The Nightmare Knights Become A Band

by SwordTune

Verse 33

Luna stamped the envelope and eagerly slipped it into the mail. She knew that sending a letter by postage may have seemed mundane, the odd looks from the other pegasi suggested as such, but the idea that there could be a system of ponies working in perfect synchronization to bring her letter from the Cloudsdale postal office to somewhere far away was thrilling enough on it own.

“Well, that’s that.” Cloudsdale was having a fine day, despite the storms it was bringing to the rest of Equestria. That was one of the perks of the cloud city, they had no use for rainstorms. Luna blew her mane out of her mouth as she stepped out of the post office. The wind was another story, however. Pegasi typically loved the wind, when it was favourable. It made gliding and flying much easier if you knew how to use the currents. But it was a disaster on long manes everywhere.

“Great, and I left my hair ties in the hotel.”

Luna put up a tight magical shield by her face, one dense enough to block out the wind, and headed down the cloudy street. The band was going to practice after lunch to do a run-through of their performance. Their first Cloudsdale concert would come in a week, meaning this was Luna’s last chance to adjust the performance. There was about a month and a half until Cloudsdale flew over Rainbow Falls in the spring. That meant their first concert would set expectations for the duration of their time in Cloudsdale. No more last-minute changes. Poppin mix made it clear: those were putting too many early grey hairs on her head.

But, it was still early, and after successfully mailing a letter to her sister, Luna was feeling like a morning pony. She would take a walk, get a cup of tea, and watch the clouds roll by. Maybe one day those clouds would become storms, but today they were fluffy cotton balls.

---

“Fizzy, you are going to love it!”

“Uh-huh.” Tempest flipped through the pamphlet of Don Geo-Pony in her hooves. A quiet night with her best friend was exactly what she needed after four hours of practice with the Nightmare Knights. It would have been shorter, but Luna insisted on moving up a song on the setlist, which made Svengallop insist on doing a second run-through with the changes.

But as confusing as her day was, she wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing.“I thought we were going to watch a play. Why am I reading this?”

“It’s an opera. The pamphlet tells you the story so you won’t get lost during the songs.” Glitter Drops dipped oven-baked cauliflower nuggets into a dish of hot sauce. Their original plan was to eat out, but Tempest was too tired for the walk. It was fine. Glitter Drops insisted she’d be happy anywhere, so long as they did it together. Besides, the only downside to the hotel’s food was that it was a little overpriced.

The upside was that they didn’t have to wear the enchanted horseshoes Starlight made for them. The Mareiott was the first of its kind in Cloudsdale, where the clouds, not the guests, were enchanted to be walked on.

“I thought the point of an opera was to watch it. Won’t this just ruin the story?”

Glitter Drops shrugged. “I think of opera the same way I think of movie adaptations for books, except in this case the performance is the original and the stuff you’re reading is the adaptation. Look, just trust me on this, okay? I read this opera when I was at Celestia’s school, and I’ve wanted to see it ever since.”

“Well, when you put it like that, I think I can put up with it.” Tempest said as she flipped back to the front of the pamphlet to read it thoroughly, “I never could say no to you.”

Once they finished their dinner and Tempest was feeling ready to go, they each put on four enchanted horseshoes. These were enchanted to walk on clouds and had crystals inside of them to hold the spell for a longer time. A useful trick, one which Starlight said she learned from a friend.

They both trod carefully as they approached the theatre, and not just because both mares were still unfamiliar with clouds and feared they’d fall through at a moment’s notice. The Cloud Theatre was old. Massive pillars of ultra-dense clouds, modelled after the marble pillars of ancient cities on the ground, surrounded the outside. It had been built upon and modernized, but the core architecture of the theatre sang a tale much older than they were.

Tempest had seen a lot travelling outside of Equestria and experienced many different cultures and histories which demanded respect. Some of them, she helped the Storm King destroy. She didn’t feel worthy of it, but that was exactly why she walked with reverence for a culture that was separated from the world by the sky itself.

“I could stare at this for hours.” She looked up quietly at the carvings in the clouds. These were made of stone but of storms. Inside, the old architecture ran thin streaks from lightning across the cloud walls and pillars. Like lines of neon lights, the lightning crackled and formed facades of constellations, depicting great battles and iconic performances.

It was a world captured inside a dome, brought right up to Tempest’s hoof tips. To preserve its authenticity, the Cloud Theatre had barely expanded beyond its old roots, which meant it could only accommodate about as many audience members now as it could in the past. She looked around, wondering to herself whether the pegasi that lived a thousand years ago felt the same way she did. Now there were hippogriffs and griffons rubbing shoulders with pegasi and a few unicorns. The theatre had not grown. The world was getting smaller.

“When’s it supposed to start?” Tempest asked.

“I don’t know,” Glitter Drops answered. “I should really buy a watch. I think the pony at the door said they’d start in ten minutes.”

Her guess was pretty close. Once the last seat was filled, a distant thoom could be heard from heavy doors shutting them in. Tempest sat as quiet as a mouse, a task made all the more difficult with Glitter Drops bouncing in her seat.

“You need to pee or something?” Tempest teased her, just when the curtains began to pull open.

“Sshh, no,” she clung tightly onto Tempest, “this is where the fun begins.”

Don Geopony! At last, I’ve come,

I shall dine with you, just as you want.

---

Lightning hid her face behind the rim of a cider mug. Inside the hotel’s bar, the cider was fresh, brewed for sixteen hours in a slow-cooker. The smell of eight different flavours of apple, stewed in a broth of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, wafted into her nose and around her face, chasing away the cold air.

It was enough to make her forget how dumb Svengallop could be. Band practice went over time, all because he wanted to “double-check” their performance after Luna shifted one song around. Just one. Luna moved one song! We didn’t need to repeat the whole rehearsal. Those and many more thoughts bumped around her head, but she found it harder and harder to fault him. Their playing was smoother by the end of their practice session, even if they were exhausted. On top of that, at least he was willing to call it quits in time for happy hour.

Lightning had her CD player tucked away in a small traveller’s bag, and all she wanted was to take it out and retreat to her own world of sound. There was just one problem. Of all the ponies Lightning Dust expected to see at the Mareiott, she didn’t expect her old rival would ever show up. Why would she? A pegasus could fly anywhere in the city, she didn’t need the hotel.

Rainbow Dash had her Wonderbolt uniform on. Of course. The Wonderbolts were always called on to help with the weather quotas. Lightning Dust watched her from the corner of her eye. Should she risk it? Rainbow Dash knew exactly what was on there. She’d laugh at her for sure.

After all, who wouldn’t laugh? As much as Lightning hated to admit it, Rainbow was everything she wasn’t. She was a true Wonderbolt, a hero to Equestria that every pony had heard of. She was friends with Princess Twilight Sparkle. Heck, she actually had friends. Plus, she saved ponies from danger instead of putting them in it.

Whenever she was around Dash, she had to clench her jaw and swallow her pride. She was just too cool. How could she hold a candle to that? Lightning put the mug up to her face, glancing to the side to see if Dash had noticed her.

Dash was staring right at her.

Lightning’s entire body flushed with heat as her heart pumped like a steam train. Don’t you dare, don’t come over here! Ahh! No!

“Lightning? What are you doing here?” Rainbow Dash caught her as she was tensing up to jump out of her chair. “You’re not leaving yet, are you? Come on, it’s still early!”

“Hey, Dashie.” Lightning sat back down. “No, I was just— nevermind. Doesn’t matter. I’m just here on business with Luna.”

“Oh, right,” Rainbow laughed. “Dude, I still can’t believe you know how to play the drums. You should totally stop by the School of Friendship. Starlight hired this musician as a lecturer, but she plays the violin or something and I can barely stay awake through any of it.”

Lightning chuckled, though not at the idea of Rainbow Dash sleeping through a lecture. Imagining herself at a school dedicated to friendship and the power of social normativity, that made her laugh. She’d look ridiculous.

“Yeah, well, better bring a pillow. I don’t think ‘friendship school’ is my thing.” She raised a brow, looking at Rainbow curiously. “Anyways, how’re the storms going? Looks like the Wonderbolts aren’t having a hard time this year.”

“What?” She looked at herself and her uniform, and then her face turned from confusion to a laugh as she realized what she meant. “Haha, yeah it’s been easy. This year the reservists get to do all the fun. The other full-timers and I had to moderate a boring weather conference all day.”

A weather conference in the middle of winter. Something like that was pretty much unheard of. Changing from winter to spring was pretty much a routine procedure.

“What’s the conference about?”

Rainbow waved her hoof nonchalantly. “It’s this big international discussion on where Cloudsdale should direct its weather efforts. The hippogriffs, changelings and dragons are all fighting over who gets to use Cloudsdale’s surplus weather..”

“Doesn’t sound boring.”

Rainbow threw her hooves up. “I know, right? That’s what I thought! But they’ve done nothing but talking about crop yield and ecosystems. I wish Applejack or Fluttershy could switch spots with me, they’d probably like this stuff.”

“At least it’s over.”

“Eh, probably not,” Rainbow Dash slumped over, calling over the bartender for two mugs of cider. She drank the first one completely before she could explain the rest of her problem. “Cloudsdale can do a lot, but we can’t help every kingdom. Twilight wants to divide the weather efforts evenly, but the other kingdoms keep trying to demand more than the others. No one’s willing to compromise.”

“Jeez, how long do you think it’ll take?”

“I dunno,” Rainbow shrugged. “I just hope I’ll get time off to see your band perform. I have to get back to teaching classes after this, so this is my only chance until spring.”

In the middle finishing the last of her cider, Lightning Dust choked from shock and surprise. “Y—you’re coming to our show?” A Wonderbolt, a teacher, and a friend of the Princess of Friendship, she didn’t seem like the type to listen to any kind of heavy metal.

“Of course, dude! The Nightmare Knights are so popular at the School of Friendship. As soon as Starlight mentioned it, most of the faculty bought tickets for the Rainbow Falls concert. But I want to be ahead of the herd and catch you all playing now.”

“Starlight?” Lightning scoffed. “No. No way. She actually talked about the band at school?”

“More like mentioned it passing, but yeah. Why do you ask?”

Lightning Dust blinked, slowly staring down to the bottom of her mug. Somehow, along with everything else they talked about, that was the craziest thing she heard that night.

“Nothing,” she mumbled. “I’m just a little surprised, that’s all. I think I’ll need a couple more ciders.”

---

If she had known there were teleporting services, Poppin would’ve just come with the rest of the band instead of flying two hours through an overworked weather team. Although she was a pegasus, the convenience of teleporting right to the hotel was too attractive to pass up. The Mareiott had nearly everything a pony needed. Designed for non-pegasi, a guest didn’t necessarily have to leave the hotel to get something essential. And nothing was all that more expensive than normal. It was just the enchanted cloud-walking horseshoes that dented all the vacation budgets. It kind of surprised her how many hotel guests came to Cloudsdale unprepared with their own cloud-walkers. Then again, it wasn’t as if powerful unicorns were walking all around Equestria selling their magic.

Speaking of powerful unicorns, the one who had asked to talk was on her way back with their orders of decaf coffee. Starlight levitated the cups onto the table, along with a dish of sugar cubes and a tiny pitcher of creamer. The lobby’s cafe was, to Poppin’s surprise, actually cheaper and better than the stores around town. The Mareiott got its beans shipped by teleportation, cutting down on time and cost while keeping everything as fresh as on the ground.

“Sure you decaf’s enough?” Poppin lifted her quill from her notebook, pointing to her frazzled mane. Starlight felt her head and patted down the stubborn strands, although they were too uncooperative to fully fix without a comb and an hour of good brushing.

“Ugh,” she tutted, giving up on her hair. “Svengallop owes me a spa treatment after today. He told us to run through it again just because Luna shifted a song around. It wasn’t even that big of a change.”

Poppin quickly made a note about that with a few strokes of her quill. “Tell that to the lighting team.”

“I think that’s what Luna’s doing right now.”

She set everything aside to let the ink dry and cupped her coffee close to her face. It smelled freshly brewed and the aroma of the steam chased away the cold air that rushed into the hotel every time a guess walked through the doors.

“So, something on your mind?” she sipped her coffee slowly while eying Starlight. The Nightmare Knights didn’t have the numbers of a Bridleway production, but in some ways that made it even harder to talk to everyone. For a musical, she’d have to check on every team and all the actors to make sure each part came together. But with the Knights, she only really needed to talk to Luna most of the time.

She liked them all, of course. She knew Svengallop by reputation alone before she met him face-to-face. Tempest and Lightning Dust were both strangers to the music industry, so working with them was a breath of fresh air. Even so, they were like a group of friends that revolved around a single mutual friend.

When they were all together, conversations happened naturally. But without Luna, it was as if each member came from a completely different world. There was just nothing they could normally talk about.

Starlight played with her mane, twirling and tangling the ends of her hair with a small bubble of telekinesis. “Sorry if this is a bit sudden. I just—I never wanted it to come to this. But I think you should start looking for another guitarist. I don’t know how long I can be a Nightmare Knight.”

Slowly Poppin felt her forehead pull and stretch as her brows rose when the words began to sink in. All she could muster was a single, “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Starlight looked directly into her coffee. “I tried not to show it, but I’m so tired, Poppin. And as much as I’d like to be a part of the band, I’m just not. I don’t have time to hang out with them outside of practice and I’m always the last one to show up for our concerts.”

“But, you can teleport anywhere you want, right? If this is a problem with scheduling, I can move future concerts around.”

“No, it’s not that,” Starlight shook her head. “The schedule is fine. But for how long? The School of Friendship is getting bigger, and the work I have to do to manage it all keeps growing with it.” She slumped her head down on the table, forming an impression with the tip of her horn. “I already learned the hard way that I have to manage my time between my job and my friends. Repeating that problem all over again is not something I want to put the band through.”

“Have you talked to Luna about this?”

“No.” Starlight covered her ears. “Just thinking about it makes me cringe. I was the first one she asked to join the band! How can I just tell her I changed my mind? She’s trying to make the best of her second chance, just like me.” She flailed her hooves back and forth, as if they were possessed by her emotions. “Sure, she’ll say she understands my decision, but what if in the back of her mind she’s thinking ‘Wow, I thought I could trust Starlight but she turned out to be a disappointment.’ And then the whole band’s gonna think it too! Lightning already does, probably.”

“Come on, that’s a bit much. She’ll understand why you have to put the school first.” Poppin reassured. “Look, I can try to reach out to the ponies I know, but it’s up to Luna to accept them. The band has some pretty steep membership requirements.”

Starlight fidgeted and bobbed her head around on the tip of her horn. “I know. But I don’t have to do it now, right? I want to at least see the tour through the end.”

“You’ll be pulling the bandage off slow, you know,” Poppin warned her.

“But it’ll be worth it. If I’m going to leave the band, Luna should at least get to do the rest of the tour without worrying about me. Same goes for every pony else.”

“I’m guessing that means I’m sworn to secrecy too,” Poppin sighed.

“Yes!” Starlight pounded on the table. “Luna can’t know we talked about this, not until I’ve told her.”

Poppin put her hooves up and leaned back. “Hey, it’s not my problem to speak on. If any pony asks, we never had this conversation.”

Starlight relaxed. “Thanks.” She put her coffee just below her mouth and loudly slurped it up. With the band topic out of the way, it seemed they really didn’t have much to talk about. Although, Poppin did have one question.

“Starlight, are you okay?” She pointed with her wing at her horn. “Because you haven’t moved from there for a while. It kind of looks like—”

“I’m stuck,” Starlight admitted. She tugged with her neck, but her horn refused to budge and the whole table wobbled with her. “Um, can you also not mention this to the band?”

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

In the middle finishing the last of her cider, Lightning Dust choked from shock and surprise. “Y—you’re coming to our show?” A Wonderbolt, a teacher, and a friend of the Princess of Friendship, she didn’t seem like the type to listen to any kind of heavy metal.

Well I'm sure she probably here a couple of rock and roll or sort of a heavy rock music I mean I thought that was kind of her type of music

[Yoshifan30]

“No, it’s not that,” Starlight shook her head. “The schedule is fine. But for how long? The School of Friendship is getting bigger, and the work I have to do to manage it all keeps growing with it.” She slumped her head down on the table, forming an impression with the tip of her horn. “I already learned the hard way that I have to manage my time between my job and my friends. Repeating that problem all over again is not something I want to put the band through.”

Yeah I remember that and Trixie had to remind you so many times about that even though she did not help out the situation either but she means well

[Yoshifan30]

“I’m stuck,” Starlight admitted. She tugged with her neck, but her horn refused to budge and the whole table wobbled with her. “Um, can you also not mention this to the band?”

What the heck was she stuck on lol 😆

[Yoshifan30]

Well it looks like everybody is having their separate ways to hang out with somebody with fizzlepop Berrytwist and glitter drop going to see a show play and it looks like Lightning Dust is at a bar but it looks like she's not alone Rainbow dash and the Wonderbolts are there but it looks like lightning and rainbow are getting along pretty well despite their history with each other so that's pretty cool and meanwhile Starlight is talking with popping about leaving the band because now school is starting to becoming a little bit more hectic than before and even with the schedule is okay she still feels like she's getting tired and she looks like he's going to hold down the band and hopefully she needs to Luna about this because she can't keep this secret from her