//------------------------------//
// Night Flight 
// Story: Her Soldiers, We 
// by Tigerhorse 
//------------------------------//

	“There," Nebula said.  "See?”
Sky stepped to her side on the stray cloud they had landed upon.  He followed the line of her pointing hoof.  Ponyville's lights were visible a mile or so off, twinkling in the darkness like a department store window full of Hearth's Warming Eve lights; but she was pointing above the town, not at it.
He picked out the figure, patrolling above what looked to be the town hall.  “Blaze...?” he said.
“Look again, day-eyes, that's Spitfire.”
Sky peered at the distant pegasus.  Sure enough, though Blaze also had an orange mane, this one had Spitfire's thicker shock of hair.
“So Spitfire's squad is still here,” he murmured.
Nightmare Moon hovered beside their little cloud.  “Of what import, those pegasi?”
“They're Wonderbolts,” Nebula explained.  “An elite group of pegasus flyers in service of the realm.  Usually they perform precision flying drills at various state events, but make no mistake, they are well-trained and dangerous adversaries.”
“Every pegasus wants to be in the Wonderbolts,” Sky added.
Nightmare gave a little frown.  “And you... 'vesperquines' as well?”
Sky shrugged.  “We can maneuver better than any pegasus, but we can seldom match their speed.  We aren't a good fit for the Wonderbolts.”
She raised her head and and eyed the distant pegasus.
“They won't see us this far off,” Sky said.  “Pegasus eyes aren't meant for the night like ours are, so they won't be able to... uhh....”  He trailed off, realizing how stupid he sounded explaining his night vision to the creature who was responsible for it.
Nebula came to his rescue.  “They're investigating Celestia's disappearance.”
Nightmare Moon snorted.  “They'll find nothing.  She is sealed away well beyond their reach.”
Sky could sense a tension leaving Nebula.
“So, she is alive,” Nebula said.
Nightmare gave her a sharp look.  “She is sealed away until such time as I may properly deal with her,” she said.
What was “properly deal with her” supposed to mean?  He feared the answer.  Then he paused to wonder why Nightmare Moon hadn't taken care of it from the start.
That first glimpse of her in the palace, she'd seemed... worn out.  Exhausted.  She'd hidden it immediately, but Sky wondered just how much her escape—not to mention her confrontation with her sister—had taken out of her.  Maybe she wasn't capable of “properly dealing with” Celestia now.
Maybe she was vulnerable.
But he remembered her voice piercing him like a spear.  Even weakened, she could still take command of his own body away from him.  And “vulnerable” was a relative thing.  What could he do with the knowledge?  Even if she really were down to the dregs of her power, she still far outclassed him.  She had casually strolled down Sun Street leaving scarred wreckage in her wake, after all.
Nightmare Moon snorted.  “Come.  Those 'Wonderbolts' are of no account.  Our business lies not in Ponyville, but in the forest.”  She winged away from them with a surge and headed for the wild canopy of trees that stood athwart Ponyville.  Nebula and Sky kicked off their cloud and chased after.
“Princess Luna,” Nebula said as she caught up, “the Wonderbolts aren't going to drop this.  If anyone in Ponyville saw you—”
“Oh, indeed, I made a fine entrance,” she said proudly.  “They won't soon forget me.”
Nebula grimaced.  “All right then.  The Wonderbolts are going to come hunting us, as soon as they piece everything together.”
“Then I will deal with them when they meddle,” Nightmare said sharply.  “For now, there is a band of six rebels I mean to make an example of!” 
She beat her wings forcefully and shot forward above the treetops.  Nebula and Sky struggled to catch up to her, and for a while it seemed as if she was going to pull away from them fully.  But after a bit she let her pace drop back to an easy cruise, and the two vesperquines were able to fall into formation with her.
Beneath them, the dark leaves rippled in the nighttime breeze.  Branches clawed up from the morass of vegetation as if eager to scratch at the sky.  Here and there the canopy of trees broke open to reveal a trace of river, like a scar in the forest; or an open glade that seemed as invitingly sinister as the bloom of a carnivorous plant.  
Nightmare Moon observed it all, her face slowly falling into a puzzled frown.  “The forest runs riot,” she said.  “Has no pony seen fit to organize this wilderness?”
Nebula shrugged as best she could in mid-flight.  “Pegasi say the clouds are unruly.  Earth ponies have trouble working the land.”
“Surely the denizens of Everfree City have learned how to manage such matters.”
Nebula paused for a long moment.
“There is no Everfree City,” she said at last.
Nightmare Moon's wings flared wide, bringing her to an abrupt halt.  She spun to face them, and hovered with a fierce look on her face.
“What is this you tell me?”
Sky gulped at her intensity.  “It's gone.  Most ponies don't even remember the name.”
“It was the grandest metropolis in Equestria!  A center of trade and learning!”
“It was grievously damaged in the conflict between you and Princess Celestia,” Nebula explained.
Nightmare Moon scoffed.  “Ponies rebuild!”
Sky struggled to remember his own lessons in vesperquine history, those classes he had been most inclined to sleep through.  “The land itself was damaged,” he said.  “The forces the Princesses called upon warped the very nature of this place...”  He trailed off as Nightmare Moon glared at him.
She gestured downward at the eerie forest.  “Are you saying I am responsible for this grotesquerie?”
Sky shook his head fearfully.  “No, no I—”
“Because it was my sister who jealously tried to choke off my beautiful night.  It was my sister who monopolized the love of the ponies.  It was my sister who chose to wage war upon me!”
Sky opened his mouth to object.  He scarcely knew Celestia—in fact, the longest stretch of time he'd spent in her presence had been at the start of this evening, so long ago.  Nebula knew her far better.  And yet, he was certain the Celestia Nightmare Moon spoke of was but a vision of her own spite, and not the Celestia he'd made tea for.  He felt a calm certainty that his Celestia would not—could not—act as Nightmare Moon described.
But Nebula spoke before he could.
“Princess Celestia has regretted what passed between you for these last thousand years.”
Nightmare Moon snorted in derision.  “She learned fear.  The coward would not even give me the satisfaction of  a decent fight.  She begged to reconcile even as I sealed her away.  I do hope her agents will give better sport... though I shall kill them in short order all the same.”
She laughed then, a vile pleasure in her voice as she shifted her wings and resumed her flight.  Sky winced to hear it, and his resolve not to flee quaked like a leaf in a windstorm.  This... this creature was not the Princess Luna precious to the memory of the vesperquines.
What if that Princess Luna was gone forever?
Generation after generation of vesperquines, setting their faith in the Blessing, pining for their princess, all in vain.... 
Nebula glanced his way.  “Buck up, soldier,” she said.  “No moping on duty.”
Sky glared, but Nebula dismissed him, and winged her way up even with Nightmare Moon.  The alicorn flicked an ear at her, but otherwise did not acknowledge her presence.  As they flew, Sky caught sight of a streak of blue smoke ripping toward them through the air.  It merged with Nightmare's mane, doubtless bearing fresh information to her.  Just how much of Equestria she had spread herself across in this way?
In the distance, a series of rocky escarpments appeared, breaking free of the trees like dolphins cleaving the water.  Nightmare Moon pointed a hoof at them.  “The clever unicorn who could name me in Ponyville and her friends are crossing the mountains there.”
Sky supposed the wisp of mane had just brought her that information.  But why would any pony be running into the Everfree.
“Aren't they just running away...?” he murmured.
Nightmare Moon looked back over her shoulder at him.  “They have scraped the dust from old tomes and convinced themselves the weapon which banished me is to be found within the palace my sister and I shared.  As if Celestia would leave it to rot in some musty hall!”
“The Elements of Harmony,” Nebula breathed.
Nightmare glanced at her, sourly.  “Well, well, well.  This land is full of scholars.”
He didn't know anything about any Elements of Harmony.  Either Nebula had been digging through old archives, or that had been another sleep-day in history class.  
“Our kind have kept records,” Nebula said.  “Old histories about you, personal reminiscences, reports of your deeds and words...”
“What a depressing choice of hobbies.”  
“...So we know of the Elements of Harmony that you wielded with Celestia.  Your Optimism, Devotion and Integrity to Celestia's Charity, Compassion and Leadership.”
“Yes.  I carried weak little virtues, all the better to be exploited by.  What was my Optimism but naivete?  What was my Devotion, save a means to take advantage of me?  What was my Integrity other than a cowardice that kept me from acting on my own behalf?”
“Princess Luna, that isn't—”
Nightmare interrupted, ears sleeking back in anger.  “And then there is you, who only wishes to see the meek little pony I was.”
Nebula's jaw dropped.  There was a flash of pain in her eyes.  She made no response, and Sky stared at her.  Why did she not react, why was she not busting into drill sergeant mode and tearing into Nightmare Moon, correcting her assumptions, as Nebula liked to put it?  Although, obviously, that would be an act of suicide; yet all the same, Nebula was being downright docile, and that was a frightening wrongness in the order of things.
She's not sure how to handle Nightmare Moon either!  The moment the thought entered his mind he recoiled from it.  If Nebula of all ponies had lost her sarcastic self-assurance, how much hope could either of them have of finding a way through this?
They drew near the range of low mountains now.  Nightmare Moon guided them to a long ridge cresting the tallest of them, and set down on the uneven stone.  Around them, the Everfree stretched for mile upon mile, a gently rolling sea of green painted nearly black in the moonlight.  The leaves rippled in the currents of air like the skin of some enormous beast, twitching in uneasy dreams.
Nebula landed beside Nightmare Moon with a soft clack of her hooves on the rock.  She cleared her throat and addressed the alicorn.
“Princess Luna,” she said with deliberation, “what I was trying to say, is that Celestia has not been able to use the Elements since she banished you, so they could well remain in the old castle.”
Dark thunder gathered on Nightmare Moon's brow at Nebula's address, but it dissipated as the words sunk in.  “She cannot use the Elements?”
Nebula nodded.  “'Lost her connection to them,' I think is how she puts it.”
The alicorn's face split into a grin and she cackled in glee.
Nebula ignored the outburst.  “I was thinking, if we fly ahead and remove the Elements from the castle, we can leave this little group of ponies to go searching in vain while we get back to Canterlot to finish reorganizing the government.”
She was met with a withering look.  “They have set themselves in rebellion against me.  A price must be extracted.”
Nebula made a placating gesture with one hoof.  “But imagine them as they discover no trace of the Elements.  Their dismay and confusion, surely that is price enough?”
“No, I think not,” Nightmare said.  Her mane spilled down to the rocky ground at her feet and then broke apart, scattering like racing snakes.  The glowing wisps of mane sped across the contours of the mountain in every direction.  She closed her eyes and murmured, “Find them... and bring them to grief.”
Sky didn't like the sound of that.  By the looks of it, neither did Nebula, for she darted up and hastily spoke.
“Princess, allow us to locate these renegades!”
Nightmare Moon's lips curled into a lazy smile.  “As you wish,” she said indifferently.  Sky bit his lip, alarmed by her casual response.
Nebula looked across the stony ridge to where Sky hovered.  “Find those ponies,” she shouted, and then shot off along her side of the mountain.
Sky followed suit, scanning the terrain for any sign of the ponies.  He flew out along the mountain's flank, pulling high into the air so as to see more of the slope.  Here and there, he caught glimpses of Nightmare Moon's mane, a smoky glow that rushed among the boulders and the shrubs that covered the mountain.  He pulled back to gain a wider view of the terrain, supplementing his vision with chirps to try to pick out the shapes of the renegade ponies with his ears.
What did Nebula mean for him to do if he did find them?  Convince them to turn back, maybe?  But would ponies brave enough to venture into the Everfree be so simply deterred?  What could he possibly tell them except that they should be terrified—but then they would not be out here to begin with if they hadn't already set their fears aside.  With a touch of shame, he found himself hoping they were on Nebula's side of the mountain, and he wouldn't have to deal with them.
Naturally it was then that he spotted them, hearing the shapes of six ponies in the echo of his chirp.  He focused his gaze their way and started closing the distance to them—he had flown out quite a way to be able to scan as much of the slope as possible—just as the shelf of rock they stood upon crumbled beneath their hooves.
He gasped in horror and surged toward them, but there was no way he would reach them in time.  From the straightness of the break's edge, he could tell this was no natural collapse.  Though he was too far away to see it, he was sure a fragment of Nightmare Moon's mane had been responsible.
So then.   He was intended to watch their deaths rather than chase them back home.
But they did not die.  Instead he witnessed the amazing surefootedness of earth ponies, alongside the obvious ability of pegasi to spurn the ground.  Only the unicorns of the party were in real danger, and the two pegasi had already caught one up and were lowering her to the foot of the mountain.  
There was one other unicorn, who hung from the edge of the broken slab of rock.  Sky gasped as he recognized her.  Twilight Sparkle.  Princess Celestia's book-obsessed student.  The pony she'd sent to Ponyville.
His heart leapt to his throat as he saw her suddenly drop, but an instant later the two pegasi caught her up in their hooves and gently lowered her to the ground by the other unicorn.  
He slowed his flight and furrowed his brow.  Was it possible Celestia had sent her to Ponyville knowing what would happen?  Knowing she would seek a way to stop Nightmare Moon?  He thought back to Celestia's visit with Nebula.  The Princess had been... enigmatic at best.  
For a moment he hovered in the dark sky, and watched the six ponies below regather themselves and set forth into the forest once more.  Then he winged his way upward, racing along the rising flanks of the ridge until he crested the escarpment and the tumbled stone fell away beneath his hooves.
He looked about, trying to spot Nebula, but she eluded his gaze.  He gave a chirp, hoping to hear her shape, though she might be too far off for him to discern anything of her form.  And indeed, he did not spot her with his ears, although a moment later he heard an answering chirp from somewhere further along the slope.  He hurried toward it, and before long Nebula rose up before him.
“Report, Private,” she snapped.
“Ma'am, there were six ponies.  She—" he glanced beyond her shoulder, to where they had left Nightmare Moon "—collapsed a cliff underneath them.  They managed to weather it without injury.  They're off the mountain now.”  He sensed a subtle relaxation in her body at the news, as of a tension she'd carefully hidden being loosed.  She nodded.
“Two earth ponies, two unicorns, two pegasi,” he continued.  “One of the unicorns is Celestia's student... I didn't recognize any of the others.”
“Hmm,” Nebula mused.  “She was in Ponyville... it's to be expected, I suppose.  I wonder if she brought the others as an entourage from Canterlot, or if she's been busy making friends in Ponyville, like Cee told her to.”
Sky chewed the thought over.  “I can't really say, but... the impression we had back in Canterlot was that she wasn't the type to make friends quickly."  He paused, then hastened to add, "But it's not like we knew her very well."
Nebula pursed her lips and shrugged.  “No matter, I suppose.  We'd best inform Princess Luna.”  
She set out back the way they had come.  Sky fell in beside her, still musing over Twilight Sparkle.  The more he thought about her presence here, the more agitated his mind became.  At last he spoke.
“Captain, do you think... I mean, Celestia...”
“Spit it out, Private.”
“Celestia sent that unicorn out here, her personal student, right?  And since she's her personal student, she probably already knows all sorts of things, like about the Elements.  And now she's leading a mission to find them and fight—” he bit back the name of Nightmare Moon, “—the Princess.”
Nebula nodded guardedly.
“Don't you think Celestia anticipated that?  That she knew this was coming, and planned for it?  She's the one who picked Ponyville, the town right by the Everfree, for the Summer Sun Celebration this year; and she's the one who sent her personal student here to prepare.  Doesn't it all seem... very convenient?  And... I mean, if Twilight Sparkle is part of Celestia's plan, then shouldn't we be trying to help her, instead of...” he gestured ahead, toward Nightmare Moon.
Nebula rounded on him.  She stabbed her own hoof in the direction Sky had indicated.  “That is our princess.  If we betray her now, what difference is there between us and our ancestors who stood aside and watched as she fell?  For a thousand years we've sworn to do better.  For a thousand years we've been faithful to the memory of the princess who created us.  We won't abandon her this time.”
“She wants to murder ponies, ma'am.”
Nebula grimaced.  “That isn't her true self.”
“Isn't it?” Sky spat.  “Because I haven't see much evidence otherwise!”
She glared at him.  “Cee has told us what Princess Luna is like time and again.  We know—”
“Celestia remembers what she wants.  Maybe she's fooling herself.”  A reckless anger swept through him, but in the next moment it poured away like water from a broken bottle, leaving behind nothing but a dulled feeling of despair.  “Maybe nothing's left of the Princess Luna she remembers.”
“Something is left.  Watch for it, Sky Diamond.  Watch for it, and when you see it, don't let go.”
Sky flattened his ears.  “It must be a fine thing to have no doubts.”
Nebula just gave a weary shake of the head and swept round to head back toward Nightmare Moon.
He pressed on.  “You don't mind if Twilight Sparkle is killed?  You'll sabotage Celestia's plan?”
She sighed.  “Celestia doesn't have plans, Sky.  Celestia has assets.  Celestia has ponies she trusts to think for themselves, and to act on their own.  Celestia has ponies who will try to do the right thing, even though it may be hard to see what that thing is.  That Twilight Sparkle pony is one of Celestia's assets, yes.  But so are we.”
“Us?” Sky's voice barked out, jumping with incredulity.  “Whatever we are, we don't belong to Princess Celestia.”
“That's right, Sky.  That's the point.  We don't belong to Celestia.  Luna is our Princess.  That's what Celestia is counting on.” 
They flew on in silence as Sky digested what Nebula was trying to say.  “Because we're the only ones who remember her,” he said at last.
“She's in pain, and she needs friends, Sky.  Right now, that's you and me.”
Sky's ears drooped.
“You've got to stop thinking of her as Nightmare Moon,” Nebula continued.  “It's not helping you or her.”
He shook his head, rejecting her.
Nebula watched him for a time, flying onward silently.  After a while she spoke quietly.  “For the record, Sky, I don't intend to see Twilight Sparkle killed.  But neither do I intend to let her use the Elements to banish Princess Luna again.”
The crumpled slope rolled along beneath his hooves, and the great forest spread outward, sighing in its slow nocturnal rhythms.  At last, he muttered, “Well then, I hope you have a plan.”
“Yeah, I plan to leave it all to you,” she said with a snort.
Sky opened his mouth to make a retort, but at that moment they cleared a ridge and Nightmare Moon came into view.  She stood in the moonlight like an onyx sculpture, cold and beautiful.  Her mane rippled and flowed eerily about her, and her helm glowed softly with the borrowed light of the moon.
Sky tried to see Princess Luna in her, mentally superimposing the stained-glass figures in Nebula's office onto the creature standing on the mountain.  But of course the images in glass were too stylized to mean anything, the glass itself cut centuries after the last ponies to have stood in Luna's presence had died.  Try as he might, he could not resolve the Luna he knew from vesperquine legend and lore with the being whose cold gaze angled up to watch Nebula and him alight before her.
His hooves clacked upon the stone, and his weight settled into his legs as he folded his leathery wings to his sides.  Beside him, Nebula bent down in a bow to Nightmare Moon, and he quickly followed suit.  
As he rose, Nightmare Moon murmured, “How congenial you must find my company, to hurry back so.”
Sky regarded her nervously.  Was she making a sarcastic complaint over the time they'd taken to return?  Maybe she was simply mocking them for returning at all.  
Nebula ignored her tone.  “Princess,” she reported, “there was a rockfall, but all of the ponies escaped unharmed.”
Nightmare's gaze was impassive.  She spread her wings and kicked off the stone, climbing into the air with a fierce rush.  Sky groaned as Nebula leapt after her, and followed, wondering just how much flying he was going to end up doing this night.
“Yes,” Nightmare said.  “I know.  Simple physics lacks the force that malice brings.  I should have ensured there was a mind behind the violence to begin with.  No matter, I have located a suitable beast to do a better job of it.”
Nebula winced.  “Princess Luna, please, there's no need to harm these ponies.”
“Need?  But of course there's no need.  I choose it.”  Her lips pulled back into a sneering grin.
A pained expression crossed Nebula's face, and her lips set tightly, her distress plain to see.  The trees had fallen far below by now, but her hooves pawed at the sky all the same, showing her agitation as she flew.  Nightmare Moon took note, and gave her a long stare.
“You talk of your devotion to me,” she said softly.  “But you don't accept me.  You've spent a thousand years building your little fantasies out of what I was, while never considering that you were created by what I am.”   She paused, and then shrugged.  “No matter.  Your obedience is all I demand, and that is a thing I already own.”
Nebula bit her lip, coasting alongside Nightmare's shoulder.  “It's true,” she said, “that we look at you and see our hopes.  That we think of all the stories of you we have kept alive, and want that pony before us.  But you fool yourself in the same way.  You think you've thrown away Luna, but you yourself are the embodiment of Luna's rage and sorrow.”
Nightmare Moon's wings tensed, and her eyes blazed with their cold light.  “You dare...”
“It doesn't matter what you call yourself,” Nebula continued.  “Princess Luna is who you are.”
Sky could almost see the anger pouring from Nightmare Moon.  Her jaw was set like an iron sledgehammer.  He flapped up even with her, trying to catch Nebula's eye and warn her to back off, but even as he did so, Nightmare's voice cracked through the air.
And it held power, a force that rang through his bones like a thunderous bell.
“Fall,” Nightmare Moon spat.
For a moment, Sky trembled in the air as the power of Nightmare Moon's Command swept past him.  But he was not the target.  
Nebula's wings snapped tight to her flanks, and instantly her legs clawed at the air in vain.  She fell, dropping toward the trees in the hastening grip of gravity's impersonal strength.
She didn't make a sound.  Sky knew that detail would haunt him for a long time—the fact that she didn't make a sound.
He folded his wings back to chase after her, but Nightmare said “Bide,” sharply, and he found his body once more betraying his own will.  He hovered helplessly beside the alicorn, and could only watch in horror as Nebula plummeted.
“Please don't do this,” he whimpered.
Nightmare Moon acknowledged him with a scant flick of one ear.  She watched intently as Nebula dropped ever closer to the tangled branches of the forest.
And still Nebula was silent.
Only seconds had passed.  Sky understood this, and yet those seconds stretched out agonizingly.  Every atom of his body ached to rush after Nebula and catch her, but his wings only beat gently, holding him in place.  More seconds passed, and his heart sank as he understood that even if he were released now, he would not be able to reach Nebula before she hit the trees.
Nebula had told him not to think of the alicorn beside him as Nightmare Moon.  But how could he regard her as anything else?
Nebula dropped closer and closer to the ground with fearsome speed.
And then Nightmare Moon's voice bellowed out into the night.  “Enough!”
For a heart-stopping moment, there was no response.  Then Sky saw Nebula's wings flare out and cut at the air.  She slewed into an arc, trying to level off, but for all her vesperquine maneuverability, she was carrying too much momentum to quickly turn.  She dipped into the trees at a ferocious pace, and a plume of leaves and shattered branches arced up in her wake.
But a moment later, she rose once again above the sea of green, still intact.  She circled upwards, gaining height to return to them.  Only then did Sky realize Nightmare Moon's compulsion over him had also faded, and he was free to move.
He shot through the air to Nebula's side, racing like a pegasus Wonderbolt candidate.  She was battered with scrapes, and a light cut ran along her cheek.  Broken twigs and a few tattered leaves were caught up in her mane.
“How are you?” Sky asked, the question rising automatically to his lips.
She gave him a rueful grin.  “I guess I owe you an apology for ignoring you about that voice of hers.”  She paused, and added “I'm bruised, but fine, Private.”
He glanced up toward Nightmare Moon.  “What do we do now?”
“Exactly what we've been doing, Sky.”
His jaw dropped.  With effort, he managed to hold his voice back from snarling.  “It doesn't seem to be effective.”
“Don't be so certain of that,” she said placidly.
“She nearly killed you!”
“And then she chose not to.”
He grit his teeth.  A minute ago he had been terrified she was about to die.  Now he had the strongest urge to strangle her himself.  “What's happened to you?”
She looked at him with a quizzical tilt to her head.  “Nothing's happened to me, Private, barring the obvious.”  She gave a meaningful glance downward toward the faint scar she'd cut through the treetops.
But Sky was having none of it.  He shook his head sharply.  “No, no, that's not true. My captain isn't so mild!”  He lowered his voice and gestured up toward Nightmare Moon.  “Why aren't you blistering the air, calling her out on her behavior?  I mean, okay, she'll kill you, so that's why.  I get that."  He choked back his voice, sensing he was starting to babble, and took a calming breath before continuing.  "You don't take shit from anypony, and yet you've been bending your neck to her from the start!”
Nebula gave him a cool gaze.  “She's our princess.  That makes her my commanding officer.  And yours as well.”
“I saw you work over the Day Guard until they were itching to toss out their commander on their own; then you stepped in and did it for them.  And I saw you with Celestia, and you sure aren't very submissive to her.  Don't give me this crap.”
For a moment, Nebula's jaw tightened.  But then she paused and considered him.
“Cussing her out won't work,” she said.  “Surely even one so neuronally deprived as you gets that.”	
“Yeah, thanks.  That's barely a warm-up for you.”  His ears flicked back along his skull for a moment.  “So you're still trying to be her friend?  Because last I checked letting ponies nearly fall to their death isn't a mark of friendship.”
Nebula shrugged.  “But I didn't fall to my death.  Look, she needs ponies to believe in her.  To know she's more than just darkness and anger, and to let her see that.  I've made a decision to do so.  I'm prepared to put my life on the line for it.”
Sky stared at her.  “I don't think I can manage that,” he said at last.
He half expected her to lay down a steely command.  But instead she gently smiled at him.  “Just be a friend to her, Sky.”
Be a friend to her.  As if she were interested in any such thing from him.
They came up to where Nightmare Moon waited in the sky.  She silently turned and winged ahead, deeper into the Everfree, and they silently followed.  The terrain passed beneath them, the dense forest guarding its secrets beneath its dark leaves.  Somewhere down there, six brave and foolish ponies struggled onward in their vain quest.
After a time, Sky noticed Nightmare casting brief glances at Nebula and him, her brow faintly creasing.  At last she craned her head back, and with an oddly awkward hesitance asked, “How does Celestia excuse your kind's blood-thirst?”
Sky exchanged a confused glance with Nebula.  After a moment he ventured a reply.
“We... I don't think we're any more violent than any other pony.”
Nightmare gave an irritated snort.  “That is not the issue.  My sorceries cannot be unmade piecemeal.  So how does my milk-hearted sister inure herself to your blood-feasts?  Does she allow you to feed upon criminals?  It is difficult to imagine that of her.”  She paused thoughtfully, then gave a sly smile.  “Perhaps there are ponies who voluntarily bare their necks to you?  Perverse creatures who offer themselves when your cravings for blood grow urgent?” 
Sky gawped at her.  What did she think they were?  “I don't... I'm not sure what you're trying to ask...” he said.
Nebula jumped in to rescue him.  “I'm afraid my cravings run to strawberries and oranges, Princess.”
Sky had felt moments like that.  He found himself nodding in agreement.  “Sometimes you really just need your bowl of blueberries,” he added.
Nightmare came to a halt, hovering before them.  She turned to face their way, her eyes thinning to slits.  “I will not be mocked,” she said.  “I fused your kind's cellular matrix with those of vampire bats.  Do not claim to me you have no taste for blood.”
Sky stared from Nebula to Nightmare and back.  He shuddered at what Nightmare was saying.  In a small voice, he insisted, “We don't drink blood....”
“You account me a liar, small one?”
“Oh, no, no, no, Princess Luna,” Nebula intervened.  “But is it possible you... well... seized upon a different species of bat?”
Nightmare Moon gave her a long, cold stare.  Nebula met it unwaveringly.
“We have no desire for blood,” she said.  “Did we when you first created us?”
Nightmare harrumphed and turned away, resuming her flight across the Everfree.  “Your kind tried to hide from me, or begged me to 'fix' them.  I did not trouble to note their mealtime preferences; I was busy enough with Celestia's ceaseless mewling and with setting examples of those gangs of ponies who insisted on making futile efforts at resistance.”
Sky tried not to imagine what those “examples” might have looked like.
Nebula flew up close beside Nightmare.  “We were not the friends you needed back then, Princess,” she said.  “It took us a long time to realize our part in... what happened.  We are sorry for that.”
Nightmare scowled at her.  “What is this?  You pretend I chose to take my rightful place because my Guard was not lickspittle enough?  Do not be so vain.”
Nebula winced at Nightmare's words.
“What do you know of those days in any case?  Your dusty old records?  My sister has told you tales?”
“She has,” Nebula answered.
“Pah!  Self-serving lies, no doubt.”
“No, Princess.  She does not excuse herself over what happened.  She carries a great weight of guilt.”
Nightmare Moon lashed her ethereal tail.  “Oh, the precious Princess,” she said, her voice laced with venom.  “So noble.  So kind!  See how she takes the blame for the deeds of others?  How can any pony help but love her self-sacrificing—no, let us be honest—her self-serving manner?”
Nebula shook her head slowly.  “You're wrong, though,” she said.  “Celestia really does miss you.  She really does want you by her side.”
Nightmare's eyebrows shot up.  “So you've been taken in by her as well, I see.  I should have expected as much.  She's had a thousand years to sway your minds.  But allow me to disabuse you of your illusions.”  Nightmare swooped her long wings though the air, and spun to face them.
“My sister may hide her spite now, but I know it well,” she said.  “Did you think I was insensible for those thousand years?  Sealed away in a timeless dream?  Oh no.  I was aware of every moment of my wretched imprisonment.”  Nightmare's eyes grew cold.  “Eighty-seven years,” she hissed.  “My sister's spite was such that she refused to raise my moon for eighty-seven years.  There were ponies who lived their entire lives without witnessing its majesty.  She robbed them of my night.”
Nebula met her gaze, and calmly spoke.  “So.  You were aware... but there are things you do not know.”
Nightmare snaked her head forward until she was nose-to-nose with her.  “I see.  Over the years she has cozened you with her lies and drawn you to her side.”
“No, Princess.  I said we have kept our own records.”  She hovered back from Nightmare.  “Do you wonder why we still exist?  Our first generation did not love your Blessing.  You know they would gladly have undone their transformation.”
“Yet Celestia refused them,” she answered.  “As I told you, there is spite within her.”
But Nebula just shook her head sadly.  “Do you truly believe so?”
Nightmare was silent.  Sky looked on, fidgeting and scarcely breathing.  Nightmare had nearly killed Nebula a little while ago, and here Nebula was still pushing back at the alicorn.  Was she doing this because he'd snapped at her before?
“The first generation lived lives of bitterness and regret.  In time, though, they came to believe that they bore at least some of the fault for your fall.  They—“
“I have not fallen,” Nightmare interrupted.  “Rather, I have achieved my true grandeur.”
Nebula paused, and gave a noncommittal twitch of a nod.  “Nonetheless, they looked back upon their service and were dismayed.  As pegasi, too many had seen the Night Guard as punishment duty.  Too many had held themselves to a strict formality, even in the deep hours of the night when you seemed to most need some pony to speak to.  Too many had looked aside when anger and sorrow pierced you.”
Nightmare Moon snorted.  “What care I for their sympathies?”
“The second generation found themselves caught between two worlds,” Nebula continued.  “Their parents looked upon them and saw themselves, pegasi horribly deformed.  Yet the children knew nothing of being pegasi; nor was there any culture of the night through which they might find a place in the world for themselves as they were.  It was only the third generation which came to truly love your night.”
Nightmare considered.  “And Celestia let all this play out without sticking her muzzle in?  She must truly loathe your kind.”
“Ahh, Celestia,” Nebula sighed.  “Of course she would have stuck her muzzle in.  That first generation would have gladly let her undo what you did, and we would not be here now to welcome you home.  But Celestia... was in no condition to help us.  It was she who needed help.”
Nightmare Moon's ears perked up.  “Oh do tell,” she said silkily.
Nebula took a deep breath.  “Celestia and you shared control of the Elements of Harmony.”
“I recall,” said Nightmare drily.
Nebula nodded.  “Old scholars believed a normal pony would be incapable of bearing more than one of the Elements.  You and your sister are exceptional, of course, but even then each of you only carried three.”
“Which Celestia wrested from me.”  Nightmare scowled.
“Indeed,” Nebula nodded gravely.  “She broke Harmony.  She forced them.  She turned them upon another Bearer, against their nature.”
Nebula took a deep breath.  “Of course she paid a price.”
Nightmare's eyes widened as she realized what Nebula was saying.  “I like this story,” she said cattily.
“The power of all six Elements coursing through her was agonizing.  And when she bent them to her will, their power clawed back at her, resisting her.  A normal pony would have died.  She was terribly mauled as it was.”
“Go on.”
“The power scourged her flesh.  Blood seeped from every pore.  In the hours after she banished you, she glistened red as war, her hide twitching in agony.  She was unconscious for days, though she cried out from time to time.  Whether it was from her physical pain, or if her sleep was tormented with the memory of what had passed between you two, none knew.
“Nor did her injuries give way to the knowledge of her physicians.  Though the bleeding slowed quickly, her wounds refused to fully heal.  Traces of her blood oozed from her skin and stained her alabaster coat pink.  Not for weeks or months, Princess, but for decades.”
Nightmare's gaze was locked on Nebula, and her ears fixed upon the vesperquine avidly.  Her teeth gleamed in the moonlight as her smile grew.
Nebula drove on, her voice deadly serious.  “But her physical injuries were minor compared to her mental hurt.  Perhaps it was the struggle with the Elements, or perhaps knowing what she had done to you; but on that day, her mind shattered.  She was... almost childlike.  Confused and wondering at everything.  A staff of unicorns had to guide her in raising and lowering the sun.  Of course they spared no thought for the moon.”
Nightmare Moon's smile faded.  “You mean to say my moon was neglected because of foolish unicorns?”
“Long-dead unicorns, Princess Luna,” Nebula cautioned.
Nightmare gave her a long, cool stare.  “And Celestia was a mindless idiot.”
Nebula shook her head.  “Not mindless, no.  She was... damaged.  Sometimes she was simply frivolous—she would say things like 'Flying is so much fun' or 'My wings are so pretty.'  But at other times she would announce 'Let's fly to the castle,' and she could not be deterred from flying to the Castle of the Pony Sisters.  Her guards would follow, and find her looking at the ruins, her face full of confusion and worry.  Only then would she let herself be led back to Canterlot.”
“Half the wreckage was her own doing,” Nightmare sneered.
Nebula continued, her entire attitude fixed intently upon Nightmare.  “She would go up to strange ponies, newcomers to the court, and say to them, 'I'm a princess.  Are you a princess too?' ”
“She was quite deranged, was she not,” Nightmare laughed.
"Don't you get it?"  Nebula's eyes glimmered wetly in the moonlight.
Nightmare cocked her head and frowned.  “Get what?  What are you babbling on about?”
“There were no other princesses in Equestria.”  Nebula's voice quavered with a desperate intensity.  “There was only you.  She was looking for you.  Even with her mind in tatters, she longed to see you.”
Nightmare stared at her for a long moment.  Then, without a word, she flapped her wings and soared out over the forest.  Startled by the sudden motion, Sky spared a glance for Nebula, and then followed.
Nightmare flew silently, beating at the air with powerful strokes.  Sky struggled to keep up, but after a time she slowed to a more manageable pace.  He glanced over his shoulder to see Nebula trailing back a ways, lost in her own thoughts.  Then when he looked forward again, for an instant his eyes seemed to trick him when he looked at Nightmare.  Most ponies were insensitive to nighttime color, even under bright moonlight.  But vesperquine eyes were far more discerning; and it seemed to Sky that just for an instant, the deep blue patch around Nightmare's cutie mark and the sable black of her coat had exchanged colors.
He nearly dismissed it immediately as some trick of vision, proof that he was overly tired from this long night.  But then it happened again, just a momentary flicker.
And nearly lost in the passage of the air against his ears as he flew, he heard the faintest murmur of Nightmare's voice.
“I used to tell her her wings were pretty...”
He pricked his ears toward her, straining to hear more, but if she said another word, it was lost in the night.  Nor did her coat again show any signs of instability.