summon a carriage and we will head to the castle as soon as it is ready."