Chapter 1: I Called Upon the Moon for a Little Consultation

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"No. But I have to do it anyway. You’ve gone over all the spells and helped me triple-check everything. We did a dry run earlier, and that went fine. I’ll be okay!"

"I still feel like I should be the one doing this. It’s my fault in the first place!"

"I don’t agree. Besides, even if it were your fault, as your teacher, it’s my responsibility."

"Ugh, you haven’t been my teacher for years. Just…come home safe, okay?"

For Want of a Horseshoe

I Called Upon the Moon for a Little Consultation

Queen Nightmare Moon stalked toward her chambers, in a black mood. This week had been an exercise in misery—nothing had gone right, starting with allowing that miserable fledgling alicorn to escape from her grasp, and ending with tonight’s latest indignity. Another assassination attempt! She had held the throne of Equestria for years now, and there hadn’t been a serious attempt on her life in a full year. If anything, that was what rankled the most: tonight’s "attempt" was hardly worthy of the name. A single unicorn had somehow snuck by her guards, and successfully held her at hornpoint. She had been too astounded to react. Surely, no unicorn was foolish enough to think that their magic alone was enough to harm her, let alone threaten her life? There had been a split second of fear, thinking that perhaps she had missed some trump card.

But no, the unicorn had succeeded in doing nothing more than leaving a blast mark on her helmet and wasting her time. He was in the dungeons now, and would be summarily executed tomorrow, unless he managed a truly sterling defense.

So, she stomped onward to her bed, ready to be done with this night. Thankfully, her servants and guards were canny enough to read her mood and her path forward was deserted and quiet. She rounded a corner and found herself surrounded by stars. She paused for a moment, and closed her eyes, before letting out a long, slow breath. She was in a hall lined with enormous arched windows. The hall’s location at the topmost floor of the castle gave it an unparalleled view of the night sky, including her moon. It was the only way to reach her chambers, and it was on nights like these that she was very glad she had remodeled her tower to include the new hall. She opened her eyes, and simply allowed herself to be for a long moment. She took in another long breath and allowed her eyes to roam aimlessly over the sparkling motes in the silent void of her night, before settling on her moon again. She eyed the tricolor streaks discoloring it, and the darkened spots that appeared to form the shape of a unicorn’s head…or an alicorn’s.

Out.

And in.

And out again.

Feeling much calmer, she resumed her journey at a more sedate pace.

Perhaps no execution for the fool, she thought. Maybe a stay in the dungeons. A fool he may be, but he did best my guards. There could be something of value there.

She opened her door, deep in thought. Although that does beg the question of how he made it past the guards at all. I’ll have to have words with those on duty—

Celestia was in her bed.

Her heart stopped cold before immediately resuming at the frantic pace of a hummingbird’s, pounding painfully. It was impossible. She was sealed hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, at the heart of Nightmare’s power, warded with every charm, binding and enchantment known to Nightmare, and surrounded with magical alarms, physical alarms, and even bells on strings for cosmos’ sake.

She reflexively cast her mind away, checking the state of the wards and alarms. Nothing had triggered her senses. There were no klaxons blaring anywhere in the castle. All the emergency lighting was quiescent. Every single alert spell was responding and reported that it was in good health. She cast her telekinetic sense deeper and ran a sliver of magic against each of the trip wires and alarm strings. All intact, and still taut. She could even hear a faint jingling from the alarm bell in her bedchamber as its magically-linked twin on the moon was jostled. Simultaneously, she erected every magical barrier she knew how to cast, wrenched her door from its hinges and placed it between herself and the intruder. The barrier spells were so thick that their overlap was causing errant sparks where they rubbed up against one another. The density of spells caused a wavy, multicolored heat-haze to fill the air between herself and the intruder.

All this took place in the space of two seconds.

Another two seconds passed, with nothing but the sound of fragments of the door frame gently falling to the floor, and the popping of her shield spells to fill it.

"Celestia is right where you left her," came a soft voice from the alicorn atop her bed.

It took Nightmare Moon another full two seconds before the words sank in. She checked the seals on her sister’s prison again, just to reassure herself. Everything was still intact. She took a moment to gather her thoughts before taking a second look at the intruder.

She lay on Nightmare Moon’s bed with forehooves underneath her, facing away from the doorway, out the large window to the right of the bed. Her posture was perfect, the lines of her neck forming a gentle curve. A long, pointed horn emerged from her forehead, and a pair of wings rested against her sides. A sparkling, ethereal mane billowed out from her head, gently wafting in the aetheric wind, with a tail to match. There were only two ponies in existence that could even conceivably match such a description. Nightmare was one of them, and the other, her sister.

This was not her sister.

Though difficult to see through the haze of shield spells, it was plain that this alicorn’s coat was entirely the wrong color. Celestia’s virgin-white could never be mistaken for the intruder’s darker color. While the exact shade was obscured by darkness and Nightmare’s protective spells, it was something at the cooler end of the spectrum. And while the intruder may have shared the ever-flowing mane and tail with Celestia (and indeed, Nightmare herself), the colors were all wrong. Instead of an early morning dawn, they were those of the day coming to rest: a deep golden-orange at the edges, shading gently to a large field of darkest blue, with a single streak of brilliant violet in the middle. The intruder was also smaller than Celestia. She seemed to be the same size as Nightmare’s own weaker self. For a moment, Nightmare considered the possibility that it might be Cadenza, but the mane color was all wrong, and the attitude didn’t match what she knew of the jumped-up pegasus.

Thoroughly off-balance, Nightmare slipped into what was natural when threatened. Anger.

"What is the meaning of this?" She hissed. "I could disintegrate you in an instant, worm!"

And then, before Nightmare could continue, the intruder’s horn glowed gently, and every single one of Nightmare’s protective spells vanished. They weren’t smashed, or destroyed or anything so vulgar—instead, it felt as though her connection to them had been neatly severed. Without a power source, each one vanished without any further fuss.

Nightmare’s openmouthed gape was punctuated with the sound of her bedroom door—now bereft of supporting telekinesis—clattering to the floor.

"I was hoping we could just talk. Would you join me, please?" the intruder asked—asked! As though she hadn’t just effortlessly dismantled Nightmare!—politely. "It’ll only be for a few minutes, and then I’ll go. If you’d like, I can just leave without disturbing you any further. I really would appreciate some of your time though."

Instantly suspicious, Nightmare scoffed. "You must think me a fool."

The other alicorn slowly levitated a small, silver ring over to Nightmare. "If it would make you more comfortable," she said, "You can use this on me. You’re welcome to inspect it."

Nightmare tilted her head in confusion for a moment, cautiously taking the ring into her own telekinetic field. As she slowly moved it toward her face for closer inspection, her eyes widened. Its purpose was abundantly clear—it was a magic suppression ring, meant to encircle a horn. She has never seen one so deeply-inscribed with runes of warding, however. This wasn’t some cheap potmetal ring that the guards used to bring in unruly unicorns. This was finely-detailed custom work, designed to suppress the magic of an immensely powerful creature, and produced with great care.

Nightmare paused for a long moment, continuing to inspect the ring. "This is a magic suppression ring," she ventured. At the intruder’s nod, she continued, "You would permit this to be used on you?"

The other alicorn nodded again. "If it would make you more comfortable, yes." She turned toward Nightmare, and inclined her head slightly, silhouetting her horn against the night sky. "You’re welcome to put it on if you’d like."

Nightmare’s heart was still hammering a drumbeat against her ribcage. In a small, hysterical part of her mind, she was surprised that the other mare hadn’t heard it yet. She inspected the ring for a moment longer, before running a battery of scrying and inspection spells on it. Those few spells that weren’t nullified by the anti-magic enchantments and runes reported exactly what she would expect from a completely ordinary—albeit absurdly powerful—magic suppression ring. She took a deep breath. She could delay no further. The intruder had effectively put her into a corner. If she refused to use the thing, she left herself vulnerable to a being that had, moments ago, effortlessly deconstructed every single one of her defenses. However, if she did use the ring, then she would be admitting, both to the intruder and to herself, that she felt threatened enough to need the extra protection. That she was weak.

Still. There was pride, and there was foolishness. With no further fanfare, she slid the ring home onto the intruder’s horn. As she did, there was a quiet roaring in her ears, as though they had been blocked, and were suddenly cleared. Simultaneously, she felt a prickling all along her coat, and the small hairs along the base of her skull stood up. She repressed a shiver and took a second look at the intruder.

The intruder’s mane and tail now hung limp, deafened to the invisible flow of magic suffusing the air. They lost none of their radiance however, and the intruder retained both their horn and wings. That ruled out the possibility of illusion magic. A combination of practical disguises was still a possibility—a talented enough artisan could certainly craft believable-looking wings, and with enough care (and dye), one could conceivably achieve such a mane and tail. It would, however, be next to impossible to fake the effects of muting the intruder’s magic. There had been a true and palpable hush in the aether when the ring had slipped over her horn. The conclusion seemed inescapable—this intruder, despite all sense, was a fourth, heretofore unknown, fully-grown alicorn.

Nightmare wasted no time, and rushed the intruder, seized her telekinetically, dragged her across the room, and thrust her up against the wall next to the door. "Who are you?" She growled.

The intruder winced at the rough treatment, before favoring Nightmare with a sunny smile. "Hello! My name is Twilight Sparkle. It’s nice to see you again, Luna."

Chapter 2: You Know That I'm Unhappy But Something In Me's Burning

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"We've accounted for planetary drift?"

"Yup! To within one times ten to the negative eleven AU. Worst-case scenario, you’ll end up somewhere in the troposphere, but eh, you have wings."

"What if I end up inside the planet?"

"Come on, don't you remember when we did all that research into teleportation spells? Most of them have a built in repulsory coefficient that prevents that. This is basically a modified teleport. With all the power we're putting into it, even if you aim this perfectly, you’ll probably end up a few meters off the ground."

"Right. Of course! Right. Chronological components?"

"Star and Star finished reviewing it. It checks out, and we confirmed that it’ll definitely split and parallelize correctly last night. Hm…though actually, you are forgetting something."

"I am? What?!"

"Snacks!"

"Snacks? Snacks?! I'm not going to need snacks when I'm dimensional time-traveling!"

"Pfff, you say that now. I always keep a little stash of gems whenever I have to go on a long flight. Nothing better than a midflight pick-me-up!"

"Fine, I’ll take, um…here, a daisy sandwich. Okay. Okay, what else?"

"Oh, come on, Twilight! You've been fretting all day, you're just stalling now. Just do it already!"

For Want of a Horseshoe

You Know That I'm Unhappy But Something In Me's Burning

Luna.

She hadn’t heard that name in years. And even then, she'd only ever heard it from one pony, the only living being who still knew it. Before that, she hadn’t heard it in a millennium. There was a strange alicorn in her room, and she knew Nightmare’s true—Nightmare’s old name.

She was a threat.

Nightmare formed a sizzling blade of magic and pressed it against the intruder’s throat. She forced the intruder onto the floor with her telekinesis, and into a supine position. Nightmare stepped forward and leaned down until she was muzzle-to-muzzle with the intruder.

"You have my attention. You might not live to regret it. Consider your next words very. Carefully," Nightmare breathed.

And the intruder did just that. Her brow furrowed, and her eyes darted upward to stare at the ceiling as she narrowed them and began muttering to herself under her breath. That was not quite the reaction Nightmare had expected. Finally, the intruder closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. She locked gazes with Nightmare and began.

"One week ago, you met a young alicorn who claimed to come from an alternate timeline. One in which she and her friends defeated you with the Elements of Harmony. When you attempted to force her to reveal the secret of time travel to you, she escaped," the intruder began.

Nightmare growled and pressed the blade harder against the intruder’s neck. There was a quiet sizzling sound, and the acrid scent of burnt fur filled her nostrils. "You are trying my patience. I know all this. Get. To the point."

The intruder smiled sadly. "That young alicorn went back into the past, defeated the villain, saved the day, and restored the timeline. And she went on with her life, thinking she'd made everything right. She went on to have many adventures, make many friends, right many wrongs, and fill in really obscene amounts of paperwork. Then, a month ago, she discovered that those alternate presents that she’d experienced all those years ago had never disappeared. All those terrible things she'd seen still existed, all that suffering was still happening. So…she gathered her friends, did some research—okay, a lot of research—and came up with a plan. All of this was her responsibility, so she had to find a way to make it right.

"And now…here I am," she finished, and lowered her gaze.

Nightmare stared down at the intruder—at Twilight Sparkle—and found that her chest was heaving as though she’d just run a race. She extinguished her blade, and withdrew.

"Stand," she commanded.

Twilight Sparkle looked up at her and frowned. She rolled to her hooves and stood. Nightmare noted with satisfaction that her earlier estimation had been correct. This Twilight Sparkle was as tall as Nightmare’s own weaker form.

"Explain. You have clearly seen many years since your previous visit, while I have experienced scarcely a week," Nightmare said.

Twilight Sparkle’s expression immediately brightened "Oh! That’s actually very interesting! You see, the chrono-distortion effect of the original spell actually had a weakening effect on the local timespace’s weave, which is how we found out about it in the first place!" She began pacing back and forth, growing more animated. "It was pretty lucky actually, we were conducting some completely unrelated experiments, but started getting interference we couldn’t explain, but then we expanded our probing spells to find the source, and oh, what a surprise but we found an entirely separate universe somehow entangled with ours! And then we—" She froze and cut herself off with an undignified squeak, having finally spotted Nightmare’s growing glower. "Um, long story short, we couldn’t interact with your universe except around the original point of intersection. Which was when I came here the first time. Some time around my original appearance was the only time it was possible for me to come back!" She said, finishing all in a rush.

Nightmare blinked once at this, then turned away. She walked slowly to the window, which overlooked the rear of the castle, and granted an uninhibited view of her moon, and a wide swath of untamed Everfree.

There was a long, tense silence while Nightmare contemplated what she'd heard.

"Why come back at all?" She asked, at length. "Your world is restored. You had no reason to fear reprisal from me. If I am such a 'terrible thing', why not simply eradicate me? You’ve made it quite clear that you possess sufficient power," she spat darkly.

From behind Nightmare came the sound of hooves shuffling uncomfortably. "That’s…not an easy question to answer," Twilight Sparkle said.

"Try," Nightmare growled.

"Have you…" Twilight Sparkle said, then paused. "I’m going to give you several names. If you tell me what you know about them, I’ll be able to answer your question."

This mare was beginning to try her patience. Nightmare sighed and reminded herself that so far this had cost her nothing. "Very well, ask."

"Okay. Discord."

Nightmare rolled her eyes. "Spirit of Chaos. Imprisoned in stone. An overconfident fool."

From behind Nightmare came the sound of a quill scratching on paper. She looked back and saw Twilight Sparkle writing something onto a paper resting on Nightmare’s desk and mumbling something around the quill held in her mouth. Nightmare was taken aback for a moment; most magic users she’d met could barely scribble by mouth, much less take detailed notes.

Twilight Sparkle spat the quill back out. "Blegh. Need to clean that saddlebag," she muttered to herself. "Okay! Next: Chrysalis?"

"I have never heard the name before," Nightmare said, turning to face Twilight Sparkle completely, beginning to grow curious in spite of herself.

The purple alicorn’s eyes widened in surprise before she resumed her earlier note-taking, now with more vigor. "That’s interesting," she muttered around the quill. "Ooooh-kay," she said, after finishing writing once more. "King Sombra?"

This time, Nightmare was the one to show surprise. "Vanished over a thousand years ago, in a fit of childish pique. Took his ill-gotten kingdom with him."

More scribbling. "Tirek?"

"A power-mad idiot with no imagination. Imprisoned in Tartarus for crimes against the crown."

Scribbling. "Starlight Glimmer?"

"Was that not unicorn who twisted your timeline in the first place?"

"Yes," Twilight Sparkle said, "Do you know her in your universe?"

Nightmare frowned. "No." Perhaps that is an oversight, she thought to herself. She spent a moment considering, before she sighed. "Does this have a point, or shall I simply throw you in the dungeons to save time?"

Twilight Sparkle finished writing, and tucked her notes and quill away into a saddlebag leaning against the wall that Nightmare hadn’t noticed earlier. She stood straight and faced Nightmare, staring directly into her eyes, and flared her wings. "Every one of those names had, at this point in my own timeline, represented a serious existential threat to Equestria. Every one of them was defeated, either at the hooves of myself and my friends, or with our direct intervention. Here, in your timeline, every single one of them is still extant, still a sword hanging over your neck." She stepped closer, still staring Nightmare in the eye. "If Discord broke free tomorrow, do you think you could stop him? If Tirek escaped? If Sombra reappeared with the entire Crystal Empire at his beck and call?"

Nightmare jerked away from the approaching alicorn, a sneer on her face. "I would strike them down, like I struck down my sister! The unconquered sun, indeed," she spat.

Twilight Sparkle pressed forward. "Your sister, who loves you? Your sister, who faithfully tended to your moon for a millennium? Your sister, who spent every single day of a thousand years missing you?"

A surge of hot anger blazed through Nightmare. "Oh, indeed!" She roared, darting forward until she was muzzle-to-muzzle with the other alicorn, horn crackling. "My sister who exiled me for those thousand years! Who endured a millennium of effusive love and praise! How miserable for her!"

Twilight Sparkle narrowed her eyes. "Your sister, who refused to fight you," she whispered.

Nightmare screamed, and a concussive wave of unfocused magic blasted Twilight Sparkle back into the wall next to the door. Nightmare moved to stand over Twilight Sparkle, horn blazing, fury etched into every line of her face. "I defeated her because she was weak!" She shrieked.

Twilight Sparkle couldn’t meet Nightmare’s gaze. She looked away, and whispered, "She didn’t even attack you, did she? I know things probably played out differently here, but I asked Celestia once what she would have done if she hadn't been able to find anypony to bear the Elements. She told me—" Her voice hitched briefly, "She told me that that if you were still angry enough to banish her, then she thought that maybe she deserved it." Another deep breath, and her voice came steadier. "Your sister loves you, Luna. She just wants you to be happy."

Nightmare’s horn sputtered out, and the oppressive pressure of gathered magic faded. She stared at Twilight Sparkle—who still had her face averted—for a long time, wearing an inscrutable expression. At length, she said, "Do not call me that."

Twilight Sparkle frowned. "What?"

"My name is Nightmare Moon."

Nightmare turned away and approached the window once more. She stared out at the ever-midnight landscape. Attempted to regain control of her breathing, her rapidly-beating heart. Attempted to avoid dwelling on old memories, old scars.

A magical twinkling from behind her prompted her to whirl around. The suppression ring was still safely lodged on Twilight Sparkle’s horn, but purple motes of light were drifting away from it nevertheless. They glittered upward toward the ceiling, where they began to revolve in lazy circles around Twilight Sparkle’s position.

"Oh no," The purple alicorn said, sounding forlorn. "We’re out of time. My spell has a failsafe that pulls me back home after a time limit. I guess that was it. I’ll be coming back, but if you have any last questions, you should ask them now," she said, and stood up, then retrieved her saddlebag and slung it across her back.

Nightmare opened her mouth, paused, and visibly struggled. Finally, she managed, "Why? Why do this? You dodged the question earlier. Why not just force me from power and take over, and ‘fix’ everything?"

The purple motes had formed a vortex-like shape and were swirling more rapidly now. A magical breeze began to pluck at Twilight Sparkle’s coat, and she gave Nightmare a sad smile. "Because that’s not how I work. I’m the Princess of Friendship. I’d like to be your friend."

With that, Twilight Sparkle was lifted off her hooves by a gale-force wind that touched nothing else. The purple vortex above her was now churning violently, and the point of the vortex began to extend into the ceiling of the room in ways that hurt to look at too closely. Nightmare could hear the distant clopping of hooves running on stone, and the cries of her guards.

"I’ll see you soon," said Twilight Sparkle, and was whisked into the vortex, and was gone.

When the guards finally burst through what remained of the shattered doorframe, they found their queen holding a single purple feather, staring at it pensively.

Chapter 3: The Moon Called Me Back

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"Ugh. I still have a hornache. It took Spike almost an hour to get that stupid ring off of me."

"It was effective in its intended purpose, though?"

"Oh, of course. Without it, I doubt I would've gotten anywhere. I'll have to remember to bring pencils next time though—mouthwriting with a quill is much too difficult when just taking notes. I have to say though; I have a lot more respect for earth pony scholars now! I might have to start a new research project on the development of mouthwriting after this…"

"Twilight Sparkle, you are avoiding the question. How did the meeting proceed?"

"…she was so angry, Luna. I couldn't help but see you every time I looked at her. Was it really like that for you?"

"…It is difficult to recall with precision. As though t'were, appropriately enough, in a dream. By my recollection, I was…afraid. And, yes, angry. I felt slighted, judged. Isolated. Righteously furious at the world for turning itself against me. I believe that she wants, desperately, nothing more than to be loved. But she is too proud and too hurt to ever admit it, least of all to herself."

"Oh, Luna. I can't imagine how horrible it must have been for you. Must be for her."

"It is hardly any wonder you saw myself in her visage. If not for the grace of…well, you, I would be as she is. Take heart, my young savior, for the task that lay ahead is simple. That is not to say that it will be easy, but I believe if there exists any creature capable of accomplishing such, it is yourself."

"But I don't know what to do. Where do I even start?"

"You will have to act as a stand-in for the Elements. Do what they did to me the long, hard, manual way. Start by simply being a friend. To that effect, I do have some suggestions…"

For Want of a Horseshoe

The Moon Called Me Back

Nightmare Moon finally admitted it to herself. She was anxious. It had been three nights since Twilight Sparkle had invaded her bedroom and left her with nothing but a single feather and a head full of doubts.

I should have killed her when I had the chance.

As if she could have. Nightmare had twisting suspicions that, despite the power bound up in the little thing, the ring around the younger alicorn's horn could no more have imprisoned her magic than mere physical chains could bind Nightmare herself.

I should have thrown her in the dungeon and gagged her.

But no, that was folly. To ignore prescient knowledge, distorted as it was by many years of different choices, different paths taken, was foolish. There were still certain fundamental truths that could be teased out, even if the details were different.

I should have asked about her Luna—

Nightmare snarled and lashed out with a forehoof, crashing into stone with a satisfying cracking, crumbling crash. She stood there for several seconds, breathing hard and staring at nothing, before she recognized the sound of multiple ponies being carefully silent in her presence. She rounded on the them, and beheld—

The audience chamber of her throne room. She looked back at the object that her earned her displeasure. It was the backrest of her throne. As she watched, another piece fell off and tumbled to the ground, the sound swallowed by the surrounding silence.

"Court is adjourned for the night," she growled, "I will be retiring immediately. Make sure this mess gets cleaned up," she said, and stalked out of the room.

At least the petitioner had left the chamber, she grumbled mentally.

She didn't have a destination in mind other than 'away'. She couldn't even remember what the last petitioner had been talking about, so wrapped up was she in her own ruminations. She needed to clear her head of this nonsense. She was a queen, and she would not be unsettled by the words of some upstart alicorn from another dimension. Not even if said alicorn wielded vast power, or knowledge of the future, or apparently had the ear of both her sister and an alternate form of herself.

Nightmare sighed and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and made a conscious effort to clear her mind. This was getting her nowhere. She needed to take a moment to actually think about all the ramifications of the things that Twilight Sparkle had told her instead of just fretting in circles. Queens did not fret. It was beneath them. And if somepony could shut up that ringing noise, it would go a long way toward ensuring her peace of mind.

Her eyes snapped open. Ringing? She looked about. There was nothing nearby that could conceivably be making such a noise. Except…she had enchanted the bell in her room that was linked to her sister's prison, such that if it rang, she would hear it no matter where she was. With a thought, and a flash of brilliant teal, she vanished, and reappeared in her bedchamber.

The little golden bell—conspicuous in the room of blacks and blues and silver—was ringing, its pull string swaying. It was jingling a short repeating tune.

Ring di-ding ding.

It couldn't be.

Ring di-ding ding.

When she and her sister had begun the work of creating what would eventually become Equestria, they were often apart for long periods of time. This had necessitated creating ways to stay in contact, even across the breadth of their growing domain. They had devised a number of methods of communicating over long distances, but none of them were subtle. Discretion was essential, as one never knew when one's sister might be engaged in tense negations with buffalo tribes, or stealthy infiltrations into griffon strongholds. Dragonfire was inconvenient to obtain or use, and unmistakable. Any far-speaking spell required enough power that placing its output location to within anything more precise than several feet was the magical equivalent of attempting to thread a needle with a bludgeon. Enchanted journals or papers that mirrored each other's contents were viable, but difficult to read subtly. They had needed something able to avoid detection, but still capable of communicating information quickly.

What they had eventually settled on was a stripped-down variant of the most basic far-speaking spell. One of the quirks of the original far-speaking spell was that, once it established a connection between the two participants, the receiving party—and only the receiving party—would hear a small magical chirp. The two sisters had devised a small set of phrases, encoded into these chirps, that they could use to exchange basic information. 'Are you alone', 'I'm busy', 'Later', 'Are you okay', simple things like that.

Ring di-ding ding.

Or 'please respond'.

They had never shared their signals with another soul—they were supposed to allow discreet communication, and that was impossible if a third party was able to intercept and decode them. But she had been absent for a thousand years. It certainly wasn't impossible that her sister had taught others their little trick.

But there was only one being currently even theoretically capable of ringing the little golden bell in her room. And even that should have been impossible—the bell was linked to a counterpart on the moon's surface, a lonely little post with a single golden bell dangling from it. Her sister was not physically atop the moon's surface—she was magically sealed within it, bereft of corporeal form. Truthfully, she had left the bell as a sardonic little jest to herself. She had never truly imagined that she ever could hear it ring.

Ring di-ding ding.

She narrowed her eyes and cast her magical senses moonward. Usually, when she felt the moon with her magic, her sister's presence underlay everything, a vast, serene magical reservoir, pulsing like waves on a beach. Atop that were the powerful wards acting as bars around the prison. Then, there were the bevy of charms designed to alert Nightmare should the state of the prison be in any way disrupted. Finally, were the physical tripwires placed in the manifestation chamber. Even if her sister were to find a way to escape her magical imprisonment and avoid tripping any of those alarms, her physical form would still be forced to appear in the manifestation chamber, which was festooned with tripwires, each linked to a separate alarm.

All of it was as expected; her sister's presence still pulsed out regularly. The wards were unaltered. The charms had neither raised the alarm, nor were any apparently damaged or missing. Each tripwire felt undamaged, and none were raising an alarm. She couldn't feel anything in the manifestation chamber that didn't belong. Finally, she ran a wisp of telekinesis up the string of the bell on the surface. In her panic yesterday, she had checked it too, but she couldn't help but feel a little ridiculous doing so now. Now that she'd had a moment to gather her composure, she realized that the most logical reason for this was simply the link spell finally breaking down. She had thrown it together as a twisted joke, and it wouldn't surprise her if it was simply less durable than the rest of the countermeasures. The rhythm of the ringing was merely a coincidence, that was all.

Something brushed against her telekinetic wisp that was not the bell's pull string.

Ring di-ding ding.

She drew in a sharp breath, her fragile rationalizations shattering under the weight of reality. Disgusted at herself, she gathered her power once more, and prepared for a jump to the moon. Her horn flared, bright as a star, and her bedchamber grew cold as the void, frost forming in a circle around her. With a final flare of power and light, she vanished from her bedchamber and reappeared on the surface of the moon.

A shiver rippled down her body from horn to hooves as she made physical contact with the locus of her power. She drew herself upright as the feeling of power buzzed through her veins, shielding her from the killing cold and emptiness of the void.

Standing beside the incongruous golden bell on its little pole, framed by the blue pearl that was Equestria on the horizon behind her, was Twilight Sparkle. She was surrounded by a faint nimbus of violet energy, and facing away from Nightmare, watching the bell carefully.

The golden bell jingled silently, the vacuum of the void incapable of carrying sound, but Nightmare's enchantment delivered the sound directly to her mind all the same.

Ring di-ding ding.

Nightmare narrowed her eyes and replied with a signal of her own, using the variant far-speaking spell she and her sister had originally devised for communicating these signals.

Ch-chirp ch-chirp ch-chirp. 'Beware, danger'.

Twilight Sparkle's head jerked up, and she was halfway through spinning around when the blast of teal magic from Nightmare's horn caught her. She was thrown off her hooves, and went tumbling, skipping across the dusty surface, aided by the low gravity.

Nightmare bounded after her, crossing the distance in series of graceful arcing leaps, perfectly at home in the low-gravity environment. She followed the shallow trench gouged into the moon dust, until it terminated in a disoriented purple alicorn. Nightmare pressed her hoof against the younger alicorn's chest, pressing her into the silvery dust. She held up the little golden bell that her earlier blast had torn off its post, and held it next to her head, glaring furiously at Twilight Sparkle. Nightmare waited until the purple alicorn's eyes had focused on her face before simultaneously ringing the bell and sending a signal with the far-speaking spell.

Ch-chirp ch-chirp ch-chirp.

Chapter 4: Said I'll Give You Some Advice

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"Of course, me! Who better to teach the subtle art of misdirection and manipulation than the Grrrreat and Powerful—"

"No, but—and please don't take this the wrong way—we can't stand each other."

"Hmph! Such pettiness is beneath Trixie! She is willing to tolerate the presence of the common pony—"

"Trixie."

"Ugh. Fine, Starlight twisted my ear. Happy, Princess?"

"Well, I can believe that at least. Let's just get this over with, okay? This is as uncomfortable for me as it is for you."

"Trixie suffers from no such discomf—ahem, right. Look, you've got a problem with a vain and petty tyrant, right?"

"What?! That's a terrible thing to say!"

"She got herself banished for a thousand years by Celestia, the paragon of virtue and second chances, because she wanted people to like her and think the things she made were pretty. Then, the second she comes back, retaliates by banishing Celestia and stealing the Equestrian throne, and plunges the world into eternal night to prove a point."

"…okay, so maybe a tiny bit petty and tyrannical. Why does it matter?"

"Because the only way to get a personality like that to trust you is to make her respect you first. To do that, you're not going to be able to do your usual…friendshippy…thing."

"Okay, I'll bite. What do I have to do instead?"

"Instead, Sparkle, you've got to beat her at her own game."

For Want of a Horseshoe

Said I'll Give You Some Advice

Nightmare stood over the dazed Twilight Sparkle, sneering triumphantly. This was her domain, and she had no intention of letting some upstart dimensional interloper mock her.

Twilight groaned soundlessly, the purple haze around her having resolved to a coat-tight shielding spell that distorted her features slightly and rippled and wavered slowly. At length, the younger alicorn regained her bearings, and her eyes focused on Nightmare. To Nightmare's immense irritation, the expression on Twilight Sparkle's face was not that of abject terror, but rather the same sunny smile from several nights ago.

Then, to Nightmare's confusion, Twilight Sparkle held up a hoof, in the universal sign for 'just a moment'. Then, she screwed up her face in concentration, her horn glowed briefly, and before Nightmare could react, her ears popped.

"—llo? Can you hear me? This should be coming through now," came Twilight Sparkle's voice, inches from Nightmare's ears.

Nightmare started and jerked away from the other alicorn. Her voice had a faint, tinny quality, as though it were coming from the other end of a long tunnel, but the sound itself was close enough that Nightmare would have sworn the speaker was standing directly behind her.

"Oh! It's not too loud is it? I can turn it down," said Twilight Sparkle, her tinny voice somehow bridging the airless void between them.

Nightmare scowled and shook her head, stepping back and allowing the other alicorn to stand. The moment of fiery rage at the invasion into her domain had cooled, to be replaced with weary resignation. Being angry at Twilight Sparkle was like being angry at a large bowl of pudding—unsatisfying, unlikely to have any effect other than dirtying one's coat, and quite ineffective at making any impression on the pudding. It was clear that Twilight Sparkle was both impossible to intimidate by traditional means and oblivious at any attempts to do so. Nightmare sighed silently, allowing the airless void to swallow the sound, and settled back onto her haunches.

"Oh, good! And it's working on my end too! Could you say something again? I don't think I quite got that just now," Twilight Sparkle chirped.

Or perhaps her sigh hadn't been quite so silent. Nightmare eyed the younger alicorn for a long moment. "You've devised a spell for communicating in airless environments, haven't you." It was not a question.

Twilight Sparkle's brilliant smile returned. "I have! The hardest part was figuring out a medium to carry the sound, but I came across Aural Calcium's research into bone conduction and everything fell into place after that! The synchronization weakens if we get too far from each other, but it should be at least functional up to about fifty meters, though after more than about twenty, we'll start getting delays."

Nightmare closed her eyes and gently rubbed a temple with a hooftip. She could feel the beginnings of a headache pulsing at the base of her skull. "Why are you here, Sparkle?" Nightmare asked. It was clear that Twilight Sparkle had intentionally lured her here by using the bell, and her sister's old codes. "It is late, I am tired, and you are impossible. If you are quite done showing off, I would like to get to the point."

Twilight Sparkle's expression grew determined. "Right! Tonight, I'm here to offer you something tangible."

"And why, Sparkle," Nightmare sighed, "should I deal with you?"

"Because," she said brightly, "I have information that will let you secure your power, and safeguard Equestria."

"And why," Nightmare replied flatly, "should I not just rip the knowledge from you by force?"

"Well," Twilight Sparkle said, "I lured you to the very heart of your power, alone, using a signal that only one other pony alive knows, and am standing in space despite no connection to a cosmological body, unharmed and apparently unafraid. And let's not forget that I was confident enough to let you shackle my magic the first time we met!

"So," she finished, her smile notably sharper, "you're welcome to try."

Nightmare blinked. Then, she found herself reevaluating Twilight Sparkle. Over the course of her two—three if she counted the original, she supposed—encounters with the younger alicorn, she had begun to think of Twilight Sparkle as soft and weak, if not in raw strength, then in spirit. It seemed, however, that the girl had a core of buried steel after all.

"Fine," she said, "Speak your piece. What do you propose?"

"I'm going to offer you two pieces of information. The first I'll give you for free, but you'll need to earn the second. The first piece of information is everything I know about Chrysalis, one of the threats I mentioned. I have reason to believe that she's the most likely to attack you in the near future, and that her plans haven't diverged too far from my own timeline."

"And the second piece of information?" Nightmare asked, raising an eyebrow.

"How to activate the Elements of Harmony. And you're missing the Element of Magic entirely, aren't you?"

Nightmare carefully said nothing.

"I know how to find it. And," she said, stressing the word, "I'm willing to share."

"And what concessions would you require from me before you do so?"

Twilight Sparkle held up her hoof. "Before I tell you, you need to know that this is a package deal. If you refuse to attempt what I demand in exchange for information about the Elements, I won't tell you anything about Chrysalis either. However, I'll give you two options to earn the Elements information. The first option is very simple—defeat me, here and now, in a magical duel. No lethal force, but anything goes otherwise." Twilight Sparkle paused and waited.

"An astonishingly arrogant claim to make when you stand upon my moon," Nightmare said. Privately, however, she was nervous. Either Twilight Sparkle was a supremely talented actress, or she was very confident that she could match Nightmare in a duel. Given what she had seen of the other alicorn so far, Nightmare was beginning to think that underestimating her would be foolish in the extreme. "I assume that if I lose, the information about the Elements would be forfeit?"

"Correct," Twilight Sparkle nodded. "I would, however, still tell you about Chrysalis."

"And the second option?" Nightmare asked.

Twilight Sparkle lowered her hoof and smiled. "The second option is even simpler! All you would have to do is speak with you sister."

There were several long moments of silence. Twilight Sparkle's smile remained, unwavering as the mountains.

"What," said Nightmare Moon.

"Option two is having a nice, peaceful chat with your sister. You know, Celestia? Princess of the Sun?"

"Sparkle. Perhaps I have not been clear," Nightmare spat. "My sister is sealed in the moon. She is incorporeal. She is not conscious, aware, or even truly on this plane of existence. Even were I inclined to take you up on your offer, she is not available for tea and biscuits," she finished with a huff.

Twilight Sparkle's grin grew a touch nervous, and she looked away. "We-ell…funny thing about prisons. They're pretty good at keeping things in, but not so great at keeping things out."

Nightmare groaned and rubbed her temple with her hooftip more vigorously. Her headache had apparently redoubled its efforts. "Next you will tell me that you've already discovered a way to free her and are simply waiting for the dramatically appropriate moment to do so."

Twilight Sparkle's grin faded, and her expression grew serious. "No. The moon is still yours. Even if I wanted to, I don't think there's anypony who could free your sister while you still control the moon. I can just… bend the rules a little." She began and lit up her horn. "You see, all it takes is a dash of portal magic," she said. A small, vertically-oriented disk of magenta magic appeared floating next to her, opaque, gently swirling and about the size of her head. "Then, a touch of dimensional phase shifting, aligned just so," she continued. The disc rippled, and the interior grey hazy and indistinct. "And finally, a touch of dream magic to make the connection," she said, and lit her horn one final time. Instead of the usual magenta color, this time her magic was a deep, late-sunset blue.

The surface of the portal rippled and crackled, and then the image in its center flashed white, before slowly resolving into a recognizable shape.

It was her sister.

Not the half-imagined specter of Celestia that had haunted her dreams and waking moments alike. Her pure-white coat, her multicolored mane and tail, her large, graceful frame. Confronted directly with her sister, Nightmare wondered how she had ever mistaken Twilight Sparkle for her. Celestia was facing away from the portal and laying on her side, staring into the indistinct distance. Nightmare approached the portal, drawn inexorably toward the window into her sister's existence.

Nightmare noticed that Twilight Sparkle was completely hidden from the portal's line of sight. If Celestia were to turn around, she would only see Nightmare. Movement from within the portal drew Nightmare's eye back to it.

At first, it just appeared to be the gentle rise and fall of her sister's chest and shoulders as she breathed. But as Nightmare continued watching, she saw that at the peak of each inhalation and valley of each exhalation, her sister's shoulders shook. It took her several long repetitions of this before she realized what she was seeing.

Her sister was crying.

Not the huge, wracking, shuddering heaves of heartbreak. Not the desperate weeping of fury or helplessness. Instead, they were the quiet, breathless, hopeless sobs of surrender. The sounds of a creature with an infinite reservoir of misery, and the bitter understanding that there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.

Nightmare stepped back, eyes wide, and for just a moment, she was a thousand years younger. She had retreated to her room, furious and ashamed at some public slight. She had curled up alone, whimpering and sobbing for hours. The entire time, she had miserably entertained beautiful fantasies of somepony, anypony, hearing her sounds of anguish, and coming in to comfort her.

But no one had come. No one ever came. She was alone.

Just like her sister.

She stumbled back, shaking her head, and without conscious thought, she lit her horn and fired a beam of tightly-focused magic at the portal. The beam lanced through the portal, passing through it and out the other side, continuing into the starry void. The influx of extra magic disturbed the delicate matrices holding the spell together, and the portal swirled and warped like water meeting oil, then tore apart into magical sparks.

"No. No. No, no, no, no! We will duel, Twilight Sparkle, and the void will tear the secrets from your flesh!"

Twilight Sparkle only sighed and adopted an expression of resignation. "I'm disappointed in you Luna. It's your choice, though. Remember, nothing lethal."

"Do not call me that!" Nightmare roared and fired her opening salvo—a blast of teal magic as tall and wide around as she was.

Twilight Sparkle disappeared with a flash of magenta magic and reappeared several feet away. Nightmare swung her horn around, still spewing the enormous beam of magic. Twilight Sparkle teleported again and disappeared this time. Nightmare cut off the flood of magic just in time to feel something charging behind her. Reflexively, she raised a shield just in time to feel it repel several lances of magical energy.

With a single flap of her enormous wings, Nightmare took to the heavens, blending in with the starry void behind her. She reduced the strength of her shield until it was nearly invisible. It would stop most minor attacks, without illuminating her against dark backdrop.

Twilight Sparkle planted her hooves and ran her horn through the motions of an energy siphoning spell, before launching it on a pulse of magenta magic. Nightmare knocked it aside with a contemptuous sweep of her horn and countered with a localized gravitational increase, centered on Twilight Sparkle. Nightmare heard the other alicorn's grunt of pain and smirked; the communication spell was still active.

The ground beneath Twilight Sparkle began to collapse in a perfectly circular pattern under the force of Nightmare's spell. With a shout of effort, Twilight Sparkle disappeared into another teleport. The colorful cascade of magenta sparks left behind belied its hasty inefficiency—Twilight Sparkle was getting sloppy under pressure.

Nightmare stopped channeling the gravity spell and peered around, looking for any sign of her opponent. For several long moments, she was unable to sense anything, before she detected a faint twinge of something directly above her. She looked up in time to see Twilight Sparkle angled directly downward, horn-first and approaching fast.

Nightmare grimaced and fired several rapid bursts of magic that Twilight Sparkle easily rolled away from. Nightmare took a single silent moment to focus before reorienting on the rapidly approaching alicorn. She was so close now, there was no way Nightmare could miss.

Nightmare narrowed her eyes and realized she had an opportunity to end the fight right here. However, the instant she began charging her horn, Twilight Sparkle's expression changed to one of triumph. The younger alicorn gave an enormous, magically-aided flap of her wings, and poured on the speed. Nightmare's eyes widened, and she fired her beam early, half-charged and still unfocused. It caught Twilight Sparkle in the upper chest but was unable to arrest her terrible momentum. In the instant before the two collided, Nightmare's eyes caught a glint of silver, and the flash of magenta.

Then, collision. The world became a spinning blur of silvery moon, blue-green Equestrian jewel, and starry void. Nightmare bit, kicked, and spat the entire way down, and then the mass of entangled alicorn crashed into the moon with an enormous puff of silvery moondust. Nightmare surged to her hooves, and dropped the tattered remnants of her shield so she could—

PAIN

COLD

She barely felt herself fall. All she knew was that suddenly everything was sideways, and the surface of the moon was pressing against her barrel and the side of her face. She gasped ineffectually, her lungs suddenly feeling too empty, like shriveled balloons. There was pain, like hundreds of tiny pinpricks across every inch of her body. Tears gathered in her eyes, only to boil away into thousands of particles that drifted away from her eyes before freezing into tiny crystalline stars of ice. Her hooves scrabbled uselessly as she attempted to regain her bearings, but another lance of pain crackled through her. She attempted to gasp again, only to choke uselessly on the vacuum around her.

A purple hoof entered her field of vision, and her head was gently lifted. Through her blurring vision, she could vaguely make out a purple blob, and twinkling in front of it were, blazingly bright, five letters spelling a single word in magical light.

YIELD

She shook her head and jerked away, swinging her hoof wildly, blindly. She gasped and choked again, and the pain screamed through her again. Her legs were beginning to stiffen, and she could no longer feel her hooves. Her head was lifted again, more forcefully this time, and the words blazed in front of her dimming vision once more.

YIELD!

Her ever-feebler struggles ceased, and she shut her eyes. Defeated, she nodded once.

The cold vanished, and a final wave of pain blasted through her. She shuddered, and her chest heaved, and she took in great gasping breaths. There was still no air to breathe, but her lungs no longer seemed to mind, and the horrible empty feeling began to dissipate. Slowly, her vision began to resolve back into coherent shapes, and sensation returned to her hooves.

Standing over her and wearing a concerned expression, was Twilight Sparkle, looking the worse for wear. A huge, scorched star stood upon her chest, still smoldering slightly, and she was covered from horn to hoof in moon dust. Floating in her telekinetic grasp was the magical suppression ring that she had worn on her first visit to Nightmare's chambers. Nightmare shuddered—it hadn't just suppressed her magic; it had completely severed her connection to the moon. "Just a little sleight of hoof," Twilight Sparkle said. "You were so busy watching me, you didn't look at what I was holding."

"Thought…" Nightmare gasped, "said…nothing lethal…"

"Unprotected vacuum exposure isn't," Twilight Sparkle said, guilt evident in her tone and expression both. "Not to an alicorn. I tested it on myself first. I had my Luna take me to the moon and put the ring on me." She shuddered. "I'd hoped I wouldn't have to use it against you. I know it's horrible. But, well, you do kind of have an advantage here," she finished with a halfhearted smile, and looked away.

Nightmare gaped at Twilight Sparkle, speechless. And then she gasped out a wheezing laugh. "Of course. Of course you did," she managed, before devolving into hacking coughs.

Twilight Sparkle waited for Nightmare to recover before continuing. "So. You chose the hard option, and you lost. I'm sorry, but that means I can only give you the information about Chrysalis." Twilight Sparkle said, levitating her saddlebag out of a distant crater, and retrieving a scroll from it. She carefully moved the scroll over to Nightmare before gently setting it on the ground in front of her, kicking up a gentle puff of moondust.

Nightmare stared at the scroll for a moment. "If I had rejected your offer entirely. Decided not to play your little game. What would you have done?" She staggered upright, picked up the scroll in her right hoof, and spent a moment inspecting it. "You clearly feel this Chrysalis is a threat, and seek to protect Equestria from her."

Twilight bent down and began rummaging in her saddlebag. "You're not the only one capable of protecting Equestria. Believe it or not, I came to you first because I wanted to help you, not just Equestria. I think it would be good for you to do something in service of your kingdom instead of the other way around, that's all."

Nightmare raised an eyebrow at the scroll held in her hoof. "This...is a public relations tool," she said flatly. "So that I can be seen to defeat an obvious threat and look good doing it."

"That's kind of cynical," Twilight Sparkle said frowning. "Think of it more as a chance to do some good," she said, finally retrieving a second scroll from her saddlebag. "Now," she said, "We're pretty much out of time." And sure enough, purple motes of light had begun to drift from her horn once again, "So I'm going to leave you with one last thing. Call it a show of good faith. Instructions for the spell I used to contact your sister," Twilight Sparkle said, levitating the second scroll over.

Nightmare transferred the scroll she was holding into her telekinesis, satisfied to note its steadiness. She took the new scroll and peered at it closely for a moment. She looked up again and was surprised to find that Twilight Sparkle was now scarce inches away from her and looking at her soulfully.

"Please consider it. You're very important to her," Twilight Sparkle said, drawing back and looking her in the eye. "And I think that she is to you, too. Even if you can't admit it." She retreated, slung her saddlebag across her back, and in a rush of purple sparks, was gone, whisked away to her own universe once more.

Nightmare Moon spent several long moments staring at nothing, before shifting her gaze to the scroll levitating in her telekinetic grasp. She eyed it carefully, and held it at a distance, the way one might a volatile magical experiment. A way to contact her sister without risking breaching containment. A way to…what? Make amends? To demand apologies? To berate her sister for abandoning her?

No one ever came.

No. The time for that had passed. She had done things that her sister could never forgive. Better to just burn it. Better to close that chapter in her life for good.

Resolute, she lit her horn.

Chapter 5: I've Seen the Day Devour the Night

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"You haven't touched your tea."

"I'm sorry. I've been…spending a lot of time inside my own head lately. Just…woolgathering, I guess."

"You know, I've met some sheep who would appreciate the gesture, even if they thought you a little silly."

"I…what?"

"Ah, there you are again. You were a million miles away."

"How could you tell? Even I didn't realize it, I thought I was...you know, here."

"Live long enough, and you'll find that those dear to you are often as easy to read as a favorite book. And you've always been a particularly open book."

"Ugh, I know. Why didn't you tell me Luna was such a card shark? Our last poker night was a disaster for my poor bit bag. I couldn't read her to save my life!"

"Or hers, perhaps?"

"…I am obvious, aren't I?"

"As I said: dear ones are the easiest. Oh, don't blush. Why don't you tell me why you're really here?"

"Even if you already know?"

"Especially then."

"…it's Luna. Or… her alternate self. I can see the thread connecting her to our Luna. I can see how one might become the other—in either direction—and that's why it's so hard. The other Luna practically wears her heart on her mane. I can see how lonely she is, but I still have to play this…this role, to even get close."

"Hmm. The only advice I can think to offer is this: remember that you cannot control the actions of others, only how you respond to them. All you can do is your best."

"I guess you've got some experience there, huh? How do you keep from agonizing over everything like this?

…Celestia?"

For Want of a Horseshoe

I've Seen the Day Devour the Night

The queen stood on the balcony outside her bedchamber and stared at nothing. Hovering beside her, held absentmindedly in her telekinetic grip, was an unrolled scroll. A gentle late winter's breeze swept over the balcony, ruffling her coat, and causing the scroll to flutter slightly. Behind her, the Prench doors leading into the bedchamber were thrown wide, the curtains behind them billowing lazily. Her flowing mane and tail twinkled gently in the wan moonlight cast by the currently-crescent moon. She had one foreleg lightly resting on the balcony's balustrade, the heel of her hoof quietly tapping out an arrhythmic beat.

She brought the scroll around to eye level and spent several long seconds staring it down.

Her resolve had failed her, up on the moon. She had stood there, horn lit, staring at the scroll, flakes of frost still drifting off her coat. She had attempted to tell herself that any attempt to speak with her sister would only invite trouble. That Twilight Sparkle was manipulating her to some devious end. That leaving the scroll intact was a terrible mistake. She had lit her horn and narrowed her eyes at the papery offender, and prepared to engulf it in magical flames, to leave its ashes scattered and anonymous amongst the dust of the moon forevermore.

Then doubt had crept in.

Surely there was no harm in merely looking at it. If there was even a whiff of mischief about the instructions included within, she could dispose of it, and be rid of it forever. And if it was what Twilight Sparkle claimed and nothing more...well, it would behoove her to keep such a thing and save herself the labor of devising a similar spell. It was not impossible that she might desire information from her sister at some future date, after all. And so, and so.

And now, here she stood, staring at that selfsame scroll. She had inspected it from top to bottom, and found nothing amiss. She'd submitted a modified version that omitted the segment of dream magic to her court coven for examination. Their conclusion had been interest, and confusion; a spell designed to link two places separated by space, and out of dimensional phase with one another. Upon turning in the coven's analysis, the archwitch had told her that there appeared to be a piece missing—as written, the spell would do nothing. Nightmare Moon had said nothing in response, and the archwitch had wisely dropped the line of inquiry.

Nightmare sighed, noting that she had been doing so quite frequently of late. She repressed the urge to sigh again at the realization and reentered her bedchamber. A flicker of thought closed the doors behind her, stilling the gossamer curtains. She moved to her desk and set the unrolled scroll down atop it. With a further thought, a burst of teal light locked all the room's doors and windows, both physically and magically.

It would not do to have her subjects witness this.

Without further ceremony, she began casting the spell from the scroll. First, the space-warping component; the portal spell. Nightmare began, weaving magical matrices together, a flurry of teal sparks escaping from her horn to form a swirling, oval plane of magic centered at eye level. The oval of magic remained hovering in the air, self-sustaining for now. Next, the dimensional phase shift, which would allow her to communicate with things just a step sideways out of reality. The disc of magic rippled, grew hazy and indistinct, and began shifting between a riotous rainbow of colors. Finally, the dream magic component, the one she had kept from the witches of the royal coven. While imprisoned, her sister was in what could be broadly described as a semi-conscious state. As such, dream magic was well suited to establishing contact with her. What troubled Nightmare was that not only had Twilight Sparkle known to use dream magic at all, but that she was proficient enough to craft a spell that used it. Nightmare had been under the impression she was the only spellcaster aware of, or even capable of using, dream magic. Twilight Sparkle's knowledge of it meant that her claims of camaraderie with an alternate version of Nightmare were plausible. Before, Nightmare had been able to ignore that part of Twilight Sparkle's tale, but with this reminder before her, it grew troublingly difficult.

Banishing those thoughts from her mind, the color of Nightmare's horn glow shifted to a deep blue as she cast the final part of the spell, careful to focus upon thoughts of her sister. The surface of the portal rippled one last time and flashed white as the connection was established. The white slowly faded and began to resolve into recognizable shapes.

And then, there she was.

Her sister, laying on her side, her many-hued mane and tail gently flowing. She faced away from the open portal. Her breathing was still visibly labored, marred with tiny hitches at the end of each inhale and exhale. It was a familiar sight now; she had used the communication spell several times since acquiring it from Twilight Sparkle. Truthfully, she no longer needed the scroll, but having it close at hoof felt safer, somehow. However, each time she opened the connection to her sister, she had just watched.

This is what victory feels like, she thought.

Her sister's shoulders gave another shuddering hitch as she inhaled.

To see your enemies lying before you, beaten and broken.

Celestia curled in against herself, and the flowing of her mane and tail slowed.

So why did you never try to do this before? Some traitorous part of herself whispered.

Then, one of her sister's ears twitched, and she began to turn. Nightmare gasped and cut the connection. The magical window blinked out of existence, shedding a few stray wisps of magic as it dissipated. She spent a long minute staring at the blank stone wall behind her desk, face burning and feeling foalish. Her behavior was ridiculous. She was acting like a little filly who'd been caught with her hoof in the cookie jar.

She sighed—again—and removed the spells sealing the room before reopening one of the doors to the balcony. The gentle breeze would be welcome later. She threw open the door leading out to the hall perhaps a touch more forcefully than was strictly necessary and strode out. She needed to think, and she had been spending entirely too much time locked away inside lately. Perhaps a stroll about the castle's halls would help clear her mind. Court was done for the night, and she had no further obligations until tomorrow night. This month's Days of Sun weren't scheduled until next week, so all she had to do until then was keep the moon marching across the sky like cosmological clockwork.

She entered the throne room and turned into an adjoining hallway. Halfway down the hall, the right wall turned into an open arcade that led to a courtyard paved with flagstones. Here, the Night Guard was drilling. Some were practicing formation fighting, others practicing individually. Pegasi flew in careful formation above, while, at one end, unicorns practiced sharpshooting against distant target dummies. Sergeants barked orders, while their subordinates huffed, puffed, and suffered.

The far end of the courtyard was backed by a series of offices, linked to the training courtyard by a short portico. Standing at the edge of the courtyard in front of her open office door was Nightmare's captain of the Night Guard. She was watching a four-pony squadron practice formation flying maneuvers under the watchful eyes of a flight sergeant. Nightmare joined the captain, and spent a moment watching as well.

"That's the newest cohort," Nightmare remarked after a moment. "An impressive performance."

"Nahh," the captain grunted noncommittally, waggling a hoof. "That was decent, but I think Misty Fly is the better lead pony. Gust Strike was sloppy bringing them in for the landing." Nightmare remained silent and allowed herself a tiny smirk while she waited for the bit to drop. Sure enough, after a moment, the captain's eyes widened fractionally, and she spun to face Nightmare before erupting into a textbook-perfect salute. "Your majesty! I didn't realize it was you, ma'am!"

"At ease, Captain Rainbow Dash. This is not a formal visit. I… ", the words find myself ill at ease this night, danced along the tip of her tongue, before retreating again. Queens were not permitted the luxury of confessing their troubles to their subjects. "...wished to inquire about progress into the Guard's current investigation," she finished.

Rainbow Dash relaxed from her salute and allowed her face to twist into a small frown. "Still air for now, ma'am. We've got a Shadowbolt scout squad heading for the Badlands. Their last report was yesterday, and we expect them to be out of range for the next few days. No sign of anything yet, but don't worry ma'am. If there's anything to find, they're the ponies who'll do it!"

The corner of Nightmare's mouth twitched into something that was almost a smile for a brief moment. The captain's enthusiasm was a welcome reprieve from her own dour mood. The pair lapsed into silence as they resumed watching the pegasus squadron's training.

Eventually, it was Rainbow Dash who broke the silence. "Uh, ma'am, I hate to ask, but there was one more thing."

Nightmare watched as the sweaty pegasus squadron completed their exercise, and all four members dropped to the ground, gasping. "Speak, captain."

Rainbow Dash grimaced slightly. "It's about our prisoner down in the dungeons. We've run him through the interrogation process, and you know how the guards get to talking with the prisoners sometimes, right? Well... it's just that, ah, there are some members of the guard that would be... uncomfortable... going the ah, usual route for this one."

Nightmare raised a single eyebrow. "Captain, are you implying that members of my guard are questioning my judgment in the execution of an assassin?"

Rainbow Dash flinched at the word 'execution'. "No ma'am, not questioning. Just..." she paused, trailing off. She sighed and continued, "A lot of ponies in the guard joined up to try to do some good. Axing this guy would feel... wrong."

Nightmare stared out at the training ground and ruffled her wings thoughtfully. "What is it, captain, that makes our erstwhile assassin so compelling that the guard cannot stomach his death? Is he, perhaps, charming? Goodhearted and kind perhaps? Simply handsome?"

To Nightmare's surprise, Rainbow Dash snickered. "Actually, no. He's kinda pathetic."

Nightmare blinked. That was not what she had expected. "Very well, captain, you've piqued my interest. Come, attend to me while I introduce myself properly to this polarizing prisoner of ours." Then, Nightmare turned and glided away on soft hoofsteps without waiting to see if Rainbow Dash followed.

Nightmare allowed herself a small, satisfied smirk at the squawk of surprise followed by wingbeats from behind her. Before long, she was joined by the blue pegasus, who hovered a respectful distance above and behind her.

As she wound her way back through the castle corridors and down into the darker, rough-hewn passages that made up the dungeons, she conversed with the captain. "Captain, elaborate on your earlier description. I find myself hard-pressed to imagine how any unicorn assassin that could slip the noose of our patrols the way he did might be described as 'pathetic'."

To her right, Rainbow Dash scratched at her forehead with a hoof. "Well, that's just the thing. He was able to do all that stuff, but when the unicorn guards went in on him, he was totally squishy. He goes down in one hit, no pain tolerance, no signs of magical or even physical training. Shoot, you could barely call what we did an interrogation. He started crying and said he'd tell us everything almost right out of the gate."

Nightmare blinked. "Truly? What technique did the interrogators use to provoke that response?"

Rainbow Dash coughed and looked away. "Uh. They told him they were going to start."

Nightmare thought for a moment, then sighed. "He has an accomplice, doesn't he," she said flatly.

Rainbow Dash grimaced. "Yeah, it's looking a lot like he was just the fall guy. It doesn't really make much sense though. Why send in some chump to do the dangerous job unless he's just a distraction? But what would he be distracting us from?" She spent a moment contemplating silently. "Maybe something to do with this Chrysalis we're looking into?"

Nightmare Moon grunted thoughtfully. "Possible. I will reserve judgment until after I speak with the prisoner. Speculation will yield us nothing until we have more information."

Rainbow Dash nodded. "Yes ma'am." The halls around the pair had grown dark, damp and windowless. The only illumination was provided by flickering torches, many of them guttering low in their brackets. Rainbow Dash nodded at the hall. "Prisoner's in the last cell, just around the corner."

Nightmare's ear flicked, and she froze, then held up a hoof, signaling Rainbow Dash to halt. Rainbow Dash eased herself to the floor with a silent fluttering of her wings.

There were voices coming from around the corner.

Nightmare lowered her head to Rainbow Dash's ear. "Are there any members of the Guard posted at the cell?"

Rainbow Dash shook her head slowly and stretched up to murmur back to Nightmare, "No. Only two ponies on shift this time of night. Met one at the desk on the way in. Other's patrol route keeps him away for at least ten more minutes."

Nightmare nodded. "Stay grounded, behind me," she murmured, and began creeping forward.

As she made her way forward, the indistinct sounds of conversation around the corner began to resolve into recognizable speech. With a grim sort of exasperation, she realized that she recognized one of the voices. Twilight Sparkle.

"…best if I don't. I can't be some equus ex machina. I need to fix my own mistakes and leave your timeline strong enough to stand on its own four hooves," she was saying.

Nightmare crept up to the corner and listened. An unfamiliar male voice responded. "But-but-but you're an alicorn! Like a real alicorn! You, you, you could fix everything! All of this! You could beat Nightmare Moon, you could free Celestia!" The voice had a desperate edge to it.

Rainbow Dash jerked her head around to stare at Nightmare at the word 'alicorn', but Nightmare ignored her. Instead, she took a breath, drew herself up, and casually stepped around the corner.

As Nightmare rounded the corner, Twilight Sparkle responded to the prisoner's question. "Maybe I could. But what happens when the next problem comes along? I won't be able to step in and save you then. Besides," she said, turning to glance at the approaching Nightmare. "I'm working a slightly different angle that I really hope ends up working."

Nightmare approached the other alicorn with her head held high. A droplet of molten metal slipped into Nightmare's belly as she stared Twilight Sparkle down again for the first time since her defeat up on the moon. There was an ugly knot of shiny red skin at the front of Twilight Sparkle's chest, still surrounded by blackened fur. "And I believe there is ample evidence that simply 'beating me' as you say would be no easy task," Nightmare said as she moved into view of the cell's occupant, nodding at Twilight Sparkle's wound. "And who is it that I have the pleasure of addressing?" She asked, turning to face the prisoner.

The unicorn stallion inside the cell gawped at her. He had a scruffy golden-yellow coat, matted and swirled after several days in a cell and away from a brush. He sported an untidy mop of orange hair, and a scruffy tuft of chin hair that could be called a beard by a more charitable soul. A single white stripe ran down the length of his muzzle, in stark contrast to the black and purple of his still-swollen left eye where the guards had been less than gentle.

"N-N-N-N-Nightmare Moon!" He squeaked, cowering away from the bars.

"I believe it's well established that that is my name," Nightmare responded, voice honey-sweet. "I was hoping for yours, however. I will allow you one more chance to answer. What. Is your name?"

"S-S-S-Sunburst! My name is Sunburst!" he managed.

"Oh, well done," she said, voice still cloyingly sweet. "Now, I imagine you know why I'm here. You tried to kill me, and that is something I take a dim view of. Especially when you consider that I am your rightful ruler, and your actions are unquestionably treasonous. You do not strike me as somepony who is practiced at assassination. What would drive a pony like you to such a thing?" As Nightmare spoke, Sunburst had begun trembling. At first, she had taken it for terror, but as his face contorted, she could see that instead, it was rage. Interesting.

"Treason?" He spat, stutter gone, eyes blazing. "Princess Celestia is our rightful ruler! You're a murderous monster that stole her throne!"

"My heart bleeds," Nightmare responded tonelessly, eyes lidded. "Where were you with the rest of the assassins when I took my throne?"

"I?! Wh…" Sunburst sputtered for a moment. "I was helping! Researching! You want to know why I'm here now? It's because I'm desperate, and Starlight won't, and Cadance and her foal can't… can't…" Sunburst trailed off, before taking a deep breath and collecting himself. He fixed Nightmare Moon with a steady gaze and continued, "I'm through letting you kill ponies. So, I got some help, and I thought maybe I had what it took to stop you but…" His face twisted with shame. "I guess I'm a failure at that too."

Rainbow Dash could take no more. She had been standing at the opposite wall of the hall behind Nightmare, but now she stomped up to the bars of Sunburst's cell. "You will show the proper respect to her majesty! The only ponies she's killed were those who tried to kill her first!"

Instead of backing down, Sunburst leveled his glare at Rainbow Dash. "Oh really?" He sneered. "When was the last time her majesty visited Canterlot? Or Las Pegasus? Do you know what her 'Sun Days'," he said, spitting the words, "do to ponies across Equestria?" Rainbow Dash's eyes had grown wide at the unexpected venom in Sunburst's voice, and she backed away a step as he continued. "I'll tell you: they kill them. It's a miracle we've held on this long!"

Nightmare was staring at Sunburst with a previously-absent intensity. "What are you talking about?" She demanded, all playfulness gone from her voice.

Sunburst rounded on her and seemed prepared to deliver a second round of invective. But he paused, and spent a moment staring into Nightmare's eyes, and then his rage visibly drained away. He sagged to the ground, staring at her in disbelief. "You don't know," he said, voice hollow. "You don't know!" He repeated, voice tinged with hysteria. "Because they're all too afraid! Oh, those spineless idiots." He let out a laugh now, a forlorn, lonely-sounding thing. "Of course! Of course." He sank all the way to the ground, where he stayed for several moments. Finally, he turned to Twilight Sparkle suddenly. "Twilight?" He said quietly.

Twilight Sparkle stirred, and Nightmare twitched. The younger alicorn had retreated from the conversation so completely, that Nightmare had forgotten her presence. "Yes, Sunburst?" She said, the epitome of serenity.

"I think I'd like to take that favor now," Sunburst said, sounding drained.

"Of course," she responded. "Wait for me, I shouldn't be long." And then, with a burst of magenta light, and the characteristic pop! of a teleport, Sunburst was gone.

Rainbow Dash bristled and stepped forward, wings flared and stance wide. "She's disabled the dungeon's teleportation wards! Give the word ma'am, and I'll take her down!"

Nightmare held Twilight Sparkle's gaze, and blocked Rainbow Dash's approach with an outstretched wing. "Hold, captain. Your eagerness does you credit, but you are overmatched." She stepped forward. "I have tolerated your presence thus far." Nightmare ignored Rainbow Dash's sudden glance. "Now, you are interfering with the justice of my realm. Explain yourself."

Twilight Sparkle looked away and stared into the now-emptied cell. "I've spent a few days exploring your Equestria. I realized that I needed to understand you better. And one thing that being a princess has taught me is that a kingdom reflects its leaders." Twilight Sparkle's gaze pierced Nightmare. "What I've seen has disappointed me. Sunburst told me about your 'Sun Days'. Seventy-two hours of brutal, punishing sunlight," she said. "Do you know how Sunburst, of all ponies, found the courage to risk his life?"

Nightmare said nothing.

"Princess Mi Amore Cadenza recruited him to her resistance when you came to power. Gave him a purpose, recognized his talents," Twilight Sparkle trailed off for several long moments, looking away again. "She's pregnant now. She was hospitalized after last month's Sun Days, and has been bedridden ever since," she continued calmly, as though discussing dinner. "due to a combination of malnutrition and stress. The doctors think she'll lose the foal with next week's Sun Days. "

A hollow pit of dread had begun gnawing at Nightmare's insides. This was wrong. She'd read all the reports. None of them had mentioned anything like this.

But you never verified them for yourself, did you? Whispered the voice of doubt.

And she hadn't. She had trusted the veracity of the reports submitted by her advisors. It didn't take much imagination to wonder why they might have been misleading. Sunburst's words came back to her: 'Because they're all too afraid!' She sucked in a thin breath. She took a step back and took another shallow breath. She couldn't breathe. There wasn't enough air down in the dungeons. Sudden vertigo hammered at her awareness, and the world spun around her. She clenched her eyes shut and tried to focus on breathing. She fell to her haunches, rear legs suddenly too weak to support her. Somewhere, at the other end of a long tunnel, she heard Twilight Sparkle speaking. Her words were distorted and liquid sounding, as though she were speaking through a film of water.

"Harvests have failed. The major cities stand at the brink of starvation. Your Sun Days endanger the young, the elderly and the pregnant every month. I…" she trailed off. "I expected better of you," she said, looking down.

The vertigo remained but was joined suddenly by a horrible, wrenching sensation. It was as though something had sunk claws into her insides and squeezed. With the pain came a hot flush of an old, familiar feeling: anger. She closed her eyes and grit her teeth and seized the feeling and allowed it to buoy her back up and onto all fours. She stalked forward slowly. "You do not rule here," she hissed. "You are an interloper, and I will no longer tolerate your interference," she said, as she finally stopped, nose-to-nose with the shorter alicorn. "This is my kingdom."

Twilight Sparkle's eyes narrowed. "Is that so? I thought you cared about Equestria. I thought that there was no way you could rule for years without caring, without possessing some capacity for administration and delegation. I guess I was wrong. All this, just to feed your vanity, and make ponies long for your beautiful nights." Twilight Sparkle took a step toward Nightmare. "You're just a vain, petty, tyrant, like all the rest."

Nightmare scowled. "Enough! Remove yourself, or I will do so by force," she growled, horn sparking dangerously.

Twilight Sparkle scoffed. "If that is what you command Queen Nightmare Moon," she said, the royal title a sneer, "then I will remove myself to actually go help ponies that need it."

Twilight Sparkle stepped back, drew in a swirling nimbus of power about her horn, and with a whip-crack and a subsonic thud, was gone. Nightmare felt a tingling frission of power sweep over her coat, prickling the tiny hairs there. Twilight Sparkle had reengaged the teleportation wards as she had departed.

Nightmare shook, breathing heavily, horn sparking. Her wings were half-flared, and fluttered at irregular intervals.

"You want me to go after her, ma'am?"

Nightmare whipped her head around, baring her teeth at Rainbow Dash. To the pegasus' credit, she squashed the instinctive flinch down into a mere twitch and maintained perfect parade rest posture. Nightmare spent several moments staring at Rainbow Dash and breathing heavily before her words registered. Nightmare straightened up, settled her wings and took a deep breath before responding. "No, captain. She's likely in Canterlot, and," through gritted teeth, "not important right now." Another breath. "Leave me. There are things I must attend to. You are to speak of this to no one, and report to me first thing tomorrow. Dismissed."

Rainbow Dash saluted, face carefully neutral, but ears folded back in dissatisfaction. She turned sharply and marched away. Nightmare suppressed a pang of regret as her hoofsteps grew quieter. Not important now, she thought.

It was time to tour the country.

Start local. The apple orchard at the edge of Ponyville. Sweet Apple Acres.

Nightmare Moon teleported into the air above it and flew over the sprawling fields of apple trees. The older, taller trees at the center of the orchard were healthy enough, but as she spiraled outward, the story of struggle grew plain. It began with the occasional wilted tree, and rapidly grew to swathes of yellowed trees, then trees with their leaves scorched at the edges bearing tiny, underripe apples. Finally, the outer ring of the youngest and most vulnerable trees was entirely barren—dead trees, bereft of leaves, and a carpet of death below them.

Disaster. This orchard supplied the entire region.

Enough. Next. Canterlot, now.

She teleported to the grand balcony her sister had used to raise the sun. The castle was empty now, of course. She'd commanded it stripped of her sister's banners but left it untouched otherwise.

Should have been empty, she amended, as she heard a metallic clatter from the halls somewhere behind her. She wound her way through hallways dimly lit by moonlight, until she came upon what had once been a grand dining room. Now, it was a vast sickroom. Cots stretched from wall to wall, only half of them filled. Every occupant she could see was either very young or very old.

"This is the least of it," came a voice from her right.

Nightmare turned, staring blankly. Next to her, staring wearily into the room was a lime-green unicorn mare, deep bags underneath her eyes, a blue tornado adorning her flank.

"Day ones are the worst. We think it's the sudden shock. We move the most vulnerable into the castle, where the mountain keeps things cooler. Day twos and threes are better, but not much. You'd think day fours would be the easier, with the sun gone, but that's when we lose ponies. We think it's the sudden shock." She paused for a moment, frowning slightly. "I already said that, didn't I?" She finally turned to look at Nightmare. "Please, your majesty."

Just please, she thought. Not even a specific plea.

Numb, she stared back silently.

Enough. Enough. Manehattan now.

She teleported high above the city and soared down to a skyscraper's rooftop. The city spread out in an urban crosshatch below her, and her vantage point allowed her an unparalleled view.

On that corner there, a brightly-lit island in a sea of darkness. A line of ponies stretched out the door of a building. A steady stream of ponies exited from another door, carrying small sacks of food. Too small. She could see the ribs of most of those standing in line, and worse. Dead eyes stared forward, unseeing, while dirty fur and matted manes adorned exhausted forms. Many ponies in line leaned against the wall of the building or laid down altogether. The line did not move forward, so much as stumble and stagger wearily. She turned and looked off the other side of the building, and saw two more islands of illumination, and similar scenes of misery and want.

Famine. Unheard of in her sister's Equestria. But not hers.

More. Las Pegasus now.

She teleported into the airspace adjacent to the airborne vacation city.

Las Pegasus was gone.

No, that was wrong. She peered at the ground. It had descended from the heavens, its vast resorts littering the land untidily, like some enormous foal had left her toys scattered about. She glided lower and peered more closely. She saw that there were still scraps of cloud architecture drifting in the skies above the grounded city, burned and scorched-looking at the edges.

The city must have been unable to cope with the combined heat of the sun above and the desert below. As the cloud foundations had failed, they had lowered the entire city, desperate to save what they could. Clouds could be rebuilt. The city could be raised again one day. Until then, they would scrape out an existence in the sand below.

No more. No more, no more, no more, enough.

She teleported back to her bedchamber, and stood in the middle of it, shaking, eyes wide and staring. After what might have been an eternity, or might have been minutes, she finally came back to herself enough to face the truth.

"I'm a monster."

Chapter 6: I've Seen Decay

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"I want to make sure I've got this right. You called her a 'vain, pretty tyrant'? And then you teleport-flounced out?"

"I—! I didn't flounce!"

"Sure, I'll bet you just said something about doing something useful before making a dramatic exit."

"Exactly!"

"Pretty sure that's a classic flounce, Twily. I think your friend Rarity's rubbed off on you a bit!"

"Hmph. You're not really helping, you know."

"Well, way I see it, I guarantee she's been called worse. If she's set herself up as big bad queen of this other Equestria, she's a big girl. She can take it."

"...I'm worried she can't. I don't think she had anypony she can trust. Not really. I was supposed to try to be that pony, but I made a real mess of that."

"Well, then try again. You're the Princess of Friendship, and I know that if anyone can make friends with an alternate, evil Luna, it's you."

"...you really think so?"

"Twily, you became the Alicorn of Friendship—that's a capital F—and the fourth alicorn in history because being friends is kind of your thing. So yeah, I'm pretty sure."

"You're right. You're absolutely right! Thanks, Shiny. I'm sure things will work out just fine."

For Want of a Horseshoe

I've Seen Decay

The scope of her failure was staggering.

Her kingdom had been in steady decline for the duration of her rule, and she had been the last to know. After returning from her fact-finding mission and regaining her wits, the first thing she had done was review the food and agriculture reports. She wanted to know for certain—had she been deceived, or merely blind?

The answer, as it usually was for such things, turned out to be a little of both. The information had been there, but it had in small print, or hidden in dense tables of information with no previous results cross-indexed, or as in one infuriating case, concealed by understatement: "Farmers report yields below expectations". She had investigated the sources behind that report and discovered that 'below expectations' translated to 'complete harvest failure'.

Her first step had been confronting her seneschal, a mare named Soft Whisper. Nightmare had burst into Soft Whisper's office, pinned her to the wall and demanded the truth. To Soft Whisper's credit, she had not spent long panicking; Nightmare had extracted a stammered confession and justification within minutes.

At first, Soft Whisper had been afraid of Nightmare, and had just been looking for influence. Then, when the first reports of the Sun Days had come in, she'd been afraid of reporting failure. Now, at the end of it all, she'd been paralyzed by the weight of her lies and a fear of everything.

Nightmare was disgusted with her now-former seneschal's selfishness and cowardice, and furious that she had allowed such a pathetic excuse for a pony a position of power under her. Before being thrown in the dungeon, Soft Whisper had claimed she had acted alone, but Nightmare couldn’t believe that.

If it were true, it would mean that Nightmare had no one to blame for her blindness but herself.

She swayed on her hooves, and her vision swam for a moment.

Her head was pounding, and by her own reckoning, the late night had become an early morning. She gritted her teeth as another wave of dizziness swept over her. Even immortal alicorn queens had their limits, and it seemed that she had found hers. A cross-country teleportation tour and world-shaking revelations about one's rule were enough to drive any mare to exhaustion.

She drew herself up one last time and focused on not dragging her hooves as she made the long walk up to her chambers. The journey passed in a hazy blur, and before she knew it, she was alone and free to collapse to bed.

Several hours had passed. She was surveying herself in the vanity mirror. Her coat was matted and tangled and would make the quality of her sleep (had she slept?) apparent to anypony with eyes. With a frustrated grunt, she levitated a stiff-bristled brush from her bedside table and settled in. A rattling sound drew her eyes down and she discovered that the brush was trembling in her telekinetic grip. She closed her eyes and, as the trembling intensified, took a deep breath. After a long moment, she let it out, and the trembling abated enough to begin brushing her coat. She grumbled wordlessly; her sister would have had hoofmaidens for this. No hoofmaidens for the Queen of the Night, she thought to herself.

Once groomed and presentable, she paused with one foreleg in the air, hoof poised inches away from her door. Another deep breath later, and she was striding down the hall, flanked by the wall-to-ceiling windows and, to her annoyance, a pair of guards.

After Twilight Sparkle's dramatic departure the night before, she had reluctantly posted guards outside her bedchamber doors, and was already regretting the decision. Pragmatism had won out over pride however, and outside they would remain.

She kept her gaze fixed upon the large double doors at the opposite end of the hall. Just beyond the spiral staircase that led down to the throne room, the doors occupied the entire far wall. Stained black and inlaid with a full moon bisected by the gap between the doors, they concealed her destination. She pushed the huge doors open, revealing a small platform, and the open sky. The platform had no railing, and jutted out from the castle's central spire, directly over the front gate. Any pony standing there would naturally be the center of attention. This was by design, as it was where Nightmare Moon raised the moon at the beginning of each day and lowered it again at the end.

She stood on the platform for a long moment, staring at nothing while an errant gust moaned through a gap in the stonework. Then, with her horn alight, she teased the moon into motion over the horizon. She allowed the glow around her horn to fade and exhaled.

Something more than breath escaped her as she did so, and she sagged. Your queen calls you to service, Equestria, she thought numbly. Awaken.

It was time to begin the day and end her solitude. She walked inside and made for the stairwell, and her two guards fell in behind her, silent shadows drawn in her wake. Her path led to her office, a small unassuming room tucked behind her throne, with an expansive wooden desk topped by polished ebony. The front of the desk had a small white moon inlay that matched the crescent moon on Nightmare's flank. The top of the desk was kept immaculately neat. The only things atop it were an ebony jar filled with white quills, an inkpot, and a small filing tray.

She turned to the guard at her right side, a gray bat pony stallion. "Send for the archwitch." The guard saluted wordlessly and left. Nightmare turned to the other guard, a dark pink unicorn mare. "I am expecting Captain Rainbow Dash as well. If she arrives, inform her that she is to wait outside for my summons." The unicorn gave a sloppy salute, but Nightmare had already turned away and closed the door.

She spent a moment reviewing the profiles on the head witch of the royal coven and her captain of the guard. The archwitch was a unicorn mare named Violet Lotus. She'd been a senior professor at the Manehattan University of Applied Thaumaturgics and had been one of the first to express an interest in joining Nightmare Moon's newly-formed Royal Coven of Witchcraft.

There came a knock at the door, and the bat pony guard opened the door to Nightmare's office a crack. "Archwitch Violet Lotus to see you, your majesty."

"Enter," she said, rolling one forehoof.

When Violet Lotus entered Queen Nightmare Moon's office, she was greeted by the monarch in question watching her through narrowed eyes, the queen's chin propped up on crossed forehooves. Violet Lotus gulped.

What followed were a series of increasingly-baffling questions, however. Questions about agricultural yield, or the effects of intense sunlight on ponies of weakened constitution and finally—most confusing—the disposition of ponies with regards to her Queen's rule.

Violet Lotus stared at her ruler blankly for a long moment, before she was forced to shrug. "I'm sorry your majesty, but my work doesn't really take me out of the castle. I would assume… good? The rest of the royal coven seems pleased enough, at least."

Nightmare held Violet Lotus' gaze long enough for the smaller mare to begin sweating nervously and glancing around. Had she missed something? Finally, Nightmare sighed. "Dismissed, Archwitch. Return to your research."

Violet Lotus blinked and bowed low before scurrying out of the room.

Nightmare sighed and rubbed her temples. While it was a relief that her royal coven hadn't been engaged in conspiracy to conceal information from her or destroy Equestria (or both), she was troubled to find that an entire arm of her government was blind to concerns outside the castle and themselves. It was probably her fault, she thought, frowning. When she had first been establishing herself and rebuilding the castle in the Everfree, she had prized loyalty above all other attributes in those she recruited to join her. Anypony willing to devote oneself so quickly to what must seem like a conquering invader would require a certain moral myopia. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that her staff were unaware of, or unconcerned by the state of the rest of Equestria…

Her thoughts were interrupted by a second knock at her door. The bat pony stallion opened the door a crack and said, "Captain Rainbow Dash, your majesty."

Nightmare waved a hoof absentmindedly, and the door was swung wide, allowing Nightmare Moon's captain of the guard to enter.

Rainbow Dash's stride lacked its usual swagger, and dark circles etched lines under her eyes, lending them a bruised appearance. Her mane, normally immaculately shaved to regulation length, had a thin fuzz of prismatic stubble along her scalp lining the central strip of mane. She stopped a short distance from her queen's desk and delivered a salute. "Captain Rainbow Dash reporting as requested, your majesty."

Nightmare Moon peered at the captain for several long, silent moments. After the silence stretched uncomfortably, she picked up several scattered papers on her desk and shuffled them together in her hooves. Finally, she looked away from Rainbow Dash as she set the papers aside. "Captain, would you describe yourself as hard of hearing?"

Rainbow Dash's expression remained stoic. "Ma'am?"

"Because," Nightmare continued, "I believe my precise words to you yesterday were to report to me 'first thing tomorrow'. Given that it has now been some time since the day began, I am forced to conclude that you simply misheard me. So—I ask you again. Are you suffering difficulties hearing, Captain?" Nightmare met Rainbow Dash's eyes again. The other mare was now visibly sweating, and carefully keeping her gaze just above and to the left of Nightmare's face.

"No, ma'am, no problems with my hearing," she managed.

"Good," Nightmare said, leaning back. "I would hate for the head of the Night Guard to be suffering from any physical malady. It does beg the question, however: what was so important that it kept you from an appointment with your queen?"

Rainbow Dash shuffled nervously. "I was… flying some personal reconnaissance, ma'am."

Ah. She had suspected as much, but it was good to have confirmation. "And how fare Ponyville and Sweet Apple Acres?"

Rainbow Dash blinked, and her expression shifted to one of naked surprise. "How did you…?"

Nightmare sighed, exhaustion briefly clouding her features. "After what you heard last night, I would be surprised if you had done any less."

Rainbow Dash tensed and took a step forward. "Is it true, then? All that was your fault?"

Yesterday, Nightmare would not have let such blatant insolence pass. But after her own "personal reconnaissance" the previous day, it all felt like so much playacting. She sighed. "You are owed answers, Captain. But first, I will have something from you," she said. "Tell me why you joined the Night Guard."

Rainbow Dash's expression was guarded. "We… talked about this yesterday. Lots of ponies join the guard to try to do some good. I'm not much different."

Nightmare studied the blue pegasus for a moment. "I've seen your records. Consistently among the top achievers in your flight classes. A second-bolt black belt in the Gentle Feather style. Extreme personal ambition, with the drive to match. Prime Wonderbolt material before my return, and Shadowbolt material afterward. And of course, the only pegasus in living memory to have performed the mythical sonic rainboom. The life of a humble guard hardly seems," Nightmare paused, "fitting."

Rainbow Dash scoffed. "I'm a guard captain, aren't I?"

Nightmare held Rainbow Dash's gaze, unbothered by the pegasus' rudeness. "I'd like to hear it in your own words. This is my condition for the answers you seek."

Rainbow grimaced. "Fine. When I was a filly, I saw a unicorn and an al—another unicorn fighting in the air. And I thought it was totally cool. Before that, all I'd ever thought about were the Wonderbolts. But after seeing that? I realized unicorns and fighting were pretty cool too. I started taking martial arts classes. I thought about joining the old Royal Guard a few times, but ugh, Canterlot." Rainbow shrugged. "I had a friend who moved to Ponyville, and they had an opening on their weather team. It wasn't really what I wanted, but hey," she shrugged, "it was a pretty cushy gig, especially because I was way overqualified for it." Rainbow paused and stared directly at Nightmare. "And then… you came back.

"Suddenly here's this big new alicorn who's even cooler than the one from before, and she needs guards. I gotta admit, I wasn't really sure about you at first. But once you started rebuilding this castle here," she said gesturing at their surroundings, "you started clearing out the Everfree. My Ponyville friend sometimes went in there—still does, actually—and she got trapped by a pack of timberwolves. I heard her scream and showed up just in time to see you blasting the tar out of 'em like pow, bam, whoosh!" Rainbow exclaimed, gesticulating wildly with her forelegs and wings. She froze after a moment, coughed, and resumed a more formal stance. "Anyway, I figured anyone who saves a friend of mine can't be all bad. Joined up the next day. Few years later, here I am."

Nightmare frowned thoughtfully. "I cannot say I recall that. Though she would've hardly been the only pony I rescued from an untimely meeting with the wolves around that period." She allowed a thoughtful silence to descend briefly before grimacing. "You have met my demands captain. Now, I shall uphold my end of our agreement."

Rainbow Dash straightened, turning to face her queen completely.

Nightmare stood and held Rainbow Dash's gaze. "In answer to your question: yes. All of what you saw last night was my fault."

Rainbow Dash gaped for a moment before she begun sputtering incoherently.

Nightmare Moon held up a hoof and closed her eyes. "For what little good it does," she said quietly, "the current state of affairs is the result of neglect. It was not my intention to destroy Equestria by degrees. I have no desire to rule over graveyards and ashes."

"Wh... how could you not notice?!" Rainbow Dash exploded.

Nightmare sighed and looked away. "The same way you did, I imagine. Being busy and focused on one's own affairs. It did not help that one of my trusted advisors was intentionally keeping vital information from me. That does not excuse my own negligence, however. It is a poor queen who cannot protect her subjects."

"Well you're gonna fix it, right?" Rainbow Dash asked, edging closer, a hint of whine creeping into the end of her question.

"I intend to try. Captain," Nightmare said, voice regaining its ring of regal authority. "should you choose to remain in my service, I have one command for you. Attend me on the balcony at tomorrow's moonrise. In either case, you are at liberty for the remainder of the day. I hope to see you there. Dismissed."

Rainbow Dash blinked, saluted, rose into the air and flapped out, looking slightly dazed. Nightmare remained standing until the heavy, very-definitely-soundproofed door shut with a click. A flicker of telekinesis saw it locked. Then, she collapsed back into the chair behind her desk and allowed her forehead to fall onto the desk before her with a hollow thump. She massaged her temples in a vain attempt to soothe her growing headache.

After several minutes of this, she let out a slow, long-suffering sigh. And all at once, she stood, shooting to her hooves with such force that her chair was propelled backward, skittering dangerously close to falling over before settling again with a slap of wood on stone. She could wallow later. For now, there was a kingdom to rule, and she had groundwork to lay.

Nightmare kicked the bedchamber door shut behind her with a rear hoof, stood still for a moment, and then… slumped. Her posture resembled a puppet with every string cut save for one attached to her withers. After her meetings with Rainbow Dash and Violet Lotus, she had spent the rest of the day furiously—in every sense—administrating. If she was going to fix her mistakes, a great deal had to be set in motion. With Soft Whisper's betrayal, she'd had no one to bear the brunt of the legislative burden, so she had done it personally. She had never felt suited to the kind of exacting precision such work required; when they had ruled together, it had always been her sister's forte.

She dragged her hooves across the floor, shedding her regalia as she did. The last thing to be removed was her helmet. As she lifted it off her head, she paused and simply stared at it, lost in thought.

She had rarely worn her crown. Her preferred royal headgear had been that of a more martial variety, befitting a warrior more than a ruler or a diplomat. It had suited her—she'd been the tip of the spear when she and her sister had forged Equestria. First into the fray against the tribalist holdouts who refused to unify with the rest of ponykind, and again when Discord's brief reign had scattered chaotic monstrosities throughout the young kingdom. A thousand years ago, she'd been the general of Equestria's armies, feared for her battlefield tactics and personal prowess both. When she had returned from banishment and taken her place on the throne, she had named herself both Queen and general, only to discover that her sister's Equestria had no armies. It hadn't fought a war, either internal or external, in centuries.

Because it hadn't needed to.

Her sister had maintained peace through diplomatic maneuvering and trade agreements and convincing the neighboring kingdoms that really, wars were messy, troublesome business anyway, weren't they? And of course, each kingdom believed that they had reached that same conclusion entirely of their own volition.

Still holding her helmet, Nightmare cast the spell that would open a window to her sister's prison. After the usual cascade of energies stabilized, there was a window in space floating in front of Nightmare's face, and beyond it lay her sister. Nightmare tried to imagine her sister, white and unblemished even in defeat, wearing headgear such as she now held.

It was difficult, even having seen her in the shining golden battle gear of old. Her sister had not taken to the field often, but when she had, the enemy's defeat had been absolute. Nightmare's powers of darkness had been inescapable, but darkness was a quiet, subtle thing. The sun's fury, in comparison, was violent, and absolute. There were old battle sites even now, well over a thousand years later, where nothing lived or grew.

But her sister had never worn anything more than her crown, despite Luna's pleas to the contrary. A ruler should not hide, she had said. Luna had thought her foolish and told her as much. Symbolism was well and good, but it wouldn't stop a crossbow bolt to the skull.

But Celestia had been right, hadn't she? In her sister's absence, she had conquered, and ruthlessly imposed her will over the entire kingdom. And she had done it all without spilling a single drop of blood.

The bedchamber was silent, save for the gentle humming of the portal, and the magical twinkling of Nightmare's magic.

"I missed you terribly, you know," Celestia said.

Nightmare started, and her expression twisted into a snarl. Surprise and embarrassment at being discovered warred within her. "And you were a fool!" she exclaimed. "Then and now, both!"

She viciously cut power to the portal spell, and it flew apart, rattling all the loose furniture in her bedchamber.

A pair of guards burst into the room, weapons drawn. "Your majesty, what's wrong?!"

Nightmare buried her face in her hooves and let out a muffled scream of frustration. "It is nothing. Leave me!"

Unseen by Nightmare, the two guards exchanged a concerned glance before retreating, and closed the door behind them.

Nightmare let out a long-suffering sigh and, with a final look at her helmet, opened a closet, levitated the helmet inside, and shut the door after it.

The next morning, Nightmare stood on the moon-raising balcony, filled with a sense of purpose that she hadn't felt since the day reconstruction of the castle had been completed. She was unable to completely suppress little tremors of anticipation from ruffling her wings.

She turned at the sound of hooves on stone and beheld an approaching Rainbow Dash. As they made eye contact, Rainbow Dash abruptly stopped, stared, and blinked for a moment before continuing.

Nightmare waited for Rainbow Dash to approach and salute before answering it with one of her own. She almost smiled at Rainbow Dash's poorly-hidden stare. "I'm gladdened to have you join me, Captain. Is something the matter?"

Rainbow Dash's eyes widened before she looked away guiltily. "Uh, sorry your majesty. I've just never seen you without your helmet."

Nightmare turned back toward the rest of Equestria. "Few have." After a moment's mutual silence, she continued, "Do you know why I've asked you to join me here, Captain?"

"No, ma'am. I've been wondering."

Truthfully, so have I. Her not-quite-command to the captain had been a spur-of-moment impulse. It had felt right, for reasons she struggled to identify. "I imagine the news of yesterday's edicts caused some stir within the castle."

Rainbow Dash nodded. The queen's flurry of legislation yesterday had been all anyone would talk about. Huge withdrawals of forces from the borders, with the majority being redirected to agrarian areas, and a significant minority to larger population centers. Many of the Royal Coven's current projects had been put on indefinite hold in favor of medical and agricultural research. The establishment of several funds earmarked for use by pegasus cities for reconstruction. "I assumed it had something to do with what you told me yesterday. About fixing things."

"That would be correct. What we're doing up here will be the final part of the initial effort," Nightmare said, turning her head slightly to look at Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash frowned. "I don't think I get how raising the moon is going to help."

Queen Nightmare Moon finally smiled. "That, captain, is because I will not be raising the moon."

A corona of teal light shot through with streaks of gold wreathed her horn and began to pulse. And for the first time in years, a gentle golden glow slowly suffused the eastern horizon as a tiny slice of the sun peeked over it. A single ray of light escaped to strike the stones of the castle balcony.

Rainbow Dash flinched, and years of Sun Days caused her to reflexively raise a wing to protect her face. Then, she paused, and cautiously lowered the upraised wing, peering up over the top of it. "Ma'am?" She asked tremulously, "Is this... a normal sunrise?"

The multihued light around Nightmare's horn faded, and she took a deep breath. "Yes," she said quietly. "The night must end, Captain. It has taken me far too long to realize that. There will be an official announcement of the details tomorrow. But for today... I thought that the least I could give to our wounded kingdom was a new dawn." Nightmare turned to leave the balcony with Rainbow Dash just behind.

Rainbow Dash maintained a thoughtful silence as she accompanied Nightmare down the stairs, the two guards silently failing in behind the pair. Finally, she said, "That's what all of yesterday was about. You're redirecting all our resources to growing food. Treating the sick."

Our resources, Nightmare noticed. Not 'your'. "Among other things, yes."

There was another thoughtful silence as Nightmare led Rainbow Dash into the office behind the throne room. The two guards took up their positions outside the door. "Ma'am?" Rainbow Dash began hesitantly. "There's... one more question I had, about the other night."

After it became apparent that there was no more would be forthcoming, Nightmare prompted the captain. "Yes?"

"The," and here, Rainbow Dash's face twisted up, clearly uncomfortable with the phrase, "other alicorn. The one that the prisoner called Twilight." Nightmare tensed. She had realized that her captain of the guard would have questions, but it had now occurred to her that she was completely unprepared to answer them. "Was she the same one that was here about a week ago?"

Nightmare suppressed a wince. She would have preferred to avoid the topic altogether, but it was clearly too much to have asked for. "In a manner of speaking, yes. You recall what she told us about time travel during her original visit?" At Rainbow Dash's nod, Nightmare continued, "The alicorn you met last night was the same you met previously but separated by a gulf of years. I am uncertain precisely how many."

Rainbow Dash visibly hesitated again before opening her mouth. "I'm... pretty sure that last week wasn't the first time I saw her."

Nightmare Moon stared. Blinked. "Expla—", she began. She was, however, rudely interrupted by heavy tremors running through the stones of the castle, followed immediately by sound of an explosion.

Nightmare shot to her hooves and wrenched the office door open with telekinesis. "Report!", she barked.

Instead of the expected pair of alert and combat-ready guards she expected, what she got was a single guard lying in a crumpled heap on the ground. Rainbow Dash darted forward, skimming scant inches off the ground. She crouched next to the fallen stallion for a moment, checking his breathing and pulse before straightening. "Alive, steady breathing, no sign of injuries." She turned to Nightmare. "Magical?"

Nightmare approached and ran a cursory diagnostic spell over the unconscious guard and nodded. "Sleep spell, from short range. Powerful."

Rainbow Dash nodded. "Dispellable? Might be able to tell us about his attacker."

Nightmare... hesitated. A month ago, she might've said 'yes' without a second thought. Now... "No, not safely. Removing the spell matrix now could cause mental trauma," she said. And, after another moment's consideration added, "And from a caster this powerful, it might have dangerous failsafes built in that would only trigger on a forced dispel. No, we search for the explosion," she concluded. "With me!"

Nightmare galloped out her office, combining her long stride with bursts of speed granted by flaps of her great wings. A surprised Rainbow Dash spent several crucial moments gawping before taking to the air and matching Nightmare's speed. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"The dungeons," Nightmare replied grimly. Between the angle of the tremors and an instinctual suspicion that circumvented conscious thought altogether, she was certain that was their destination.

The trail of magically-sleeping guards leading toward the dungeons was a strong hint too.

"TO ARMS!" she boomed, her use of the Royal Voice lending a percussive ring to an already-legendary talent for vocalization. "INVADERS WITHIN THE CASTLE!" She skidded around a corner at speed, metallic hoofguards kicking up sparks as she did so. At the end of the hall, a surprised-looking dark pink unicorn mare barded in the armor of the Night Guard, was frozen in the act of emerging from the dungeon stairwell. A pit formed in Nightmare's stomach and she bared her fangs. "Betrayal... " she whispered.

"Wait!" Rainbow Dash whispered urgently, still hovering at Nightmare's side. "She's not one of ours. I'd recognize her if she was!"

Nightmare's eyes widened. "An infiltrator." And narrowed. "Well, then..." she added, baring her fangs in a smile this time.

By now, the unicorn had recovered, though her eyes were still wide with fear. She'd been exposed at the top of a narrow stairwell, and while the hallway they were all standing in was wide enough to comfortably accommodate five ponies standing side-by-side, she had no cover. The nearest rooms that led off the hallway were halfway between Nightmare and the unicorn, with nothing but empty space in between.

The unicorn, unwilling (or unable) to retreat, instead opted for audacity. She took several quick steps forward and fired a rapid volley of raw magical blasts.

Nightmare raised a shield contemptuously and was surprised when the hastily-constructed bolts hit her shield with enough force to stagger her. A powerful spellcaster, then, she noted. She shored up her shield before pumping it full of enough energy to withstand several powerful blasts, then anchored it several paces ahead of her. It was no longer tied directly to her, and she was free to work at other spells.

All she needed was a few seconds. While the unicorn hammered away at Nightmare's rapidly-depleting shield, Nightmare prepared a spell of her own. She waited for a brief lull in the blasts of energy pounding away at her shield before abruptly dropping it and launching a coruscating ball of energy from the end of her horn.

The unicorn shrieked, raised a shield of her own, and covered her face with her forelegs. The ball of energy that Nightmare had launched was intentionally oversized, swirling with streaks of teal, dark blue and poisonous green.

Instants before it impacted the unicorn's shield, Nightmare wrapped herself and Rainbow Dash in a thick, opaque shield spell. She waited for the tremor of detonation to pass before dropping the shield and sighting on the unicorn's position. Despite appearances, Nightmare's spell had been intended to stun—it had unleashed a blast of concussive light and sound, temporarily blinding and deafening those subjected to it.

Instead, as the dust cleared, Nightmare found the unicorn looked dazed, but unharmed. In front of her, were a trio of unicorns with their eyes tightly shut and streaming tears, but maintaining powerful, interlocked shield spells.

"They must have come out just after you put up your shield," Rainbow Dash groaned. "Looks like they got a face full of your blast though, hah!"

That was when pegasi began streaming out of the dungeon stairwell. They formed up above the unicorns, thin plates of light armor flashing in the light. Nightmare scowled and weaved a spell to increase the local gravity above the enemy pegasi. Several tumbled to the floor immediately, while two remained in the air, wings laboring to keep their suddenly-increased weight aloft. "Captain," Nightmare grunted through the effort of maintaining the spell, "Deal with any pegasi that break through. I will handle the rest."

"Yes ma'am," Rainbow Dash said, and moved above and ahead of Nightmare. "No way any of them get through me!"

Her assertion was soon tested, as two of the still-airborne pegasi struggled through the high-gravity zone, and broke into the open air beyond it. Rainbow Dash didn't wait for them; instead, she streaked out into the middle of the hallway to meet them on her own terms. Nightmare winced at the sound when Rainbow Dash collided with her opponent—a muted clung! followed an abbreviated squawk of surprise. There was a complicated moment, full of rapid motion from Rainbow Dash, then the enemy pegasus tumbled out from the air and fell, senseless, to the floor below. Without wasting an instant, Rainbow Dash aimed a powerful flap of her wings at the other pegasus, who was still on approach. Rainbow Dash was propelled backward and upward, and the other pegasus swooped downward to avoid the blast of turbulent air. Rainbow Dash, now with a height advantage, arrowed her body toward the other pegasus, leading with a single rear hoof. She connected with devastating speed directly between the other pegasus' wing joints, sending him tumbling to the ground with a surprised yelp. He rolled bonelessly for a moment before coming to a stop in a groaning heap.

"Who else wants some?!" Rainbow Dash cried, resuming her guard position above and before Nightmare.

Meanwhile, two other unicorns had emerged, and joined the dark pink infiltrator in lighting horns in an effort to counter Nightmare's gravity spell. A yellow mare, one of the newcomer unicorns, allowed her horn to fall dark for a moment. The rebel party all flinched, as the increased weight bore down on them once again. The unicorn mare then shouted, "Left side, drop the shield!" to her comrade.

The still-blinded unicorn maintaining the shield at the front complied, and the leftmost section of the shield rippled and vanished. The newcomer unicorn immediately seized the fallen pegasi still lying in the center of the hall and yanked them into the relative safety of the rebel formation with her telekinesis. "Up again!" she shouted at the shield unicorn, who immediately complied. The yellow unicorn rejoined the effort of neutralizing Nightmare's spell, and the entire rebel party stood straighter as the force bearing down on them was reduced once again.

"Captain," Nightmare ground out, "I can deal with these insects alone, but you will need to remove yourself. There will be... collateral damage."

Upon hearing this, one of the pegasi who had been struck down by the gravity spell frantically struggled into the air and beyond the gravity spell, desperately winging toward the dark queen.

"Yes ma'am!" Rainbow Dash said, darting forward. "Let me just swat this one for you and I'll get outta your way!"

Then, everything went wrong.

The rebel pegasus abruptly doubled back before Rainbow Dash had made it halfway down the hall. The unicorns at the front of the rebel formation dropped their shields simultaneously, allowing a clear view of what lay behind them. The dark pink unicorn had not been countering Nightmare's gravity spell, but instead, had been building up an enormous ball of rippling, dark teal magical energy. In order to conceal it from Nightmare and Rainbow Dash, she had extended her magical field behind her. As a result, the growing ball of energy had, instead of forming at the tip of her horn, formed just above the floor, behind her rear hooves. As a result, it had been concealed by the distortion of the shields, and the rebels' own bodies.

The infiltrator unicorn, straining with effort, heaved the pulsing ball up and over her body, to the tip of her horn. Then, before Nightmare or Rainbow Dash could react, carefully applied a powerful pulse of magical to the ball, and sent it streaking forward.

Straight toward Rainbow Dash.

Nightmare's eyes widened, and her concentration faltered. The gravity spell sputtered and failed, but she had eyes only for her captain of the guard, and the sizzling, spitting ball of magical death that was on a rapid collision course with her. Out of time, she shoved energy into her horn and released it in the form of the world's messiest, least efficient teleport. There was a

moment of disassociation

and then she returned to reality, in front of Rainbow Dash, staring down a ball of arcane destruction. For a split second, she locked eyes with the infiltrator unicorn mare, and saw vicious triumph in them.

Then, she was out of time.

The ball was an incredibly simple construct—a thin shell of solid magic that contained and compressed an enormous amount of raw, magical energy. Upon contact with a solid enough surface, the thin outer shell would break, allowing the energy inside to return itself—and anything unfortunate to be caught within a several meter radius—to a lower energy state at a terminally rapid rate. Any ordinary, unshielded magic user would be immediately vaporized by the ensuing explosion. If, somehow, they avoided immediate incineration in the resultant ball of heat, the force generated would be enough to send them hurtling into unforgiving stone at speeds no mortal body was meant to withstand.

Fortunately, Nightmare Moon was neither an ordinary magic user, nor did she possess a merely mortal body.

Just before impact, she leveled her horn parallel to the ground, flared her wings, and braced her hooves. She gritted her teeth as the impact shoved her several inches backward, hoofguards scraping against stone. The ball of energy now balanced on the edge of her horn strained, trying to come undone. The energy within vibrated through her, setting her whole body abuzz as the energy within crackled and spat like a thousand lightning bolts. She closed her eyes and focused her magic, and she poured every iota of her magical reserves into maintaining the outer shell's integrity. It felt like attempting contain a tsunami with nothing but a thin blanket. And every moment she held it, the pressure grew worse.

A heartbeat into her effort, Nightmare realized that it was futile; there was too much energy to absorb or dissipate. She opened her eyes and was surprised to find an expression of mounting horror on the infiltrator mare's face. In a flash she realized that the spell had been formed with very specific intent; the longer she spent allowing it to grow, the more destruction it would cause. And with Nightmare's efforts at control unwittingly pumping energy into it, it had grown beyond her attacker's expectations. But the attempt had bought her precious instants, and when obstruction would not suffice, then perhaps redirection would...

A bare flicker of her eyes to the left to confirm her location, and she wrenched her head right, willing the ball of magic to remain planted at her horn's tip. Then, Nightmare heaved to the left with her entire body, ending with a whistling flick of her horn.

The ball of magic was launched away at speed into the open doorway to her left. Nightmare allowed momentum to carry her, continuing her spin away from the doorway and flung a foreleg over the still-braking Rainbow Dash, bearing her to the floor. Nightmare followed, desperately throwing up the strongest shield she could muster.

The ball of magic, finally removed from any containing force and with outer shell frayed beyond any salvation, sped into the small room and out of sight.

For a moment, there was stillness.

Then, the ball's outer shell snapped, contracted, and dissipated with in inaudible pop! and eagerly unleashed its explosive payload. Light and overwhelming pressure hammered against Nightmare's still-forming shield, transferring terrible force to Nightmare herself. She felt the hammer blow of force in her gut, before it rattled up through her hooves. She poured more power into her shield, the only thing standing between herself and the leviathan pressing against her.

Finally, after interminable moments, the pressure abated to something bearable. Without wasting a moment, Nightmare rapidly expanded the shield, feeling several heavy somethings slide off the growing dome before crashing to the floor with reverberating thumps. She dismissed the shield to survey the situation.

Stone dust filled the air, reducing visibility and rendering the distant shapes of the rebels into hazy silhouettes.

The hall's left wall was entirely gone. So was the leftmost wall of the room beyond, exposing the interior of the castle to the cool night air and the forest beyond. At the upper corner of the new hole in her castle, surrounded by shattered stone and broken timberwork, Nightmare saw the sagging corner of her moon-raising platform, now bereft of support. She turned, to find the area behind her littered with fallen stone blocks, shards of broken wood, and scorched bits of carpet and tapestry.

And one shell-shocked purple alicorn, motes of violet energy still dissipating from her form, the swirling vortex caused by her arrival already vanishing. Her eyes were wide, and her mane windswept—or, more accurately, blastswept—and her wings were flared with surprise.

"Is... this a bad time?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

In the silence that followed, the castle's moon-raising balcony finally tore free and crashed to the ground.

Chapter 7: The Pony Was Lost

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"Well, I was talking to Shiny about it earlier, and I guess I wanted a second opinion. It's not proper science unless you have as many data points as possible, after all!"

"Oh, well. I'm glad that you wanted my opinion. But um, why are you asking me?"

"I thought this sort of thing would be very familiar to you!"

"Right. Um, what sort of thing would that be, exactly?"

"The handling of dangerous, aggressive creatures who feel injured or vulnerable, and need to be treated with delicacy and kindness, of course!"

"Just so I'm clear, we're talking about the alternate timeline's Nightmare Moon, right?"

"Yep!"

"Um, right. Well, I guess you could try treating her like an injured bear. You have to make sure she never feels cornered or trapped. Keep your distance, and make sure she doesn't feel like you're forcing her to do anything. Make sure she has a dark, safe place to retreat to with plenty of fruits and berries."

"Great! That's good advice. Except for that last part, maybe. I'm pretty sure she keeps most of her food in the castle kitchens."

"Oh. Sorry. Just, um. Do your best to let her take the lead. When you're really invested in things, you can be kind of... intense."

"Oh. Really?"

"Really."

For Want of a Horseshoe

The Pony Was Lost

Captain Rainbow Dash of the Night Guard strode stiffly out of the interrogation room and waited for the door to screech shut behind her. After the echo of its closing had died away, she doffed her helmet and arched forward with a groan, her wings upraised and straining. A series of pops from too-stiff joints were followed by a sigh of exhausted relief as she slumped back into a more relaxed position.

"What news?" An equally tired-looking Nightmare Moon asked. Her stance was as rigid and unyielding as ever, but lines had gathered beneath her eyes, and her ears were drooping ever so slightly.

Rainbow Dash rubbed a hoof between her eyes in a vain attempt to soothe a growing headache. "Looks like the mare in the stolen armor led the assault, sort of. Name of Starlight Glimmer." Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at Nightmare Moon's brief look of surprise. "You know her?"

Nightmare shook her head. "By reputation, in a manner of speaking. Continue."

Rainbow Dash nodded. "She's been in the castle for a little while now. The rebellion somehow got their hooves on a set of Night Guard armor, and she snuck in during a shift change. Used some mental persuasion magic to throw off any suspicion whenever she got stopped. She managed to put that sleep spell into a rune on the inside of a lot of the Guard's armor. She just triggered it and pow!" She stomped a hoof for emphasis. "Most of the Guard out like lights. No long-term effects. She thinks," Rainbow Dash added with a growl.

"How did they get into the castle?" Nightmare Moon asked. "A single unicorn should not have been enough to disable the teleportation wards, even from within."

"That uh, may have been my fault," came an embarrassed-sounding admission from the violet alicorn standing next to Nightmare Moon. "When I... er, left, the other night, I put the teleportation wards back up behind me, but I did kind of a sloppy job. Sorry," Twilight Sparkle said, ducking her head. "I didn't expect them to do something so reckless! I even told Sunburst that they should suspend operations for a little while..." She muttered.

Nightmare grunted and said nothing in response. She turned back to Rainbow Dash. "Did she offer any explanation for their numbers? Surely they did not expect to face the Queen of the Night with such a paltry force."

Rainbow Dash grimaced. "That's where things get stupid. They sent her down here without any real way of getting a message back. They could send her a 'get out' signal, or a 'go now' signal, but that was it. She gets the 'go now' signal this morning and has no choice but to play her part. So, she sleeps the Guard, runs for the weak spot in the wards, and blasts a hole in the dungeon walls. Something about that's enough to open a hole in the wards big enough to get ponies inside. She still has no idea what lit a fire under their tails though."

Nightmare closed her eyes and huffed a sigh. "But then you questioned the others, and they told you that they saw the sunrise as a sign." She opened her eyes and met Rainbow Dash's surprised expression. "They expected to arrive in the castle just in time to render aid to my recently-escaped sister. Yes?"

Rainbow Dash blinked. "Uh. Yeah, pretty much ma'am. How'd you know?"

Nightmare turned and waved a wing for the other two to follow. "Call it a hunch," she muttered bitterly. After a moment of walking in silence, she continued, "Have any prisoners still in interrogation transferred to the cells. They are to be treated gently."

Rainbow Dash paused, frowning. "Ma'am?"

Nightmare stopped and turned to face Rainbow Dash fully. "They acted out of love and desperation, in the face of overwhelming and terrifying odds. They share our goal—a better Equestria. Ensure that the rest of the castle is aware of that, Captain."

Rainbow Dash donned her helmet again and gave an enthusiastic salute. "Yes ma'am!" She took to the air and sped off, already barking orders at the guards posted outside the interrogation rooms.

After watching Rainbow Dash at work for a moment, Nightmare turned away and resumed walking, pointedly ignoring her purple alicorn-shaped shadow.

Twilight Sparkle broke the silence. "You've changed," she said. When Nightmare didn't respond, she continued in gentle tones, like one would use with a crying foal. "What happened?"

Nightmare scoffed. "Spare me your false compassion, Twilight Sparkle. I can see the echoes of my sister in you and am no more moved by you than I was her."

"What makes you so sure it's false?" Twilight Sparkle asked, turning to look at Nightmare, her expression open and guileless.

Nightmare merely scowled and remained silent.

Nightmare had made her way back to her chambers, trailed by an unusually-silent Twilight Sparkle. Along the way, she had sent a runner to the archwitch with a brief summary of this morning's events. Between Archwitch Violet Lotus and Captain Rainbow Dash, she trusted the castle's rumor mill to do an adequate job of informing the rest of the castle staff. Indeed, she'd had two members of the Night Guard forming up behind her as she entered the throne room. While they didn't say anything, their looks of mingled concern and awe told her that Rainbow Dash must have already gotten to them personally. She had no objections if it resulted in a more diligent Night Guard.

"Are you sure about this?" Twilight Sparkle asked, nervously running a thread of magic through her mane, smoothing down flyaway strands.

Nightmare opened her mouth to respond to Twilight Sparkle, and no sound emerged. She closed her mouth and looked away. Her chambers were still and quiet. The late morning sun made them feel alien and oppressive, and the glare gave her a headache. Her eyelids itched, something that only happened when she was approaching exhaustion—it was a feeling she was growing uncomfortably familiar with. Her survey of the room drifted to the closet, and her thoughts stilled, considering the helmet hidden within.

She let out a slow sigh.

"Truly, Twilight Sparkle? I cannot believe this was not your goal from the start. Do not patronize me by claiming otherwise." She paused. "Besides which, it has become abundantly clear," she said, throwing a meaningful look at the other alicorn, "That Equestria's wounds are too grievous for my hooves alone. I have neither the reputation, nor the mien to do what is required. Now, silence. I must concentrate."

Nightmare closed her eyes and focused upon her link to the moon. First, was the manifestation chamber. A last resort should her sister have broken free, it was a hollow chamber deep within the moon, festooned with physical trip wires designed to alert Nightmare in the event that any were triggered. She ignored it for the moment, and moved on.

Next, the various magical charms meant to serve as alarms. Here was one that scanned for her sister's unique magical signature. Another that triggered upon detecting any solar magic. Another still that scanned for her sister's mane color. She snorted, and rolled her still-closed eyes at that.

Finally, the prison itself.

To her magical senses, it appeared as a vast web of multicolored, cruelly barbed strands wrapped tightly—chokingly—around a vast well of serene, gently pulsing power. Each strand was interwoven with its neighbor in a dizzyingly complex dance that paid no mind to the restrictions of three-dimensional space, or even good sense. Every single strand was deeply anchored within an enormous silvery shell that surrounded the entire construct. Nightmare had built the bars of her sister's cage into the magical matrix of the moon itself.

She pondered it for many long moments, tracing the intricate spellwork from strand to strand, casting her mind back to the prison's initial construction. She plucked at one of the strands, thinking to start from it and work her way inward. To her surprise, it gave a discordant twang, and a burst of magical feedback traveled back down the link, and she jerked her head back in surprise. She growled in frustration and moved elsewhere, applying more power this time. She was rewarded for her efforts with a sharper snap of feedback that actually hurt.

She grunted, gritted her teeth, and narrowly refrained from blasting a hole in the walls of chambers out of reflex. It would not do to lose her temper. Unravelling the prison was a delicate task and had to be undertaken with the gentlest of touches.

...wasn't it?

She frowned and took a second look at the magical weave, no longer seeking to understand how, but instead, to analyze what. She considered the prison as though she were an attacker intent on breaking it, rather than creator intent on carefully dismantling it.

And... that could work. She teased a few of the magical strands apart, widening a gap here, shifting a strand there, loosening a loop over there. Several moments' work produced a space empty of any strands at all that should be just wide enough for her purposes. She drew back for a moment and surveyed the spell as a whole. Yes, she judged, the collateral damage should be minimal.

She gathered her focus, made a few final adjustments, and added a vitally-important link to her current location to the spell she was maintaining. Then she took her power, melded as it was with her connection to the moon, and swung it like a hammer. It connected with a colossal magical crash that shivered all the way down her horn.

The results were tremendous, and immediate.

Up on the moon, the manifestation chamber collapsed in on itself, triggering all the tripwire alarms. An enormous plume of moon dust heralded the birth of a new crater on the moon's surface.

Half of the alert charms went off immediately, while the other half simply failed, overloaded by the sudden influx of magical energy.

And most importantly, her chambers exploded.

There was a tremendous flash of light, a blast of furnace heat and, curiously, a sound akin to an enormous cork popping free of an equally-enormous wine bottle. Her sister burst into existence in the room at speed, skidding across the stone floor in an enormous shower of sparks. Swirling particles and excess magic came streaming off her coat like water. Some quirk of physics had imparted a small degree of rotation to Celestia as she reemerged into reality. As a result, her long skid across Nightmare's chamber floor included a slow turn that ended with her facing the direction she'd come from—staring right at Nightmare.

Celestia's eyes were wide, pupils shrunk to tiny, terrified pinpricks. Her legs were splayed wide, her wings half-flexed. Her mane and tail were frizzed and twice their normal volume as though she'd been struck by lightning, and her mouth was open in a tiny 'o' of surprise.

Nightmare looked at this shocked, frazzled apparition of her sister, her fluffed-up white coat and frazzled mane and tail giving her the appearance of a polychromatic puffball; a multicolored marshmallow. In that moment, it was impossible for Nightmare to see the thousand-year vision of perfection and tranquility that had guided Equestria for centuries in her absence.

Instead, for a moment, all she saw was her older sister who had been the victim of a prank most epic.

The laughter came spilling out of her like a breached dam. She gasped, and guffawed, and howled and snorted. Her laughter turned to chortles, then to snickers and giggles, and those giggles gradually morphed into hiccups. Then those hiccups became sobs, and were shortly joined by twin trickles of tears. Before she knew it, she had her hooves wrapped tightly around her sister, and an overwhelming sense of relief flooded through her.

Celestia cradled the teacup close to her chest in her hooves, savoring its warmth. She took a sip, then set it down with a musical clatter as her shaking hooves rattled cup against saucer. "That is everything?"

Nightmare grimaced. "Hardly. A full accounting must come, but that suffices to explain the essentials of what has transpired in your absence."

"You're sure this is what you want to do?" Asked the table's third occupant. At Nightmare's glare, Twilight Sparkle ducked behind her coffee cup, also held in hooves. "It's a legitimate question when confronted with a questionable course of action," she grumbled.

Celestia turned an appraising look toward the younger alicorn. "My apologies. Things have been so busy, I failed to make your acquaintance properly. I am Celestia of Equestria, Princess of the Sun," she said, inclining her head to the younger alicorn. "You are...?"

Twilight Sparkle stared for a long moment, and blinked. Finally, she gave a little start. "This is weird..." She muttered under her breath. She drew herself up and graciously inclined her head to Celestia. "I am the Equestrian Princess of Friendship. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Celestia," she said, smiling.

Celestia's eyebrows rose. "The Princess of Friendship?" She said, eyeing Twilight Sparkle's wings and horn. "And I don't believe I caught your name?"

Twilight Sparkle's smile turned nervous, and she glanced away. "Ah, no. That would be because I didn't give it. Sorry, bu—"

"Her name is Twilight Sparkle. She is from an alternate future where I lost," Nightmare cut in calmly, looking down at her cup of coffee.

Twilight Sparkle gasped and shot a glare at Nightmare. "Luna!" she hissed.

Nightmare rolled her eyes. "She would have wormed it out of you eventually. I know my sister. She is not one to allow little mysteries to remain mysterious."

Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes right back. "Please. I've got years of practice at avoiding a certain one-princess Celestial Inquisition."

"Do you speak as her long-held confidante, or as a powerful unknown player upon the board?" Nightmare shot back.

Twilight Sparkle raised a hoof and opened her mouth to counter, then paused. She lowered her hoof, and frowned thoughtfully. "Hm."

Celestia had been watching this byplay with slightly-wide eyes. "Little Twilight Sparkle?" She whispered.

Twilight Sparkle groaned. "See what you've done now?" She muttered to Nightmare. Nightmare just grunted in response.

Fortunately, Twilight Sparkle was saved from further prying questions by the arrival of Captain Rainbow Dash. The captain knocked twice on the door, before pushing it open without waiting for a response. "Everything under way on this end, your majesty."

Nightmare stood, and nodded. "Thank you, captain. Join us, as your presence will be required."

Rainbow Dash saluted and joined the others at the table, and carefully avoided staring at the newly-returned princess. Celestia merely drained her teacup, set it down and let out a satisfied breath. "Ready."

Nightmare nodded. A flash of teal, and the four occupants of the room were gone.

With a final flare of magic from her horn, Nightmare finished weaving the individual threads of spellwork together into a cohesive whole. To magical sight, they appeared as pearlescent strands of light vanishing into the distant horizon, glimmering and swaying under the wash of aetheric wind from the late-morning sun. For an absurd moment, Nightmare was put in mind of enormous magical clotheslines.

From her right came a violet flare, and Twilight Sparkle's own exclamation of "Done!"

And from her left, a golden flare, and the familiar sensation of her sister's magic—spring grass, hot iron, vanilla—sent a shiver up Nightmare's spine for reasons too complex and jumbled for her to begin to contemplate. After freeing her sister, Nightmare's feelings had chiefly been of relief. There was a healthy dose of trepidation in there, to be sure, but mingled with notes of satisfaction and frustration. She shook her head. There would be time to untangle that web later. For now...

"I am finished as well," said Celestia. "I confess to being quite impressed with the structure of this working, sister. I wish I had thought of something similar. It would certainly have made life here a bit easier!"

They were in the Canterlot palace, in a small antechamber just before the grand sun-raising balcony. Nightmare had explained her plan, and Celestia had agreed, albeit with some trepidation. Currently, they were working on a vital piece of spellwork for the scheduled afternoon announcement.

A muffled snort caused both elder alicorns to turn to a snickering Twilight Sparkle, who had one hoof over her mouth which failed to conceal a grin. "Nothing!" She squeaked. "Just... reminded me of something similar somepony once said to me." A raised eyebrow from Celestia, and she continued, "I uh, set up something pretty similar, and when I showed her, she shouted 'That's it?! I could have done that years ago!' It was kind of out of character for her, is all," she said. At the continued staring from the other two, she ducked her head. "I uh, guess you had to be there, heh."

Nightmare rolled her eyes and turned back to tying their spellwork together. "I laid the foundation shortly after my return. This is a simple matter of changing the focal point."

Rainbow Dash chose that moment to join the three alicorns, saving Twilight Sparkle from further awkwardness. "Princess Cadenza and Captain Shining Armor have left the palace. I also got word from the castle; the prisoners have been released except for the two still being treated for injuries."

There had been a tearful reunion between Celestia and the royal couple. Celestia had cooed over Cadance's swollen belly, and Shining Armor had visibly been holding back tears. There had been some concern over how gaunt Cadence had become, but she assured her aunt that she was perfectly fine to be up and about, thank you very much.

One of the conditions for their cooperation this afternoon had been the unconditional release of the members of the rebellion involved in the attack on Nightmare's castle. To their surprise, Nightmare had readily agreed.

It seemed that all their preparation was done. Now, all that remained was the waiting.

"You look unwell."

The waiting was wearing poorly upon Nightmare's nerves. She was staring out the open doorway, where the spires of Canterlot glittered in the afternoon sun. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the local weather team had ensured that the sky remained utterly cloudless. The babble of a growing crowd drifted up from below, the shared efforts of Cadance, Shining Armor, and the remnants of Celestia's secretarial staff having successfully spread the news. Twilight Sparkle had disappeared somewhere, and Rainbow Dash waited without. Her growing tension showed in the tightness along her wing-shoulders, and a clenched jawline. Most ponies would not have noticed the signs, but her sister was not most ponies. Nightmare had forgotten what it was like to be read so transparently.

She felt her face twist into a grimace. She spent long moments considering her words, and avoided turning to look at her sister. She knew what she would find there. Compassion. Concern.

Pity.

Finally, she ground the words out. "I do not know how you can stand to look at me."

Celestia, at least, did her the courtesy of not pretending to confusion. She followed Nightmare's gaze, looking over the Canterlot skyline, and sighed. "Truthfully? I do not know what to feel. I am... elated to have you back. To be able to talk to you without rancor." Nightmare scoffed, and Celestia could not resist a tiny smile. "Minimal rancor, then. When you returned the first time, even full of frost and fury it was... a relief. I could finally answer for my own crime."

At this, Nightmare turned to look at her sister. Celestia remained staring forward, her mind far away. "You would consider my imprisonment a crime?"

Celestia shook her head. "No. My crime—my failure—was in allowing things to progress to that point at all. Your banishment was... necessary. I had to prevent—" Celestia cut herself off with a wince.

"...what I did anyway upon my return," Nightmare continued, bitterly.

They shared a painful silence.

"To answer your question," Celestia said, eventually, "I hold myself equally accountable." Nightmare turned a questioning look upon Celestia. Celestia answered it with a sad smile. "You were always the better fighter, sister dear, but not by that much." She sighed. "My heart was not in our fight, upon your return. To have you back, only to be forced to strike you down with my own power? It was too much to bear. That is my crime; I allowed selfish sentiment to rule me, rather than pragmatism. Equestria suffered for it. I even tried to groom a young student to find the Elements of Harmony and defeat you, rather than do it myself."

"She failed, I take it?"

Celestia gave a mirthless chuckle. "Worse. She denounced me, and ran away to another world. I haven't seen or heard from her since. I took that, and my inability to find a replacement as a sign that I would have to do it myself. And when the time came I... failed."

Nightmare sagged. "Blame yourself for your decisions if you must. Do not blame yourself for my actions. I bear the weight of those alone."

Nightmare jerked in surprise at the feeling of a warm muzzle against her cheek. Her sister held the nuzzle for a long moment. "You're not alone. Not anymore," she whispered.

Nightmare held herself rigid and focused on breathing. Her eyes burned, and she could feel her mouth twisting. She closed her eyes and took a long, shuddering breath, trying to hold back her trembling with an effort of will.

A knock sounded from the doorway behind them, and Celestia's old secretary's voice drifted inside. "Your majesties? It's time." The secretary, a mare well acquainted with the strangeness attendant in serving immortal royalty, didn't bat an eye at the scene in front of her.

Nightmare allowed herself the luxury of one last deep breath. Then, she straightened and turned to nod at the secretary. "Thank you, Miss Inkwell." She faced her sister. "One way or another, this will be over soon and Equestria will be able to move forward."

Queen Nightmare Moon stepped onto the Canterlot palace's grand sun-raising balcony, and surveyed the gathered crowd. Ponies of every color and tribe crowded the square below. The air above had been kept free, save for her Night Guard. In the crowd below, the hastily-reassembled Royal Guard mingled uneasily with their Night Guard counterparts, doing their collective best to keep the peace.

Heralded by a susurrus of raised voices, a wave of silence swept over the crowd as they noticed the dark queen standing upon the balcony. Nightmare before she swept a long, searching look over the gathered ponies while she waited for quiet. Then, she flared her wings and ignited her horn. She ignored the gasps from the crowd, and activated the spell that she, Celestia, and Twilight Sparkle had prepared earlier.

The pearlescent strands leading into the horizon, visible only to magical sight, erupted into brilliant, sparkling teal.

And Nightmare Moon's face appeared throughout Canterlot, magically projected above the streets. Elsewhere throughout Equestria, the foundational spells she'd laid years ago activated, and did the same. Her visage would now be visible in every major Equestrian settlement, and all of Equestria would be able to hear her speech simultaneously, and in real time.

"Citizens of Equestria," she began, her amplified voice booming throughout the city, and across the kingdom. Her tone was somber, and carried none of its usual grandeur. "I am here to make several important announcements.

"First: the Sun Days are no more. The sun and moon will return the their previously-designated paths across through the heavens. As part of this effort, significant numbers of personnel have been redirected to agrarian communities. They have been instructed to assist local farmers in planting and growing, and local weather teams in keeping conditions ideal for farming. Efforts will be made to extend the growing season for as long as possible, in order to combat the ongoing famine. These ponies will also be accompanied by medical staff, who will assist in treating those in your communities who are in need of care."

She paused, to allow her words to sink in. There had been some scattered cheering when she announced the end of the Sun Days, but now the crowd had fallen to confused muttering.

Until a voice emerged, in a ringing shout. "Good! All this is your fault anyway!"

The crowd fell into a shocked silence, and Nightmare did not miss the way every member of the Night Guard turned to her for direction. She'd known this was coming. She closed her eyes momentarily before opening them again and straightening further. She nodded at the crowd. "The state of the kingdom is dire. And only I can be held accountable for it. The blame lies with me."

The crowd resumed its earlier confused muttering at higher volume, and even many of her Night Guard looked askance at her.

"For the past several years, I have ruled Equestria as I believed was my right. During that time, our fair kingdom has languished. Crop failure leading to famine. Harm to the young, heatstroke for the sick, the elderly, and the pregnant. I emerged from my thousand-year banishment enraged, and full of righteous fury. I thought to force ponies' love for my night, and by extension, myself.

"However, I have been forced to confront the truth: I have failed to lead Equestria in nearly every way imaginable. As such, it is past time that Equestria be led by somepony more suited to the task."

Nightmare stepped aside and turned to face the archway behind her.

From it, her sister strode, limned in golden light. A hush fell over the crowd.

"Hello, my little ponies."

And just with that, a great roar rose from the crowd. Relief, bewilderment, joy, exultation, and more emotions too complex and confused to name were contained in that wordless shout, doubtless being echoed across the kingdom. Celestia stood there, and let it wash over her, mane flowing gently in the breeze, simply allowing herself to see and be seen.

Eventually, she raised a hoof for silence, and the crowd obliged. "However, while I have returned, there is one final piece of business that must be concluded before the reins of power can properly be transferred. Sister, if you would?"

Nightmare nodded, and moved to stand side-by-side with her sister. "From this moment forward, I..." She paused, swallowed, and cursed her own weakness, "I relinquish my claim to rulership of Equestria. Queen Nightmare Moon is no more."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was always going to be the hardest part. This was the part that made it real, made it irreversible. She had spent more than a thousand years deeply immersed in her connection to the moon. Now, she carefully collected all but the tiniest pieces of that link until the magical pressure of it felt like an iceberg balanced at the tip of her horn... and released.

Her incisors lost their predatory edge, dulling into something flatter, and less imposing. Her body physically shrank, her once-imposing stature diminished. Instead of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her sister, she now only came up to the elder alicorn's chin. The black that had stained her coat for the last millennium drifted up and away like ink in water before vanishing, revealing deep blue underneath, only the black dappling around her cutie mark remaining. Her mane and tail lost much of their ethereality; instead of being patches of the night sky brought to life, now they were merely a star-studded, shimmering blue edged in violet. Finally, she opened her eyes to reveal that their catlike slits had been replaced by more familiar rounded pupils.

"Nightmare Moon is no more," she repeated. "All that remains is Luna, penitent sister to Celestia," she said softly.

Luna stepped back, ceding the floor to Celestia once more. Celestia continued, "Luna has acknowledged her misdeeds. In light of this, and her honest remorse, there will be no immediate punishment. Rest assured, there will still be an accounting of her actions. But what Equestria needs right now is not retribution, but peace and healing. You have all been sorely tested in my absence, and I am proud of all of you," she said, smiling at the gathered crowd.

The crowd however, was not smiling back. It had, in fact, began to mutter angrily. Luna's legs felt weak. She had begun trembling almost as soon as she had reversed her transformation. When she had risen from her submersion in the moon's power, the mental shock had been like stepping from a hot spring into an icy wind. In an instant, her simmering resentment had been stripped away, and she found her thoughts clearer than they had been in years.

They were not pleasant ones.

After the initial shock had worn off, she had simply done her best to empty her mind. This would be over soon, and she would be able to break down in peace.

Then, from the crowd below, she saw a single pony near the back of the crowd stand tall on hind legs. He was holding something in his forelegs, and every member of the Guard, both Royal and Night erupted into motion simultaneously. But even the closest one was several long strides away.

"That's not good enough!" The lone pony shouted. "Death to the tyrant queen!"

Fractions of a second later, the pony was dogpiled by guards, but it was too late. In the instant before he'd gone down, there had been a twang and Luna realized that there was now a crossbow bolt headed straight for her forehead.

Ha, she had time to think, after all those times I warned Celestia about not wearing a helmet.

Rainbow Dash was at the rear of the crowd, coordinating with Shining Armor when she felt the atmosphere change. She hadn't been paying much attention to the speech above them—she was already familiar with the broad strokes—but any guard worth their salt knew how to read a crowd, and this crowd had just gotten dangerous.

"Air. Go. I've got ground," Shining Armor said, eyes narrowed, already moving.

Rainbow Dash was airborne by the time he was halfway done speaking. She scanned the crowd and—there!—spotted the troublemaker at the opposite end of the crowd, and recognized the weapon in his hooves immediately. She was off like a shot, along with rest of the Night Guard, racing to drop the stallion before he could—

twang

Her body changed course before her mind had time to react. Her wing muscles screamed at the hard change in course, and her vision faded to black at the edges. As she leveled out, she felt the blood pounding through her head with each heartbeat, and the darkness in her vision pulsed in time. Each breath boomed in her ears, and each flap of her wings seemed to come too slowly.

Beat. Breathe in.

Flap. Push.

Beat. Breathe out.

She risked a glance sideways, her mind finally catching up to her actions. She was headed to the same place the crossbow bolt was,

her queen's head

and she'd resolved to bodily throw herself in front of it. Now that she was caught up with events, she noticed that everything, herself included, seemed to be moving in slow motion. She could hear the bolt whistling through the air, and see the crowd beginning to react, rippling outward from the shooter.

No. She couldn't focus on that. She refocused on her goal. She had to reach the queen before the bolt did. Whatever happened after that, happened. She just had to stop that bolt. She tossed her head, and her helmet went tumbling away. As the wind tore it free, she felt herself accelerate infinitesimally, now free of the helmet's drag. There was no time to shuck the rest of her armor, so she leaned forward further, trying to flatten herself, willing herself to move faster, to push harder against the unforgiving air. Her eyes were closed to slits, and the wind began to pull tears from them as they tried to protect themselves from the rushing air. The air had begun to feel like a wall, pressing against her front hooves, so she pushed harder. The wall had to give, she still wasn't going to make it in time, the bolt was still going to get there first.

And then the wall gave way, and all was color.

There was a sudden lack of resistance, and Rainbow Dash shot forward, now unimpeded. For the first time since takeoff, a jolt of fear shot through her—if she overshot...

She couldn't overshoot.

She flared her wings and flipped upright, holding all four legs wide, braking with both wings and body.

Then, she was in front of her queen. She twitched her wings slightly, and was rewarded with hideous pressure as her forward momentum was viciously translated into rotation. She came around, faced the crowd, and braced for the hammerblow of pain.

Instead, she found a still-spreading circle of polychromatic light, and a glint of metal high above, that after a moment, resolved into the head of the crossbow bolt, torn free of the shattered shaft, tumbling away at high speed.

And the entire crowd staring at her. Many in the front rows had been knocked clean off their hooves.

Well, okay. She could work with that.

"What," she began, in her parade instructor voice, amplified by her proximity to the projection spell, "are you morons thinking?! You wait until after she's stepped down and started fixing things to go around shooting at her?" The strain of maintaining a hover was beginning to take a toll on her recently-abused wings, so she landed, and planted her forehooves on the balcony's parapet.

"Yeah, she may have screwed up letting things get this bad in the first place! But she totally owned up to that! You know what she did the second she found out just how bad everything was? She brought the sun back!" Rainbow Dash said, stomping a forehoof. "The plain old normal, regular sun! Know how she got repaid for it? A bunch of ponies from the rebellion showed up and tried to kill her!" She paused, took a moment to scan the crowd. She continued more quietly, and allowed the amplification spell to carry her voice. "I almost died. She saved my life. She took a magical bomb meant for me. She imprisoned the rebels afterward, because that's what you do to ponies that try to kill you. You know what she did after that?" She paused and leaned forward. "She let 'em go. Told me it was because they just wanted a better Equestria, same as her.

"The first thing—the first thing!—she did when she found out just how bad everything was, was spend all day putting things in order to move the entire kingdom to start fixing all the stuff that had gone wrong. Is that something you do if you just wanna see ponies suffer? Is that what you do if you're some storybook tyrant? She transferred almost the entire border force to the kingdom's farms! She has the entire Royal Coven working on medical stuff! The first thing she did was try to fix her mistakes! And you try and shoot her?!

"I think she deserves a second chance. Princess Celestia thinks she deserves a second chance! Yeah, she screwed up, but she's trying to fix it! Tell 'em, ma'am!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, turning and gesturing behind her.

But there was nothing there but a small pile of neatly arranged, silver-blue regalia. The former queen was gone.

Epilogue: Give Way to Growth

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Epilogue

Give Way to Growth

She opened her eyes upon a dimly lit room colored by the deep blues and soft violets that heralded a fading twilight. Crowded bookshelves lined the room. The desk groaned under the weight of still more books, stacks of paperwork interspersed chaotically with scribblings of arcane formulae, and densely-packed notes. By contrast, the kitchen area of the small apartment was positively spotless, as was the entry area around the front door. Presumably, her host's bedroom was similar; it was only the living area that displayed any clutter that she could see. She did note that there was exactly one flat surface in the room—the desk—and exactly one chair, save for the sofa she was currently draped across. That was probably for the best, as the bookshelves took up most of the available floorspace, but it was clear that this was not the home of a pony who entertained many guests.

A tentative knock sounded from the front door. "It's me!" came her host's voice.

"Enter!" Luna called, brow furrowing.

Sounds of a key scrabbling in a lock came from the door, shortly followed by the door opening and revealing a young, purple unicorn. Trailing the unicorn in a field of magenta magic, was a paper bag smelling of hot pastry, and a pair of paper cups that gave off the rich smell of fresh coffee. "Um, sorry! I know it's my apartment, but I knocked so I wouldn't surprise you, or startle you, because I know I was gone for a while, and I thought you might have started to worry! Well, not to worry, you don't even know me, why would you worry, ha ha!" She actually pronounced each individual 'ha'. "But after I left I thought, 'Well this is already such an inconvenience'—not that you're an inconvenience, I meant it's an inconvenience for you!—that I'd better get something good to make up for it and—"

Luna silenced the unicorn with a raised hoof. "I am well acquainted with the practice of a good host. In my youth, the world was wild and untamed; we took hospitality very seriously indeed."

The unicorn stood there, eyes wide, blinking too fast. She adjusted her thick, black-framed glasses with a wisp of telekinesis. "Yes! That! That." A strand of her mane sprung up and away from her tightly-wound bun, seemingly of its own volition. "Um. Coffee?" she said, thrusting one of the cups in Luna's direction.

Luna took the cup into her own magic and inhaled deeply. She savored the scent of the freshly-brewed beverage before taking her first sip. Her eyes widened and she immediately took another, deeper sip. Then, she sighed contentedly and breathed in the aroma again. "Twilight Sparkle, you are a mare of discerning taste."

Twilight Sparkle grinned nervously and trotted over to her desk, where she set down the pastry bag and sat in the desk chair. She retrieved a doughnut and a napkin from the bag and passed them to Luna, while taking a doughnut for herself. Set sat in silence, fidgeting, and nibbling her pastry occasionally. Luna suffered from no such discomfort, and began tucking into her doughnut with enthusiasm.

Once Luna's first sugary treat had been summarily demolished, Twilight finally found the courage to speak up. "So! I. Um. Don't mean to seem rude. But why are you here, exactly? And um, how do you know who I am?"

Luna paused in the act of wiping crumbs from her muzzle. She dabbed at one last spot of icing at the corner of her mouth. "I fear I must make a poor conversationalist, and answer your question with one of my own: when I appeared so suddenly in your home, why did you react as you did?"

Twilight looked away and tapped her hooves together and adjusted her glasses again. "Well. You popped in here with no warning, right after that uh, dramatic speech from that blue pegasus. And you were having a panic attack. And I guess I just sort of... reacted?" she said frowning. "I've had enough of them to recognize them. And to know that they're awful. I didn't even realize who you were at first! I just had a pony in my home having a panic attack! So I just... dealt with it. Then after that, I realized who you were, and freaked out a little bit myself, and I guess that sort of answers your question?"

Luna hummed. "A 'panic attack?' Is that what that was? Most unpleasant."

Twilight nodded. "It was." She stood and began pacing, adopting a matter-of-fact tone. "Panic attacks are characterized by sudden inexplicable fear, followed by a heightened flight-or-fight response, which then results in a variety of related, cascading symptoms, such as nausea, dizziness, hyperventilation, and paresthesia. They can be chronic in those with an anxiety disorder, or appear unprompted after an individual has experienced sufficient stress. Stimulants, such as caffeine can cause, or exacerbate the onset of a panic attack." She paused. "Which is why your coffee is decaf."

Luna stuck her tongue out at her beverage. "Decaffeinated coffee? Hmph. Taste and fury signifying nothing," she muttered.

"It's still good though, isn't it?"

Luna slurped at her coffee and said nothing.

"According to Pleasant Diversion's Small Talk and You: How to Survive a Conversation, I'm pretty sure you're dodging my question," Twilight began hesitantly. "But she also says that if somepony does that, then you should respect their desire for privacy. Unless it's something important. Since I think a former queen of Equestria teleporting into my apartment and having a panic attack is kind of important, I'm going to ask again. But! I'm going to respect your desire for privacy by telling you that you don't have to answer. Um. Why are you in my apartment?" Twilight Sparkle asked, smiling uncertainly and fidgeting with her hooves.

Luna sighed, and set her coffee down, and stared at the bookshelf opposite the sofa. "When I emerged from my connection to the moon—when I ceased to appear as Nightmare Moon—I... there is..." She huffed in frustration. "Transference. The moon is a cold thing, and I became cold to match it. And that chill insulated me from seeing... the obvious. Suddenly emerging from that insulation was..." Luna's eyes clouded over momentarily, then she shuddered. "Difficult. Then came the attempt on my life, and... I had to get away. Somewhere safe."

"Okay, but why here? I don't even know you, except by reputation!" Twilight said, an edge of frustration creeping into her voice.

Luna shrugged. "In my panic, I reached out for the first thing that I could find that felt safe and unthreatening. I suppose that was you."

"But why?" Twilight asked, nearly whining now. "Why me?"

Luna winced. "Harmony works in mysterious ways, perhaps," she lied.

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"Perhaps not," Luna admitted. She turned to Twilight. "But it put me in the home of one of—perhaps even the only—pony who would lend me succor with no thought to turning the situation to her own advantage. True, it was at first because you did not recognize me. But what of afterward, once you realized my identity? Once you had left your home, I was entirely at your mercy. You could have called the guard, or members of the rebellion, or even simply abandoned me. And yet, you did not. Why?"

Her question drew Twilight up short. The younger mare frowned slightly. "Why would I have done that?"

Luna drew back, and turned to look sharply at Twilight Sparkle. "You have ample reason! In a few short years, my rule reduced Equestria to a starving, scorched wasteland. I stole the sun from you! I stole Celestia, most beloved of the kingdom, from you!"

Twilight's expression darkened. "You did, that's true. But..." She softened. "Then you gave her back. She's vouched for you. She says you're trying to change. Trying to make amends. If we can't trust her word, whose can we trust?"

Luna peered at this incarnation of Twilight Sparkle. Reclusive and uncertain, but so painfully earnest and eager. Untested and unrefined in comparison to the fierce young alicorn from that other future, but Luna could see the echoes of one in the other as plainly as the stars in the sky.

"You hold my sister in very high regard," she said eventually. "The criers should have made it clear that she was to make an appearance at the speech earlier today. While I imagine that some might have suspected trickery, you do not seem the sort. Why were you not in attendance?"

"Oh. Um," Twilight said, adjusting her glasses again. "Crowds make me nervous. And my brother and his wife both told me it was probably better to stay inside, 'just in case.'"

"Your brother?" Luna raised an eyebrow.

"He's the captain of the guard. Oh. And I guess he's married to Princess Cadance too."

Luna's eyes bulged, and she was glad she had set her coffee down. "Oh," she said faintly, "Dear."

On cue, there came a heavy knocking at the door. "Open up! We know you're in there!"

"Why would you phrase it like that?!" Twilight Sparkle hissed.

"Habit, okay?! Today has been just the tiniest bit stressful!" Rainbow Dash hissed back.

They were waiting anxiously in front of a nondescript apartment door on the third floor of a cheap, but well-maintained apartment building in Canterlot's Lower District.

"Are you sure she's in here?" whispered Rainbow Dash.

"Well, her signature's in—wait. Shhh, I hear something!"

Muffled hoofsteps approached from behind the door. There was a pause as the apartment's occupant considered their next action. The door had no peephole, so they had no choice but to open it to see what was on the other side. Rainbow Dash schooled her expression into one of professional nonchalance.

The door opened to reveal a second, smaller Twilight Sparkle. This one was wearing glasses, had no wings, and lacked the flowing mane and elegant stature of the one standing at Rainbow Dash's side.

Their expressions were identical, though. Wide-eyed and flabbergasted, mouths working silently.

"Ponyfeathers," the alicorn whispered explosively.

"Wh... wh... huh?" the unicorn stammered.

"Not again," the alicorn muttered, massaging her nose with a hoof. "Once in a day should be enough for anypony..."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Is Queen N—uh, Princess Luna—inside?" She asked, voice flat.

Luna's voice came drifting from within. "Captain Rainbow Dash? Is that you?"

"That's a yep," Rainbow Dash muttered. "One side, Glasses." She pushed her way past the unresisting unicorn. "And go easy on the big one, she already met your brother earlier."

Luna held her gaze on Rainbow Dash as the pegasus pushed her way into the increasingly-crowded apartment. The still-armored guard's helmet was missing, she held one of her wings gingerly, and she was favoring her rear left leg. She made her way to the sofa, stood before Luna, then settled onto her haunches. She made no effort to hide the way her gaze swept over the alicorn, looking for injuries or any sign of mistreatment. Once satisfied, she snapped off a salute. "Captain Rainbow Dash, reporting for duty ma'am. Are you okay?"

Luna was unable to suppress a smile. "Faithful Rainbow Dash," she murmured. "Yes, captain, I am unhurt," she said.

"That's not what I asked, ma'am. Are you okay?"

Luna's smiled faded by degrees. She looked up, staring at something beyond the bookshelves, at something only she could see. "I fear that is a question that I cannot answer at present," she said slowly. She continued, stare unwavering, "I have restored Equestria to itself. I have returned to myself, and in doing so, have been laid bare. I am..." She paused. "Defenseless." Her gaze returned to the confines of the apartment, and she turned to Rainbow Dash. "Which brings to mind a question. Why have you sought me out, Rainbow Dash?"

Rainbow Dash had maintained her salute throughout the discussion so far and showed no signs of stopping. "That's the job, ma'am. Keeping you safe. Can't do that unless I know where you are."

"Captain, your duty ended the second my sister took this kingdom back. I am no longer your queen, and you owe me nothing."

"With respect ma'am, I swore an oath to you. Not to your position."

Luna looked at Rainbow Dash sadly. "Captain Rainbow Dash. Most loyal of my Night Guard," she said softly, "I release you from my service."

Rainbow Dash's foreleg trembled slightly. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and returned to all fours. After spending a moment composing herself, she sighed. "Okay. All right." She opened her eyes and gazed fiercely at Luna. "But don't think you're getting rid of me that easily."

Luna blinked. "I... am sorry?"

Rainbow Dash jabbed a forehoof under the alicorn's nose. Luna found herself focusing on it, going slightly cross-eyed in the process. "When I gave my oath," she growled, "I meant it. I don't care if you're not my queen. I don't even care if you're a princess or not. Just because I don't have to keep you safe, doesn't mean I plan on stopping."

Luna still stared at the intruding forehoof, hypnotized. "But... why?"

Rainbow Dash withdrew her hoof and replaced it with her face, and glared fiercely into Luna's eyes. "Because I don't just abandon my friends. So," she growled, "Unless you can look me in the eye and tell me to get lost, you're stuck with me."

Luna drew back slightly, unable to look away from Rainbow Dash. "I... I..." she stammered. "I do not... deserve such loyalty, Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow Dash pulled away, and crossed her forelegs, sitting back on her haunches to do so. "Well, sometimes, you don't get what you deserve."

"No," whispered Luna, "You get something better."

Rainbow Dash blushed fiercely but smirked down at her once-sovereign. "Exactly!"

Twilight Sparkle and Luna walked side-by-side across the cobblestone streets away from the apartment building. Without needing to be prompted, Rainbow Dash trailed at a discreet distance. Claiming weariness, Luna had made her excuses to the younger Twilight Sparkle and departed, followed by Rainbow Dash. Before her departure, Luna had left the unicorn with both an apology, and a promise of aid should ever it be required.

As the elder Twilight Sparkle had trotted toward the door, she pulled the younger unicorn aside. "Though, really," she had said pitching her voice low, "You can probably just call her up for coffee and doughnuts again. She'd probably like that." She had then winked, and trotted out of the apartment.

Night proper had begun to fall, with only a faint tinge of gold visible at the horizon, the sky otherwise dominated by deep blues and violets. Arcane streetlights had begun to hum to life and cast a slowly-brightening warm glow across the aged stones of Canterlot.

"A thousand years ago, this was scarcely more than a mining outpost," Luna said, gazing up the gables and domes and arches of buildings in the Upper District above them.

Twilight followed her gaze. "I've been down in those mines, actually." After a moment's musing, "Never for anything pleasant, now that I think about it." After a moment, she turned to Luna. "So, why teleport there? You haven't met local-me before, have you?"

Luna hummed thoughtfully. "I reached blindly for something that felt safe. In our dealings together, you have been a fair and neutral party—for the most part," she said, glancing at the still-healing wound on Twilight's chest. "So, I found something familiar and unthreatening and... leaped." She shrugged, and said no more.

The sounds of cheering and singing ponies drifted down from somewhere above. The streets down in the Lower District were nearly deserted; most of the city had turned out for the earlier speech. Upon the revelation that their Princess of the Sun had indeed returned, the various gatherings across the city had rapidly morphed into ecstatic, improvised parties. The few stragglers that the three encountered were intoxicated enough on exultation, relief, and simple intoxicants that a pair of slightly larger-than-normal ponies with extra appendages hardly warranted notice, let alone comment.

"My sister has transformed it into a beautiful city." Luna said, looking into the distance. "To be graced with an opportunity to see it return to life gladdens me."

Twilight peered closely at Luna. "You really mean that, don't you?" Luna's only response was to smile sadly. The pair continued their walk down the cobbles, the steady clip-clop of three sets of hooves the only other sounds. Eventually, Twilight broke the silence. "You'll have to sit down and talk to her. Really talk. About everything."

Luna said nothing in response, merely continued walking.

Twilight continued, speaking gently, "Even my Luna struggled with guilt after she returned, and she spent less than a day as Nightmare Moon. She still struggled with feelings of resentment. Still felt unappreciated for her work."

Luna shivered. "What hope have I, then?"

Twilight treated this question with the respect it deserved, and visibly spent several moments considering it. "My Luna," she said slowly, "made the mistake of trying to bear her burdens alone. She suffered in silence, believing that she deserved that suffering. Even when she was finally able to forgive herself, she still felt unappreciated. Forgotten." She stopped, and turned to look at Luna directly. "Talk to your sister, Luna. She loves you, and will support you, but she has a blind spot a mile wide."

Luna began to tremble, and her ears folded back as she looked down in shame. "And when the burdens are too painful? Too personal? My sister and I have shared much, Twilight Sparkle. We know how to hurt each other."

Twilight just smiled, and gently lifted Luna's chin with her hoof. "That's okay too. Sometimes, you have to lean on a friend instead. I can think of at least one who'd be glad to help," she said, looking at Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow had drawn closer to the pair of alicorns. She nodded confidently at Luna's inquiring look. "I'm not so great with words ma'am, but I can definitely listen."

Luna drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I am no stranger to walking the long path toward a distant goal. I must remind myself that this is not over, and every day is a step closer."

"It's a process," Twilight said, nodding. "It'll get harder. I recall that you and your sister agreed to have you stand trial."

Luna shivered, and shook her head. "Enough. I am weary enough to sleep and never wake. I will ask you for what I hope is the final time: Twilight Sparkle, why are you here?"

"Are you asking why I came looking for you? Or are you asking why I'm still here, period?"

"Something of the latter, and something in addition. You have succeeded in removing the primary threat to this particular permutation of Equestria—myself—so why remain? And furthermore, why this permutation? By your own admission, there are multiple possible timelines you had to choose from." Luna sighed. "I suppose, ultimately, my question is a very humble one: why me?"

Twilight gave a rueful smile. "It's a little silly, and a little selfish, actually." Luna raised a curious eyebrow, and Twilight continued, "All of the alternate timelines were somehow unpleasant, but this was the only one that was... stable. There was no active conflict, and things seemed to function, more or less. I thought it might be... easier, I guess, as a place to start. And," she said, turning to Luna and still smiling, "an important factor was that someone I counted as a friend might be lonely and hurting."

There was an anxious fluttering in Luna's belly, and she looked away. "I am fortunate my counterpart is close to you, then. Whatever your reasons, you have my gratitude, Twilight Sparkle."

Luna shifted nervously as Twilight regarded her, then stiffened as Twilight leaned forward and gave her a gentle hug. Undeterred by Luna's discomfort, Twilight held it until, slowly, the tension drained away from Luna, and the elder alicorn tentatively returned the hug.

"You're very welcome," Twilight said, and pulled away. "I don't want to keep you any longer, you do look tired."

Twilight concentrated for a moment, and with a small pop! of teleportation, a hoof-sized golden oblong was summoned into existence. Thickly inscribed with runic symbols, it resembled a large pocket watch, right down to the glass window on its front. Instead of a clock face, it was home to a small, ever-burning flame of neon green.

"A way to stay in touch," Twilight explained, passing the device into Luna's telekinetic grip. "Just press the button on top to open the glass cover, and touch the flame to any paper. It'll be transported over to my universe, and I can send messages back through it as well. The fire shouldn't run out, but try not to get it wet."

Luna spent a moment examining it, opening and closing the glass cover, before levitating it to the side, then visibly pausing as she realized she had nowhere to put it. Rainbow Dash appeared at her side, and popped open one of the padded pockets attached to her armor's flanks. Luna nodded her thanks, and tucked the device into the pocket, and Rainbow Dash carefully buckled the pocket shut again. "You have my appreciation. I will be certain to make use of it."

Twilight smiled. "Well, only if you want to." She trotted two steps backward and lit her horn. "Okay, I really should get going. Good luck. And talk to your sister! I mean it!" She said with a mock glare.

Luna responded with a tired glare of her own, and Twilight merely giggled. Motes of purple began to coalesce around the younger alicorn, and swirled into a familiar vortex-like shape above her. "I really would love to know how things turn out," she said earnestly. "Good luck! You'll do great!"

And with a final flash of violet, she was gone.

Luna stared thoughtfully after the vanishing violet vortex. Then, she turned to her pegasus companion. "Rainbow Dash, it has been a trying day, and I find myself in need of something restful. Would you accompany me on a flight back to the castle?"

"Your sister?" Rainbow Dash asked with a frown.

"Can wait."

"Then yeah, I've got a flight back to the Everfree in me."

Luna smiled and spread her wings.

"Hah! I love it! The Princess of Prose, the Bearer of Books, the Arbiter of Order herself causes enough chaos to make me proud! And she starts by placing herself in the local queen's bed. My my, how scandalous!"

"That's hardly what I—"

"Oooh, did you ask her to paint you like one of her Prench girls?"

"Oh, that's a lovely set of petticoats, Discord."

"I knew you would appreciate it, dear Fluttershy. More tea?"

"Of course."

"For your information, she didn't have any Prench girls. ...that I saw, anyway. Though I suppose she did have a small painting kit in her bedchambers. Anyway, don't you want to know what she sent me?"

"Oh, yes please."

"If you must, but I will absolutely spice things up if your story doesn't live up to my expectations."

"Well, just yesterday I got a letter from her. I'm glad the device works as intended, but what's more important is what she said..."

To Her Royal Highness Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of Magic, and Princess of Friendship

It is with some uncertainty that I pen this letter to you. Nevertheless, I feel I must try.

My dispatched Shadowbolts finally returned. While there was significant confusion when they learned of the changes in their absence, they left my service amicably. Of more interest was their findings—notably, nothing. They did report an abandoned cavern complex that seems to match your description of a changeling hive, but there were no signs of habitation. By their estimates, it had been abandoned for months, if not longer. Inconclusive, but troubling.

As for Equestria, it has begun to heal with remarkable speed and energy. The starving days look to be behind us now. Though it fills me with shame to be able to refer to any period in Equestria's history, much less one in which I ruled, as 'the starving days.' Nevertheless, the populace heals. My sister informs me that Princess Cadenza is mostly recovered, and her foal with her. I have not been able to bring myself to speak with her directly.

My sister and I have agreed upon a date for my trial. Until then, I remain in Canterlot, under watch. As I imagine you are aware, there are challenges in imprisoning a powerful alicorn via means both mundane and merciful. Given the circumstances, it seems quite probable that my sentence will amount to something like glorified community service.

I can only hope that this is enough to appease those that I have wronged. If not, perhaps the labor I contribute to the recovery effort will serve.

Finally, and most importantly, I write to offer you my thanks. In recent weeks, I have had the dubious gift of time, which I have used to reflect upon my actions. Is it ironic, that as mistress of dreams, I still suffer from nightmares? Scorched wastelands, endless fields of the sick and the starving, worlds empty save for myself... all elements of my slumber now. Rainbow Dash and the Twilight Sparkle of my world have been instrumental in keeping my spirits high.

Rainbow Dash has insisted upon daily exercise with me in order to, as she puts it, 'stay in awesome shape'. I find myself marveling that a mare once so devoted to following where I lead is now so ardent—and persuasive—in commanding me. And I am well-acquainted with the improvement in mood that a good gallop or a brisk flight brings, so I can hardly gainsay her suggestions.

I have also been meeting with your younger counterpart at least weekly. Following our introduction, she sought me out, ostensibly for my assistance in a research project of a magical nature. As soon as I brought up my firsthand acquaintance of Star Swirl the Bearded however, she dispensed with the pretense, and we spent the next several hours trading tales. She is a fount of knowledge—though hers tends toward the academic—in nearly all things, and a rapt audience for any tale of my past I care to spin.

And so, I thank you.

Before your arrival, I stood upon the precipice of ruin—my own, and Equestria's.

And now? I am reunited with my sister, not in enmity, but in love. I have one companion more loyal than I deserve, and another wiser and more compassionate than she knows.

I have lost a kingdom, but gained a future.

Your friend,
Luna