Conversing with the Moon
Inside the castle of princess Twilight, a black alicorn stallion with dark grey armor and molten cracks across his body laid sleeping in his guest room. His bed having been replaced with one made out of pure crystal and heatproof sheets, but the intense energy released from his body was still slowly burning through them.
If one had come inside, one would have thought that there was a statue made of coal and iron lying in the bed. The only indication that he was alive was a slow rising from his chest. Else he laid perfectly still under the sheets. Several shreds and holes were in the sheets, made by the sharp plating that unnaturally was melted onto his flesh. It was as much a part of him as his very body. His tattered wings laid splayed out and were the main cause of the shredding on his mattress.
Neltharion awoke and slowly opened his eyes. His head was empty of thoughts as if his head had been purged of previous doubts and guilt. He slowly sat up on the bed, not caring for the shreds and holes it held, and stretched his back and neck. He then spread his wings and a few cracks were heard as he stretched his joints. He glanced out a nearby window. The moon was on its way down. There was maybe a few hours till dawn would break out.
A week has passed since the events of the changeling’s attack and things hadn’t exactly been peaceful in Equestria.
In Ponyville, everything had gone back to normal. Or, well as normal as things can be with a dragon in alicorn disguise living with the resident princess. To say the least, the public of Ponyville wasn’t happy and has taken further distance from Neltharion and even princess Twilight for keeping him in her castle. Not out of spite or dislike, but of fear.
The news of what had happened in Ponyville had spread like wildfire and after only three days, all of Equestria knew what had happened that night in Ponyville. Although in some places, ponies had gotten the idea that the princesses had encouraged, or even commanded, Neltharion into killing the changelings.
But the worst was happening in Canterlot. Both Luna and Celestia had been pestered by the press and frightened citizens. They had both tried to assure the ponies of Equestria that Neltharion meant them no harm, but had kept further information to themselves. The day after the events of the changelings, both diplomats had begun their journey home to report to their respective rulers and update them on the current events. But Neltharion didn’t particularly care for such things.
Neltharion got out of his bed, wondering what might happen this day, and walked over to the guestroom door.
Nothing had really happened for Neltharion in the week. He mostly spent time in his room and when he wasn’t doing that, he was with Twilight or Spike. It had taken some days for them to adapt to Neltharion’s new form. And after some requests from Twilight, Neltharion had agreed to return his eyes to their previous color with a slight alteration being that Neltharion’s pupils maintained their fiery glow.
He opened the door, expecting guards waiting for him, but to his surprise there were none. Since that day a week ago, princess Celestia and Luna had tripled the amount of guards stationed in Ponyville, most of them eyeing and following Neltharion when they thought he didn’t know. Neltharion didn’t care if they followed him. He was feared among the populace. But fear is also a kind of respect and Neltharion was willing to live with it for now.
Neltharion walked out of his room, closing the door behind him, and began venturing through the dark crystal castle. The halls only lit up by his bright molten blood and glowing hole in his chest. The castle was quiet. Unusually quiet despite it being supposed to be filled with guards.
He thought this might be as good a time as any to start the day even if the day hadn’t technically begun yet.
Soon Neltharion was at the gate to the castle, with still no sign of any guards. Perhaps they had taken a day off? He opened the gate and walked outside and was met with a cold breeze. The night looked like itself. It reminded him of that day with the changelings. As he gazed upon the sleeping village of Ponyville he couldn’t help but be a little surprised. It still felt like only hours ago he had left the village in ruins. He could remember exactly how it had looked when he had returned. Mutilated changeling corpses, houses and cottages that might as well have been hit by giant boulders, the bloodstained ground and the smell of ash and blood in the air. And now it was all gone, returned to its former state.
Neltharion was stuck on what to do. He had nothing to do this early in the morning. Then he remembered something. He remembered how it was to be back in his true form. It might be twisted, corrupted and an abomination compared to what it once was, but it was still his. Then he remembered a feeling. A feeling of freedom and peace. He hadn’t really paid attention to it the last time he had it under the changeling attack. But now it was coming back to him. The feeling he had been missing and then taken for granted when he had finally gotten to experience it. Flying.
Neltharion spread his tattered and leathery wings and looked curiously at them. In truth he had never tried flying in another form. He wasn’t even sure he could fly with those wings, they seemed too small in proportion to his body. He should probably have made them bigger. Nevertheless Neltharion tried slowly flapping his wings.
He could feel the his footing getting lighter as he flapped his wings. Neltharion raised an eyebrow. This shouldn’t be possible? He thought. By all logic, he shouldn’t be able to fly with such little wings. Curious he started flapping them harder and faster and he soon found himself a foot in the air.
“How curious.” He said outloud to himself. He started flapping them faster and he found himself rising in altitude. But he could also feel himself struggling with keeping his balance in the air. Having a pony body was still very new to him.
Neltharion could feel himself starting to lose balance as more and more weight came onto his left wing. He eventually found himself strafing to the left and eventually the weight on his left got so bad that he flew onto his side. Oh, no. Was all Neltharion got to think before his right wing instinctively stopped flapping and he face planted into the crystal floor and started rolling down the stairs.
Neltharion could have sworn he heard someone laughing as he hit the bottom of the stairs. He felt his head pounding with pain from his trip down the stairs, but other than that, he wasn’t hurt. Neltharion grunted and stood up. He looked angrily to his left side. That was my most pathetic display in over fifty-thousand years. Neltharion’s eyes widened and he straightened up and looked around, scanning the area for potential bystanders. He sighed in relief as his eyes found none. At least no one saw it.
He turned his attention back to his wings. Neltharion wasn’t much for giving things a second try, but decided to give it another shot. He slowly spread them once more and began flapping them slowly. Then faster and faster and he suddenly found himself in the air once more, but this time he didn’t feel unbalanced. Neltharion smirked victoriously, adjusted his wings and began flying up into the air. He soon found himself far above Ponyville and he could see it all. The small village in all its glory, the crystal castle that reflected the moon’s light out onto the sleeping village. He could also see Everfree and Canterlot, but what caught his attention the most was the moon. It was a full moon and it was huge, just above Canterlot mountain it was slowly making its descend down towards the horizon. It was a beautiful sight that brought a smile to Neltharion’s lips. One could say many things about Equestria, but one could never say the country wasn’t beautiful.
Neltharion looked down once more to the Everfree forest and spotted the ruined castle that resided within. He had already been there once, but he hadn’t explored much of it in his brief time slithering through it, but he was actually curious about the castle. Why had it been abandoned? With curiosity getting the better of him, Neltharion decided to take another look at the ruined castle. With a powerful flap of his wings, he set off towards the castle.
Neltharion landed outside the ruined castle. It looked just like he remembered it, ruined beyond repair. He briefly remembered the conversation he had with Discord inside and sighed. Nothing had changed since that day. Nothing but him growing more impatient. He liked Equestria, but he didn’t plan on spending the next thousand years here. Who knows what was happening on Azeroth.
Neltharion sighed and walked through the gate into the ruin and quickly found himself in the castle’s throneroom. There were two thrones at the end of the room and several hallways on each side on the way down to the thrones. There was several holes in the walls, all windows were shattered, and there was a large hole in the ceiling. Both thrones were different. They were the same design but different colors. The one on the left was a dark blue in color with a tattered banner above adorned with crescent moon and stars. The throne on the right was golden in color. Above it was another tattered banner, but this one was golden in color and was adorned with a sun. It was very obvious who had once sat on each throne.
Neltharion continued, unimpressed, deeper inside the castle until he came across a library. The library was easily bigger than the throne room and it contained several floors. Across the room and floors were shelves with an uncountable amount of books.
Curious, Neltharion walked over and took out a random grey book from a random shelf. He tried to inspect the book for a title, but it was too dusty. He took a deep breath and blew the dust away, but Neltharion blew a bit harder than he initially intended, successfully blowing the dust off of the rest of the books on the shelf he had picked the book off from, the dust was so dense that it threw him into a coughing fit so severe that he dropped the book he was holding. Small yellow flames came out of his mouth as he coughed and eventually got all of the dust out of his lungs.
A small soot spot was left on the ground next to the book he had dropped. Neltharion regained his posture and looked down to the book and to his surprise there was not a grey book anymore, instead lied a brown leather covered book in its place. Neltharion picked up the book once more and got his eyes on small golden letters on the frontside of the cover. It was not easy to read Equestrian. The text was smudgy and to any other creature than a pony it would be deemed unreadable. But over the last week, Neltharion had picked up some basics in how to read the Equestrian. After some flipping and intense staring at the book, Neltharion eventually made out the words: Unicorn magic 101 on the book.
Even more curious Neltharion opened the book and tried starting to read it the first page. To his frustration, it took very long to decipher each word and he eventually gave up and threw the book with all his might into the shelf he had picked it up from, successfully knocking the shelf over causing it to fall into another shelf and making that fall into another shelf. This cycle continued until all of the shelves in the line were knocked over. A loud *bang* was heard for ever shelf that hit the ground.
Neltharion facehoofed at the sight. There were books, broken shelves and dust everywhere where there used to be a an orderly line of dusty shelves.
Without further thinking, Neltharion left the room. If it was out of embarrassment or sheer annoyance of the whole situation, he wasn’t sure, but he just didn’t want to be in that room any longer. On the way out he heard the laughter again. The same laughter he heard when he crashed outside of Twilight’s castle. This time he was sure it wasn’t his imagination, but nevertheless he continued out the room in the same pace to not seem suspicious.
Now Neltharion also noticed a shadow that was following him in the corner of his eye. No, not a shadow. It was a dark blue cloud that imitated a shadow and was slowly following him as he advanced through the rooms.
He kept leading the blue cloud through the castle to test how close it was willing to get to him. Under his observations of the blue clouds willingness of proximity, Neltharion also began to notice a weak smell coming from the cloud. It smelled like perfume. Like tulips and moonglow flowers. It was familiar. He had smelled that perfume before, but he couldn’t remember where and when. The smell was soothing. It made Neltharion feel relaxed and at peace. He kept feeling relaxed by the smell and lost all train of thought and he eventually found himself back in the throneroom. That’s when he remembered where he had smelled the perfume before and scowled.
“I know you’re here, princess Luna.” He said angrily.
The moment those words left his mouth, the blue cloud seemingly flinched. Neltharion could also swear he heard a gulping sound. Before Neltharion even managed to blink, the cloud appeared in front of him and quickly took the shape of a familiar alicorn princess.
“How didst thou know that we… I were following thee?” She asked, genuinely curious, with a raised eyebrow.
Neltharion walked past her and snorted. “Your unnecessary laughing at my misfortune and that intoxicating smell of yours gave you away.”
Luna shot him a weird look. “Excuse me?”
Neltharion looked back at her, noticing her face having turned a deep red color. “Your perfume.”
“Oh…”
Neltharion rolled his eyes, shifted his attention towards the nearby exit and continued towards it. He could hear metallic hoofsteps behind him, an indication that Luna had decided to follow. In Neltharion’s new pony form, he was about a head taller than her. Neltharion noticed Luna had now walked up beside him and was shooting him the occasional glance. “Why are you following me?” He asked without even looking at her.
Luna also kept her eyes on the road ahead when she answered. “We…I thought this might be as good a time as any to ‘converse’ with thee, seeing as you have been rather quiet this past week.”
“And so you thought to take out all of the guards in Twilight’s castle to get me out.”
Luna froze for a second and then continued walking beside the dragon in disguise. “How did you know?”
Neltharion and Luna had now reached the exit and walked outside. Neltharion took a deep breath, inhaling the clean air instead of the dust filled atmosphere there was inside the ruined castle. He stopped walking and turned to face Luna. “You and your sister have sent over fifty of your royal guards to Ponyville. Most of them are stationed at the castle while the rest patrol and have different shifts. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice the absolute lack of guards both in Ponyville and the castle?”
Luna kept her eyes away from his fiery gaze and didn’t answer.
“How many guards did you bring with you?”
Luna looked up at Neltharion with a questioning look. “What do you mean? Its just you and me out here.”
“Good, then you wouldn’t mind we took this conversation into the air would you?” Neltharion spread his tattered wings as he finished the question.
“Of course not.” Luna answered quickly. She spread her own wings and began flapping them.
Neltharion also started flapping his wings and they both took off into the air, quickly rising far above the forest.
Inside the bushes near the castle, some gold cladded ponies had been sitting at the ready. The leader among them sighed and lit his horn. “Target is suspicious, Blue cloud is airborne and so is target, abort operation.”
Several other bushes started rustling and gold cladded shadows could be seen jumping off the ruined castle’s roof.
“Oh come on!”
“Damn it!”
“I was hoping this would actually get exciting.”
“Can’t believe I canceled a date for this!”
Many other ponies continued to whine until the leader of them had enough. “QUIET!” He yelled, then shook his head and sighed. “Better luck next time I guess.”
Luna flew just beside Neltharion at a reasonable speed. They had just passed over Ponyville. There were sparks, small flames, a small trail of smoke, and the sound of something sizzling coming from Neltharion’s wings. He kept his legs bent and close to his body, just like when he flew in his true form.
Neltharion looked to her. “So, why not just confront me in the middle of the day with bystanders instead of following me through the night?”
Luna smirked mischieviously. “Well, we thought about that, but decided to do it in the night to make it more personal. To be perfectly honest, we were about to make a grand entrance but then discovered thou weren’t in your room. We then found you at the staircase outside the castle, rolling down the stairs and decided to follow you. We never would have thought it would be so amusing to follow thee.”
Neltharion shot her a glare. “Next time reveal yourself before letting me make a fool out of myself.”
Luna chuckled. “No promises.”
Neltharion couldn't help but smile at her response. Then he remembered something. “There is also something I have been meaning to ask.”
Luna gave him a questioning look.
“Have you made any progress with finding me a way home?”
Luna shifted her attention back to sights ahead. Luna had been searching for the entirety of canterlot castle trying to find anything on other world transport. In the past week she had been searching through Starswirl the bearded’s personal library for something, since she wanted him gone as fast as possible, but had only found a single book that contained theories, but not concrete methods of otherworld traveling. “Unfortunately, no.”
Neltharion’s ears drooped as he heard those words, but he shook his head free of any depressing thoughts. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
Luna flew a little ahead and gazed down at the city of Canterlot not far from them. “You might not be a citizen of Equestria and you might have done things I wouldn’t agree with, but it is my duty to take care of Equestria’s citizens and guests. That is one of my reasons for being here. The other is that princess Twilight told me that we have similar pasts.
Neltharion nodded. “Twilight told me about your banishment and about your recent return. And we are very similar in a way, but also very different.
“How so?”
Neltharion flew even higher into the air, Luna followed. “The body count for one thing.”
Luna turned slightly pale at his words. “Do you know how many you’ve…”
Not enough. Said a voice in the back of Neltharion’s head, but he dismissed it. “Too many.” he simply answered.
They continued to fly in silence for a little while. Luna broke it.
“I just want my country and my subjects to be safe. No matter the cost.”
Neltharion smiled at her words. “Understandable. It is a beautiful country you have here.” He stopped midair and looked down onto Equestria once more. “I can see your need to protect it. I miss my world, more than you can ever imagine and I know that you miss the world as you used to see it.”
Luna stopped in front of him looked down and sighed regretfully. “Yes, everyday I wish I could go back and change everything that happened.” She looked up at Neltharion, her blue eyes locking with his fiery. “But I know that I will never fall again. For this time, I have friends.”
Neltharion snorted. “I still don’t understand your kinds need for friendship and harmony. Why is it so important to you?”
Luna was slightly taken back by his question. It was probably the last question she thought that she would ever hear. “Well… Friendship connects all creatures in a bond that will stay there for the rest of their lives. Some friendships even develop into love. And all of it ties into harmony. Harmony is the concept that there is a balance. A balance between good and evil, light and dark.”
“And you believe you uphold harmony with your actions?”
Luna gave him an odd look. “Of course. We’ve had peace and prosperity in Equestria for thousands of years with a few exception.”
“Then your harmony contradicts itself.”
“What do you mean?”
“If there was to be harmony, there would be happening just as much bad as good. From what you tell me, there is a lack of 'evil' in your country, but the concept of something being evil also isn't simple. Evil is a matter of perspective. Most creatures are only evil because some view them as so. When your dark side took a hold of you, you didn’t think that you were on the wrong end. I’ll bet Discord didn’t see himself as evil when he came to Equestria and I didn’t become evil because my corruption forced me. It tempted me, made me see things from its point of view and eventually I gave in. And then I fell asleep for ten-thousand years with no knowledge of my actions.”
Luna was miffed by his words. She had never thought of things that way before. Why hadn’t she?
“But that is not my point.” Neltharion continued. “I want you to look down onto Equestria and tell me what you see.”
Luna looked down onto her sleeping country. “I see peace. I see a country built on friendship. I see happy ponies dreaming of wonders, friends and love.”
“Do you see any evil?”
Luna looked to the Everfree forest. “Yes, inside of the--”
“The creatures of Everfree are not evil. They live on instinct. If they’re hungry they feed, if they’re tired they sleep, their emotions don’t control them like they control you and I, they see the world differently. They are not evil.”
“And what about the changelings? Were they not evil then?”
Neltharion looked down onto Ponyville, reminiscing the fight that happened a week before. “They feed off of love, It is their way of surviving. In a way, yes they are evil, but it is not enough to be this balance you claim you have in Equestria. I have lived in true harmony with my brothers and sisters, and what I see here is not harmony. On my world there is true harmony. On my world there happens as much bad as good, maybe even a bit more of the bad. Your harmony is flawed, an excuse to do whatever that pleases you, with not even considering the possible consequences.”
“That is not true…” Luna replied in a low voice. She was starting to feel conflicted.
Neltharion raised his voice. “Evil is something that is almost nonexistent in your country, and the little evil there is isn’t enough to outweigh the good anyway. And that is why new evils keep popping up in your country. It is only a matter of time before something comes that you can’t win against. After All--” Neltharion got close to Luna. “--If there is one thing my long life has taught me, it is this.”
Time seemed to slow down for Luna as Neltharion flew even closer. Close enough to whisper in her ear. She could feel the heat coming off of his body and see the smallest of fiery cracks across his wings.
“Nothing lasts forever.” He flew away after he whispered those words and looked towards the horizon. The moon was still on its way down, but it was a lot further down than when he left the castle. “It was a pleasure to talk with you, princess Luna. We should do it again sometime.” Neltharion then did a backwards loop and flew down towards Ponyville, leaving Luna in the air with her thoughts.
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ware do you live its the middle of summer ware i am
6151968 I live in Denmark
6151819
They need some DEMOCRACY! Murica!
6152441 good luck with that ideology ... I can think up a few flaws with it based on your choice of recommendation to enforce it...., and frankly I'd rather not see any 'specialized' mining right now in equestria
6153580 it's a joke not a dick. don't take it so hard.
I've always thought this about Equestria. Glad to see I'm not the only one.
6153749 sorry hard to tell blind nationalism from joking... and I'm not quite sure what your trying to say with your last comment.
6181978 Dun morogh and the wetlands
Awesome story--I love how powerful Deathwing is! I hope it is continued.
I'm kind of annoyed that guards are such dicks in this story. Getting a little tired of it. Other than that, great story!
GIVE ME THE NEL x TWI ALREADY 
Also...
Sorry, I'm done complaining now.