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Will Last Forever5,710 words
Threadbare5,308 words
Tunnel in the Sky5,475 words
Friends in High Places5,499 words
The Light of Day5,893 words
The Dark of Night5,456 words
Dampened Enthusiasm5,668 words
A Challenger5,231 words
Trust and Wariness6,436 words
Light Reflected from the Moon6,094 words

Threadbare

Luna

Princess Luna was, contrary to popular belief, very much a morning pony.

The morning was the time she could finally take off her crown, peytral, and horseshoes. It was the time she could rest her charge beneath the horizon and cover the light of the stars. She could hoof over the governance of Equestria to her sister and watch the beautiful sunrise, before crawling under her sheets and falling asleep herself. Where most ponies would grumble and beg for five more minutes, Princess Luna greeted each morning with exuberance and joy.

The only problem was that it wasn't morning.

Princess Luna squirmed under her sheets, groaning. "Prithee, allow us five more minutes," she muttered in Old Equestrian.

Her mane, a portrait of night filled with twinkling stars, perpetually blowing in the interstellar wind, was trapped under her body and waved against her coat in something almost like anguish. With a resigned sigh, she sat up and let her mane smooth itself out before rolling out of bed onto all four hooves. Her horn lit up and floated over her royal trappings, slipping them on with practiced ease. Even with her enormous earth pony magic flowing through her limbs and granting them strength, she felt weak and wobbly.

Princess Luna was not at all a dusk pony.

Still, she forced her hooves to move. Luna trotted through her room to a door and threw it open, revealing her balcony. She trotted forward and beheld the planet's shadow, ready to rise up and cast the night. The planet's shadow, projected against its own atmosphere, took the form of a massive dark blue streak, tinted at the top with red. Luna opened up her spiritual link to the moon and stars, feeling the great motions of the cosmic discs above her.

There was a ripple through the cosmos as Luna's sister worked her own spiritual solar magic, wrapping around the sun and gently pushing it beneath the horizon. That was her cue; reaching through the link to her realm, Luna channeled her magic into a long-routine spell. Not even she could move the moon on her own, not an inch, not with a trillion times the power she wielded. Thanks to her spirit link however, she didn't need nearly that much power. She hefted the moon up over the horizon and sent it on its way, and then let forth the light of the incomprehensibly distant stars, arranging them in various constellations and patterns, before painting the sky with streaks of purple and deep blue, however the artistic whim in her desired.

Soon she was done painting the night sky and nodded, a gentle smile on her lips. Down below in Canterlot, a great many lights went out as occupants prepared to sleep, whose dreams Luna would guard, while other lights came on as Canterlot's vibrant nightlife began to pick up momentum. It brought a smile to her muzzle. Already the air was cooling down to something Luna, with her thick, full coat, quite enjoyed.

She turned around and walked back inside her private chambers, sealing the balcony door behind her. She opened the doors to the halls of Canterlot and trotted out, two members of her Night Guard falling into step behind her and matching her strides. Already she was waking up, though she wouldn't truly be awake till after her breakfast coffee.

Before too long, Luna made her way to her and Tia's shared dining room. Her guards took their places outside and she walked in, at exactly the same time Celestia walked in from another door. The two sisters shared a smile and then took their seats next to each other.

"Good evening, Luna," she greeted. "I hope you had a restful sleep."

She nodded. "Mmhmm, I slept like a foal. Had a good day?"

"Oh yes. Cadance wrote me, said that preparations for the Equestria Games are going well. Had a good lunch, productive court. Oh, by the way, the astronomers' guild wants a meeting with you, see if you can pencil them in sometime this week."

She rolled her eyes. "They're going to poke me for details about the upcoming comet, aren't they?" It was at that point that a third pony joined them. The earth stallion Gleaming Platter took their orders for food - Princesses weren't allowed to feed themselves in this age, pah - and trotted out to get their meals. "I don't see why they need to pester me about so many details. I've already given them the comet's trajectory, if they want to know anything more about it they can go to it themselves!"

"Lulu, air," the Daybringer reminded her.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes yes, there are spells for that and you know it!" The two of them continued with sisterly banter for a few more minutes - Luna relished her time with Tia, their conflicting schedules didn't give them enough of that - before Gleaming Platter returned. Celestia got her dinner of spaghetti and hayballs, with a cup of steaming tea, while Luna herself got a mug of that wonderful modern invention coffee, and a breakfast of buttered pancakes.

As they ate, they talked. They spoke of Twilight's most recent misadventure, they spoke of relations with the griffons, dragons, zebras and minotaurs, they spoke of Discord's latest prank around the castle that left half the staff gender-swapped for hours on end. Before long, however, they both finished eating their meals and stood.

"Well, I'm turning in," Tia said. "Good night, Luna."

She leaned in and entwined her neck with her sister's. "Enjoy your rest, sister. I'll make sure to give you pleasant dreams." They held the hug for a few moments longer before pulling apart. Celestia teleported away with a flash of sunlight, and Luna cantered out of the dining room. Her guards fell in step besides her, and with a full, happy stomach and coffee in her veins, she was ready to begin the night in earnest.

To start off the night, Luna returned to her private chambers and found, on her nightstand, a comically large stack of documents to sign. With a grimace she walked over to it and using a quill plucked from her own wings, got started.

It was the documents that'd made her realize just how much the world had changed in the thousand years she was possessed by that parasite. Equestria was larger, foreign relations were more stable. The country was nowhere near as militaristic as it had been long ago. While the Crystal Empire had already been smashed into a single city before she was corrupted, Luna still hadn't gotten used to their northern neighbor being so... small. Then there was the nobility, worse than in her time and indeed seeming to become more corrupt by the day. And the technology!

That thought made her pause in filling out some medical forms for her annual checkup - however unlikely it was for an alicorn to be sick it was better to be safe than sorry - before continuing.

This new age was filled with wonders which delighted Luna to no end. Imagine, a machine that toasts bread perfectly, all on its own!

... with some oversight, as she had once discovered.

The papers were many, but even before the Nightmare she'd had fifteen hundred years of ruling alongside her sister to get used to the workload. Soon enough, Luna was finished with that workload and, quickly checking the moon's position in the sky, she realized it was almost time for Midnight Court.

Luna got to all fours and once again left her room, the guards falling into place behind her. She knew the path to the throne room like the frogs of her hooves, so when she didn't find herself in the throne room and instead what appeared to be a circular loop of a staircase that had no entrance she was rather confused.

Passing the window she affectionately regarded as Castle Window #13 for the tenth time, Luna paused and her Night Guard stopped with her. She sighed. "Discord, what are you doing?"

There was flash of brilliant white light from before her, revealing the draconequus in all his 'glory'. He reclined in the air, crossing his limbs. "Why Woona, I'm just practicing for the big day coming up! I call it - " He brought his hands together. " - the endless staircase!" He spread his arms out, forming an illusion of a series of stairs going in a square, but somehow never elevating. "Going pretty well if I do say so myself, got the inspiration after Pinkie showed me a picture of a inside-out cube." He grinned and clapped his hands, dispelling the stair illusion.

"And you thought it best to practice on me?" Luna asked with a raised eyebrow. "Discord, I'm late for court."

"So what? It's not like anypony interesting's coming. Sunbutt gets all the fun cases, you know," he said, slithering up to her and draping his lion arm over her withers. She held down a shudder of revulsion, and behind her the two guards bit their tongues. "You only get the boring blah blah border issues blah blah insurance fraud cases. It's not like they can't stand to wait."

"Discord, those are important cases. Let me pass now," she said with a stomp of her hoof. On the best of days, she and Discord got along... passably. Out of herself, Celestia and the draconequus, she was the least given to the art of pranking - not to say she wouldn't get back at Celestia for the Blue Moon - and so she and Discord had quite little in common. On the worst of days... the less she thought about those the better.

The chaos lord rolled his yellow, pupiless eyes, but snapped his eagle talon. There was a flash of light and something that felt like fizzy water in Luna's mouth, and he nodded. "Well, enjoy listening to Tweedledee and Tweedledum yapping on all night, Woona." He moved around in mid air until he was no longer laying down but instead hovering. "I've got places to go, things to do, ponies to dye, you understand. Arrivede - "

As he prepared to teleport away, Luna spoke up. "Hold, Discord." He did, forming iron manacles around his limbs, complete with chains that ran to the walls. Luna flew up next to him and whispered in his ears. "Tomorrow at six in the afternoon, Tia will have the royal kitchens begin making a cake for her consumption. Let's make it one she'll remember."

Discord pulled away and banished the chains, grinning wickedly. "Oh ho ho, I like the way you think, Woona." He reached up with his lion paw and tousled her astral mane, which behaved like it was solid and remained rustled for a few moments after he removed his paw before beginning to flow again. "Well, ta-ta now, I simply must be off. Those chrysanthemum's won't learn to sing the Ode to Joy on their own now will they?"

"You're teaching what to what?" she asked in surprise.

But before she could get a response, Discord pretended to do a pirouette in mid air and vanished with a flash of chaotic power, sending the sensation of being tickled with the blunt end of a feather through Luna's primaries.

Princess Luna sighed. She hadn't, of course, worked out any of the details of their upcoming prank on Tia, but that was probably just as well for Discord. At the very least, she could say anything that happened was his idea. A smile tugged at her lips. Discord, messing with her sister's precious cakes. Mayhaps she could get her hooves on one of those 'cameras' for the occasion and blame him for it all; she was least given to pranking among them, but she would get her revenge for the Blue Moon.

She blinked and shook her head. What was she doing, getting sidetracked like that? She had business to be on and she was late! Luna took a step forwards...

... and the room around her shimmered and she found herself in the throne room. She blinked, and sent a mental thanks Discord's way. She walked over to the throne, which in the night shifted to a dark blue throne her size. She trotted over to it and sat in her throne while her guards took up places with the other Night Guards around the throne room.

Princess Luna looked to her left at her seneschal, the yellow coated unicorn Sounding Voice, and nodded. "Let this session of Midnight Court begin! Send forth the first petitioner."

So began the Midnight Court. The first petition was a small matter between two ponies over the specific borders of their farms, a cabbage farm and a carrot farm in Hoofington. There was a lot of legal jargon thrown around, but Luna cut through it with fifteen hundred years of insight and ruled in favor of the cabbage farmer.

The next one was an appeal to justice by an inmate. Sour Grapes had been accused of embezzling bits from fundraisers and was in the midst of serving her sentence. She was pleading to be let out early on terms of good behavior, nonviolence in her crime, and claims of having learned her lesson. While such a thing would likely have worked on her sister, it did not work on Luna. She reviewed the papers of the crime in question, and found that what had been stolen to be in the realm of hundreds of thousands of bits. Sour Grapes had no family, no dependents. Luna decreed she would serve out the remainder of her sentence.

Midnight Court's work was pleasing, it was relaxing. It gave Luna the feeling of hooves-on helping her subjects that filling out forms and passing laws simply couldn't. And there was so many petitioners too, ponies who couldn't get an appointment with the Noon Court, or who desired a fair but firm decision, came to her. It made her feel appreciated, loved. Everything she hadn't had back... then.

Luna shook the feeling from her head and continued to listen to each case. Discord had had a point; they were quite boring cases. Important ones, but rather uninspiring as far as things went. What she wouldn't give to be painting her night, shuffling around stars and protecting dreams, or debating magic with Twilight Sparkle.

After settling a case of marriage paperwork being misfiled, they had a minute before the next petition. Luna looked over at Sounding Voice. "Tell me Sounding Voice, how has your night been?"

The unicorn looked up, one amber eye hidden behind a lock of gold mane. "Very well, Luna." It'd taken a great deal of work to get him to stop calling her Princess in private - guards notwithstanding - all the time. "Had a good meal, coffee from Starplucks. Money's not an issue, life's going pretty well. You?"

She smiled down at her little pony. "Quite well. The night is young, I've finally figured out how I want my next constellation to look - " It was to be a pair of scales. " - and I have been invited to a... I believe it is called 'sleepover' by Twilight Sparkle." She smiled to herself. Yes, things were going swimmingly.

Time passed and soon Midnight Court ended. Luna had gotten through every petitioner just the time allotted for Court ended, which left her feeling very happy with herself. She sent an order for a light lunch to the kitchens and asked for it to be delivered to her balcony, which she flew to. It was an hour and a half after midnight, a time she usually reserved for dreamwalking.

Once on her balcony, Luna relaxed and closed her eyes. Without effort, the dreamscape appeared before her. It was a shifting, chaotic mass of blue and dark green, like light reflecting off a pool of something that wasn't quite water. Surrounding her, in all directions, were tiny bubbles of air floating around her. Each one was opaque and impossible to see into unless she were to enter them. Every one of them had a differently colored sheen over them, indicating the status of the dream, and their different sizes showed how stable the dream was; smaller dreams were more likely to end.

Luna spotted a nearby, giant orb that she knew from its proximity to her was Celestia's. It shimmered grass green with potential and peace. Moving her ethereal hoof over to it, she tapped it and set it to blue wish fulfillment. She flew out on fake wings in fake space, looking over the various dreams. With but a look she could read whose dream it was. With a touch she could set the general tone. And pushing her hoof deeper into one she could enter the dream itself and see what it truly was, something she rarely did, rarely had to.

She mostly paid attention to the dark red dreams, the nightmares, steering them towards peace and fulfillment dreams. She easily soared through Equestria's dreamscape, taking care of it all. Part of her was aware in the real world, of a guard flying up to her with her lunch in his hooves. Acting in the physical realm while her mind was occupied in the dream realm, she took it and began eating.

She visited Ponyville, relieving the nightmares of Bon-Bon, Thunderlane, and Fluttershy. She looked the other way from the pink dreams of the Cake spouses; she'd learned long ago to let those dreams be.

The alicorn drifted through the dreams of Equestria as she ate her modest lunch, watching as dreams flickered and faded or popped into being all around her, like rolling waves, growing and shrinking and changing colors, some languidly and some quickly. She turned her magic on herself, poking and prodding around in her mind and finding that her 'orb' was intact -

- wait.

Princess Luna thought she saw something.

She drew out of the dreamscape and ran magical scans over the forefront of her consciousness. When her scans found nothing out of the ordinary besides some additional confusion, she dove deeper into her subconscious, her soul, that which made her who she was. Still Luna found nothing, but she wasn't done. She knew she'd seen something, she was sure of it.

Lighting up her horn with cosmic energy, she opened her link to the night sky and all that dwelled within. She carefully went over her spiritual bond with her magic scan, looking for anything, anything at all, that was out of the ordinary. She went over the darkness of the sky, the stars, the moon.

There! In the portion of her link devoted to the moon, there was something. If her bond to the moon was a series of blue fibers stretching from her body to the surface of the cosmic sphere, then the irregularity was a single thread out of place, hanging out into the abyss. It was also quite dark, a deep purple that was almost black.

Luna frowned, prodding the magic. It was different. Deeper, honed, spiteful and filled with desire. The magic was also stale; clearly it hadn't been exercised in a while. The fact that it managed to hide from her for so long was surprising enough; something must've really hit that little flicker of magic hard for it to take so long to be noticeable again. In fact, looking closer, the unfamiliar magic was actually quite familiar to her. It was the same magic she'd wielded when Luna had called herself... called herself...

No. It couldn't be.

But no matter what angle Luna viewed the magic from, a tiny thread that cast itself out towards who-knew-where, she got the same results. In her magic, in the very bond to her sacred moon, was a tether of Nightmare Moon's magic.

She snapped herself back to the real world, and backed away from her balcony edge as panic began to sink its icy daggers into her chest. It couldn't be. How was that demon's magic still on her? How much of a hold did it have? She was sure it hadn't been there before, was it growing? Would it consume her again?!

Luna's mind flashed back to the horrible millenia on the moon, of wildly swinging temperature and no companionship, viewed dimly through the haze of her consuming madness.

"No!" she cried out, stumbling back. Raw, animal panic overrode all her composure in a second - I am not going back! - and she transformed into mist. She flew back into her room and squeezed through the door leading to the castle halls. Still in the form of scintillating fog, she flew through Canterlot Castle to the only pony she would trust with something like this.

She squeezed under Celestia's door and reformed inside. Luna retained enough presence of mind to soundproof the room, and then let her panic flow.

"Tia! Tia! Help us!" she bellowed in Old Equestrian. She found her sister sprawled atop her covers and launched herself at the other alicorn. Celestia shrieked and thrashed when she made contact, but Luna wrapped her forelegs around her. "Don't let her get us, don't let her get us!"

"Gwa, bah, nyah! Luna, what is wrong with you?" Celestia pushed herself up into a sitting position and wrapped her hooves around Luna, who was in hysterics. "Luna, calm yourself!"

"We can't, we can't," she whispered, holding Tia with all her immense earth pony strength. "She's still there, she's still out there. Don't let her get us, please Tia don't let her get us. We don't want to turn on thee again, we don't want to, we don't - "

"Luna, Luna get a hold of yourself!" she said sternly. "This isn't like you. Take a deep breath." Celestia put a hoof on Luna's heaving barrel. "In." Tia pulled her hoof away, and Luna's breathing shuddered. "Out." The hoof pushed back in, forcefully expelling the breath from her lungs. "In." The pressure relented, allowing Luna to take in air. "Out."

A few more cycles, and Luna had calmed down. "Right. Thank you, sister. I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me."

Celestia rubbed some sleep out of her eyes. "Maybe you could start by letting go?"

She shook her head and buried her snout in Tia's coat. "Don't wanna," she mumbled foalishly.

"Fine, just like when we were fillies then. Start at the beginning, Lulu. What's wrong?" she asked in a motherly tone. Luna hated it when Celestia used that tone.

"Alright, alright." She took another deep breath in and out, calming her frazzled nerves again. "I was dreamwalking, when I thought I noticed the barest glimmer of magic upon my own mind. I looked into it, and found it in my spiritual link. Tia, Tia it's her magic. A thread of some sort, connecting her to me. I-I didn't notice it before. What if it's growing stronger?" She hugged Tia harder, making the elder alicorn croak for breath. "I don't want to be her again! I don't want to betray you again!"

Pushing her far enough to breathe, Celestia rubbed her back with a forehoof. "Shh, shh. Luna, do you mind if I take a look?"

Luna shook her head. "No, please do." What was wrong with her? She was Princess Luna, the Nightbringer, mistress of dreams and goddess of the moon. She had faced off the demon Tirek and stood her ground against Discord back before his reformation. But one little thread of magic in her link and she was suddenly a scared little filly again? Perhaps the Nightmare had done more damage than she was willing to admit to herself.

Before too long she felt her sister's magic flowing along her horn, deep into her soul, and through the lunar bond. The magic was slow and methodical, caring and warm. The scan reached the dark portent of Nightmare Moon's magic and surrounded it. She felt Celestia focus her magic on it, trying to burn away the link, but it resisted stubbornly. Luna felt more magic force itself into her link and her eyes grew wide.

"Stop, stop!" she said, pulling away from Celestia. "You might damage my bond, Tia!"

Her sister frowned. "Is that even possible?" she asked.

"Do we want to take the risk?" Luna countered. She took another deep, cleansing breath. "No, no no. Let me at least try and contain it." Luna concentrated and lit up her horn, pouring magic through her cosmic link. It pooled in the channel and formed a shield around the angry, dark blotch of Nightmare Moon's power, sealing it away safely. She didn't believe for a second that it was a permanent solution, but it would at least buy them time to analyze what it was doing there.

"Done," she said, clambering off of Celestia's bed. Across from her, Celestia did the same, wiping her tired eyes with a hoof. "Sister, I am sorry for having awakened you with my foalish panic," she said with a hoof to her chest. "I apologize."

"Luna, it's not foalish," Celestia insisted. "You know that I'm here for you. Especially if it concerns the -"

There came a furious knocking on the door. "Princesses?" came a guard's muffled voice from the other side. "Are you okay? We saw you fly in, you appeared unwell!"

Celestia trotted over to the door and opened it, staring down at the assembled Night Guards. Luna followed her, standing side by side with her sister to address her guards. "Everything is fine," Luna said. "Thank you for your diligence, but we're fine; I merely had a scare. You are dismissed."

They saluted. "Yes, Your Highness," they said in perfect, eternally loyal synchronization. They returned to their posts, and with a sigh Luna closed the door.

Now that the only eyes on her were her sister's, she rubbed her temple with a hoof. "Alright. I think I've contained its magic."

"Luna," Celestia offered. "Can I take another look? I want to see where the thread leads."

She tilted her head, frowning. It made sense. If there was a thread of the Nightmare's magic latched to her, it only made sense that the other end would be in the Nightmare itself. Though that raised all sorts of questions, such as 'why hadn't the Elements obliterated it?'. On the other hoof, it could very well be a piece of magic dangling from her link, bound to nothing.

Princess Luna sighed, but allowed it and again opened her magic. "See if you can, sister," she said softly.

Celestia's golden magic swept through her again, pouring down her spiritual link and surrounding the little barrier she'd placed around Nightmare Moon's inert magic. She could feel Celestia's magic gently stripping away the shield, and pouring through the ragged thread of the Nightmare's power, carefully so as not to accidentally awaken the sleeping beast. In her mind's eye Luna followed the magic as it went down the thread, out of her spiritual link, out into the night sky, down towards the planet, and then...

... it vanished.

No, that wasn't right. Nightmare Moon's magic didn't vanish, as that implied it faded away into nothingness. No, it simply cut off. And right before it did the channels of magic seemed to distort, warp, fold away before being abruptly halted.

Celestia's magic withdrew, and Luna reformed the containment shield on the tainted magic. "What is it?" she asked the solar alicorn.

"It's... strange, Lulu. Almost as if the thread is vanishing into a portal, except not quite."

"I saw it too, sister." She sat down and brought a hoof to her chin. "But where is it going? Where is Nightmare Moon, if anywhere?"

"I can't say." Celestia sat down and mimicked her pose, just without her royal garb. "Luna, I've never seen something like this. We should probably conduct an investigation on this."

She nodded. "Good, good. We must stop whatever is happening before it can even get off the ground." She stomped. "I am not letting that parasite ruin my life a second time," she said resolutely.

"Should I send for Twilight? This is a magical conundrum so this is right in her area of expertise."

Luna pondered that for a moment. On one hoof, this was her and Tia's problem, no need to involve her dear friend and worry her. But on the other hoof, any chance of the Nightmare possessing her was a matter of highest importance, and Princess Twilight was quite the skilled spellcaster; she didn't have the raw centuries of magical knowledge she and her sister did, but her mind was sharp as a blade and her thoughts swift as the wind. She and Celestia had great experience with magic, but it simply wasn't their talent, they weren't inherently good at it like Twilight was.

"Yes, please write to Twilight, Tia. The more heads working on this, the better." She frowned. "All the same, let's try not to tell anypony else. No sense causing a panic if this really is nothing more than a leftover from the Nightmare I didn't notice until now."

Celestia magically summoned a paper, quill, and inkwell. She wrote a quick letter, and magicked it away. "Done. And now we wait." She yawned again.

"Sorry again for awakening you, Tia. I panicked when I discovered... it."

Celestia walked over and draped a large wing over Luna, nuzzling her. "Nonsense, Luna. I'll always make time for you." The unspoken after last time hung over them like a thundercloud. "We'll get through this. Now, how about we go to the archives? There must be something there we can use."

She stood and smiled at her elder sister. "Yes, let's."

The two of them left Celestia's chambers and headed for the Royal Archives. Luna was feeling much more confident. The Nightmare had been beaten before, not just once but twice. This time, there would be no mercy for that dark parasite.

Author's Note:

I hope you all enjoyed. Please do leave a comment. Even if it's just to say what you liked and not to point out an error, everything helps; knowing what works is as important as knowing what doesn't.

Thanks for trondason for editing this chapter!

I do not own MLP, Hasbro does.

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Drakshaa

Drakshaa #1 · Aug 4th, 2014 · 4 · ·

Enjoyed your characterization of Luna and reformed Discord. The thread portal is also an interesting concept.

Not much else to add except for a cry of MOARRR!!

Mutalist Alad V

Mutalist Alad V #2 · Aug 4th, 2014 · 5 · ·

Nothing wrong, we just wait

Drynwhyl

Drynwhyl #3 · Aug 4th, 2014 · 1 · ·

More plz

Foals Errand

Foals Errand #4 · Aug 5th, 2014 · 2 · ·

Oh yesyesyesyesyes! More please?

ForSpite

ForSpite #5 · Aug 6th, 2014 · 1 · ·

Oooh. Now I do see where it's going. It's going to be interesting for Luna to realize that Nightmare Moon isn't just some parasite but someone who, while cruel, was deeply wronged by their history together and not herself at the time(and I'm quite curious how that history happened).

musicman722