Nightmare Moon had eschewed the finely wrought gates and the elegant entryway that fronted Canterlot Palace, and smashed her way directly into the throne room through a stained-glass skylight. Nebula hovered over the gaping hole, gave Sky an “in for a bit, in for a bank vault” look, and dropped into the chamber. Sky took a deep breath. If he really meant to flee, this was his best opportunity.
But he wasn't going to flee. He knew it as soon as the thought formed, though he could not say what logic drove him. Surely the lesson of surviving one encounter with Nightmare Moon was not to push his luck any further. Nor was he the sort of vesperquine who choked up in dewy-eyed sentiment whenever some tale of Princess Luna was told, caught in a misplaced loyalty to what she had become.
No, if anything, the thought of abandoning Nebula grated on him. He was a member of the Night Guard, and Nebula was his boss. Doubt filled him that either of them could truly accomplish anything here, but damned if he was going to leave her to try on her own.
He carefully flew down and joined her on the long carpet that led to the throne. Flecks of shattered glass spilled across the floor, glittering in the moonlight like a field of stars. A guard was slumped at the base of a pillar, with only the smooth roll of his chest to betray he was unconscious rather than dead. Sky winced at the sight.
Nightmare Moon lay sprawled across the throne. She seemed somehow... diminished to his eye, as if the effort of escaping her banishment—or perhaps the ordeal of banishment itself—had sapped not merely her energy, but her very essence itself.
But the next moment, that illusion was dispelled as she noticed them and flowed upright, tall and imposing as ever.
“Well,” she purred, “you didn't run away.”
Nebula strode toward her, and then bowed low. “We would not run from our princess,” she said, and rose.
Sky held his tongue and silently followed Nebula's lead. Nebula nodded her head toward him. "My aide, Sky Diamond. I believe you have already met."
The alicorn stared down at them, her eyes a pale shade of ice. “Astonishing,” she said at last. “Why do your kind still exist?”
“We have been waiting for you, Princess Luna.” Nebula's voice was straightforward, her answer calm and confident. Sky saw Nightmare flick one ear in irritation at the name “Princess Luna,” but she did not interrupt.
Nebula continued. “We are your Night Guard. You gave us your Blessing so that we could love your night. We would stand with you as your companions.”
Nightmare Moon stared at her, then barked a laugh. “My 'Blessing?' Is that what you call it? My 'Blessing,' which warped your bodies into monsters.” She took a step toward Nebula and grinned cruelly. “You were not so thankful at the time!”
“We know our history, Princess.”
Nightmare idly scraped at the red carpet with one hoof and watched them, her expression softening into a perplexed frown. “You should have been begging Celestia to undo what I had done to you. And it is hard to credit that she refused you. Yet here you are.”
Nebula nodded. “Her offer to remove the Blessing is always open to us, Princess. Very few of us take it.”
The alicorn gave her an arch look. “That makes no sense. You are mad, yes? My mad little... what did you call yourselves, again?”
“Vesperquines, Princess.”
“Vesperquines. Evening ponies. How charming.”
“If we were to forsake the Blessing, our vision would grow weak in the darkness," Nebula explained. "Our minds would crave sleep in the evening hours. It would grow difficult for us to enjoy the beauty of your night.”
Nightmare snorted. “No pony enjoys the beauty of my night.”
Nebula shook her head. “That's not true, Princess Luna. I love your skies. There are many of us who do. When I was a foal, I would fly up and try to touch the arch of the galaxy across the sky.”
Sky spoke up impulsively, surprising himself with his urge to support his captain. “I started training myself to fly long distances when I was a colt, because I decided I was going to be the first pony to fly to the moon.”
Nightmare gave him a sharp glance. “It is not possible for mere wings to carry you to my moon.” She paused a moment, brow furrowing in thought. “Though perhaps one might accomplish such a feat by crossing through the dream realms,” she mused.
Sky and Nebula held their tongues, wary of disrupting this introspective turn. But as swiftly as it had come, it vanished again. She turned from them and let her gaze fall upon the throne.
It was less throne than bench, broad and high backed and with fine upholstery stitched with sun and moon patterns. Alabaster and onyx panels decorated its base, and silver and gold filigree chased across the edges. Nightmare Moon sneered down at it.
“Look at her throne,” she said. “She lays claim to the beauty of my night no less than that of her day."
Nebula shook her head sharply. “No, Princess Luna, no. Celestia wouldn't do that.”
Nightmare turned around slowly and faced Nebula. “Take a good look. The lunar metal entwined with the solar, the sun and moon both stitched on the fabric, the alabaster and onyx... everything here shouts that the pony who sits here rules over all.”
“No,” Nebula insisted, her voice forcefully echoing through the chamber. “Don't you see? It's intended to seat two!”
Nightmare Moon stared down on her, then slowly turned her head to look back at the throne.
“Well,” she said, “no need for that.”
She lifted one hind hoof and lashed out in a savage kick. The throne shattered into a cloud of dust. Shards of wood sprayed across the back wall of the room and strips of ruined cloth drifted slowly to the floor.
Nebula's mouth formed an O of unvoiced shock. Sky's ears rang from the force of the concussion. He glanced at Nebula and thought, uncharitably, This is what you're dealing with. Not your poor, misunderstood Princess Luna. Now do you understand?
But Nebula mastered her expression swiftly. She pulled her look of horror back down to a mask of matronly disapproval.
“That throne was as much yours as your sister's,” she said.
There was a reproachful tone in her voice. She dared speak reproachfully! Sky nearly choked.
But Nightmare Moon just grinned her cold grin at her. “No matter. I shall replace it with something more to my liking.”
Nebula paused, then took an unsteady breath and nodded at last. “As you say, Princess Luna.”
The alicorn's lips curled downward. “You are, I am sure, aware that I do not care for that name.”
“All the same,” Nebula insisted, “it is your name. And it is the name we have called you by, for all the long years we have waited for you.”
Nightmare's voice grew brittle. “You try my patience.”
Nebula bit at her lip. “I... am your friend,” she said. “Please don't forget that. Please believe in that much, at least.”
Nightmare barked out a bitter laugh. “It's far too late for friends,” she hissed.
“We know that. We understand." Nebula stood unflinchingly before her. "Nonetheless, we are your friends. When we were pegasi, we resented night duty. We thought you alien and distant, and we did not try to bridge that distance. We served, grudging and sullen. But your Blessing awakened us, and long ago we resolved to do better than we had. To be better than we were. To be the friends we had not been when you most needed friends.”
Sky stared at her. He could hear a thickness of emotion in her voice that he had never known.
“We...” Nebula paused. “Not we, I. I am sorry. Princess, I am sorry. I couldn't be there for you, so long ago.”
Nightmare Moon's eyes widened. For an instant, the cold light in them seemed to flicker.
“Ridiculous,” she muttered. She turned aside, and with an abrupt step she was in front of Sky. He shrank back from her.
“And you,” she said, glaring down at him. “Do you too wish to be my friend?”
Her voice was cold. The vertical slits of her pupils transfixed him. He felt his throat close up and terror surged in his blood. No, he did not want to be her friend. He wanted to be away from her, he wanted never to see her again.
He shied away from her gaze.
“I see,” Nightmare Moon said. Her voice was as precise as a scalpel. She smiled at Nebula, a thin, unpleasant smile. “This one,” she gestured at Sky, “seems more like the Night Guard I recall.”
Nebula winced. “The situation... he is still—”
“Silence,” Nightmare Moon snapped.
I failed, Sky thought. After everything Nebula said to me, the very first thing I did was mess up. But he could not proclaim a love he did not feel. He wanted to support his captain, but he could not bring himself to lie.
Something in his heart told him Princess Luna could never be saved through lies.
Perhaps the truth also was powerless to save her. But if not to Nightmare Moon, at the very least he owed the truth to Nebula. He took a deep breath. “Princess,” he said. His voice carried softly through the chamber. “Princess, you frighten me. And... I apologize for that.”
He bowed low, for a long moment. When he dared look up, he saw her staring at him as if he'd grown an extra set of wings.
“Why apologize? It is the natural state of things.”
He opened his mouth uncertainly, but before he could say a thing, her head looked away and upward to the smashed wreckage of the skylight. He followed her gaze, craning his head around to see, but at first he could sense nothing.
Then he saw motion, a rippling in the air that resolved into a wispy smoke-like substance, the deep cerulean shade of Nightmare Moon's own strange mane. It spilled into the audience hall, and, as if propelled by a strong breeze Sky could feel no trace of, flew to Nightmare Moon.
It merged into her mane, and Sky realized with a shock that it was the stuff of Nightmare Moon's mane, somehow acting freely.
Her eyes widened for a moment, as if her mane were whispering some new tiding into her ear. She swung her head around and gazed at Sky and Nebula.
“Well,” she purred, “that did not take much time. It seems there are already ponies plotting mischief in... Ponyville, was it not?” She spread her great black wings, and gave Sky a piercing stare as she said, “Come, my faithful guards.” Then she swept her wings down and launched herself into the air. “We have rebels to crush!”
Nebula glanced at Sky, furrows of worry creasing her forehead, and took to the air after her princess. Sky looked around once more at the wreckage littering the royal audience hall, and followed.