"This is...nice coffee."
"Well, I'll relay that to the kitchen. They make all the coffee by scratch."
Celestia smiles as she looks at a pony-loaf positioned Red Dusk on a cushion right beside Luna slurping out of a mug full of coffee. The stallion slurped up the coffee, Luna looking at him. It was currently night time, so the sitting room was lit by magically powered lights.
"Prithee, thou should not slurpeth in the presence of thine friends or other ponies." Luna gave a little scold to Red, a blank face plastered on as the stallions head bowed and his ears pinned to the sides of his head.
"Yes, Your Excellency." Luna seemed to jolt alittle from that reaction. She forgot about how he referred to her as, so it was rather new to here at this time atleast. He takes another sip, but now its relatively silent, following Luna's scold.
Luna looks at Celestia, who shrugs and looks back at the stallion. He looked tired, sad, and what confused her alot more was that he looked as if he were ashamed. She reachs a hoof over and strokes the stallions short mane and coat as it was layed before her unintentionally.
She could hear a light gasp from him and feel the glare of Luna, but it seemed that after a few strokes, the stallion relaxed and went with it.
"Are you okay, Red Dusk? You can tell us." Celestia brings her head down to look into the eyes of Red, the stallion blinking as he made eye contact with Celestia. His iris's shrunk down as she got quite close and behind his ears, beads of sweat form.
"Well... I-I am ashamed of... Well offending Her Excellency by slurping and that she had to scold me to stop doing that." Red looks away as Celestia arches an eyebrow. Although he did open up unexpectedly about his minor distress, it did tell her a story that he probably faced some abuse for mistakes back on the moon, resulting in a battered personality.
"Oh! Well, nay. Nay, thou hath not offendeth Us. For tis just a simple mistake." Luna reassured her former servant, who looked back at her with hopeful eyes now. She notices that he's looking her over, his smile getting gradually wider.
"I am blessed by your forgiveness." the stallion bows his head, the horn pointed down into the ground and his eyes still looking her over. She blushes as the stallion's smile gets wider.
"Might I say... Your Excellency, you look dazzling tonight." Celestia gives a small chuckle while Luna blushes hotly and shoves Celestia with a hoof. Celestia's tea cup still resides in the air with her magic as she wobbles.
"Why, We thank thee for thine compliment, for We have to stay well groomed for Our subjects." Luna looks at Red with a nervous smile, the stallion nodding with a smile.
Celestia looked at the interaction with a critical point of view, seeing his fanatical side kick in as he adheres to Luna like glue. He shamelessly compliments her and simply adores her. But on other ponies, he could look the other way, apart from that of Celestia considering what she did for him, where he could show normal friendship to, but it wont be like him and Luna's friendship.
Luna takes a sip of tea, Celestia as well while the stallion looks around the sitting room they were in. There were paintings all over the wall of various things. The sun rise, life in Canterlot and other cities, paintings of ponies, all there on the walls.
"Red Dusk, how did you know it was Luna that you were talking to? Considering you've seen her only as... Well, you know." Red turns his head to look at Celestia, putting a hoof up to his nose. Celestia tilts her head in confusion.
"My nose is just barely weaker than the noses of dogs. I have identified Her Excellency's smell and kept their remembered so that I can distinguish friend from foe. Though... I dont go around sniffing the ground like a dog." Red looks away as he says the last part, looking at Luna and then her cutiemark.
"Also, her cutiemark gave her away, aswell as the eyes and the fact that she is an alicorn." Celestia nods as Luna does likewise, both interested and amazed at his ability.
"Thats... nice... Is that how you found me half of the times that we had encounters and I was not in your sight?" Red nods, weakly getting up and putting away the mug. He struggles to make for Celestia, almost falling on her at the last leg but being saved by her magic.
"Thank you. Alot of times, your perfumes and incense that you had those days were very powerful, and I could smell you from halfway across the building if I knew what I was doing." Celestia blushed as Luna snickered. Red just stood there while he ran a hoof through the mane, eliciting a look from Celestia.
"Ah, yes, Dearest Sister. We doth rememberest the times when thine body was covered in sorts of spices and incenses." Red nods with Luna, his face not making a smile as the Princess of the Night snickers.
"It did betray you and made my job easier atleast." he deadpanned, a sly smile appearing on his muzzle as Celestia looks at him, shocked by his boldness.
He holds a smug look on his face as Celestia realizes that to him, all that matters to him is that Luna is laughing, not so much the other way around. His personality was showing some of its colors, but she would have to dig deeper later.
The sitting room is filled with the ever so dominant sound of silence, with only the sounds of light sipping from the three ponies drinking out of their teacups or their mug.
A sigh comes from Celestia as she drinks the last of her tea. She puts down the teacup on a plate and gets up.
"Im going to go to bed. Good night." she says to the two alicorns left, Red nodding as the alicorn departed.
"I need some sleep too." Celestia stops just short of the door as Red says the sentence, but Luna motions her hoof to tell her to go on. Luna turns her head to the stallion, smiling.
The sounds of Celestia's hoofsteps trail off into the hallway as the two alicorns look at eachother.
"Would thou be so kindest to follow Us?" Luna asks, the red alicorn bowing his head.
"I would be delighted, Your Excellency." the stallion says as he gets up, his legs wobbling. He breaks a sweat as he manages to stabilize himself and begin to slowly walk from his seat.
He take the last drops of coffee from his mug in a fast chug, putting the mug down by his cushion and looking towards a now standing Princess Luna, who motions her head for him to follow her.
As the two alicorns walk out of the room, Luna looks over at a passing maid and tells her about the cups left there by the two. The maid nods and walks towards the sitting room as Luna goes back to walking.
Red could not help but notice some kind of weird attraction to her. It was an attraction he never really felt before and it was eating away at him.
He had to admit it, she was genuinely a beautiful looking mare and very attracting to him.
How slender and curved her body looked.
Her mane's beautiful shade of baby blue with her purple coat.
Her shining silver hoofguards that capped the ends of her regal hooves, not to mention her black chest piece with the crescent moon on it and the black tiara that just spoke authority, yet also wise and fair to him.
The color of her eyes were hypnotizing.
Her voice was that of the voice of an angel. He could just hear her voice calling him.
Red Dusk...
The way she walked.
Her cutiemark was gorgeous.
"Red Dusk? We are here, art thou okay?" Red's trance was shattered by her voice as he scrambled to try to get a bearing on his surroundings.
He spaced out when he was thinking of her, and it ended up making him look like a fool. His eyes scrambled all around, switching to her concerned face a few times and all around the hallway.
They stopped at his room, a guest room to be exact, and Luna already called him once. Now that he thinks about it, maybe when he though about her voice, her "calling him out in his mind" was her actually addressing him. He mentally slapped himself in the face with his hoof.
"I...Uhmm... Uhhh... Well, you see... Uhm... I was thinking of something." Red bends the truth, hoping she wont inquire. She looks at him with the concerned look, but then smiles and looks towards the door, shaking her head.
He mentally blows out air in relief. He reminds himself of his restrictions and limitations, aswell as the humbling fact, atleast for him, that his heart was impure, her heart being pure. Being together with such a fantastic mare would only prove disastrous for both he and her, for he would probably corrupt her heart with his impure self that is not worthy of such a gift.
"Here shall be thine room, for however long thou shall be here. As much as We would liketh to talk to thou more, We find it to be more suitable for thee to be allowed to sleep." Luna explains, smiling as she points into the room after opening the door with her magic. It was dark in there, but his night vision would solve that, that is if he gets into the dark itself. He bows his head in thanks.
"I am blessed by this gift, Your Excellency. Good night." he says as he bows down to her, the princess still smiling. She motions her hoof again, this time Red going past the door and giving Luna one last look before he goes to the already made bed.
Nothing else mattered in the room, just the bed. He wanted to sleep on a real bed, and this was his chance to feel how it is to have a good bed. Back up on the moon, his "bed" was basically built into the castle: A big block of bricks cemented together with a thin bag full of cotton as his mattress and another as his pillow, while a thick comforter of compressed hay in another linen bag kept him warm.
He crawls onto the bed, instantly feeling the difference and feeling the need to collapse into its silky soft blanket, to embrace it. He does just that, giving a moan of delight as he continues to indulge himself in the comfortable feeling of the blanket.
Lifting the covers and slipping under the comforter and sheet, the alicorn already feels his eyelids getting heavy.
His eyelids slowly draw across his eyeballs as he drifts off into the darkness that is the dreamscape.
Darkness.
It was a thing that Red Dusk was familiar with, but in the dreamscape, darkness was something one could not be familiar with.
Red Dusk might be able to see in the dark in the real world, but in the dreamscape, his abilities from the real world become useless.
The alicorn was trapped in darkness, unknowing of where he was. His attempts to speak were futile and he could not hear anything. But he could feel and move, and one of the first things he felt was his armor, without the helmet.
He began to trot forward, deeper into the darkness, looking for light. As he does, he feels something misty and cold slipping between the chain links of his armor on his barrel. He jerks his head back and forth, only to hear a familiar chuckle.
"Looking for the light now are we?" the voice of Nightmare Moon jellifies the stallions legs as he can feel what he can only guess is the Nightmare Mist.
"Y-yes?" the red alicorn stutters as he sees a vortex of Nightmare Moon's misty matter make a vortex infront of him, glowing dimly. The vortex materializes into a transparent head of Nightmare Moon with a big, toothy grin on her face. She had her helmet on and her eyes looked draconic as always.
"Well, I forgot this time about the darkness, but is it not... peaceful?" Nightmare Moon asked her subject, the stallion bowing his head.
"It is. It keeps us hidden from harm, yes." the crimson alicorn replies, just as the darkness seems to make a pathway that clears away like fog on the floor. It leads to what seems to be a hallway of the moon castle. He could see a navy blue banner with a crescent moon on it.
He also see's what appears to be him in full armor carrying a box labeled "EXPLOSIVES" to what he remembers was the armory of the castle.
"What am I seeing here?" Red turns his head towards Nightmare Moon, who's ethereal head dematerializes into mist and floats over into the ears of Red. He cringes as the feeling of the cold mist enters into his head.
"This is your 489th year. You had been exploring the use of explosives for use in... future missions. Those are one of the boxes that were full of your patented - approved by me - explosives, Brik. You ingeniously thought of infusing magical crystal shards within the putty like material to make it detonate through only magic and to add magical punch to the explosion." Nightmare Moon's image appeared in his mind as he felt his legs move through the path and into the hallway.
The suit of armor was geometric in its design, with its plates being different kinds of polygons with sharp edges. His helmet was rhombus-like in shape looking from the side, having two holes on the flat top for the ears that were coated with chainmail while the rest of the helmet was closed, except ofcourse, the vision port which resided on the top front of the helmet and a horn hole. The helmet itself was built to where it would rest on Red's neck and while the top faced the sky, his head would be almost in line with his neck.
There were crescent moon engravings and decorations all over the plates, of the armor, while small lines of runes were all over the plates and along the top rim of the helmet.
"You had already used Brik once or twice before right now, remember?" Red nods as he continues to walk. He gets close to his memory self, who doesnt notice him.
"Am I ethereal?" Red Dusk asks, the Nightmare Moon nodding in his mind.
"Yes, you are. The reason for this memory is to remind you of your duty, what you have sworn loyalty to, you see?" Nightmare Moon says matter of factly as Red walks past Memory Red, who walks into the armory with the box of Brik.
Walking through the hallways, Red feels a sense of home he has not felt in a long time. The regal navy blue banners looked nice with the moon stone walls and the windows were masterfully created.
There were also little decorations on the edges of the ceiling that depicted pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies all living under the moon. There were decorations of two alicorn figures, one obviously being Red Dusk while the other Nightmare Moon. All the ponies around them were bowing to the two alicorns who had the moon right behind them, shining in its glory.
"Glorious, is it not?" Red nods, the Nightmare Moon inside of his mind smirking.
"That, that is what we are fighting for. Not just for the rightful rule of I over Equestria, but for the arrogant miscreants to finally appreciate the night and all its glory." Nightmare Moon explains with anger as she approaches the word miscreants. They continue walking, stopping next to Red's room.
On the door, that was made of dark oak courtesy of countless teleports to and from Earth to bring the wood necessary for the making of wooden objects in the castle, was the four pointed star cluster that was Red Dusk's cutiemark. Nightmare Moon blinks in his mind, ready to speak.
"Well? Go on." she pushes, the red alicorn putting some concentration on the door knob, which clicks and opens the door to reveal his room.
His built in bed was on the immediate left, while there was a simple desk with scrolls all over it, as well as a quill and inkwell. A cushion was under the desk while there was also a dresser, armor stand, nightstand, even a weapon case for his halberd. A large window that faced Earth dominated the wall that was behind the door in the room.
All over the walls, there were maps, notes, designs for better helmet and armor sets, and a single painting of Red Dusk with his armor on and helmet off. His face had a serious, yet noble look as there was a full moon behind his head shedding light all around him. Nostalgia flooded Red's mind as he ran to the desk and pulled something out.
It was a round, stitched up plushie of Nightmare Moon smiling, something that he sometimes took down to Earth with him when he was down there for increased periods mostly. It comforted him, the alicorn hugging the little round plushie and feeling its smooth, silky mane. He purred in affectionate nostalgia.
"I missed this thing... So much..." a tear appeared on his eye as the Nightmare Moon in his mind laughed.
"I knew you would. You miss me do you not?" Nightmare Moon asked, the red alicorn nodding.
"Then why do I feel you will betray me, hm?" suddenly, the plushie falls from the alicorns magical grasp and a sharp pain is shot through his horn and body. He lets out a yelp as the Nightmare waits for an answer.
The mist jumps out while the stallion rolls over on the ground in pain and transforms into Nightmare Moon. She bares her teeth at Red and looks at him with furrowed eyes.
"Why?!" she asks again, the red alicorn now looking into the Nightmare's eyes with tears streaming from his own.
"I dont know..." Red squeaks, the Nightmare scoffing.
"Have you not noticed? Celestia is trying to sway you to her side! She wants to use you! Judging from the fact Im not there, Celestia probably defeated me somehow and since you are the only crusader of the night around here, she's gone after you. You are not safe! She wants to use you for nefarious purposes. Remember your past!" Nightmare Moon says as she approaches the window, facing Earth.
The shape of the Equestrian continent could be seen, while there was the inevitable sight of the Lunar landscape below the window. She jerks her head back to him, looking at him with eyes of scorn.
"Coward, your turning back on me, on your oath! Aren't you?" The stallion rapidly shakes his head as her eyes cut into his soul like daggers.
"Hmph. I trust you are telling me the truth. After all, you are not a petty liar are you now? I expect you not to go down to such low levels." the stallion shakes his head, the nightmare chuckles.
"Your comfort around the tyrant and her sister is disturbing, but their relative comfort around you is advantageous to our cause." Nightmare Moon walks over to Red, extending a hoof which he eagerly accepts. He is brought up and is face to face with the Nightmare. She grins and turns away, once more going right next to the window.
"I want you to woo Celestia into a false sense of security and then kill her, no matter the cost. Kill her sister if you must, but if you can, I want to possess her body once more. Am I understood?" The Nightmare jerks her head back, giving him a furrowed face and a deep frown.
The stallion gulps, unknown to the mare, but goes down and kneels on on knee.
"It shall be done, Your Omnipotence." Nightmare Moon begins to chuckle from deep within her throat.
Then those chuckles became laughing.
Then it becomes insane cackling.