27 - The End and the Beginning
Celestia had a large tent erected on the parade grounds for Luna and herself, and a couple of guards stationed at the tent opening to control the flow of ponies in and out as they reported to her or asked for her guidance. She was grateful that she didn’t have to work under the gaze of the grossly swollen moon. She found it disturbing, to say the least.
Celestia struggled to stay alert while listening to her Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Mrs. Sweethome, argue with the Transportation Secretary, Rapid Transit, about whether it was safe, or necessary, to evacuate ponies from Canterlot City down the mountainside by train. She was trying to think of a way to quell the bickering when there was a shout of alarm from outside the tent, and a split-second later something crashed into it — ripping through the fabric and tumbling to a stop almost at Celestia’s feet.
The two bureaucrats bucked and whinnied with panic, and then darted out of the tent, almost colliding with the two guards who rushed in. “There’s the intruder! I’ll get her,” one guard yelled as he pointed a hoof at the sky-blue, rainbow-maned pony who was groaning and picking herself up off the ground.
Celestia raised a hoof and spoke firmly, “STOP! Stand down, my guards!” They blinked at her, puzzled, but backed off. She then nuzzled at the scruffy pegasus and said, “Rainbow Dash, are you all right? What brings you here?”
Rainbow Dash dusted herself off. “Ha, this is nothing!” Then she noticed the other occupant of the tent, laid out on a cot. “Oh no! Is Princess Luna hurt? Is she gonna be okay?”
Celestia struggled to answer truthfully. “She’s… She’ll be all right; she’s being looked after. She’s resting. Please, Rainbow Dash, tell me why you crashed into my tent!”
Rainbow’s attention snapped back. “Oh, right! Oh, Princess! You gotta help us! They’ve got Twilight Sparkle; she’s been ponynapped! They’re in the Everfree Forest, and there’s crazy cultists, and Zecora said they’ve got her tied up, and there’s crazy weather, and monsters…”
Celestia’s eyes went wide. “Twilight Sparkle was taken? Calm down, Rainbow Dash! Slow down! Please try to explain things in the order that they happened.”
Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and nodded and started over. “Okay, uh… First Zecora — that’s a zebra who lives in the Everfree Forest — ran into town and said she saw a bunch of creepy cult ponies, and they had Twilight tied up. So, I got the girls together — you know, all Twilight’s friends — at the library, and of course she wasn’t there, so we knew we had to try and rescue her.”
As she told the story, Rainbow’s voice cracked with anguish. “But we couldn’t do it! There’s a lot of those cult ponies, and they’ve set up a wall of thunderstorms around the edge of the forest, and all the monsters in the forest are angry and roaming around too. I mean… I’d do anything for Twilight, all of us would, but we’re not soldiers. We can’t fight our way in there to get her. We need help. Please send the Wonderbolts! Or send your Royal Guards! Send anypony to help us get her back!”
Before Celestia could answer, one of the guards butted in. “Listen, you! We need every guard we’ve got right here to keep the princesses safe and to keep Canterlot safe in case there are more earthquakes. We can’t put together a rescue mission under these conditions and go flying off on a wild goose chase based on the word of some zebra. It could even be a ploy to draw troops away from the city.”
Rainbow gawped at him for a moment, then resorted to begging. “Princess, please! You’ve got to believe me! Send whoever you can, even if it’s only one or two guards! We’ll take whatever we can get.”
Celestia’s brow was furrowed with concern as she answered, “Rainbow Dash, listen to me! I’ve made my decision. I’m not sending my guards to rescue Twilight Sparkle.”
Rainbow’s lip quivered, and tears started to pool in her eyes as she asked, “But…. why not?”
Celestia stood up and opened her wings and replied: “Because I’ll be leading them there myself!”
The gigantic moon flooded the forest clearing with cold white light. In the distance, moonlit cloud banks could be seen isolating the area, also lit erratically by flashes of lightning. The distant rumble of thunder, scent of ozone, and unnatural light gave the entire area a suitably eerie atmosphere.
Night Wind glided down to land by Spell Nexus and report: “Some ponies tried to enter the forest. They didn’t get far. Our cadres sent them packing, but maybe we should hurry this up. If they know what we’re doing…”
“Don’t worry!” Spell Nexus assured. “Everything is in readiness for the final ritual. For those who might oppose us, time has run out.”
He returned to the pedestal where Twilight Sparkle was still tied up, and he gave her a casual kick. “Are you awake? Pay attention, student! Our major working of this night is about to begin, and once more you must contribute.” He moved to the pedestal. The wooden bowl had been emptied of the earlier sacrifice, and now it contained broken and scorched pieces of silvery metal — the remnants of Nightmare Moon’s armor.
He then turned his attention to a small dagger which had been set beside the bowl, picking it up with his magic. The stallion then looked back at Twilight, who twisted and whined through her bound-shut muzzle. He drew close to Twilight and gave her a swift kick in the stomach, harder than before, and picked her up.
The kick quickly made Twilight stop flailing, and she hung limply in Nexus’s magic, trying to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her lungs. In the moment Twilight hung motionless, Nexus drew his dagger’s blade across part of her leg, leaving a shallow cut. The minor injury brought a muffled whimper of panic from the captive unicorn.
Blood seeped from the wound, and Nexus gathered several drops onto the blade of his dagger before placing it into the wooden bowl with Nightmare Moon’s remains.
“Yes, the spark of life from one who bears the Element of Magic. May it grant our queen invulnerability against those cursed Elements of Harmony,” Nexus whispered, levitating Twilight back to the edge of the clearing and dropping her rudely at the base of a tree. Then he approached the metal pedestal.
Slowly, Nexus drew in another breath, releasing it and watching the puff of steam escape into the night air. Then, one final deep breath before the unicorn leader looked out across the Children of Nightmare, his voice echoing across the trees as he preached to his fellows.
“Brothers and Sisters, for months we have toiled in secrecy. We worked behind the backs of the guards, of the tyrant princesses, putting our own safety at risk. Personal fortunes have been spent along with many hours to bring us to this point. But now we are ready, the spell is prepared.”
“Tonight we, The Children of Nightmare, shall see our queen given life, blood and form of her own.”
“Once, she and Luna were one and the same, but the Elements of Harmony could not destroy what our queen was. No, that power could only peel her away from the weak foal Luna, trap her essence in these precious shreds. It was a horrible fate, but it is because of the Elements of Harmony’s inability to destroy our queen that we can stand here tonight.”
“For tonight, this spell will give the essence of our queen life of her own. She will no longer be shackled to the meek Princess Luna. She shall breathe the cool night air with lungs of her own, see the world with eyes of her own, and with our aid will come to rule over all Equestria within a year of her tragic defeat.”
“Now, lend your magic to the spell… for the time of our victory is at hoof! Let Nightmare Moon be born anew!”
All the cult members quickly went about their work. The unicorns formed a circle around the clearing, horns starting to glow as the lines of paint they had drawn on the forest floor came to life with a blue glow. Stonewall, one of the few earth ponies, walked around the circle, using a torch to light the bowls filled with oil soaked powders. The powders burned with an eerie blue flame, the air in the clearing becoming so thick with magic it almost became tangible.
The cloaked pegasi cultists also held bowls of burning powder, the armored Gray Gale and Night Shade flying around to light the bowls kept aloft above the clearing.
When all the bowls were lit, Nexus used his magic to take the fire from one, gently holding it in the air and keeping the flickering flame alive. He brought the fire over the bowl containing the shreds of Nightmare Moon’s armor and the bloodied dagger, and then he dropped the flame inside.
The contents ignited and flared up almost instantly, and Nexus retreated to the edge of the spell circle to join his fellow unicorns. There, they all began to twist and form the magic in the air, working like potters with clay. They shaped the free magic, molded it, and began to force the magic down into the bowl that contained the shreds of Nightmare Moon.
After a few anxious moments Nexus saw what he had hoped for; the blood soaked dagger floated upward above the fire. The blood was drawn up from the dagger, formed into a single crimson sphere before the dagger itself was launched clear of the spell, its polished metal digging into a nearby tree.
The central bowl then began to billow with black smoke, the shreds of Nightmare Moon starting to truly burn. The black smoke began to form and swirl around the large drop of blood. The fires from the wooden bowls began getting drawn in, the flames swirling and orbiting the spell’s focal point like water in a whirlpool.
The drop of blood became encased in a black sphere, and that black sphere began to slowly grow. It drew in the fire and smoke, everything, and grew larger with each passing moment.
“Yes… It is working, my brothers and sisters! She is beginning to take shape. Our queen shall soon be—“
KRACK-CROOO-OOOM!
Every pony reflexively jumped when a single bolt of lightning blasted down from the sky and struck the center of the spell, hitting the metal podium while causing it, the shreds of Nightmare Moon, and the wooden bowl to all become wrapped in crimson flames.
Eyes turned upward to the source of the lightning, only to see a full battalion of royal guards pouring over the cloud wall and swooping into the forest clearing. “FREEZE!! YOU ARE ALL UNDER ARREST!!!” several of the guards shouted as dozens of gold-armored pegasi landed in the center of the clearing. Not a single pony froze, the cultists choosing instead to charge and attack the armored interlopers.
Nexus stood flabbergasted, watching as the center of the spell and the precious shreds of Nightmare Moon were destroyed. All their plans were decimated by a single surge of magical lightning — lightning that could only have come from one source. Turning his eyes skyward, Nexus glared at the next figure to float down through the hole in the clouds.
“Celestia…” Nexus forced out through gritted teeth, his cyan-blue eyes locked on the sun princess as she floated down amidst the fighting, casting back anyone that dared attack her with barely a flick of her horn. Inside him a billowing hatred grew. Every fiber of Nexus’s being wanted him to attack, to smite down the sun princess for daring to interrupt the ritual, but he knew better.
“Don’t think you’ve won today, Sun Tyrant! You have merely delayed me at best,” Nexus hissed, his own horn starting to glow. Gray Gale, Night Wind, Stonewall and a number of other cultists gathered near Nexus as magic flowed from his horn. The group then seemed to disappear into thin air, though a number of hoofprints took shape in the soft ground as the now invisible cultists fled into the Everfree Forest.
Laying on a cot, in a tent, a midnight blue pony stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, and she shifted and looked around. “Where am I? This is not my bedchamber.” She pushed aside the sheet and sat up.
The lady-in-waiting who had been keeping station nearby gasped and was at Luna’s side. “Your Royal Highness! You’re awake — oh, that’s wonderful! How do you feel?”
Luna blinked blearily. “I… I feel well, although I think I had a most distressing dream. It’s slipping away now, like water, like air… How strange! Usually I have no difficulty remembering my dreams.”
Luna suddenly found herself clamped in the arms of the other pony, receiving a hug. The servant girl said, “Maybe it’s best to not remember. It’s such a relief to have you back! I can’t wait to see Princess Celestia’s face when she finds out you’re okay.”
Awareness filtered into Nightmare Moon’s mind, like coming awake from a confused dream. In this dream she was drowning. It was a good dream, though. ”Good, all right, I’ll drown,” she thought, listening to the roar of the sea. ”Let me drown.”
And yet, the sound wasn’t that of the open sea; it was the sound of water splashing over rocks. She became more aware and realized she was laying on her side upon rough ground. Stones gouged into her hip, her flank, her cheek. She was uncomfortable. She thought about trying to move, but moving would be too much trouble.
After a while, water surged onto the rocks, surged around her, and the water was cold… bitterly cold… stingingly cold… shockingly cold… scorchingly cold… impossibly cold… She screamed as though she’d been horse-whipped and flailed her limbs as she struggled upright and inadvertently rolled her belly into the water as well. She fumbled and stumbled, got her wobbly legs underneath her, and staggered out of the water.
Dripping, shivering, head hanging low, she tromped upward, getting her feet out of the water as quickly as possible. She gave her body a deliberate shake, throwing off water like a dog, as she felt too dazed to cast any magic.
She looked around at the barren shore. The horizon was growing light, but there was no sun. “No…” she muttered. “I’m back in The Dreaming?”
She perked her ears at the sound of hoof-steps, and a silhouette approached. The unicorn stallion, larger than herself, stepped into the ruddy illumination of twilight and revealed himself as Morpheus, the Dream King.
He stopped, and the two silently considered one another, unmoving except for Nightmare Moon’s continued, involuntary shivering. She knew she ought to bow before him, but she wouldn’t. There was no point in making any insincere gesture of subordination. Nothing mattered anymore for her. As for Lord Dream of the Endless, he looked on impassively and kept his thoughts to himself.
After a measureless time, Nightmare Moon had enough of the silence, and she asked, “Well? What is to be my fate?”
“Your fate? As with all things in The Dreaming, your fate is whatever I wish it to be.”
She eyed him speculatively, an unspoken question written on her face.
“Punishment? Hmm. Not as such. You sought to circumvent my law, and yet, unwittingly and unwillingly, your actions served my aims better than you knew. I am the Prince of Stories, and I sense that a new story has already begun: one that you have set in motion.” He stepped closer, and his horn glowed for a moment. “The fragment of my soul that resided in you is gone. I would guess that it has served its purpose and moved on — elsewhere. Perhaps it has passed on to another.”
“Then what’s to become of me?”
“I shall find some use for you. Nothing in my realm is wasted.”
She shuffled her feet, looked at the ground. Then she looked up toward the sky and the distant moon. “My nemesis… I wonder what happened to it?”
Morpheus looked off into the distance for a moment, and the glint of starlight twinkled in the black void of his not-exactly-an-eye, and he said, “I do not sense it anywhere in The Dreaming.”
Nightmare Moon closed her eyes. “Destroyed, then, as you foretold. At least that’s one doom I’ll no longer have hanging over my head.”
“So it would seem. Now, come with me! Come home!”
In the dark depths of the Everfree Forest, in a clearing where the cultists had been and gone, and the royal guards had been and gone, the ritual pedestal was toppled and burnt by lightning, the sacrificial bowl shattered. Other bowls and their contents were scattered wherever they’d been dropped. Painted lines on the ground were ruined, scuffed and churned by hooves where struggles had taken place. A discarded cloak was trampled in the dirt. The ritual dagger, overlooked, remained embedded in a tree trunk. The moon appeared shrunken, its light fading when clouds drifted across its face.
Traces of smoke lingered in the frigid air, and with it the miasma of spent magic. Even the fiercest monsters that inhabited the forest would avoid this clearing for days to come. Silence was broken only by the rumble of thunder in the distance.
Not far away, within the branches of a blackthorn bush, a dark shape shivered. It opened, uncurled, revealing the form of a pony child. The black filly sniffed about and tried to move, but the thorn bush snagged her indigo mane and tail, and it tangled her legs and wings. Her horn sparked for a moment, but to no effect. The thorns scraped and nicked her skin. Struggling only made her become more tangled.
Hurting, cold and alone, she squeezed shut her cyan-blue draconic eyes and began to cry.
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I like how you connected this story to several others. You know there's a human turned cat in the Chessverse that was granted powers by Morpheus. He calls himself Jazz, Jazz the cat. http://www.fimfiction.net/story/38682/dreaming-of-paws
You know if your interested. It's not my story but it could use some love. Now I'm going to bother the author to see if it can get updated sometmie.
"claps"
I see what you did there
if you only knew Nightmare hehehe
You know Nyx has purple hair and teal eyes right?
6452013
I do know about her eye and hair color, but I was deliberately sort of cagey about that.
Teal and turquoise and cyan are all similar colors, they're all combinations of green and blue. I chose "cyan-blue" because Nightmare Moon's eyes look much more blue than green to me. But I wasn't changing her eye color, only trying to describe it better.
As for her hair. . . Honestly, I don't like the purple hair. It doesn't look good to me, and it doesn't seem logical. She's supposed to be a physical clone of Nightmare Moon, and there's never been anything to hint at Nightmare Moon having purple hair. The only thing purple about her was her eye shadow, and Past Sins was quite explicit (and so was I) that it's only makeup. ON THE OTHER HAND, I don't like to directly contradict Past Sins. So I chose the word "indigo" which often refers to a blue-ish shade of purple, but also sometimes refers to a deep blue. So you can imagine either color that suits you.
6452070 fair enough and a good point actually, hmm Twilights blood maybe? Even thought Winder Bells says other wise.