Nightmare Family

by Smrrt

Waking up

Author's Note:

Well, overall a good feedback. I had a lot of free time today, but sadly only because my friends are all away for vacation

I'm not confident I did a good job at the end of this chapter. Also I need some help with princess Luna's dialogue, since this is pre-season 5.

Okay, everybrony. I hope you enjoy this chapter. I'm open for suggestion and I'll see you next time with: "A nightmare awakened"

When the royal sisters entered the hospital wing, they found the older man sitting upright on a chair and looking down on the older woman and holding her hand. He must have heard the hoofsteps, because the second the sisters stopped, the man got up, turned around and bowed deeply. "Princess Luna and Princess Celestia I presume?" the man had a deep, firm voice, yet it was also kind. "It is an honor to meet the both of you."

Neither of the sisters expected this kind of greeting, but also neither of them showed their surprise. They were expecting him to be a bit more distressed about the situation he was put in. Yet here he was calm and collected, smiling at them. Most likely he learned both their names, while one of the royal guards was talking to him.

"The pleasure is all ours mister...?" Celestia trailed.

"Ah, forgive me princess. My name Jack Daniels, your majesties. As I was already asked y the doctors, my species is called 'human'."

"Greetings, Mr. Daniels." Luna greeted formally. "We must say, we art quite surprised to see thou calm and collected, among a new species."

Jack simply chuckled. "Oh ponies are nothing new to me. Now, I'm sure you have at least a couple of question, I know I have a dozen of my own, but at the same time I suggest for the rest of my family members to wake up, so we don't have to repeat ourselves."

"A wise decision. Pray tell, thou do not seem to be overly worried. No offense."

"None taken your highness." Jack glanced over. "Maybe I'm just too used for these kind of situation. When you have a magical gifted daughter, things tend to go south, so to speak. Especially during the time, when we first discovered her special talents. I lost count as to how often I needed to replace the doors of our home." he chuckle, getting a nostalgic look on his face.

Celestia nodded. "I think we're going a little fast. How about we firstly try to get to know each other over some kind? If you insist on staying here Mr. Daniels, I can have the servants bring us some tea and cake."

Luna resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Typical Tia, always looking for an excuse for cake.

"Well, since you're offering, I will accept your generosity, your majesty."

---

15 minutes later a huge tray with a teapot, cups and three different kinds of cakes was brought into the room. Jack raised an eyebrow upon seeing Celestia taking a rather huge piece of the strawberry cake. And a chocolate one.

Deciding to dismiss the actions of the princess for now, Jack made it himself comfortable on a chair and took a sip from his tea. Cushions were brought in for the princesses to sit on, forcing them to look up to the human. They didn't seem to mind.

"Now first off, Mr. Daniels, do you remember anything before you woke up?" Celestia asked.

Mr. Daniels took a sip from his teacup and then placed it on a free nightstand. "As a matter of fact I do. I was actually getting ready to go to my office. You see your majesties, I'm a lawyer. A rather successful one if I'm allowed to brag a little. My children prepared for the last day of school before summer vacation and my wife was busy holding my daughter back to turn her brother into a frog yet again. She enjoys it a little too much, being the only family member capable of using magic."

"Yes, we noticed. Excuse us, but we had to make sure nothing was wrong with you and we discovered that your daughter is the only one capable of using magic." Celestia explained.

"No need to apologize, but princesses? If I may be so bold, let's not beat around the bush anymore. I know this was supposed to be a little chat in order to get to know each other better, but I'm afraid I cannot hold back my curiosity anymore. Do you know how exactly we landed on this world?"

"This world?!" Luna exclaimed. "Thou art saying, thou art from another realm? How can thou be so certain?"

Jack kept his calm before the princess. "It wasn't hard to figure out. My daughter" he gestured with his hand "is the only magic user alive on my world. We're doing our best to keep it a secret, since magic is only myth. Not real."

It took a lot to surprise the sun princess, given her experience. Figuratively speaking, this took the cake. Both sisters wanted to say something, however they were interrupted by the human raising his hand. "Excuse me, but I ask you to let me finish. We kept it a secret, in order to protect my daughter. Imagine your daughter being a living powerful weapon. Several governments would do anything to "secure" and "study" the weapon."

"I...see." Celestia nodded slowly.

"It must be quite the burden." Luna commented. Jack shrugged.

"We learned to live with it. Luckily her magic abilities first made an appearance, when she was smart enough to keep a secret, if necessary. Which doesn't mean there weren't any close calls, but I'm getting off topic. Another indicator were talking, sentient ponies. No offense, but ponies are animals in my homeworld." He smartly left out the part where ponies were used as a means to ease labor work.

Luna refilled her cup and drank everything shortly after.

"Finally, I know how a teleportation feels. My daughter has done it often enough and I know for a fact she wasn't using magic as it happened."

Celestia processed the information she had been given. Although it threw her out of a loop, she managed to calm herself down. "To clear things up, my sister and I were working on a new kind of teleportation technique. Our first test didn't go as intended and you and your family appeared."

Luna nodded. "We wish to apologize for your...little mishap." Jack couldn't suppress his snort and even Celestia smiled a little. However, Luna's face remained stern. "There is something we need to address. If thou daughter is the only one of your kind capable of using magic, how did she learn to cope with her talents or learn new spells?"

The human took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked over to his daughter, a sad frown on his face. "I told her to be careful, but what do you expect from teenagers? She experimented, whenever she had the chance. She taught everything herself and wrote down everything she learned. More often than not, she would end up hurting herself or her brother if he volunteered to help her. We warned her, we punished her..." he let out another sigh. "I'm just glad that she never overstepped her limits. We must have been really lucky that no one ever noticed anything."

There was a moment of silence among the three, before Jack spoke up again. "But enough of this. She learned to handle her powers and only uses them for pranks among the family or provides help. She has also a talent of what she calls "magic art"."

"Intriguing." Luna commented. "Yet, we recommend her to be taught the basics of magic rules."

"I would be grateful if you could arrange this."

Luna waved off. "Tis the least we can do, for the trouble we caused thou and thou family. In the meantime, we will work on a way to send thou back."

"Thank you, your highness."

"No need to thank us." Celestia smiled. "If you allow my curiosity, do you mind telling us a little about your species?" she asked.

"Of course. Uff, where to start?" Jack crossed his arms, looking at the ceiling, thinking. "We share the same evolution family tree with the apes. Over time our species learned to walk upright and our brains evolved to bigger ones. With the new-found learning capability and the lack of magic, we built tools in order to survive in the world. We lost our fur, we made clothes. We couldn't climb on trees as good as apes, we made shoes in order to protect our feet. We had no claws, we developed weapons.

On a social standard, we like to fight. A lot. Nowadays it's better, but humans are greedy, no matter how you look at it. We had so many wars among each other, almost too many to count. We have our good sides, but it is often overshadowed by our darker nature." the man frowned.

"Don't put your species so low." Celestia stated, seeing as the man was taking a break. "In the earlier days, war seemed to be around the corner all the time. Dark magicians, racial prejudices..." Celestia shook her head. "There were times where I almost lost hope we could ever live in harmony."

"I guess I can only hope that someday we learn to overcome our faults."

"Tis a long process. We ponies are still learning ourselves to overcome some of our wrongdoings."

Subconsciously Celestia wrapped a wing around her sister. Jack smiled at the display of affection. His attention was taken away from the princesses, by some moans coming from one of the beds. Looking behind himself, he found out that his wife was waking up. He quickly made his way towards the bed, grabbing the hand of his wife.

"Mm...Jack?" the woman spoke slowly. "What happened?" she got up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"How do you feel Nora?"

"Urgh, I have a headache? Did Sarah have another one of her teleporting mishaps?" the woman asked, looking up to her husband, who shook his head.

"Not our daughter for once. Nora, I want you to stay calm. This...might be a little overwhelming at first."

The woman frowned. "What are you talking about? Where are we?"

Jack stepped aside, giving view to the two rulers of Equestria's. Nora's eyes went wide and she almost forgot to breath.

"Oh...my! They're....beautiful." she stammered.

"Why thank you." Celestia smiled at the comment.

"I have seen it all."

---

After Nora finally calmed down, she too was now holding a conversation with the princesses. The tea was really helpful and the cake was simply divine in her opinion. She was quickly brought into the loop as to what had transpired, causing her to shake her head.

"Sometimes I wonder if our family has been cursed by some higher being, experiencing all those magic incidents, just so someone can have some good laughs."

"Nonsense." Luna disagrees. "Magic isn't a curse. It is a blessing. Tis simply unfortunate that your daughter never had somepony who could tutor her."

Nora chuckled. "Yes, I suppose you're right princess. At least she's still studying hard, even with the magic she possesses. I simply wish her brother would take his studies as seriously as she does."

"Still a better cook than you mom!"

Everyone turned towards the bed on the far left, where they found the son of the family sitting under the covers and looking over to them. "And just for how long have you been awake, John?" Jack asked his son sternly.

"Eh, ever since they put the needle in my arm." he rubbed his arm, where a sticking plaster was located. "I glance over to the ponies, when they were talking among themselves. Figuring I didn't need to go to school, I thought I might as well sleep a little more. Only I couldn't fall asleep, but then again, I didn't feel like getting up."

Celestia and Luna shared a smile, while John's parents gave him a stern look.

"Anyway" John got up from his bed "I don't feel like lying anymore. So, uh...you're the princesses? Well I didn't elect you, that's for sure."

Celestia wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because that aside from her family, nopony else had spoken to her so casually in a long time, maybe she was simply too used to the boredom of day court. Whatever was the case, she burst out laughing, almost dropping the cake onto the floor. Luckily she still managed to hold on with her magic grip. It would have been simply a waste.

John's parents in the meantime weren't sure whether to be embarrassed at their son's behavior or relieved that the princess of the sun took the comment so well.

"Ow my sides...ow...how long has it been, since somepony hasn't addressed me by my title?"

"Tia, we art afraid the past thousand years have taken its toll on you, sister dearest." Luna spoke carefully.

"Yeah, check your purse. Wouldn't surprise me if they have taken your money as well."

"John!" Nora exclaimed.

"You're right, that wasn't funny. Maybe I should try my new burp song?"

"Please excuse my son." Jake despaired a little. "I'm afraid he's a little...disrespectful at times."

"Oh it's no problem." Celestia reassured. "It's rather refreshing to have somepony...somehuman to talk to casually for a change. Besides it isn't like he outright offended me or anything."

"Princess, please don't tempt me." the teenager replied with a smirk.

"In any event, art thou feeling alright?" Luna asked.

"Eh, have been through worse." the boy shrugged. "Though my limbs feel a little stiff. Thanks for the concern." He stretched his limbs and placed himself on a bed closer to the rest. "So, anything else you wish to know about the human race? Or do you want to hear more of my terrible good jokes? By the way princess, what is a mare you meet at night? A nightmare!"

Double facepalm.

Comments

[The Infinity Doctor]

...

Jack Daniels? Really? That's the best name you could come up with? I like the story so far but...it's detrimental to the story, to me at least. Some editing is needed.

Jack Daniels?

stream1.gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs/1032236_o.gif

[Smrrt]

6129573 I couldn't resist.

[FordPrefect]

Ch 2.
Still going strong!

[SilverPony98]

Would be funny if the kid called Celestia "Sunbutt".

[musicman722]

I really wanted to like this story but the second chapter kinda failed me. It started with naming the dad Jack Daniels. It really sounds like you didn't put much thought into the names. Still, I hoped that was the only mistake.

It was the whole history of humanity lecture that did it in for me. Not every HiE fic needs that lecture. The ones that do have a legit reason for bringing it in. You could have had them talking about 'Sarah' and her magic some more.

The son was, quite frankly, rather annoying and kinda stereotypical. I know he has been exposed to magic but how doesn't he freak out a little by the ponies? He just looks at them and thinks 'oh, that's a thing now. Cool.' His disrespect humor towards Celly felt a bit forced imo, like he does that every other day despite never meeting her before.

The premise was what brought me in but the execution was poorly handled. I do hope you improve your work.

[Smrrt]

6138168 Ouch

X_X

[musicman722]

6140176 sorry. I've been taught to judge by writin mechanics than content, but I didn't notice any glaring problems in that except maybe dialogue.
My advice is to get a proofreader or editor that can look it over. They may be harsh at times but it can help your story. Keep in mind that you shouldn't have to cater the story to them and they should provide constructive critisism, not verbal abuse. Hope it helps.

[Smrrt]

6140525 Thanks and I approve your criticism. It's just I have an issue of handling criticism not well and need to ease my mind sometimes, like with that smiley.

[musicman722]

6140553 Trust me, no one like their stuff criticized. But like forging a beautiful sword or armor, the raw material has to take a few beatings before it can be a great work of art.

[1eragon33]

6129573 hey at least it's not John Smith

[Twilio_Stark]

Hm! I am interested in your story. Hopefully in the next chapter will be interesting!

[Edguy0009]

Or do you want to hear more of my terrible good jokes? By the way princess, what is a mare you meet at night? A nightmare!"

Double facepalm.

This amused me.