Black Angel

by Zobeid

05 - Dreamer Deceiver

Nightmare moon circled in the sky above her castle, gazing down upon it. It was not a large and sprawling castle, nor was it an ornate palace, but its design followed the classical quadrangular form: a square footprint with a round tower at each corner and a square tower in the center of each wall, save the north wall which contained the gatehouse and drawbridge. A wide moat, practically a small lake, surrounded the castle, with a causeway and an octagonal island providing access. Ages ago, in the time of her youth, such castles had been all the rage among high ranking nobility of the unicorn race, providing both military defense and comfortable lodging for the lord’s family.

Thankfully, this castle lacked the garish colored paint of hearts and rainbows that those lords had all-too-often slathered over their homes, presumably at the insistence of the lady unicorn of the house.

All the buildings related to the castle’s daily function — residences, store rooms, kitchens, the well, workshops, the armory, the great hall and more — lined the interior of the defensive walls, leaving an open courtyard in the center. It was toward this that Nightmare Moon directed her glide path.

A cry of alarm wafted up from below, and she saw shapes scurrying around the courtyard. By the time she flared her wings and came to a graceful landing, the servants stood side-by-side to greet her. Nuala curtsied in her peculiar, bipedal manner. The Vermin Kid bowed in pony fashion. Around them were half a dozen nightgaunts, which merely cowered submissively when she turned her gaze on them. More nightgaunts remained perched upon the castle’s towers like spindly gargoyles.

Nightmare Moon eyed the nightgaunts with both wonder and wariness. In her former life as Princess of the Night she’d known that such creatures existed, but not much more than that. She’d never seen one up close before. They were almost her own size, though seemingly emaciated — almost skeletal — in build. She noted their hide was hairless, black and oily, as were their bat-like wings. Instead of hooves they had long, grasping talons. Long tails were segmented like a scorpion’s tail with a barb at the end. A pair of knurled horns twisted above each head.

Most disturbing, though, was the lack of anything that most would regard as a “face”. There was a blank area vaguely suggestive of a face, but no visible nose or mouth or eyes. Though not often bothered by things other ponies considered creepy, even Nightmare Moon felt somewhat unsettled.

She concealed her discomfort, though, and turned to Nuala and the Kid. “Rise!” she commanded. They did so. After a few moments of awkward silence she asked, “Is this my entire castle staff? Only the two of you, and these… things?”

The two she addressed glanced at one another, each hoping the other would answer, but then Nuala noticed Nightmare was looking right at her. She eeped softly and said, “For now, yes, your majesty. We’re terribly short-handed, but Lord Morpheus said you can recruit more dreams if you meet any that you want. umm… Within reason. Oh, and the nightgaunts will defend your castle in the meantime.”

“Are they intelligent? Will they follow orders?”

Nuala glanced at a couple of squabbling nightgaunts and fidgeted. “I’m not sure. I think they’re more like animals. You can train them like a dog.”

“I see…” She considered for a moment. “We wish a tour of the castle. Nuala, thou shalt guide us.”

The Vermin Kid chose to follow along, to which Nightmare Moon had no objection. As they went around its interior, she found the castle quite typical of those in her past experience in Equestria — causing her to wonder how much of what she saw was filtered through that mental lens. If she saw most other dreams as ponies only because she was one, did the same principle apply to the castle? Did the castle look different to dreamers? Neither of her escorts could answer those questions.

Dissatisfaction nibbled at her. This estate was functional enough, and would please any unicorn duke or earl, but Nightmare Moon was royalty, and this was no palace fit for royalty. She found herself thinking back, wistfully, to her time in the Dream King’s home, the castle of her own dreams.

Despite those misgivings, her spirits were lifted when the tour concluded in a well-equipped dungeon. That could come in useful.

---

Nightmare Moon soared in the endless night sky of The Dreaming. Her senses attuned once again, she waited for the trace of a dreamer — one who knew of her, thought of her, and might be inclined to dream of her. One that she could, perhaps, inspire.

There… Like the scent of a sound or the touch of a flavor, it was faint but unmistakeable. She banked and began to flap her wings, hastening across the firmament.

The trace led her to a puffy cloud, low near the ground. Seated upon the cloud, a gray pegasus pony was digging into a paper sack. Nightmare Moon hovered a short distance away, far enough for the sound of her wings to not be heard — for she could be as silent as an owl when she wished.

The tip of the pony’s tongue was visible, her face taught with concentration as she fished around in the sack with her arm. She fumbled for a bit and growled, “Dumb hooves! Why can’t I get this?”

Nightmare Moon sighed and swooped down to the cloud, her hooves coming to rest behind the pegasus. “What hast thou?” she demanded.

The gray pony stiffened, then turned her head — slowly, as if afraid of what she’d see — until her wide, golden eyes focused on Nightmare Moon. Then she suddenly jumped, twisting her body around in mid-air to face the black alicorn, and landed with the paper bag between them. “Nightmare Moon! I… I didn’t know it was Nightmare Night! I’m sorry I don’t have any candy but you can have this please don’t gobble me up!” She grabbed the paper sack between her front hooves and upturned it, shaking a couple of large muffins out onto the cloud.

Nightmare Moon scowled. “So, thou hast heard the stories about us?”

Cowering and shaking, the pony whimpered incoherently, then grabbed the empty bag and tried to dive into it. She only managed to get her head into it, but then she became still. Nightmare watched for a moment and cocked her head, puzzled. The pegasus’s blond tail swished, and a soft giggle came from the bag. “hehee… she can’t see me…”

Nightmare Moon winced and started to rub the top of her muzzle with her pastern, but her armor was in the way. She looked at the gray pony, and at the muffins, and then said, loudly, “Oh, where did that pegasus go? She must have vanished into thin air! At least she left me these delicious cakes.” She sat on the cloud and levitated a muffin, sniffed it, took a nibble. The flavor was unfamiliar, but not bad at all. She noticed the pegasus slowly shuffling backward, toward the edge of the cloud. Nightmare smiled and said, “It’s a shame I can’t eat both of them. I guess the other one will go to waste.” The pegasus stopped shuffling, her tail suddenly frizzing out like a startled cat.

Nightmare smirked. “I’m so full now, I shall go fly away and take a nap on some distant cloud.” She gave her wings a loud rustle, then a series of lighter ones. Then she watched quietly for a few seconds until the pegasus pony popped out of her paper bag. Her eyes wandered confusedly for a moment until they both managed to focus on Nightmare Moon, and her pupils shrank to dots.

“Boo!”

“Waaah!!” She flipped onto her back, tongue lolled out the side of her mouth, and didn’t move.

Nightmare waited a few moments, then narrowed her eyes and said, “You know, I don’t think it’s really possible to faint in a dream.”

The pegasus cracked an eyelid open. “It’s not?”

“Nice try, though.” She nibbled her muffin. “Mmm… What flavor is this, I wonder? It’s delicious.”

“You… You like muffins?” The pegasus immediately flipped over, smiling, fear gone as if someone had flipped a light switch. “It’s banana nut! It’s my favorite.”

“Ba-na-na. Hmm. I do not recall that kind of nut in Equestria from the time when I was on the throne. It must be a recent import.”

“So… You’re not going to gobble me?”

“Not in the least. And you are welcome to the other muffin.”

“Yay!” She reached with her arms to grab it.

The two ponies sat on the cloud and chewed on their muffins. Nightmare looked down at the pegasus and asked, “What is your name, little pony?”

“I’m Derpy!”

Nightmare turned her gaze upward. “Derpy, have you ever considered the wonders of the night sky?” As she spoke, the sky both darkened and cleared, revealing stars and a ghostly band of light sprawling across the sky from horizon to horizon — the Milky Way. Low in the west, subdued light spilled from a crescent moon.

Derpy stared upward, her jaw hanging open and the half-eaten muffin forgotten. “Wow!” she breathed.

“The sky in Equestria could have been this wondrous all the time if Sola… I mean, if Celestia had allowed it. But rather than relaxing, loving, and creating beautiful things under the moon and stars, she insists that ponies toil under her merciless sun. From dawn to dusk, their labors dull the creative parts of their minds and leave them too exhausted to enjoy the night.” She slipped a black wing around Derpy and said, “Would you like to help me change that?”

Derpy fidgeted. “What, are you like one of those Faust’s Witnesses or something? They keep inviting themselves to my house, and they talk and talk and leave their magazines.” She looked down at her muffin and frowned. “But they’re the only ponies who come visit me,” she muttered.

Nightmare Moon’s face fell, and she withdrew her wing. “I, err… Never mind.” She sighed. “Enjoy your muffin, Derpy.” Derpy smiled and returned to noshing it, while Nightmare gazed upward, wistfully.

---

“Who is brave enough to challenge Dominus Tusk, victor of ten thousand battles?” The gigantic minotaur looked around the arena, his gaze passing over the multitudes of ponies, minotaurs, griffins, gnolls, troggles, and even a small group of undisguised changelings. He called out, “Anyone? Come on now, don’t be shy! I’ll only kill you a little. Just enough to win, haha!”

A black shape swooped down to a graceful landing on four equine hooves. “NIGHTMARE MOON CHALLENGES THEE, BRUTE!” Her challenge echoed about the arena, and the crowd roared back, rising and calling out for blood (along with a few entirely inappropriate wolf whistles).

The minotaur laughed. “You’re much smaller than my last opponent. So, the little pony with a big mouth thinks she can beat me?” He swung his massive mace, knocking a divot from the dirt floor of the arena and sending a gout of dust into the air.

Nightmare Moon snorted and tossed her head, and pawed at the ground with a hoof. Dominus Tusk stared back at her and said, “This is a joke. You’re kidding, right?” He tightened his grip on his mace, flexing his muscles, and grimaced. “No? Then bring it!”

They both charged across the arena, toward one another. As they neared collision, Tusk lifted his mace for to strike, and a blue glow sizzled around Nightmare’s lowered horn. At the last instant she vanished in a puff of magic. The minotaur’s mace swung through thin air, and his battle cry changed to one of frustration in mid-shout.

The shout was cut short. The spectators in the arena gasped as they saw Nightmare Moon blink back into existence directly behind him and deliver a sharp kick to the back of his head. Tusk was knocked off his feet, face-first into the dirt, while Nightmare flapped her wings and fluttered to a landing.

Dominus Tusk lifted himself onto his hands and knees, sluggishly, and shook his head. Nightmare Moon taunted, “How lucky for you that your skull is so thick!”

Growling, he grabbed his mace and stood upright, and turned to face her again. He waved the mace menacingly. “When this connects, it’ll be the end of your tricks.”

“You’ll never touch me, oaf!”

Tusk gripped the mace with both hands and snorted. Then he lowered his head and charged at her again. Grinning, Nightmare charged her horn with magic and set loose a lightning strike toward her opponent. The bolt brought forth a pained bellow but failed to slow the giant’s charge. Momentarily taken aback by the failure of her lightning, Nightmare flapped and started to lift off, but Tusk was already swinging his mace. Once again she teleported in a puff of midnight blue magic, but Tusk carried through his swing all the way around behind himself, his mace catching Nightmare’s hip before she could buck at him. She shrieked as the impact sent her spinning across the arena.

The crowd cheered, and Dominus Tusk laughed. “Fool me once, shame on you! But fool me again? I think not!”

Nightmare picked herself up, but she limped, favoring her bruised hindquarter. She glared at the giant with her cold, draconic eyes. Her thin smile returned, and she taunted, “Come and get me then, you empty-headed son of a holstein!”

Tusk snarled, but his eye flicked across the hind foot Nightmare was holding off the ground. Suddenly he charged at her, and she turned to run — but stumbled as her battered thigh failed her.

Sensing weakness, Tusk barked out a cruel laugh and increased his speed, sprinting to catch her. Scrambling to get away, Nightmare Moon flapped her wings. Just as it seemed Tusk was about to catch her, reaching for her tail with his free hand, Nightmare Moon spread her wings wide and swooped upward into the sky. At the same moment her horn sparked with magic, and a silvery sheen appeared on the floor of the arena, underneath the minotaur’s hooves. He shuffled his feet frantically, struggling to stay upright on the slippery surface. He didn’t fall but was unable to stop his forward motion — until his body slammed face-first into the stone wall of the arena.

It seemed the entire crowd of spectators gasped out a sympathetic “Ooh!”, but cheers followed immediately as Nightmare Moon landed again and took a bow. She then turned and trotted over to Dominus Tusk, who was plastered against the wall. He tried to push himself away from it, but his horns were deeply embedded in the masonry. Nightmare Moon laughed — more a startled giggle than her usual villainous laugh — and then cast another lightning bolt from her horn. It struck him in the rear, making him jump and curse.

Tusk tried again to pull his horns out of the wall, then went limp. “Ten thousand battles… I’ve never been stuck in a wall. Okay, victory is yours.” His eye swiveled to look at Nightmare Moon. “Could you at least help free me?”

She moved closer. “In due time. So, Dominus Tusk… Have you ever considered the wonders of the night sky?”

---

The unicorn was sitting on the edge of a cliff. He’d been up here before, he knew. Rock climbing wasn’t something ponies normally did, but he must have done it sometime before, right?

He looked around. A little ways to his left was another pony sitting on the cliff’s edge and wearing a tightly-fitted jacket of blood red, though the color appeared muted in the moonlight. He thought he caught glimpses of other ponies sitting on the cliff, elsewhere along it, but he couldn’t be bothered to really notice. He looked at himself. He was wearing a red jacket too — like a uniform, perhaps. It wasn’t identical to the pony next to him. His own jacket was a bit more ornate, more formal, perhaps indicating a higher rank. The other pony said nothing, and it did not occur to him that he should speak either.

He looked down. The cliff he was sitting upon was made of limestone, rough and loose material. It didn’t seem particularly sturdy or stable. It was thin too, a narrow ridge with another drop-off immediately behind him, as if the whole structure were shaped like a piece of toast standing on end. He must have climbed up here, right? Surely it must be possible to climb down. He imagined his hooves scrabbling for purchase on the loose material, and a knot twisted in his belly.

He looked at the long shadows that the cliff cast on the ground in front of him. The moon must be shining very brightly behind him, he thought. He tried to turn and look over his shoulder to see it, but his perch was too precarious. He couldn’t shift enough to see behind him, not safely.

It must be possible to climb down. He couldn’t stay up here. Reluctantly, carefully, he put his front hooves on the cliff’s edge and tried to lower his hindquarters below it, groping with his hind feet. It was impossible to get a purchase that way. He would have to turn around, get his belly facing toward the cliff face.

He couldn’t turn around with both front hooves supporting him. He would have to lift one and bring it around his body. He would have to find some kind of foothold for a hind hoof to help support him while performing that maneuver. He groped some more until his right rear hoof found a ledge. It wasn’t much, but he would have to try. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and tried to swing around. His rear hoof began to slip, and he barely got his left front hoof hooked over the cliff edge. However, the sudden movement had jostled the entire ridge. To his horror, the rock crumbled and it began to topple backward.

There was nothing he could do but close his eyes and ride it down, down to his doom. For a moment he could feel himself falling. Then he felt the sizzle of magic engulfing him, felt himself levitated. He opened his eyes, blinking at the deep blue aura that lowered him and gently set his hooves on the ground. The magic dissipated while the cliffside fell away, its crash barely audible as it seemed to turn to smoke and disperse.

Then he heard the voice. “A dream about falling? Really? How mundane! Can you even imagine how many dreams about falling I’ve seen?” It was a feminine voice, strong and confident.

He spun around. “A dream?” he blurted. Even as he uttered the question, he knew the answer. Of course this must be a dream, it should have been obvious. He drew a sharp breath as he saw the mare who had addressed him.

She towered over him, easily twice the height of a typical pony mare, and that was without considering her long, slender horn. Her build was lanky, and her coat and wings were as black as coal — no natural color. Ponies came in many colors, but not black. And then there were the cyan-blue eyes with slit pupils like a cat’s eyes, or like a dragon’s eyes. He noted the etherial mane and tail, blue clouds filled with twinkling stars. Most of all, he noticed the silvery armor she wore: helmet, sabatons, and a gorget marked with a crescent moon. He gawped.

She sized him up as well, taking note of his steel blue coat and pale gray mane. Her eyes wandered to the black hexagram upon his hip. “How curious,” Nightmare Moon commented dryly. “Ritual magic? That is an unusual talent. What is your name?”

He gulped and answered, “I’m Spell Nexus.”

“Spell Nexus… Foals often dream of me. To them I am a bogeymare, a shadowy figure to run from. Yet you are no foal, and you are not running. What am I to you, I wonder?”

Nexus stared back at her, pondering for a moment before he answered. “A mystery. A puzzle to be solved.”

“Ah! The dreaming mind often experiences bursts of creativity or insight that elude ponies during the day.” She stepped closer, craned her neck and sniffed at him. “You could ask me for the answer to your puzzle, Spell Nexus.”

He scooted back from her. “Huh-how do I know you’re even real?”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Did I claim to be real? Perhaps I am only a product of your overheated imagination.” She smiled slyly and asked, “Would you like for me to be real?”

“No, of course not! You were a monster.” Spell Nexus fidgeted under her skeptical gaze for a few moments, her silent accusation. “Okay, I’ll admit some disappointment that I never saw you. I’ve always been fascinated with history and ancient lore. When the sun failed to rise, I guessed what might have happened. Others didn’t know, but I guessed that you might have returned after a thousand years. And then… The next news I heard was after the sun came up, that you had been defeated. It was a relief, and yet…” He hesitated.

Nightmare nodded. “Go on!” she urged.

He gulped. “And yet, I’d missed it all. A lifetime I’ve spent reading books of ancient lore, books about ponies like you, and when something amazing actually happened, when you stepped out of the pages of history, I was cowering in my home. To see you would have been… it would have been…” He groped for the right words, then finished very softly, “…a dream come true.”

“Sometimes we get second chances, Spell Nexus. Sometimes they come when we least expect them.”

“Yes… Yes, I know. I was flabbergasted when Princess Celestia asked me to study your armor.”

Nightmare Moon’s eyes went wide, only for a moment before she concealed her surprise. She thought about the fragments of armor she’d seen scattered after she’d been struck down by the Elements of Harmony. “She gave you the broken bits of it, did she? It’s no wonder that you are dreaming about me. I must be much on your mind during your waking hours.”

Spell Nexus nodded. “Princess Celestia wants to know what caused her sister to go bad. It’s important. She wants to make sure it isn’t going to happen again — to Luna, or worse, to Celestia herself. Maybe by studying the armor, by scrying it, maybe I can figure out what really caused it all.” He blinked as he felt something drape over his back, around his withers. A thrill went through him as he realized it was Nightmare Moon’s raven-feathered wing.

“Scrying spells can work in mysterious ways,” she said. “Perhaps this dream is how your spell resolves. So ask!”

The unicorn shivered. He scuffed at the ground with his hoof. “What…? How…?” He looked around in confusion as clouds of gray seemed to close in upon his vision, his thoughts muddled. “No… I can’t wake up now. Not when I’m about to get the answer!”

Nightmare Moon’s voice came through the gloom faintly. “I’m afraid you are waking, Spell Nexus. But worry not. I shall find you when you sleep again.” His dream body dissolved to smoke beneath her wing and dissipated as his spirit returned to his bed in the waking world. She folded the wing against her side and said to herself, “I shall make a point of it.”

Comments

[frostfiresnow]

Possible reference to Past Sins with Spell Nexus studying the armor fragments.

[Doctor_Den]

If in the end it turns out that Nyx is a reborn Nightmare moon from dreams, then it will greatly upset me.
Rebirth with loss of memory will completely nullify the character's entire path.
So far, I like this story as an independent product, not constrained by any framework of third-party stories.
I know that it's too late to comment 5 years after the end was written, but I could not help but speak out.

[Zobeid]

10351135
You know, looking back on this story years later… I realized something that I didn’t even do intentionally, or consciously, at the time when I was writing it. Nightmare Moon’s dilemma is basically the same as Morpheus’s. During the entire Sandman epic, Morpheus gradually developed empathy towards mortals, but didn’t want to show it, didn’t want to admit it even to himself. At some level he wanted to change, but (as his sister Death observed), change just wasn’t his thing. He was a creature of habit, of rules, and of pride. And in the end, the only way he could change and grow emotionally was by dying and being reborn into a new avatar, a new personality.