... Well, I could place here a normal story description. But if I had to guess, we’d say you already know what we mean if here simply stands ‘HIE as Nightmare Moon’. ... What? Too meta? The only meta thing you can’t write here is about the real world. ... Original (HTML & epub).
Tags: < MLP:FIM | Sex | Anthro | Human | OC | Nightmare Moon > (Sex only implied, and NOT a main aspect in the story.)
Nightmare was thrown around, not managing to move in one direction or another. Victory had been so close… yet it is so far, now.
Luckily, she still had her magic.
After a few more moments, she eventually managed to stabilize herself, realizing that she was high above the ground. Remembering her wings, she flapped them once, bringing her fall to a halt.
Realizing she was clearly visible, her horn lit up blue, cloaking her with powerful magic. Something felt wrong, though.
A moment later, she could sense what was different: Wherever she was, there was almost no magic. She would have to use as few spells as possible. Also, she somehow needed to return to Equestria. She had no intention of living in such a magicless world, where probably even the thought of magic was outside of the norm.
Now curious about the world she ended up in, she drove down, turning ethereal in the process.
Work was exhausting.
I lived alone and was employed as an office worker. During such a day, I usually took a short nap after eating lunch. The job paid well, but it was somewhat unfulfilling. Sometimes, I just wished that I could escape this world.
However, something was different this time. Unlike usually, the room seemed to be much darker, but I thought it to be an illusion. That is until I realized that it was so dark that I could not even see my own hand anymore, and that shocked me enough to look around, trying to find the reason for this.
But I saw, quite literally, nothing.
I see someone staying in the dark even through the day.
The silky, ethereal voice was only there for a moment, but after asking who or where the speaker may be, I received no answer. The room looked grey again, and I could see the room again, if only in outlines.
But I knew I could forget my nap. Maybe some sort of illusion? Possible, but that would be the first time anything of the sort happened to me.
Shaking my head, I walked into the cafeteria, grabbing a glass of water. Just what happened?
While I did wish for something different, this once again showed me that wishing for change is not always a good idea.
That evening, I was quite tired and found that I fell asleep quite quickly. However, something woke me up in the night, but I could not tell what. Looking around, my blood froze when I realized that I once again could not see the room around me.
I do not even wish you ill… I heard the voice again, causing me to shudder.
“What are you?” I asked, my voice far less firm than I would have hoped it to be.
Hehe… look down, little one, I heard, and when I confused looked at the ground, I could see a… moving shadow?
Some moonlight managed to find its way in the room, revealing that instead of a shadow, in front of me now stood a black colored being, a head higher than I was at least.
Recognizing the eyes that seemed to glow with a pale, blue light, I flinched.
“You… you’re…!”
A smile. Somewhere between serene and wicked.
“Yes, child, I am. A Nightmare.”
I then blinked, realizing something.
“Then, why have you not done anything yet?”
“What do you mean?”
“You were extremely powerful in the other world, but you have yet to attack me, be it verbally, spiritually, or physically… what else could you want from someone like me, Nightmare?” I asked, now quite confused.
She sighed, grabbing the chair I had standing next to my bed and sitting down.
“You’re right, there is something I need from you. And unlike most other things, you have to agree freely for me to get this from you. Similarly, I do not plan on deceiving you, as the spell would not work in that case, too.”
She then snarled at me.
“But do not mistake my intentions! You are but one out of nine billion sentients on the planet that I can sense, and you cannot ask for anything from me, as I would find someone willing among them!”
What?
“N-nine?”
She leaned over to me, pushing me back.
“Oh, how innocent you young creatures are. You truly do not know how the world works, do you? But… that’s beside the topic,” she said, smirking.
“Here’s the deal. You know about my world and situation,” she stated, and I nodded, causing her to grin.
“Good. What I need is a new body.”
For a moment, I did not understand what she meant, then flinched back.
“Why would I ever give up my body?!”
She gave me another grin, before placing her right hand on her chest.
“Because I can offer you immortality.”
I was very skeptical, to say the least.
“I cannot return like this to the world I came from. I would be killed. But, if I had a different body, different looks, and different magic, then no one would recognize me. I swear on my existence that in exchange for your body so that I may mend it into one fitting for me, I shall give you immortality and shall leave without casting anything else, unless you wish otherwise,” she said, seemingly covering anything that could have me worried about.
However, there were two tiny details that were quite important.
“I do not want immortality as yours began,” I said, getting her to tilt her head.
“I do not want to become a concept or a being that only exists in dreams. I want to retain a physical, adult body,” I explained to her, getting a nod.
“Turning you into a spirit would be harder to do than what I had in mind anyway, so I would not do it either way.”
“Good. Secondly, I presume what my new body looks like won’t be like my old one looks like?”
“That would be correct. I remember how only a small number of ponies can change their form. You would be stuck with the result, but nobody would believe you to still be ‘you’, that’s your worry, right?”
I nodded. That was the second point, and in my opinion, it was of similar importance like the first one.
“Yes… yes, that could work. I believe I can create something that would allow you to create an illusion of your old form over your new one. But, I cannot use much magic in this world, so I need you to agree to this deal now and to promise me not to tell anyone about me, at least until I have left this world again.”
She then looked thoughtful.
“But something like that requires extreme precision. I have not been for long in this world, so do you know if there is a way to easily create precise magic circles?”
I thought about it for a moment, then I had an idea.
“Yes, but I’d rather do this tomorrow afternoon… I’m quite tired.”
“Very well. I will meet with you again,” she said, before pushing me back down so that I laid in my bed.
“Now sleep,” she commanded, and I found myself falling unconscious in a matter of seconds.
When I got home from work the next day, I found a woman with black hair and a blue suit waiting in front of my house, but something about her was off.
I blinked, noticing that she had no shadow. Because having a shadow would mean that she would be standing in the sun…
“Nightmare?”
“Not bad. So, what did you plan?”
“Do you know what printers are?”
She shook her head.
“No. Is it one of the machines you worked with during this, urgh, day?”
I nodded.
“A printer is a machine capable of bringing symbols on paper,” I responded, leading her in my house and picking up a print-out from an email I got earlier while ignoring that her statement essentially meant she was spying on me.
“That’s extremely useful. Ponies have mostly hand-written correspondence. Sometimes they use magic, too, but still… given that I see this weird symbol here, I assume they can create more than just letters?”
I nodded, pointing to a theatre placate I had hanging on my wall.
“That’s an image from a printer, too. Granted, it was better than the one I have, but you see what I mean, right?”
She took a look at it.
“I thought that for a painting, or some sort of magic, although I should have known better than to suspect the latter. Yes, that could become extremely useful, but it has a small problem. The ink is not magical, after all, I have not seen anyone use magic yet in this world.”
I thought a moment about it.
“Well, could you use a carving with the right form to guide magic?”
“Yes, but it would have to be made out of very strong wood, gold or platinum.”
“Of those, the only viable option is wood, but I believe I can get some.”
“Excellent. Now, how do you plan on carving the wood?”
I shrugged.
“You can order engravings. While it will cost a bit, it will be cheaper than buying gold.”
Over the next few hours, I showed Nightmare how to work with a computer, and we discussed many times how and when we would cast the magic. During this time, I also realized that Nightmare was both an extremely focussed, and extremely intelligent individual.
A good example of this was when I decided to download a drawing program on my computer so that she could design the spell. She, as far as I knew, looked then for the first time truly at a computer, and understood it quickly, far too quickly for my liking.
It took her only a day to finish the design of the spell after I introduced her to a graphic program.
I was very glad that she at least seemed to be on my side.
“I have finished the spell, but how do we get this design engraved? As far as I know, printers do not work on wood.”
“Export it as an image. We can send it to a company that works with wood along with the dimensions we wish for it to have.”
“Where is that function?”
“File, I think. Or image.”
“Got it. That’s far easier than carving out something like this myself.”
I shrugged.
“Accomplishing something yourself without outside help is something that is very satisfying, too,” I responded, causing her to chuckle.
“True.”
It took only about a week from the day that I met Nightmare for the first time until the moment that we had a big package standing in front of my door, containing a one meter by one meter wooden ‘floor’ engraved with thousands of symbols I’ve never seen before.
“So, this all is just so that I can put an illusion of my old body over my new one?”
Nightmare laughed. It was not an evil laugh, just one of amusement. It was the laugh one had if they did something without the others knowing. Her eyes glinted mischievously while she explained what those symbols really did.
“No, those are all the spells we’ll use. Image spell, which will burn the magic equivalent of a ‘file’ into the wood here,” she said, pointing to an empty portion of the wood,“inside of the spell that will be used to create the illusion. Simply cut this part out later and activate it; I’ll teach you how to as soon as you have access to magic. That is because in this instance I am bound to the intent, not the wording of our agreement. Next, the spell that will remodel your body, and lastly the one that will swap our souls,” she said, pointing to the different parts of the spell.
The next twenty minutes were spent heaving the wood on the (flat) roof.
This night would be a full moon, perfect for what we had in mind.
“Strip.”
“Why?”
“Because if you don’t, the spell will record your image whilst including your clothes.”
“…fair,” I commented, vanishing in the bathroom and returning in a robe a few minutes later.
“Could you answer a question before we start?”
“Sure, what’s on your mind?”
“What made you accept this deal? I’d have expected most, if not all would outright decline this, especially if they knew who I am.”
“True, but you forgot one thing, Nightmare. And that’s that humans are selfish.”
I turned around, smiling.
“Humans are selfish! And they always will be. I am selfish, and I fear death. If I am immortal like you are, I am sure I can someday, somehow still die – but I do not have to fear death anymore.”
My expression became serious.
“And I value my life over my body. If I can become an immortal by turning into a swarm of robots, or by turning into a computer, I’d do it. Having access to magic is just a bonus for me.”
“I see. I can only guess what made Luna accept my offer in the beginning,” she responded, looking up.
“It is almost time. Please, step on the wood, but you do not need to remove the robe yet,” she responded, and I now saw her use magic for the first time since we met. Incredibly deep blue magic flowed along her horn, falling down, and filling the lines in the carving.
She stepped on it, gesturing for me to step on another marked part, which I did. While I waited, I could see the magic flowing into the channels in the wood, turning into a beautiful, intricate pattern. Of course, I had turned my back to her, to prevent her from seeing anything.
“It begins,” Nightmare commented, and I nodded, removing the robe and throwing it off the side.
A few seconds later, I could see a blue light passing over my body, and a blue flame in the area Nightmare indicated earlier, burning some symbols that looked quite weird into the wood.
However, for some reason, I felt like they were… oddly fitting. As if I had seen them before.
It was very interesting, especially considering this was the first time I ever saw real magic.
That was when the pain started. A burning sensation passed over my body, and a second later, it had evolved into a burning feeling, and another second later, it had become burning hot knives stabbing me everywhere, tearing at my flesh, breaking my bones, and opening long wounds along my back. I quickly passed out.
Waking up and looking around I noticed that I was in my living room. I found that I was sore and could not move without feeling a burning sensation in my body, so I stayed still and just looked around. I noticed a unicorn sitting on my desk, working on something.
“Nightmare?” I tried to croak, but it came out of my mouth more like a groan.
“Oh? Ah, you’re awake!”
She stepped closer, seemingly inspecting my body. Her fur had now a silver color, indicating that she succeeded with whatever she did. However, she no longer had wings.
“It has been about half an hour, but your soul is still changing. I had not anticipated that throwing a magicless being’s soul in a body overflowing with magic would have… side effects.”
I gave her a deadpan stare.
“Just sleep a while longer. Your body has no magic right now, so you’ll probably be asleep for at least twelve hours. I took the liberty of informing your boss via your computer that you got sick and are taking the day off.”
Thankful for that at least, I gave a very small nod, closing my eyes as I felt my exhaustion catch up to me.
…
When I woke up again, I could see that it was already evening. I just hoped I’d get my sleep schedule in order again soon.
I was still a bit sore, but it was not too bad. Stretching – and getting surprised when I could feel something on my back I identified as wings – I stood up, noticing that I, too, now had fur.
Midnight black fur.
Wait a second…
Looking down, I saw what I suspected: Breasts. I had become female.
Nightmare had followed the agreement she made with me to the letter… and to what she thought was the intent.
Her old body was immortal, after all… I sighed. I knew I should be far angrier and more shocked, but this was partially my own fault, too. Plus, I was tired – meaning I had not really capacity for any strong emotions right now.
Having called out, it took not long for Nightmare to show up.
But with so many things, there was a catch.
Since we swapped bodies, ‘she’ was now male, and as I already observed, I in turn female.
“Seems like you have absorbed enough magic to move again,” she found.
“You should have told me about this before,” I retorted, gesturing to ‘my’ body.
For a moment, she looked confused, but then sighed.
“Well… I thought that should have been obvious. I told you that it is harder to create things than to change them. It should not affect you… much,” she responded, grabbing a glass of water and handing it over to me.
“‘Much’?” I echoed, taking a sip from the water afterward and spilling some due to not being used to the new form of my face.
“Weeeelll… you’re a pony.”
“What’s your point? That’s true for you as well, and ponies can digest meat, they usually just don’t eat it.”
She (he?) blushed, looking to the side and grumbling something. Even with my new ears, I did not understand what he said.
“Care to repeat that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“…annual heat…”
Ah. Riiiight…
Many species only are fertile during a specific time, usually the spring if I remember correctly… ponies, it seems, are no exception.
“That… could be a problem. During which time period?” I asked, causing Nightmare to shrug.
“I’m not sure. Could you tell me when the summer solstice and winter solstice are and which date we have?”
Neither of those I knew without looking them up, so I quickly checked on my computer.
Nightmare quickly made some calculations and then groaned.
“Within the next week. Could have started already, too.”
I blinked. At least it would be over quick… right?
“How long is it, anyway?”
“I believe between three days and two weeks… I only watched it happen once. I’m not sure if you’ll be affected at all.”
Once… oh, right.
“Unfortunately, since it never affected me directly, I haven’t really researched how to suppress it. I think there is a spell, but I do not know it.”
That was when something in me… snapped.
“You should have me told of this! You had to know about this!”
“Yeah, I realized tha- whoa!” Nightmare exclaimed, barely dodging me when I tried to punch her in the face.
Her silver horn lit up, and a grey aura formed around me, pushing me to the ground.
“Mood swings much?”
My anger surged, and I could tell that I was stronger than the magic holding me in place. So, I forced my body to move, pushing a hand to the ground, pushing myself up to my knees, and then standing up.
Nightmare actually took a step back, her eyes wide.
“How? You should not have been that strong already!”
“Is it not in your nature to make mistakes?” I growled, finding enough strength to take a step toward her without collapsing to the ground, ignoring the magic weight on my back.
The magic fizzled out, and I found myself flying forwards, having pressed against an enormous force just a moment ago. I barely got to blink before I crashed into the wall next to Nightmare, feeling my consciousness leaving me again.
When I woke up again, I found that I was not feeling anything. No anger at Nightmare anymore, nor any annoyance at her actions, nor satisfaction to know that I was able to overpower her magic.
“I haven’t expected this to be so bad,” I then heard …his voice say, causing me to whip my head around to face …him.
“What do you mean?” I asked, not curious, but feeling like I was supposed to ask the question.
She sighed.
“Mood swings. For Luna, apparently me, and by extension, you, the one to two days before heat sets in are accompanied by mood swings… and I just pushed you over the edge, just after you woke up and your brain got turned into mush thanks to your new body.”
“I placed a spell on you to suppress your emotions… it’ll vanish in a day. Because at that point, the only thing you’ll be feeling is lust.”
“So, what will you do?” I asked, now a bit curious.
A sigh was the response.
“I’ll stay and see what I can do. While not part of our agreement, I also have not yet found a way to return to my world.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“How did you get here, then?”
Nightmare levelled a look at me.
“The Elements,” she responded, using a tone that made it clear she would not tell me about her defeat.
The less said about the two weeks that followed, the better. Nightmare showed me some… let’s say interesting things about my new body (example: wings indeed are sensitive) and explained a lot about magic over the last few days.
Not only distracted it me quite well from the burning in my body, but I could also recall the information perfectly afterwards.
To summarize: every unicorn could cast every spell they had the mana capacity and mental strength for. However, for spells not connected to their talent, they had to build the spell first in some way. Kind of how Nightmare’s talent was not with soul magic, and how she used the wood carving to exchange our bodies. Despite this, she has yet to teach me any spells I couldn’t do without forming it in my mind.
Physical manifestations were more stable and harder to disrupt as well, something to keep in mind.
Interestingly, ‘her’ cutie mark stayed on ‘her’ old body, but I wasn’t terribly opposed to that. It was a quite powerful mark, after all.
Over that time, I could also feel myself growing stronger. Nightmare explained that our magic regenerated only slowly, due to this world having next to none itself. In this world it would take about one and a half weeks to refill my mana pool, but then again, there were not really many things that could empty it.
“I believe we may have a problem,” I commented, realizing that even although the magic allowed me to return to my previous look, it did nothing about my height.
“It is only a problem in your spellcasting,” he shot back, raising an eyebrow from the couch he was lying on.
“Your voice hasn’t changed. That means you haven’t cast the spell correctly.”
I blinked. I knew I cast it correctly and subsequently told Nightmare as such.
“Excuse me? You said it was as simple as channeling magic into the runes,” I stated, now quite annoyed.
It seemed like Nightmare also realized this.
“Wait, then why isn’t it working?”
I shrugged. I had no clue; Nightmare had barely started teaching me the ins and outs of magic.
“Your task to find out, not mine. Mind casting the illusion on me, though? I definitively shouldn’t stay apart from work any longer than necessary.”
“Weren’t you worried about being discovered?” Nightmare asked, to which I nodded.
“I was, and I still am. However, I believe in magic. You are an expert on magic, and there are about three beings in this and your original world that are more powerful than you are. So, just cast a regular illusion on me until you found out why it isn’t working.”
“Slave driver.”
“It is your fault for assuring it worked when it didn’t; take responsibility.”
He blinked, then chuckled.
“Fair enough.”
Work passed without any issue, thanks to Nightmare casting a size reduction spell alongside the illusion spell. After he assured me it would hold for as long as I wanted and showing me how to make changes to it, he then continued to teach me about magic in every free minute.
I expected to get a burn-out after the first week of such a grueling routine, but for some reason, I was lively and full of energy. I guessed it was something thanks to magic.
Nightmare responded in turn that alicorns were built to be under heavy strain. This apparently extended to their psyche.
Another week passed in (relative) silence, and I was surprised by how fast I was learning.
When I asked Nightmare about it…
“Ah, that’s because of my night lessons.”
I blinked.
“I don’t remember signing up or taking any ‘night lessons’, so what in the world are you referring to?”
“Well, I got a pretty good understanding of your learning speed after you got that boost thanks to your alicorn psyche. As such, I can simply whisper into your ears at night, driving small but important pieces of knowledge into your brain. Example: How many layers can a tier three spell have?”
“Three,” I responded, literally without thinking about it, then blinking.
“We never talked about that! Sure, you taught me how to add another layer to a spell, but never the limitations of that technique!”
“See? It works.”
I blinked.
“For someone of your age, you sure do have a big lack of common sense,” I found myself snarking at Nightmare, who just chuckled in response.
“Fair enough. Then again, I am only here because you interest me.”
“What?”
“Well, normally I would just have helped you understand your new body before leaving after producing some enchanted objects to hide said body. But you showed real interest, and more importantly, intuition, when it came to spells. You asked just the right questions. When you were lucid enough to, anyways.”
Until some sort of magic started trying to drag me through the floor. Since the pull wasn’t too strong, I stepped away from the area, before firing a bolt of magic at it, disrupting it.
“Getting summoned?”
“Your soul has grown quite powerful. I’m not entirely sure, but could this be the first time you were born?”
I gave him a long look.
“Nightmare. How would I know, and what do you even mean?”
“Ah… it’s just that the aura, or presence, of a person, is directly dependent on the soul of the person unless someone absorbs magic or enlarges it otherwise.”
I thought a moment about it.
“Hm. Remember when you said that you threw my soul, that of a being without magic, in a body filled with magic? Maybe the equivalent of a magic soul was created and merged with my soul, making me unusually powerful.”
“It’s possible, but that is not the problem. Your soul is more powerful than I anticipated, and as such, can apparently become a target for summoning magic not intended to bring the former ‘me’ back to Equestria. That’s what I meant.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“So, you expected me to get ripped from this world because a cult in your name wanted ‘me’ back?”
He shook his head.
“No. Since I am connected to that world, I can block you from getting summoned there, which I did, and can eventually travel back to that world, should I choose so. You can do the same with both this planet and Eques. But you aren’t protected from getting summoned to other worlds.”
His horn lit up, and I could see a string of magic fall down to the ground from my body. I could feel him tying my essence to this world.
“There. If you push enough magic in this connection when you are in another world, you can teleport back here. Oh, and just in case: I still need a written note from you that I also ‘own’ this place, otherwise someone else might get it if you get summoned away from here.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Shouldn’t I be able to jump back here right away?”
Nightmare shook his head.
“No. There are many things that can block you from going back. Getting stuck in a ‘lower’ world, being summoned until you do something, getting summoned like a demon and forced to listen to what the summoner wants. I believe I should stop giving you an all-around magic education, and instead focus on healing, barrier, attack, and blink spells.”
“What do you mean by ‘blink’?” I found myself asking, curious.
“Spells that can either teleport yourself or magic a short distance away. It’s hard to pull off, but it could become useful.”
I thought a moment about it.
“Wait. If you had access to such spells, then why did you not use them against the element bearers?”
He sighed.
“I don’t want to talk about it, but it’s a valid question. Most of my magic was unusable due to me having to seal Celestia. Teleportation magic of any kind would have disrupted that spell, and I also did not want to kill them, so I was a bit limited. Now, I believe I should start with the instinctual spells.”
Turning, I looked down at my flank. I did wear clothes, but Nightmare always spelled my clothes to show my cutie mark there.
“That would be… turning into smoke, shadow clones, illusion, and light negation?”
“The last one is actually an illusion spell, and those you will have to learn separately. You, however can hide in shadows or persons.”
Then, he blinked, before grinning.
“That reminds me, while your magic is based on your mind, your fighting ability relies heavily on your body… I want to try something.”
I raised an eyebrow but stayed silent.
Blocking the blow Nightmare threw at me, I kicked out, showing him back. I then crouched, jumping after him, but he managed to dodge me.
“Magnificent! Your body is the same as mine! Ley memory may be something only the mind gains, but muscle memory is something that stays! Your instincts are the same as mine!”
He vanished, the teleport not making any sound, but I realized – sensed – without using magic that he had teleported behind me, leaned aside, grabbed his arm, and flipped him over, but he once again teleported before he hit the ground.
“Okay, that’s enough. You can hold your own in a fight, but you make no use of your wings, just your strength. It seems that the muscle memory does affect you, but not enough to grant you control over the wings.”
I blinked, then concentrated on my wings. They were free, but I had kept them to my body, instinctually.
Trying to flap them, I landed on my nose.
Nightmare blinked.
“Ah… maybe you need to have the ability to move before you can use muscle memory?”
“I can move my wings. I can’t fly,” was my deadpan response, which seemed to surprise Nightmare.
“Really? Hm… please allow me to possess you for a moment,” he said, and I nodded, not disrupting the fragile magic when it got cast on me.
I could still move my body, but Nightmare could do so now as well.
“Try flying now,” he said, and I looked up.
“Are you sure we won’t be spotted?”
His horn blazed once.
“There. I made you invisible to anything that isn’t magic. Heat, radio, normal sight, nothing. The only way you could be found now is if something rams into you.”
“Very well,” I sighed, moving my wings again. I knew that Nightmare influenced my flight, and held me steady, but it still felt like it was me who flew under my own power.
I blinked, then grinned, before moving my wings faster to gain height.
‘Your stamina isn’t unlimited.’
Ah… right. I looked around and realized I had propelled myself a few hundred meters up in the air already and stopped flapping my wings, which caused Nightmare to twist them into a gliding position. I eventually realized the weird feelings I got from the wings on my back were not only attributable to the air flowing over them but also correlated with something… else.
“What…”
I moved my wings around a bit and turned to the left. After gliding for a moment, I ended up in an updraft. Was that what I felt?
Riding the wind, I eventually came close to some clouds, but when I came close to them, they disappeared.
‘I’ll teach you how to create stable clouds later,’ Nightmare commented in my head, and I sighed, but nodded. If I had to guess, ‘natural’ clouds were of such low density that even magic did not help much.
I spent the rest of the day flying, and when Nightmare eventually revealed that he had not to help me hover or steer anymore, it was an addicting feeling to be up in the air, and I spent a few more hours in the air before landing, realizing only then that I was slightly exhausted.
Considering my stamina as alicorn…
This time, when Nightmare attacked me, my wings flared from time to time, helping me to move around his attacks, and using his own momentum against him. While before, only my reflexes were faster than his, this time I was not only more flexible in my movement, but much faster thanks to me using my wings.
“Perfect! You have to train a little, but with or without wings, you can beat any mortal in hand-to-hand combat now.”
“What about immortals?”
“You can at least stand your ground for a moment. Long enough to teleport away, I’d say. Oh, on that topic. When being summoned, if the summoner is stronger than you after deducing the magic cost of summoning you, you are forced through. You can still sense the pull of other summoning attempts, but don’t have to answer them. Also, that ‘summoning cost’ can be artificially inflated, especially if you are an immortal.”
“Whoa!” I exclaimed, barely dodging the teleporting Nightmare. After thinking a moment about it and deflecting another of his attacks, I then tilted my head.
“What is that cost, anyways?”
“Ah, it’s the energy to teleport you to where they are, and a cost you can tack onto your summoning. The more powerful you are, the higher you can make that cost.”
“And how do you do it?”
“There’s a spell for that.”
Of course.
The one moment I spent groaning got mercilessly used, and I was sent flying into the wall.
“Concentrate on the place, how it looks around there. That image can help you,” Nightmare stated, and I nodded, completing the teleportation matrix in my hands. With a flash of blue light, I found myself outside. After training my body for a short while, we both had realized I would not gain much more from training my body and switched back to training my magic as a result.
A moment later, I felt the pull of Nightmare’s summoning magic. The price I set was ‘a good reason’, something that could be overcome by enough mana, but the amount it would take, thanks to my status as a demi-god, was quite close to being astronomical.
‘Why would I answer this call?’ I asked, hearing Nightmare chuckle.
‘Because you’re in plain sight.’
A millisecond later, I stood in the basement again.
“Not a bad reason, right?”
I shrugged.
“Well, better than what most others would come up with. I couldn’t tell if you were just summoning me or restricting my abilities after being summoned, though,” I responded, and he nodded.
“That’s why we’re training. Has someone tried summoning you again?”
I shook my head.
“I could tell that some summoning ‘requests’ were floating through the void between worlds, but none were aimed at me.”
“Wait – why can you sense those, but are unable to tell the specifies of the spell used to summon you?”
I shrugged. “Probably some magic nonsense again. Also, you were, temporarily, the ruler of the dream world. That could affect this, too.”
“Whatever. I noticed you quit your job?” he then asked, changing the topic, not wanting to think about it.
“I did. I found an easier way to make money. I’m selling images of Celestia.”
“WHAT.”
“So, let me get this right. You use illusion magic to take on Celestia’s form – and then photograph yourself. Nothing ‘R-18’ or ‘R-16’, but still images that are, well, real. And you then run them through a filter making it look like they were drawn.”
I nodded.
“You know what? That’s… well, I guess it works.”
He then whirled around.
“But why don’t you take photos of the former ‘me’?!” he demanded to know, showing an echo of his former ego.
“Because if they suspect the images are real, there is a higher chance I’ll be seen as a cosplayer, were I to ever lose my disguise.”
Then, I shrugged.
“Also, I then got the idea to try painting.”
Nightmare slowly nodded.
“I have seen the colors you ordered, but always wondered what you were painting. Or where you stored the paintings.”
Pulling a painting out of the magic storage, I showed it to him. He quickly realized what it was.
“Okay, that’s genius.”
As the painting showed the landscape viewed from far above, giving it a surreal look. With my painting style being a bit unrefined, but for some reason, very detailed, it also adopted a slightly cartoonish look.
“You’re painting while flying?”
“Not exactly. When I took a look at the levitation spell, I realized there was a part in it to cancel out the force that would normally apply to you. Remember how I seemingly jumped off the air when we trained?”
“You removed the cancellation part. That means when you jumped off the ‘air’ you instead pushed away from the wall and as a result yourself?”
I nodded.
“Correct. Also, if you cast the spell in front of you, well…”
A blue shimmering disc came into existence, onto which I sat.
“It works as a platform to stand on or put objects on.”
“And then you simply paint up there. Also, I can tell that you have a lot in your magic storage, but what?” he then asked, tilting his head. Not sure myself, I took a look.
“Well… my painting stuff, a few books on material arts I bought on your insistence, the short guide to necessary spells you wrote, the piece of wood with the illusion spell that’s not working correctly, some food from last week – seems like time is stopped in here since it’s still good – some writing utensils and my smartphone, which weirdly enough shows the correct time despite seemingly being frozen in time.”
I then blinked, looking deeper.
“I almost forgot, there is the armor you originally wore, as well as a big scythe I’m seeing for the first time now.”
Nightmare shrugged.
“Something a follower gave me. Non-mana weapons usually break quickly, but you should be able to use it to hide your abilities.”
I took it out and did a few practice swings. I could use it, but I could also tell that Nightmare never used it; it felt unfamiliar. Nonetheless, it seemed like my body had experience with scythes, just not this one.
“Can this be enchanted?”
“Yes, but I never bothered. If you do decide to enchant it, it would become quite powerful, though. There is one enchantment on it already, a restoring enchantment. No matter how damaged the scythe is, it will repair itself within a day.”
“Considering how you said you expect materiel weapons to break, could it be that this scythe was meant to be used as a first-strike weapon?”
“Could be. Do you remember the spell for enchanting yet?”
I shook my head.
“Only mostly. I have looked at a few interesting spells after I had reached the point of at least casting the basic spells we spoke about, but for some reason, it seems like the enchanting spell just called out to me. I have a feeling that even incomplete, I could cast this spell.”
Tilting his head, Nightmare teleported away and returned with a wooden sword back a second later.
“Try,” he said, throwing the sword to me. I caught it in my levitation, with no intention of picking splinters out of my fur.
“Wood? Isn’t that one of the worst materials to enchant?”
“Well, not really. The material only affects the number of enchantments possible on an item, as well as its durability, not the effect the actual enchantments have on it. As such, it’s perfect practice material.”
“I see,” I responded, building the enchantment matrix, before thinking for a moment.
The enchantment I tried to apply in the end was a spell to turn the wood into steel while mana was channeled into it. The enchantment matrix failed, but I then remembered that iron and steel could have negative impacts on magic, so I tried to make it temporarily turn into copper, which worked.
Interestingly, the enchantment matrix completed itself, making it clear that this was considered part of my ‘natural’ abilities.
“I see. Enchantments seem to be your ability.”
To give a bit of context, the abilities that should naturally come to Nightmare – turning into smoke, and precise control over illusions, as well as dream magic – I could use easier as well, but it felt wrong for some reason. As if it wasn’t meant to be mine.
“A good chance. Can you give me a list of all enchantments?”
Nightmare nodded.
“I am working on a list of all those things that you don’t need to train, just to know. For example, potions or rituals. You just need to do them by the book, you don’t need to have experience with them. The enchantments you apply are created by imagining the effect you want. It’s a good idea for training but remember that doing it this way increases the mana cost and decreases the number of enchantments you can place on an object. Many spells can be completed by allowing magic to do it, but it is really energy-intensive.”
“True. Completely building the enchantment matrix would help, in that case.”
Nightmare nodded, but I continued before he could say anything.
“When we’re already on the topic… can you store enchantments? In gems or the like, to then put them on another object later?”
He shrugged.
“Well, there would come up one of two problems. If you do the enchantment with only a light binding, the first object touching it gets enchanted. Or, if you do the binding stronger, someone has to manually transfer the enchantment.”
“I see…”
Nightmare walked away, then came back with a folder filled with printouts.
“I already prepared this, in case you get whisked away before we can do much else,” he stated, handing it to me. I nodded, putting it in my magic storage.
“Ah, on that topic? I believe the shield you placed on me to protect me from getting summoned to Equestria has been weakened.”
He scowled.
“Dammit! That is a one-time shield, as all the energy used in tries to summon you accumulates. The only thing that can stop you from getting summoned after it’s high enough is being summoned elsewhere, so that you are already summoned and therefore unavailable.”
I blinked.
“How much time do I have?”
“A few weeks, with bad luck, and a few months with good one. The big problem here is that you would get summoned to be ‘Nightmare Moon’ which would bind you for years, if not decades or centuries. And I don’t doubt that Luna will eventually realize someone is trying to summon you and in turn do it herself to trap you.”
“I don’t want to be stuck there as you!”
“Eventually, you will.”
I sighed; I knew he was right. I also suspected I would eventually end up in Equestria when I initially agreed to his offer.
“In any case, I believe you know more than enough to at least protect you and deliver a severe beating to most opponents. I wrote down a lot of spells as well, but I believe you would be better off just perfecting the spells you know. Oh, another thing. You can travel to Eques on your own volitation, which would clean out the energy stacking up on the shield – but at the very least, Luna would be aware of you.”
Nightmare sighed.
“Being on Eques would make it possible for you to refuse most, if not all, summoning attempts, but your location would be shown to anyone who can sense magic each time it is attempted. In exchange, all the energy accumulated on the shield would fall off, thanks to you being where it wants you. I’d recommend jumping to Eques for a day or two every time the shield is weakened by more than half, it’s the least risky option.”
Angry at herself for accepting Nightmare’s offer a millennium ago, Luna stomped into her room. During her absence, not only their language had degraded, and she was the one speaking ‘weird’, but her sister had allowed dozens, if not hundreds of stupid laws to slip by her notice.
If that was the only thing that stood in her way now, she may have been not as angry. But alas, those thrice-damned nobles now had enough political power to overrule her, too.
“We never should have taken Nightmare’s offer,” she mused, a thought that was shared by the other being just about to arrive, but for far different reasons.
Luna was harboring more of a mix of fear and respect for the being instead of anger, as it did exactly what she offered. Nonetheless, it stole her a millennium of her life.
Stepping in her private chambers and slipping from her dress, she washed her face, and slipped into a nightgown. She had already closed the curtains so that the sun would not wake her when she realized something was… wrong.
Realizing the magic buildup behind her, Luna whirled around, just in time to see an alicorn mare manifest in the air, one she knew all too well from the mirror.
Luna knew that Nightmare was more than enough to overpower Celestia. Not wanting to confront her, she lit up a teleportation matrix, but before she could cast it, Nightmare slammed in the ground, the slight tremor disrupting the fragile spell.
(It canceled itself due to it being shaken, but it amounted to the same result.)
At the same time, a massive wave of energy got released, and Luna was flung against the wall. Since said wall was reinforced to withstand siege engines (and the occasional magic explosion), the princess only made a small dent in it, falling down afterward.
Nightmare in turn noticed Luna, walking over to her. Luna was in too much pain to move, and quickly fell unconscious, not having enough sound of mind to warn her sister…
“Damn it all,” I commented, gazing at the cracks in the wall and the unconscious princess.
“Here? Why did I appear here, out of all places?”
In any case, the dice were cast, and I had to move forward. Changing the past may be possible, but I was NOT planning on doing that anytime soon.
Stay or go?
…
I decided to stay and clean up the mess my arrival had caused. Maybe I could find out why I appeared here, too.
Picking up the princess, I quickly checked her for injuries (and no, I did not sneak a peek at her), before laying her down on the bed. It was not the small, crescent-moon-shaped thing from that one episode, but a normal, ‘king’-sized bed.
There was a nasty bruise on her head, but it wasn’t too severe. I lit up my horn, projecting a simple healing spell between my hands. It glowed a golden color (and somehow felt as if it was trying to burn me, which I ignored).
However, just a moment later, another summoning spell settled on me. It was not a powerful one, but not a weak one, either. Since I was already on Eques, the spell cancelled itself, but the energy had to go somewhere.
A bright, golden flash of light filled the room, and I cursed, the overloaded spell having burnt into my hands. Magic enough to create a model star, all my reserves emptied in an instant, due to me still channeling the spell – and that other, foreign energy crashing into my magic’s metaphorical back.
I was unaware at the time, but the healing spell was robust enough to convert all the magic leaving my body into ‘healing’, causing the healing effect to affect every single being in the city.
Luna awoke to the sound of Nightmare cursing, deciding to take stock of the situation before doing anything. She could not feel any bindings on her body or magic, so she was reasonably sure that not much time had passed.
“For Faust’s sake! This is the second time in the same number of days! Urgh, why do I even bother.”
Remembering what happened, Luna carefully raised her head, not feeling uncomfortable. She remembered flying into a wall, but why wasn’t she in pain?
Luna debated with herself for a moment if she wanted to speak up, then eventually decided to do so. Nightmare seemed, like the first time they spoke, sane, and more importantly, relatively docile.
“Why didst thee return, if thee art an enemy of the state?”
Nightmare stopped grumbling, instead turning around to face Luna. Grabbing a nearby chair with her magic, she sat down on it, fixating Luna with her eyes.
“I do NOT have a choice on this matter, and I believe it’s your turn to cast a healing spell,” Nightmare said, holding out hands that looked little more like charcoal. How she wasn’t passing out from the pain, she did not know.
They clearly were burnt, but the only magic Luna could feel around them was a healing spell.
“What… ‘tis looks horrific! What hath happened?” she asked, her worries about Nightmare retaliating for what has happened gone, instead finding worry in her heart.
Nightmare had offered power, and Luna had gotten drunk on it. At no point in time were her actions not at least heavily influenced by her own, free will. That was why she wasn’t attempting to deliver the black mare straight to the lowest layer of Tartarus. She shouldered equal, if not more blame for what had happened, and took Nightmare’s name as well.
“After I had arrived here, I realized I had injured you. I attempted to heal you, but a summoning attempt was made on me, more specifically, the idea of ‘Nightmare Moon’. The magic caused my magic to go out of control, and the healing spell exploded.”
“Tis’ can’t have happened, healing spells art unable to explode.”
“A healing spell is a robust little thing. Pumping the power of approximately one and a half fully-grown alicorns into it, however, will destroy anything not designed to specifically withstand that sort of damage,” Nightmare replied, holding out her hands.
“Please? Before the magic blocking the pain fails?”
Luna lit up her horn, carefully prying the magic away from Nightmare’s hands. She noticed that Nightmare had spoken the truth – her hands were somehow burnt by the energy of the healing spell.
“Thy have spoken the truth?”
“Is that really this surprising?”
“Nay, it was hardly believable, but we now see our error,” she shot back, prying away the last bits of magical residue, before starting to cast a high-level regeneration spell. What was left of Nightmare’s fur vanished from her hands, and slowly, the skin regenerated, as well as the muscles, tendons, and blood vessels, then new fur grew, leaving her hands sensitive and a bit weak for the time being, but functional.
“Thy were not lying, but now we wonder why thee art here.”
“This world still tries to drag us back, kicking and screaming,” Nightmare responded, scowling.
“Again, and again. Twice now, it was attempted to summon me, the first time forcing me to visit Equestria to prevent myself from being bound to a master, the second causing the healing spell I was using to fail,” she elaborated, slumping down.
“Thou art not acting like the nightmare we know,” Luna stated, curious as to why the mare in front of her was even bothered by it.
“Do you know what it means to be ‘Nightmare’? It does not mean to be incorporeal, or to be a specific creature, or to act a specific way… instead, it means to carry the mark of the dark,” Nightmare stated, pointing at her flank. Holding out her palm, she summoned up a crystal reeking of dark magic, yet her eyes did not light up with black flames.
“It means the ability to use shadow magic, without repercussions. The ability to remember any magic seen, even if only seen once. The ability to turn into smoke, the ability to enter dreams, the ability to cast powerful illusions. THAT is what it means to be ‘Nightmare’.”
An odd smile graced the face of the mare sitting in front of Luna.
“I have heard many a thing from my predecessor, one of which is that I have to visit this world from time to time to keep my freedom.”
“This… art thee saying Nightmare Moon was not unique? There art more like her? And if thee art not whom we met a millennium ago, who art thou?”
“That, I do not know. But I am indeed not whom you met, back then.”
They sat in silence, and eventually Nightmare’s eyes started to wander over Luna’s body, before widening.
“Have you still not healed from what the elements did to you?”
“We art fine!” Luna responded, to which the mare in front of her sighed.
“That is not true. I can see the magic in you, and that it is… stuck, for lack of a better term,” Nightmare responded, standing up and walking up to the bed, placing her hand on Luna’s head.
For some reason or another, a spark of magic jumped from Luna’s head into Nightmare’s hand, and the black mare frowned. Luna, in turn, was confused. The elements had restored her to how she was before she had taken the power offered by Nightmare.
“Your magic… it is incredibly stiff. You have cast spell after spell, and have never relaxed much, have you?”
Not much, Luna found herself concluding, and apparently, the black mare understood what the small drop of her ears meant perfectly.
“Can you spare the night?”
“We have not yet taken up all our duties again. Night court shall not be held for another month,” Luna replied, cautiously. She still had to fulfill all her duties as alicorn but was not yet picking up her duties as princess again.
“That’s a yes,” Nightmare deadpanned, taking ahold of Luna with her magic. She could sense a great deal of magic energy flow out of her body, and a scrying spell lit up around Nightmare’s horn. For some reason, she seemed unsatisfied with what she saw, as she dropped the spell afterwards, not saying a thing.
Being dropped on her bed, she only had a moment before Nightmare had crawled atop of her.
“Don’t tell me you had locked yourself away during ‘that’ time of the year, too?”
It spoke lengths for Luna’s innocence that she did not understood what Nightmare meant; not at first.
While the form Luna had after being hit with the elements was a temporary one resulting from her body not holding any magic, she had not had an ethereal mane before becoming one with Nightmare Moon (literally, not figuratively like last night).
Her sister had been unable to tell her why, so she was left wondering, but much to her surprise, when she woke up after the best described as wild night, still feeling sore but warm, she could see ethereal hair waving to the edge of her vision.
It took her a moment to remember that she had fallen asleep next to Nightmare, and that the stellar mane flowing down her side was most likely not her own; the black arms wrapped around her and black wing covering her like a blanket supporting that theory.
She tried to shuffle out from under the bigger mare, but found it hard to do, moving around so much that it woke up the black pony.
A big yawn escaped her, before she pulled Luna closer, her snout pushing into Luna’s neck.
“It’s nice to hold someone so close, or to be held like this…” she mumbled, and Luna decided she could spare a few more minutes just lying there. After all, she still was recovering from magical – and now physical – exhaustion.
Her face exploded into a blush when her mind replayed the events of the night. Nightmare, though, took the opportunity and placed her muzzle next to her ear.
“So, you want to go again?” she asked with a smirk in her voice, making the poor princess blush even harder.
“We shouldn’t!”
“Was that what I asked?”
Luna had no chance to hide her embarrassment as she found herself unable to respond with a negative to that question, burrowing her burning face in her hands.
Yawning, I stumbled into the bathroom, a bit pissed about the fact that even using up my magic twice was not enough to cleanse the energy that was forcing me to visit this plane. After teasing Luna and holding her for a while, we both realized it was time to get up.
The booklet Nightmare made for me floating next to me, I was washing myself, looking into the book and reading over the spell time and time again. A healing spell can cause burn wounds if cast incorrectly – but not on such a level as it did with me, even considering the energy in it.
“Urgh, I don’t get it,” I groaned, throwing the book back into my magic storage. I concentrated, trying to find the original Nightmares’ mind, but I found that the dimensional barrier was quite strong (as it should be).
I would have to return to Earth before speaking with her.
“Art thee trying to find the reason the healing spell harmed thee?” Luna asked, and I shrugged.
“Essentially, yes. It did too much harm, even for the energies that did flow into it.”
“Mayhaps tis’ the nature of thy magic. Our sister can cast shadow magic, yet it harms her, you can cast holy magic, yet it harms thee.”
Those magics indeed were opposites. I remembered that in the show Celestia once used dark-looking magic to demonstrate the two states of the crystal empire (with and without Sombra in it), so them being completely different could heighten the impact it had on a being attuned to different magic.
What confused me was that I had a physical body and I neither am nor was a spirit fueled by dark energy. I could have accepted that explanation were that case, but for now, I certainly was missing something.
Before I could start to sink into theorizing about the finer aspects of magic, Luna spoke up again, surprising me with her suggestion.
“We think it is time for us to greet sister. Come, I shall introduce you to each other.”
“Is that truly a wise idea? After what has happened, your sister should hate our very presence.”
“Tis’ not true… she knows as well as us that our anger was responsible for more of our actions than the previous Nightmare hath been… that is why our sister has not forgiven herself, knowing our anger was real. We both hath failed each other, a millennia past.”
Celestia, in fact, was loathing a lot of things more than Nightmare Moon (namely Sombra), since she knew that the only reason the whole incident a millennium past happened was a combination of their overbearing responsibilities, the ponies ignoring Luna, Celestia not realizing just that, Sombra trying to break their minds and the original Nightmare Moon stumbling into Luna’s dreams one day at random.
Right now, she was feeling as if a demon was trying to force its way into her head, but she was sensitive to magic. So, she knew that the enormous headache and (carefully concealed) bloodlust was just her own reaction to the inane pony standing before her court.
“…therefore, I believe your sister should not have the political power you have given her, your majesty! Her knowledge of the present-day world is minuscule at best!”
“Princess Luna’s ‘political power’, as you put it is not something I have given to her. My sister always had carried the title of princess, it was never revoked,” she explained, taking a moment to go over the exact laws in her head.
She was prepared to go on, but the pony interrupted her again. She took it in stride – she did not need to stop him from hanging himself, after all.
“She betrayed Equestria! She turned into Nightmare Moon, and tried to kill you, and she is only compliant because you have stripped her of her power!”
“And?” Celestia asked, her voice now dropped to an icy level. Up until now, she had just considered teaching him a lesson on thinking about actions before doing them, but there were some lines she was not willing to allow others to cross.
“Wha – she betrayed Equestria! She tried to kill us all!”
“Princess Luna tried to secure the rule over Equestria, not to conquer or destroy it. She is a member of the royal family by blood, and as such, she had and still has the right to challenge my rule of Equestria in any form she sees fit, as long as no other ponies are part of it. Were you aware that the castle was cleared out hours before our battle took place?”
The pony tried to respond, probably with another insult, but he had been brought off-balance by the sudden, unprecedented change in the princess’ tone.
“You, however, tried to use arguments based in imagination or in false truths, with the goal to remove something you perceived as a threat. You tried to remove, against the law I might add, a princess from power. Are you aware of what the law states for such a case?”
Fearfully, the minor noble shook his head.
“But in the case such an event doth occur, the jury, judge, and executioner shall be determined by the princess offended in any way she seems fit. If she so wishes, she art judge, unless she art family, she art jury, unless she art not of sound mind, she art executioner, unless she art gravely injured.”
Raven could only shake her head watching the struggling minor noble getting escorted out of the throne room, remembering how this scene was almost a carbon copy of what has happened twelve years ago.
She had seen a lot of how the princess acts, yet she had only seen her snap trice in the eighteen years she was serving her. The first was a scientist demanding – not asking, demanding – to be given dead bodies in his research, the second was when a noble tried to stop the coronation of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, and the third was when a dragon thought it to be in their right to help themselves to the priceless art in the castle.
There was an old, very old saying, perfectly summing up the princess, she mused.
‘The gods may listen to you – but do never try their patience.’
For some reason, the noble escorted from the direction of the throne room screamed when noticing Luna, trying to back away as far as possible. I knew for a fact he did not notice me, since I had been hiding in her shadow.
“What do you think that was all about?”
She shrugged.
“We art not sure. Maybe he angered our sister, but she usually is very composed… how much has thy predecessor told thee about Celestia?”
“That she is patient but powerful. She explained more about the workings of the elements than your sister.”
Nightmare was so embarrassed and angry when he realized that he could have deflected the blast of the elements. I in turn would NOT make the mistake he did make.
Luna decided not to respond to that, instead stepping up to the doors to the throne room, past the petitioners waiting there, and gave a small nod to the guards before walking through them.
The pony standing in front of the throne was a male unicorn, wearing a dress suit covering his mark up. Celestia was speaking to him, seemingly agreeing with him, much to his apparent relief.
“…is always allowed. There may be thousands of spells banned from casting, but it is not forbidden to research their inner workings, unless it’s a ‘centurion’ spell. If you wish to cast those banned spells, you have to receive approval, but you do not need that to analyze them.”
“Thank you, your majesty. Before I leave, may I know an example of such a banned spell?”
“Every banned, or centurion spell as they sometimes are called, is listed in the royal library. The books are enchanted so that you can recognize the spell but never remember it. As for an example, summoning spells reaching outside the atmosphere of our world.”
Blinking, the unicorn’s head snapped up from where he was bowing.
“But… there is nothing to be summoned, your majesty?”
“Precisely. There has been an incident where a portal had been opened both ways, stealing air, earth, water, and magic from where the caster was.”
“I see. Thank you for your time,” he sincerely said, before giving another nod to Celestia, leaving.”
“What has our subject asked for?” Luna asked Celestia, for once using the word like it was supposed to.
“He wished to know if he could analyze the spells of the more esoteric schools of magic. That is not something forbidden. You are still awake during the day?” Celestia responded, looking at her schedule, not yet looking up at Luna.
“Our duties as princess we can fulfill during the first half of the night, while our duties as dream guardian we can do in our sleep. Our sleep is ours to govern alone. ‘Tis not us ignoring this fact, insisting of ponies being awake during the time of rest, that brought us apart?”
Celestia looked up at Luna, her eyes expressing sorrow. That only lasted for a moment, as surprise and shock appeared on her face.
“Luna? You unlocked your power?”
The blank look Luna had on her face was accompanied by what Celestia could swear cackling laughter from Nightmare Moon. The moon princess looked down onto herself, only now realizing things seemed smaller than they were before, if just a little bit, and an ethereal mane in a deep ocean blue color.
“What… this should not hath happened! How is it our power had become unlocked… yet we did not notice it?”
“Maybe you have accepted yourself for what you are?”
“May I explain?” Celestia then heard a voice, and she shuddered. She recognized that voice…
“Unless you demand something in return for doing as such, yes,” she barked out, lighting up her horn with as much magic as she could draw on. While she knew of Nightmare, and her connection to Luna, she still held a lot of contempt for the dream construct, as her appearance was probably what gave her sister the confidence to go against her. She did not hate Nightmare, as the being did not brought harm to them intentionally, but she did not trust her at all either.
“In that case, I’ll put myself short,” the disembodied voice continued in a deadpan.
“Luna was reduced to a paladin, I think. She qualified as an avatar again during the night if I’m right.”
The white princess could not help but shudder, a very old memory replaying in her mind's eye, the energies in her horn falling away as they did so.
“It was during the fight with Discord for Luna last time, and the Gryphon war a decade ago of that for me… what did you do?” she asked in fear, remembering that day she turned into the worst thing to ever happen to Equestria. An eighth of the continent was still scorched from that fateful day. Discords’ magic might have stretched over the continent, but within five minutes of him being defeated, it was gone. That scar on the earth, however, would last for many millennia.
“She’s your opposite, Celestia.”
Celestia then noticed that her sister was blushing. For a moment, she did not understand what Nightmare meant – but then she spoke up again.
“Luna is a mare of the night, in more ways than one.”
The white princess's expression was only blank for a second.
“Come here so that I can KILL you!” she screamed, the presence of Nightmare seemingly vanishing from the room. Turning back to her sister, Celestia sighed.
“Luna… why her?”
“We did not know this would happen! She just said she noticed that our magic was not flowing freely!”
“How exactly did that lead to …that?” Celestia asked, tilting her head in a mix of confusion and slight anger. The latter not at Nightmare because of who she was, but what she apparently just did.
“She has been very… persuasive,” Luna responded, her face blushing when she remembered the soft voice that simply felt both wrong, and so right coming from the warrior alicorn. It started so innocently…
Then again, Luna was sure Nightmare would have stopped, would she ever had told her to…
With the familiar flash of teleportation, I relocated myself, jumping back home from Equestria.
But instead of finding myself in the spot I vanished from, I ended up in… nothingness?
Slightly worried, I looked around. There was no magic I could feel and looking at the regeneration rate of my magic I found it to be abysmally slow, compared to before. It was much worse than usual, a sixth at most I guessed.
Luckily, I still had my own magic stores, but my eyes widened upon realizing that it was slowly draining instead of filling.
I was nowhere. And I could tell that the speed at which my magic was draining was slowly increasing.
Becoming more than a little scared at the prospect of ending up nowhere without any magic, I tugged at the magic attached to my core, firing off the same spell I had used a few moments earlier, dissolving my body into pure energy and teleporting across the divide of worlds.
With a massive flare of magic, I found myself popping into existence, high above Equestria, starting to slowly fall. I realized that traveling to Equestria this time had cost me almost all of my magic.
But… the first time cost barely more energy than a teleport over a few kilometers, and when I tried to return, it was the same! Why was it so different, this time?
Why? What had changed? There had been nothing!
What had caused that strain on my magic, then?
Maybe because there was so little magic, where I’d gone to? The less magic in an area is, the harder it becomes to cast magic as well, then?
I could feel a flicker of energy latching onto me again from the aether, attempting to pull me along. I gladly consumed it, leaving nothing of the spell structure behind, filling up my magic from ‘next to nothing’ to ‘adult unicorn’.
At least I could completely absorb those summoning spells, as long as I was in this world. But that was the only good thing about this situation…
I looked around, and I could see Canterlot in the distance, a light forest below me. A few clouds were lazily drifting above said forest, and I guessed it was natural weather.
But my thoughts only centered around how nice it would be to just lie down and sleep… to regain my magic… I flew down to one of the clouds, made sure it could hold me, and then collapsed onto it. I wasn’t scared of discovery, since I was so high up, and with my mind not finding anything else to be concerned about, I quickly fell asleep/unconscious.
It was a fairly peaceful morning, so Celestia knew something was up.
Would Blueblood once again make a nuisance of himself? Unlikely, since he knew how she would react to him interrupting her too often.
Some other nobles, then? Also unlikely, most of them were either genuinely caring for the ‘common ponies’ or after money, and neither of them would be so stupid as to do something… well, stupid.
Her gaze snapped to the ceiling a second later. Her magic covered a very big area, if only very lightly, and as such she could feel the massive magical disruption that was boiling high above Equestria.
“Your majesty?”
“Cancel the day court. Something has come up,” she responded, and while confused, Raven complied. There had been nothing really important on today’s schedule, luckily.
She already knew who the cause of this was; she had met her only a few weeks ago, and the memory was still fresh. Nightmare had returned to Equestria, though the princess could not fathom why she did it in such a way. She did not even sense the slightest tremor of magic the last time she appeared, after all.
Flying was one of the things she immensely enjoyed, and as such she did not mind having to travel to where she had felt Nightmare appear. And her endurance allowed her to fly as long as she needed, as long as she did not attempt to fly too fast.
The center of the eruption was slightly to the west, she found, above the Whitetail Woods.
(Which meant the clouds she encountered she could fly through unless she focused more magic into her legs.)
But all those thoughts of hers vanished when she finally found Nightmare. The demon-like alicorn was lying on a cloud, sleeping. Exhaustion, maybe? Or was she sleeping to heal?
Carefully wrapping her magic around the black mare, then she froze. She touched Nightmare’s arms, finding them to be quite cold. Right below her skin, she could sense magic residue of the mare, probably her magic protecting her.
Just being cold was not a danger for their kind, though, Celestia mused. Bringing her horn close, she cast a spell that would allow her to compare herself with Nightmare, but she found the both of them to be adult alicorns.
She was missing information. Something had happened to Nightmare, and she was unsure how to explain that cold feeling of Nightmare’s body. This was unlike anything she had ever seen, and it scared her.
Her might was half her magic, and half her mind, both being her sharpest and most dangerous weapons. But she could not prepare against something she did not know about.
Discord would probably escape sometime in the next three centuries, and Celestia knew from experience he would lose. Order and Chaos were fundamental, and unless Discord changed, he would always lose.
The Crystal Empire, and the tyrant no doubt would return, but Equestria could win against him. The Dragons and Gryphons were too small in number to realistically threaten Equestria, and the same was true for Sombra.
And the Wendigoes could be driven off by the right spell and posed no danger to alicorns either.
Neither did temperature spells.
Casting a different spell, she looked at Nightmare’s aura, freezing once again in surprise. Nightmare’s aura looked frayed as if something had done its best to rip the magic of the alicorn apart. Had she ended up in a storm made from magic?
Perhaps this was a naturally occurring phenomenon that Nightmare had found herself in, Celestia mused. It was a far more comforting thought than someone – anyone – having the ability to rip apart magic.
She hoped she was right, she oh so dearly hoped she was right.
I snapped aware; it was quite an unpleasant sensation.
When I looked around, I found myself floating in the void of space, which I only realized after some observation to not be actual space, but the world of dreams instead.
Somehow, I ended up here, though I could not fathom why. Perhaps I was here because my body had to rest, but my mind demanded to be awake?
Looking around, I found that everything seemed similarly far away, and I decided to just look around randomly for the time being. Picking out a light in the distance, I willed myself forwards and quickly found myself hovering in front of what looked like a brilliantly glowing marble. I reached out a semi-physical hand, touching the orb, finding it was not something I could enter, realizing a moment later that somehow, whatever was there in front of me wasn’t a dream. There was a connection I could feel to the light in front of me, but it wasn’t that of a dreamer.
Feeling something pass… no, not pass, move through my semi-real body, I turned, finding another if smaller marble moving around the not-dream, and when I leaned down to look at it, I found myself shrinking to better perceive it.
But the marble just looked like a ball of red and yellow, with no texture to speak of. Still, I couldn’t help but feel like I have seen it somewhere before…
Moving away from it, I found myself growing again, and looked around the lights, picking another at random. I moved over to it, which took a moment, but once I arrived, I found that the same thing as before happened. It just wasn’t a dream, but still, it was something that I could feel a small connection with.
Around this not-dream, there, too, were small marbles orbiting it, but once again, they were little more than swatches of color.
I looked around again and picked up the brightest light I could see. Moving towards it, I found that surprisingly it did not get brighter as I got closer, yet I could tell that there was something different about it even while I was still far away.
This time, the not-dream was different. There still was a connection between it and me, but there was another, much stronger bond linking it to a blue-green marble flying around it. Leaning in closer, I found the marble to look familiar…
…to a planet.
There was a ‘moon’ orbiting the ‘planet’, and it was one that had a similar bond as the ‘star’, an incredibly strong connection binding it to the blue body below. A connection I recognized, having touched it before.
‘Luna?’
I leaned in close, finding the planet to be much more sharply defined than anything else I had seen so far. Was it because this planet had life? (Was it even a planet?) I was unsure, but I did not dwell on it too long.
There was a small blue speck of mana moving on the surface of the planet, teleporting from time to time. It was the same mana bound to the moon…
I decided to call out to her.
“Hey, princess.”
She looked around, clearly having heard me, but she seemed incapable of finding me. She was looking around, but not up, probably used to where things were in the equestrian part of the dream world.
“Look up.”
She turned her gaze upon mine and jumped back.
“Nightmare?! You… what… what in the world?”
I shrugged.
“I woke up a few parsecs away… in the dream world. It’s less defined if there’s no life around to materialize it,” I explained, leaning in closer yet again, but not finding myself shrinking much more. I blinked but shrugged, I could always cast a spell to press my essence together manually.
“No! Why art you so massive? Where did you gain all this energy of yours?”
Ha?
“What do you mean?”
“Your presence! You have so much magic!”
I blinked, and focussed, not outwards but inwards. I found a small empty blue sphere of magic, around which an uncountable number of strings wrapped themselves, trailing off towards the sky. Looking at Luna, I found a filled light blue sphere of magic, slightly bigger than the one I possessed – but it still was empty. A single cord of powerful magic wrapped around it, and moved from there towards the sky, wrapping itself around the moon.
“Your magic is similar to mine, is it not? You, too, draw your power from outside… I can feel the bond you have with the moon.”
Now that I was looking closer…
“And the moon collects the magic of the creatures looking up at it and acknowledging its existence, but it also emits its own magic as a celestial body. And you, as its steward, have access to a small part of that magic, enough to move it and to make yourself immortal, and some extra for yourself.”
Luna was looking at the images of mine and her magic that I had brought up, then blinked.
“Might this be because of thy ascension in a different realm? The magic of the world acknowledging thy presence as an outer being?”
I shrugged.
“Does it matter?”
She sighed.
“I guess not. Do you wish me to show you ‘your’ dream?” she asked, and I shrugged, then nodded.
Extending out her hand, I took hers much the same, and she pulled me downwards, my body shifting to become a black mirror of hers. She led me to a grey, small orb hovering amidst thousands of others, above a mountain I recognized as Mt. Canterhorn.
“Tis’ your dream, missing not what I thought was emotion, but missing a dreamer.”
Touching it, I could see a grey plane extending to infinity. Once I became part of the dream, it changed, turning a dark blue reminiscent of ink, before shifting into the more normal nonsense of a dream. I was still lucid, but no longer in the world between dreams.
Knowing how restful sleep could be, I bid Luna goodnight and thanked her for showing me the way back, then let go of the grip I reflexively held onto my dream, making me forget that it was a dream, and finally started dreaming earnestly.
