• Published 1st Nov 2012
  • 3,577 Views, 76 Comments

Black Angel - Zobeid



Nightmare Moon was defeated, but she's determined to fight her way back from the dream world.

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08 - Enter Sandmare

A black vapor flowed across the rocks, pushing aside the more ordinary mists. It flowed like oil, like molasses. Unnaturally, it flowed uphill. It wound around the cold stones, clinging to the earth and yet gradually working its way upward toward the foundations of the Dream King’s castle upon its rocky perch.

The vapor kept away from the front gate. It flowed to the side, toward the rear of the castle, seeking, probing at any crevice in the stone edifice. The castle, flawless from a distance, was imperfect when examined more closely. The mist groped, exploring each chink in the facade, every grated vent, every rusty drain pipe, until it found a narrow window slit — barred with iron, but no obstacle for the mist. It began to flow through the slit, pooling in a dark chamber within the castle’s walls.

When all of the black vapor had gathered in the chamber, it coalesced into an equine form, and Nightmare Moon opened her eyes. She was in! Just as importantly, she was in without being seen. For what she had planned this night, it would be best that no one know she’d been anywhere near the castle.

She cast a faint glow from her horn — like starlight, though it was as good as daylight to her eyes. Stacked against one wall were oak barrels. A larger portion of the store room was occupied by sturdy wooden shelves, loaded with sundry bundles and articles. Dust and cobwebs indicated the room was not entered often. She briefly perused the shelves, but soon dismissed their contents as more junk than treasure.

She closed her eyes, and her body dissolved into mist again, then re-formed into the shape of a burly gray stallion — the guise of Mervyn’s helper, Abudah. With her mouth she tripped the door latch and went out from the store room into a corridor.

Far from the finery of the castle’s public areas, this was a spartan access way for servants, narrow, with bare stone walls and floor. Picking a direction, she tromped along, heavy hooves with unshorn fetlocks clomping on the worn stones. Doorways of heavy oak were interspersed along the corridor, but she sensed they were unlikely to hold anything of more interest than the store room she’d just left.

She perked up her ears. There were noises ahead, and the warm glow of a lamp. Cautiously she peeked into the small room and found a scullery with a couple of wash basins and stacks of dishes and silverware. The sounds of activity were coming from the next, larger room… the kitchen, judging by its wafting aromas. Before she could retreat, a portly mare, chestnut in color, poked her head into the scullery and laughed. “Abudah! Back again so soon? Your appetite just doesn’t quit. That’s all right, I’ve always got something for you. Come on in!” She motioned with a toss of her head for Abudah (as it seemed) to follow.

Nightmare Moon trailed her hesitantly. She guessed the real Abudah must sneak in the back of the kitchen rather often. The kitchen mare led her to a table in the corner and said, “You just sit down here, and I’ll bring you a plate.”

“Ayuh,” she said, imitating the only word she’d ever heard Abudah speak. She didn’t think he would be hard to impersonate, though it could be rather awkward if the real Abudah came looking for a snack.

In a moment the cook had returned and set a plate onto the table. “Dig in!” Piled high with hay fries, it wasn’t the sort of royal fare to which Nightmare Moon was accustomed, but it ought to be filling.

“Ayuh!” Nightmare picked up a hay fry in her stallion-sized mouth and began munching. The cook smiled and nodded and moved on to do other things. Nightmare chewed, finding the fodder rather bland. She itched to move on and continue her search, but leaving too quickly might raise suspicion. Her gaze turned to some jars on the table. One jar contained a red sauce and a spoon handle hanging out. The rude label, scuffed and wrinkled, was marked: ANT KETCHUP. That was a new one. Was it ketchup made of ants, or made by ants? Neither seemed particularly likely — or appetizing. Even so, the hay fries needed some flavor, so she tried spooning a small sample of the ketchup onto them.

Even though it wasn’t quite like any ketchup she’d ever tasted before, it did add some zest. She spooned more ketchup over the rest of the fries (awkwardly, lacking magic) and munched her way through them. A warm glow slowly spread through her, and she felt invigorated. She was almost done when the cook came back to check on her. “Not bad, huh?” The fake Abudah nodded. The cook glanced at the open jar and blinked, and her smile vanished. “Oh no. Did you…?” She pointed with a hoof. “Did you put that on your fries?”

Nightmare Moon glanced at the jar with a sinking feeling. “Ayuh?”

The cook wailed, “Of all the choices to make! Just look…” The cook snagged the jar with a hoof and smoothed out the crumpled label so it was fully readable: MUTANT KETCHUP.

The sinking feeling got much worse as Nightmare Moon’s stomach did a flip-flop. She brought a hoof to her mouth and heaved, eyes bugging out. “It’s already starting to take effect,” the cook observed needlessly.

The warmth she'd felt turned into blazing heat and stinging prickles all over her body. She staggered back from the table, but strength fled from her limbs and she collapsed on the floor under a crushing wave of dizziness. It soon turned into a splitting headache. She writhed and groaned, but the pain passed almost as quickly as it had come. She opened her eyes, but double vision made her feel more disoriented than ever. She blinked up at the cook — or cooks. She blinked again and the two ponies looking down on her became four.

“Give it a moment to run its course!” the cook said, her voice reverberating with a curious echo. “Oh, you must have got a double dose..”

Nightmare Moon closed her eyes to make the quadruple vision go away for a moment. The dizziness and weakness was subsiding, and she struggled to her feet, but something still felt very wrong. She tried to turn her head to look back at herself, but her muzzle whacked into something. There was a pony right next to her, on her left! No wait, it was on her right! Her vision was still utterly confused, so she leaned against the table and lifted an arm to feel of her face and muzzle. It seemed okay at first. It took a few more moments of groping around before she found her second head.

The cook was almost bouncing with a manic grin. “Two heads! And four eyes on each head! That’s a strong batch of ketchup. And I might say, not a bad look for you, Abudah.” Nightmare blink-blink-blink-blinked, and opened and closed her mouths mutely. The cook added, “I wonder if anything else was doubled?” She craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse of Nightmare’s hindquarters.

Nightmare hurriedly tucked her tail between her legs and bawled, in stereo, “Nuh-uhhhh!” In a mad scramble to get out of the kitchen, she blundered into another table, knocking pans and dishes onto the floor, then smacked into the door frame, then finally escaped into the hallway.

From behind the cook called, “Good luck with that! Come back anytime, big guy!”

As soon as she could manage, Nightmare Moon steered her grossly mutated stallion body into an empty store room, where she wouldn’t be seen, and reverted to etherial mist. Then she re-formed into her natural shape and coughed up the remnants of the horrid lunch onto the floor. Shaken and queasy, she stood with her eyes closed, taking deep breaths and trying to recover.

After her stomach settled down and she caught her breath, she muttered, “I won’t give up that easily.” She re-formed her Abudah disguise, sans mutations, and ventured into the hallways once more.

She tried to let her intuition guide her as she’d done before, but it was harder when she didn’t know exactly what her destination was. She fell back upon her nearly-forgotten dreams of long ago, of her dream castle. Where would her quarters have been? Her private study? Her sanctum? She tried to envision in her mind what they would have been like, how they would have looked. Her path led out of the servants’ passages into the wider halls, decorated with carpets, paintings and more ornamental sconces.

She knew she was on the right track when she saw the guard ponies stationed at an open doorway. They were dark like her own Night Guards of ancient times while their armor resembled that of Celestia’s guards, save that it gleamed with the cool white of polished silver instead of gold.

Nightmare Moon hooked a right turn and moved away from the guards, letting them think her destination was elsewhere. She’d have to get past them, but a direct confrontation as “Abudah” was a needless risk.

She went some distance down the hallway, letting the sound of her hoof-falls fade in their ears. She stopped, waited a bit, then transformed back to her natural form. A simple spell silenced her hooves, and she backtracked to the corner nearest where the guards were stationed. Her horn flickered as another subtle spell was cast, and the guards turned to look away from her position. “What was that?” asked one. After a moment the other answered, “Probably nothing, just a rat.”

The guards' eyes clouded with a hazy blue light, followed an instant later by an explosion of stars and then darkness. They slumped to the floor, sporting matching dents in their helmets where they had been bashed together. “How convenient that they come in pairs,” Nightmare mused. There was another flash of magic and a loud BAMF as she teleported the unconscious guards to one of the store rooms she’d visited earlier. It was a difficult teleport, but if they ended up fused into a stone wall, then what of it?

Nightmare Moon dissolved to smoke again and coalesced into a pair of guards identical to the ones she’d just knocked out. They walked through the doorway with satisfied smiles on their muzzles. Dividing her form into multiple ponies was one of Nightmare Moon’s most advanced spells. It involved some risks, and she couldn’t maintain it indefinitely, but for now it would serve well to misdirect and spread confusion.

The hallway where she now walked was grander than before, where large tapestries alternated with a series of stained-glass windows depicting some sort of historical events — mostly the Dream King prevailing over past foes, from what little Nightmare Moon could make out. One seemed to depict the creation of the two gates from the horns of gods he had slain. She knew the throne room would be up ahead, but that was not her goal. The Dream King’s private spaces would be in a side corridor, undoubtedly. It wasn’t hard to spot; another pair of guards stood before the entrance. This time she approached them directly.

“Hold!” said one. “Why have you left your post?”

“We’ve been sent to take over here. You two are wanted back at the armory,” Nightmare replied, mimicking the guard’s voice she’d heard earlier.

“The armory? What for?”

Nightmare shook her head. “Dunno. Nopo… uh, nobody tells us nothing.”

The guard grumbled. “I guess we’d better find out. Come on, Deke.” They shuffled away while Nightmare Moon took their place with her imitation guard bodies. She waited until they were out of sight, then turned and proceeded into the corridor.

Nearest the throne room were meeting rooms where Morpheus could hold private conferences with petitioners and staff alike. She continued, checking each room. She found a room that seemed like a small, peculiar sort of art gallery. Upon the wall were six picture frames, each framing a symbolic object: a heart, a metal hook, a sword, a book wrapped in chains, a goldfish, and a cross with a loop in its top end. The cross she recognized as Death’s cutie mark. Nightmare Moon shuffled nervously. This room was undoubtedly important, but it was not what she’d come for, and she couldn’t risk her mission to meddle once again with things she didn’t understand. She filed away what she’d seen for future research and reluctantly returned to her exploration.

Uneasily she glanced at the statues she passed, which seemed to be watching from their dark alcoves, before she came to a large, double door of polished hardwood. She reached with a hoof to push on the brass plate. The door stayed firm, locked. She smiled, doubly. This was more like it. She dissolved the two guard disguises and changed back into her proper form, then conjured up a skeleton key and unlocked the doors. With her magic she swung them open, and she strode into the room.

It was an office, and it was well-ordered but also thickly populated with cabinets and curios: books, statues, paintings, trophies and mementos, many of which were inscrutable to Nightmare Moon’s curious eye. Centering the room was a finely crafted — but relatively mundane — office desk and club chair. Upon the desk top was nothing more than an in-box, a writing tablet, quill and ink, and a modest statuette.

Nightmare Moon cast a subtle spell and glanced around the room. Many items glowed with auras of various hues and intensities, but a brilliant light shone out of a keyhole of one particular desk drawer. She moved around the desk, following the light. As the spell faded, she floated her skeleton key to the drawer, unlocked it, and slid it open. Therein were odds and ends: a pocket watch, a few old coins, a pair of casino dice, a leather pouch.

She lowered her muzzle to the drawer and sniffed, then levitated the leather pouch. Her aura tugged at the drawstrings, then tilted it until some white sand spilled onto the desk top. She frowned. The sand looked quite ordinary. She sniffed again, but there was no odor. She reached with a silver-clad hoof to nudge the tiny pile of sand…


A unicorn stallion bowed low, groveled before the throne. “My Queen! Many ponies who opposed you have been locked away in the dungeons. A few still elude us, though.”

The dark queen sat upon her silver throne, clad in polished silver armor, her starry mane and tail flowing in the etherial breeze. Coldly she gazed down upon the stallion and replied, “It matters not, Lord Numbskull. After all, the traitors will have to sleep sometime.”

“Ah. Of course. Very good, Your Majesty.” The pony looked as if he wanted to say more, but merely fidgeted.

Nightmare narrowed her eyes. “What is it?”

“It’s just that… Well, many of your loyal subjects — who acknowledge your supremacy and who adore you and your beautiful night, of course — it’s just that they were wondering if we might possibly get to see the sun again somed… I mean, eventually. Briefly. Just for old time’s sake.”

Nightmare Moon leaned forward, glaring at him. “Go on.”

Lord Numbskull sweated openly. “It’s just that your, um… predecessor… controlled both the sun and moon, and it might give your ponies more confidence if you were seen doing the same.”

“We see. Thy point is well taken. Tell us, dost thou think our little ponies will petition us to raise the sun? Will they entreat us? Will they beg us?”

“Oh yes, Your Majesty! Most certainly!” He bowed again as if to demonstrate.

“If they do, then perhaps we shall…” She paused, letting him wonder for a moment. “…give this proposal the consideration it deserves.”

“Oh thank you, Majesty! Thank you!”

Nightmare Moon waggled a hoof at him. “That is all.” Lord Numbskull scooted backward, head held low, for turning his back on the monarch would be disrespectful. As soon as he’d retreated from the throne room, Nightmare turned to her viceroy, Spell Nexus, and ordered: “Throw him in the Fiery Pit!”

“It shall be done, Majesty!”

Nightmare Moon’s laughter echoed through the great chamber.


“mmm… that’ll show him… teach them all a lesson…” Nightmare Moon muttered, then her eyes blinked open, and she realized she was sprawled awkwardly on the floor. There were wooden furniture legs, and carpet, and a few scattered grains of sand, and she began to remember where she was.

Shakily, she clambered to her feet. She looked at the bag she’d dropped on the desk top and the sand that had spilled. “Powerful mojo,” she muttered. Her horn glowed, and she conjured another pouch, and she poured a generous helping of sand from the one into the other.

She tucked her own pouch into her starry mane where it vanished, then put the original back into the desk. As she was locking it up again, the double doors pushed open, and the two guards she’d sent to the armory stepped in. They seemed more confused than alert as one called out, “Hey! Are you supposed to be in here?”

What a stupid question, she thought to herself as the air crackled around her. Lightning lashed out from her horn, the bolts slamming into the guards and knocking them off their feet. She stepped around the desk, over to where the guards lay. One of them moaned, and his eye twitched and then focused on her. He rasped, weakly, “you… are a very bad dream…”

Nightmare Moon grinned. “Tell me about it!” Then she placed an armored hoof upon his neck and pressed down until he stopped breathing.

Author's Note:

I rarely go back and change things that I’ve written, aside from correcting basic writing mistakes. When I got to the Sigil Room in this chapter, I knew I had to go back to Chapter 1 and change Morpheus’s cutie mark. I’d never been really happy with the way I described it before. When I was writing this chapter I slapped myself in the forehead and said, “Duh! Of course all the ponyfied Endless would have their sigils as their cutie marks, including Dream!”