The Sixth Element

by Lets Do This

The Battle of Ponyville Square

It was quiet in the square outside the Town Hall. The building had been evacuated. The townsfolk had fled to their homes, where they huddled in silence, wondering what would happen next.

The warm night breeze whipped up a scrap of paper, fluttered a banner.

And nudged a large cardboard box, sitting upside down by a trash barrel to one side of the Square. There was a broad, rectangular slot cut in one side of the box, rough-edged, as with a box cutter and too little time. And a pair of eyes peered out of the box. One looked left, the other right.

Derpy waited. There was no use trying to figure out where the Mare had gone in such a hurry. So she waited for the Mare to return, as she hoped she would.

And after little more than ten minutes, her hopes were rewarded.

She saw the wraith-like shadows of the Mare rising over the Forest, coming closer and closer. They cascaded like dark-light meteors onto the cobbles of the Square, and swirled into the tall, proud form of the Mare herself.

The Mare looked left, then right, seeing nothing. Filaments of shadow sped away from her along the darkened, silent streets, spreading out over the town, as if searching for something.

Seeing that the Mare was looking away from her, Derpy rose up, lifting the box. She tiptoed closer. Then the Mare's questing eyes swept back in her direction. She hunched down again.

The Mare took a few steps across the square, and again swept her head back and forth, as if listening, waiting for word from her questing tendrils of shadow.

Whenever her gaze was elsewhere, Derpy again rose up and crept closer, then dropped when her gaze swept back. Creep. Drop. Creep. Drop. Almost there.

"Thinkst we are not aware of thee, little foal?"

The Mare's head snapped round. The merest flicker of her sword-like horn whipped the box away. Derpy was revealed, sitting forlornly on the cobbles. The Mare rounded on her, stalked closer.

Derpy sat looking up at her, eyes crossed and vacant.

"Why dost thou gaze upon us with only one eye?"

My Book Eye! Derpy thought. She knows I use that when speaking to ponies. She knows me! She must be the Mare in the Moon!

"And why dost thou smile at us like that! Like an idiot child? Knowst thou not who we are!"

"You're... the Mare in the Moon?"

"We are far more than that! We are NIGHTMARE MOON!" the Canterlot Voice thundered across the square, accompanied by a dramatic flash of lightning and roll of thunder.

Derpy goggled. "You're kidding! You're kidding, right?"

The Mare's eyes glared angrily. "Kidding? What beest this kidding thou speakst of? Cease thy prattle!"

But Derpy was overjoyed. "I just can't believe it! I just don't believe it! You're the Mare in the Moon!" Derpy leapt up and began capering about. "It's you! You're here! You're real! I knew it -- I knew it -- I knew it!"

"BE STILL!"

Derpy's rear end thumped down on the cobbles. She fell silent. But she couldn't help beaming in joy.

"Thou thinkst to jest with us?" The Mare's eyes flared. "Thou shalt learn the cost of thy impudence!"

Her horn blazed. Lightning struck the pavement, melting the cobbles. But Derpy was no longer there. Startled by the flash, the gray pegasus had bolted into the air in a random direction. She now hovered in the air on a slant, looking at the Mare cross-eyed from eye level.

Again the Mare struck at her, and again Derpy dodged. Bolt after bolt sizzled the air, but none found its mark, for the simple reason that not only could the Mare not figure out which way Derpy would bounce next, even Derpy herself wasn't all that sure.

The Mare's head came up, angry and tense. Derpy was nowhere in sight.

"Can I ask you something?"

The Mare's magic lashed out behind her. Derpy bounced in front.

"Only take a minute."

Zap! "I mean..." ZAP! "If it's not..." ZAP! "Too much trouble?"

"ENOUGH!" The Mare pawed the cobbles with a fore-hoof in frustration. It was beneath her to contend with such a powerless, addled wretch. This little one was a waste of time, far more trouble than she was worth! Yet a thousand years of imprisonment left her unwilling to turn away from any challenge, no matter how minute, to her absolute sovereignty.

Her expression turned crafty. "Thou seekst an audience with us? Hast a petition? Seekst thou a boon, mayhaps?"

"I dunno. I just had a question."

"Then land thou in front of us, make thy obeisance, and ask." She smiled evilly. "We grant thee assurance of safety."

Derpy fluttered around and landed in front of the Mare, who lined up her horn for one quick immolating blast.

Derpy bowed deeply, then sat down on the cobbles and looked up at her.

"Are you here because of my wishes?"

Despite herself, the Mare stilled the blast readied in her horn.

"Wishes? Speak'st plainly, thou golden-eyed gnat!"

"Every night I looked up at the Moon. I sent my wishes to the Mare in the Moon. My wishes brought me here. And now you're here. Did my wishes bring you here?"

"Let us understand this clearly... thou wished for our return? Thou sought to be here, to witness our return?"

Derpy shrugged. "I dunno. I did kinda feel like I had to come here."

The Mare's eyes narrowed, suspecting treachery. "Thou seek'st to flatter us? Gain our trust? And then betray it as our sister did a millenia ago?"

Derpy looked puzzled, and shrugged. "I was just wondering about my wishes."

Nightmare Moon glared straight into the dominant-oclar eye of the tiny pony before her, saw nothing but innocent plaintive hope. This pony had nothing to hide. She barely had anything to hide it in.

"And thou art pleased by our return? Pleased we have come to reclaim what was ours?"

Derpy wasn't sure. "I always liked looking at the Mare in the Moon," she said. "I was happy when I was little. The Mare looked like that. Happy, I mean. I wanted to be happy again, like I had been. So I wished, every night." She looked up, into the face of Nightmare Moon, and smiled. "And I'm glad I wished, because you're real. I'm glad you're here." She tilted her head, looked up at the Mare, her voice small

"Can I have the rest of my wishes? Please?"

Somewhere within Nightmare Moon, locked away deep inside, a Princess gazed down upon a face that might have been her own a millenia ago. A face that looked up and wished on the moon and stars themselves, for things to be different.

And the Princess cried, in the dark.

Nightmare Moon hesitated. She arched an eyebrow.

"Well! Let it never be said of us that we were ungenerous to those who awaited and desired our return!"

She leaned closer, raised a long, black forehoof and pointed it at the pony's face like a gunship cannon.

"Dost thou desire thy vision made whole, little one?"

"Oh, no! Please don't take away my Dinky Eye!"

"Thy what?"

"My Dinky Eye. I use it to keep an eye on my daughter, to make sure she's safe." She demonstrated, the eye wandering about in all directions.

"Hah." The Mare drew back. "How resourceful of you."

Shaking her head, she stood tall, lifting her head high. "Name thy wishes, supplicant! And make haste!"

Derpy smiled. Now this was the Mare in the Moon she understood. "Well, I wished for my life to be better. It's definitely gotten better here in Ponyville. So guess I got that one." Derpy decided not to mention her cutie-mark, since she wasn't sure what the Mare could do about that. "I suppose the only thing left is just..."

The Mare tapped a hoof impatiently. "Go on!"

Derpy looked up at her. "I wanted a better life for my daughter, for her to be safe and happy. And for my friends, too, the ones I made here in Ponyville. That's pretty much it, I guess."

"Commendable," the Mare sneered dryly. "Nothing for thyself? No gold, jewels or principalities?"

"I want a good life for my daughter. Better than I had, anyway. And for my friends to be happy. That's pretty much it."

"Hmmm..." The Mare smiled. "Very well then! Arise, uh ---"

She looked down at the pegasus. "What is thy name?"

"Derpy!"

"Uh huh. Ahem. Arise, Derpy! And harken to our proclamation!"

Derpy stood up and waited attentively.

"We, Nightmare Moon, hereby proclaim that henceforth the domain of 'Ponyville' and environs shall be granted to thee, Derpy, and to thy daughter -- uh?"

"Dinky."

The eyebrow arched higher. "Thou art kidding, right?" The Mare sighed.

"-- and to thy daughter, Dinky, in perpetuity, to rule in our name!" She smiled. "That should make thy friends 'happy'. They shouldst findst that a source of much amusement! And furthermore, that only those of its inhabitants that thou countest amongst thy 'friends' shall escape our wrath!"

She sneered. See how thou dealst with that one, small foal! They shall tumble over themselves like mice trying to turn thy silly head!

Derpy smiled. "Thank you, Mare in the Moon!"

"Hmph. We have business to attend to this night, and we have tarried here long enough!" Her tone became dirisive. "So, farewell to thee, Princess Derpy of Ponyville!"

The Mare was surrounded by swirling shadows, which consumed her and then arced away into the sky.

Derpy saw they were heading towards the Golden Oak Library. She hopped into the air and flapped off after them -- though at a safe distance.

Gliding up the street, she saw the shadows pause at an upper window of the Library tree, and then, apparently thwarted, speed onward through the town. Derpy gave chase, wings flapping madly to keep up. They passed the Cakes' house. They passed the post office and the Costume shop. And after some time they finally arrived at the edge of Ponyville... the edge that bordered on the dark and forbidding Everfree Forest.

Here Derpy could just make out Twilight trailing after her friends as they all disappeared up the path into the Forest. And she saw the Mare's shadows flit swiftly after them, disappearing into the trees overhead.

Derpy very much wanted to follow, to warn them, to help them, to join in what looked like a great adventure.

But then she remembered Dinky. And something else. The Mare had said that she, Derpy, was now in charge of Ponyville. She sat down and considered that. It seemed like an awful lot for her to manage. But it was her job now.

Reluctantly, she got up, and turned away from the Forest and back towards town.

Comments

[Bronycommander]

That's one funny way to deal with NIghtmare Moon.