The Nightmare Knights Become A Band

by SwordTune

Verse 34

“I’m confused.” Starlight looked carefully at Luna’s storyboard. It was ambitious, to say the least. And definitely unusual. Their concert at Rainbow Falls wouldn’t be until spring, but this was more than just a new song.

Even Svengallop looked concerned. They had never tried a performance with as many props and stage effects as the storyboard suggested. But Luna’s excitement radiated so much, she was like a cat who had just found a new toy to play around with. It felt wrong to trot over her ideas.

Luna the time to think it over. They had all day. Since Cloudsdale in some of its busiest days of winter, they couldn’t practice out on stage when the pegasi were sending electrified storm clouds all over Equestria. Luckily, Poppin had arranged with the organizers to make sure they had access to a music studio, conveniently just down the street from where they were going to perform. Or maybe “street” wasn’t the best way to describe it. The flying city was made for pegasi, and the urban planning felt as if new clouds and buildings were added on until the city became an amalgam of floating islands. For pegasi, it was probably the easiest thing to fly in a straight line to wherever they wanted to go.

In any case, if Starlight walked out of the recording room, she could see from the front of the studio the cloud their concert was going to be. It floated off the edge of Cloudsdale’s main body, tethered by some kind of invisible force.

“That’s fine, this is just a rough draft,” Luna said when neither of them could give their reply. She hopped into the middle of the storyboard. “I’m still working out the story I want the song to tell, so this part right here can change.”

On scratched-up pieces of paper, a sketch of the Everfree forest showed Twilight and her friends battling a hoard of shadows on their way to the Castle of the Two Sisters. It felt like looking in a cracked mirror, with everything distorted but still resembling the true image. In this version, Nightmare Moon fights the Elements of Harmony with an army of living shadows led by the Tantabus. In the epic final struggle, Luna is freed from her evil form but falls in battle. As her final act of redemption, she ascends Twilight to an alicorn to take her place.

“But all of that didn’t happen.” Starlight scratched her head. “What exactly is this song supposed to mean?”

“Oh, well there isn’t really a meaning,” Luna said bluntly while wearing a big grin on her face. “I just want a song that could get ponies excited. What’s more exciting than an alternate universe battle against the forces of evil?”

“Kites are cool.” Her tone was matter of fact, and Luna couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. “But maybe that’s just me. I think saving Equestria sounds like a Monday morning instead of an epic adventure at this point.”

“Not all of us can be as cool as you, Starlight,” Svengallop remarked wryly. “Though a song about kites would be a first for me. We should collab on it someday.”

Starlight gave him a stink-eye. “You’re messing with me.”

He shrugged. “Write some lyrics and we’ll see.”

The doors to the studio swung open just then before Luna could return her attention to the plans for their Rainbow Falls concert. Lightning Dust blew in with the wind outside. It sounded like the pegasi were kicking up a powerful storm.

Behind her, a few unexpected faces followed. Unexpected for a music studio, at least. Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle were both at her side, with Twilight being the one to shelter them all from the storm in a magic bubble.

Starlight sat up at the sight of her mentor. “What is Twilight doing here?”

But Luna knew better. Before her waltzed what seemed like arbiters of a tedious doom. “Mhm.” She pressed her lips into a sceptical pout. “This definitely looks like a social visit.”

---

“Please help us!”

It must’ve been quite the sight, a Wonderbolt and the Princess of Equestria asking for advice in a music studio. They were lucky they were in a small studio. A crowd would come together just from seeing them all in one spot.

“It’s the Cloudsdale Weather Conference, isn’t it?” Twilight’s involvement dramatically narrowed down the possibilities. “Whatever your problem is, I shan’t be getting involved.” Luna sternly turned her head, sitting back down to align the storyboard to her new lyrics.

It was Rainbow Dash who pushed harder. “You don’t understand, this isn’t a normal weather conference. The changeling and dragon delegates refuse to get along, and the hippogriffs aren’t helping either.”

“I have been made fully aware of your predicament, Miss Dash. My sister and I used to flip a coin to decide who facilitated these conferences. But if any pony can mediate this conference, it is Princess Twilight.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Luna, but mediating the conference isn’t the only problem.” Twilight had a three-ring binder packed with notes inside a satchel. She opened it to the middle, where she had summarized the proposals of each nation. It seemed the Dragonlord wanted to develop an agricultural sector in the Dragon Lands, something that could not be done without rain to fill their reservoirs. According to Twilight’s notes, centuries of ash from volcanoes and dragon fire made their soil more fertile than anything in Equestria, despite being as dry as a desert.

Alone, the choice would have been clear, but Twilight’s meticulous notes slowly shifted into more frantic scribbles as it compared and contrasted the needs of the dragons to the changelings. Little symbols and arrows and shortened paragraphs crisscrossed across the pages.

The changelings needed Cloudsdale’s rain to expand into maulwurf territories. The massive creatures were desert-dwelling and naturally preferred dry areas. Bringing rain would not only keep the changeling kingdom safe but provide more arable land as well.

Twilight’s indecision was understandable. Dragons had lived for generations without crops. To begin with they were geophagous. Gemstones made up most of a dragon’s diet. But since the Dragonlord had agreed to leave Equestria in peace, dragons could no longer hoard gemstones by raiding Equestrian rock farms. Growing crops could be one of the surest ways to join the Equestrian economy, even if it was only to get the bits needed to buy gemstones.

On the other hoof, the changelings had a direct need for farmland. Young changelings could not grow strong and healthy bodies from love and magic alone, they needed to eat just like any other pony.

“What have you proposed so far,” Luna asked, “in terms of offering a compromise?”

“Not much,” Twilight sighed. “I offered to invest royal funds into steel refineries for the dragons. With their natural fire breathing and the Dragon Lands’ lava, I thought they’d actually prefer it.”

“And what did the delegation say?”

“Nothing that I didn’t know already.” She took the notebook back from Luna and flipped to a later page which had a spreadsheet for the major suppliers and buyers of metal in Equestria. “Urban development has been slowing since the start of the decade, so there’s not as much demand for industrial steel. Meanwhile, magical devices like projectors and CDs are expanding the market for crystals and gems, which also raises the gem prices for dragons. Between those extremes, the only thing that’s constantly growing is the produce sector. With Equestria being more open to the world, there are a lot of mouths to feed.”

“And the dragons don’t want to be given a dying industry when they could instead become a necessity to the growing population.” Luna rubbed her temples. “I hate thinking about these things. I take my time with individual dreams, I’m not used to looking at the nation like they’re numbers. Can’t you just ask my sister?”

“Getting ahold of Celestia in Manehattan is going to take too long!” Rainbow squirmed. “We need a solution now. If this conference goes on I won’t be able to see your concert!”

“What? You’re asking me to help you rush Equestria’s future just so you can see a concert? For shame, Rainbow Dash.” Luna didn’t know whether to be flattered or appalled. She only knew Rainbow Dash through Twilight, but she liked to think she was familiar with the pegasus’ personality. It seemed, however, that she could still be surprised by exactly how brazen she could act.

“I know.” She twiddled her hooves around on the floor, looking a little sheepish. “But I just thought, since it was your band, that you’d be okay with it.”

Luna shook her head. And even though Lightning Dust had come with them, she noticed her drummer had been suspiciously quiet since the start. “Lightning Dust?” She met Luna’s eyes but kept her lips tight.

Sternly, Luna stepped forward. “Lightning.”

“Y—yes?”

“Lightning Dust.”

“What?”

“Lightning. Dust.”

“If you have a question just ask already!”

Luna eyed her with raised brows, not saying another word. The drummer flicked her eyes to Twilight with a plea for help written on her face. But neither Twilight nor Rainbow Dash had words to save her.

Eventually, she caved. “Alright, fine! I gave them the idea to ask for help. But Dash said she wanted to see us perform so I thought, ‘Hey, Luna must have some experience with this, right?’ I just wanted to give Dash a chance to see us perform because I thought it might make up for that one time I almost shot that kid over twenty-two flaming carriages.”

Starlight popped her head out from the studio’s recording room. “What? There’s something seriously wrong with you if you still think you can make-up a mistake like that. All we can do is move forward, the past can’t be fixed—”

“Well, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore!” Lightning blew her off. “Can’t I just try my best?”

“Alright,” Starlight retreated. “Forget I said anything.”

Twilight stretched a wing out and covered Lightning Dust before she said anything else. "We’re getting off-track. Luna, I know you’re retired. But I want this to end quickly before the changelings and dragons get mad at each other. If you can help, just for one day, that’s all I ask for.”

Luna eased off her stern look and filled her lungs with a refreshing breath of air. One of the benefits of Cloudsdale was that the clouds made everywhere feel like a room pumped up with a humidifier. The cold dew hanging in the air smelled like a nice dream, pulling Luna back to her centre.

Finally, she agreed to help. “But on no condition,” she warned them. “I’m not going to the conference.”

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

“Kites are cool.” Her tone was matter of fact, and Luna couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. “But maybe that’s just me. I think saving Equestria sounds like a Monday morning instead of an epic adventure at this point.”

Lol kites are cool

[Yoshifan30]

Well apparently things kind of escalated pretty quickly so Luna wanted to perform a story music to the audience which that's pretty cool I guess but it looks like things kind of change of schedule because now dragons and changelings are having a little disagreement and apparently the hippogryphs are not helping the situation either Sol Twilight and Rainbow dash are asking for Lunas help despite she's not a princess no more but apparently people needs to get her help I guess I wonder how this will work out