Chapter 1

Hate.

It threatened to consume her soul, burden her mind, and overcome her heart with every moment that passed. It was a blinding cloak of white light that disguised itself so that its inherently dark properties would not become apparent. She felt it the most at day; it followed in her moonlit shadow every night. And whereas she attempted to sleep off the day, and cast worries away, it haunted her dreams, clenching them in a grip that sucked the very breath out of her, until she woke up, panting, lost, as if some explosion had just torn through her world.

She hated the hate.

Still attempting to recover from her swarming dreams, she let herself collapse back into the folds of her immaculate sheets, disheveled by her figure every night as her subconscious fruitlessly tried to fight. She bit her lip as a distraction as eyes frantically darting around the room, gathering her bearings. Despite the darkness her curtains brought her, the mare had incredible perception of her surroundings.

This was still, indeed, her room. Not the moon. Her room. The glow-in-the-dark stars testified to that on the ceiling above. And despite her thousand year absence, Princess Celestia, her elder sister, had taken several measures to preserve her room—or, at the very least, its appearance. She couldn’t remember the mattress beneath her being so hard and stiff, nor could she recall the tense feel of the curtains when she drew them every morning. But her sister had tried, at the very least. And most of the other furniture had been able to remain.

Luna rolled onto her side, but upon her coat, there was a fine layer of sweat that was already caking into her sheets and covers. She already knew that this would make it impossible to sleep, so with an aggravated grunt, she flailed her hooves and flung the sheets off of her. From there, she began to find her footing, only to slip on the slippery edge and tumble to the floor. Granted, the fall had not hurt so badly, but she was loath to admit that the fall had happened at all. Royal duty called, even in her private bedchambers. Or so she liked to think.

Awkwardly rolling onto her hooves, she sighed and trudged over to the desk opposite the bed. Her legs dragged on the plush carpeting, which felt too soft, and she spared an ounce of thought to the regions above her bed. Her horn glowed a dim sheen of blue, and a soothing, ethereal light cast itself into the dim corners of the room. She glanced up at the celestial sphere above her, and had to remind herself of the illusion’s fallibility; for where her childish glow-in-the-dark stars held fast was not exactly a ceiling, but a transparent layer of magic, past which a faux moon and the surrounding stars hovered in the air underneath the shade of a stone dome.

Luna had brightened the celestial sphere’s image to a waxing crescent, preferring the softer amounts of ‘reflected’ light to a full moon, or heavens forbid, the piercing glare of her sister’s sun. She noticeably cringed at the thought as she came up to her desk, and was once more glad she was the only one in her room.

It hurts to be alone, though, the Princess of the Night thought as a solemn frown crossed her features. She glanced back to the empty bed, and then to the rest of the room, as desolate as that. She remembered her first week back in Equestria, a thousand years after her banishment to the moon—or, rather, Nightmare Moon’s banishment. But that eternity of darkness, untouched by a single pony, had been as much hers as it was that of her inner demon. And so, for a week after the Elements of Harmony had cast the wicked being back into the recesses of her mind, she didn’t leave Princess Celestia’s side. They attended court together, ate together, attended functions together, and embarrassingly enough, they shared a bed together as well, for Luna feared her own eternal loneliness to return once more.

This arrangement held firm for four days and nights. Celestia had simply been glad enough to have her sister back. But Luna’s stability worsened. The next day, she had a panic attack waiting for Celestia to finish her morning bath. After that, they both agreed, though Luna did so hesitantly, that she needed professional help.

The therapy began the next day. Celestia granted a prominent psychologist in Canterlot the appointment with her sister, and they were allowed to meet. Luna thought her very kind and gentle-hearted, and well-composed, despite her previously-constant use of the Royal Canterlot Voice at first. It was over a full year later, though, and they still met. It was nice to talk, but it was clear that therapy wasn’t going to get through to the princess so easily.

But of course, a pony will defend her own mind. They’ll defy the prods of their therapists. After all…who will understand?

Luna sighed again before knocking on one of the drawers in her desk. She knocked on the drawer beneath it, and then skipped one down for another knock before returning to it and offering it such as well. There was a wind of clockwork in the desk, and from the surface underneath, a hidden compartment popped open and hung suspended. Concentrating her magic into unseen places, Luna found her hold and weaved the object out before placing it on the desktop. Her eyes fell upon the hardcover book before her, and with the will of her horn, her magic grabbed the front cover and swung it open.

Dear Diary,

Today is…well, the first time we have ever written a diary entry before, so we are not quite certain as to what we should write. Everypony we know says that they have them—the colts call them journals, though—and that this is surely where one can find a person’s deepest, darkest secrets, but all that seems quite foolish to us. Why should we bother to keep them, then? Perhaps we should just ask mother

Luna stopped reading at that point, and couldn’t help but note that while she had referred to herself in the royal ‘we,’ her writing defied the fairly Shakestallion-esque speech constructions that the family had been expected to use over a thousand years ago. Of course, common speech had been constant and, well, common, far before she had written this, so it seemed normal enough to her, anyway.

She flipped through the pages, which seemed to appear out of the back cover and disappear through the front beneath whichever stacks of pages she was on. At the end of each entry was her name, signature, and the date, which stretched through countless days in countless years, and through several different calendars.

And suddenly, she was met with yellow blankness. Luna scrunched up her face before turning back to the last entry she had made over a thousand years ago:

Dear Journal,

Luna paused and allowed herself a forlorn smile, which was fairly rare when she was alone. She remembered switching from ‘diary’ to ‘journal’ when she deemed the former too childish for herself. She continued to read:

This is getting ridiculous! I have yet to find a single pony who doesn’t simply sleep through the night with no appreciation for the soothing darkness I bring them! Don’t they understand how much work I put into that sky? How perfect the stars and the constellations they form are, and how delicately they were put into place? And the moon doesn’t raise itself! But the most these ponies can conjure up for its purpose is as an outdoor nightlight! The blasphemy! And of course, Celestia is praised and praised about her sun, and the warmth it brings! Buck her! The moon is just as important, if not more important! Why doesn’t anypony see it? I swear, if this keeps up

Luna stopped reading. She couldn’t actually read anymore. There were tears in her eyes: tears of regret and anguish. She could feel that very same hate brewing inside of her again. Memories were too much to bear. She just wanted them cast aside, not just from her, but from everypony! She wished none of it had happened. She wished that she hadn’t been banished to the moon, that she hadn’t been shunned by her subjects, that she hadn’t ever been neglected as a pony, and that she didn’t simply wander about in her life, aimlessly, with no clear direction anymore.

She wished it all didn’t seem pointless now.

But it really was. Everything was merely history, and that was all. She had to fight to fake her content, but it was all that could pass across her face, now. But everypony acted like it didn’t matter, yet it mattered to her.

Oh, heavens, what is actually wrong with me?

Luna spent the next several minutes trying to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come forth. She wouldn’t let them. To do so would be defeat, and that would be death to her. It was done, and it was over. Everypony expected her to move on, including herself.

Easier said than done.

When she finally consented to calming down, she quickly did so, before staring down at the journal sprawled before her. While it had never been a tomb of dark secrets, the pages had always been a place to confide in. Her feelings marred these pages from the beginning. From confusion on what to do, to a happy fillyhood, to a sad chapter after the deaths of her parents, to the raging jealousy towards her sister, and then into the apathy towards her world. But then it stopped. It cut off. Luna had been holding off on writing again. She didn’t know if she was the same pony anymore. But in light of these lost nightmares of late, Luna didn’t know what to do. She was frightened, lonely, scarred, broken, and it didn’t seem like the repairs would hold.

She levitated a quill and inkwell over to her, and dipping the point in, took it to a blank paper and began to write.

8~30~1001

It’s…been a while since I’ve written in this…there’s a lot to go over, I think…

From those first words, Luna’s vision blurred, and it would continue to do so until the sun approached the horizon outside, past her drawn curtains, and the gentle tug of her responsibilities reverberated through her horn. It was normally her wake-up call, but not today.

Canterlot was usually a very noble town—which was to say that it had a tendency to lean towards snobbish and arrogant ponies as its occupants, but even then, the cobblestone below and the buildings sprung into place around them were of a simply grandeur nature. At this time of the day, at sunset, ponies were busy either returning from work, or preparing for the night in their own homes. Some were doing both, still adjusting from the work flow of their high-tier jobs and preparing for whatever function that night had been dedicated to.

Of course, this meant that there were ponies in the streets, and none of them were too pleased when one pony in particular bounded past, clearly in a rush. He also had a tendency to think along the lines of thought that he was smaller than he was. And he was fairly small, just below the average for a pegasus pony, but this did not prevent him from bumping against several mares and gentlecolts, eliciting several cries and outbursts behind him.

“Sorry!” He yelled back behind him. “Running late!”

Indeed, he was. He worked two jobs, and some freelance work on the side, just to make ends meet here in Canterlot. And his first job had kept him overtime in warehouse duties, as a shipment had gotten misplaced, and he had to find it and tag it for delivery before leaving. Not helping was the fact that his wing had been injured in a brawl a few weeks ago, and he was still healing. That was the danger of his second job: bartender in a club down in the lower-portions of Canterlot, where the common pony was prominent. But ever since his injury, he had been frequently late to work, as his travel schedule had been primarily based on flight, and he had no time to adjust. The last weeks had been a blur as he tried to work, eat, and sleep. He had been missing meals—never good for the metabolism of a pegasus—but he couldn’t afford to take them. He just didn’t have the time, plus a relatively miniscule amount of money was all he had in his saddlebags.

The situation he was in, though, made it virtually impossible to move to cheaper locales, or seek better jobs in the capital city of Equestria. Unfortunate, but true for the time being.

As he ran, the scenery slowly began to droop from fancy adornments on every building to more down-to-earth houses. He quickly rushed his path away from the residential areas and to the more ‘business’ sided ones, and down dark alleyways as the sun was setting, he slipped through the backdoor of the club he worked at.

He was met with a small army of roadies moving about in the backrooms. They were moving several pieces of expensive DJ equipment, along with lighting and supporting sound systems. The pony’s eyes were drawn to the turntables, and were it not for the exquisite control of his jaw, he would have started drooling right there and then. As the equipment was wheeled out of site, he shook his head and headed for the doors into the club. He was stopped by a familiar voice, however.

“Three Dee! Three Dee!”

The pony in question huffed, and the hopes that he would be able to clock in first dashed away. He turned around, and plastered on a genuine smile. I’ll live, I suppose.

“Hey, Vinyl,” Three Dee greeted the white unicorn as she trotted up to him.

“How’s my favorite DJ-wannabe-bartender doing?” The electronic artist asked with a nearly-demented grin. She reached up a hoof and brushed aside some of the electric blue mane in her face as she did so, and Three Dee couldn’t help but admire the style in which she had it cut.

“Not nearly as well as you have, it seems,” he answered, his smile faltering in just the slightest. Vinyl Scratch noticed, though. She always could. She lifted her goggles up to peer at him with red eyes.

“Something on your mind?” She asked, straight to the point.

“Well, not particularly. I pulled this one off a few weeks ago.” Three Dee distracted his friend by gently expanding the bandaged wing on his right side. He let out a hiss as he reached the limit of how far it could currently go, and pulled it back taut against his side. The goggles fell back over the DJs eyes.

“Ouch. Club fight?” Vinyl guessed, and Three Dee nodded in confirmation. “That sucks, dude. But at least you’re still alive!”

“Yep.” Three Dee’s smile held this time. He was genuinely glad that Vinyl Scratch was one of those ponies on the club circuit that had become friends with him, and as it were, she was one of those ponies who knew that it was good to be alive. And that went for her, and all of her friends.

It was this line of logic that allowed Three Dee to know that dumping his working troubles as of late on Vinyl Scratch would be as pointless as dropping the bass on deaf ears. Vinyl’s care for everypony, including herself, lay solely on the fact that they were alive. To be unthankful for that was a bit of a tragedy to her. She wouldn’t take offense, but she would know how to handle it because she wouldn’t understand why.

“Okay, so I’ve got to get some equipment setup in the booth. The record company switched my roadies for my Canterlot gigs, and none of them know just how erratic my setup actually is.” Vinyl let loose that demented grin again, and Three Dee laughed. He remembered playing around with it once before the club opened, a long time ago. It seemed that every MIDI control had been changed or switched around. Not even the EQs seemed right. It was indeed, part of a setup that only Vinyl Scratch would ever wield. And wield it she did, better than a pro in his eyes. She was the master if she could mix the songs in her own crazy ways.

“Do you want me to keep sending you drinks?” Three Dee grinned back, and it was Vinyl’s turn to laugh.

“Of course, but keep them on the lighter side, please. I’m playing a double set tonight.” That excited Three Dee. The second shift—his shift—would be nothing but DJ PON-3!

“You’re going on late too, right?” He checked.

“Of course! Someone has to lower the crowd’s expectations beforehand!” She joked, before beginning to wander off. “Don’t forget about the drinks!”

“Okay! Nothing but hard cider for you!” Three Dee called back jokingly.

“I’m serious!” Vinyl laughed. “I won’t drink anything beneath sarsaparilla, though!”

“Deal!” Three Dee saluted with his hoof before proceeding to enter the club itself.

The club he worked at was currently empty, and currently darkened. LED lights coiled around most of the surfaces, evoking ethereal images out of simple booths, stages, and floors. To his right was the entrance, complete with coat check, and the final passageway into the expansive party space. Directly to his left was the bar: his brown-coated, blond mane coworker was there as well.

“Hey, Three Dee. You’re late,” Shaker rumbled out, before pointing to the compact punch clock behind the bar counter. “Time is money.”

“I know.” The pony sighed, before grabbing his punch card in his teeth and inserting it. There was a whir, and a click, and he pulled it out. He had clocked in at 7:27 today: super late.

“The boss won’t be happy unless you take down tonight’s inventory,” Shaker continued.

“Way to be helpful,” Three Dee huffed as he grabbed the clipboard and pen underneath the counter. He flapped his uninjured wing, allowing himself some leverage to stand on two hooves and log the products. Normally, he would simply be in the air, but his injured wing attested to that impossibility of the moment.

This was how the night continued for Three Dee, until nine o’clock hit, and the masses began to pile in, dancing to the prerecorded mixes of epic nights past. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take everything down in time, though everything currently behind the bar was accounted for. With DJ PON-3 in the house, though, he was certain that they would have to dip into the backroom stores, which had to go mostly unaccounted for. He knew he was going to take some heat for that as he left the bar to wait out the first shift, which Shaker was running.

For the next two hours, he decided to return to the inventory, even though it was too late: the boss had apparently taken his latest recordings. He didn’t start over anew, but on a new list, he picked up where he knew he had left off, and completed the inventory check despite the odds. His boss probably wouldn’t see it until Three Dee was called in for a scolding, though.

With ten minutes to go before his shift started, the pony took a rest in earnest, waiting at the foot of the stairs that led up to the DJ booth above the action. There was a mirror for the featured artists to quickly check themselves in before ascending to electronic nirvana, and Three Dee took this moment to do so for himself, so that he might not appear so work-trodden.
Upon doing so, he brushed and patted down his dark purple coat, and checked his cutie mark. A quill, with a small trail of designs, in succession: the numeral 3, the letter D, and before those, a bass cleft. It seemed like such a general cutie mark, with an unspecific skill; for Three Dee’s special talent was writing. And not just letter writing. Novel writing, nonfiction writing, poetic writing, playwriting, screenwriting, and even mathematical writing, though none of them were his strong points. His strong point was songwriting. And the bass cleft was a testament to how beautiful his voice was too, though it paled in comparison to his writing talents.

But it never seemed to matter, especially in these troubling times for him. He was a warehouse laborer, and a bartender. He barely made enough to pay rent, and he scrapped meals as they came by. His talents weren’t being recognized. They were almost pointless…

Three Dee returned to his appearance and proceeded to fix his mane: red on his left side, blue on his right, in a semi-straight, wavy style that was cut fairly short. His short tail was the same way, but it didn’t need attention itself.

“Dat plot!” He heard someone shout, and he squeaked and blushed before spinning around. Sure, he could write incredible romance, but handling real life spunk was a different matter entirely. Fortunately, it was only Vinyl Scratch, so he managed to relax a little. She laughed.

“Brony, you’re never going to get a mare if you’re so shy in the ways of love,” Vinyl purposefully dragged out that last word and wiggled it in her mouth, further embarrassing Three Dee.

“Vinyl!” He complained, before realizing what her presence meant. All hints of blushing dropped away as he began to desperately search for a clock.

“Relax, I’m way early. You’ve got a few minutes before your shift, and then after that, I’ll be up.” The DJ said.

“I can’t wait.” The purple pony responded, before Vinyl got serious again.

“Hey, listen, I know how hard gigs are to come by for ponies just starting out, especially in Canterlot. But I’m getting you some connections from when I first started out. You’re a great musician, and an awesome DJ, Three Dee. And you try to fool me, but I can tell that things are bad for you right now, and that you feel like nothings coming for you. But believe me, there’s something for you on its way now,” Vinyl then smiled. “I feel it.”

Three Dee was frozen in place. He didn’t particularly like it when Vinyl Scratch simply tore him apart so easily, but it was a fact of their friendship. Silently, he shuffled to the side, allowing his friend the full view of the mirror. It took him another minute before his normal thought functions resumed and he had something to say: “Knock ‘em dead, DJ PON-3!”

“Always!” Vinyl Scratch smirked before beginning her climb, and with that, Three Dee exited the backrooms and went into the club proper. There were masses of ponies—many more than usual, all turning out for DJ PON-3. The colt easily maneuvered through them, the experience from his past months proving valuable when he noticed a nearby clubber tense up. Three Dee quickly sidestepped him as the pony blew chunks where he had stood a moment ago.

There’s one in every crowd, Three Dee smiled and shook his head in bemusement, and squeezed through a small gathering of mares, some of which eyed him, while others attempted to dance with him, pressing their hips close. He rapidly escaped without a word, and let his entrance behind the bar talk for him. Shaker was nearby, serving a couple of drinks in martini glasses to a pair of lovely mares, and as he took the cash plus tip, turned to spot Three Dee in their relative sanctuary behind the bar as well. He walked over, and they silently brohoofed as Shaker passed.

Tag in, Three Dee thought, before he set to work as a colt and his marefriend beckoned for his attention.

A few minutes later, there was a change in the air. He felt the bass reverberating in his rib cage, and noticed that there was no steady beat anymore. A loud cheer erupted from the dance floor, and the dozens of ponies dancing before stomped in approval, eagerly anticipating the entrance beat of DJ PON-3. There was a humming in the air, and Three Dee knew what was coming.

A grinding synth started to repeat, in between slow, syncopated beats. There were lyrics, but he couldn’t hear them. There was too much groove, too much power, in the music Vinyl Scratch was starting to mix. It was almost mocking of the club atmosphere, but that’s what DJ PON-3 was popular for. Mosh pits were not uncommon at her sets, and she had a little something for everypony.

And then, relative silence as a small, steady strum wreaked havoc through the air. And then, everything went crazy. The beat launched, the rapping started in earnest—fast and pressuring. The song did what it did best: assured the crowd that DJ PON-3 was ready. If she could, she’d play the night! She had the stamina. As for the obligation: none at all, though. Two hours weren’t going to be enough to Three Dee. It never was.

DJ PON-3 began to take them up from the initial fury, as the synth chords of dance started on a loop she spun herself, live. There was a female voice, and a final sendoff to her first song, followed by cascades of sound, soothing the club back into its traditional beats, of dance and rhythm, of finding one night to lose, if only to forget the troubles awaiting in the real worlds.

Three Dee’s work began. Someponies just needed water. Others were ready to pound the night away, but overall, he was glad that most were taking their drinks in moderation. It was apparent that this would be a performance worth remembering. They always were.

“Shout out to my favorite bartender over there,” Vinyl’s voice rung out in a transitional phase of the music. “He gets me my drinks on time. Makes a mean Molotov cocktail.”

Three Dee blushed and laughed. That was a joke, and many ponies in the crowd laughed too. The dominant voice was the crescendo of cheers for the job well done.

“Tip well,” she reminded them, as the beats launched again with a new fury. And the tips flowed in, just as they tended to. n. That was the other benefit of working when a DJ he knew played a set: supplemental money. Not only did he get to watch them perform, but the money he could make off the tips would ensure him a break—something he so desperately needed after his injury grounded him.

Tonight was better than usual as well. The tips were big or plentiful. Sometimes both. Regardless, he would be okay after this night, for a fair reprieve in his work was long overdue.

Two hours later, the clock struck one, and DJ PON-3 was wrapping up her set with a dubstep remix of a classic club and party song—and just as well, it was her song, and her remix. The crowd went wild as the introductory beats vanished, and the main riff faded in: they knew what song this was, and they knew they were going to have a good time.

Shaker returned, and tagged into his duties, before absentmindedly nudging Three Dee to enjoy the last of the set. He didn’t hesitate as he joined the throbbing crowds that had swelled in the night. Many ponies recognized him as he stepped forward to lay a claim on the dance floor: some patted him on the back. Others pressed in close, but not too close, seeing as there was some respect left for the pony still on the clock.

He shut his eyes. Every hoof hit the ground in time with the slow beats building up to the drop. He was alone. He was here. That was all that mattered: he began to dance in a swaying motion, lost to the synths and drums. He felt it. It was coming. It was upon them.

The drop. Shake that.

Three Dee was suddenly a flurry of motion as he spun and shifted weight on the dance floor. A circle had to be cleared as his dancing fluidity overcame all sense of thought, and ponies were cheering him on. His smile was a rarity itself: this was who he was. Who he was meant to be. Someone incredible.

His dancing slowed for the next buildup, and other ponies pressed in close as they sung in earnest with him, their creaky vocals overcome by the speakers above. The drop was coming again, and they knew it. When it hit, they shuffled, and bounced as one into the finale of the song. The remix ended abruptly, but suitably, as Three Dee crashed back to earth, his ears suddenly overloaded by the deafening scream of DJ PON-3 fans. From above, he could vaguely make out Vinyl Scratch in his haze of release, waving to the crowd, spotting him, and lifting her goggles to wink at him.

Smiling, he rushed through the crowd, searching for the exit marked “Authorized Ponies Only.” He found it and crashed through, away from the breath of the infectious crowd, which was overcome with power, sense, and a hint of lust.
He was on his way to the stairs around the curve, ready to congratulate what he considered his inspiration, when trouble struck.

“Three! Dee!” He heard a fearsome voice boost in the quiet environment past the club’s soundproofed walls. The pony in question paled, before turning toward it, only to be met with the sight of a large, buff earth pony, with a black coat and streaks of white in his mane of darkness as well. “My office! Now!”

Three Dee sighed and hung his head as he retired himself to his fate. Such was what happened when he didn’t finish inventory on time.

Minutes later, after a scalding, one-sided conversation, words left the lips of the pony he called his boss—words that forever changed the course of his life, though he would not know it now.

“You’re fired.”

Two words. Perhaps three if a contraction served as two itself, but they froze Three Dee in place as they unexpectedly left the mouth of their bearer. His jaw opened and closed, trying to find words. He tried to think of what he would write instead, and soon enough, a response came to mind.

“But…Shadow Stride…why?” He croaked, mentally berating himself. He would have slammed his head into the wall if he had written that without better reasoning.

“Simple, Three Dee: tough times, tough measures.” The pony answered sternly. “I wish I could keep you, I do, but the money is worth its weight. And lately, you’ve haven’t been worth yours.”

“I’ve been injured, though! And on the premises!” Three Dee protested weakly.

“I know. I know,” Shadow Stride’s expression seemed to soften a bit. “I never like doing this to any pony. Especially those I could rely on so faithfully in the past. It would be easier if you had no excuse for your diminished abilities, but you unfortunately do. I needed you to adapt to them, to overcome them.”

“Can’t you find me something else to do around here? I can’t take inventory on a broken wing, but—but there must be something!” The purple pony, though, was out of options, cornered by logic, even in his own head. He couldn’t blame Shadow Stride: he might have done the same if their positions were switched.

“I’m sorry, Three Dee. The best I can offer you is a suitable amount of bits to keep you afloat until you can find a new job.” Shadow Stride’s words were almost absolute. Three Dee sighed.

“Send my last paychecks in the mail. It’s been a pleasure,” he murmured dejectedly, his night thoroughly ruined.

He was quick to leave the premises, but not before finding a piece of paper and writing a note on it.

Vinyl,

Congratulations on a wonderful performance, as usual. I wish I could offer my praise in person, but something has come up. Call for me please.

Three Dee

It was all he could bear to write at the moment. He didn’t want to ruin the DJs natural high after a performance, but he knew that despite the unwritten words, Vinyl would notice something horribly wrong between the lines and come find him with restrained pursuit. Confident of her line of though, he wrote his friend’s name on the outside and gave it to a roadie, who promised he would get it to her.

He left the club and dragged himself back home through stubbornly empty streets. When he reached into his shabby apartment building, and climbed the stairs to his apartment, and entered, he glanced around. There was little inside. The musical equipment in the corner, and the stacks of parchment on the desk, crammed in between the wall and bed. The kitchen was dank and dark, and the bathroom was rusty. This was all he had left.

He somehow managed to make it to bed, in the covers of which he began to cry. Try as he might, he couldn’t sleep: he still suffered from insomnia, and there was just no rest for the weary anyway.

=
AN:
Okay. So it’s been ages since I’ve cranked out a fanfiction, and this is my first on this site. To those who are willing to read, thank you, and this story is just beginning. Please review: I used to live on them, and now I’m starving for more. So here we go:

Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the My Little Pony toy franchise, the Hub, Hasbro, or anything affiliated with the topics written above. This is a fan-made piece of work, and not intended as canon.

(Although if you want to believe it’s true, by all means, go ahead.)

Random Disclaimer: I do not own cheese. That is all.

Constructive criticism please, and no flames.

Chapter 2

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The next morning, Three Dee heard a gentle knock at his door. At seven o’clock in the morning, he had still been unable to get a wink of sleep, too burdened by his woes and fears for the future. His insomnia was definitely worsening, and would continue to worsen in light of recent developments.

Fired. He had actually been fired. Although he was twenty-five, and full of youth, he couldn’t actually recall ever being let go. Of course, he had never been fired before, and now, it was a tremendous blow to whatever shreds of self-esteem he had left. Dull labor and monotonous life tended to do that to a pony: they tore at whatever he loved, and what he was meant to do spiraled out of sight, down the drain. It seemed that no matter where he flung his hoof, he wasn’t going to grab his calling in life. And now, he felt more worthless than ever.

There was more knocking, but this time, a little harder, and Three Dee remembered that someone currently waited at his door. He huffed at his exhaustion and proceeded to toss it aside, along with the sheets he kept warm in.

I’ll worry about it later, Three Dee thought through the haze of his mind as he slid out of bed and onto his hooves. Shaking himself into awareness, he approached the door as the visitor knocked again, and reached for the doorknob, turning it with the care he would a volume knob.

Before him, Vinyl Scratch stood in his doorway, a black bag in her mouth, and goggles nowhere to be seen. She let loose her trademark grin of borderline dementia as the string was caught in her teeth. Three Dee wasn’t particularly amused, though, and wordlessly stepped aside to let her in. Her smile subsequently fell as she stepped into the apartment and aimed for the nearest kitchen counter. Her horn glowed and magic levitated her recent purchase ahead of her to come to rest.

“Hey, Three Dee,” Vinyl murmured, clearly affected by the mood he was in. “How are you holding up?”

“I guess you heard?” The purple pony whispered.

“Shaker told me when he got off. I stayed at the club all night. I was wondering where you were after a while, because I had a nice mare for you to meet, but now…” she trailed off to uncertain grounds as Three Dee’s head drooped towards the ground. “I…I’m sorry…”

“It’s not your fault,” Three Dee stated it with an irritated rasp to his voice—something he instantly regretted as the words lingered in the air between them.

“…Three Dee, can you just talk to me? I may be no Element of Harmony…but I am your friend…” Vinyl frowned as Three Dee veered past her and into the kitchen, lifting his front hooves to lean against the counter and peer inside the bag.

“Hard cider,” he remarked, before trudging to a cupboard next to the rusty fridge. He opened it up, but before he could reach for the shot glasses up high, a bluish-white aura surrounded them, and they levitated over his head. His head followed his gaze, and they fell upon Vinyl, who had already uncorked one of the giant bottles, and was proceeding to fill them up to satisfaction.

“Vinyl,” he huffed. “I have work in three hours. I can’t drink right now.”

“It’s just one drink that your pegasus metabolism will burn off in less than an hour,” Vinyl growled, now angry over the misfortune of her friend. “This is the least you deserve. Just a small break.”

She floated one of the filled glasses over to him, before smiling a hesitant smile. “Please?”

Three Dee paused, sighed, and gave in, lifting his hoof and balancing the glass upon it. As the aura dissipated, he lifted the drink to his mouth and gulped it down in one go. It stung and settled unpleasantly in his empty stomach, but already he felt better. And he wanted water too.

He quickly rinsed the glass out and filled it up again with water, which he drank. He refilled the glass several times before the dryness in his mouth quelled at last. Vinyl levitated her glass into the water stream as well, and left it to dry on the dish rack nearby.

“Listen. I don’t normally go to bed until about noon. If you want to talk until you have to get ready for work, I’m here,” Vinyl Scratch soothed as Three Dee stumbled back to the bed, and she kept firm at his side. Her words, combined with the lightweight guarantee of a pegasus, got through to him this time, and before he knew it, he had climbed back onto the cushioned bed, and he was crying again.

The tears didn’t tear a path into his soul like last night’s did, but they were still very bitter, and they made him feel weak. He didn’t want to look weak, especially in the eyes of his friend and idol.

Too late, Three Dee thought as he clenched his eyes shut, and felt a pair of warm front legs envelop him. He slackened in her grip, partially because of the loosening effect of alcohol in his system, and buried his face into her shoulder, hoping that it would plug up the tear ducts. No such luck: they stained Vinyl Scratch’s nearly flawless coat beyond the immediate reach of his face.

His situation dire, it spilled itself from his lips as he cried. He confided in Vinyl that his injury had seriously hindered his efficiency to do nearly anything, and thanked Celestia for universal healthcare, but it almost meant nothing. His hooves had been bruised from all the running he had to do for the past three weeks, and he was always running late now, because what took little time on wings took too long on foot. He was genuinely scared. He didn’t want to leave Canterlot—and morally, he couldn’t, though he would not tell her why. But making ends meet in the capital city was a challenge too great for him, and he didn’t want to be homeless. And he didn’t want to lose his other job either.

Eventually, he calmed done, and the clock on the nightstand nearby began to flash eight o’clock. He heard it buzz, and then a small slam as Vinyl wacked it off the surface with her hoof, and for the first time since he had gotten fired, he laughed at her antics.

What started out as a simple, crude way to shut off the alarm clock quickly degraded into a short wrestling match on the bed as the ponies began to fight like foals. Vinyl won, because Three Dee was smaller than her, and he suspected that she had cheated with magic, but he didn’t care. Joy was flooding through his being again, and suddenly, things didn’t seem so bad. Sure, he was out one job, but he could definitely find another. And the tips from last night, not to mention the aid he would receive in the mail from Shadow Stride, would keep him afloat on the costs of living for long enough.

Breathless, the ponies sprawled on the mattress, a smile on each of their faces, before Three Dee rolled off the bed and shook off the dizziness. “Okay, I better get ready for my day. Help yourself to whatever you like.” He smiled at Vinyl Scratch, who looked perfectly content to be lazy in his bed, before slinking into the bathroom and shutting the door behind him with his back leg.

He quickly washed up in the shower and composed his appearance, making sure that his mane wouldn’t have its two different colors blending together as he combed himself all over. He took a quick glance in the mirror, hopped to attention in a battle pose, and grinned with the light of a challenge in his eyes, before laughing at his continued antics. He felt like the same pony again. Life felt manageable.

Three Dee left the bathroom behind, and found Vinyl Scratch chowing down on cereal in the kitchen. He raised an eyebrow with his smile. “Isn’t it technically dinner time for you?”

“Only on Saturdays,” she explained.

“It is Saturday.” Three Dee challenged. Vinyl shrugged.

“Whatever,” she let out, and Three Dee’s hoof smacked against his face in mock exasperation before he walked over. Vinyl opened the fridge and levitated over milk, letting him discover the bowl that had already been set out and filled for him. Considerately, his friend hadn’t put milk in it yet, which was good. Nopony liked cereal soggy.

“Thanks,” he acknowledged, gripping the carton and opening it before pouring it into his bowl. Afterwards, he capped it, and Vinyl’s spell took it away from him to replace the milk in the fridge. Three Dee eagerly grabbed his spoon nearby and started to eat.

“So what’s your plan, Three Dee? How are you going to make money flow again?” Vinyl Scratch asked between bites.

“After my shift, I’m going to stop by the palace and see if Joy Bringer can pull some strings.”

“Joy Bringer?”

“My sister,” Three Dee clarified. A thought was spared towards the glory of Cinnamon Toast Munch. “She works as one of the servants.”

“Don’t you think that’s aiming a little…high and low at the same time, Three Dee?” Vinyl asked. “I mean…few ponies want to wait on others, and even fewer have the cutie mark talents to do so…I think.”

“It’s worth a shot. And I think I owe it to my sister as well. We haven’t talked in…well, so long…” Three Dee’s gaze wandered off to horrible times, before his thoughts reverted back to his cereal in a saving grace. Vinyl didn’t press for more information.

“I suppose. It seems beneath you, though. You may or may not deserve to work your way up in the world, but not in that kind of work,” Vinyl continued.

“It’s not like I have many choices. It’s an opportunity, though,” Three Dee’s spoon clattered in the empty bowl, and he felt revitalized as he leaned over the tiny counter and down to the sink below it. He gently let the dish come to rest inside, before speeding off to his closet by the front door.

“Whatever you think is best, I suppose,” the white pony muttered as her friend dug out the yellow straps in his closet. “Is that your uniform?”

“Standard for pegasi.” Three Dee confirmed as he began to buckle it around his figure. “Usually, unicorns wear vests, and earth ponies don a fusion mix of the two.”

“Ah.” Vinyl let out as she floated her dishes into the sink as well. “I suppose I best be off to my place, then. You have a fairly decent commute ahead of you.”

“Sure, no problem,” Three Dee smiled, before stretching out his front leg. Vinyl trotted over and accepted the hug, providing one of her own as well.

“Thank you for coming. I’m really a mess without you,” Three Dee smirked as he buried his smile into her shoulder.

“No problem. I like to see ponies happy,” Vinyl smiled as she broke away, before her nose began to twinkle. “Huh. You smell like blackberries.”

Three Dee mildly blushed, but it soon faded off. “T-Thanks. You smell like…” he took a moment to debate the smell lingering in his nostrils, which was soon followed by his most incredulous face. “Jasmine?”

Vinyl Scratch suddenly released a yell and a whoop. “I knew it would work!”

This was promptly followed by her boisterous exit of laughter to a joke Three Dee didn’t even know about. Before he could swing the door shut, she said her final goodbye, before continuing to laugh. Three Dee closed the door, shook his head in bemused confusion, and began to search his closet for a utility pouch that had somehow been disconnected from his straps.

This was usually how Luna ended her Friday evening and Saturday morning cycle of consciousness: sprawled out on her bed, her mane scattered about beneath her with the hints of a fizz, and as much desire to keep lazy and shut up as she did to speak right now with her therapist, Perception. In truth, she’d rather be alone, attending to some activity on her own, like reading or one-player chess—which was not as flawed as everyone might think, though. With the intelligence of an alicorn, it was more like an intimate puzzle.

“So how did the recent negotiations with the griffon kingdom make you feel?”

“So how did the recent negotiations with the griffon kingdom make you feel?” Princess Luna sharply mocked in a whiney voice, before lifting her follow-up glare towards the psychologist sitting in the armchair off in the corner. “You know I hate it when you do that.”

“My apologies, Luna.”

“Whatever, Perception.”

This was, so far, how close they had gotten in their weekly appointments. They were on a first name basis—something which Luna found both relaxing and dreadful at the same time. Long ago, familiarity was nearly exclusive to her royal family fellows. Today, familiarity was almost expected of her. There was no denying it: the absence of a thousand years followed her everywhere.

“So what was your opinion on them?” She simplified, and Luna grunted her disapproval of the question. Still, she chose to answer, rather than make Perception’s life harder, because both of them knew that she would make Luna’s life just as hard.

“Pointless!” That was the word that erupted from Luna’s muzzle, and though she hadn’t been looking for it, it did suffice. “It was all so stupid. It was more like a house visit! There was no talk of problems, no debate of politics, no discussion of debate—it was boring! Boring, boring, boring! A touch-base, even!”

Luna’s brow furrowed as she stopped flailing her legs about. Throwing a tantrum didn’t solve anything, but complaining alone had been a wonderful release. So she continued with her line of thought: “I mean, a thousand years ago…”

The thought abandoned her. She had said too much. Nearby, she could hear Perception as she lowered her writing pad. She twisted her head to watch as the psychologist removed her barrier glasses.

“What was Canterlot like a thousand years ago?”

That’s it! Time’s up! Princess Luna instantly decided as she buried her head underneath one of the pillows she had kept nearby. While her face was out of view, she cast a spell with her horn, reaching out to the clock on the dresser by the glass balcony doors and adjusting the clock so that it read nine o’clock instead. Afterwards, she waited.

“Oh, my! It already appears to be the end of our session,” Perception suddenly let loose in her calm voice. “But I think we’re making process, Princess Luna.”

And back to formalities. Where we belong!

“I wouldn’t personally know, doctor, but I’ll try to dwell upon it over the week,” Luna gently placed the pillow aside, having gotten off the neurotic train express with the falsified end of the hour. She sat up and slipped off the bed as daintily as she could in the presence of another, before turning to face Perception. “Thank you for your services.”

“It has been a pleasure, Your Majesty,” the doctor bowed before treading her own path out, glancing at the watch strapped just below her front hoof and releasing a tsk as she didn’t like what she saw. “This watch always seems to be running slow or fast. It’s brand new, too…”

Luna’s magic sneakily shut the doors behind her therapist without a sound, and she sighed. She didn’t think they were making progress at all. She never felt any better after talking with the psychologist, and she was supposed to be the best. There must have been something that she just couldn’t understand though.

But as it was, she already knew, and she already understood her latest mistake. She didn’t realize it during her appointments, but after each one, she realized that the much preferred the company of even a distanced pony like Perception than the emptiness her room tended to bring. Try as she might, though, she could not banish the feelings of resentment over the time she had to spend in these sessions. Perhaps everypony around her would have an easier time if they weren’t trying to decipher her on all scales of life.

As she walked over to the large mirror near her desk, she examined the damage her inherent need for rest had brought her. Her mane had gotten a little frizzy with the increased humidity the sun had brought out that morning, and tossing it around on her bed hadn’t particularly helped either. Usually, the stars in her mane were reflective of the constellations, and just like them, were more prominent when the moon hung in the night sky. Now that morning had come, many of the stars were no longer visible, except for those in the two constellations that she considered her personal favorites: Orion and Andromeda. However, they were out of place—something Luna knew she absolutely had to remedy as she levitated the hairbrush on her desk from the evening before. It would soon be time for breakfast, and she made it a point to never show weakness in front of her sister again.

One she finished taming Betelgeuse and Alpheratz back into their difficult spots, the brush was levitated away, and she briskly trotted out of her room, passing by the Royal Guards stationed outside of her room for this rotation of shifts. Her gaze passed over the giant halls of mahogany, black marble and purple granite, and was in admiration of how they had stood firm against the tests of time during her dreaded absence.

What she liked most about her personal wing of the castle, though, was the almost-labyrinthine design. There were a few grand hallways to pass though, but plenty of smaller passageways and hidden stairwells were omnipresent as well. The plans she had drawn up those millennia ago had been fairly reflective of her residual paranoia: in the event that she was under attack, under pursuit, and the Guard was suspiciously absent, to this very day the blueprints of the Lunar Wing were embedded in her head. Today, her paranoia still lingered, but its usefulness proved sparse: an occasional slip of the attendants, or perhaps a peruse of Canterlot from an unfamiliar balcony were the only times it liked to kick in, and she wasn’t a pony who particularly enjoyed being startled.

As she took the most straightforward path through her own royal wing, she eventually came to an entryway passage that joined up with another. This other path led to her sister’s living domain: the Solar Wing. While the princess was fairly familiar with that wing, it was not her final destination as she continued through the castle, in hunt of the royal breakfast.

A couple grand staircases and a fair amount of walking later, she entered the private dining area for the princesses. This was the room used for the times that she and Celestia weren’t hosting formal banquets and dinner parties, and with such a purpose, it was used fairly often.

There were two more stallions stationed to flank the doors as she whisked it shut behind her with magic, and the wafting smells of several delicious foods entered her nose as she held it up for scent analysis. It was a combination of a succulent breakfast and a hearty dinner, fairly common when Celestia and Luna dined together, seeing as Celestia was on a daytime schedule, and Luna lived at night.

The Princess of the Sun herself currently sat at the left end of the long table before her, levitating a cutlet of juicy lettuce to her mouth as she perused a newspaper. This routine was fairly common: Princess Celestia abandoned the use of silverware for simplicity when she wasn’t concerned with her public image at the immediate moment, and regularly tried to read the Canterlot Post, preferring this source of information to her dull reports. However, she did not hesitate to switch the newspaper out with books, reports, drafts, and other documents when her days as a princess severely demanded that her duty be done. Once, sometime in the last year, Luna had come for her dinner, and found her sister with a fortress of books, her own food abandoned. It turned out that she had discovered the genre of urban fantasy before going to bed and had stayed up all night, checking out most of the genre collection from the Royal Library and powering through it. Needless to say, it had been an off day for her afterwards.

“Good morning, my dear sister,” Celestia took notice of Luna’s arrival, and kept a piercing gaze upon the dark alicorn as she maneuvered to the opposite chair and took a seat. Combined with the dashing smile, Luna knew that Celestia was hoping to sooth her. It wasn’t going to work.

“Morning, Celestia,” Princess Luna replied as a couple of servants trotted over and placed a few pitchers and a personal glass on the table. The pitcher with grape juice was coated with a navy-blue aura, and promptly floated over to the glass before her, before tilting over to fill it up. “Did you have a good night’s sleep?”

“Indeed, I did,” Celestia smiled as she floated a glass of water to her lips and took a sip. Luna returned the pitcher to the table. “How did Night Court go?”

“Fine,” Luna replied, perhaps a little too quick and forcefully. The truth was that it hadn’t been close to fine. Every session of Night Court she held was a painful reminder that she had missed a thousand years, and that she still couldn’t seek out the trust of their subjects. The most recent one to transpire hadn’t been much better. Two walk-in appointments were granted: the first was the griffon ambassador touching base with her after the previous afternoon’s meetings with Princess Celestia. The second one was the representative for the Royal Astronomer School in Canterlot, who formerly requested that she inspect the observatory, which had recently been renovated.

It wasn’t even that they had showed up, but that was only the better side of the situation. Neither one of them had even bothered to make an appointment, which begged the question to ring in Princess Luna’s head all night: why? Were they expecting such low attendance for Night Court, or did they feel that her presence in the royal palace could merely be brushed off, and as such, could wait for the sun to return? Just thinking about it weighed down Luna’s heart, but she ordered it to remain firm: once it cracked, there would be no turning back.

“…And how was your appointment?” Princess Celestia slowly asked, sensing the turmoil past her sister’s single word response.

“Pointless,” was the reply again, and Luna couldn’t help but wonder just how many times she could apply the word to the different aspects of her life. Her therapy was pointless. Her Night Court. Her presence. Her work. Pointless. Pointless pointless pointless pointless, and not a single spark of hope was shining on the horizon. Just the moon she rose every night—which, after viewing pictures from the last decade before her return, was a role in which her partaking of border-lined optional: Celestia, after a thousand years of practice, could paint the navy skies and light the shadowy nights with as much skill as her sister. And Luna didn’t believe her when she said that her own nights were art, and that Celestia could never do them like she could.

Bull, Princess Luna had thought, and she thought the same upon her summons of the memory. Was every pony ignoring the problem? Or could they not see the problem right in front of her?

Could she?

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that…” Celestia looked a little down after hearing Princess Luna so aptly sum up the usefulness of appointments she helped arrange. “Would you like me to cancel all future appointments?

“Not yet,” Luna answered with tradition, before levitating the grape juice to her lips and drinking some of it up. The past year had been a taxing one for the sisters: this wasn’t the first time they had partaken in this conversation. Moving on, Luna couldn’t help but remember the passing importance of the griffon negotiations. “By the way, the griffon ambassador paid me a visit. I concurred with all the progress we’ve made on trade agreements and mutual aid on the border.”

“Excellent, Lulu,” Celestia smiled again, and Luna groaned out loud. She hated that nickname.

“Why do you call me that?” She asked with a growl of irritation and a small glare towards the white alicorn.

“Habit, I suppose,” Celestia answered, before hiding her amused smirk behind a cup of tea. Luna rolled her eyes as Celestia put down her tea. “I do which you would call me ‘Tia again, though…”

“Celestia, we’ve been over this. We’re grown up! We’re not foals anymore,” Luna defended herself adamantly.

“But we are sisters. Why can’t we rely on that for our familiarity?”

“‘Lulu’ is derogatory!”

“You know I only mean the most affection for you when I call you that, Luna.”

“But I’m not clumsy anymore!”

“I never called you ‘Lulu’ because you were clumsy as a foal. I called you Lulu because you were dear to me.” Celestia let her cup float down to an empty saucer with a clink before looking at Luna with a greater measure of seriousness. “You’re also dancing around my question, sister.”

“I am not dancing around the question.”

“Then answer it.”

“I already have!”

“The claim that your nickname is derogatory is not an answer for why you won’t refer to me as ‘Tia, though.” Luna inwardly cursed at her sister’s stunning ability to stick to the point of a conversation. She chose to stay quiet. She had escaped the eventuality of her feelings on the matter before, in similar conversations for the past year. She knew she could do it again.

“So please, Luna. Why can’t we be familiar as sisters?”

A longest pause descended upon the room. Even the soldiers at the door and the servants at hand on the side felt it, and while the mares at work shifted nervously, and the stallions shared a subtle glance with each other, Luna stared down her sister, pressing into their conversation with one of the nastiest silences she had ever summoned with the absence of her answers. Not a thought ran though her being as the demon inside her yearned for the evil of that lost voice, and even as she quenched it once more, she felt it clawing at the rusty bars of her iron will prison.

The stillness of the room was suddenly broken by the faintest clatter of metal to the side. Luna didn’t lose her focus, but Celestia chose to watch as a pink unicorn tentatively approached, gently levitating a covered plate over to the table surface in front of the Princess of the Moon.

“Y-your dinner is r-ready, Your Majesty,” the mare continued to tremble as she set the dome down, and the noise of such brought forth Luna’s attention on the object before her. Magic enshrouded the cover immediately after, and was whisked away to present a glorious supper of daisy-fruit salad, made from the finest plants picked in Equestria.

A moment passed, and a dark blue coated a few of the utensils. They lifted into the air before depositing themselves among the food.

“I’ll be taking my meal in my room this morning, instead,” Luna decided with words that cut through the air, before slowly standing and leaving the dining room behind.

Later that day, a purple pony trotted out of one of the warehouses in the shipping district of Canterlot, doing his best to maintain an upbeat mood. It wasn’t particularly working, however, especially since his destination wasn’t the club he usually bartended at. Of the two professions he worked, his work at night had easily been the preferred of the two, and to have lost it meant more to him then the loss of future paychecks. With a sigh, he began the formidable journey on foot up to the Royal Palace at the topmost point of Canterlot. Normally, it would be a few minutes on a speedy wing, but on the ground, it was half-an-hour on hoof.

Despite the universe’s best attempts to wear down his hooves and mock him for his crippled wing, he trudged on. The sun didn’t help, and today’s weather schedule hadn’t even called for a soothing breeze, much less the exhilarating roar he would’ve experienced flying through the air. About halfway there, he chose to rest on the cobblestone and against a building. A lot of ponies glared at his unwelcome presence for a moment, but most of them let their detestation transform into pity when the saw the bandages around his right wing. Despite that, someone had indeed chosen to complain, and while Three Dee hadn’t caught sight of that pony, he did spot the pair of guards walking down the street, straight towards him.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to move along. This neighborhood doesn’t take too kindly to the homeless,” one of the guards stated as they stopped in front of him. Three Dee grunted as he stood, now sore instead of hurting.

“My apologies, guards, although I’m not homeless as you think. I merely stopped for a rest, but I’ll be moving along now,” Three Dee responded, keeping as courteous as he could, even as the lie slipped past his teeth. He didn’t have a home, per se. He had an apartment. A residence. But to Three Dee, that was as much a home as the rest of Equestria.

Wise words came to his mind from his days as a college colt: Home is the place where, when you have nowhere else to go, they have to take you in. Three Dee sighed at the memory, more from depression than nostalgia. He didn’t have anybody to take him in.

As he moved along, the palace towered far over him, and almost seemed to grow in height as he continued to get closer. It was almost intimidating from the ground, and he had no wish to continue towards something he could not currently conquer with his wings. But still, he pushed himself through the city. Right hoof, left hoof.

The palace gates were finally upon him, and of course, they were locked tight, and flanked on each side by a guard. Logic dictated to Three Dee that this couldn’t be the only way into the palace, and even then, the palace didn’t have to be his ultimate location. The guard quarters or the servant entrance would suffice.

Bravely, the purple pony approached one of the white guards, maintaining a respectable distance. “Excuse me, but I’m looking for my sister. She works as a servant, and I was wondering where the servant entrance was.”

Three Dee didn’t get a reply, and he huffed at the stubbornness of these ponies to do their job. Once more with courage, he decided to physically approach the ebony, golden-lined gates, as he could remember them being open for court in the morning when he was smaller. However, they were of course, firmly locked, and neither guard attempted to stop him as he raised his hooves and gave an experimental push. Those stallions were only there for show, unless he broke down the metal, cast a spell against it, or flew over the gate, none of which he could currently do.

He backed away out of consideration for the guards, just in case he was making them nervous, and began to trot the lap around the palace, searching for another way in that didn’t involve breaking the law.

It took him a few minutes, but he eventually found a booth next to a smaller gate, flanked by a single stallion in armor and with an uptight, green unicorn inside. Three Dee approached, hoping that his search had come to an end.

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for my sister, who—”

“Name!” The exclamation was so harsh that Three Dee felt like someone had shouted at him. He leaned his head forward, confused.

“Three Dee?”

The unicorn glanced at his red-and-blue mane and rolled her eyes. “Your sister’s name.”

“Oh, sorry. Um, Joy Bringer?”

The unicorn’s horn glowed as she started magically shuffling through stacks of paper inside the booth as the grounded pegasus awkwardly shifted from hoof to hoof, almost hopping in place as he waited.

“Ah, here’s the file!” The unicorn exclaimed with suppressed glee, before opening it. “Why, yes, it does appear that you’re recorded as family. She’s even included a picture of you. There might be some paperwork allowing you entrance as well.”

Three Dee was forced to play the waiting game once more before the green mare found it. “Ah! Here it is!”

“Great!” Three Dee praised, glad that this was going so well.

“However…” the purple pony’s ears drooped a little at the sound of that. “The paperwork calls for an escort as well, to be called off at the whim of your host. Fairly typical, though I hope you’ll understand.”

“Oh? Is that it?” Three Dee questioned, his mood holding.

“Yes. I’ll just ring for a guard to come,” the mare already seemed so much friendlier as her magic ringed a bell that was gentle and soothing to the ear. Three Dee instantly liked the sound of it and asked the mare if she knew what kind it was, and possibly what musical pitch it rung in. However, she didn’t, and promptly apologized for it. By sheer coincidence, the escort showed at that moment, and Three Dee thanked her as he was guided through a small courtyard and into one of the smaller branches of the palace itself.

Despite their bonds of siblinghood, Three Dee and Joy Bringer hadn’t remained close when they grew up into stallion and mare. However, Three Dee knew that Joy Bringer was one of the few servants who lived in the castle itself, fulfilling every requirement and dodging every prohibition to do so. The servants who remained in the castle for the majority of their time lived in a series of apartments set aside and away from the wings of the rulers and the nobility who also occupied the castle on business or pleasure, temporary or not, so that there wouldn’t be any ruses among the different-classed ponies. Despite this segregation, the apartments were very, very grand themselves, which was probably why living in them constituted so many bullet points to be followed.

Three Dee had debated the idea of moving into the apartments as he worked his hours that day, but he knew that it was incredibly unlikely to happen. He thought it viable that he violated more of the rules to do so than he could possibly know, and that they remained mostly incurable. Plus Three Dee felt he was a very free spirit. The idea of a job in the castle sounded almost violating itself, but he knew it was his best opportunity, and so emphasized the notion of sucking it up and doing it.

The guard led him through a pair of grand doors and up some smaller staircases until they had reached the fourth floor, and Three Dee’s hooves were beginning to hurt again. Fortunately, it was a short walk down the hall before he was presented with a tall set of doors. They were a brilliant hue of white with onyx designs elegantly drawn upon the entire length, forming abstract patterns that made little sense to Three Dee, although he was able to form a few random words from all of the squiggly lines. There was no real message to discern, though, and he was sure he would have caught it, considering his talents.

Tentatively, he reached up a hoof and knocked on the door. There was a lengthy pause before a pinkish aura enveloped one of the doors, opening it, and allowing a pony to poke her head through.

Joy Bringer, despite being the younger sister, was actually slightly taller than Three Dee, who had apparently grown short instead. She was a pink unicorn with a white mane and tail, complete with several red streaks that gave her the appearance reminiscent of a peppermint lollipop. When she saw her big brother with the guard directly behind him, she didn’t smile, but calmly requested the guard to take his leave from this point on—a request that went fulfilled, as per the paperwork she had filled for potential guests. She swung the door open a little wider, and gently allowed Three Dee to enter.

Three Dee glanced around the apartment, which was far more spacious than his residence, though it adopted the design of wide open space instead. There was no illusion though, and it came complete with state-of-the-art accommodations that included a spectacular kitchen, a fine sitting area, and a luxurious bed. Through a small door, he could spot what appeared to be a grand bathroom, and as he heard the door shut behind him, he started to turn to compliment the place, only to be greeted by a hoof to the face.

The purple pony recoiled back as the candy-coat color of the mare suddenly seemed to be the most threatening thing to him in the room. He stumbled onto his flank as his sister advanced.

“Three! Dee! I told you never to see me again!” She yelled in a shrill voice that was fairly becoming of the situation. The purple pony’s head hung down in shame, although the thought that the paperwork allowed him in trickled somewhere in the back of his head.

“I-I’m sorry, little sister,” Three Dee stuttered as he felt his cheek with his hoof. It still stung a bit.

“What else were you expecting?! Do you think I would have forgiven you by now?!” She yelled, demanding an answer.

“To be honest…I wasn’t thinking about it,” Three Dee whispered the truth of it all.

“Why are you even here?! Why are you even back in my life?!” Suddenly, an immense force carried Three Dee right off his hooves, and the pink field expanding out from his little sister confirmed what had happened in a moment: lack of control. Simply coming here had angered his sister into losing all restraint when it came to her magic—something he should’ve considered, if he let himself think at all about the consequences of coming.

The magic outburst sent Three Dee flying straight into the bed frame, right against his broken wing, and the purple pony screamed in agony as if a flame was set to his feathers and left to fester. The pegasus crumbled to the floor as pain seethed through his extra appendages. He whimpered and let a tear leak out as the pain came crashing down in a steady collapse, and continued to do so until it was an ever-present throbbing. He heard hooves rushing forward.

“Three Dee! Three Dee! Oh, buck, what happened to your wing? I’m so sorry, my magic has been fluctuating a lot lately, and I was just so angry, but—oh, big brother, I never meant for you to get hurt! I’m so sorry!” His sister continued to rant through hysterics as she checked him over, sincerely sorry at the potential damage she might have called “Should I send for a doctor?”

“No, Joy Bringer. I’m fine,” Three Dee lied as he shakily stood up again. Joy Bringer continued to fret over and around him as he did so, before he spoke again. “Although if you wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer to rest on the bed for the time being.”

“Of course, Three Dee! Anything for you!” Joy Bringer exclaimed, levitating her big brother right off his feet and onto the mattress. As he landed, he sighed: that was as close to flying as he could get nowadays.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Water would be nice. I mean, please, Joy.” Three Dee corrected himself. He didn’t know anything about servitude, but he suspected that servants didn’t get nearly enough of the thanks they deserved and a minimum of respect and courtesy to the service they provided.

“Of course,” Joy answered before quickly trotting away to the kitchen. As Three Dee watched, she opened a cabinet, floated a tall glass out, closed it, and turned on the faucet to fill it with water. All with magic, and sometimes even multitasking the actions. He couldn’t help but feel that big brother pride for her little sister. Even if his little sister had just hurt him. Nothing to be done about that, though: big brothers were forbidden from hitting their little sisters. Ever. Forbidden by their parents, and then themselves. Three Dee cast a small thought for their parents as he thought that though, and squelched memories down as Joy Bringer returned with a glass of water in her magical grip.

“Here,” she said, floating it to his hooves. He gently clenched it before drinking deep, and suddenly, his toils in reaching the palace didn’t seem so bad. The pain even seemed to fade a little. Such was the magic of favors from his family.

“Thank you,” he said when he had emptied the glass in one go.

“You’re welcome,” Joy said as she levitated away from him and transported it to the counter without moving a muscle. She sat down on the floor and faced Three Dee’s prone form. “So how did that happen?”

Three Dee quickly glanced at his injured wing, glad to find that it hadn’t bent out of its set position. The thought of a doctor having to break his wing because it didn’t properly set sent shudders up his spine. “Brawl. Rough night at the club got out of hand real quick.”

“Three Dee, didn’t I tell you not to work in dangerous places. A club is a perfect example of a dangerous place!” Joy Bringer, ever the cautious one, had issued many warnings to her bigger brother over the years. He had always been in the habit of ignoring them. Free spirit and all.

“Joy! A club is a wonderful place! It’s the only place I sometimes feel like I am truly alive!” Three Dee gently scolded, before sighing and laying his head against the covers. “It doesn’t matter, though. I got fired yesterday.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that, Three Dee,” she replied, using his name like it was one continuous word. It sounded like a nickname that way, one which the purple pony in question didn’t truly mind.

“It’s okay. But that’s…kind of why I’m here,” he continued, doing his best to forge a segue. “I can’t lie to you, sis. I’ve stumbled upon some bad times. I was working two jobs before I got fired, and I was barely making ends meet. And you know my dreams to be a big pony, and how badly I want to break into the music scene, and someday even write stories and books. But…my special talent isn’t coming through.”

Three Dee’s eyes watered up a little at his admission of defeat, and he couldn’t help but scan over his sister’s cutie mark: a heart with a smile inside of it, set upon a yellow circle behind that. It was fairly clear what Joy Bringer’s special talent was: she made other ponies feel happy again, helping them in their times of need and living for the benefit of everybody around her. The day she had gotten it rung in Three Dee’s mind: they had been raising money in school for charity, and she was elected to deliver the money to the hospital it was meant for. When she did, she was so enamored by the smiles of the littlest and sickest foals she got to see afterwards that her eyes lit up, and suddenly, her cutie mark appeared. The memory cheered him up a little as he continued.

“I’m just…a little bit…in dire need of your help,” he let out the words as he struggled to find them. “I’m hoping you can…pull some strings…and get me some work here in the castle.”

A long pause descended upon them, and Three Dee swore he could hear his little sister’s heart battling it out. He knew she was naturally inclined to help him because he was her brother, and it would make him happy, but she was still angry with him about what he designated their ‘separation’ although it was more complicated than that. And clearly, she hadn’t completely forgiven him. Frankly, he deserved that, but he hoped that his sister could come through.

Finally, she spoke: “Okay, Three Dee.”

The stallion smiled his brightest smile that day, and jumped forward to tackle her in a choking hug. “Oh, thank you thank you thank you thank you so much Joy Bringer I love you so bucking much right now I promise I’ll repay you for this and everything else that has happened between us!”

“Okay—Three—Dee! Ack! Choking—here—big—brother,” she coughed out, and Three Dee bashfully got off of her, now embarrassed. She slowly got up and shook herself clean.

“I think I can do you one better. Servants in the castle earn more bits than you think. I might be able to start you off with a salary that’ll allow you to quit your second job.” Joy Bringer announced.

Three Dee paled, and his jaw dropped wide open. Joy began to carefully scrutinize his face.

“Big brother? You alright?” She asked.

“Yeah…if I start moving though, I’m going to squish you again. Give me a moment,” Three Dee let out as best as he could without losing his very mind. Finally, he let out a giant breath, and proceeded to tackle-hug Joy Bringer again.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” He shouted, burying his face into her mane, even as the tears began to trickle down his cheek. He couldn’t help it: he was so happy!

“Choking!”

“S-sorry,” he stuttered, scrambling off. Joy Bringer got to her feet, and weakly smiled as she saw her brother’s face.

“You haven’t gotten a break at all, lately, huh?” She asked wisely, and Three Dee, in a mix of embarrassment and confirmation, began to rub his tears out of his coat.

“I’m not going to lie: I really hated working in the warehouse. And things had gotten worse since I’ve been grounded. I was almost beginning to wonder when they’d fire me too.” He admitted, and Joy Bringer stepped forward to gently hug him with her front hoof.

“Don’t worry, Three Dee. I’ll help make it all better,” she whispered, before Three Dee felt her shake her mane and step away, a small glare on her face. “But don’t think I’ve forgiven you quite yet!”

“Y-yes, ma’am!” He gulped, nervous again, before she dropped that act.

“If you want, I can help you look into the possibility of living in the servant apartments here too. It would save you some money, and it can’t possibly be worse than whatever accommodations you currently suffer,” Joy Bringer offered, and Three Dee weakly smiled.

“Why not? It doesn’t hurt to check up on it.” He said. He was uncertain if he wanted to leave his apartment. Sentimental value, for some reason or another. But he wasn’t leaving Canterlot yet, and that was good enough for him.

AN:
Okay. Wow. I’m exhausted from finishing this chapter. It is nearly four in the morning, and ponies have driven me to insomnia. Typical. Wouldn’t change it for the world, though.

I’m just going to put this out there: things have changed for me as a writer in fan fiction. When I first started writing, I maintained an approximately 1,000 word count for each chapter. When I returned and then left a little while ago, I worked towards 3,000 words. Now, in my latest return, this fan fiction has a personal 6,000 word count quota! Approximately! And with much more awareness as to what may drive a reader crazy, and/or keep them hanging on the line, this chapter came out in the range of 8,000 words. I desperately need contact lenses with x’s in them to depict just how dedicated I can be. That is, to the point of collapse. (XwX)

What that means is that my update schedule will be consistently erratic. I try not to leave you guys hanging, and in exchange, you read my work. Fan fiction is Harmony. Etc. You know what I mean.

Random Disclaimer: I do not own Wiz Khalifa.

Read and review, please! Constructive criticism please, and no flames! More to come.

Chapter 3

View Online

He still couldn’t believe just what Joy Bringer had pulled off. He had gotten another job so quick, and he was starting so soon—mere hours after leaving the warehouse, he would find himself employed with a steady job in the palace. Maybe servitude wasn’t so bad. The benefits were excellent.

It didn’t take quite as long to return to his rundown apartment, considering that his glee sped him up quite a bit. As he climbed up the stairs in the creaky building, he cheerfully greeted his landlord, who was glad that he was feeling better, but saddened when Three Dee warned him that he might move out soon.

“I really liked all the music you played, though,” he said, which brought a pained grin to Three Dee’s face. He felt guilty to be that pony who was ready to move on, but it didn’t last as he said goodbye and rushed up to his apartment.

Now in the safety of his apartment, he tossed his saddlebags aside without a care and rushed straight into the bathroom. He was in a rush as he kicked on the shower with a rear kick and brushed his teeth with a front hoof. With expertise, he twirled a towel around his cast so that he would not soak the hardened gauze, as per doctor’s orders, before hopping into the shower and drawing the curtains. Since he had broken a sweat on the previous day’s trip to the Royal Palace, he wanted to make sure he was as clean as possible when he started out, and that he could take his time walking. That meant that with his previous shift of work, he was under a very tight schedule indeed.

This course of action was completely scrapped when he was scrubbing a second coat of soap on his coat, and his ear twitched at a sound. It was a high-pitched creak that sounded like metal against…porcelain?

Fearfully, Three Dee poked his head around the edge of the curtain, only to find Vinyl Scratch, goggles perched on her horn, and partaking in what looked like a staring contest with her own reflection in the flaking mirror.

“Vinyl?! What are you doing in here?!” He almost screeched, snapping the DJ out of her trance and breaking her concentration. She lost.

“Oh, Three Dee! Sorry about that. You left the front door unlocked…again…and the bathroom door was wide open…again.” She started tacking on afterthoughts, and the purple pony hiding behind the shower curtain twitched. This was Vinyl Scratch he was talking to, and she had always been a little odd. This sort of thing was right up her alley. Three Dee was just going to have to accept that and move on past the justification stage.

“Get out of here!”

“Let me wash my hooves first, though. I want to raid your fridge and see if I can whip us up something to eat,” Vinyl proceeded to turn on the faucet and apply soap with her magic grip.

“There should be soap in the kitchen!”

“Nope. You’re all out.” She said calmly. “Seriously, what’s the big deal? It’s just a shower. It’s not like I didn’t see you wet when we went swimming at that spring in the mountainside.”

“This is totally different! I’m cleaning up here, and I won’t let anypony see me do that until I’m courting or married!” Three Dee continued to protest as he retreated his head behind the curtains and hid underneath the shower spray.

“Oh, my! Three Dee! Are you proposing to me?” Her voice had taken on such a falsetto that it was irritating the stallion in the shower—a rare occurrence in the manner of sound.

“What is wrong with you?!”

“Well, I must say, I’m flattered! I’m at a loss for words, but—oh, this is all happening so fast!” She continued. Three Dee heard the faucet twist, and the extra stream of water cease.

“Vinyl Scratch!” He shouted, having had enough with the joke from the very beginning. There was a short pause as his voice echoed off the tiles and reverberated in the air.

“…Sorry, Three Dee,” Vinyl finally stated, learning the error of her latest eccentricities. Three Dee heard the bounding of hooves and the slamming of his bathroom door, and once he peeked past the shower curtains to guarantee that she wasn’t in the room, he quickly finished up and shut the shower off.

The rest of his routine blurred by as he rushed to clean himself up and go outside with an apology to Vinyl Scratch on his mind. He didn’t like making other ponies upset, and this would’ve probably gone down better if, inwardly, he wasn’t so shy and self-conscious. So after tackling his proximity with a hair dryer and following up with a fierce combing to his fur, mane and tail, he sped out of the bathroom, despite the fact that he was still feeling very damp.

Vinyl Scratch sat in the same place she did when she ate at Three Dee’s apartment the morning before last: the end of the countertop. She was also eating the same thing: Cinnamon Toast Munch, although this made relative sense now, considering that despite the setting sun, these hours constituted her morning phase, as she lived and worked in the night life of Equestria. Three Dee tentatively approached behind her.

“Vinyl?”

“Yeah, Three Dee?”

“I’m sorry.”

The white unicorn spun in her seat, grinning brightly. “Not a problem! It’s okay, really!”

“Yeah, but—no, you were right, though. It shouldn’t really…matter, I suppose…” Three Dee scrunched up his face at the contradictory thoughts running through his head.

“But it matters to you,” Vinyl finished for him, and finding his words stolen, the pegasus nodded his confirmation. “I understand, Three Dee! Really! I should’ve checked! My fault! Even the best ponies screw up!”

“Okay, then…” Three Dee murmured before walking the distance around the counter to search for some food. He couldn’t help but think that the last several minutes might be going into Vinyl’s personal list of death-inducing embarrassments—the one where, if you remembered one, you remembered them all right afterwards, and no matter what you were doing, you wanted to melt into the floor and out of sight.

Sighing with some resemblance of content, Three Dee opened the fridge and pulled out the second half of a lily sandwich he had picked up a few days ago between shifts. It would be more than enough for his dinner, as he was usually skipping meals and never ate much anyway. As he placed the sandwich in its wrapping on the counter, his attention turned back to Vinyl, whose goggles had returned to their familiar place over her eyes. She seemed to be dividing her attention between her cereal and a book, flicking pages every few moments with her magic as her hoof scooped Cinnamon Toast Munch into her waiting mouth.

“So why are you here?” He asked, eager to move on from this episode of theirs. She pointed her spoon at him.

“I’m here…to make sure…you eat!” She was intimating until the very end, where she let go of her control and screamed with hilarity. Three Dee guffawed, and before he knew it, he was laughing alongside his best friend again.

“Okay, you got me. I don’t need help eating, though,” he said as he relaxed again.

“I can see. You also seem to be a lot happier than when I last visited. What’s changed, my little DJ?” She asked, almost as if she was his teacher. Not that Three Dee minded, though.

“Joy Bringer came though, and then so much more! She got me a job, and she arranged for me to start tonight!”

“Three Dee, that’s awesome!” Vinyl cheered, before cracking her dementia grin at him to mark her approval. The purple pegasus laughed as he unwrapped the leftovers of his sandwich. “So what are you going to do? Are they going to make you prance around in a pin-up maid costume?”

“V-Vinyl!” Three Dee blushed as the image suddenly flashed through his mind. It didn’t help that he was already shorter than average, and his build was light, but Vinyl had already, and somewhat correctly, deducted that he would make a very sexy maid.

That will hopefully never happen, he thought as he turned away, wide eyed as his cheeks approached the bright red hue of the left side of his mane.

Meanwhile, Vinyl was laughing up every moment of his catastrophic embarrassment. In the trinity between such embarrassment, irritation, and courage, suddenly, he found words that dared to fly between them, if only to attempt turning around the teasing.

“Do you fantasize about every pony you know?!” He ask, frustrated.

“Eyup!” Vinyl droned out with a smile, prompting Three Dee to bang his hooves on the floor beneath him in exasperation. This was going to be a long evening.

Luna groaned and released her subsequent yawn as she proceeded to step out of her chambers. The sun on the horizon shone bright from behind the stained glass in the hallway—far too bright for her liking. She squinted a little as she quickly skittered out of the beams of light, conducting her usual path through the castle during this fine evening.

Duty called.

She couldn’t help but echo a dry laugh at that unfortunate aspect of her life. Thankfully, there were only guards that framed the hallway at each intersection, and they were under a gag order to never release information about the private lives of the Royal Sisters. The servants were under the same types of orders, but she interacted with them more, so it was a matter of point to consider their opinions of her anyway.

As she walked, however, she couldn’t help but inwardly curse the alarm clocks she usually set for the end of her daytime slumber. Clocks. Plural. Specifically three of them: one on her nightstand that she regularly broke, the second in her bathroom to convince her that she might as well groom herself, and the third in her dresser so that she wouldn’t return to the bed afterwards. Once Princess Luna was dressed in her royal adornments, though, sleep wasn’t an option in her muddled brain of lost dreams.

She wouldn’t lie, though: she missed the habits held over a thousand years ago, when Princess Celestia, before setting the sun, would awaken her personally and assist her through routine. Princess Luna would proceed to do the same before the morning came, and in this cycle, they would serve each other as a substitute for their estranged parents of old.

In the modern age, though, Celestia was very independent—a forged cover for her own loneliness brought on by the consequences that resulted in those thousand years. Not to mention that she was kept much busier, tending to subjects, meetings, gathering, politics, and whatever else she had to do. Also her own fault for driving Luna to turn to Nightmare Moon for her own salvation—not to mention the subsequent banishment. The effects ranged throughout her resumption of life, and this was one of the prominent ones.

Their duties remained, though, especially the one that took precedence over all the others: the rising of the sun, the setting of the sun, the rising of the moon, and the setting of the moon were an endless cycle to be repeated that could not go undone. And at this time of year, with the Summer Sun Celebration fast approaching, the days were getting longer, and her wake-up calls later and later. It was close to seven now, and the evening sun was ready to set, allowing the night to begin in earnest.

She climbed upwards, upon the stairs framing the fork to the Solar and Lunar wings, so that she would emerge on the Palace Plateau—a wide, flat area over the throne room where she and her sister conducted the majority of their movements. When she stepped foot upon the yellow surface, she found that her sister patiently awaited her arrival, and calmly walked up alongside her.

“Good evening, my sister,” Celestia greeted as Luna took a seat beside her. “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough,” Luna spoke truthfully.

“That’s good to hear, Luna,” the white alicorn smiled before turning her head to the left, facing the sun on the horizon in the west. With a simple breath, Princess Celestia shut her eyes and summoned the exponential power in her being, uncontrolled by neither hoof, nor wings, nor horn even, as she slowly began to sink the sun to sleep.

As she did so, Luna impatiently waited nearby. It would take a few minutes, however, so she closed her eyes as well and began to meditate, stretching her awareness to when her presence would be required once more. She then let her mind loose to crawl and slither beyond her own.

This was one of the Lunar Princess’s special powers. She called it dream sense, which seemed apt. It picked up strongly on the dreams of sleeping ponies, and there was a lingering latency when it came to their daylight dreaming and even their wishes for the future. She stretched it thin, before sighing in a small defeat.

Despite the fact that the sun was only just setting, there were many ponies asleep already—mostly younger foals who had to attend school tomorrow. She remembered that it was still Sunday, and still daytime, and she couldn’t help but wonder how much they struggled against the changing seasons, to stay awake when it was still light outside. When they could see.

There were also a few adult ponies, sprinkled throughout the city of Canterlot. They were mostly the elders, but a few were of the minority who simply chose or decided to turn in early. They probably irritated Luna the most, and it was offensive that they didn’t even bother to spend a single hour to admire the art she was about to bring upon the heavens. Even a few minutes would’ve sufficed. A glance would have been remotely satisfying. But only cold slumber was in store for these ponies.

The worst part, though, was the bubbles of dreams themselves. A thousand years ago, each dream was grand, innovative, honorable, and majestic. She had lived through the minds of countless ponies to watch them dream of heroic triumphs and epic tales, and she had loved them all. Even the ponies that took a darker turn were preferable to the dreary soot that was fogging her mind.

Technology was advancing in Equestria. And they were affecting the population heavily, whether they knew it or not. Princess Luna could see it even in the shadows her moonlight occasional cast upon buildings. Ponies had always fought their misery with dreams, and although dreams were once powerful, they had been made puerile by the movies, radio, and newspapers. Among the many betrayals, this one was the worst.

She sighed as she withdrew, and simply paid witness and tribute to the final moments of the sun in the sky, and it finally descended.

The land of Equestria began to grow dark around them as sunlight gradually ceased to descend upon the land. Princess Luna bided some time as usual, before she felt her strength caressed within her, and with the fairest of ease, she began to bring the moon forth in the eastern sky. A pale white began to faintly dim the land, which was promptly dotted by countless lights in buildings all over. From her vantage point, she could see the city of Canterlot below, the town of Ponyville in the distance, and far off on the horizon, Manehatten and Fillydelphia. The glow and light pollution was fairly astounding, and it wasn’t the first time that she wondered whether or not her stars would shine bright enough.

Princess Celestia began to take her leave, a pressing matter awaiting her attention, and so that Luna might paint the sky in silence. The glittering mane, however, turned as the night began to reveal more and more stars within it.

“Celestia, wait.”

Celestia spun to face her sister without a second thought. “Yes, Luna?”

Luna wasn’t entirely sure what to say. It seemed like so much could be said, and yet not a single word of it existed. Her mouth gapped, before she grasped onto a faint wish.

“Well…I do wish that you could be there to wake me up every evening…” She trailed off, before blushing in embarrassment and shame. Wasn’t she a big pony? Ugh. So weak…

“I do too, Luna. I do too.” Celestia’s gaze fell to the floor. Luna found a line to work with.

“But…these miniature clocks that ring and ring until you’ve found the little button or you’ve just simply broken them…they aren’t working. I don’t like them at all…” Princess Luna frowned at the memory of her evenings as of late, fighting a losing battle against alarm clocks on three separate fronts in three separate waves. “I just…don’t know what to do.”

Celestia smiled with that wise look in her eyes. “Perhaps you need an assistant, or an attendant. I’m sure he or she would help you in waking up every evening, not to mention how much more organized you’d be.”

Luna blushed and groaned. She must’ve missed something else on her calendar.

“Fine. I think you’re right. But who to hire?” Princess Luna began to ponder as she raised a hoof and marked a reference point in the sky: the North Star.

“I suggest that you look within the ranks of the servants,” Princess Celestia smiled before beginning to leave. “I’m sure you won’t be disappointed with what you’ll find.”

It was a regular phenomenon for Vinyl Scratch to show up at Three Dee’s place out of nowhere when she was touring the clubs of Canterlot instead of staying there for vacation or work. With her latest surprise visit, though, it had gone mostly unnoticed as to the subsequent slowdown of the routine the purple pegasus had been trying to quicken. When he had finally finished his routine of cleaning up beyond the usual preparations, he had achieved a freshly brushed mane, a finely fluffed tail, and a sleek coat, all of which were part of the fine-tuned grooming that he regularly conducted, but with extra effort that he felt would be acceptable for work in the Royal Palace. He also wore a look of sheet terror and dread when he glanced up at the clock and found that, between his work, and Vinyl, the time was already 7:34.

“Oh no!” He cried out. “You have to be kidding me!”

“What’s wrong, Three Dee?” Vinyl asked from her studious perch against the counter, where she read the music synthesis theory book that he had inquired about beforehand.

“I’m late! Super late! It took me nearly forty minutes to get to the Palace yesterday, and I had to rest along the way! I can’t possibly make it!” He panicked as he bit the saddlebag strap in his mouth and flung it over and onto his back, barely missing the cast his wing was in.

Vinyl Scratch was instantly next to him, swinging around her saddlebag and landing it on her back as well. “We’ll make it, I promise you that!”

“But if I run, all my work will be ruined! What if they don’t let me in because I look far too unkempt to be one of the servants?! What if this first day is a test, and I fail just by being late?! Oh, where did the time go?!” Three Dee continued ranting with worry as they darted out the front door, down the steps, and into the Canterlot streets. He almost started running as well, were it not for a firm tug on his tail pulling him back. He glanced back and found Vinyl biting down upon it and holding him in place.

“Vinyl! What are you doing?! We have to move—plus you’re messing up my tail!” Three Dee yelled, before her horn began to glow, lifting him up as she let go. He began to flail his hooves before giving up and hanging limply in her magic.

“Please Vinyl…better late than never, right?” Three Dee smiled nervously.

“You’re not going to be late. I’ll get you there on time. Maybe even early. Actually, scratch that: definitely early,” she then gave him a smile before poking her shimmering horn. “Have you ever heard of teleportation?”

Three Dee’s eyes widened. “Y-you know teleportation? But—how? I didn’t think many ponies could master such a complicated spell.”

“Most ponies can’t.” Vinyl nodded. “But I’m not most ponies. I learnt it after that stallion climbed into the DJ booth at that club in Manehatten and tried ‘to have some fun’ with me. Security got him quick, but it was recommended by my manager that I learn the spell, in light of my growing popularity back then.”

“Oh, yeah. I remember that,” Three Dee let out. “That got a lot of press.”

“It sure did,” Vinyl’s face was still serious as she gently put him down. “We’ll have to do it several times, since I can only do it for short distances, and into places that I can see. You’ll have to stay very close, though, alright?”

“Sure thing, Vinyl,” He answered, stepping around the white unicorn and pressing his left side against her. For good measure, he spread his usable wing out and lay it over her back.

“Ready?” She questioned as her horn started to flare with magic. Three Dee gulped.

“Ready!”

The following minutes were home to some of the strangest sensations he had ever felt. Teleporting was like having his insides seamlessly pulled out from under him without any pain, before they were bloating him, bunched up all wrong as they emerged on the other side of the spell’s effects. In retrospect, that wasn’t so bad to him, and he would’ve found it convenient if he was a unicorn instead of a pegasus.

It was the constant fluctuation of Vinyl Scratch pulling them in and out and in and out of the spell that was getting to him. Each time, his insides almost refused to keep up. That only built up, and it was like he was on a roller coaster—only its designer was beyond nefarious. Not just behind nefarious. If it had been a roller coaster, its designer was Discord himself.

“Vinyl,” he panted as he felt his vocal cords return to his form again.

They teleported again.

“Can we—”

Another teleportation spell.

“—please—”

Teleportation.

“—rest!” He finally got out, before stumbling away, fully believing for a moment that his insides had once more been slingshot away from him. However, when he could think again, he found that they were indeed still underneath his fur, and that it felt like he was re-sorting them into proper place inside. Three Dee tried to recall whether or not his doctor had advised against teleportation while he healed, but he couldn’t remember a single word uttered on the topic.

When he glanced up, though, he found that he was at the main gates to the Royal Palace. Smiling, he checked the clock on the clock tower beyond, and discovered he had ten minutes left to report to his job.

“Vinyl Scratch! We made it!” Three Dee cheered with glee, trotting in place to turn towards the unicorn. He calmed down, however, when he saw that the white pony was standing with all four legs spread out, and she was panting and sweating. He walked up to her with a gentle smile before hugging her, not caring that she was sweaty. “You did good, Vinyl. Thank you.”

She laughed a single, cracked laugh before replying. “No problem, little colt. Now get going. Make some money. Get back on your feet. You know the drill.”

Three Dee stepped away. “Do I ever. I’ll see you later, DJ.”

“You too,” Vinyl began to slowly walk back the way they had just came from, although it had been a blurred journey. Fortunately, her pad wasn’t too far from the Royal Palace, so she would be home soon, and most likely resting for a set that she could afford to push back on that night’s schedule.

Three Dee continued down the road and to the servant’s entrance, where the pony monitor offered her greetings and let him in when she found his paperwork, enabling him to enter the palace grounds and head straight for the servant passageways up ahead.

Once inside the Royal Palace proper, he began searching for the familiar shape of a pink pony, and the straightened curls of red-striped, white mane. He found her quickly enough, near a wooden door at the back of the maze filled with ponies and activity. As he approached, he spotted a few ponies pass through, and saw a glimpse of grandeur. It must have led into the main palace.

“Three Dee! Just in time!” Joy Bringer shouted when she spotted him. Three Dee trotted up.

“I always try to be on time,” he smiled, before noticing a yellow earth pony with a short, orange mane headed toward them from his right. As he looked, so did his sister, and recognition crossed across her face.

“Oh, Dawn Fire! I was just about to come looking for you,” Joy Bringer said, before holding her hoof towards her brother. “Allow me to introduce my brother, Three Dee. Three Dee, this is Dawn Fire, the head servant. He organizes everything.”

The pony named Dawn Fire silently walked along his side, and the purple pegasus chose to sit as he began to be circled. He noted that his new boss’s cutie mark was an elaborated trophy cup on a platter.

“Joy, you didn’t tell me that his wing was injured,” he spoke in a low, soothing voice as he continued to surround Three Dee, who paled at that statement.

“I did say, though, that he would only get better at his job,” Joy Bringer calmly retorted. A moment passed, before suddenly, Dawn Fire cracked up into a boisterous laughter.

“He’ll do. I presume that you know what to do here?” He asked.

“I know what to do, but where to start…well, that’s another manner.” Three Dee answered cautiously. Dawn Fire nodded.

“Well, as a courier in the palace, you need to look prim and proper—something which I very glad to see with you right now. You must have taken pains to shine your coat and brush your mane the way you have,” he continued seriously. Three Dee nodded, and Dawn Fire motioned for the pegasus to follow. “In that case, let’s go to my office. I should have a more suitable bag for you to use in the presence of the nobilities, as well as a map to lend you until you memorize your route and your usual destinations. The only place with maps here are the museum halls, which you’ll rarely enter in this line of work.”

Joy Bringer stayed behind, citing her need to clean up some windows in the palace, and in a minute, the two ponies were entering a very organized office that, although small, seemed expansive in the amount of space allotted, despite the file cabinets and shelves.

Three Dee waited on his side of the desk while Dawn Fire rummaged through the drawers on the other end. After a moment, he placed a folded map on the desk, before lifting the strap of a bag in his teeth—a shiny, shimmering white with the Royal Crest embedded on it. Three Dee’s jaw dropped: it was made of a special satin fabric that cost quite a bit of money. Carefully, he took it and replaced his saddlebag.

“I don’t have a locker for you yet, so you’ll have to leave the saddlebag in my office for now. Consider it me keeping an eye on you for the first couple of days, but you have nothing to worry about. Hopefully.” The earth pony said as he picked up the saddle bag on the floor and proceeded to lean it against the desk on the side. “Now, let’s show you that map and the path—”

Dawn Fire didn’t get a chance to continue as the door slammed open, revealing a very agitated unicorn in the middle of a panic. She was grey with a light blue mane, and her cutie mark was a series of orange books in a stack. Her horn glowed, having opened the door before she charged into the office.

“Dawn Fire!”

“May Weather? What are you doing?”

“It’s—it’s Princess Luna! She’s called for a surprise inspection of the servant staff!” May Weather cried out. Three Dee instantly eeped.

“T-today?!” He trembled. “B-but it’s my first day!”

“Doesn’t matter anymore, rookie,” Dawn replied, facing the pegasus and adjusting his direction so that he could look into his eyes. “You’re going to be fine. You’re cleaned up and good to go. I’ll adjust your saddlebag into the proper position, and then we’ll all line up. Just do what we do, and what is asked of you, and we can get started afterwards.”

The yellow pony promptly bit down on one of the straps secured around Three Dee, shifting the one-sided courier bag into the proper position before leading him out of the office.

Princess Luna sat on a giant pillow cushion that had been brought by a servant, who right after took his place in the rank of servants assembling at a steady pace. She levitated a cup of tea to her lips, wondering if she should be using the Royal Canterlot Voice for this sort of event. She decided that it was redundant, especially since most of these ponies already witnessed her restraint in doing so.

Of the two royal sisters, though, Princess Luna was decidedly the more impatient pony, and so by the time the servants had all lined up, she was tapping her hoof into the cushion with some irritation. There was nothing malicious in it, but by the time she noticed it, she realized that she had inadvertently reduced almost every pony to horrible tremors.

The only pony that wasn’t on the verge of panic was the head servant, who was approaching her now. Maybe this was a bad idea. Thanks, Celestia.

“Your Majesty,” the yellow pony bowed, presenting the top of his mane in submission. Luna began to speak, but soon found that she didn’t even know the names of the royal staff. Not even the heads.

“My apologies, sir, but we—I do not remember your name,” Luna corrected herself, forcing the blush down as she berated herself for already slipping up.

“My name is Dawn Fire. I am the head servant, in charge of all those you wish to inspect today,” the earth pony answered from his kneeling position on the floor.

“You may rise,” Luna remedied, and Dawn Fire gently rose to a standing position. Princess Luna also chose to stand as well, and treaded off the pillow and to the pony’s side. To her left, the first of the ponies that had lined up bowed in reverence.

“I will confess that I’m not merely conducting an inspection.” She began to announce. “As far as I’m concerned, you are as much my sister’s responsibility as you are mine. A proper inspection would take place with both of us present, and it shall not be so…last minute.”

Not a word answered her. Luna walked up to the first pony—one of the unicorns she remembered from her previous morning’s dinner. She attempted to be gentle. “What is your name?”

“J-Joy B-Bringer, Your Majesty…” she answered from her curtsy.

“Please rise.”

Joy Bringer did so, and when Luna stared into her eyes, she saw a curious mix of fear and spunk. The princess shifted over, and scanned over the pony’s cutie mark: a heart with a smile on it.

“What special talent does your cutie mark stand for?”

“W-well, it stands for me ability and d-drive to make other people happy in whatever ways I can.” The pink pony answered. Luna was pleased to find that the question alone had put her subject as much more ease.

“Thank you, Joy Bringer. Please remain: you will be dismissed to your duties soon enough,” Princess Luna said, before moving on. She definitely shows promise. An adaptable talent like that might drive her to be a wonderful assistant.

Princess Luna continued down the line, and one after the other, questioned ponies in the same manner: their name, and what their cutie mark stood for. However, few showed the same promise as Joy Bringer did, narrowing her choices down exponentially. About halfway down the line, it occurred to her that she would do well to ask the head servant the same questions, but he proved fairly unsuitable. As she started finishing up with the ponies, she couldn’t help but wonder if she had been had by Princess Celestia. This sounded like a gambit to get Luna to memorize the names of her fellow ponies in the palace—one which was working, and one which she had delayed the opening of Night Court for as well. Not that it mattered: no ponies came to Night Court. But of course, it couldn’t be helped: Princess Luna was suspecting that she would not find a single pony to become a useful attendant.

That is, until she came to the last pony.

She scanned him over. He was a purple pegasus with a royal courier saddlebag around his right side. The mane brushed to his left side—Luna’s right, though—was a bold red, and the opposite side was a strong blue, both of which were actually the natural colors of his mane. His tail matched his mane, and he would’ve seemed nearly symmetrical, was it not for the cast wrapped around his right wing, which rested in its spot just above his saddlebag. He kept his eyes closed as he bowed in the presence of the princess.

“Please rise.” She requested, and the pegasus opened his eyes as he did so. They were a dull hazel, but in them, Princess Luna found something intriguing: a sense of dying hope, with the steady approach of resignation, but the shimmering light of dreams still waiting to come true.

“What is your name?” She asked.

“T-Three D-Dee, Y-Your M-Majesty,” he answered, shaking more than the others did. Luna saw his cutie mark.

“What does…your cutie mark stand for?” She answered, perplexed at her find. Maybe she had been too accusing of her sister too soon.

“It’s s-s-supposed to r-represent my t-talent t-to write. If I pick up a-a quill, and s-some parchment, I-I can do anything on it: I c-can do hard math, I can w-write stories, guides¸ p-poetry, music…anything o-on paper…” he answered shakily, so much so that Princess Luna could see his legs quiver underneath him.

He’s perfect…

Satisfied that there were no more ponies to query, she lifted her head back the way she came. “You are all dismissed. Please return to your duties.”

Everypony began to move, retreating into the palace as they attended to their work. Princess Luna looked back down, only to find that Three Dee wasn’t there. She spotted him discreetly exiting her presence, separate from the others.

“Except for you, Three Dee.”

The purple pegasus froze, before scurrying back over to the spot he just left. “O-of course, Y-Your M-Majesty.”

“I’d like you to attend Night Court with me, and sit by my side as I attend to whatever matters may come up. If we have some time alone, I’ll explain my actions, but for now, do as I say,” Luna stated, a little forcefully. Three Dee let out a tiny squeak, indicative of the pressure he was probably burdened with now, but Princess Luna ignored it as she began to walk down the giant hallway, an injured pegasus striding at her side.

AN:
Okay. This one took a while, cause stuff is piling up on me here in college. Hope the wait didn’t bother you too much.

Also, seeing as this is also keeping me writing instead of slacking off with the lack of actual ‘writing’ classes this semester, I’ve been sneaking Easter Eggs in these chapters. In each chapter, I’m pretty sure that there is a very indirect reference to characters you tend to see in the actual show. It’s usually as simple as a verb, or perhaps something somepony said. Examples: “dashing” which is a subtle nod towards Rainbow Dash, and Vinyl answering “Eyup” to Three Dee’s question—clearly a Big Macintosh reference. If you want to, you can go have fun with that. Call it a drinking game. (*wink*)

If you want a researching challenge, though, I’ve been sneaking lines from literature into each chapter, except the first one. There’s usually going to be only one, though, and since it could be from anywhere, it’ll be harder to find, especially since I’m such a good writer (HA! YEAH, RIGHT!).

I’ll give you the sources, though: Chapter 2’s literary line is from a “The Death of a Hired Man” by Robert Frost. Chapter 3’s is from “Miss Lonelyhearts” by Nathanael West. Next chapter, I MIGHT start just giving the answers away. I don’t know if people care.

God dammit, I can’t believe I personally would find this sort of challenge exciting. I am such a Twilight Sparkle >w<

Read, Review, Subscribe for Updates, etc. It’ll make my day.

Random Disclaimer: I do not own Korg or Vestax

Chapter 4

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Somewhere in the back of Three Dee’s mind, he could vaguely tell that they were indeed, headed straight to the throne room. However, most rational thought had ceased its passage through his head when he had been called upon, singled out and separated from the others. And not just by any upper-level pony in the hierarchy of his new workplace, but the Mistress of the Moon and Stars, Princess Luna herself!

He wished he was one of those ponies who got jittery with opportunity, and saw the best in everything. He wasn’t, though. And it wasn’t that he saw Princess Luna as a bad pony—far from it, especially considering his understanding of the Nightmare Crisis. But unlike Princess Celestia, Princess Luna was more of an enigma. Very little was known of her, and if that amount was quantified, even fewer would understand her, if anypony did.

This intimidating figure led the way, just a few hoofsteps in front of him and to his right. And that was practically maddening to Three Dee. He was expecting the worse—so much so that when they approached a giant door, and Princess Luna’s magic gripped it, he ducked to the ground and covered his eyes with his hooves.

Oh, no! Vinyl was right—I’m going to be a sexy maid!

A moment later, Three Dee peeked an eye open, and it was incredulous at his thoughts. Admittedly, that had been quite a jump in logic, but it had helped immensely in establishing that no, he hadn’t done something wrong, and no, he wasn’t in trouble, and no, there was no threat. He calmed down and stood back on his hooves before staring at the throne room beyond.

He had been here before, years ago, as a colt on a field trip with his classmates. They had toured the palace as well—mostly in the museum portion, but they had indeed stopped by the throne room. He had gazed with awe at the golden throne, the white marble, the beautiful stained glass on all sides, and the red carpet bordering at the edges of the room and leading up to the throne in a walkway of sorts.

That was a huge difference from what he saw now. The throne room had transformed into the polar opposite of what he remembered: an onyx throne atop blue carpet, underneath which was a floor of black marble. The stained glass had remained, but in the moonlight cast through, their colors soothed and dulled to an easy inspection for the eyes. And as Three Dee stepped inside, he couldn’t help but prefer this incarnation of the room to the version that reigned during the day. It was warmer in a breezy sort of manner.

“Let’s not hesitate in our business. I do not know if somepony wishes to see me or not, but it’s best not to keep them waiting,” Princess Luna’s voice rung out, drawing his attention back to the throne, which she currently rested in. Three Dee nodded before briskly trotting to a spot directly to the left of her seat and sitting his flank there. There was a pause.

“Chest Piece!” The Princess softly called out. A moment later, the door at the other end of the room opened, and a guard entered, padding forward and bowing before them when he was near the steps leading upwards to them. He wore the helmet and chest piece of a captain, and his wings indicated that he was such to the pegasus division of the Royal Guard.

“Yes, Your Majesty?” He questioned his query with a collected air, and Three Dee envied him.

“Are there any ponies seeking an audience with me tonight?”

“Only one pony awaits Night Court to begin at the moment.”

“Thank you very much. Please send them in, and fetch a servant to bring quills, ink, and parchment.” The Princess turned to Three Dee as the captain left. “I’ll be sure to elaborate your new duties after I hold an audience with this…one pony, but I wish for you to transcribe the conversation that follows. If that proves too difficult for you, an outline will do, but regardless, I need the facts, and I need it to the point.”

“Y-Yes, Your Majesty.” He stammered, before watching as the princess sighed.

“And this may seem forward and sudden, but you may call me Princess Luna. In fact, from your lips, I would prefer it to ‘Your Majesty,’ seeing as I hope to make an effective assistant out of you.”

Assistant? Three Dee thought as the weight of what was happening began to sink down on him with the truth piled on top. That was why he had been selected by Princess Luna: to be her new assistant. He glanced at the saddlebag strapped to him. It almost seemed pointless now, but it might prove handy anyway. If he could keep it as part of his new job.

“Of course, P-Princess…Luna,” the word felt curious as it left his mouth. Never in his life would he have thought that he would one day be able to refer to a Princess by name while in her presence. And with Princess Luna’s return nearly three years ago, for her, it seemed practically impossible.

A moment later, a blue unicorn walked in through the doors opposite the one they had entered from, floating a tray of supplies in. Upon scrutiny of the scene before him—Three Dee on the floor, alongside Princess Luna in her throne—he scurried forward, bowed, and placed the requested supplies on the floor before the purple pegasus.

“Oh, um, thank you.” Three Dee murmured, feeling awkward at the servant waiting on him, another servant. At the far end of the throne room, the door was opened by the magical prowess of two guards allowing an earth pony inside, and the servant promptly disappeared back the way he had come.

Three Dee’s eyes bugged out a little as he stared at the tray. A large, pyramid pile of scrolls had been stacked upon it, and along the right side, five inkwells occupied the rest of the platter in a column, each with their own quill inside. He wondered if he would have to take this many notes, but then rationalized that it was probably better to be safe than it was to be sorry. Carefully, he picked up the scroll at the peak and laid it out on the floor before him, sinking to a prone position with his belly on the ground. He gently lifted an inkwell to its proper position at the top right corner and shook the quill to gather ink inside it.

“Greetings, Your Majesty.” He heard, and he wrote.

The ensuing presentation was a fairly intriguing one. It was regarding a petition being circulated among earth ponies and unicorns that called for more scheduled rain showers during the night so that crops could be more effectively grown with all of the sunlight provided during the day. As the earth pony spoke, Three Dee furiously wrote, far more up to the task than any other pony in the servant ranks would’ve been. He didn’t merely keep up: he was almost ahead of the one-sided conversation. He understood the words of ponies, and their mannerisms, so he had an instinctive idea of where the dialogue went, and how it processed and progressed. At the end of the presentation, twenty minutes had passed, and Three Dee had finished writing several seconds ahead of the earth pony’s final words. A brief glance was spared towards him by the Princess before she spoke.

“I thank you for your input, your documents, and your presentation on the matter. If you would be so kind as to leave your notes with the administrative guard you spoke with earlier, I will peruse it, give it some thought, and consider some changes in the Cloudsdale weather policies.” Princess Luna recited, and Three Dee could tell that this was from memory, save for the last part—improvised to adapt to the topic at hand, no doubt.

The earth pony took his leave after a final bow, and Princess Luna turned towards her new assistant.

“Might I see what you wrote?” She asked, and without resistance, Three Dee held the parchment out towards her. A navy-blue coat of magic enveloped it, and he felt his hoof tickled by the aura as it lifted the transcription from his hooves and floated it into her gaze.

Minutes ticked by, and Three Dee couldn’t help but face away. It was a huge character flaw on his own part: despite his talent, he couldn’t bear to stand still or face anypony as his work was scanned over in front of him. If it was music they were listening to, he tended to warn a listener as to when certain parts came in and what he was thinking when he composed it. If it was poetry or fiction, he walked away so that he didn’t seem like he was hovering. On the topic of nonfiction, he stayed, in case he had to remain defendant of something he wrote. But it was nerve-wrecking no matter what as he waited for judgment on his work.

Finally, Princess Luna floated the parchment down, and Three Dee was greeted with the sight of an almost alien smile. “This is fantastic.”

Three Dee’s jaw almost dropped. The smile might have contributed to it, for it was truly a beautiful sight as well, but the praise dripping from her lips was euphoric. It hadn’t been so long ago that he was complimented for his talent, but Princess Luna’s acknowledgement alone seemed like a faraway hope. A hope that had just come true.

“R-really?” His ears perked up.

“But of course. You transcribed everything perfectly, and your penmanship is excellent. You also appear to have an impressive amount of foresight when it comes to the spoken word—quite possibly hinting at a talent with dialogue in your written works. Reading such a trivial presentation in this sense is…well, it’s like you’re writing scrolls of silver snowy sentences.” Princess Luna complimented, but this time, his jaw actually did drop open, stunned at the final words she had just spoken. There was a moment of silence before he responded.

“Crane.”

There was a pause, and Princess Luna’s stare intensified upon him. He shied away a little, trying to hide his face behind a hoof on the ground.

“What?” She asked, and for some reason, the stallion dared to continue.

“Crane. Hairy Heart Crane. You just directly quoted his poem, ‘Voyages’,” he noted, before automatically reciting:

“Take this Sea, whose diapason knells / On scrolls of silver snowy sentences, / the sceptred terror of whose sessions rends / As her demeanors motion well or ill, / All but the pieties of lovers’ hooves.”

Three Dee finished reciting the lines from memory, and upon doing to, his gaze was turned to Princess Luna, and he could’ve sworn that beneath her lavender fur, she paled and blushed. But that had to be a mistake: surely the princess would not let herself do such a thing in his presence.

“…We…we admire thy studious qualities,” he noticed that Princess Luna seemed to be slipping into an older dialect, but he dared not speak of it. “Indeed, we quoted Mister Crane, though we did so without thought. When we have so much of the night left to freedom, I tend to develop many habits. Reading literature is one of them.”

There was a pause after Princess Luna steadily returned to normal speech, and Three Dee pawed at the ground, awkward underneath her scrutiny. Finally, she began to speak.

“Tell me, Three Dee, while we have the free time: do you have any interests other than literature?”

“W-well, I, uh,” his ears bent as he grew nervous. “I…I tend to do research for my writing.”

Internally, the pegasus facehoofed at his own response.

“You remind me of my sister’s student.” Princess Luna spoke. “Perhaps you’ve heard of her. Her name is Twilight Sparkle.”

“I…I have heard of her,” Three Dee truthfully said. “The Element of Magic.”

Suddenly, Three Dee badly wanted to get off this line of conversation. It was headed in a dangerous direction. One that would only end…nightmarishly.

“B-but I’m not a particularly studious pony, though. I’m a writer, so I do research when I want to write nonfiction or need facts in a fiction. And writing is not just in that sense, either. I also write…music…” he saved himself. Luna peered down at him with interest.

“Go on.”

“Well…I have varied tastes. I composed a choral piece based off a poem I wrote, back in my high school days. I can play guitar and piano, but I’m not that good, in my opinion. But I’m more in the…club scene.” Three Dee suddenly felt like he was constantly searching for words in the presence of the princess. Unfortunately, they weren’t doing the trick.

“Club scene? I don’t understand: how would you perform if you don’t feel yourself adequate? Do you play strings, perhaps?”

Huh?

“I mean, I suppose those country clubs do have to have some sort of entertainment now and then, but I wouldn’t take you for a performer who could stay still.”

Three Dee actually laughed a little. “No, Princess, it’s not that kind of club.”

“What kind of club, then?” She asked, and he detected the scent of curiosity around her form.

“Um…” he decided he couldn’t avoid treacherous waters. “…I suppose you’re not quite up with the times. It’s sort of like…a dance? But for normal ponies. Nothing like ballroom gatherings. And the music is synthesized electronically. Lots of bass.”

He could only watch as Luna sighed. “My apologies, but I’m not well-versed in music at all, save for what we played a thousand years ago, and it’s tragic that we only seem to have bits and pieces of those works left nowadays.”

“Well…I could play some for you after we’re done here.” He suggested, and he watched a smile snake onto Princess Luna’s face.

“I think I would like that very much.” She thought out loud.

When the Night court came to a conclusion a few hours later, not a single other pony had walked in through the dark, throne room doors in search of Princess Luna’s attention. It sunk her mood considerably, but nevertheless, she held firm and upright as she proceeded to elegantly walk to her room. Next to her, she could hear the trot of a smaller pony. It had a light, hollow echo with every hoofstep—a characteristic she found prominent in pegasi. She could usually tell what species a pony was by the sound of their steps.

This pegasi, however, was something else to her now. Mere hours ago, he was a nameless subject. That wasn’t her fault, though she envied her sister’s ability to remember the names of not only every resident in Canterlot, but in Equestria as well. But now he was going to play a key role in her daily schedule.

“I feel that now would be a proper time to outline your duties, and what I expect from you,” Luna spoke as she walked. She easily heard her companion’s gulp.

“Y-yes, Princess Luna.”

That irritated her to no end: the constant nervousness. Apparently, nearly two years back in her continued presence had done nothing to ease the common fear an old ponytale inflicted into the hearts of countless fillies and colts years ago as they were growing up. It was something she would have to live with for a long time, but for Three Dee, only until she could sooth her new assistant into a respectable level of comfort.

Easier said than done.

“I have already announced my intent to make you my personal attendant. This does not mean you are specifically relegated to writing duties—although that is indeed a large part of the job.” Princess Luna began. “I will also require you to help in awakening me for the rising of the moon every evening before the sun sets.”

The second pair of hoofsteps stopped, and Luna paused to twist her head and look.

Three Dee had frozen in place, eyes wide open, pupils deathly shrunken as his mouth hung open.

“I daresay, are you having a stroke?” The Princess asked with a slight air of sarcasm. The purple pony shook his head.

“N-no, Princess, but…isn’t that a duty better suited to a mare, perhaps? Or an alarm clock, even?” He asked, his eyes shifting from side to side as he clearly searched his mind for alternatives. Sternly, the Princess of the Night approached him.

“Three Dee, I am not acquainted with many of the societal customs and practices of the modern day. Over a thousand years ago, a thought wasn’t given to whether a close servant was a mare or a stallion. I choose to keep to that line of thought, as all this talk about gender identity and whatnot…well, frankly, it gives me a headache to hear ponies argue and fight for a stagnant position to impose on their brethren. My point is that you are to assist me, and that it doesn’t matter if you’re a stallion. Wouldn’t you prefer it if a lovely mare woke you up every day?”

A small silence erupted between them. A furious blush crept upon the smaller pony’s face.

“I-I wouldn’t mind that at all, but…certainly this could be considered improper, and even scandalous!” Three Dee argued hesitantly.

“A scandal is just a group of ponies making a big deal out of nothing. They come and go, and I sincerely doubt one will happen on this matter. It isn’t as if you’re sleeping here every night.” Princess Luna answered a little more softly.

“A-Alright, then. I’ll wake you up, Princess Luna.”

“Thank you,” she curtly nodded her approval before they began to walk again. “Now you’ll have to keep an eye on the lunar cycle so that you know when to come wake me up. I shall not keep you here until I retire for the day, unless you’re presence is absolutely required. There might actually be a small ball coming up within the week.”

She paused. “I will need you to manage my schedule of affairs, but this is more a matter of organizational writing for you. If you point me in the right direction at the right time, then you can be certain of your productivity.”

“A-As you wish, Princess Luna.”

Finally, they stopped before a large, ornate door of onyx, amethysts, and intricate carvings, the details of which were abstract, but unmatched. With her horn, Princess Luna coated one of them in her navy-colored magic and pushed it inward with total ease.

“This is my room. It’s not on your map for security purposes, but I’ll be sure to edit the location in.” Luna announced as she brightened the previously dark lunar illusion up above to the full circle of light. “We’ll likely do a lot of work here, as my study isn’t so much a study as it is a storage room. I prefer an open environment to work in.”

She turned her head to glance back at the pegasus, but she found his attention had wavered to the illusion in the ceiling, and he stared at it with an incredible amount of awe. She almost facehoofed at his inattentiveness, but she couldn’t help the blush creeping up her jawbones as her work was admired without prejudice.

“It’s beautiful,” Three Dee whispered, and Luna followed his gaze.

“I suppose so.” She sighed, her eyes drooping down in slight resignation. “I see it very often.”

And nopony else seems to care about my tapestries otherwise.

“P-Princess Luna?”

The pony-in-question jumped a little, noticing the pony who had managed to sit by her side without her noticing. Three Dee continued.

“Are…are you alright?”

Princess Luna huffed and donned her mask again. “Of course I am, Three Dee! Why wouldn’t I be alright?”

She doesn’t really like you.

That was the attitude Three Dee’s subconscious chose to take when it dwelled upon his new post at the Princess’s side. His duties had changed because he had skills and qualifications, not because the Princess particularly liked having him around. He was a necessity, not a genuine appreciation.

This was partially why the moment he had returned to his apartment, he had collapsed onto his bed and into his pillow, exhausted by the night’s events, as well as the burden of running two work shifts in a row. The time was running near five o’clock in the morning, and the purple pony had every intent of sleeping through the day, finally glad of the time to sleep, of which he had been denied so long.

It was a within a few minutes of attaining this position that Three Dee rolled over, still wide awake, suffering as a victim of insomnia. He knew better: he desperately needed to rest, to dream, not to sleep no more. What dreams may come at last…unattainable!

Irritated, Three Dee rolled onto his side and punched one of the pillows. Almost in sync, he heard a knock, and confused, he examined his hoof to make sure that it hadn’t broken.

Fairly certain that he hadn’t suffered an inexplicable injury, he gently stepped out of bed. The knocks resounded again, and with a huff, he trudged to the front door, upset that he had to give up his latest attempts at sleep. Knowing his luck, it was probably Vinyl Scratch, stopping by for a quick morning visit, and he couldn’t help but wonder how normal this might seem if they were on the day schedule. At least she might stop by in the evening instead.

With a final yawn, he grabbed the doorknob and pulled it aside, but the pony that waited was not Vinyl. This pony was at least twice his height, and donned a black coat of fur. On her back were the most enshrouding wings Three Dee had ever seen, and on her forehead, the sharpest horn. She wore a blue helmet that covered her head sans eyes, ears, muzzle and horn, and the rest of her outfit was a matching chest piece with a white crescent moon on it, as well as hoof protectors on every leg.

Three Dee gulped. He knew who this pony was.

Nightmare Moon.

Princess Luna’s eyes shot open.

“Guards! Guards!” She screamed, looking around desperately as a familiar, shivering sensation crept over her. She tumbled out of bed and stood defensively, glaring all around, but alas, no one was actually in the room with her.

Instantly, two Royal Guards barged into the room, horns brandished and ready to strike. “Your Majesty!”

“One of you! Send for Princess Celestia at once!” Her voice trembled as she issued the order. She glanced about again. Nothing.

“At once, Your Majesty!” One of them shouted as he sped out of the room.

“What is wrong, Your Majesty?!” The other exclaimed as he continued searching for an intruder. Princess Luna stared at him coldly.

“Everything.”

Three Dee was in the fight of his life.

Upon recognition, Nightmare Moon’s horn glowed, and a resounding blast of force reverberated through the apartment, sending him crashing to the ground next to the counter. He strained to get up, and adrenaline began pumping through his veins as he glared at the dark form incarnate entering his apartment.

Nightmare Moon walked right up to him as he panted, and uttered three words.

“You’re a problem.”

Three Dee instantly twisted and bucked her in the face. The dark pony stumbled back and angrily swung a hoof into his side, and he went flying to the side.

He screamed, but was promptly cut off as he collided with the mattress of the bed. That didn’t hurt much, but bouncing off it and into the ground face knocked the wind right out of him.

He began to search for his breath, and found it as he felt himself lifted from the ground. A moment later, the magic of Nightmare Moon had brought him face-to-face with the corrupted goddess.

“You cannot be allowed to live.”

“Buck you!” Three Dee growled, before spitting in the larger pony’s face. He knew it was a bad idea, but at that point, he didn’t care. Things had obviously gotten worse in the pathetic existence he called his life. Might as well milk it as bucking possible.

Nightmare Moon’s response was to slam him against the kitchen counter, off of which he quickly rolled to the ground past it, bruising his side on the faucet and sink as he came down hard.

On the ground, Three Dee whimpered as Nightmare Moon patiently strode around the counter and into the kitchen, looking at the purple pegasus with disdain.

“W-why? Why, Princess Luna?” He croaked, before coughing. He felt something wet on his tongue—probably blood, but he couldn’t tell.

“Because we must.” Nightmare Moon raised a hoof above Three Dee’s head. It dropped with force, and Three Dee saw no more.

“Celestia…” Luna whimpered, her eyes fraught with tears, dripping down her neck as she stared up at the white alicorn, whose horn continued to glow.

“Shh. It’ll be alright, Lulu. It’ll be okay.” The Daytime Princess replied, her eyes closed in meditative concentration. And for once, Luna found her nickname fairly comforting as she floated an inch above the floor, in Celestia’s grasp as she performed the spiritual dispel—a spell that they both knew, but had seemed to serve as just a bit of arcane knowledge. It was proving, however, to be the only possible option they could think of at such short notice. Somehow, Nightmare Moon had emerged from Luna, and the mental connection they shared was stronger than before. Now, neither was certain as to what the dispel might do. It could sever the link and suck the evil demon right back into Luna’s bodily prison, but it could also sever the link and free Nightmare Moon as a separate entity. And Equestria would be in danger once more.

“Please…please don’t send me to the moon,” Luna continued to cry as memories flooded through her sight—memories of endless loneliness, painful regret, and tragic desolation. She would not last another day in their presence. She would rather kill herself before letting that happen. She had been ready to do so before the stars had finally freed her. Too bad it was notoriously difficult to do commit such an action on the moon—possibly impossible, which made it such a perfect prison for an alicorn like Princess Luna.

“I won’t, Luna. Never again.” Celestia replied as she began to scrunch up her face. “I promise.”

Upon that promise, a ring of blue and gold suddenly erupted from the both of them, piercing through the furniture and the walls as if they weren’t even there. The Princesses fell to the floor in a heap, and Luna scrambled to Celestia before bawling her eyes out and thanking her sister with all the recycled desperation she could as she burrowed into the white alicorn’s embrace.

Outside the window, Celestia could only watch as the wall of magic continued to spread across the skies of Equestria. She squeezed Luna long and hard, and didn’t even bother to ascend to the Palace Plateau and publically raise the sun as usual. She did it all from Luna’s room, and watched the spectacle through the window to make sure it stayed stable after her magical strain. Meanwhile, Luna continued to cry in relief and sadness.

Her fight wasn’t over. Not yet.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Three Dee groaned as the annoying sound burrowed deep into his ears with a repeating resolution and frequency that even DJs found annoying after a while. He wasn’t even fully awake yet, much less ready to open his eyes. Stupid alarm clock.

“Doctor, I think he’s waking up.”

“I do too. Go get your friend. She was particularly worried about him.”

It was odd. For some reason, Three Dee was having the most strenuous time simply opening his eyes, as if they were caked in earth, and opening them was bringing forth the earthquakes of an apocalypse.

Finally, he began to see light, and he hissed. It was painful to even glimpse. He tried to raise a hoof to block it, but all of his limps felt heavier than anvils. He chose instead to ride it out, and finally, his eyes began to adjust, allowing him to open his heavy eyelids even farther. Ahead, he saw fluorescent strips, which were common in locales and buildings with higher technology ratings.

It registered than that his head seemed pressed towards the back, and that he was actually looking straight up. He also had the most splitting headache, which chose that moment to make itself known when he was trying to start up a thought process. And he hurt all over: dull aching throbs everywhere, and it wasn’t particularly pleasant when you were trapped in a bed.

The face of a brown pony with a chestnut mane suddenly hovered above him, smiling gently. “Ah, Three Dee. Welcome back.”

Three Dee blinked and began to open his mouth—also a little hard to do. “Um…what?”

“I suppose you’re a little bit confused right now,” he replied. “Just know you’re in good hooves.”

“Okay…” the purple pegasus replied, still in a haze.

“Three Dee!”

He heard his name called, and he turned his head towards the left, and the door opposite the doctor as Vinyl Scratch and Joy Bringer rushed through it, and slowly, two ponies behind them, both vaguely familiar in their color schemes of yellow and orange, and grey and black, respectively.

“Brony, are you okay?” Vinyl instantly asked as she darted to his side. Frantic, Joy Bringer quickly brushed the white pony aside.

“When I heard what had happened, I rushed over as fast as I could!” She explained her presence. “You look awful, Three Dee!”

“A-Apparently…” Three Dee grunted, turning his attention to the two calmer ponies at the foot of his bed. He groaned as he recognized the yellow pony with orange mane. “Great. My new boss. Hello, Dawn Fire.”

“Relax. I’m not your boss here. We’re not at the palace.” He reassured, which put the sole pegasus in the room at ease. A little more relaxed, he recognized the other pony after a moment.

“Hi Octavia,” he greeted with a strain, and the cellist nodded back.

“Good to see you again, Three Dee. I wish it was under better circumstances, though.” She began. “Vinyl was so worried that I had to cancel tonight’s performance for you.”

“Thanks,” Three Dee smiled a little bit, still too dazed to understand why that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “Orchestra doing well?”

“Very well, actually. Managing Vinyl’s career is actually more like a hobby nowadays,” she answered.

“…I couldn’t comprehend an ounce of that,” Three Dee admitted with a shameless grin.

“Wow. Doc, what do you have him on?” Vinyl asked, somewhat impressed.

“Mostly sedatives, which are wearing off now. Painkillers too.” The doctor replied.

“Isn’t that a bit potent?” Joy Bringer inquired worriedly.

“It’s a matter of balance. It does leave the patient somewhat out of it for a little bit after waking up,” the doctor explained, after which everypony turned back to Three Dee without a word. He promptly began to smile again, only wider.

“Why is everypony looking at me?”

“Wow. Okay. This…this is actually weird now,” Vinyl Scratch backed away, holding her head with a hoof. “And this is coming from me, of all ponies.”

“I must admit, I’m impressed by this.” Octavia replied, with the slightest hint of a teasing sneer in her voice. It didn’t go unnoticed.

“Hey! I’m not weird. Just…eccentric!” Vinyl retorted.

“Big words, Vinyl.” Octavia bantered. Vinyl huffed and leaned on the nightstand, glaring at the lamp above her horn.

“Anyway, Three Dee, I bet you’re wondering what happened.” The doctor turned attention back to the pegasus in the hospital bed. Slowly, images came back.

“I…I was…was I attacked?” He questioned. Vinyl shrugged.

“It sure looked like it. Me and Octavia found you on the kitchen floor when we came to visit really quick.” She put in.

“Vinyl, dear, it’s ‘Octavia and I.’”

“Shut up, Octy!”

“Vinyl, you know I hate it when you call me that.”

“Why, because it sounds like ‘octopus?’”

There was a steady rhythm of hooves, followed by a beautiful smack to the back of somepony’s head.

“…Okay, I’ll behave.” Vinyl relented as she rubbed the scalp under her electric-blue mane.

“Three Dee, we have to report this to the Guard. Do you remember who attacked you?” The doctor proceeded despite the interruption. The purple pony thought back, before gulping and shivering. He murmured his answer into the covers, which he suddenly found strength to pull up to his chin.

“Three Dee, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“It was Nightmare Moon!”

Everypony froze.

“Are…are you sure?” The doctor questioned, skepticism on his face.

“Of course I’m sure!” Three Dee answered angrily, before hissing as he shifted awkwardly and disrupted the already-injured wing beneath him.

“But…how is that possible?”

“Hell if I know! I personally work for Princess Luna now, so Celestia forbid I know why!” Three Dee yelled. “Maybe she doesn’t like me!

“Three Dee…you do hear yourself, right?” Joy Bringer leaned forward hesitantly, and Three Dee’s glare was upon her.

“Of course I do! Why wouldn’t I?” He replied sharply.

“Three Dee…do you have difficulty sleeping?” The doctor suddenly asked, thoughtfulness decorated his face.

“Well…some.” Three Dee admitted, before he heard a snort from beside him.

“Some? Three Dee, you told me you haven’t gotten any real sleep in weeks!” Vinyl laughed awkwardly, understanding the serious weight of her words despite her usual demeanor.

“You also lay awake in my bed when I asked you to rest at my place a couple days ago,” Joy Bringer noted.

“Okay, okay, so I’m not getting any sleep. What does this have to do with the fact that I was attacked by Nightmare Moon?” Three Dee relented.

“Nothing at all. Mostly because you didn’t get attacked by Nightmare Moon.” The doctor deducted as he leaned a chart against the bed and gripped the quill in his mouth before writing. “I’ve noticed that you’ve been having some trouble moving your limbs as well.”

“…Okay…”

“Well, Three Dee, I believe you suffer from chronic insomnia, the symptoms of which include muscular fatigue…and hallucinations.”

Three Dee’s eyes widened. “So wait…you’re saying that this brutal fight I had with Nightmare Moon…the one where I was severely injured…was not even real?”

“Nope. Hallucinating ponies would toss themselves around if they believed they were in a real fight, though—both the actions they commit, like their ‘bucks,’ and the ones they receive, like a ‘toss.’” The doctor explained, before tearing off the top sheet of a prescription pad. “This is for a mild sedative that should help you sleep. Follow the directions the pharmacist gives you and you’ll be perfectly fine.”

With that, the earth pony began to depart. Three Dee grunted.

“Thank you for the comforting diagnoses, Doctor…”

The pony with the hourglass cutie-mark looked backwards and winked. “Just the Doctor.”

And he was gone.

“The nurse outside told me that you’ll be ready to leave in a few hours,” Dawn Fire suddenly intervened. “Regardless, I want you to stay home. I’ll still make sure you’re paid for this sick day—I’m perfectly understanding of your position. But I want you to get better. Get some sleep, and I’ll see you tomorrow night instead.”

“I’ll try,” Three Dee huffed. “I still don’t believe it was an illusion.”

“It would explain why we didn’t see any evidence when we found you. I don’t think the Guard found anything when they investigated either. Bad news, though: it appears you smashed some of your music equipment in your hallucination…” Vinyl said sheepishly.

Three Dee wanted to scream, but he settled for smacking the back of his head into his pillow repeatedly.

He hated everything right now.

AN:
Okay. Sorry it took so long: a lot has happened to me in the past few weeks. As for the Doctor Hooves reference: I’m sorry. I tried, but I just couldn’t resist.

Your literary challenge this week is sort of half-done for you. The story relies on literature as a bonding point for Luna and Three Dee, so the recognition has been made. You should figure out the real, human name though, cause it’s not “Hairy Heart Crane.” (It’s close, though.)

And for those of you who would feel cheated of the challenge, there’s a Shakespeare quote tossed in this chapter somewhere. Sort of played around with—It’s from “Hamlet” if you will.

Shout out to my fellow Twilight Sparkles, who find these cute little challenges as invigorating as I would.

Read, Review, Subscribe for Updates—seriously, this sort of thing makes my day. So go do it. ^^

Random Disclaimer: I do not own Pinkie Pie. She owns me. (Zing! …okay, that was terrible, I admit it. Go review this thing now *hides in corner out of shame*)

For Whom the Night Calls

by NH3

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4