Villains have their own feelings and needs, which means controling them won't be that hard if the methods are proper.
Nightmare moon summoned a "spirit" from nowhere because of being bored and mentally unstable. Then she trained him into a faithful follower. But things screwed up when she came back. The aftermath of Celestia's old mistakes appeared and...(Coming) And the invasion of changelings...(Coming) We all have to pay for what we have done. But these ends well. P.S. sex tag for mentioning and this story has multiple OCs. And I'm sorry this is my first story, I'm afraid I can't quite handle this.
“This is going to be very boring,” Nightmare moon murmured to herself, letting one of her fore-hooves rub her forehead although there is a helmet obstructing this intention. “How are we goanna spend the remaining 999 years.”
It has been one-year Nightmare moon tried to intrude her dear sister’s sweet dream using the residences of the moon, the lunar spirits, and messing with Celestia and her precious little ponies’ dreams is getting increasingly difficult because steps have been taken to form defense.
“No, tis supposed to be our kingdom, our precious little ponies. They should be honored to serve their queen’s purpose, to dethrone their princess and welcome their legitimate queen,” Nightmare moon stomps her hoof and shouts to no one but herself. “Damn Celestia and her vicious and misguiding propaganda, though we would do the same if we had won at that time. Still screw her, we will have troubles comfort our precious little ponies when we take control of Equestria years later.”
Nightmare moon hops off her oversized dark-blue throne and moans aloud while wandering around. “Also damn these idiots for their hypocritically sabotage on their link to Celestia, now tis much too costly for us to meet our sweet sister again. As for our little ponies, we used to implant suspicion of Celestia into them and it worked impressively. But Celestia gradually established a mental barrier between moon and Equestria. Now tis impossible for us to achieve the scale as massive as it used to be. And Celestia is selling her barrier to other nations for political benefit whenever we showed tendency to pay a visit to them. How dare thou to let thy sister alone on the moon with nothing to do, no one to talk to.”
Nightmare moon suddenly stops murmuring, realizing something. “Hey, thou, the one sucking thy tail.” Nightmare moon points a hoof to the shadow creature by the door of the chamber. “Are we talking aloud to ourselves again?”
“Yes… Oh, No, Lady of the Moon.” The ex-lunar spirit replies nervously. “Thou didst not talk to yourself just as thou didst.”
“Ah, thou will never understand the difference between flattery and truth, will thou? And, call us Queen, not that stupid name.”
“Yes, La…My queen.”
“Now these little subjects of ours are getting more and more stupid. They were not like that when we first arrived. Now talking to them is a waste of time as well as damage to sanity.” The self-crowned queen of moon murmurs to herself again, which she is totally unaware of. “Maybe tis because of our dark magic. They might react more severely than other species when transformed by dark magic. They were incredible creatures with various appearances but now they must be relatives to dirty marshmallows, while they cannot do chores and they cook like shit. Now look what we have here.” Nightmare moon checks the preciously prepared dinner. “A bowl of half-charred strange-flavored goo for dinner. What are we expecting?” Nightmare moon rubs her temple and throw away the goo into the garbage using her azure magic, looks tired and frantic. “No, no, stop thinking about them, our poor sanity, we will find out the reason later.”
“Is this what happens when a pony hath not talk to an intelligence for long?” Nightmare moon gradually guides her train of thought to another direction. “Is this what isolation doth to a social being? Talking to oneself, feeling lonely. We can assume that Celestia is suffering the same situation. Maybe we can share the loneliness next time sisters meet in the dream. Just like the old times we preen each other, share warmth near fireplace on that old velvet carpet. Hope she will leave the access available.”
“No, No, stop shewing mercy to our life long enemy, especially when she took what supposed to be ours. We do not cherish the old sisters time and Celestia is now enjoying the respect of our little ponies as trophy of victory. Keep these in mind and shew her a piece of our mind when the fatal fight finally comes.” Nightmare moon let out a sigh and decides to call it a day or whatever it is. After all she gradually lost interest in using her own definition of day and night, as well as other details because no one really thinks about these changes of words in daily life except herself who actually ordered so.
Before long Nightmare moon reaches her room, opening the door and finds her room ever worse than it was when she left: Blanket shaped like a ball on the floor and splinters of multiple objects spread all over the room with strange flavor permeating in the air. “Why are we not even surprised to see this mess? We are certain that we were expecting too much.” Letting out a faint sign, Nightmare moon throws several her shadow subjects who were still “doing” their jobs out of her room with her magic grasp.
Nightmare moon walks straight to the mirror, fear to see her appearance. “Come on, tis not that bad.” The mirror was obscured by the excreta of her shadow marshmallow subject, but it still reflects a figure of a mare with disheveled fur, red eyes, scruffy feathers, even her ethereal star mane has lost its luster.
“Smile, Nightmare moon.” She watches the reflection in the mirror and tries to persuade herself. “Smiles makes thee brighter. Thy subjects would be heart-broken if they see this appearance.”
Nightmare moon tries smiling for several times but fails. “Who are we kidding? Appearance and facial expression is for others to appreciate. We have not moved our facial muscles for a whole year because no one actually care about it, including us.”
Ignoring the mess around her, Nightmare moon hops onto her bed and disarm herself. She puts her helmet on the dresser and settles down. “Let us summarize for today … or tonight, whatever. Introspection is always what a good ruler would do.” She picks up the blanket ball on the floor and shakes off the debris of multiple unrecognizable things attaching to it. “We get up in the morning. Swallow shit-like breakfast, and sit on the throne murmuring trifles all day long, and nothing else. Oh, come on, Nightmare moon, thou are better than that. Sugaring up something relative to thee is something fundamental for a politician, without which how can thou defeat thy enemy on propaganda and governance.”
“Nightmare moon, thou must be strict with yourself.” She curls up in the blanket while trying to convince herself about self-control aloud. But something leads her mind away. “This blanket smells disgusting. Someone needs to do the laundry. Apparently not these dirty marshmallows. The only option … Oh, by Faust’s name, even thinking of these commoners’ things makes us feel like a peasant while we do not remember a spell of cleaning.”
“No, no, focus, tis not the time to think of something about cleaning a blanket.” Nightmare moon curl herself up tighter in the blanket. “Celestia banished thee here and thou cannot take this like a bounty, a vacation. Keep that in mind and be vicious and aggressive. Be strong in mind, physically and magically.”
“Look what thou had done since thou lost connection to Celly’s dream.” Nightmare moon keeps on criticizing herself. “Sit there on the throne and think about something trivial. Thou will never defeat Celestia if things go that way.”
“We have one advantage over our sister. That is, which she will never understand, someone hath to scarify for a better tomorrow. Celestia hath to spend time to take care of our little ponies that we would regard it as consignment. Celestia barely confronted us if the elements had not get in the way. Now time is on our side as we spend no time on these marshmallows. Luck won’t always favor thee, Celestia.”
Nightmare moon has make up her mind, but she suddenly realizes one thing. “Wait, for Faust’s sake, are we talking all these aloud all the time? Is this what the loneliness do to us? We really need someone to talk to, the real communications. Celestia would not be happy if she found her little sister lost her sanity after this little separation. No, Stop caring about her. We cannot think straight right now.”
“We really should keep our mind in order. We must change. We should work out a training plan, Err… Celestia’s mental barrier separating our little ponies and us will be a good start, which will also keep us in touch with things happening on the ground. In the meantime, we really need some followers, trusted followers. Celestia will be surprised to find her sister is not alone, and cure our … ‘talking to oneself’, by the way.”
“Surprising for us, we actually know a spell that can do this. We learn it during our lessons shared with our sister which were taught by The Beared. That old friend hath brilliant teaching skills and admirable knowledge but we did not pay much attention, shame for us. He must have played an important role in that mental barrier…”
“No, no, think straight, we got works to do. This spell, actually restricted, can summon sapient individuals to our location. That old one were shamed to create this, as he said, but he could not withhold the desire to show off. In the end we happened to keep this in mind.”
“En, enough of these nonsense, we can hardly bear ourselves.” Nightmare moon moans impatiently, mostly to herself. “How many are we going to summon? Err… One? Too little. Cannot form sizable force. Three? Too much. We have to teach them one by one all by ourselves. Fine, we’ll take the average.”
“How to manipulate… the number and the characteristic… of targets.” Nightmare moon gets out of the bed and start wandering, trying to make up for her mind absenting in Starswirl the beared’s lessons. “We cannot clearly remember the details. Let’s have a try. It won’t hurt, will it? The experiments always cause casualties. And we are not going to summon several ones, we are going to summon many couples. They will serve us generations by generations and build a city here, thriving and prosperous. And we will be their queen.”
After a hasty preparation, Nightmare moon cannot wait to start the summon process probably because of the long period of isolation.
“We will first summon a pair of ponies, the species we know best, so we can save them easily in case the experiment went wrong. Oh, let us see, what about earth ponies, they are tough and hard to kill even my spell fails to reach the expected goal. And we really need workers, as we are still surrounded by garbage.” Do not want to change places, Nightmare moon starts to draw lines on her bedroom’s ground. “It will be an honor for them to have their audience with their queen in her highness’ own bedroom.”
Nightmare moon is about to cast the spell before suddenly feels doubt about herself. “Summoning is not hard, is it? Relax, we are an alicorn full of mana. We have the talent. On the other hooves, how wrong can it be even we cannot remember the details. We have successfully healed ponies in pieces. Furthermore, pieces of earth pony will be lot easier. Come on, we can do this.”
“Well, this doth not go as expected.” Nightmare moon feels the velocity of the loss of mana, a little freaking out. “We certainly should start with the rabbits. Details usually do not matter that much. Why is this spell so costly? Are we summoning a giant powerful monster from other dimension?”
Nightmare moon grits her teeth, enduring the pain of the mana extraction. Her mana reserve has dropped to a critical standard.
“We cannot hold much longer.” With the words come out of her mouth as a distraction, her mana depletion make her legs feel like jelly and her version dimmed.
“Ponyfeathers, why do we say everything out?” Nightmare moon falls to the ground and everything blacks out.
Nightmare moon stands up from the ground, rubbing her head and feel everything around her comes to life. “Ah, well, experiments always fail, maybe next time.”
Nightmare moon wanders across the room, trying to find one or several pieces that are definitely not belong here. “Well, we have to deal with what is left of our… Err… experimental victims, sorry for them.”
“Why are you talking to yourself?” A male voice suddenly pronounces.
“Who is there, identify yourself!” Nightmare moon jumps into a defense stance because the voice obviously does not belong to any of her stupid marshmallows.
“Actually, I do not know who I am.” The voice says, sounds confused.
“Where are thou, thou coward? Shew yourself!” Nightmare moon turns around, trying to find the intruder.
“I am not a coward, nor I do not know where I am. All these feel… wrong.” The voice continues. “And please don’t spin your head around, the blurring version make me sick.”
“What is wrong with my head turning… wait, are thou in my head?” Nightmare moon lets out a squeak, freaked out. “How dare thou, thou peasant, to invade her highness’ mind when she is weak.”
“Now, come out of my mind before we make thee do so.” Nightmare moon urges while lights up her horn.
“My instinct tells me doing so is right, but I don’t understand. What is this ‘out of mind’ thing? Feels weird. I should know the meaning.”
“What do thou mean ‘not understand’? Thou can pronounce the single words but thou cannot understand? Are thou querying my intelligence? Are thou…” Nightmare moon slows down the pace of her speaking, realizing this thing might be the ‘victim’ of her failed experiment.
“I don’t know, but I think I am suffering from some kind of… Err… mental lost. Err…what is the meaning of ‘mental lost’ anyway? I just said it.”
“Lucky us, how can we summon an idiot like thou. For the sake…” Nightmare moon pauses, suddenly realize that it is a perfect chance for her to get a faithful follower that she always wants before some final confirms.
“We presume thou are a male, judging from thy mental voice.” Nightmare moon says.
“What? Is that a name? Or did you say ‘celestial’?”
“What do thou think of Equestria?”
“I’m totally confused. What is ‘Equestria’?”
“What do thou think of forcing somepony to do things he don’t like? Theft? Rape? Slavery?”
“My first impression of these words isn’t very good, but… I think it is fine. Wait, did you say ‘somepony’?”
Nightmare moon ignores the question and meditates for a while before finally blurts. “Wonderful! He doth not even form his values. Now he have no choice but take what we teach. He will think the way we teach. He will act the way we order. He will be our best follower if he hath no intelligence problems. Now tis the question about how to get him out of my head and into an entity.”
“Wait, wait, I can’t follow all those you said. Err, I think this is ok. What happened to me? All these feels wired.”
“Then ignore it, we were not talking to or about thou.” Nightmare moon interrupts imperiously. “And thou will be taught directly by us. Tis thy honor.”
“Why is that? Why should I like honor? Oh, what’s this ‘honor’?”
“Thou do not know anything that is why we need to teach thee. Thy instinct tells thee that Thou should not keep this ignorance, right? Though instinct is always for the moments one know few.”
“Yes, yes, ignorance feels awful. I’ll follow your guidance.”
“Good, soon we will start our lesson, but first I will give Thou a name, thou dost not remember thy name either, dost thou?”
“Sorry for that, madam…”
“Call us queen or highness.” Nightmare moon interrupts. “We once heard an old tale written in an ancient language about a goddess associated to the moon named Artemis, just like us. She always let her Elaphos Khryso… or something pull her cart. So we are going to call thee Elaphos. Thou hear us?”
“Let’s sum this up, he hath no idea what he is, values, goals, views of the world. He can talk, communicate, knowing the basic of logic and some of the words’ meaning but taking a total damage of the values behind the words. How to teach him? Where to start?” Nightmare moon murmured to herself, thinking about how to train her student into her faithful follower.
“When should the lesson start? Err… your highness” Elaphos bluntly asks.
“Quiet, we are thinking about thy syllabus.”
“Isn’t that should be done long before the lessons start?”
“Shut up! Principle one: Follow thy Queen’s order. Now do not bother me.”
“Why should I follow the principles? And you are my queen. This principle one obviously can’t apply to you, then what principles should you follow?”
“Fine, we will design thy syllabus later. Now, for thy first question: When we are thinking about something, we always have preconditions, spoken or hidden. Some of the preconditions can be proved using other preconditions. But some of these preconditions cannot be backtracked and it is too obvious to prove. That’s called principle. Now this principle one is especially designed for thee and thy ignorance. It allow thee to solve any question thou face, precisely and fast.”
“I can’t quite follow, but this sounds persuading. I’ll keep principle one in mind.” Elaphos replies.
“As for thy second question. According to principle one. We say this is none of thy concern.”
“Ok, thank you, your highness.” Elaphos says, seems to accept the principle.
“And principle two: Always for thy queen’s safety and happiness.” Nightmare moon states. “This principle…”
“Questions.” Elaphos interrupts.
“Say.”
“Sometimes principles contradict to one another. When one is against two, which principle should I follow?”
“We really should teach thou manners about not to interrupt thy queen’s speaking, Maybe later.” Nightmare moon says impatiently. “Here come the principle three: when one and two contradict, fellow principle two. In case Celestia mess with my mind using sister this or sister that. It will be surprising for her to find we have a reminder.”
“Why should I follow manners which is other than principles? And who is this Celestia? You keep on mentioning it.”
“Manners is the way ponies agreed to get along with each other containing… Never mind, thou can take it as my order. And Celestia is our enemy need to be dethrone. She is our sister so thou cannot call her ‘this Celestia’ or ‘it’ her.”
“Why do…”
“Ke en!” Nightmare moon coughs to interrupt Elaphos. “Orders!”
“Sorry, my queen. I’m just not familiar with this thinking pattern. I am working on it. I won’t let you down.”
“Oh, I am pleased. Thank Faust for one’s thirst for knowledge when he knows nothing.” Nightmare moon is delighted by the outcome of her effort before something comes to her mind. “These principles seems to have some logical loophole in them…”
“What?” Elaphos squeaks, shocked to hear the words.
“What we just say is wrong, forget the word. That is an order.” Nightmare moon urges.
“Ok.”
‘By Faust’s name, damn this talking to ourselves habit.’ Nightmare moon struggles to keep the words in the mouth. ‘We can no longer bear it. We need a change.’
“Ok, we will cast a spell that embody thee with some dust and mist as a phantom thing that can allow thou to walk and interact with light-weight objects. Thou are still in our head so it is just kind of ‘remote-control’. Thou can save the question to the future, by the way. We have enough of this ‘Talking to myself’.” The queen of the night abruptly blurts out angrily.
“Err… Ok, I’ll follow your order and seems like you would be happy if I do so, no contradictory.”
“Enn… side-effect.” Nightmare moon says. “Just don’t speak thy thought out, ok? It sounds wired. Now shut up and this will be our last word talking to thee when thou are not materialized in front of us.”
Nightmare moon starts casting the spell. She is happy that this nightmare ends...well...partly. Breeze puffs around the room and dust on the ground gathers and forms an outline of a… “A ball, what’s the hay? This spell was supposed to represent the self-cognition of the objective. Thou think thee are a ball?”
“Wait, ball means origin and null, which means the incipient self-cognition status. This happens to those newborns who do not aware themselves, not even subconsciously. Thou really dost not know what thou were, do thou? Benefit for me, we will help thee. Listen. Thou are a pony, like us, an alicorn to be specific.”
The ball of dust and mist gradually takes the form of a male alicorn under the manipulation of the azure magic and its legs start to move inharmoniously, indicating the rookie owner of the phantom.
“Thou will shew in this form every times we call thee out. Later we will give thee the access to use the spell without our help. Thus thou will come out whenever thou want or we do.” Nightmare moon orders. “Now thou can ask.”
“And stop floating like that, try walking like us.” Nightmare moon adds and demonstrates how to walk. “No, no, not this floating walking. Fine, we have a long way to go.” She sighs.
Nightmare moon wakes up from her little dream walk to the ground, idly rubs the sleep out of her eyes. Sniffing her nose, she is aware of one thing.
“Elaphos.”
“Yes, My Queen.” A cloud of mist and dust starts to form into a figure of a pony the same size as Nightmare moon.
“Next time do not change my sheet and blanket while I am sleeping.” Nightmare moon says with a little irritation.
“Your will.”
“Materialize and stay outside the bathroom every times we enters it for personal hygiene.” Nightmare moon adds. “Last night thou shew up directly in front of us when we were… Just remember do not do that again.”
“Sure, my queen, may I ask the reason…”
“No, orders.”
“Of course.”
“……”
“……”
Nightmare moon feels a little embarrassed and decides to finally teach her faithful follower something about gender difference. But this intent is interrupted by Elaphos.
“May I know the information you collected on the ground, my queen?”
“Sure… Err… sure.” Nightmare moon is muddled by the abrupt words but soon recovers. “Equestria seems having conflicts with The Griffin Empire. Maybe it will soon become a war. Damn those griffins believe Equestria is weakened with one princess banished. But tis true. Poor Celestia will not win this war without us. The griffins are strong and aggressive. They are trained for fight when they were born. The best consequence we can presume is both sides of conflict are mired in the fight and both of them are too weak to continue and fear to be attacked by others, then they will sign the peace. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Miracles.” Nightmare moon continues. “We feel sorry for our sister and our little ponies. Clearly they will suffer for a long period of time. We wish we could help. We would like see Celestia suffer, but as for our ponies, they are innocent and they should be our subjects if the elements had not got in the way.”
“We can do nothing about it, can we?”
“Indeed, unless Celestia misses us and release us from this…Rock.”
“Questions, my queen. May I have the honor to know your story about this ‘elements’?”
“To begin with, elements is something corrupts thy mind, separating thee and thee aspiration. Make thy life dull and boring. The worst part, it will make thee believe that thinking the way it force thee to believe is truly happy. In this way, it hath made many ones who are destined to make fabulous achievements rest in their little cozy nests. As for us, we were tough enough that it could not corrupt us. So it just banished us to the moon which is our own. Irony, right?”
“No, my queen. This is Faust-damn vicious brain-wash. I feel delighted to hear my queen managed to escape from it malicious effect.”
“The elements is in short of ‘Elements of harmony’, which is composed of six separate elements. But only five of them are known and each of them represent one… Err… pattern of doing things. The five are: generosity, kindness, honesty, loyalty and laughter. We have seen the sixth element, but we do not quite understand its meaning. Let’s discuss them one by one.”
Nightmare moon changes to a comfortable position and continues. “Generosity is contradictory with efficiency. For a whole society, resources need to be hold in these elite who produce more, and the rest are supposed to be inspired to work hard and become an elite. Generosity just spoils this pattern; Kindness is said for losers to beg for mercy and skewing mercy to one’s enemy is deadly especially in a fight; Honesty is sometime good, but being honest with thy enemy is a disaster; Loyalty is praiseworthy when all of our little ponies are loyal to me; the last one, laughter, is just for entertainment.”
“We will talk about the details later. Now brush my fur, the brush is in its usual position. Last time thou didst well.”
“Your praise is my pleasure, my queen.”
“Hold on, we need to do some adjustments to thy current appearance. We need this to be more precise and vivid. Thou need to accurately remember these places.” Nightmare moon prods her hoof to several places that she is not satisfied while manipulate the said places with her azure magic.
“Your will.” Elaphos answers. “May I ask why you stop summoning subjects here?”
“Eh…” Nightmare moon mumbles, enjoys the brushing. “Thou feel lonely, doth thou? We were embarrassed to admit we do not remember the details of the spell. We are fearing it goes wrong again and… Never mind.”
Several years before the fatal Summer Sun celebration.
Twilight Sparkle has been in the library for days, again. Everypony who knows her is not surprised at all because she is twilight. But this doesn’t mean nopony complaints. For example, her mentor.
Celestia wanders her way along the grandiose corridor, with a file carried by her golden magic. The file was sent by one of her agent, reporting an anomaly is spotted during her way passing a village near Canterlot. Celestia has browsed through the report sketchily. The residents of the said village is described to have “joy above average”.
“It might just be something happened recently in the village or the ponies there are really happy out of some reason.” Celestia thinks. “I always want a small vacation to the rural. So let me have a little investigation. But it must be after twilight’s class.”
Mentioned her faithful student, Celestia’s expression darken a bit. Her student has possibilities to become a second Starswirl, which she would be pleased if it wasn’t for her plan, the plan has be carried out for a thousand years to remedy for her fault. Her former student had some … problems, and escaped to another world. The longest day of a thousand years is impending, so twilight is her last hope of the plan if she want this ends well.
The princess of the sun opens the gate of the library and immediately finds her student reading a book on a cushion, disheveled but cordial. “She needs some friend to wield the elements, not books.” Celestia adds in her mind. “At least she needs to go out.”
“Twilight, my faithful student.” Celestia says while approaching her student.
“Oh, sorry for not seeing you come, princess.” Twilight raises her head from the books, unwillingly.
“You need to go out and make some friends after this class.” Celestia suggests.
“Err… but I was planning to do some research on these books.”
“I see. So maybe you can share the problem with me and see if I can help.”
“Right, princess, it ‘is’ a period of history you actually participate in.” Twilight responses. “I have compared many versions of the war between griffons and us nearly a thousand years ago, together with several autobiographies. Then I found this war is weird: It started with small conflicts, just like others. And according to some autobiographies, militaries were suffering from a kind of depression which might be caused by a concrete important pony’s absence. It was a war that we had no chance to win as they once assumed. But suddenly the war ends without any signs: The griffons retreated and signed a peace, without anypony knew why. I assume the only pony knows about the truth is you, maybe.”
“Where did you get the idea of researching on this? Just out of curiosity, I must admit.” Celestia asked.
“From a spell book by a soldier, he mentioned about this weird war, saying solving this anomaly will benefit a lot.” Twilight looks at her mentor with pleading eyes.
‘I remember him, it seems this was not properly dealt with. But not big deal.’ Celestia mentally thinks, but says: “I am pleased to see you are interested in history. To answer your questions.” Celestia presumes and wears a warm smile before continues. “I can only say it was a miracle because I don’t know the reason either.”
“O…K.” Twilight hesitates, clearly not buying the princess’ bluffing.
“So are you going out after this class?” Celestia tries to change the subject.
“Not until I finish this subject. I may do it later.” Twilight buries her head in the books once again.
“Fine, then the class we are having is changed to the field work. You are going to investigate an anomaly with me.” Celestia announces. “Here is the briefing.”
“Well, Ok.” Twilight obviously don’t want to leave her books.
Celestia lets her cart stopped by the entrance of the said village. She ambles towards the village on the dirt road, enjoying the scent of mud and wheat, with her student wandering impatiently holding a book and two guards as escort.
The sun princess moves on, with her eyes closed, feeling the rustles as her hooves smash the leaves, on purpose, of course. It remains her old times shared with her sister when played together as fillies. Before…
“Err… princess Celestia, they ‘does’ looks weird.” Twilight suddenly pronounces.
“It may be resulted from your lack of socializing recently.” Celestia does not bother to open her eyes. “Which make you think everypony is weird.”
“I’m serious.” Twilight urges. “Please, princess. I’m not kidding.”
“Neither am I.” Celestia retorts without thinking, but finally opens her eyes. Then she concludes: “The residents do look weird.”
The ponies of the village are doing their harvest, normally. But their facial expression are anything but normal. They smile stiffly and it looks like the smiles are fake.
“Ugh… Creepy, they smile like they are forced to do so.” Twilight concludes.
“No, they smile stiffly because they smiles for too long and they are truly inspired by joy.” Celestia changes to a stern face and seems realizing something.
“But how could these possible. Maybe we should ask the mayor of this village.”
Celestia doesn’t response to her student’s advice and her horn glows. “I can sense… magic, the villagers were forced to feel joy.”
“What does it mean?” Twilight feels nervous and speaks.
“Mind-control magic, I was once familiar with this kind of magic. This…” Celestia presumes and relocates her head for a better angle for detection. “This one has a source. Not far…”
Celestia spins around and orders her escorts: “Get your fastest one and fly back to call for reinforcement.”
“But the fastest is watching the cart.”
“Screw the cart, Do it, NOW!” Celestia orders flatly but with irresistible force in her voice. “Rest of my guards and, Twilight. Stay here. You are no match for the kind of magic. And, no buts”
North of the small village stands a small stone hill with grass and vines all over it. The hill itself must has witnessed the ages but there is a door at the base of it hiding in the bushes which seems new. All things seems quiet but this doesn’t last for long.
Celestia blasts the door open and enters the chamber inside. On witnessing the device which is filled with green goo and shaping frames, plus the much more normal ponies inside, Celestia understand the situation immediately. Rage filled up her mind, Celestia scans the skeleton of the cave and find no more room to hold potential victims. The sun princess shouts: “Changelings, SCREW you all. Run and tell your queen, screw with my subjects again and I will knock her horn off and plug it into one of her holes. Now get out of here because the only thing in my mind is blow this place up.”
Celestia shoots beams even before she finishes shouting. The cave begins to shark and rock falls from the roof as all the changeling inside runs for their lives. Debris and goo spread all over the cave and the hill shatters apart, remaining a sphere shield with angry princess inside who holds it.
“Princess, what happened?” Twilight asks while she and the princess amble to the cart they left behind.
“Enemies.” Celestia answers, doesn’t want to explain much. “I will teach you this when time comes.”
Silence engorges the small group as they take on their leaving. But things don’t always go as expected.
“What’s going on?” Twilight’s squeak wakes Celestia from her absent-minded.
In front of the small group, everything is floating, including their cart. Rocks are moving with the wind at multiple speed and leaves of the trees are at strange angle.
“Gravity magic.” Celestia prods the floating sphere of water and trots into the range of the anomaly, murmurs. “Interesting, hope this one won’t disappoint me again.”
“Princess, isn’t it…” Twilight tries to stop her mentor’s abnormal behavior.
“Dangerous? No, this magic is special. It doesn’t affect us, see?” Celestia keeps on walking, with her head spins around to scrutiny the surroundings. “Now we only need to find the source.”
Celestia pauses as other ponies rush to their princess. Follow the princess’ gaze they find a little unicorn filly floating in the air, white coat and blue mane, with eyes emanating white magical light.
“Magic surge.” Celestia verdicts and wraps the filly with her right frontleg, trying to calm the surge down. Then she asks. “Guards, are we have missing pony reports in that poor village.”
“No, your highness, all the record in the town hall have found their counterparts. This filly is not in the records. Perhaps this filly is one of these monsters.” One Guard says.
“No, my magic says otherwise.” Celestia says. “How long has these ponies be affected by this nasty magic? Maybe she is a newborn during these dark years.”
“Maybe you are right, according to primal research, the victims don’t actually remember what happened nor the length of their suffering. What they remember before these event are too fragmentized and trivial to find the corresponding part of history events. So, we don’t know the accurate time. For the same reason, they don’t know what they have done during these dark period. So find this foal’s parents is nearly impossible, nor would the filly herself know her parents if she was one of the victims. Even successfully find her parents, it is hard to imagine a filly living in a family that her parents hardly love or even know each other.”
“I found this filly elsewhere, her parents were both killed in accident.” Celestia has made up her mind and announces in royal tone. “I will personally be her guardian, maybe mentor. I’ll tell her the truth when she’s ready. Keep this a secret, understand?”
“May I know your name?” Celestia coos to the filly she just brought back in a motherly tone with smiles on her face.
“They call me Izsha.” The filly cringes a little before answering.
“Izsha? Strange name. Who’re ‘they’?”
The filly starts to shiver as Celestia speaks a little more aggressively. “I don’t know, it’s like a dream.”
Celestia feels strange to find the filly much more sophisticated than expected if she really lived and managed through the dark time, unconsciously. She knows when I become aggressive. She should not even be able to speak or use magic if the villager is at the condition she and her student once witnessed. Just like she knows…
Celestia drives the idea of a lying filly out of her mind. ‘Cuteness is justice.’ Celestia thinks to herself. Maybe it is just an instinct just for foals to observe the adults’ mental state. Maybe she has a talent of observing and self-learning. Maybe she has an advanced tolerance on psyche magic. Some test will prove her resistance of psyche attack… No, No test, No old mistakes.
“Do you know your parents?” Celestia coos and tries to extract more useful information.
The filly shivers more severely and answers like whispers. “No.”
“Do you afraid of me?” Celestia feels weird because she herself was always welcomed even in foals but this filly shows nothing but fear. Probably she saw the destruction of the cave.
The filly cringes a bit and curls up more like a ball as response.
“I won’t hurt you.” Celestia coos in a much more soft tone. “I promise.”
The filly relaxes a bit on hearing the promise. Celestia rubs the back of filly’s head and cuddle the filly in one of her frontleg. “It will be Ok, don’t worry.”
“Izsha, right? Weird but special.” Celestia coos and nuzzles the filly. “I will take care of you. Maybe teach you something.”
“Elaphos, this is the day!” Nightmare moon watches Equestria, standing on the surface of the moon, with a phantom pony by her side. “Stars are just about in their position. Tis is time we will rule Equestria.”
“Yes, my queen. It is time to bring darkness and justice to this land.”
“No quite, our subject won’t survive without light. We will discuss that later. Now, we have to say. Over a thousand years, thou still can’t accurately walk like a real pony. Thou are just… Whatever, walking like real pony won’t help me defeat my sister.” Nightmare moon says with disappointment in her voice while waiting for the right time to escape.
“Sorry for not being able to help.” Elaphos bows as stance to take punishment.
“Well, tis not thine fault, thou do not have a concert body so tis impossible for us to train thee about magic and wrestle. But, honestly speaking, thou trained these marshmallow idiots well. They can properly follow orders now.”
“The honors belong to you, my queen. They are just adjusted and adapted to your power that changed them. In other words, they are not that stupid anymore.”
Nightmare moon laughs. “We do not remember we taught thee about flattery, thou smart. Anyway, thanks.” Nightmare moon focuses on the stars again and speaks. “Tis about time to move. Before we do, just remember, no matter what happens, thank thee for accompanying me on the moon.”
“My stupid sister,” Nightmare moon moans, walking on the grass. “She just teased us and went to her sun. She fears us, it has to be this way.”
“May I ask, what’s the meaning of the ‘offer six sweet little mares to fulfill your loneliness on the moon’?” Elaphos curiously asks as he forms from nothing, being whiter because of the lack of moon dust.
“Need not to know.” Nightmare moon grits her teeth. “You are too inquisitive.”
“Sorry, my queen.”
“We are not that kind of ponies who will abandon their plans and purposes for some sweet mares.” Nightmare moon murmurs to herself, irritated. But she can’t help curving up the edge of her mouth. “Coward, always jokes like this.”
“I can’t see why you are smiling.” Elaphos asks.
“Silence.”
“Sorry.”
“Time to go. If Celestia wants proofs, we will shew her. Just stop some little fillies. If they are cute, we will not even use force. We wander how long will Celestia hide on the sun before she lost her patient as all her plans fail and join us at our final rival. As she said, it would all end whence it started.”
“It could be a trap. We can’t do what Celestia wished.” Elaphos suggests.
“Six little fillies and you are afraid. We are disappointed about your cowardice.”
“My queen, we should attack now. We can’t stand here and wait for them to complete whatever they are preparing.”
“Relax, though we are surprised to find these fillies DID manage to summon five elements. But the elements will be nothing without the final one.”
“…are my friends.” Twilight says with confidence as sparks start to gather above the mares.
“My queen, the situation is out of control. We need to leave.” Elaphos urges and his phantom avatar become solid and gravel rolls to consolidate the body. “I’ll bear the first shoot. Run, my queen. We still have chance to win. Don’t show any mercy next time we meet if elements corrupt me.”
“No, Elaphos, stand down. It won’t work. Tis all over.” Nightmare moon steps back in fear and jokes, smiles. “And you are no more than a phantom, what can thou do even thee are corrupted.”
“It’s no time for joking. Run, my queen. It is my honor to serve you.”
Nightmare moon smiles and silently watches the beam of the elements penetrate Elaphos’ phantom without resistance. The gravel of the phantom bursts out and hits Nightmare moon with massive momentum.
‘So, tis like the final time.’ Nightmare moon thinks to herself. Time seems to slow down, as beam shatters Elaphos’ phantom and the hurt of the flying gravel is so clear. Nightmare moon even can see the drops her blood and pieces of her feathers. ‘What we will think after this beam hit us, we are curious.’
The beam washes through Nightmare moon. ‘It feels itching, warm and refreshing.’ Nightmare moon thinks to herself. ‘A long lost feeling.’
Elaphos feels himself floating in the nothingness, having no idea about how long he has been in this condition. Opening his eye, he finds he is not alone. A phantom pony is floating as he do.
“Who are you?” Elaphos asks, alertly.
“A being can help you fulfill your dream.” The phantom lures.
“Why I should trust you. Maybe you are the elements that tries to corrupt me.”
“You don't have to. Otherwise, it can’t be worse, can it? Just like she said, you are no more than a phantom. You can’t even scarify yourself to save your queen.” The phantom’s voice becomes satiric. “Angry? Self-condemned? Regret? She even can’t focus in the fight because you are too inquisitive. She put some much her work on you but you can’t do nothing more than being grateful. Unless…”
“Unless what?” Elaphos asks with hope.
“You are with me.” The phantom raises a hoof and speak. “Deal?”
“What do I have to pay?”
“You have nothing to lose, right? Relax, I won’t take your loyalty to your queen. Besides, this is not about negotiation. It’s about charity because you have nothing as jetton.”
Silence falls on the two phantom. The unnamed phantom smiles, wait for the decision.
“Deal!” Elaphos says as he raise his hoof to clap with the other one’s hoof.
In the meantime, black vortex forms as it gathers the blood and the feathers Nightmare moon had dropped. Before long the vortex becomes a black and red sphere floating above the shattered armor and it bubbles with creepy voice.
Protuberances grow from the blood and black sphere and gradually form into limbs and head. A outline of a pony concretes as the black blood goo squirms.
“Your Elaphos is back. I won’t disappoint you this time, my queen.” It pronounces.
Several hours after Nightmare moon’s defeat. Canterlot castle, in a small chamber painted to fit Luna’s taste.
“My sister, did thou design this room’s painting?” Luna’s coat is still wet because of the bath she just took. “Not our style accurately. But, thanks.”
“But this is exactly the painting you designed for your room a thousand years ago. Your taste must has changed much during your ba… Sorry for mentioning what hurts. It won’t happen again. I promise.” Celestia says with sorry. “You will get your reputation you deserve.”
“About the banishment, we are sorry. We will never leave thee anymore.” Luna hugs Celestia in both frontlegs, tears start to swirl in her sockets.
“It’s Ok, it’s Ok. It’s all over. Nightmare has ended.” Celestia coos, hugs back. “But, we still need time and preparation before we claim your royalty once again. I’m sorry you have to wait.”
“Princess or not. We just want our sister back.” Luna says, with her voice muffled by Celestia’s pristine white fur.
“But you still call yourself ‘we’,” Celestia jokes, ruffles Luna’s mare. “Duty is still haunting you, right? Besides, you are cute.”
“What does cuteness do with my duty? Whatever, you are always so annoying.” Luna breaks the hug and hops onto the bed, changed to a serious tone. “We hope thou still remember the methods we used to deal with that parasite, the Nightmare. We don’t even think about it when we are on the moon.”
“I did, and I have planned for this for a thousand years. Now we have effective information network called Halo. Halo agents spread all over Equestria to collect information about anomalies and potential dangers. It feels awful to deal with these reports, but it’s rewarding. We will know the instant the Nightmare regenerates.” Celestia pauses before continuing. “And this time we just seal it. The plan we designed ended badly last few times we carried it out. Equestria will be strong in a more… stable way.”
“We are glad to see thou are still so reliable.” Luna says. “Thou are right, this plan backfired and it sucks.”
The two alicorn silence for a while to enjoy the sister’s time before Celestia asks. “Need I brush your coat?”
The dark alicorn smiles and chirps. “No, thanks. Save the tickling for yourself.”
Celestia laughs and stands up to leave. “Maybe next time, I still have works to do. You can have a rest.”
“Bye.”
Celestia closes the door behind her and the voice of her hooves echoes in the corridor as it fades away. Luna’s room falls quiet.
Luna watches the birds chirping and flying across the blue sky. She rubs the bed beneath her, soft and elastic. ‘Home, right?’ She thinks to herself.
“Elaphos, brush our fur.” Luna follows her old habit which had been used for nearly a thousand years. “The brush is… in the dresser, we think.”
But nothing happens.
“Elaphos, you there?”
The door is pulled open. In come an alicorn Luna was very familiar with. He stumbles across the room to the bed because of the new found limbs. On his back lays Celestia who is now unconscious.
“Elaphos, how did you in this form? How my sister…” Luna is shocked to see this scene, unable to speak fluently.
“I’m sorry I’m late, my queen.” Elaphos lays Celestia on the ground gently. “What do your highness want to do to her, maybe suppress her magic and tie her up on the pinnacle of the castle to claim her defeat? Or maybe you can suppress her magic and confine her to the castle to show the ponies how kind you are. We must not relax now because we have not won completely. We need to claim your authority and comfort your new subjects. If public opinions is out of control we can fake an important event to distract the public’s attention…”
“Stop, Elaphos, tis all over. We no longer want to be a queen and Celestia is not our enemy anymore...” Luna lets out a sign and tries to persuade the victim out of the trouble.
“You are not my queen.” Elaphos interrupts, eyes Luna inimically. “My queen once said that the Ambition is always a good character for a leader. My queen will never stop chasing the throne.”
Elaphos suddenly pounces at Luna and pins her to the bed, though lands poorly. His nostrils tremble a bit and he carefully checks her. “You were her. Looks like the elements did corrupt you. You no longer have these… ambitions and… dark magic.”
“If you are there, my queen, I’m sorry for what has to be done.” He then points his horn to the moon alicorn’s chest. “I hope you will be back once you regain your magic.”
Elaphos is far from being familiar with his magic as he muddles for a while but fails to squeeze out even a tiny bit of magic.
“I am sorry I disappoint you again, my queen.” He signs and trys again with his eyes closed. "Just wait, my queen. I won't leave-"
*Bang*
A while hoof with golden horseshoe bumps the back of Elaphos' head and he collapses on Luna's torso, unconscious.
"I won't let a impatient stallion like he to marry my sister." Celestia chirps, teasing. "He just pinned you to the bed. He should at least wait until I leave."
"When did thou... How did..." Luna stammers while shoves Elaphos off her body.
"Well, I just pretended to be attacked and I wanted to see what this handsome dark one going to do. Now the result shows that you are not that alone on moon, my sister." Celestia jokes and nuzzles her sister. "You have a good taste, by the way. I am kind of jealous. En… How good is he? Stamina? Size?"
"He is not our playtoy or something. He was a student of ours. We trained he to become our faithful follower and here is the result. When we were on the moon, he did chores, laundry. He brushes our fur and cares our mane."
"And he scratches your back in the bath and serves you on bed." Celestia says with a smirk. "I want a playtoy like him, too. He can serve you for a very long time. Most importantly, loyalty."
Luna cuts in, tries to stop her sister's nonsense. "We never let him do that before. He was no more than a phantom made of dust on the moon. We tried to let him serve us bathing. But he melted in the water and he just stuck to everywhere."
"Oh~ everywhere." Celestia coos with a faked sorry. "Interesting, my sister has a special taste."
"Stop tasting us, Celly. We didn't... Fine, you can check his crotch, we didn't even design his balls when we err... design him."
"Design a colttoy by hooves, that is EXCITING. And you can teach him whatever you want. My sister is talented." Celestia giggles and lifts one of the unconscious body's hind legs with her golden magic, making half of the body away from the bed. "And looks like my sister is too shy to make up a lie. Actually, he is good. Now I want to check his weapon which he used to serve my sister."
"No, stop that, Celly. That's not fun at all." Luna argues embarrassedly, not expecting the balls thing. "We did not teach him about gender. He is actually as innocent as a foal. I know you are just teasing. So stop this."
"Fine, but my sister is as funny as the old time." Celestia stops her hoof towards the crotch and let go of the leg .The unconcious body rulls off the bed and hits the ground with a thud. Luna's eyes twitches a bit on looking this scene.
"Looks like my sister does care about him." Celestia says with a smile. "So, what is his name?"
"We named him Elaphos, from an old tale" Luna ignores the other parts of statement and tries to change the subject. "You can feel it, right? He is the new host of that parasite. We assume that is the reason why he get a body of his own."
"We will arrange the elements to purify him but I don't think he will be happy to aware what you did to him." Celestia suggested. "Before that..."
"Guards, put this thing in the dungeon, highest security." Celestia shouts.
"Don't 'thing' him!"
"Sorry."
The guards come in and take away the black pony. Luna watches her followers out of the door and says. "He is just a poor victim of us. We own him a lot. He does not deserve this."
Luna squirms to ease her sorrow before continuing. "And we think thou are reling too much on the elements, my sister. But we are afraid this time the elements won't work."
"..."
"The elements can purify us because we still have good in us. That parasite is no more than a mental mirror, the only thing it can do is mirror the dark side of its host and guide the victim to think in the darker way. The elements just drove the parasite and dark magic away. Then Nightmare moon is no more while Luna is back."
"However," Luna pauses for a deep breath. "He was completely blank when we summoned him to our side. As thou said, we taught him whatever we wanted and trained him into a follower can do no other than our orders. He has no actually... what can be called 'good' in him. He has no other good personality that elements can switch him to. Can elements mess with one's mind? Or can the elements force a bad pony into a good one? It does not sound right if the elements can do this."
"I didn't try that, but I think the answer is no." Celestia changes to a sorrowful expression. "It seems we will have another statue."
"He does not deserve this." Luna mumbles in a sad tone.
"I am sorry you have to bear this. It is our duty..."
"This is not going to happen, we will at least have a try."
"Try what?"
"Try to persuade him, and try to be his 'queen', again."
"No, I won't approve this, it is too dangerous."
"Come on, Celestia. If we succeed, we will have a perfect outcome of our old plan."
"And you are thinking about teaching him some good thing then you can purify him, right? It won't work. I did so when you were nightmare moon." Celestia tries to persuade her out of the dangerous thought.
"I did, even he can't be purified in the end, he is better off than in the stone. Please Celestia, thou don't want to see us eaten up by our sorrow, right?"
"Fine, but wait for the elements to come, ok? We have to have this failsafe. I can't make more concession.
Few hours later. In the night. Everpony is in bed, except Luna in the dungeon.
"We are alone now. No Celestia and no elements. Just to win thy trust." Luna enters the small chamber which holds the victim of hers. The lock of the door crackes open after the azure magic engulfs it.
"..."
"Sorry for the ball in thy mouth." Luna smiles and lights up her horn. All the binders crackes open as clanks echo through the small dim room that is lighten by the torches. "Old enchant technolodgies, we are surprised these things did not change much."
"And the ball in thy mouth." Luna sits down in front of Elaphos and pulls out the plug in his mouth with hooves. "Now thou can walk and-"
Elaphos suddenly pushes his old queen over and pins her to the ground, more fluently this time. "I know what you are thinking. Freeing me won't change my purpose."
"We know, we taught you well." Luna lets out a sigh and squirms to gain a more comfortable position under her follower's hooves. “And we should really teach you about gender problems when we were on the moon. Pinning a lady like us is very impolite.”
"My queen taught me do not show mercy to our enemy. It's a pity I can't torture you because you are the key to my queen." Elaphos hisses and lowers his horn for another try.
"Relax, my Elaphos. You still have surpresser on your horn."
"Crop." Elaphos tries to remove the surpresser on his horn but he still can't control his hooves properly because differences still exist between phantom and body.
Partly released from the pinning, Luna pokes the chest of Elaphos as if to check his body. "So, you did have a body of your own. We are glad we no longer have to share."
Elaphos finally removes his surpresser and pushes aside the invasive hoof. "My queen taught me that her highness' safety is the highest priority, sometimes even beyond her orders. What you are doing won't work, face it."
"Actually, the principles we taught you have many loopholes."
"Shut up, you imposter. You are not my queen."
"Fine, fine. Though we don't like it, but it seems it has to be this way."
"what?"
Luna closes her eyes and starts to concentrate. Then dungeon seems to be a little bit colder and Elaphos is shocked to sense the familiar magic flowing in his queen's body. Her mane become starry again while her fur darkens and her body grows up a bit. Elaphos is too startled to move until Luna opens her reptile eyes and pronounces in a imperious tone. "Tis a shame for us that we did not teach thee how to identify one pony from another. How dare thou said that we are not thy queen? Clearly you can not come to conclusion just by scrutinizing appearance."
"Of course not, my..." Elaphos' long trained reflex takes control of his thinking as if the reptile eyes pierce through his soul.
"Queen? We have to say that ponies change. We just calmed down and gave up what we have chased for a thousand years. But we are still your Queen."
"Sorry for my offence. I beg for your panishment, your majesty." Elaphos gets up from Luna and helps her to be back on four.
"Good. Punishment for later. Now we need thou to hide under my wings using your mist form. That is what thou used to travel from the old castle so fast and sneak in for us, right? We are glad thou learns as fast as usual."
"Yes, my queen."
"No Queen, we are a princess now."
"Your will, my princess."
"That sounds weird but tis fine."
Suddenlly clops of hooves can be heard drawing near outside the dungeon. Elaphos stops his misting and shows a defence stance to the entrance to the dungeon.
The door is not as lucky as last time as this time it is blasted open by force. In come an alicorn and two guards.
"Sister, are you ok? I sensed dark magic in the dungeon and I can't find you in your room." Celestia looks around for her sister and sees her sister flowing with dark magic. "Oh, no. Why did you do this to me? What did I do wrong this time?"
"Easy, Tia. We are ok." Luna drops her dark magic and says. "Same of you, Elaphos. Now you can come under my wings."
"Yes, my princess." Elaphos tranformed into a dark blue mist as he flies towards one of Luna's wings.
"See, all solved." Luna says happily. "Just a little tired. You can save the elements."
"Don't do this again."
"What?"
"I thought I lost you again." Celestia rushes to hug her sister. "The moment I saw you in that form, I... Just don't do this again."
"Tis ok, tis ok." Luna hugs back. "We won't do that again, we promise. And... sorry for thy sleep."
"It is good to see you are ok."
"Tis not that bad, he can not hurt us because we are his queen, or somehow. And, do thou want to try his brushing? He is an expert at that."
"Save it for yourself. Don't you ever scear me like this again." Celestia threats.
"Ok. Thou are still so reliable." The dark princess says and nuzzles her sister. “And soft.”
Few days later in the morning in the royal library in the Canterlot castle. Celestia was wandering between the shelfs to find an old law book to see if she can find something useful to restrict these annoying nobles until she spots an unexpected figure sitting on a cushion reading a book. Never in her life has she seen a dark creature so quiet and... less aggresive. She was only holping her sister could effectively control this monster. Right, monster, Celestia thought he is a monster that Luna can barely control. Maybe later he will be a plague that would make Luna suffer. Celestia has expected what he would are practicing magic, fighting or sometimes causing trouble and swearing, but never this reading. Curiosity has been inspired and Celestia decides to have a look. "Sorry of my offence, but I assume your highness want to check my loyalty." The dark creature stands up and bows when Celestia is close. "That is the last thing you need to worry about. I was raised and taught by her highness herself since I was born and I will follow her until the very end." "I didn't expect this, but it is ok, you can continue your reading. I just want to have a look." "Yes, your highness." The dark creature sit down and resumes his reading. Knowing it is rude, Celestia can't help but carefully observe every inch of this 'Elaphos'.Never in her life has she have a chance to observe a dark creature so carefully. Unlike other dark creatures being furious or mad, 'handsome' is the first word she thinks to discribe this creature. Luna has mentioned that the body of him might be based on his self-awareness, that is, the phantom Luna made and adjusted for a thousand years during her banishment. Luna also mentioned she used dreams to contact the ground to keep up with the big events. So her taste is quite catched up with the latest fashion, the constant adjustments results as Elaphos. 'He would be a star and a groom in dream if he was not confined to this castle.' Celestia thinks to herself. 'And a perfect colttoy for royalty. He is like the male vision of Nightmare moon, with black-blue fur, reptile eyes and pure black short mane. The slit pupils are not that intimidating but they adds coquettishness to this blue-irises pony. The warm sun light reflects on his black-blue lusterous coat and makes his muscle texture distinct.' 'My sister do have a good taste in art, especially in pony body art.' Celestia's train of thought continues. 'And he was trained to be this 'reading book' type. I will have a painter to draw a picture of him. Tiltled like 'Reading Beauty', And the painting will be sold well.' Celestia keeps on secrutinizing Elaphos. Both of them are engulfed in weird silence until Celestia accidently has a glimpse of the book Elaphos is reading. The words on the page seems too weird for a normal book. "What's the name of the book you are reading?" Celestia asks, tries to ease her worry. "'Skills for imtimates', your highness." Elaphos stands up and answers politely. "How did you find it?" "The librarian, your highness. My princess taught me about the function of the library and where the help can be found in it." Elaphos states. "Why do you want to read about it? This is not a normal book that Luna want you to read, I assume." "Please don't question my loyalty. My princess has a lot to worry about but they will never includes my loyalty. I am just following her guidence, if you may ask." Celestia raises her brow on hearing this statement. "I don't want to inquire your loyalty, but she will never ask you to study that. I know her. What did she told you that make you read this book?" "Well, her highness taught me about gender one day ago. She told me that this thing is one of the best service that stallions can provide to mares. It is my duty to serve her highness, I serve her life. And now I have a body of my own, so I will be her shield and sword. If she meaned this is a good service I can provide, it is my honor to follow her guidence." Elaphos says firmly. "I am sure she didn't mean this, my sister will definately not let you do that kind of service." Celestia says, trying to fix this misunderstanding. "Thank you for your advice. But I will judge it myself and I will have it conformed with my princess." Elaphos states firmly. Celestia signs. It is not her first time that she was denied so directly. But realizing Elaphos' loyalty belongs to the pony other than herself makes Celestia feel weird because over a thousand years there was only one pony that ponies can swear their allegiance to. "Well, can you inform your princess that I want to discuss with her about something." "Sorry, my princess is trying to change her schedule to the day life for the investigation planned to study the modern life. She is sleeping now and I doubt that the suspension of her personal life is worth her sleep." "Fine, you win." Celestia trys to comfort herself because of the constant rejections but keeps her usual smile expression. Celestia then feels unease because Luna mentioned nothing about the investigation and it seems that she is no longer the closest pony to her sister. "But, I assume she kept up with the events on the ground using dream magic when she was on the moon so why is this invastigation necessary?" "Indeed, but she told me that it is best for her to feel how the society works by herself rather than see the retell in the dreams." Elaphos keeps using his solemn voice. "Her highness is not certain about this plan so she did not tell you, I think." 'She used to share everything with her dear sister, but now with this 'deer'.' Celestia thinks to herself and signs. 'Little sister grows up and becomes independent, what happens to my subjects now happens to me.' "Your highness?" Elaphos says, interrupts Celestia's train of thought. "You don't look well." "How do you... how do you know?" Celestia loses her standard smile. "You look the same as my princess when she wants to hide her sadness." "That makes sence. Sisters." "How can I help you?" Elaphos offers. "I'm fine, I can handle it myself." Silence falls as the end of this subject. Celestia fiddles a bit for the embarassment of being caught because this has not happened for a very long time. "Your highness?" Elaphos breaks the silence. "May I ask a question." "Say." Celestia quickly adjusts to her normal condition. "See if I can help." "I don't quite understand this book. Aside from these unexplainable emotions discribled in this book, how to make my 'shaft' out of me confuse me most, without which I can't move on to the following steps as it depicts. I may once saw the said object when I waked up after my sleep. But controlling it is harder than I expected the first time I finished this book..." "You have read this more than once?" Celestia cuts in. "Yes, my princess said the first book means a lot to each individual and this is technically the first book I read. Each word I can recognize but when combined together I can't read." Elaphos says while flips the book to a certain page and tries it to show Celestia . "I guess you can help me make my 'shaft' out. I don't want to disappoint my princess on my first book thing." "I'm afraid I don't know." Celestia decided to play innocent as she feels this won't end well if she do as asked. "You lies the same as my princess." Elaphos says after a glimpse of the sun princess. Celestia facehoofs, embarassed. "Fine, you find out. As for the question, it is best for your princess to teach you that." Elaphos looks disappointed and betrayed on hearing the answear. Celestia signs again and adds. "Asking your princess for help won't disappoint her." "I'm not worring about that but the time. I was hoping I can figure it out before she wakes up." Elaphos turns his book to another page and rubs the book. "Or maybe you can help me understand the emotions described in the book. Joy, pleasure, feeling of being cosseted, where are they come from?" "Well, that is better than the last question. Those emotions are generated between two ponies in love. When..." Celestia feels relieved and starts her lecture. "Love?" Elaphos quickly catch the word and his eyes loses their focus. He seems so touched that Celestia notices the anomaly and stops her speech. Elaphos mutters the word several times as if to taste its meaning. "Are you alright?" Celestia asks tentatively. "I'm fine, thank you for your concern, yoir highness." Elaphos shakes his head to regain focus. "Sorry for my absence, I feels something I never felt when I did not own this body. No big deal. Please continue, your highness."
Celestia eyes Luna chewing on some random food, and suddenly feels jealous that her sister could worry about nothing for a period of live before her duty is resumed. Celestia then shacks her head and feels the necessity to talk about Elaphos' unlikely mission assigned by her sister.
"What's your plan with Elaphos, your personal guard?" Celestia asks, hoping for a negative answer.
"En..." Luna swallows down her food and answers. "Maybe... Oh right, we are going to experience the current lives of our little ponies. You know, to make sure I will not thrill the ponies when I am preforming my duty in the dreams with my ancient ideas. After all, watching from the moon is far from enough. I need to know what they may like, well, the part differs from the old days..."
"No no, I mean, what?" Celestia is shocked by that her sister is leaving her again. "Well, we are going to talk about that later. I mean your personal relationship with Elaphos."
Luna's smiles a bantering smile. "You are not going to steal my royal toy, are you?"
"I am serious, please." Celestia appeals. "Did you tell him to read those books about pleasing mares. You will not be serious with him, will you?"
"No, I didn't ask him to do that. But about the second question." Luna's face darkens a bit and manages a bitter smile. "You know, I own him a lot. I had spoiled his mind for a thousand years and the impact continues so that he never feel hate or regret about what I did or what he did. So..."
"That doesn't mean that you have to repay him in this... physical way." Celestia interrupts. "Other methods are available. Like giving him a title or something. Or even nothing, like you said, he will not feel a thing."
"It is not about sexual or physical factors. And it is me who find it necessary." Luna says peacefully. "In fact, he is fairly a good choice. Firstly, he has been with me for a thousand years and he is obedient and handsome. Moreover, he is likely to become our dark magic trash can in the foreseeable future when we need extraction of dark magic so it is a good investment to chain him to our side. Unlike you, maybe you will sell yourself out one day to someone ugly and unfamiliar for a better future for our little ponies."
"I will not marry." Celestia counters.
"You don't marry because there is too convoluted to deal with the consort's relatives and the payback is not worthy. In short, the optimal choice or the forced choice is not presented yet." Celestia is rendered speechless and Luna continues. "On the contrary, Elaphos has no relative so no one will get in the way of political affairs. His loyalty can be guaranteed as well."
"But think of our nation. Our ponies will be scared the moment he is showed to the public." Celestia argues.
"Well, you are right. So he will not be titled as a prince or something."
"And your so called self-sacrifice will not be appreciated by him. He will regard this relationship only as his duty, rather than compensation." Celestia counters.
"I know he will." Luna sighs and rambles to the balcony of the dining hall. "But the guilty tortures me a lot. I have to do something. Maybe one day he will understand the actual meaning."
Celestia follows her sister to the balcony and watch the sun moving down across sky. “You have the final saying. But remember the disadvantages. I don’t feel good. It is not what love means.”
“Your love means that the two individuals meets each other accidently and love each other the first moment they see. Don’t you think that is too unrealistic. But thank you for your idea, I will give up when thing goes wrong.” Luna inhales the crispy cool air and relaxes. “You have rules this nation well without me.”
Celestia tenses up and rises her ears subconsciously for the upcoming words, fearing that her sister might feel jealous for her achievement and doubt the importance of herself.
“Relax.” Luna says and turns around to face her sister with a smile. “Equestria will be better when I am back.”
“You are back, Luna.” Celestia exhales and hugs her sister with both her fore legs. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Luna returns the hug and said. “It is a pleasure to have you as my sister.”
The hug continues for a while and then they separates.
“It feels good to have this sisters’ time.” Luna breaks the hug and heads for the door. “I need to change my schedule to fit for the upcoming social re-knowing. I may need a spell or two to force my sleep.”
“Wait, about that you can just read some books to know the world.” Celestia tries to keep her sister from going away.
“Do you really believe in what you just said?” Luna turns around, deadpanned. “Don’t be so protective, Celly. It is always a time that a fledging leaves her nest.”
Celestia falls into silence and after a while of staring she says. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Luna replies.
Luna leaves the dining hall and heads for her bedroom. The castle corridor is void as it is time for guard shift and maid resting. Luna suddenly turns her head and says to her wings. “Come out, Elaphos. Walk by my side.”
Luna’s wings oozes a mass of dark ethereal mist, with the texture of mercury, reflecting the diming light of sun.
“May I ask why you don’t regain your control over the moon.” Elaphos asks and the mist forms a general shape of a pony.
“Stop try to convince me to win power.” Luna reproves and then sighs. “I know you don’t mean it.” Luna pauses and continues. “Well, it is about politic. Unlike other places, the politic here means that we princesses need to convince our ponies there is nothing to worry about. If a former villain like me suddenly comes into power, they will be scared.”
“I understand.”
They walks for a while without a word and only clip-clop of the hooves can be heard. The guard shift is over and new guards are heading to less important guarding spots like the corridor Luna is walking.
On hearing the approaching hooves, Luna wraps a smile and decides to tease her personal guard before they are not alone. Using her tail to flip Elaphos’ hind leg, Luna says. “Why don’t we try your newly learned skills on pleasing me.”
Elaphos turn his head to face his princess, with stoic face, totally not affected by the flirting. “I didn’t mean to listen your conversation with your sister. But like what she has said. The compensation of my lost is not needed. It is my honor to serve you, in any condition.”
Luna sighs, feeling depressed. “Can’t you just pretend you are happy to mate with me?”
“I have thought about this plan, but I believe I am not sophisticated enough to fake a feeling. As a result, you may find out and feel worse if I do so.” Elaphos replies impassively.
“Thank you for your deliberation.” Luna huffs. “I am expecting too much.”
Elaphos eyes Luna for a while, contemplating something before saying. “There is a question I wanted to ask a long time ago.” Elaphos views Luna for permission and moves on after being approved. “Why are ponies enthusiastic in mating? I know it is necessary for reproduction. But why they look happy when they are having sex? Only because of the joy that it brings?”
“Well, you will not understand unless you have a try.” Luna lures in a seductive voice, with a teasing smile. “Come on, let’s have fun.”
“According to my recently learnt knowledge. I prefer not to do so. Considering the rights and obligations formed after this kind of experience and possible responsibility and impact of the next generation, it is not a good choice.”
“I will take that you fear the responsibility.” Luna huffs and darkens her expression.
“No, it is an unnecessary responsibility and do more harms than goods. Like your sister said, I am not suitable to be presented to the public, nor do our offspring. Rumors and defamation are foreseeable. If you really want an offspring, there are many other choices other than me.”
Feeling angry, Luna turns around to face her guard and hisses, with one of hooves jabbing his chest. “Thou are not supposed to...” But on seeing the stoic and serious face of Elaphos, Luna exhales and resumes her walk, depressed. Elaphos doesn’t know what has happened as he start purchasing his princess.
“I am sorry. But I don’t know why…”
“Shut up!”
After a short walk in silence, they finally reaches Luna’s room. “Serve my bath, Elaphos.” Luna finally says.
“Yes.”
After Luna finished her bath, she sits on her bed and contemplates what has happened today, hearing the bathing sound caused by Elaphos. She thinks it was a truly bad day.
The door of bathroom opens. Reveals Elaphos with water and bubbles flow down his body. “I want to apologize for what I have done…”
Luna chuckles for this funny scenery and interrupts. “I forgot you never bath yourself before.” Luna then casts a spell to clean up the remnant of the unsuccessful bath.
“I want to apologize…”
“I don’t want your apologize.” Luna interrupts again. “I understand this reason we have a lot a trouble today. Today it is your first time to witness my romantic side, which had been suppressed for a thousand years while we were on the moon. In this case you were not able to act properly.”
Luna’s horn lights up and throws Elaphos on her bed, let him face upward. “But it is your fault to spoil my good mood today.”
Luna then straddles on the crotch of Elaphos and lift his chin with her hoof. “I have enough of sighs today. The responsibility lays on you to make your queen happy. You are mine tonight.” Luna then thinks of something. Swirling her eyes, she adds. “It is an order.”
The next day, in the dining hall.
Celestia is having her breakfast and the door is pushed open. Reveals a tired night princess.
“I assume you have a enjoying night, my sister.” Celestia says, unhappy about what might happened. Luna then gives her sister a glimpse with grudge. But Celestia knows that the grudge is not for her.
“What happened?” Celestia asks and she waves all waiters and guards away. “It is unlikely he has no sexual function.”
“You are not far from the truth.” Luna replies and plumps on the chair. “No matter how I lure him, he is not aroused enough to perform the next procedure. Maybe he has no that function.”
“Maybe he can’t just mentally relate your action with right stimulation to cause physical response. And yes, he has.” Celestia hides her chuckle but fails. “He has morning wood as he told me.”
“How dare he told you that kind of thing? Wait, morning wood, like now?” Luna is surprised. “I need to have a check.”
Luna then rushes out of the hall and shakes her wings, making some dark drops of mist splash on the floor.