Another World
Another failed attempt, and back to the future, she went. She idly wondered what strange twisted version of the home she knew she would encounter this time. Mentally, she prepared herself for a hard landing on the map. However, as she emerged from the portal into the moonlit forest night, she made a rather soft landing in a conveniently, or inconveniently as it likely meant a trap, placed net. She quickly looked about to take stock of her current situation and found herself making eye contact with a rather surprised lunar guard who was garbed similarly to the guards she knew from her own time. The guard noticed her staring back and jumped into action.
“Oh! Yes, sorry about that, I’ll just get you down now. Don’t move around too much or it will just make it difficult for both of us.”
He flew up to the top of the net, untying one of the corners to provide a sort of rope ladder leading the rest of the way to the ground. The guard had a slight, quirky, smile as he watched her disentangle herself and carefully walk down after ensuring her dragon assistant was secure on her back.
The guard continued speaking, “You know, I almost didn’t think you’d actually show up. I mean Queen Artemis said you would, and it’s not that I would doubt her, but after a while… Oh! Speaking of which, if you would follow me please, Queen Artemis is expecting you.”
Without waiting for her to respond the guard took to the air, waiting a bit to make sure she was following, he then flew off towards the castle she had fought Nightmare Moon in back in her own time. Similar to another future she had seen, the castle had been renovated and was currently bustling with ponies of all manner of garb. Was this another Nightmare Moon future?
They landed on a balcony of the tallest spire of the castle, some discussion could be heard faintly from within, though it hushed soon after the sounds of their arrival. A second lunar guard poked her head out the balcony door, conversed quietly with the first guard, then returned inside. Not long after, the doors were enveloped in a familiar blue glow as they slowly opened. Inside the room was an odd, yet familiar, set of faces surrounding a table. They were all turned to face the doors, and thus the newcomer, yet only one of those present seemed to recognize her.
The left most pony was Trixie, though she looked a bit different than when Twilight had first met her. She was garbed in a golden back-plate beneath which a pinkish cloth extended into a hood, currently down. Her mane had been trimmed shorter and she had a small golden hoop in her left ear.
On the far right was Big Macintosh, also garbed in a golden back-plate. His mane was a good deal longer than usual, almost the same length as she remembered Applejack’s was. He was also sporting the small start of a beard, it seemed to suit his new look rather well.
On the left, but to the right of Trixie, was Spike, only different. He seemed much more mature, definitely more developed than the one presently sitting on her back. This Spike had larger head spines, a more angular face, and the start of wings, not quite big enough to fly with, but well on their way. He wore a pair of golden shoulder-plates as well as a belt, though Twilight could not see if anything was secured to it.
On the right, but to the left of Big Mac, was, to Twilight’s great surprise, Ditzy Doo, or was it Derpy Hooves? She had heard it both ways but never one or the other from the mare herself. She too was garbed in a golden back-plate, though she also sported a light gray neckerchief tied behind her and tucked into the neck of her armor. Finally, she wore an oddly engraved eyepatch over her right eye and had a notch missing from her left ear.
Last but not least, sitting in the center of the group was, as Twilight took the moment to interject, “Princess Luna?”
The others looked between Twilight and Luna with confusion as the nocturnal alicorn shook her head, she gestured towards the door that led into the castle. “We shall reconvene in a few moments. For now, leave us to speak with our honored guest.” When she spoke, it was in a familiar voice to the one Twilight knew, but it seemed tired, weary like Celestia’s had been at times before Luna returned.
One by one those gathered at the table stood, bowed to the princess, and left without a word. Even the guards that had been stationed within the room moved to various positions outside to leave Twilight and her assistant alone with Princess Luna.
The princess looked different than Twilight remembered now that she had a better chance to look closer, she was garbed in a lunar back-plate with a lunar guard amulet sitting at the front of the chest. Her mane lacked its stars and was cut rather short in addition to being arrayed in a rather haphazard shape. She sighed as she looked Twilight in the eyes. “So the interloper hath arrived at last. Yes, We’ve observed your travels through a number of worlds, crossing back and forth from thine to another and back again. We noticed the pattern in the time wherein thou arrived and prepared for the possibility of thy arrival in our world. We only wish it could have been in more prosperous times.”
“Princess Luna… what happened here? What happened to make this future the way it is?”
“We thought thou mightest ask, and please, call us Artemis. If thou art asking how our world differs from thine, the tale is rather simple.” Artemis’ magic ignited and a picture appeared on the table, a window into the past much like when Twilight used the special potion from Zecora. “Without thee at her school, Celestia was unable to assemble the elements or distract Nightmare Moon into going after them over what Celestia wanted to get first, one of the stars that aided in Nightmare Moon's escape.” The picture showed a streak of light crashing to the ground with Celestia a few meters away and coming closer to lift out a pure diamond, glowing with a magical light of its own. Moments later Nightmare Moon appeared as well and began to do battle with Celestia. “Unable to hide the diamond before Nightmare Moon returned, Celestia was forced to do battle once again. Only without the elements to aid her, Celestia was overpowered and sent to spend her own thousand years on the moon. The diamond was then activated by Nightmare Moon’s magic, releasing the severed soul from within, the part of herself she had broken off to become such a monster. And thus we returned, but too late to save our sister from the Nightmare’s retribution. We introduced ourself to the ponies as Artemis, claiming that we had defeated Nightmare Moon after she had defeated Celestia. They were wary at first, but came to accept us as their ruler in Celestia’s stead.”
She sighed as the picture disappeared. “And now we wait for her return. In addition, we are forced to deal with one foolhardy griffon prince who decided that now would be the perfect time to attack Equestria, and he was right. The shift in rulers made the guard a bit disorganized and unstable, leading to a few key victories early on, but we are beginning to take back what was captured. Not that that is a matter to worry thyself with, we’ve been watching your world for inspiration, to see what other Celestias and Lunas would have done had they been there. We brought you away so we could return the favor to thee. We’ve watched thee bounce back and forth with one failure after another, thus our advice to you is diplomacy. A Luna of another world avoided this whole griffon conflict with a few well-placed words, perhaps you will find more success than us with a well-placed word of thy own. Now, we think thou hast been away from thy quest long enough.”
She closed her eyes as she prepared another spell, Twilight found herself feeling fully refreshed and reinvigorated, as well as standing once again before the map.
In a few moments, she was headed back to the past with the thought that maybe not all possible futures were entirely awful.
Luna sighed as she stared at the spot the interloper had just recently stood, she had missed her old name, and it had felt good to hear it again. Nonetheless, Artemis had an invasion to repel. The doors opened again and her war council filed back in, they had a war to win.