The Nightingale Effect

by N00813

12

Chapter 12

--

I pulled at the suit I’d been given, a fine two-piece tailored by the Sun Princess’s favorite dressmaker, a white unicorn mare by the name of Rarity. She was all business, looking me over with the cold eyes of an artist trying to make the best of what she’d been given.

Granted, she did try to be friendly during the measurements. Still, my tongue was tied. Doctor-patient confidentiality. I supposed that my vague answers made it appear as if I was disinterested, as she quickly lapsed into silence. I preferred it that way. We spent the rest of the session with the quiet zips of a measuring tape and the scratch of pencil on paper to keep us company, only speaking when she wanted to know which choice of fabric or what cut of cloth I wanted.

I liked suits. They were a pain to clean, and deadly to the wallet, but there was something about the garment that made me feel as if I was more clever or confident than I really was.

The night of the Gala had quickly approached, and as Luna’s condition improved, I was no longer obligated to be by Luna’s side every night or day. Just as well, since she was supposedly a nocturnal creature. I could do as well in the night as in the light – eagle eyes could pick up rabbits from a mile away – but she simply smiled, and said that it wasn’t necessary. Do what made me happy, she said.

The tunes of the Gala’s rehearsing musicians drifted through the castle like the stray scent of blood. The players, on the floor directly above us, had started practice an hour ago, and their melodies had diffused into the back of my mind. Now, it was as if everything had an orchestral accompaniment – even an act as mundane as walking and waiting.

As I rounded the corner of the familiar stone passageway towards our rooms, I blinked.

The world seemed to flash before me. Had it simply been eight months since I had first arrived? Years, I’d have thought. So much pain, so much loss and so much joy won, lost and reduced in these rooms. And it was all worth it.

I could see the path I’d followed.

The death of my friend.

The choice to do my research project on the then-unheard field of post-traumatic stress.

The years that followed, full of surveys, interviews, questions, answers. Late nights and early mornings. Chats. Logic and illogic and emotion and intuition all coupled, all mixed. Writing a paper.

The years of diligent study that paid off with a feature in an international journal.

Another patient. A chance to set things right. To show, truly demonstrate, that I had learned from the mistakes of the past.

Insanity, psychosis, severe phobia. The intense, forlorn pit of hopelessness forming as I looked at the Night Princess, drooling on her bed of stone. Only halfright, of course. PTSD on top of that.

Constant companionship. For duty, for what should have been. Taking lead to teach her bathing, eating, drinking. A lost child, forgotten in the forests of her mind.

Progress. A spark of hope in the darkness of her room and her memories. Reformation, rehabilitation seemed possible, all of a sudden.

Continued improvements. Pride, joy and happiness, but also a sense of sweet, soft bitterness. Attachment. Breaking the vow to doctor impartiality.

I grimaced.

Beauty and recognition. Innocent admiration and desire in her teal eyes, unknowing of the turmoil within. My grimace faded away, to be replaced by blank resignation.

I breathed out, feeling my shoulders sag. This was it. The final stretch. Tonight, hopefully, the two of us could leave our pasts, having learnt from failures.

The guards stood, not on both sides of her doorway, but by the side of the wall. Luna herself, dressed in a simple black cloak, floated the furniture out of my room.

The guards had warmed up quite a lot in the time I’d been here. Now, I was simply another member of staff, another servant, instead of ‘foreigner’, ‘guest’ or ‘visitor’.

They inspected me for a few seconds, before deciding that I was safe to pass. I ignored their gazes, instead focusing on the blue alicorn before me.

The desk and the bed slid against the wall to the side of the doorway to my room. The papers on top were still undisturbed, thanks to the influence of magic. Still, I wasn’t exactly pleased.

Luna poked her head into the room, before withdrawing a few scant seconds later, smiling. “Perfect!”

“What are you doing, Luna?”

My exclamation twisted her head around to face me, and her face lit up in happiness that I, suddenly, couldn’t feel. It was as if all of my emotions had evaporated, leaving a cold, empty husk behind.

“We art moving to new rooms,” she said, smile faltering as my face stayed impressively blank. Didn’t she know not to touch my stuff? I frowned, deepening the glare that I just noticed I was giving out.

“Please don’t do this,” I muttered, quietly. With my face set as such, I supposed that I cut a more sinister figure than I really was. “If you need to get things from my room, or want to stay inside, or do anything concerning my room, please ask me first.”

Her face fell from disappointment to sadness, to a slight flare of anger, and then understanding. I stayed still the entire time, pointedly loosening my face muscles until they fell idle.

She hung her head, and her eyes shut for a moment. “Apologies.”

“Accepted,” I murmured, flashing a smile as she blinked her eyes open once more, mouth slightly agape. I suppose, as a Princess, she never had to do this. There was a first time for everything.

Still, the fact remained that she wanted me to stay. She could have simply had me removed from the grounds or the country, but no. Perhaps she was as invested in this as I was. “So, where are the new rooms?”

“Observatory,” she said, horn starting to glow. The blue glow cast the surrounding rock in shades of gray and black, and a hiss of power accompanied the radiant light cast off from that bony spire. “We shall take thy belongings to thy room!”

“Alright!” I said, over the ever-growing sound.

With a bright flash that made the dimly-lit tunnel seem as bright as day, she vanished, along with my furniture.

None of us made a sound as the magical residue winked out of existence. Then, one of the guards whistled; a nervous, awed sound reverberating through the corridor. His partner kicked him with a hoof.

I shook my own head, waiting for the telltale growing hiss of wind that usually accompanied teleportation entry. When there was none, I sighed.

“If she reappears –” I cut myself off as the soft whistle of wind picked up, and Luna rematerialized in front of us with a muted explosion. I closed my eyes as the shockwave hit, the displaced air ruffling my feathers.

Luna smiled as she walked over, before draping a wing over my back. The guards pointedly looked away.

“You were honest with me,” she murmured, as we continued down a corridor perpendicular to the one we’d just traversed. “I – I… Thank you. I needed that.”

“I try.” I smiled at her, and she reciprocated. “I wanted to be happy. Better a rebuke from me, than from a stranger in the future.”

“Best to have no rebuke at all, by doing everything right,” she said, grinning.

“Ah, yes. We can hope, my dear.”

We walked together, side-by-side, towards the main dining hall; I’d been here long enough to remember the routes to the big, important rooms. Decorated corridors, empty for the night, passed us by. Her metal-shod hooves clicked as they hit the stone flooring. Outside the passing windows, three trails could be seen – two of smoke, one of thunder. They were so close together, it was like a single, wide swath of black cloud rocketing off in the sky.

The stars beyond shone brightly, as did the moon. A multitude of observers for their avatar’s good health? They certainly seemed sparkle especially vigorously this night. The moon gave off so much light, it almost rivaled the sun in spectacle. Luna’s face certainly reflected that of her namesake. Her smile, full of hope and anticipation for the future, was infectious; pretty soon, my heart swelled in excitement. And to think, I never really liked social events!

Perhaps it was my companion. I might not have liked the event, but a night with my friend-or-lover was the thing I was happy about.

The sound of the crowd washed over us like waves over sand. It was as if someone suddenly activated a radio; a wave of laughter and noise, and suddenly there was the sound of chattering and speech. The party was in full swing.

I continued to walk, but the sudden lack of heat and comforting weight from Luna’s wing made me pause in my step.

Luna had frozen in her stride. One hoof hovered over the floor, whilst she stood stock-still, almost beating the guards at her statue-impression. With each pulse of laughter and noise, Luna blinked.

I rushed back to her side. “Luna, what’s wrong?”

She took a deep breath, before turning to nuzzle the top of my head. She was tall enough to do so without me stooping down. “This was how it started.”

“The Nightmare?” I said, grimly, although I already knew the answer.

“The rebellion,” she murmured, letting her hoof fall to the floor, a limp piece of meat and bone. “I confronted my sister in the middle of court, on the twilight betwixt day and night.”

“Full circle,” I muttered. Her wing, still extended, now hung loosely in between us like a feathery wall. “It shall end how it started. But this time, we shall make another choice. No fighting; simply observing.”

She stared at me as if I had gone crazy. Ironic, yes. That spiel had come out of nowhere, and all of a sudden, I was waxing lyrical poetry more suited to a master of literature than a psychologist.

As quickly as that had come, my muse faded away, and I shook my head. “Well, that came out better than I’d thought.”

“I’ll say,” Luna giggled, sounding like a mare just out of adolescence rather than the ancient pony princess she was. Still, this side of her felt real, not an act put up for the people.

I unfurled a wing, sliding it over her back.

“So, shall we?”

The trepidation returned to her face, but it was less than before. I nuzzled her neck and chest with my cheek, careful not to scratch at the velvet coat with my sharp beak. She cooed, a sweet melody that felt like honey mead to my ears.

She nodded, and just like that, we continued down the corridor, towards the dining hall.

Opulent chandeliers, crystal with gold inlays, hung from the ceilings like spiders from webs. Massive, thick marble pillars seemed to line the walls in the far corner, and between them, I could spot an opening into the castle gardens. Next to the pillars, the doorway was dwarfed by its neighbors. A massive golden statue, all curves and abstraction and no merit, sat on a grey stone pedestal in another corner. Serving tables, stacked full with drink and food and staffed by bored, tired servant ponies lined the walls, with a pair running down the length of the hall. Most diners, almost all unicorns, ate where they stood, hovering a plate and a set of utensils in front of them as they did. Why did they even need the utensils, though? Couldn’t they simply pick up the food with their magic?

Luna’s shawl obscured her wings, but the way she had her wings wrapped around me made it look as if I was under the shawl as well. She nudged at me with a wing, and I snapped out of my stupor.

There was a dining table, unoccupied, close to us. It was in a niche of the room, where two walls would be at our backs, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of traffic nearby. The Moon Princess kept her gaze and snout pointing downwards, like an amateur spy attempting to conceal her presence.

Baby steps. Nothing ever came easy.

We sat down, next to one another. There were no chairs that I could see, but the table was designed more as a coffee table, than a dining one. It fit our purpose well, though.

Luna heaved out a breath, and I instinctively glanced over at her, before pressing closer. She would know that she didn’t have to face this alone.

Social anxiety stemmed from a sort of disconnection between a person and ‘society’, the nebulous, constantly changing thing that no one could really define. One’s description of society changed from species to species, race to race, even city to city. With Luna, though, it was likely that she wouldn’t fit any normal society; she was a princess, and furthermore, gone for a thousand years and turned into a legend.

So, these feelings she had were entirely natural.

We stayed there for a long, long while. Several ponies had passed us, giving us appraising, guarded glances. Luna had stopped shaking out of nerves, reverting to hide behind the flimsy cloth shell of her shawl. I tapped her shoulder, meeting her eyes dead-on with my own.

“I’ll get some food,” I said, pointing towards the nearby dining table. Luna’s eyes wandered over to follow my claws, and then she nodded and gave a small, shaky smile.

I piled her plate high with cooked hay of all sorts, and topped the mountain off with two artfully cut vegetable sandwiches. Hobbling back towards the table, I found it occupied by two other ponies – a male and a female. By the way they were holding one another, they were obviously a couple. By the sounds of it, Luna and the two were having a subdued conversation.

I slid the plate by Luna’s side, and she pressed her snout to the crook of my neck for a moment, before withdrawing. I smiled.

“I’m going to get more food for myself,” I whispered into her ear, and when she responded with a quiet ‘alright’, I turned tail.

Even when I wasn’t halfway to the table, I could hear the conversation stop, then kick up. It was best not to loiter.

I’d spent more time hunting for a meat substitute than I cared to admit. Despite the Gala being an event for all castle ‘guests’, including ambassadors and the like, they really only served pony food. There were some meat products, according to the servants, but they’d run out for the night.

I made do with a load of dessert. Piling cake slice upon cake slice onto my plate, I returned to the table, to find the poor Luna stumbling under a barrage of questions. Her mouth hung open as she stammered, unable to answer one question before being asked another, yet her interrogators wouldn’t stop their salvo of words.

“Is he really good in bed?”

The clink of the plate settling upon the white tablecloth surface made them both pause, and their ears swiveled to meet me before their heads turned. That last question had caught be in between the eyes; I didn’t know who had asked, but I also didn’t really care.

“Hello,” I said, trying to be as casual as I could. The way their eyes bulged and their jaws hung open – oh, Maker, I could treasure that forever. I looked over to Luna. “Meat’s gone. Making do.”

Luna unfolded her forelegs and gave a happy little gasp, before proceeding to fold a wing around me as I started to eat.

That did the trick. Their jaws seemed to fall off, hanging loosely with only the skin there to keep it attached to them.

I grinned. “As for your question, I’m not sure. I’ve never bothered to find out.”

This time, their faces reddened until they had taken the shade normally reserved for tomatoes.

“Who are you,” one of them, the mare, blurted out, and then covered her mouth with her hooves as her brain caught up with her mouth. The way she was going, I could see some of the makeup smudging as she pressed her hooves to her cheeks.

“Honey, we’d better go, and stop bothering the Princess,” the male chuckled, awkwardness oozing off every word. His pale grey coat was now so red that it looked like he had a bad case of sunburn.

“Princess Luna,” the alicorn beside me shouted. The two ponies opposite us almost went flying back into the air, but somehow, they managed to stay where they were, like kites anchored to a table. Suddenly, I was grateful for my species’ mediocre hearing.

As I gulped down the sense of nausea that had started to bubble up from my stomach, I glanced around. The ambient noise of the party made hid her exclamation quite well, and the fact that we were essentially in a corner helped to limit the number of people that could have heard. Just as well; I had the suspicion that Luna couldn’t handle crowds yet.

Baby steps.

I smiled, and reexamined the two. The stallion was now bashfully attempting to pry his wife or mistress off the table, but the mare, cheeks rosy and eyes wandering under influence, roughly shook his hoof off with a flick of her shoulder. How much did she have to drink?

“Dr. Sigurd Frund sak Tallis,” I said cheerfully, finishing the introduction with several rapid gulps of cake. Maker, the taste! It was as if someone had managed to shove endorphins straight into all of my nerve systems. The creamy chocolate almost melted in my tongue.

“Dearie, can’t you see that the Princess is busy? I’m so very sorry,” the stallion chuckled, his monocle almost jumping ship at the awkwardness. His eye was twitching a dance, and he was sweating artillery shells at this rate. I shrugged, and continued to eat.

I glanced to the side as I swallowed. Luna didn’t seem pleased, but neither did she seem sad, or angry, or scared. It was simply as if she was an observer, a bystander in the stage of the world. Not puppet-master, not an actor, not a prop. Outside all of that.

“Why?” Luna asked, her voice a roar. I swore I could see little trails of dust blast out from her mouth. “We do not appear to be occupied.”

The male froze in his movement, before giving up with a sigh. He let himself fall onto the chair, face full of resignation. The female, however, was squinting very, very hard, as if concentrating on an imaginary fly on the wall behind me. She was still sloshed, so I suppose it could have been a hallucination of some sort. Who knew what was in her alcohol nowadays?

“Doctor? I thought bodyguard,” the mare said, all of a sudden, before collapsing into a fit of giggles and hiccups. “Oh, this is so… so, so romantic!”

“Ha ha,” I said, a mouthful of cake in my mouth. “Funny.”

Still, I couldn’t deny that there weren’t any old, idealized ties to fables in our story. The princess who fell for the commoner, the nurse who married the patient…

“Again, I apologize,” the stallion said, putting on a massive, forced smile for the Princess. He hooked a foreleg beneath his partner’s barrel, and despite the verbal and physical protests that she made, led her away.

“Well, that was fun,” I muttered, finishing off the cake. Luna had only gone halfway through her own bundle of food.

“No, it was not,” she murmured, before turning to me with a flat look. “There is no recognition in their eyes. A fresh start, for better or for worse.”

“Let’s make sure it’s for better, then,” I said, turning to shoot her a quick glance.

She returned it. “For the ones who lie dead.”

“And for yourself.” I patted her on the foreleg with the palm of my claw. “Guilt assuaged is beneficial to the self.”

She frowned, before returning to a more neutral expression. “I suppose. A side effect of good deeds.”

“A consequence, even an unintended one, is still a consequence.”

“Aye.” She turned to look at me, with an odd glint in her eye. “I tell thee this – perhaps I did not deserve my second chance. But I have it, and I shall use it to the best of my ability, to atone for my past sins.”

Her wing swept up my back, before the tip folded around the outside of my body, and drew me next to her. “Dost you thinkest my goal is worthy?”

“I think we could all do that,” I said, a smile playing upon my lips. The ponies of the Gala suddenly felt a lot further away, and their covert glances a lot less intrusive. I turned to her. “We don’t have to do it alone, however.”

She returned the smile, eyes glistening with new hope and new tears. A new future. “I… Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure,” I said, and suddenly, I realized that this was the first time I had been totally sincere using that phrase. Chilled by an imaginary wind, Luna’s body heat seemed all the more inviting.

“I had never thought a griffon to be sensitive,” she murmured, nuzzling the top of my head. “How things change.”

“We all have hidden depths,” I purred, almost involuntarily. “Past experiences, actions, help shape what we are, who we are. Beyond that…”

Her snout hit a sensitive part on the base of my neck, and I almost crooned. Almost. In hindsight, it would have been the most embarrassing thing if I had – but at that point, I didn’t care. It was like how my mother would treat me…

“Beyond that, we shape ourselves,” she finished, a triumphant smile upon her face. The star – or moon – of the ball, shining brighter than the candlelit chandeliers overhead.

“We try, I suppose,” I said, grinning stupidly. “But hey, it’s the thought, the intention that counts. Consequences come as they may. But we can say, ‘we have tried’.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, reciprocating the smile.

As I gazed into her beautiful teal eyes, and she into my own, time seemed to slow down, and the rush and noise and distraction of the party seemed to fade into a low white static. There was nothing in the world right now but her. An adrenaline high, an opioid dose couldn’t compare to this feeling of falling, yet flying, hunger and satisfaction, desperation and contentment.

Oh, this was true. I was in love. And it looked like she was as well.

The world seemed to get smaller, and she bigger. Her face, her snout and lips filled my vision, and I reflexively parted my beak.

Then, three things happened.

A shrill voice screamed out, launching a tirade against an unknown, but probably very nervous, partner.

A somewhat whispery roar burst out in the far corner closest to the gardens.

A tide of creatures, big and small, furry and scaly, streamed out like water down a broken dam.

Our respective mouths stopped millimeters from one another as our eyes snapped open, and as one, we stood with mute horror as the pillars started to collapse.

Luna sucked in a hard breath as the somewhat familiar sound of cracking stone sounded from the ceiling, like the cracking of knuckles. She closed her eyes, and her blue horn lit up.

Unbelievably, the stone started to knit together. Like strands of muscle winding over and under and in between one another, the stone began to spread ‘roots’, simply sinking into neighboring stone slabs as if they were water. All the while, I could see a thin blue layer tint the frescoes painted on the slabs that were once the ceiling.

I gaped at the display. The ceiling, once whole and then fragmented into massive, interlocking slabs, was now healing – gluing one slab to another using their materials they were built from.

Another aura, light gold, reestablished the pillars, propping up the hastily sewn ceiling before the latter could fracture into more chunks.

The animals running around almost went ignored by me. None of them stepped close to us; it was as if they knew what I was. Some primal part of their brains had activated their self-preservation instinct, and they knew well enough to stay away.

Luna collapsed into a huff, a light coat of sweat covering her slim frame. She smiled tiredly at me, and giggled. I realized that I was still gaping like an idiot.

“Wow,” I muttered. Right then, I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She drew me into a hug, watching as a light gold tint played around the repaired ceiling, filling in gaps and repainting the artwork. As if someone turned on the radio, the screams of the partygoers suddenly seemed that much louder, and I let loose a shaky breath, aware of my sudden shivering. The last vestiges of adrenaline evaporated from my muscles, and suddenly I felt spent, leaning into Luna’s soft, warm embrace.

Hoofsteps sounded off from the right, and I turned my head over to see Heartfelt stepping over the path of a colorful rodent. She was dressed in simple servant uniform, tarnished by a messy slosh that had once been thousand-bit soup. She shook her head, and then drew into a bow, pressing the light pink of her chin almost to the floor. Luna bade her to rise, although with slightly more formality than I expected.

The alicorn laid her head on top of mine, using the crown feathers as a sort of pillow.

“You know, Your Majesty, Doctor Sigurd… no one would notice if you two were missing from the Gala. Especially not after an event like this.”

It took me a moment to catch her drift, before I closed my eyes and half-smiled. “Really? You know I’m not that kind of person.”

Luna, meanwhile, kept silent. With her head directly above mine, her expression was hidden from me, but I suspected that she was somewhat confused. Perhaps it was the subtlety of the language.

“Hey, I don’t know.” She grinned. “I never suggested anything. Just… if you’d like some privacy in your own rooms, no one will stop you.”

“Message received in full,” I said. It was good to see her, get some laughs to balance out all of the melancholy philosophy of before. Balance. That was the spice of life, or more accurately, the staple. “You got anyone in mind?”

Her smile faltered a little, becoming dreamier and her eyes more vacant, before she turned to look away. I followed her gaze to one of the guards that were trying to instill order amidst the shouts of anger and cries of distress. “Yeah.”

“Best of luck,” I said, turning back to look at her. “By the way, you might want to get cleaned up.”

“Hmm?” She followed the point of my claw, suddenly noticing the patch on her uniform. “Oh, piffle. That’s going to get a wash later, anyways.”

“Yes, it would,” Luna said, after a moment as I fought to contain my urge to chuckle at the blatant hint. “Thou cannot report for duty with dirty clothing.”

“Princess, I meant… never mind,” Heartfelt said, trying very hard not to facehoof.

I grinned at her. “You know, I see he’s all alone right now, in need of some help.” Sure enough, the poor guard was surrounded by panicking animals and guests, all of whom threatened to overwhelm him like a massive wave. “Just waiting for a partner to battle the hordes with.”

Heartfelt looked away from us, her violet eyes searching and lighting up as she spotted her chance. “Farewell, Princess, Doctor,” she said, and took off cantering.

“Ah, how romantic,” Luna cooed, in a whisper of a voice. She lifted her head up from mine, and shot me an odd, hungry look. “We shall also make our own happy ending.”

Author's Note:

Just an epilogue more.

Comments

[High_Wind]

global3.memecdn.com/Best-Hint-ever_c_130051.jpg

[Psycho Kid]

I love this, I absolutely love fics like this. Writing about psychology is a very difficult thing to do, and when it's done correctly, you get amazing things such as this. I haven't read anything else you have written but reading this has convinced me that I need to.
Also: 1907145 oh god it hurts

[N00813]

1907641

Damn straight.

I'm not sure I got it right, though. Psychology tends to be intensely personal, so... Luna's case is unique, for sure.

Thanks!

[Psycho Kid]

1907669 Luna was always the perfect topic for psychology fics because she has had the most troubling past of anyone. As for wether or not you got it right well, Let's just say that many manly tears have been shed

[FlimPhilosophication]

Be you a God? Because this is great! Also for some reason when reading this I am reminded of ww2 medical science

[N00813]

1907875

World is 19th century tech-level.

If that's not what you mean...

[Scootareader]

She cooed, a sweet melody that felt like honey mead to my ears.

Scootaloo confirmed for Luna's daughter.