Queen Nightmare Moon

by Makitk

Chapter 8

"A blue neutron star," Nightmare Moon repeated what was just said to her, staring at the overactive Unicorn who had rushed into the throne room moments before.

"Yes, my Queen," the Unicorn mare exclaimed anew, looking utterly bewildered about it.

The green mare's yellow mane was a chaotic mess of hairs springing in each direction but a common one, her pupils were small from barely withheld fear, and the glasses she wore were crooked and in danger of slipping off her muzzle.

The Queen looked from her to her sister Celestia, now a dark visage of her former self, still standing near the center of the room. She was staring out of the nearest window, from which a harsh bright light shone now, rather than the faded blue of the twilight which was cast upon the world during the earlier ceremony.

"What is a neutron star?" Nightmare Moon queried. "I have ruled over the night's sky for years now, and have never heard the term mentioned."

The Unicorn before her blinked once, then reached out with her magic to push her glasses back in place. "Ah, well, as you know, Clover the Clever first theorized that there were as many differences among the stars in your night's sky as there were among the ponies in Equestria."

The Queen gave a short nod to that, turning her attention back to the smaller mare.

"That theory led to the creation of the astronomer's guild by Greymane the Competent, who made great strides identifying the primary colors which we use to categorize the stars, yellow and blue among them," the studious one continued. "She drew up scrolls with theories which we are still working to prove true to this day. Only with recent advances in focal lenses combined with magic spells have we gained conclusive evidence that there is a difference in size between stars, for example."

"Will you get to the point already?" Nightmare Moon groaned, closing her right eye to peer down through only her left.

"A few of the scrolls speak of blue 'neutron' stars, being smaller than our own was up to now, my Queen," the Unicorn pointed out, taking a hesitant half-step back. "They warn that the rays from these stars may be as densely compacted as they are and could do great harm as they fall from the sky."

The Queen glanced sideways at her sister again, who now looked back with a wicked grin, and wondered at just how much the change had affected her. Celestia definitely did not appear to be seeing the danger, or appeared not to care.

"So now my sister has changed her bothersome sun into an even more dangerous one, has she?" Nightmare Moon asked, putting her attention on the unicorn mare again.

"Yes, my Queen," the mare agreed with a quick nod. "We are in grave danger, if Greymane's scrolls are any indication."

Nightmare Moon turned upon her sister by a few quick strides. "Change the sun back, Celestia," she demanded as her sister's pink eyes met hers.

"Darkstar," the other Alicorn returned with a small smirk, "and, alas, I cannot do that right now, sister."

The Queen lifted her left eyebrow and pressed her right eye closed again. "And why not?"

"Ah, well, as it turns out, changing the sun's color from yellow to blue takes far more energy than I had anticipated," Celestia coughed uneasily, scraping her left forehoof back over the carpet she stood on. "There was truly an immense push against the changes I was manifesting, forcing me to use more magic than expected to steer that away."

"What do you mean with 'a push', Celestia?" Nightmare Moon pressed, trying to understand what her sister was trying to get at.

"Darkstar, if you'd please, my dear sister," the recent transformee repeated. "As for the push I mentioned; it truly felt like an immense wave of energy coming from my sun as it shrank and changed color: A massive feedback pulse which took an equally large amount of magic to turn away from us. I am drained to the point where I doubt I have enough magic left in me to even open a door on my own."

Nightmare Moon blinked once, then brought her right hoof up to place at her temple and rubbed it around gently. "So, to reiterate; your sister, the Queen of this nation, to whom you claimed to be loyal, granted you the gift of transformation into a pony of the night, like her, and you repay her by placing a deadly object in what should be MY NIGHT'S SKY???"

Her sister looked unphazed at the Queen's outburst, answering the question with a curt nod. "That's about the gist of it, yes. Although I was not aiming for it to be dangerous so much as just fixing its radiance to be closer to that displayed by your moon, sister."

"If I may, my Queen," the Unicorn mare spoke up from behind Nightmare Moon, "according to the scrolls we have but a limited time before these heavy sunrays will fall down upon us. Time is of the essence if the populace is to have any chance to survive."

"What do you propose I do about it?" the Queen snapped. "The sun is my dimwitted sister Celestia's domain, not mine!"

"It's Darkstar now," her sister tried again, rolling her eyes.

"Ah, perhaps, if I may be forward, my Queen, you could position your beautiful moon in the direct path of these oncoming rays? Like a shield of sorts," the Unicorn suggested, her eyes wandering to the windows and the light shining in.

There was a moment of silence as both Alicorns considered the suggestion, but then Darkstar, formerly known as Celestia, grinned up.

"That sounds mad enough for it to work," she decided, taking a step closer to Nightmare Moon. "As advisor to the throne, I would suggest doing that immediately, dear sister of mine. Nothing better than a full eclipse, am I right?"

The Queen snorted at her sister's sudden forwardness, but took a few steps closer to the throne to look out the large windows in the wall behind it. The sun was still up on high, where it had been placed for the ceremony earlier in the day, and her moon was partly eclipsing it already. With her unchanged moon so close by it, it was easy to see the sun had clearly shrunk to almost half its size, but it was giving off a strong blueish-white light, brighter than Celestia's yellow sun before it.

The surface of her moon was as dark as she expected it to be, and Nightmare Moon gave it a slight nudge for it to slide further over the star behind it until it made a perfect eclipse. then locked it in place again.

The result was a pitchblack disc floating in the night's sky, with a bright blue aura surrounding it, and Nightmare Moon glanced back from it to stare at her sister's mane and tail, suddenly realizing what they represented: A full eclipse, rather than a black hole.

The unity of both sun and moon together, producing the effective eternal night the Queen had wanted to enact since she first manifested. The eclipse had darkened the world considerably, but the aura around her moon was somehow brighter than it had been before and illuminated the lands below to the point where it bathed in a dark blue twilight.

The Queen, and all lunar ponies with her, could still see perfectly fine in these conditions, and even the dayponies could grow accustomed to it without needing too many lamps.

With a smile forming on her lips, she approached her sister, who dipped her head down slightly to indicate her continued submission to her Queen, even after her earlier statements.

"Next time you wish to grant me a gift like this, 'Darkstar', I would appreciate you bringing it up in conversation first," Nightmare Moon spoke softly but sternly. "It would save me a headache or two dealing with the fallout."

"Yes, my Queen, I will do as you ask. Thank you for using my new name," Darkstar replied, bowing lower by letting her left foreleg slide forward while she bent her right.

"Is the danger averted, then?" the unicorn mare wondered, taking a careful step backward in the direction of the double doors. Her daypony pupils were spread wide open, unused to the new darkness around her, and she was clearly limited in what she could see.

"I expect the academy to keep me appraised of any further issues, but my moon will catch the majority of rays coming from my sister's sun," Nightmare Moon agreed, turning her gemstone eye upon the other while breaking into a smile. "You helped avert disaster today, what was your name again?"

The unicorn backed herself into the left of the double doors, then bowed her head forward in the general direction of the Queen and her advisor while Darkstar was rising up out of her own. "Sunlit Meadow, my Queen," she mumbled in reply, her voice barely audible and her ears drooping down.

"Ah," the Queen responded blankly, her smile fading again.

"May I go now, my Queen?" Sunlit asked meekly, looking up out of her lowered position.

Nightmare Moon gave a thoughtful nod to that. "Yes, Sunlit Meadow, you may. Thank you again for your help in this, I won't forget it."

As the Unicorn retreated out of the throne room with a haste that made the Queen realize the poor mare had been feeling more uncomfortable than she had let on, there was a sudden bump of a shoulder nudging her left flank.

"With a name like that, I'd have thought she would have enjoyed my new sun," Darkstar chuckled as her sister turned her attention back to her.

The Queen furrowed her brow at that. "These past few weeks have led me to reconsider such careless thoughts, sister."

"I know, I was there," the other Alicorn suggested with a return of the wicked grin she had shown before.

"No," Nightmare Moon sighed, realizing she could have done more damage to her sister's psyche than she had accounted for, "you weren't. Celestia would have cared."