Moon's shadow

by Znegil

4 Red

All I wanted, was to lightly prick his arm ...
Now I stared at the point where the sword had sunken into his chest, and blood began to turn his torn shirt red. I released the sword and shrieked back under his accusing glance.

"It shouldn't happen like ... I was just ...", I tried to explain myself.

Tia had been on his backside and could not see what happened, but she noticed that something was very very wrong and dashed around him. When she realized the extent of what happened she stared at us with wide eyes.

"Luna...", she whispered out of breath.

In panic I tried to use my magic to pull the sword out, tried to support him with it as he slowly sank to the ground, but of course all this showed no effect on him.

When I finally remembered why my magic failed I rushed up to him, while he was already lying on the ground. I leaned against his body and pulled the blade out as careful as I could.

The moment I touched him, my mane became a simple dark blue which quite normally was affected by gravity, but I didn't notice it.

I pressed my hooves on the wound, while his shirt was further coloring red. Tears ran down my face and fell onto his body.

"I'm sorry, so sorry.", I whispered. "Please, please don't die."

In the meantime, my sister sent the guards for a doctor and now stood behind me worried.

"You have to press firmly against the wound, even if it hurts him." She said with a trembling voice.

I nodded as I pushed and heard a groan from him. My hair had fallen forward and covered most of my field of vision. I noticed incidentally that this wasn't normal behavior for my hair, but I was to fixated on pushing on that wound.

Suddenly a hand pushed my hair to the side so that I could see his face. He looked at me and said: "I know you didn't want this to happen. It will be alright... however this ends."

A doctor teleported in, and Tia informed him about the situation. She teleported a pressure bandage and other needed things from her storage and started to gently push me away so that she had full access.

"Please do not think bad of me.", I muttered as I made room and my mane got their magical properties back.

"This is only the second worst thing that has happened to me today." He replied, trying to smile but failed.

Tia pulled me away, so we weren't getting in the way and hugged me wordlessly. I was glad she didn't say anything, I couldn't have answered at this moment anyway, I just wanted to be held while I cried.

After some time the doctor came to speak to us, while a nurse sat next to the human.
"I've created a pressure bandage, which wasn't easy without magic, but fortunately I also teach Earthponies in first aid. We brought in a mattress, a pillow, and a blanket. We carefully have helped him onto the mattress. Since we can not levitate him, he should stay here for at least one day before we move him. I gave him a natural sleep remedy, and it seems to have the same effect on him as it does on ponies."

She turned to her patient and watched him for a moment while he was sleeping.

"I know nothing about the structure of his body, but for his body size he hasn't lost much blood, if non of his organs has been damaged he should recover quickly. But of course, a nurse will stay here to monitor him."

"Would it be okay if I did that?", I asked her.

"Of course.", she replied.
"But still a nurse will be waiting outside the room if he needs more help."

"Thank you, Doctor.", Tia said as she led the Doctor out of the room.

I carefully sat down beside the sleeping human. I had been so busy with my concerns that I hadn't even paid attention to his name. He seemed to sleep peacefully, but I could not look away from the big red spot on his shirt. I had almost killed him with my carelessness.

It was already noon, and under normal circumstances I would have been asleep for hours now, if we hadn't received news of this strange being. Now that the adrenaline wore off my eyelids grew heavy. I laid down on the floor next to him and began to drift off to sleep. I wished someone was watching over my dreams as I did for others.

----------------- 0_0 -----------------

To open your eyes and see a sleeping pony princess, even a day ago I would have thought of this as a sure sign of insanity. I was now quite sure that this wasn't a dream, the pain in my chest felt to real. I was still lying on the makeshift bed on the floor of the throne room.

I looked closely at Princess Luna, she looked kind of cute while she was asleep... for a pony. It was hard to believe that she almost had killed me if she had hit me a bit more to the right.

I was still trying to process what kind of a crazy world I now was a part of. Talking intelligent ponies, some used magic and some could fly ... Could anything be more crazy then that? I probably looked as strange for them as they did to me. And what about this "anti-magic" which I supposed to have, was it a product of the fact that I came from a world without magic?

I noticed Luna moved uneasily in her sleep and made whimpering noises. I wasn't sure what I should do, should I try to wake her up? What if this time she accidentally impaled me with her horn? I knew it wasn't her intent to hurt me the way she did, but still... It was new for me to read pony faces, but I had noticed incredible horror and regret at hers when it all happened.

She moved still restlessly back and forth and I now also saw tears running down her cheeks. This was too much, I had to do something.

"Princess Luna.", I said carefully. No Reaction.

I carefully moved my arm to the side and tried to ignore the pain.

"Princess Luna.", I nudged her gently. She still seemed to be trapped in her dream.

"No, I'm not a monster.", I heard her whimper as her tears still ran down her cheeks.

"Princess Luna!", I started to shake her and noticed how her hair changed when I touched it. It ceased floating and changed to a simple dark blue.

Startled she opened her eyes and looked at me through her long hair that covered half of her face. I let go of her and immediately her star-hair raised itself and floated out of her face.

"A bad dream?", I asked her with a weak smile.

Her eyes went briefly to my wound.

"How do you feel?", she asked concerned.

"Although it hurts a lot, it's nothing I couldn't handle, Princess."

She looked guiltily at the floor.

"I want to apologize to you with all my heart, not only for hurting you but also that I have misjudged you. The possibility of you being able to destroy magic was so terrifying for me I panicked..."
She fell silent towards the end.

"And please, just call me Luna. You are not one of my subjects, and I have not done anything that deserves respect from you, more like the opposite. I have not noticed your name since I had been focused on other things previously."

I looked into her expecting face, saw how much she was hoping for forgiveness. And even though I was in great pain, what good would it do me to be mad at her.

"Alright ... Luna, my name is Alex, and I know that you didn't want to hurt me in the way it happened and I'm not going to hold a grudge for it."

It felt a bit strange to talk with a princess like that, not to mention a talking pony, but she relaxed visibly after I said it. She sat up and was once again an impressive sight.

"Thank you, Alex, this means so much to me. How about we start all over again, you tell me how you ended up here, and I'll answer any question you have."

I looked at the ceiling, trying to organize my thoughts. Luna patiently waited until I was ready.

"In my world, there is no magic and a lot of what I saw here exists only in stories. I do not know much about how I got here. I died in my world as I ..." I searched for words to fit her world. "... was struck by a very heavy and fast object. Before I was crushed something pulled me from my world, but it couldn't hold on. I fell towards a light, and when I opened my eyes I was in this world and the spears of the guards were pointed at me."

I looked back at Luna. She seemed to think carefully about all of this information, from time to time she murmured something inaudible. I was curious how she would respond.

A minute had passed before Luna spoke to me: "It appears there could be some connection with your death and your appearance here, and I have a few theories about it, but I need some time in the library to investigate."
She paused for a moment.

"So you're in this world for just a few hours and don't know anything about the history of this world, myself, or other things?"

She looked at me in a way in which I could not read.

"Just what I saw on the way here, some of you ponies can use magic, some fly and you and your sister can probably both.", I answered truthfully.

I did not know why my answer made her look so happy. I carefully tried to sit up, but the pain was to much, so I quickly decided against it. I lay down again and looked at Luna, who was sitting beside me excited.

"Start with the basics, I am very excited about this world full of magic.", I told her.

"Well," she began and moved closer to me. "There are four types of ponies. Earth ponies which usually have greater physical strength, but no wings or a horn. Pegasus ponies that can fly but have no magic. Unicorns who can use their horns for various magic but can't fly. And then there are three Alicorns which possess both wings, as also a horn and related skills. These are Celestia, Candence and me, Luna the Princess of the night. I watch over the dreams of sleeping ponies and let the moon rise in the sky every night."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute.", I interrupted her. "YOU let the moon rise? It does not rise on its own?"

Luna looked at me surprised.
"No, it does not move by itself, I let it rise and my sister Celestia makes the sun rise."

I waited for her to say that she was just joking.

"What?", she asked as she saw me staring at her.

"You can't be serious. You move a celestial body with your magic? And where is the moon when it is day? And the sun can't possibly move around this world."

"Alicorn magic is very strong. I can move the moon.", she sounded a little offended.
"I let the moon fly below the horizon back to it's starting point and moving the sun is not much different. If you do not believe me, in a few minutes it is time, then you can watch me. From this balcony, on the side of the throne room, I and Tia usually use our magic. "
She pointed to a balcony only a few steps away from me.

"Tia?", I asked with a grin. "Do you have a cute nickname too?"

She blushed, which looked more like purple on her and looked away. "No, I haven't."

I decided to ask 'Tia' later about it and let the topic of celestial mechanics go for now.
I tried it with a different theme. "You were not very surprised when I told you I'm from another world, does something like that happen often here?"

"More often than we may be fond of, it seems our world is a kind of magnet for other worlds. Even mighty Unicorn magicians have repeatedly created portals into other worlds, but the problem is you can not choose which world is on the other side and is there seems to be an infinite number. Me and Celestia have already visited other worlds this way."

She got up and went to the balcony. "It's time."

I eagerly watched as she stepped outside in the dusk, her beautiful Mane catching the last light of the day. She looked around the countryside that surrounded the city. The sun then disappeared completely, and I could slowly start to see stars while it got dark surprisingly quick.

Her horn lit up as she slowly lifted her head and the moon appeared brightly above the horizon. She pulled it up until it was fully visible well above the horizon. The magic of her horn faded, and she turned a bit towards me. At this moment, as she stood in the moonlight and smiled at me, she was the most beautiful thing I had seen in all my life.

Comments

[Lunastar2099]

Interesting i look forward to more

[Cato]

Hm, not bad, especially for a first attempt, keep up the work I'll be watching for more.

[Znegil]

6763375 thank you Fox for this very detailed comment, I See all your points. I think my "let him appear to die at the end of the first few chapters" went out of hand. I am not a great writer, my talent is more in papercrafts where I build for example a life sized Luna. This story was something I had to get to paper just to try. If it is not good, I can live with that, I go back to my other projects and use my free time for these and for reading great fanfiction instead of writing mediocre fiction.
Again, thanks a lot.

Update: It seems there are quite some people who like the story and put it in their folders and want more.
So I think I will edit some parts and write a bit more. The "everyone is afraid of him" part is stupid, you are right about that and it is easy enough to fix, I will mix it up a little, but will not get rid of it completly, because it was for having some common ground with Luna. The accidentally stabbing will be kept in it, but I will try to give it more reason in the third chapter instead of explaining it in chapter five.

[Thunder--Clash]

"I've created a pressure bandage, which wasn't easy without magic, but fortunately I also teach Earthponies in first aid. We brought in a mattress, pillow and blanket and helped careful to get him on the mattress. Since we can not levitate him, he should stay here for at least one day before we move him. I gave him a natural sleep remedy and it seems to have the same effect on him as it does on ponies"

This line should have something on the end that tells the reader who is talking. Plus can you please re-write the second sentence, it doesn't make sense. Here is my edit: "We brought in a mattress, a pillow, and a blanket. Afterwards, we carefully helped him onto the mattress." To be safe consider re-writing this quote..

"So you're in this world for just a few hours and don't know anything about the history of this world, myself, or other things?"

Same problem here this quote doesn't have anything on the end that tells the reader who is talking.

Just remember one rule, always identify the character that's talking at the end of the quote, to the reader

I hope you're aware of these issues so that you can correct them; there are similar issues throughout this chapter. I would usually show them all to you, but I don't have a lot of time on my hands, sorry.

Besides that good story, I love it so far

[Truthseeker]

Everything seems a bit too easy for the protagonist and the pacing feels rushed. Not terrible on the spelling and grammar. All that said, this holds little interest for me.