After the Nightmare

by CORACK

Chapter 8

Twilight stood in the center of the ruins and looked around. In the light of day, they were far less imposing, though Celestia standing by her side might have had something to do with it as well.

The two ponies trotted to the crumbling building where the fight with Nightmare Moon had taken place. Princess Celestia made her way over to the crater and gazed into it. Broken pieces of Nightmare Moon's helmet still sat in the crater.

Celestia's horn glowed brightly. Twilight lifted a hoof to shield her eyes while her mentor searched for her sister. A hush came over the ruins. Twilight realized she could no longer hear any of the sounds of the forest. Celestia herself was staring to glow now, Twilight was having a hard time even looking in her general direction.

Without warning, Celestia's spell finished. The sounds of the surrounding forest returned, and the light faded away.

Twilight saw the great alicorn turn towards her, her eyes stained with tears.

"She's alive Twilight, my sister is alive!"

Celestia took a moment to relax, and then walked over to Twilight. She lowered her head and gave Twilight a friendly nuzzle.

"Thank you Twilight, I do not believe I would have found this out, if not for your idea."

"So what exactly did you find?"

"You were exactly right. Nightmare Moon had found a way to counter the Elements. If not for my own added power she would have been able to hold her own. However, the combination of the Elements and my own magic overwhelmed her defenses. I did not sense this when I was last here because I was not looking for it. When Nightmare Moon's defense fell, she cast a teleport spell to try and escape."

"Something went wrong though. I still do not understand it, but the teleport spell interacted with the magic from the Elements. Instead of moving Luna from here to somewhere else in the universe, it opened a dimensional gateway. Luna was thrown into another dimension."

"This much, I can tell, but I do not know what dimension Luna was thrown into."

"There are other dimensions?"

"Indeed there are. Have I ever told you about Sunset Shimmer and the Crystal Mirror?"

"I don't think so?"

Celestia spent the next hour telling Twilight about her former student. A brilliant mare who excelled in magic, but lacked patience. Before Twilight had met Celestia, Sunset Shimmer had been one of Celestia's personal students. However, a rift had formed between teacher and student when Celestia refused to grant Sunset access to ancient magic that would have been beyond the young pony. Sunset had fled through a crystal mirror that led to another dimension. It was only open for three nights every 30 moons.

That had been years ago, and Celestia had not heard back from her former student. She had never traveled through the portal herself, but from others she had heard it lead to a world devoid of magic.

Twilight found this interesting. Ponies were creatures of magic, they needed it to survive.

"I hate to ask, but wouldn't traveling to a world with no magic kill a pony?"

"No, at least not through a portal like this one. The energies required to create a stable gateway will transform a traveler, giving them a body that can survive in the new dimension. If you were to go through the crystal mirror, you would emerge on the other side, not as a pony, but as one of the native inhabitants of the world on the other side. Only an immortal can resist this change."

"So where did Luna end up?" Twilight asked.

Celestia frowned, she knew Twilight would ask that next but she didn't have a good answer for it.

"That I do not know, there are a vast number of alternate realities, Luna could be in any of them and I do not have a way of tracking her."

"So is she lost for good?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

Celestia looked out at the ruined room. Nightmare Moon had been destroyed here, she was sure of it. Now it was up to Luna, to decided if she wanted to come back to Equestria.

"If she wants to be found. Remember, the Elements will have destroyed the Nightmare, but Luna may or may not want to return."

"Will she be able to?"

"Eventually, it takes a great deal of power to travel between dimensions. My larger concern is that she may not be able to find her way home. Unless..."

Celestia's thoughts turned to the bond that she shared with her sister. By harnessing the power of the Elements, it should be possible to amplify this bond, creating an beacon that Luna should be able to detect.

"Twilight, we must return to Canterlot, I have some research to do, and then we will have to gather the Elements."

#####

Selene frowned, she hadn't caught anything all week. Trap after trap turned up empty. She was going to have to take the rifle out and try to hunt for food. After 10 years, her ammunition supply was starting to run low. She was lucky to have had as much as she did. Her dad's rifle was so old that it was often difficult for him to find ammunition for sale. Because of this he tended to buy in large quantities, he had picked up an order just as they were leaving the last system, but even thousands of rounds did not last forever and in another year or so the rifle would be no more useful than a club.

She explained the situation to Luna.

"So for the short term, I'm going to have to go out hunting for food. These traps have been catching less and less in the last year, I think the local animals are wising up. Long term, I'm going to have to set more traps, farther out. I can only go so far though, I gotta carry whatever I catch back to the ship and if it's too far it isn't worth it."

Luna looked at Selene, she still didn't know what normal humans looked like but to her Selene looked underfed.

"Has this been a big problem in the past?"

"Nah, but I think it will be fine, putting down more traps will be good. In fact now that you're here, you can help me, we can split up the traps and each have to only check half. That will cut way down on the amount of effort it takes to gather food."

"Are you sure you are eating enough?"

"I've got enough to get by, though I do miss the variety I used to get. Humans don't eat just meat normally, thankfully the ship's medical bay had a good supply of vitamin supplements because I can't imagine eating this crap for 10 years would be good for me. I miss lots of the foods, but what I miss most of all is pizza."

"Pizza?"

"You don't have pizza where you're from?"

"I am not sure... my food choices are a bit... out of date."

"Well, it's this thin round piece of bread, uh, do you know what bread is?"

Luna let out a small chuckle. "Yes, I know what bread is. Ponies make quite a large variety of baked goods."

Selene smiled back, "I was just checking, anyway for pizza you take the dough and spin it around till it makes a large flat circle, then it gets covered in pizza sauce, it's made from tomatoes and probably other things in it, I've never made it myself, so I'm not exactly sure. After that goes a layer of cheese, usually mozzarella, but other kinds are used as well. Then lastly you can put a variety of toppings on top of the cheese."

"What kind of toppings?"

"Meat, and veggies are the most common, I'm not much of a veggie person, but I love pepperoni, sausage, bacon, and buffalo chicken. You don't have to get just one topping, you can mix it up, or even just get a plain cheese pizza with no topping at all."

"Oh, humans eat vegetables?"

"Yeah, my diet here isn't exactly standard, we're omnivores we eat meat and veggies and fruit. The Ascension is a colony supply ship, so we've got a ton of seeds on board, I tried growing stuff but nothing took. I've been taking supplements because I don't get everything I need from the food here." Not wanting to worry Luna, she didn't bring up that she had at best a year's supply left. Instead she smiled and then continued.

"I really wish I hadn't started talking about pizza though, I'm not going to be able to get it out of my head for the rest of the day," she said.

"I am sorry I brought it up," Luna said.

"Eh, no biggie. If I ever get out of here though, the first thing I'm gonna do is find a pizza place and buy myself a whole pizza."

The two continued to talk for a while. Finally Selene had to head out. Luna volunteered to go with her.

"Are you sure? I've noticed your reactions when I have to prepare food, I've guessed you don't normally eat this stuff," Selene asked while checking her rifle.

"Ponies are, for the most part, herbivores, though eating meat is not completely unknown. Some small groups of ponies who lived far beyond Equestria, either with griffons or dragons, both of which do eat meat, have sometimes been known to eat more of a mixed diet. Most of Equestria though would be horrified to have to eat the flesh of another creature, and no pony would be able to survive on a pure meat diet for long."

"What about you?"

"I am... able to sustain myself with magic," Luna lied, not ready to bring up her immortality just yet. The truth of the matter was Luna could get by indefinitely without eating, but she still got hungry and after 1000 years of starving on the moon, she'd take the bad taste of meat over that.

"Will that last?"

"Yes."

Selene looked at Luna for a moment, a feeling of doubt crept over her, but then she shrugged it away.

"Alright then, enough talk about food we can't get, are you ready to head out?"

"Indeed, and I may be of use to you. I can cast a spell to alert us to any large life forms in proximity, it should help prevent an ambush from those bonewolf creatures that I ran into before."

"You can do that?" Selene said, her eyes going wide.

"I have been working on a spell just for that, I thought that it might come in handy, I finished it last night."

"You can just create spells, just like that?"

"With the proper experience and knowledge, one can create a large variety of spells, and I have both in ample supply." Luna said, proudly.

The two headed out to look for food. They wandered around for hours, not finding signs of life, even Luna's spell was not picking up anything.
It was starting to get late, a tired Selene turned to Luna with a look of frustration in her eyes.

"We're going to have to head back, we've been out too long. Maybe we can try again tomorrow, but we're going to have to setup more traps as well, I'll have to spend some time tonight making them."

The two turned around and headed back towards the ship. On the way back, Luna felt something, she turned to Selene and whispered.

"I can sense something, there is a creature about 100 yards in that direction - she raised a hoof and pointed - beyond those trees. It feels larger than a bonewolf, but how much, I cannot say."

Selene crept as quietly as she could toward the area Luna was pointing at. She peered around the trees and saw it. It was the ice plant's equivalent of a deer, and a good sized specimen. It hadn't spotted her yet, so she crouched down and took aim with her rifle. The animal's jolted up as if it could sense that it was being watched, but before it could move, Selene fired.

Her aim was good and the deer went down. Luna trotted up behind her.

"It's a deer, well, an alien deer, but either way, this is our lucky day. I haven't seen one of those in ages. They taste way better than the rabbit things we normally eat. I'm gonna need help carrying it back though."

Pony and human returned to the ship, the hunt was a success, and the deer would provide enough meet for a few of weeks of food.

#####

Selene was busy in the kitchen, getting ready to make breakfast. Luna was sitting in the mess waiting for her to finish up. She was growing tired of having to eat meat, but she hadn't found any other local food. The local animals all seemed to either eat each other, or tree bark. Luna had tried some of the bark and not only was it awful, but her body was unable to derive any nutritional content from it, making it useless as a food.

The deer, to Luna's surprise, had actually been somewhat tasty, especially compared to the creature Selene called a rabbit. Neither looked anything like the Equestrian counterparts, though she found it odd that Selene would have creatures with the same name from her world. The deer would provide enough food for a few weeks, but then they would be back to rabbit. Apart from the deer, overall food stores continued to dwindle and Luna was growing more and more concerned about Selene's health. While painful, she could survive without eating, Selene however, could not. Every day she seemed slower and weaker. Some of this may have been that Luna's own strength was returning faster and faster making Selene seem weaker in comparison, but she wasn't sure.

Even with the poor meals, Luna's strength was returning quickly and with it, her proper size. She was nearly back up to her full height. While not as tall as Celestia, Luna still towered over most other ponies, standing slightly over six feet tall, not including her horn. She wasn't quite back up to that yet, but when she first arrived she had looked up to Selene, now she was looking down at the short girl. Selene had questioned Luna about her growing size, not knowing what to say, Luna had explained that it was a magical side effect of the spell that had brought her to this world.

Thinking back to the previous day, Luna had tried to talk to Selene about her lack of food, but the stubborn human brushed it off as a minor concern.

"I've been here for 10 years and made it this far" she said. "Besides, what else is there to eat?"

She had explained to Luna that humans were omnivores, and worked best with a balanced diet of meat and vegetables. Selene had also brought up that she had tried to grow food after the ship's supplies ran out, but despite her best efforts, she couldn't get anything to grow.

What had caught Luna's attention was when Selene had mentioned that there were seeds on board. After Selene had gone to bed, Luna had gone looking through the ship. She started in the rooms around the mess and worked her way around the ship. Eventually she stumbled into the bay that Selene had tried to setup as a growing area. Large rows of pots filled with soil lined the floor.

Luna walked over to one and stuck her forehoof into the dirt. The problem was immediately apparent, like the ground outside, this soil was essentially dead. Worse it was poisoned in some way. As her powers slowly return, a feeling of unease had started to grow in the pit of her stomach. It was only recently she had been able to determine the source of it. Something was wrong with this world, it felt as if everything was old and worn out. This was nothing like normal ageing though, it felt more like physical reality was slowly breaking down. Even the heavens above felt broken, the star that this planet circled was barely holding together. It would take a great deal of restorative magic to be able to grow anything.

She searched around the room until she found a large container in a storage locker marked 'Seed storage'. She opened up the container and found a large variety of seeds. Oddly enough, they seemed to be identical to what she would find on Equestria. There were carrots, potatoes, lettuce and a dozen other things Luna recognized.

This is what Selene needed more and plentiful food, without it she was slowly wasting away. Luna thought for a moment, creating life from nothing was hard work, she couldn't simply magic up sustenance, now that she had seeds however, growing food was easy. A combination of earth pony and unicorn magic could grow food almost anywhere, but this would take more than that. This would take alicorn magic, to revive the soil enough for life to grow. Luna walked to the center of the bay and spread her wings. Slowly she rose into the air, wings still spread far apart. A dark sphere of energy surrounded Luna, and the room dimmed. Bolts of anti-light flickered and crackled as they escaped the sphere, zigzagging across the room like lightning. A heavy wind rose up and black clouds sprung into existence.

The rubble was the first to go, all the pieces of ship too large for Selene to move rose up into the air and vanished in dark flashes of magic. Next were the empty pots and broken equipment, only the dirt remained. Luna then turned her senses outside the ship, ripping and pulling large sections of topsoil from the surrounding areas she teleported it into the bay. The piles of soil grew deeper and deeper, larger and larger, until almost the entire bay was covered in dirt.

Great trees were torn from the forest, their branches stripped and their trunks laid end to end to form a large rectangular barrier to contain the dirt. Next Luna focused her magic on the soil itself, rejuvenating it, so that it once again could sustain life.

Seeds flew from the storage container and planted themselves in the dirt. Next came water, the clouds she had formed overhead opened up and a gentle rain soaked the small garden she had created. A pale blue aurora enveloped the bay as Luna's magic instructed the seed to grow. Small shoots of green poked out of the dirt, faster and faster they matured, until Luna felt that they were ready. A spell was cast on the room to keep it as warm as a fine spring day. Luna could bring in rain whenever it was needed.

What was once a cold metal bay now housed a garden. The plant life was still growing in, but it was clear that when it was finished, it would be a thing of beauty. Slowly Luna sank back to the ground, panting from the strain. This was easily the largest use of magic she had performed since coming to this world. It had taken much out of her, but, given what she had accomplished, it was worth it.

Luna heard Selene say something to her, breaking her concentration of the previous night's events.

"Luna, I'm sorry to say but we're out of deer, and back on rabbit, tomorrow we're going to have to build more traps and expand our coverage area again."

For a moment Luna said nothing, her horn lit up as she focused on the bay, checking if everything was ready.

"Selene, can you come here please?"

"I'm just about to start dinner, can it wait?

"It will not take long."

Selene washed her hands, put the rabbit meat back in the fridge and walked over.

"What's up?"

"This way please."

Luna led the human down the hall. They approached the room that Selene had setup year ago to try to grow her own food.

"What are we doing here?"

Luna hit the button to open the door with her hoof. It slowly creaked open, a warm blast of fresh air and the smell of dirt and growing things escaped into the hallway.

Selene stood in the door way and looked across the bay. It wasn't a bay anymore though, everywhere she looked was green. She hurried inside and looked around. A large multi-level garden sprawled out before her, taking up most of the room. As she walked around, she found carrots, potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, corn and many other things to eat. Colorful flowers decorated the next level of the garden, Selene saw roses, daisies, lilies and more. As she made her way to the back of the room, she found a small grove filled with miniature apple trees.

Unable to process what she was seeing, Selene dropped to her knees and began to cry.

Luna trotted over and placed a wing on the young woman.

"How?" Selene asked.

"The seeds provided from your ship's stock and a large application of magic to restore the soil and speed the growth along."

"When did you do this?" Selene asked, tears still streaming down her face.

"Last night, after you mentioned you had failed to grow anything, I searched around until I found this room and the seeds contained within."

Selene stood up and wrapped her arms around Luna.

"Thank you." she whispered.

"I didn't do it for you! I just couldn't take another day of your cooking." Luna said, smirking at Selene.

Selene punched Luna in the side and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Can I have one?" she said pointing at an apple.

"Of course." Luna replied happily.

With fingers trembling, Selene reached out towards the apple, not quite ready to believe it was real. She slowly plucked it from the tree and brought it to her mouth and took a bite. A dribble of juice ran down her chin as she sat there, savoring the first bight. Within moments, the apple was reduced to a core.

Author's Note:

I accidentally posted a version of this chapter that was missing some minor revisions, I fixed it about 20 minutes later, but if you happened to have read it right away, you read the old one. Nothing huge or anything but just figured I'd mention it.

Comments

[CORACK]

6923663

Thanks, I hope you enjoy the rest

[Snow]

I'm reminded of the far future of Chrono Trigger. Which is why I now reccomend this song.