Nightmares Are Tragic

by Jordan179

Chapter 4: Falling for the Foe

“So … none of you have been in here before?” asked the lavender unicorn, sounding a bit nervous..

“Ugh! Heavens, no!” replied the white one, her voice tinged with revulsion. “Just look at it! It’s dreadful!” she almost squeaked in fear.

A wisp of barely-luminous vapor watched them through the trees, feeling some satisfaction. The old road had not entirely vanished, but clearly had not been maintained in centuries. Their way climbed a hill, taking the higher route – one which Nightmare Moon knew led up the side of a cliff which had been less-than-stable even in the days of her castle’s glory.

It would the perfect location for her first attack. If she did this right this would reduce their numbers by at least one or two, and probably shatter what remained of their morale. She could win the whole battle, literally in one fell swoop.

“And it ain’t natural,” said the Apple mare, sounding worried. “Folks say it don’t work the same way as Equestria.”

The wisp of iridescent vapor flashed to the cliffside, attenuated, drifted into the rock face through dozens of tiny cracks which had been formed by a thousand years of erosion. Paramagnetic fields shifted, exerting an outward pressure within the rock face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The lavender unicorn was becoming even more nervous, infected by her companions’ fear.

“Nopony knows,” said the insanely-brave blue pegasus, her voice quavering in mock-menace. The timid yellow pegasus, the white unicorn, and the seemingly-simple pink Earth pony all flinched. The blue pegasus descended to the ground, and pretended to stalk them. “You know why?”

Just a little more pressure … a little more … Nightmare Moon could feel the cracks widen …

“Rainbow, quit it!” scolded the Apple mare, standing near the lavender unicorn on the outer side of the ledge.

The blue pegasus ignored her.

“Cause every pony who’s ever come in … has never … come … OUT!” The one called Rainbow launched herself into the air in front of her three friends, delivering the last in a shout that sent them rearing back, toward the inside of the ledge, almost right up against the cliff face.

The cracks gave way. Reuniting as a mass of iridescent blue mist, Nightmare Moon streaked up into the sky along the cliff face. as the ledge sheared off into two great slabs of rock, one bearing the lavender unicorn and the Apple mare, the other the white unicorn and the pink Earth pony, all four of them screaming as they dropped into the abyss. The two pegasi rose out of the way of the collapse, for a moment frozen in horror at the fate of their friends.

Rainbow was the first to recover her wits.

“Fluttershy! Quick!” she commanded, darting down after her falling friends. The yellow pegasus, evidently Fluttershy, paused for a moment, then followed her leader.

The four other ponies had managed to land on a more sloping side of the mountain and thus slow their descent. The white unicorn and the pink Earth pony had actually managed to get on all four hooves, but were still sliding rapidly, while the Apple mare and the lavender unicorn were skidding downward on their backs, trailing dust. Pebbles and the occasional small boulder bounced down beside them.

Nightmare Moon saw with satisfaction that the slope would become sheer in another hundred or so yards. Beyond that was a sheer drop of several hundred yards to the floor of a canyon.

The pegasi could save at most two of them. The other two would plummet to their deaths.

Rainbow swooped down, snatched up the pink Earth pony. Fluttershy streaked past them, rescuing the white unicorn.

Probably their sworn bloodsisters, realized the Moon Princess At moments like these, you save your boon companions. Too bad for the other pair, the Nightmare commented cruelly.

The Apple mare saw a root protruding from the slope. In a demonstration of quick wits and reflexes, she bit the root, clasping it firmly in her jaws, her neck muscles straining as she managed to stop her slide toward death. Oh, well done, thought the Moon Princess, surprised at the Apple’s presence of mind. I wish I could have that one in my Night Guard. Too bad she’s sworn to my evil sister.

The lavender unicorn kicked out desperately against the ground as she approached the edge of the sheer drop, crying out in fear and frustration as her own momentum merely abraded the slope’s surface instead of stopping her.

Too bad, little stargazer, thought the Princess of the Night, feeling strangely sad. I wish this had not been necessary. Maybe I’ll meet you again someday, in your next …

A look of determination came into the unicorn’s eyes as she saw the slope and her life simultaneously running out. At the last moment, she rolled and twisted, digging all four hooves into the ground. Dust and pebbles sprayed out into the void, and her hindquarters went over, but her forehooves had just enough of a hold to stop her. She hung from the cliff’s edge, hind legs trying but failing to find lodgement on the inverted slope below her. The edge to which she clung began to crumble …

Finish her! thought the Nightmare to herself. All it would take would be one more attack, any attack, and at least one of Celestia’s champions would fall to her death. But something – something she could not quite understand – kept her from intervening.

Then the Apple clansmare surprised her for the second time that night.

The Apple saw her friend’s peril; her inability to climb off the edge. She looked regretfully at the root which had proved her own salvation, closed her eyes, sighed, made her decision.

She let go and slid down the slope toward her friend.

Such courage! thought the Moon Princess. Not one in a hundred would have done that, even for a friend!

“Hold on,” said the Apple mare. “Ah’m a `comin!” With casual strength and grace, she used all four hooves and her broad back to control her contact with the slope face, then rolling to her belly, rising and leaning back slightly to skid to a stop right in front of the lavender unicorn.

“Applejack!” cried the unicorn. “What do I do?” She was not panicking, but there was a note of understandable fear in her voice. Her rear hooves scrabbled, dislodging pebbles but unable to find a secure hold.

Applejack leaned forward, contacted the unicorn hoof-to-hoof, the myriad tiny suckers on the Earth Pony’s pads grabbing on to her companions’s carpals. The strength of those suckers was surprisingly great, but proportionately far less than those of a dragon’s talons or minotaur’s hands. Applejack could not simultaneously apply enough force to heave the lavender unicorn out of danger, without risking either breaking the hold of her fore hooves, causing her friend to fall – or worse, breaking the hold of her hind hooves on the slope face, causing both ponies to plummet off the cliff. And the edge continued to crumble.

Both Applejack and the lavender unicorn began to inch downward. But the orange pony refused to let go.

The Moon Princess was rapt in admiration for what she was witnessing. A traitorous voice within her cheered on the efforts of the earth pony. She wanted to see her heroism rewarded with the success it deserved, even though this would mean the failure of her own attack.

Applejack trembled with the effort, not merely of strength but also co-ordination, clearly aware that a single false move would doom them both. There seemed no way for the earth pony to pull her friend to safety, and if they just remained in this position, the edge would give way and tumble them both to their deaths.

Then she looked up, realized something. Nightmare Moon followed her gaze, came to the same realization.

“Let go,” said Applejack.

“Are you crazy?!!” protested the purple unicorn.

“No, ah ain’t. Ah promise you’ll be safe.”

“That’s not true!”

“Now, listen here,” stated Applejack. She seemed to gather some inner strength. “What Ah’m saying to you is the honest truth,” she continued, looking directly into the eyes of her friend. “Let go, and you’ll be safe.”

Something seemed to pass between them. The watcher could feel it – something powerful, something beyond the understanding of the Nightmare, though to the Moon Princess it felt somehow familiar.

The unicorn’s eyes grew very wide. She closed them, gathered her own strength.

She let go.

And fell off the cliff with a shout of surprise.

The unicorn plummeted, shrieking.

But the Moon Princess had discerned what Applejack had already seen. It came as no surprise to her when Rainbow and Fluttershy darted in from either side and simultaneously caught the lavender unicorn.

The unicorn sighed in relief, then yelped as Fluttershy nearly lost control of her side. But the two pegasi regained control before they could fall very far.

“Sorry, girls,” said Fluttershy, as she and Rainbow lowered the unicorn to the ground. “I’m not used to holding on to anything more than a bunny or two.”

Meanwhile, Applejack bounded down the seemingly-sheer cliff in a display of utter athleticism, her strength and coordination allowing her to leap with almost the grace of a mountain goat. The lavender unicorn happily watched her.

The Moon Princess also felt an unexpected surge of joy, which was abruptly cut short. Fool! the Nightmare reminded herself. What are you happy about? This was failure, not success. That trap should have killed one or two of them, and none of Celestia’s champions are even injured!

She darted down the canyon to her next piece.

Clearly, passive ambushes are unreliable against their skills, Nightmare Moon thought. Something more active is needed to stop them.

They won’t come out of this next encounter unscathed, she promised herself. I will see them perish!

Author's Note:

It's never been explained in-canon how the Ponies are able to pick up and manipulate things with fore-hooves which are in real horses just the strengthened nails of single fingers (the equivalent of our middle fingers). The hooves of the Ponies are clearly more flexible than real horse hooves (they've been animated as slightly curling around objects they grasp) but not sufficiently flexible to allow them to oppose any sections.

There are two possibilities. Either the Ponies are polydactyl (multi-fingered) as were the ancestors of modern horses (the atavism sometimes recurs today, as witness Bucephalus and Dactylus, the horses of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar respectively) and able to oppose some of their fingers, or they have some other means of grasping objects -- one which, while not as effective as human hands (ask Lyra Heartstrings!) suffices for many purposes.

I considered a limited form of the telekinesis which unicorns all use. This is actually still possible, but if so it's very weak and subtle, because we never see the telltale glow that accompanies the use of unicorn magic in canon.

Fortunately, there's another possible mechanism -- one which doesn't even require any magic.

The hands and feet of geckos (reptiles of infraorder Gekkota) use a combination of the secretion of a sticky fluid and the geometry of tiny suckers on their surface to generate adhesion with other surfaces through Van der Waals forces (what gives water "surface tension"). This is astonishingly efficient at their small size, and humans equipped with "gecko gloves" can actually generate enough friction in such a manner as to be able to stick to walls, even supporting their own weight provided that the reverse slope isn't too severe.

I postulate here that some such mechanism, controlled by a mind and nerve system far more advanced than that found in any gecko, enables the Ponies to grasp and even manipulate objects with some dexterity. The Pony's mind simply wills to grasp more or less firmly at any given point on her hoof, not consciously thinking about it any more than I consciously think about the complex and detailed finger motions I make in typing this sentence. The glands and suckers respond, in a manner learned by the Pony in infancy, exactly as humans learn to control their own fingers (Unicorns, and probably alicorns as well, often partly forget how to do this because their magic is more dextrous, unless they are perfectionist craftsmares such as Rarity Belle). It is a miracle of nature, which of course most Ponies simply take for granted -- just as we take our own hands for granted, until we injure a finger.

I go into some detail here because of the scene where Applejack saves Twilight from falling off the cliff. Applejack is the strongest non-alicorn mare yet shown in canon, and possibly the strongest non-alicorn Pony of either sex, aside from her Big Mac, her huge brother. She is also about as well-coordinated as any mare who is not a specialized athlete, as she demonstrates in her own descent down the cliff face.

Humanoid Applejack could have easily saved humanoid Twilight in that situation. Human thumbs and fingers provide firm grips, and the "acrobat's grasp" (fingers to wrist, fingers to wrist) is almost unbreakable given two remotely healthy humans -- their shoulders might dislocate first. That is because humans are descended from semi-arboreal creatures, who lived much as do modern chimpanzees or bonobos.

The Ponies are not. They are descended from plainsdwelling herbivores whose hooves were optimized for running and secondarily for fighting. Hence, Applejack's problem on the cliff, and Luna's admiration for her skill and courage. AJwas doing the equivalent of a human attempting a complex underwater rescue. Her hoof-grasp would have given way under the full force of her equine musculature: either fore or hind, dooming one or both of them. What's really impressive is that Applejack was acting against every instinct, save her social ones. She is a rock of courage and determination.

You go, AJ!

And Lyra -- you have a point there. Hands are definitely better for grasping.

Comments

[Knight of Lycaeus]

Seeing Nightmare Moon's perspective from this has been interesting but I find your explanation for how ponies can hold things even more so. I've enjoyed the insights and how Nightmare Moon/Luna sees the situations and it should interesting of seeing why she tried the other traps.

[Jordan179]

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To narrate the action sequences in particular, I had to pay very close attention to the in-canon choreography. There are things that are inobvious on a casual viewing which can be seen as important when one watches in detail, such as the fact that Twilight rolled onto her belly before reaching the edge of the cliff (something which saved her life, as it let her get a firm grasp on the cliff). IIRC, she doesn't actually do this on-camera, but it's obvious she's done this from her position from one scene to the next. Putting oneself in her place, it becomes obvious why she did it, too!

Watching the scene where Applejack saves Twilight impressed me greatly with (1) Applejack's utter awesomeness as an action heroine (remember, she can neither fly nor telekinese, and she's from a species not as used to climbing as humanity), (2) the fact that she can only apply a fraction of her strength to grasping, compared to the capabilities of a human in her place. This cemented in my mind that Ponies have to be grasping by gecko-grip, rather than (non-animated) additional fingers (a real horse has only one functional digit on each limb).

Thus, my little essay. I'm glad you liked it.

[Knight of Lycaeus]

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How ponies actually hold things in their hooves is not something I've given much thought about nor have I usually seen an explanation, it just is. So thanks for a reason of the how.

[Discord43]

Your way of how ponies grasp things make the most sense. And excellent story

[Redric Carrun]

I am now interested in seeing what sort of culture Nightmare Moon comes from where sworn bloodsisters are commonplace enough to just assume they exist for... well, no real reason at all, really, except maybe that the mane six look like a team of battle-hardened champions, and that's just what champions do.

If your friends are falling off a cliff, you've got to start somewhere if you're going to save any of them.

On a different note, it's always felt kind of weak how Applejack doesn't just tell Twilight, "Let go, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy will catch you." I wonder if someone could puzzle out an actual reason for that decision, rather than just using it for dramatic tension. Hmm...

I like the whole "Moon Princess" vs. "the Nightmare" thing at the end there. Very clever.

[ForSpite]

She had first seen her in Canterlot – she was probably not resident to this time.

Either that should be TOWN or it's a Freudian slip on Luna's part due to reincarnation shenanigans.

[RantingPirate]

I like your use of "the Moon Princess" and "the Nightmare" as a subtle indicator of which part of the Mare in the Moon's mind is behind thoughts and emotions.

[Zobeid]

It's never been explained in-canon how the Ponies are able to pick up and manipulate things with fore-hooves. . .

My explanation is a lot simpler than yours: They can't.

I figure what we've seen in the TV show is simply artistic license, a story-telling shortcut. Ponies can nudge things with their hooves, pin an object between their front hooves, or hook things behind their heel bulb and pull. They can also manipulate a lot with their mouths, as we've seen. I would suspect they also have common tools used to help them with everyday manipulations.

And why, you might well ask, have we not seen all of this? It's because FiM is a 22-minute (sans commercials) cartoon show for small children, not a National Geographic documentary. Explaining and demonstrating all this would get in the way of the story. And yet. . . I find myself very attracted to the idea of ponies not having some magical or exotic trick for grabbing things with their hooves. Being quadrupedal and not having hands are a couple of their most defining traits, and a major reason why we even have a world full of ponies instead of just EQG.

[Frankie2]

If I didn't know better, which I don't. I could almost guess that Applejack is your favorite pony out of the Mane Six.

[Jordan179]

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I love Applejack. Having said this, Luna's liking for Applejack is well-established in "Luna Eclipsed," where the only member of the Mane Six she behaves in friendlier fashion toward is Twilight Sparkle herself. She calls AJ "fair Applejack" (which is both a compliment and a literal description, as Applejack is light-colored). And in "Zen and the Art of Gazebo Maintenance" she is very friendly toward Big Mac, and I would imagine she knew whose brother that was.

[Maran]

AJ really is kind of an unsung hero for risking her life to save a pony she just met.

Your "sucker hooves" theory is interesting, although I prefer the "contact telekinesis" theory. I offer two pieces of evidence from the show. First, we see ponies quickly reshaping their manes and tails and holding these shapes - not just Pinkie, but also Rainbow in later episodes. And Pinkie, AJ, Apple Bloom, and Fluttershy have all used their tails to grasp and manipulate objects. Since hair is always in contact with the body, it would be simple to move hair using contact telekinesis. Second, there's apple bucking. It might not seem magical at first - there are actual real-life machines that shake trees to make apples fall - but note how only the apples fall and never any leaves or twigs. And note how the apples tend to land precisely where the pony wants them to land.

As for the contact telekinesis not glowing, there are two possible explanations. First, earth pony magic doesn't glow and pegasus magic doesn't produce light unless they exert a lot of energy. And second, contact telekinesis is probably weaker than that produced by a unicorn's horn.

[Idkwhattobe]

Honestly such good writing plus a nice dose of pony-theory. I have no idea why someone would go as far as to downvote