The Castle Canterlot

by Honey Mead

Chapter 8

The Castle Canterlot:
Chapter 8

“Your family is always worth fighting for… even when that means doing everything in your power to stop them.”

—H.R.H. Princess Celestia, 540 ER, excerpt from a speech given on the eve
of the first battle of the War of the Sun and Moon

“Hello, Daughter.”

No amount of foreknowledge could have prepared Cadence for seeing her mother again. For those first twenty years, Nightmare Moon controlled every aspect of her life. From the first day, when she’d been taken away from her foster parents, to the last, when Celestia had rescued her, Cadence had looked upon her ‘mother’ and felt only fear and loathing. Those emotions had only grown stronger over the past thousand years. Even now, after coming fully into her own, wielding an enchanted blade, and covered from hoof to crown in magic armour, Cadence could not banish the slight quake of her ears nor the lash of her tail.

The years had passed Nightmare Moon by untouched. Not a hair on her coat had so much as faded from its oily black. Her midnight wings, longer and more graceful than Celestia’s, kept her aloft with steady down strokes no louder than a whisper on the wind. Every aspect of her figure stunk of command and power, demanding that any who look upon her bow in supplication.

With eyes like cracked emeralds, Nightmare Moon smiled, almost beatifically, down at her daughter.

Cadence squared her shoulders as best she could, her voice carrying with it every ounce of distaste she could force past the tremor. “Mother.”

An abrasive silence ground the seconds into a fine sand that itched and irritated beneath Cadence’s coat as she waited for the… creature that had, through some cruel irony, birthed her to make the first move.

“Well?” Nightmare Moon asked, her tone airy and full of expectation bordering on impatience.

When Cadence made no reply or sign of compliance, her dark lips tightened into a thin line. Gradually, she hovered closer. Cadence backed away to keep her distance, uncertain of her mother’s intentions and unable to make the first move herself.

Four platinum shoes clicked against the stone roof as Nightmare Moon touched down, folding her wings to her sides. A foreleg extended out and wide. “Come, Daughter, give us a hug.”

The tension shattered.

“What?!”

Nightmare Moon’s smile might have been an attempt at disarming and amenable, but the sharp fangs ruined it. “I admit this might not be the most opportune time, but after a thousand years, I think a little indiscretion is forgivable.” She beckoned again Cadence to approach.

Cadence recoiled, backing up a step and falling into a low stance, readying herself for action. “No!”

The Nightmare blinked, rotating her head to the right like an inquisitive bird. “What?”

“I said, No!”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I mean, I’m not going to give you a hug you… you…” Cadence howled in incoherent frustration. Her defensive posture crumbled into aggravated pacing, but always keeping an eye on her mother.

The Nightmare rolled her eye and sighed. “You aren’t a teenager anymore, Daughter. I’d have expected you to outgrow this rebellious streak ages ago.”

“Rebellious streak?!” Cadence verily roared, rounding back to square off with Nightmare Moon once again. “This isn’t—You!” Cadence screamed again. In a swing of cyan magic, she drew Penumbra and leveled the blade at her mother’s muzzle. “What did you do to Auntie?”

“OH! You kept him,” Nightmare Moon cooed, her eyes sparkling with delight as she ogled the quivering bastard sword. “I was so worried that Celestia would’ve had him destroyed.”

“Don’t change the subject!”

“Oh, fie. Celestia’s fine,” she said with a dismissive flap of her wing. “I don’t see why you’re so concerned.” Cadence realigned the sword and Nightmare Moon followed the gesture, her smile growing at the sight of Selene glowing in the night sky. “Ah, I guess I can understand,” she said, turning back. “She is…” —her head snapped violently to the side as her voice fell into an angry mutter— “Will you be quiet! I’m trying to speak with my daughter! Do you have any idea how difficult this is?” —she turned back around and gave Cadence a smile that might have been something approaching apologetic. “As I was saying, Celestia is fat and hap…” —her head snapped back again— “If you don’t like it, you should maybe lay off the cakes!” —and back again— “…and happy.”

Cadence stared at the tall, dark, and deranged mare standing before her. She opened her mouth to respond, but the question never formed properly. Shaking her head, she filed it under ‘things she didn’t want to know’, and pushed onward with more important things.

“What about Twilight?”

“Who?”

“Twilight Sparkle, she’s—” Cadence snapped her mouth shut and silently cursed herself, but it was too late.

Nightmare Moon’s eyes sparkled, the long slits contracting ever so slightly as her smile grew, showing far too many teeth. “Sparkle? This may prove a greater challenge than I anticipated if the Sparkles have sided with Sister. Regardless, she is fine… for now. Though I doubt that will last terribly long.”

“You will not harm a hair on her head!” Cadence surged forward, all the hesitance from before fading as she brought Penumbra to bear in a wide arc.

Nightmare Moon slid back, more akin to a retreating shadow than a pony, avoiding the whistling tip by inches. The shadows beside her coalesced into a solid mass of pure night. Long and slender, the single-edged sword, held horizontal at her side, was long enough to cleave even Nightmare Moon herself from snout to dock with a single swing. “Be careful with my sword, Daughter. I would be distressed to see you hurt yourself.”

For the first time in as long as Cadence could remember, she bared her teeth at another pony. “If you harm her…”

Nightmare Moon scoffed, stomping a hoof. “You know I can’t make that kind of promise. If she persists in her attempts to thwart my plans, I will have no other option. However, in deference to your desires, I will give her every opportunity to return home before I take a more… personal hoof in matters. But the Everfree Forest has never been a safe place, and I will not be blamed if her own foalishness sees her dead.”

“The Everfree?” After a moment. “Oh.”

“And now you understand. Dear sister and I agreed that a confrontation would serve neither of our purposes.”

“So she is just going to let you win?”

Nightmare Moon rolled her eyes. “You’re joking, right? You should know better than that. Dear sister is as manipulative as ever.” Her horn brightened and a small crystal materialized between them. “She gave me a tear.”

“She WHAT?!” Cadence gaped at the tiny sparkling crystal held aloft by the Nightmare’s magic.

“She gave me a tear, insurance against her own interference. All for a promise that I would…” —her head snapped to the side once again— “How? You cheater!” She stomped a hoof. “No, I can’t prove it! … That makes it no less true. … Whatever helps you sleep, Sister.”

“By grandmother’s mane! What are is going on?”

“Such language!” Nightmare Moon chided, turning back to Cadence, the tear disappear back to wherever it came from. “I expect better of you.” Cadence just glared until she continued, “I have a great deal to accomplish, and I cannot afford to simply sit back and wait for Celestia’s champions to fail before I get started.”

“That doesn’t explain anything!”

Nightmare Moon’s ears fell slightly. “Really, Daughter, you are proving to be quite the disappointment.” Cadence did not rise to the bait and Nightmare Moon’s eyes rolled once again. “Celestia and I are on our third game of Stones. She just ‘won’ her second match. I am also searching our old castle for the Element of Magic. Sister has hidden it there, I am sure. Lastly, I am here, speaking with you.

“Once we are finished, and you put my old sword away, we will be off to introduce me to Celestia’s old council. Whatever possessed her to allow the peasantry to write their own laws I shall never understand. Then we shall—”

“What makes you think I will help you?”

“I have been trying to be lenient, Daughter,” Nightmare Moon almost growled, the guttural sound all the more disturbing coming from a pony’s throat, “but my patience for your attitude wears thin. Put down my sword.”

“No.” Cadence drew Penumbra back, holding it at the high ready. “You’re bluffing.”

“I will not ask you again.”

“Well?” Cadence smirked. “I’m waiting, Mother.”

A rod of kinetic force slapped across Cadence's cheek, snapping her head to the side. "I will suffer your disrespectful tone no longer. I am your mother and—"

“You’re a foal stealing monster!” Cadence shouted, returning Nightmare Moon’s glare. “I would sooner see Equestria burn than allow you to rule.”

Nightmare Moon’s gaze chilled. “So be it.” Tamashi had already cleared half the distance before the last syllable left her lips. The clang of metal and crackle of magics filled the air as the two magic swords met for the first time. “Let us see what a thousand years under Sister’s care has taught you.”

Cadence tried to reply, only for Nightmare Moon to press her assault. Despite the blade’s unwieldy length, Tamashi verily danced about Cadence like a mayfly, darting in and out, sweeping wide, only to turn and strike from a wholly different angle. Within moments, Cadence was forced onto her back hooves, desperately trying to recall her long forgotten training, holding off her mother’s blows by the skin of her teeth.

She managed, if barely, intercepting most strikes and diverting the rest enough that they only skimmed off her barding. Simple kinetic blows occupied any attention she could spare from tracking the whirling blades, countering Nightmare Moon’s magic with her own. Already at the end of her rope, Cadence realized just how foalish she’d been to challenge her mother.

“You have not been practicing,” Nightmare Moon chided her as though Cadence had forgotten a homework assignment. “Your stance is weak. Your blade-work, sloppy. How on Ioka’s great shell did you survive with such pitiable skill? The rawest of recruits would have put you down already.”

Cadence caught Tamashi in Penumbra’s guard, holding it long enough for her to speak. “Then why haven’t you?”

Nightmare Moon turned her strike, bringing the cannon-length grip around to bash Cadence’s muzzle, a spray of red splashing onto the stone floor. “Ignorant welp! I could end you anytime I desired.” She swung, feinted, and turned the sword, striking the other side of Cadence’s muzzle with the flat of the blade. “Had I not witnessed you pass from my womb with mine own eyes I would deny you as my daughter.”

Cadence tried to counter the next blow, only to find nothing there and stumble before Tamashi cracked across her foreknee, dropping her into a mockery of a bow.

“You are a disgrace to my name and undeserving of the gifts poured out at your hooves.” Tamashi turned again, the dull edge impacting Cadence’s horn. Her magic failed, and Penumbra clattered to the ground. Magic backlash scoured her mind blank, dropping her to her side as she gripped her head and howled in pain. “Pathetic.”

Cadence was afforded no rest. The pitch blade dug under her chin, forcing her to meet her mother’s gaze. She couldn’t move. Terror like she hadn’t felt since that first night gripped her heart and froze every muscle in her body. Dragon eyes looming over her as she cowered into the depths of her closet, fighting to hold back her tears as the only family she knew were strangled in cords of midnight.

“But you are correct. Even with your sorry showing, I can not spare the concentration. Nor do I hold any desire to see you needlessly harmed. You have a choice before you, Daughter. Either mend your ways and assist me as you are able, or waste your efforts in opposing me. Your choice shall determine my leniency regarding your punishment.” She leaned forward, placing a light kiss between Cadence’s eyes. “Until then.”

And she was gone, like so much smoke on the wind.

The blade disappeared and Cadence collapsed, trembling as tears streamed down her muzzle.

Comments

[Raven Flight]

Oh my...I can see why Cadence doesn't get along with Luna in Myths now. I've wondered about that for a while.
Well done!

[Honey Mead]

4751315
Yes, separating Luna from Nightmare Moon is not something that will come easily for Cadence. Especially since a great many of their personality traits and philosophies are the same... just one takes them to an extreme that the other never would nor could.

[djthomp]

It amuses me that the Nightmare isn't quite as crazy as she is coming across as, she's just having two conversations at the same time in two different locations.

Hmn, random thought, I'm suddenly wondering if the season one episode two trek through the Everfree was so astonishingly unfatal because of the Binding spell on Twilight.

Gee, nice job with that fight, Cadance. Except, you know, the exact opposite.

[Honey Mead]

4751817
To be fair to Cadence, it's been a few hundred years since her last fight, and it also doesn't help that Luna was/is the best swords-mare on Ioka, good enough, in fact, to take Amon's arm where he nearly killed Celestia. (Hence her realization that picking a fight might not have been the best idea ever.)

trek through the Everfree was so astonishingly unfatal because of the Binding spell on Twilight.

*whistles innocently*

[Tundara]

4751817

“She is an artist. ... It is the battlefield that is her canvas. Luna has such a mastery of the sword that I was, to be honest, jealous. ... Ponies got it wrong; she didn’t bring out the monsters, she hunted them beneath Selene’s light.”

-From A Dream of Pride and Envy, Celestia discussing Luna.

Yeah, Luna is a mare that you don't want to take up arms against. Cadence erred thinking that, after hundreds of years not picking up a sword, she would prove a threat to NMM in a duel. I love the description of the fight. Made me go back and redo portions I've written for the next chapter of Myths.

[Shogoki]

We already new that Cadance was young when Luna fully turned but those first two paragraphs make it sound like she never knew her as anything other than NMM, or at least she was too young to remember her as she was before. Seems like even the name Luna is not something she associates with her mother.

I can see how she kept having a hard time accepting Luna after she got "harmonized", it's hard to know what to make of of one who went from wicked to a complete stranger.

[Honey Mead]

4753464
She didn't. Luna's transformation happened shortly after Celestia fostered Cadence against Luna's wishes. It wasn't the last straw, and Luna had already been on the path for a long time (see A Dream of Pride and Envy), but it certainly didn't help matters.

I've tried to show that, even at her worst, NMM still loves both Cadence and Celestia, she's just not very good at it, mostly because they stubbornly refuse to see things her way.

[Themaskedferret]

Please write more?

[meh]

Incredible story, please tell me that it wasn't abandoned at its climax...

[Honey Mead]

5191277
Climax? Are you kidding? We're just getting started! What, you thought Twilight and co. traversed the Everfree Forest in a single night?

[Fwelin]

5191777
Well, they almost certainly did in the show (and we knew this by the time this chapter came out), so I don't blame them for assuming the same would be true in this continuity.

(Yes, I know these comments were made over a year ago, but I couldn't resist).

On another note, if NMM was the second greatest threat to Ioka, who was first? Discord? Iridia? Amon? Someone not mentioned yet?

[Honey Mead]

6960669
How do you know how much time passed during the first two episodes? There was no sun by which to mark the passage of time. Thus, without a clock or direct confirmation by one of the characters, we have no way to properly judge how long it took. It could have just as easily been as long as a month or as short as twenty minutes.