Meetings
Even though Nightmare was so happy, and content to just sit there in her mistresses' embrace, all good things must come to an end. "Twilight?" She started in a voice still unfamiliar to her. "While this has been nice, I think it might be a good idea to get back to Ponyville before our friends go mental trying to find us." Twilight seemed a little reluctant to release the embrace still, even though she gave of a grunt of acknowledgement. "Unless you want to stay here for other things. Though, that might seem odd given our current predicament and location. I'm not one to complain though, my body is pretty hot after all."
Twilight squeaked and immediately released the embrace and jumped back as though Nightmare's body was on fire, which, considering what Nightmare had just said, might be comparable to her own cheeks. "Nightmare! How could you even suggest something like that in a time like this?" Though, she seemed to deflate at Nightmare's reaction, which was rolling on the forest floor while laughing uncontrollably. "Ah, yes... I guess I can't expect even body switching to stop a perverted goddesses' teasing."
After a little bit more idle banter they continued down the forest path, and finally reached Ponyville, only to see the start of the path populated by the majority of Ponyville's population. With With the Element Bearers, and Princess Luna leading the charge. Upon sight of who she thought was Twilight, Luna tackled her to the ground in a hug Pinkie would've been proud of. "Twilight! We are so glad that thou art okay! We were worried that thou haste to find Diana had gotten thou in trouble! It is a relief indeed to find that nothing bad has happened." And without thinking, Luna planted a kiss upon the other mare's lips. And all the mare who seemed like Diana could do was stare in a mix of disbelief and jealousy. That was supposed to be her Thank goodness, you're alive kiss! Though, the kiss was short-lived, as Luna realized what she had done, and immediately pulled away, blushing somehow stronger than the rest of Ponyville that had witnessed the surprise. The mare that seemed to be Twilight was opening and closing her mouth in complete disbelief, and what seemed to be horror.
Twilight quickly looked to Diana, an apologetic look on her face, and maybe a little fear as well, Nightmare could only hope her mistress would not act brashly to the show of attention. Luckily, while all three of the mare's up front were stunned, the Element Bearers were able to get the rest of the townsfolk to leave, since they were no longer needed. "Alright everypony! Let's get out o' here!" Applejack declared to the rest of the group. The princess, the cousin, and the mistress, all too happy to oblige.
Twilight gave Nightmare a mental prodding to convince their friends to leave, which she did, by promising her friends that they would be told why it took so long to get out of the forest tomorrow, and that she was just too tired to tell the story tonight. The mare's finally left after the third promise that they would hear the story tomorrow, and all went to their own homes. Twilight, Luna, and Diana all left to the Golden Oaks Library to get some rest. When they opened the door, Spike was on Twilight in an instant. "In just this week, you've gotten yourself into three situations where I don't know if you're okay or not! Stop making me worry so much Twilight!" Spike exclaimed, hoping to get the message across that her reckless behavior was starting to make him go insane.
"Alright Spike," Twilight dragged out. "I'll try to keep the rest of these situations to a minimum next week. You don't know how hard it's been for me too! But right now you can't worry about that because I need you to go to bed. There's something I need to talk with Luna and Diana about in private, alright."
"Okay, Twilight, just make sure to give me some warning before you go disappear again, alright?"
"I will Spike, I will." And with that Spike left upstairs, knowing that as always, silence was golden. Nightmare turned around to see what the other mare's were doing, and it seemed as though Twilight was trying to be as silent as possible, not knowing how to act as Diana. And Luna was trying her hardest not to blurt out questions she had for the two mare's. "Alright Luna, Diana, let's start." She said as she put out some cushions. She also gave Twilight a mental prod to finally tell Luna the truth about her own identity, since it probably wouldn't end with copious amounts of freaking out. Twilight, while reluctant agreed. "First on the list, Diana's true identity. She is not my long lost cousin, even though she has been lost, and without friends for awhile. To which she is very grateful to me for giving her this chance."
Luna did not seem shocked that Diana was not Twilight's cousin, but did seem thoroughly intrigued. "Yes, that's right Luna, as I'm sure you've already guessed, I am not truly who you've come to know as Diana Dreamscape, though if I had to guess, you are still unaware to my true identity." Luna could only nod in response, still speculating where the mare could have come from. "Well, the truth is, I'm Nightmare Moon given a physical form by zebra and unicorn magic, which I myself do not yet fully understand." Luna could only stare in shock, if Diana was Nightmare Moon, then there could only be one reason why she was here! "And, as I'm sure you've already inferred from the revelation, I came to Twilight, when she wished for somepony to love. And she has been my first master or mistress since I was cursed to carry out the wishes of others in exchange for the feeling of life to seek my friendship, instead of will my power to grant their wish." Twilight smiled at that, a fond memory for her indeed. "And now that I've told you that, there's something Twilight would like to tell you as well, isn't there?"
"Ah yes, I suppose I should do that..." Nightmare said reluctantly, not wanting to give up the information of her and Twilight's soul swap, due to the circumstances surrounding it. "When Diana ran away into the forest and I followed her to make sure she was safe, I scolded her since the necklace I wore was the only thing giving Nightmare a physical body, and by extension, letting her stay with us, and I did not know the range to it, worrying that it might stop giving Nightmare the magic she needed to stay physical, and pretty much alive. Once I found her, I told her that she stop acting like her life didn't mean anything to me, and that even though I had known the true Nightmare Moon, instead of the act given off from before, for only a few days, I would miss her if she was gone. Quickly we left to try and get back to Ponyville, but we became lost, and soon we ended up being chased by the very same chimera I had to run from a couple days ago. We tried to escape, but the chimera knew the forest much better than either of us, and soon had us trapped. I summoned a shield in hopes that it would stop the chimera, but we both knew it would not last long under the constant assault the four heads put us through. Nightmare tried several things to try and unleash all of her power, knowing that it would be the only way we would walk away alive, and after my shield broke, tried something desperately. She kissed me, and combined our souls so that she would have the power to stop the beast. Quickly she was able to defeat and vanquish the chimera, and soon, we both were unconscious. When next we woke, Nightmare was in my body, and I was in hers. So Luna, the mare sitting next to you is Twilight, and the mare who just told you that story is Nightmare Moon." Nightmare said as she gestured to each mare in turn. Luna could only keep up her shocked stare.
"So let me get this straight," Luna started. "Twilight wished for somepony to love, and Nightmare Moon came to help grant that wish. This ultimately ended up coming to me. And Nightmare Moon, after talking to me this morning left to the forest to help herself think about things. Twilight was able to find her due to her magical connection with her, and they got lost. After wandering for awhile they came across the chimera I had to save Twilight from a couple days ago. To fend off the creature, you two merged souls to allow Nightmare full access to her power. When next you both woke, you had been soul swapped. And upon finding out that you were both okay, I kissed Nightmare Moon?!"
"That pretty much sums it up." Nightmare said.
Luna, in response to this answer, finally gave in to unconsciousness, not able to take in all the information at once. "Look what you did Nightmare! You broke her!"
"Ah yes, it seems I did... Well, I'd take her up to her bed and watch over her until she wakes, then make sure she remembers what she's been told. After that, if she doesn't faint again, I'd answer any of the questions she has."
"Alright, that seems like a good plan, I will do that. But first, something you said made me curious, where did my necklace go?"
"Isn't it obvious? You're still wearing it."
Twilight looked down, not wanting to believe it was true, but it was. Right there slightly higher up on her chest due to her new height, was the necklace Zecora had gifted her to give Nightmare a physical form. She would have shrieked, knowing the implications of what the necklace being there meant, if it weren't for Nightmare's lips upon her own. And then she was confused, and quickly pulled away. "What are you doing!?"
"Well, I sensed you're surprise and desire to scream after you saw the necklace where it was, and the implications therein. And not good at thinking under pressure, did the first thing to stop from screaming that came to mind."
"But why am I not allowed to scream?"
"Two reasons really. One, I don't want Spike to think something's wrong and come down to see poor Luna unconscious. And two, I don't want risk waking up Luna to you screaming, that could make things awkward if she remembers things and wakes up to you screaming."
"Oh... I guess that makes sense. You still could have covered my mouth with a hoof or something!"
"Yes well, you do remember me telling you that my body is hot right?"
"Nightmare! Ugh, you are just so impossible sometimes! Why can't you ever take things seriously?"
"C'mon don't tell me you didn't enjoy that kiss at least a little bit."
"No! I did not enjoy that kiss. Though, maybe if my soul was where it is supposed to be, and yours was too, I would have." Twilight mumbled under her breath. And was fine with it being that way, until she looked back at Nightmare to find her grinning wider than a cat with a canary. "Why do I always forget that you can read into my mind!?" Nightmare said nothing, just allowing her grin to somehow grow to Pinkie Pie levels of impossible. "I'm not staying down here anymore." And without another word Twilight whisked herself and Luna up to the latter's room with a simple teleport.
"Well, that was fun."
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Twilight only had to wait a few hours, and then Luna finally awoke. Twilight waited a moment for Luna to realize her presence in the room then she said something. "Welcome back to the land of the living Luna! You had quite the fainting spell a couple hours ago, do you remember why you fainted?" Luna could only nod in response, remembering everything from a few hours ago. And knowing that the mare in front her who seemed like Diana was actually Twilight. "Well, I'm here to answer any questions you have still have after what we told you."
In response Luna darted up and kissed Twilight. And unlike before, though she was surprised, Twilight found herself pushing back. After what seemed like forever, Luna finally pulled back, a dopey smile on her face. "What was that for?" Twilight asked, after realizing the implications of that question, tried to save herself. "Not that that was bad or anything! I just wanted to know why you did it."
Luna chuckled, knowing that was what she meant the entire time. "Well, there's three reasons to that. One, I wanted to see how you actually kissed Twilight, not Nightmare. Two ties into the last one, and it was meant as an apology, for accidentally kissing Nightmare when I was going for you. And three, is mostly just a joke, Nightmare's physical form is hot. Though, before you fall over, since I'm sure Nightmare has teased you about that before, I much prefer yours."
After hearing that last sentence, instead of losing herself to unconsciousness like she planned. She surprised both herself and Luna, by darting forward and drawing Luna into a long kiss. When finally Twilight pulled away, they were both panting from keeping up the kiss as long as they did. Both also had extremely sly smiles on their face. And their eyes were glazed over as though they were no longer thinking on this plane of existence. Finally, it seemed as though with a simple blink Twilight recovered. And with what seemed like magic, so did Luna. "Alright, as much as I would love to do that all night, I'm sure have questions as to all this happened."
"Ah yes, well, that does tend to happen when the two mares you're closest to reveal that one of them is the mare that helped you try to take over Equestria 1,000 years ago, and is now trying to help the other mare with a problem, in a situation not dissimilar to mine 1,000 years ago. Then after telling you that, they tell you that after defeating a chimera they wake up to find themselves soul swapped. Then, by extension they don't tell you how long this soul swap might last, leading you to believe that they have no idea how long it will last."
"Well... When you put it like that, it sounds like something awful and terrible has happened..."
"Ah, you've mistaken me, only the latter issue is something I have a problem with, for it means that until your souls return to their original positions, things are going to be a little awkward. Now, the former issue I don't have much problem with, Nightmare's quest did lead you to me after all, and I'm not complaining. But to put it bluntly, it's going to be a bitch to explain to our friends."
"Yes well, it seems you've already figured everything out yourself, and, I'm a little tired. While that itself probably isn't an issue, I also am probably not going to be able to go to my own bed since Nightmare has probably already stolen it, in order to get me to do what I'm planning on doing now."
"And what might that be Twilight?"
Twilight did not respond, instead she used her magic to lift Luna up off the bed. Then she got on top of the bed herself, once she got herself situated, she lowered Luna onto the bed beside her. And once Luna was on the bed she lowered the bedding down on top of them, and wrapped her fore hooves around Luna's midsection. "Goodnight Luna," she mumbled out.
Luna didn't really have a response to this recent development, and instead of giving a response to Twilight's hostile takeover of her bed, just smiled and gave Twilight her own wishes for a good night.
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Finally early in the afternoon, Twilight awoke. What? Don't judge her, she had had a long day, what with the chimera and soul swapping and all. When she awoke, she was disappointed to find that Luna had already departed, leaving her to sleep. Twilight quickly got started on her morning routine, dropping her brush in the bathroom due to her forgetting that she had a body not her own. At least he hadn't remembered that during her shower, that would've been awkward. And... Now it was. Twilight quickly raced downstairs after finishing her mane styling, in hopes she would forget what she had just done in Nightmare's form. Upon reaching the bottom she found Luna and Nightmare sitting at the kitchen table while Spike made lunch.
"Ah, Twilight! Good to see you finally awake, we though you might never tire of rest." Luna greeted when Twilight walked through the doorway.
"Yes, a good thing indeed, after that realization you had in the mirror, I thought you might never show your face down here again!" Nightmare said, trying to gain some ground on the teasing war the two had.
"That's what you'd think Nightmare, except maybe I enjoyed my shower more than I usually do." Twilight responded automatically, without thinking.
Both Nightmare and Luna blushed, and after realizing what she had just said, Twilight did too. "I really have corrupted you too much mistress. Truly the teasee has become the teaser."
Twilight recovered quickly, realizing Nightmare had said something to her. "Well, you would have too if you had a perverted dream goddess living in your mind."
"Probably true mistress, probably true."
Finally, Luna recovered from the comment that had less than hidden motives to it's intent. "Yes well, you two should probably stop teasing each other before you give poor Spike mental scars forever."
Twilight's eyes widened in surprise, having forgotten the baby dragon was even in the room with them. She was about to express her panic when Luna spoke up. "Don't worry Twilight, we caught Spike up to date on the true identity of Diana, and your body switch the very same mare. Twilight looked to Spike for confirmation, and he just nodded his head to express that he had indeed been given the information. Twilight instead of responding, decided to just sit down and have some food. Soon, Twilight was able to finish her meal in silence, and then there was a knock on the door.
"Twilight, we know you're in there! Time to tell us what happened in the forest last night!"
Twilight groaned. This was not how she wanted to spend today, even though she knew that she was going to have to anyway. "Alright Nightmare, go answer the door and get things prepped for us, Luna and I will be in, in a moment." Nightmare, resigned to her fate due to the body she now was resident of, gave no protest and just left to get things ready.
"Alright Luna, here's how we need to do things. Once Nightmare gets our friends ready, we need to walk in. You need to start off the conversation by telling them in however you choose, that Nightmare Moon isn't actually evil. Then Nightmare and I will explain our connection. After we've done that, the three of us will all give information as to how I'm Twilight, and the mare in my body is not. Sound like a plan?" Luna only nodded, not seeing much issue with this. "Did you get that Nightmare?" Though she could not see Nightmare she still got an affirmative response from the mare in the other room. "Alright then, let's get this party started.
And so, exactly like they talked about how they would, they told the whole story.
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"That went about as well as could be expected." Nightmare said in a mental prod to Twilight.
"Yeah... I guess I shouldn't have expected them to take it any better than they are now."
Currently Rarity was asleep on a conveniently placed fainting couch. Fluttershy, not so lucky was on the floor, also asleep. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were just staring forward in complete shock, not sure how to respond to the three revelations they had just received. And Pinkie was... Well, Pinkie was being Pinkie, probably. She had disappeared as soon as she had gotten the whole story, with only the promise of a party for Twilight and Nightmare. As well as a conjoining party for Luna and Twilight's relationship.
Finally, Applejack, the down-to-Earth mare that she is, recovered first. "Now let me get this straight! Twilight here, isn't actually Twilight?" She said gesturing to Nightmare. The three mares across from the Element Bearers could only nod in response. "But not only that! The mare we thought was Diana Dreamscape, and Twilight's cousin, is actually Nightmare Moon?" Applejack asked, only receiving the same response. "And in addition! Nightmare Moon who we all thought was evil, isn't! And to add on to that is also helping Twilight with her wish to find love?" Again, Applejack received three affirmative nods. "But that's not all! After finding Nightmare in the forest yesterday, you two got lost, and ran into a chimera. After fending it off by combining souls to give Nightmare her full power. When next her and Twilight woke, they had had their souls swapped, so Twilight is in Nightmare's new physical form, and Nightmare is in Twilight's body!?" This time she received an actual response.
"That pretty much sums up the last week Applejack." Twilight said, finally give Applejack a little closure. Applejack, even being the strong mare that she is, promptly fainted, not able to take any more of the information she had just been given. And, suspiciously her hat somehow floated down perfectly to land on top of her face, covering it.
After each of their friends had recovered, they all had similar reactions, though nopony else's ending in a fainting spell, besides Rarity's overly dramatic one that didn't actually have her fainting. Rainbow Dash had zoomed out the window for a flight, claiming she needed some time to think. Fluttershy, after waking up, had more calmly than the other three asked the same questions, and had then left, saying she had to take care of her animals, but would be at the party tomorrow. Rarity, had also left, instead claiming she had a lot of inspiration from soul swapping, and princess romances, that she needed to put to sewing. Finally, Applejack had left, claiming she needed to catch up on her chores since, she had been gone since that afternoon, it being night time now. Though, like Fluttershy, all four had claimed that they would be at the inevitable Pinkie Party tomorrow.
Twilight sighed, glad that everything was finally over, not including tomorrow. And turned in, Luna quickly following after. Nightmare, deciding to leave the two alone, took the guest room and went to bed shortly after them. And finally Spike went to his new bed in the new placement in the living room. All hoping that tomorrow would not be too crazy.