A nightly guardian

Chapters

Food (R)
Bedroom stories
Ambush
Magic kindergarden
Canterlot Wedding
Mourning
A thousand years ago part 1
Pony-eating darkness
Desperation
Redemption
A thousand years ago part 2
An Unexpected Guest (R)
Beginning of the end

Food (R)

Chapter 2

Food

Luna and Lyra had moved from the small back room, to the Princesses private study. Tt was much more comfortable for the both of them there. There was a fireplace, two sofas, a small table and a small lift for food. The two mares had decided to have a little snack, while Luna took a break from her story. Lyra had noticed that there had been two other doors. One had a big C, while the other, the biggest of the three doors, had a giant Z on it. She assumed that they stood for "Celestia" and "Zeo".

The study was surprisingly well equipped. To the left of the fireplace, was a door that, as Luna had told her, led into a bathroom, as well as a bedroom. Lyra wondered how long the Princesses usually stayed down here, while Luna was ordering some food through a small device. It was attached to the wall next to the lift, and looked like a pipe that ran up the wall and into the ceiling.

"So Lyra, what do you want to eat?", the Princess asked, pulling Lyra out of her thoughts.

"Oh... ehm... A mixed salad would be nice."

Luna turned to the pipe again, and ordered a salad for Lyra. Only moments later the small lift came down, and she took out a tray with two bowls. She set one on the table in front of Lyra, with her salad, while she herself started to eat a vegetable soup. For a while the two of them just sat there, and Lyra was wondering where the journal had gone, that she had seen earlier.

"Well Pri... ehm Luna. So that human stayed with you?", she finally asked.

The Princess had asked her to call her by her nameonly, since she was not too fond of titles.

"Yes. Zeo stayed with me for a very long time. But still, we decided he should have his own room after a year or so. Some Ponies had started to gossip, you see."

Lyra was a little shocked at that statement. A Pony and a human? Was that even possible? She opened her mouth to ask Luna, but thought better of it. Even though the Princess was treating her more like a friend, then like a subject, she was still a Princess. Being respect-less was the last thing she wanted to be.

"I can see it in your eyes. You want to know if they were right in their assumptions. But seriously, that would be telling the end before you have read the whole novel. I will not confirm, or deny anything at this point though. I must admit that I was hesitant to tell you about him at all, but I can see that your interest in this story is purely out of curiosity. He was very curious himself, so I bet he would have enjoyed your company...."

Again Lunas eyes grew distant as she began to remember the events from so long ago.

After their conversation on the balcony, Luna and Zeo had gone to sleep, since it had been pretty late already. Luna had performed her duty of letting the moon rise, and Celestia had promised to take care about setting it in the morning, so she could go to bed early.

Zeo woke up ahead of Luna that morning, but he had a big problem. Not only was one of Lunas wings lying over him like a blanket, but he also had the feeling that he would have to relief himself soon. That was an awkward moment for him, since he had absolutely forgotten to ask about the facilities the day before. Not to mention the shock when he had actually awoken next to her. His still half asleep mind had jolted completely awake, to find Lunas muzzle only inches from his face.

He gently began to tickle Luna, under her wing. Before long, the Princess began to laugh her way into wakefulness. Looking at Zeo, a little puzzled, the dark blue mare folded her wing to her side again. She looked a little embarrassed, that she had actually covered him with it. Giving a long yawn, she asked him why he had woken her up.

"Well... I kinda have to take a leak. Mind telling me where the restroom is?", he asked, blushing a little.

"Take a.... oh!"

Realization dawned on Lunas face.

"I planned to get a private bathroom soon, but for now I guess you will have to use the one that I share with Celestia. Just go out of the door and down the hall to your left. You can't miss it. It's the fourth door to the right.", she explained, before resting her head on a pillow again.

Putting on his jeans, Zeo left the room and walked down the left hallway, just as Luna had described to him. The only problem he encountered was... that there were two more of those Ponies standing in front of the door, denying him entrance. Furthermore they actually tried to restrain him, and they did a pretty good job at it.

"Hey, let go you two! I just wanna go to the restroom! Hands off!", he shouted, while he used his good right arm, trying to keep those Ponies off of himself.

One of them hit the cast around his left arm during the struggle, and Zeo screamed in pain as he went down to his knees. He didn't even care about the two Ponies, that now pressed him against the wall, pinning him in place. He just clutched his arm. The adrenaline rush from the night before had blotted out most of the pain, but now it hit him with full force. What added to his dismay, was that he had not been able to hold his water due to the pain. An uncomfortable warm feeling ran down his legs. He had wetted himself at his age...

"What is all this commotion about?", another Pony asked loudly, as it stepped out of the bathroom he had tried to enter earlier.

Other then Lunas mane, hers was pink and flowed in a non-existent breeze. Her eyes were a light pink, and she understood the situation in an instant.

"Your majesty, we found this creature sneaking around. It wanted to get into your bathroom, but we denied it entry. If you wish, we will bring it outside.", one of them responded. A female from the sound of it. Zeo was still unable to tell the difference, just by physical appearance.

"I don't think that will be necessary. Release him. He saved my sisters life, and is staying with us for a while.", the new arrival told the pair, who immediately let go of him.

After they had retreated a few steps, the big Pony approached him, and Zeo put his hand over the cast protectively.

"Looks like you had a little accident there. Let me help you with it.", she said, and Zeo could only stare in awe, as her horn began to glow in a gentle golden light. The wetness that had run down his legs, vanished as if it had never been there.

"I apologize for that. Next time, just use this bathroom if you want to relief or wash yourself. You do practice regular hygiene, don't you?"

"Of course! I wash myself every day!", Zeo replied once he had found his voice again. Even hinting that he did not care about his personal hygiene made him angry.

The white Pony did not react to his outburst in any way. It just gave him an approving look and left, closely followed by the two others. Reluctantly Zeo opened the door to the bathroom, and stopped in awe once again. He had expected anything, but not what he had actually found. Sure there were things he recognized, like a big tub to take a bath in, or a basin where one could wash his hands ... But... there were pedals on the ground, instead of wheels next to the tap. Well it only made sense, he supposed. They didn't have fingers after all. Taking a washcloth from a shelf near the door, Zeo stepped in front of the basin. As he still tried to find out how to work it with his feet, his gaze fell on the actual toilet...

"Oh you GOTTA be kidding me!", he muttered under his breath. There simply was a porcelain seat, that was surely not made for a humans backside. At least, he noticed, there hang a roll of toilet paper next to it. Using this strange toilet however, would prove a challenge indeed....

Taking off his jeans and underpants, Zeo went on about cleaning himself as best he could. If he managed somehow, he would get a plastic bag later, and take a bath, but this would have to do for now. Still, controlling the water with his feet was more then difficult. The pedals were small and round, so barely the front half of his feet fitted on them. What was worse, was that they needed quite the amount of strength to be pushed down.

After what felt like ages, Zeo had finally finished to clean himself up, and threw the used towels into a basked, next to the tub. This was how he did it back home anyways, so he supposed that it couldn't be so much different here...

"OK, I guess I am humanizing these... damn it's still hard to call them Ponies... I mean for goodnesses sake, at least Luna and that other one are as big as fully grown horses!", he muttered under his breath, while trying to figure out how he would comb his hair....

But then he remembered. He had actually planned to stay at Thomas's house, since his friend had turned twenty-five and was celebrating the whole weekend. Going back to the room he had come from, he found Luna still fast asleep on the bed. Zeo rummaged in the inner pockets of his coat for a moment, and finally produced his toothbrush, some toothpaste and a comb. He cursed a little, when he noticed that he had actually forgotten to pack his razor, but that couldn't be changed now.

Stopping for a moment, before he went back to the bathroom, Zeo stepped out onto the balcony for a cigarette. In the light of day, he could overlook the whole city, and make out it's inhabitants.

"So I really have ended up in a world full of hors... ehm Ponies... Sounds like a bad SciFi novel, in which evolution took a different course. But what about the glowing horns? Luna mentioned something about magic yesterday, but that ...."

Zeo shook his head. He was in a world that looked pretty much medieval, in aspect of their technology level, and that was inhabited by TALKING Ponies.... Would actual magic be that absurd then? He thought back to his father, who was surely close to a nervous breakdown by now. Putting his cigarette in between his lips, Zeo extracted his Smart phone from his jeans pocket.

"No signal, huh? Well that would have been too much to ask for I guess...."

Almost throwing the now useless phone away, he stopped himself. There still was the manual charger he had in a pocket of his coat. Sure, it would take ages to charge his phones battery up with it, but at least it was something familiar. Tapping the screen, Zeo removed the screen lock and browsed through some of his files. There it was. Out of a habit he had started to record each and every call he did, or received. As he continued to browse the contents of his eight GB SD-card, he looked at the clock in the upper right corner of the screen.

"No... that can't be right. Nine thirty in the evening? It's broad daylight buddy!", he said, talking to no one in particular.

Dismissing it for the moment, he flipped the remains of his cigarette off the balcony, and put his phone in his mouth, as he looked for his headset in his pocket. As he had finally found it, he plugged it in and selected the integrated MP³ player, while walking back to the bathroom. Soon the melodic voices of his favorite musicians sounded through the headset, making him feel a little more at home in this strange place.

Half an hour later

Zeo sat on a sofa that was standing on a far wall of Lunas room, and read a book he had gotten from one of the shelves. The shock that he might have to stay here for the rest of his life, was just now settling in, and he wanted to be prepared if that was the case. Apparently the land he was in was called Equestria, but he could barely find any mentioning of any other nations. Sure he had found a reference to the "Griffin Empire" and the "Canine Coalition", but that was about it. Apparently all Ponies lived in Equestria. That made him smile a little, since equus was the Latin word for horse....

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Luna stirring in her bed. Putting the book aside, Zeo approached her.

"Finally awake sleepy head?", he asked good natured.

"Is it night time already?", she asked, shielding her face with one of her hooves.

"Well obviously not. I can't tell you what time it is though, since I think my cellphone is broken."

"Your what?", she looked up at him, through half closed eyes.

Taking it out of his pocket, he showed his cellphone to her.

"This is a cellphone. I usually can use it to talk to other people with it, but I can't get a signal here. It has many other functions as well, and one of them happens to be telling the time. But the clock inside is malfunctioning I think, since it shows me it's still around nine in the evening.", he explained.

Luna ,however, just looked at the small white rectangular object curiously.

"Is that some kind of magic? I didn't know you could use magic.", she finally said.

"Magic? Well you see, this is not magic, this is technology. I mean, you h... ehm Ponies have it too. I saw some in that bathroom. You even have electricity."

"Elec... what?"

"Well you know... the stuff that illuminates the room when you press a button?"

"Oh, no. Those are enchanted candles. They don't actually burn, not to cause a fire. I have no idea what that electri... Well, what that is supposed to be.", Luna said a little irritated.

Shaking his head, Zeo tried to clear his head.

"Aaaannnyyyyway, Luna, how about we get something to eat? I am practically starving. Also, I think I will need to wash my clothes and get some more. I can't walk around in these for the rest of my days, now can I?"

Slowly getting up to her hooves, Luna stretched on the bed. The way she did it, kinda reminded Zeo of a cat he had once seen. How she raised her hindquarters into the air, while bending her head low.....

"I guess if I am up, I can eat a snack. By this time, the breakfast table should still be ready so come on and let's eat.", Luna said, trotting out of the door.

Zeo obediently followed her through several hallways and down a flight of stairs. It just now occurred to him, that he was actually in a royal palace. The place was huge, compared to the three story house he had grown up in. Not to mention that everything looked so clean and tidy. The stares he received from several of the Ponies that lined the hallways, were annoying him a little, but he thought that it might just be because he was hungry. As soon as he had gotten .... some.... thing...

But he could not even complete that thought. As Luna opened a huge double door, there were at least thirty Ponies sitting at a huge table, in a room that was big enough to fit his whole house in there several times! The white one he had seen this morning, was sitting at the far end of the table, and looked at them now.

"Ah, finally the guest of honor has arrived. I thought this might be a nice little something to show my appreciation for what you did, and to apologize for what happened earlier.", she said with a smirk, or at least Zeo thought she was smirking.

Since Ponies facial features were so different from what he knew, he couldn't be sure. Luna looked at him, as if she wanted to ask about it, but he waved his hand to show her that he would explain later. Right now, all that mattered to him, was getting a bite to eat and a coffee. The other Ponies in attendance, watched him curiously without saying a word. Apparently none of them had ever seen a human. Taking up a seat next to a fairly startled Unicorn, Zeo checked what was available on the table.

Letting his hunger get the better of him, he grabbed some bread, a small plate with butter and a knife. The only problem was, that he could not see anything to put on it. Addressing Luna, who had set down next to him, he scratched his head.

"Ehm... I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but is there no cheese or anything to put on the bread?"

The Princess stared at him, tilting her head. Waving a hand, Zeo decided that these Ponies most likely didn't even know what cheese was. He looked around once again, and spotted a pot with soup in it. Gesturing to one of the other Ponies he asked it to pass the pot to him.

The Pegasus was shocked to be spoken to this casually, and gave Celestia an angry look. The Princess of the sun however, just shook her head, and let her horn glow.

"You must apologize, if we seem unwelcoming or rude to you, but a creature like you is no common sight here.", Celestia said, setting the soup down in front of him with her magic.

"Seeing talking ho...", he shot a glance at Luna, who shook her head in disapproval.

"I mean... to see talking Ponies, isn't an everyday thing for me either.", Zeo said, shrugging.

"You take that quite well, creature", another Pony, with gray coat, mane and tail said.

"Well thank you, but I have a name you know. Zeomak Seline Salchar, but it's OK if you just call me Zeo. Most people do that.", Zeo said sarcastically.

"I am sure Platinum did not mean to insult you... Zeo. So, what are your plans now?", Celestia addressed him.

Luna was a little uncomfortable. Her sister had gathered all the former leaders of the tribes, including some of their prodigies. Did she want to show Zeo to them, as some kind of abomination, or did she want their opinion on his behavior? Celestia had not been very fond of the idea, that Zeo slept in her room, nor that he was to stay in the palace at all. Ever since she had found out that part of his clothing was made of skin, her opinion seemed to have formed.

Zeo took a bowl, that stood next to his plate and filled it with some of the creamy soup. On trying it with a spoon however, he frowned.

"What is this?", he asked disgusted.

"It's Dandelion soup. One of our chefs specialties.", Luna explained.

Putting down his spoon, Zeo stood up. The look of resignation on his face was unmistakable.

"OK, I've seen enough. I thank you for the attempt to provide me with a meal, but I guess I prefer to prepare my own food. If you'd show me where the kitchen is, I will get to that right away.", he said with a sigh.

"Is there nothing here, that you would eat?", the big white Pony asked him, looking a little disappointed.

Just then he realized, that Luna and that other Pony were the only ones present that had wings and a horn. The others had only one or another, while some had neither.

"Look.... I know Ponies are vegetarians, and I respect that. I could even accept that I have to eat that way for a while , but things like hay....", he pointed at a plate on the table.

".... or Dandelion soup, are no food fit for humans. I would really appreciate it if you could just show me the way to the kitchen."

Luna got up and started walking, but Celestia stopped her with a wave of her hoof.

"I will show him Luna. I'm eager to find out more about him anyway.", Celestia said, trotting to Zeos side and leading him outside.

Once they were in the corridor, she turned towards him, a stern look on her face.

"I think I never introduced myself. My name is Celestia. By the way, you never answered my question. What are your plans now, that you are stuck here in Equestria? And what did you mean, when you said you could accept living as a vegetarian for a "while"?"

"Well... The thing is, I am a human. I am no herbivore, nor am I a carnivore. I am an omnivore! I eat meat AND vegetables. I need it to sustain myself. The food you have presented in there, might be delicacies for your own kin, but I can't eat that. As for what I plan to do for now, I think I will stay at Lunas side for now. I have no other choice really. Maybe I can find something I can do to earn a living, but I kinda doubt that you guys need a human nurse, or electrician.", he said frowning.

"So you will kill in the future, to get yourself some meat?", Celestia asked concerned, while they started walking.

"Don't get me wrong. My kind CAN go without meat, but I can't. So yes, if I have to, then I will. Just know that I don't take any pleasure from it.", he tried to explain to Celestia, who was avoiding his gaze.

"I will not tolerate you killing my Ponies to eat them. You know that, right?", she finally asked.

Zeo stopped for a moment, a look of disbelief on his face.

"As if! Meat is not meat. I have never tasted ho... ehm Pony meat before, but the mere thought of eating another intelligent being, makes my stomach turn! So no, I'd never harm any of them, unless they try to harm me. I'd usually go fishing or try to get me something else."

"Good. Just don't expect me to let you use the royal kitchens to cook it. I don't want the smell in the palace. So if you HAVE to do it, then do it outside somewhere."

"I understand.", Zeo confirmed, feeling like a pet that is being told not to pee on the carpet.

After a while, they arrived in the kitchen. This place was definitely medieval. The stoves were heated by fire, while there was not even a fridge. All the supplies he found, were stored in a cupboard that had some ice for cooling at the bottom. This method of cooling however, would not keep things fresh for long. At least he found some things he could use to make himself a decent meal.

Celestia watched as that "human", looked around the kitchen, checking the stocks. The cooks were already out, so she wouldn't have to worry that he would decide to cook one of them. To her surprise, he waved her over after putting some things on a table.

"I can't cut the ingredients with my arm like this. Could you do it for me, if you don't mind? I think I can handle the rest.", he asked, gesturing to the things he had laid out on the table.

Onions, garlic, some noodles, carrots and two jars of milk. One of them obviously had gone bad a long time ago, since it seemed to be solid. One of her servants would have to answer to her, to have stored something that had gone bad with the rest of the good food.

Lifting the jar with her magic, she wanted to throw it into a waste-bin, but Zeo stopped her.

"Wait! That's not bad. It may not be top quality, but it's still cheese.", he said, and plucked it out of mid air.

Not commenting on this, Celestia grabbed a knife in her magic, and cut the ingredients Zeo had prepared. She cut them quick and roughly, earning her a frown from Zeo.

"You really suck at this, you know?", he teased, scratching his neck.

"Then why don't you cut it yourself? I don't have time to cook for you. I have a kingdom to rule, and I have guests!", she finally snapped at him.

"Now now. No need to get angry at me.", he tried to calm her, while he took the ingredients and put them into different bowls.

Lighting a fire, he took one of the frying pans that hang over the stove, and put some butter in it. Celestia could not see how he had lit the fire, but she had heard a scratching noise right before the flames had risen.

forty-six minutes later

Celestia was slowly getting the general idea of what the human was doing. She had wanted to leave originally, but he had asked her to stay, since he needed her help to lift a pot into the oven, and out again. Celestia had to admit , whatever it was that he had cooked up there, certainly did smell good. Noticing her gaze, Zeo took a plate and put some of the stuff on it, handing it over to her, along with a fork.

"I really shouldn't....", she said, but Zeo waved a hand.

"You know, I lived off of this stuff for about three weeks once. If I can get the ingredients somewhere, it's a nice dish. Besides, it's completely vegetarian. Oh, and if you don't like the cheese on top, just take it off.", he added, and started to eat his own share.

Reluctantly, Celestia dug her fork into the strange mess of noodles, hot milk and spices. The taste that exploded in her mouth, was enough to make her eyes widen. It was intense, and yet not unpleasantly so. Even the..."cheese", was not too bad. After she swallowed, Celestia stared at her plate.

"I knew you'd like it.", he said, chuckling with his mouth full.

"I... I admit, that it is ... good.", Celestia added, taking another mouthful.

The two of them ate in silence for a while, until Luna came into the kitchen, a look on concern on her face.

"What is this smell?", was the first thing she said.

Zeo only gestured to the pot that stood on the table, while chewing. Carefully Luna approached it, sniffing at the strange looking mess. Then she looked at her sister, who was looking much more relaxed then before. Suddenly Zeo held his own plate in front of her.

"If you don't mind using the same plate as me, your welcome to try it.", he said.

Reluctantly Luna took a bite of what was left on his plate, just to spit it out again immediately. Looking a little disappointed, Zeo looked at the piece Luna had spat out.

"I know it's not the best I ever made, but it surely isn't THAT bad."

"Garlic... I hate the taste of garlic!", Luna said, while washing out her mouth in the basin.

Celestia and Zeo laughed.

Luna could only stare at them. Apparently all her worries had been for nothing.

"Well... Ehm... So Zeo... you said you wanted more clothes, right? I think I can do something about that. The royal dressmaker can surely prepare something for you.", she said, before picking up the jar of milk and pouring herself a cup.

"Dressmaker... are you serious? Well OK, but I don't want to end up in a "dress". Just plain pants, a few shirts and maybe socks will do."

"Maybe you should give him what you are wearing, so he has a template to work with.", Celestia added.

Zeo blushed a little.

"Running around naked, is not really normal for me....", he stammered.

"You don't have to. Just wear your coat while he works on your new clothing. Would that be sufficient?", that was Luna, who already knew that Zeo felt uncomfortable when he was naked.

He thought for a moment, before nodding. There was no other way, unless he wanted to run around naked. Well even if he was to run around naked, it would hardly matter. These were Ponies, not humans. Walking around naked in front of animals would not be too much of an embarrassment after all, he guessed.

Twenty minutes later

A blue coated Pony was working on him with a measuring tape, while looking in awe at the clothes he had worn up till now.

"And you really want copies of these? I mean they are so plain! It's almost an insult to ask me to make something like this! Especially the color! I mean... you would look simply gorgeous in something... yeah... pink maybe?"

Zeo looked down at the Pony, narrowing his eyes.

"Pink.... you gotta be kidding. Any color but PINK!", Zeo said, a little angrily.

He had emptied the pockets of his jeans, and wore all his belongings in his coat pockets now. The marble floor beneath his feet felt cold, since he had also left his shoes and socks behind. Luna noticed her companions discomfort pretty quickly.

"Is anything the matter? It's not the lack of your clothing, is it? I thought we had agreed that your coat would have to be enough for the time being.", she inquired.

"No. It's.... well I'm just not used to walking barefoot on a stone floor. It's a little cold, but I can manage.", he responded, just to find himself enveloped in a pale white magical aura. Luna lifted him onto her back.

"Don't think I'll let you ride me all the time. You are quite heavy.", Luna clarified, while they made their way to their shared quarters.

Present day

A question interrupted Lunas storytelling.

"How do you know all of this Luna? I mean, most of the time you were not even there, yet you tell this story as if you never left that humans side.", Lyra wanted to know.

It had gotten pretty late already, and she didn't know how long she would be able to hold her eyes open. Her parents awaited her at home for dinner this evening as well.

"Well... you see... Celestia and Zeo told me many of these things later on. Zeo even wrote them down in his journal, while Celestia kept me informed out of habit I think. For her, at least in the early days, Zeo was suspicious, and potentially dangerous. That is why she kept a vigilant eye on him. More then once did she come to me, and told me what she had observed, but that is something I will tell you later. For today, Lyra, I think you should go home. It's pretty late already. But before you do, please take this. Your royal permit is only for today, so I think this will prove useful.", Luna said, levitating a small silver card over to her.

Enveloping the card in her own magic, Lyra began to inspect it. It had Princess Lunas royal seal emblazoned on the front, instead of Princess Celestias, but there was another difference. Other then the one she wore around her neck, that had a date stamped on it's back, this one had a word instead.

Permanent

Her muzzle hanging open, Lyra stared at it for a moment, and then at the Princess.

"Are... are you sure?", Lyra asked in disbelief.

Luna nodded in agreement.

"Yes I am. I enjoy your company, and I would like you to have all the time you need for your research. That's why I gave you that permit. It allows you to go everywhere in the archives, just like my sisters does, but since it is permanent, it also enables you to use one of the guest rooms on the lower floor. So if you get caught up in your research, you don't have to worry about how to get home. But I believe, you are expected somewhere today, as your father told me earlier."

Lyra hugged the Princess, and ran out of the study, not able to believe that she had just received a permanent permit to the royal archives! Her father would totally freak out when he saw this.

Bedroom stories

Chapter 3

Bedroom stories

When Lyra came home that night, her father waited for her in the living room. Before the stallion could say anything however, he noticed the second card that was now hanging around his daughters neck. Pulling on it, until the cord that held it broke, he levitated it over to himself.

"Hey! Give that back!", Lyra screamed angrily.

But her father did not react in any way to his daughters outburst, while he kept her at bay with his magic. Inspecting the card over and over again, he could not find anything wrong with it. This certainly was a permanent, lifelong, unable to be revoked permit to the royal archives.... Even Twilight Sparkle wouldn't be able to get his daughter something like this. What worried him even more, was that it carried the crest of Princess Luna....

"Where did you get this? Were you in the Princesses study and found this laying around? Lyra, I know you really want to go down there, but stealing from royalty....", he began, but Lyra interrupted him.

"As if! I would never steal! Maybe get a permit behind your back, but that you would think something like that of me.... Dad, seriously! I got that from Princess Luna herself!", Lyra tried to defend herself.

The blue stallion turned the permit over in his magic. There was no name on it, so his daughter COULD still be telling the truth. On the other hoof, he had not seen Princess Luna enter the archives for weeks. If she had gotten it from the Princess herself, then where did she meet her? Furthermore, what would make the Princess give this permit to some stranger?

Levitating his daughter over to one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace, he gave her a stern look.

"So... Lyra. You claim that Princess Luna herself gave this to you? Where did you meet her, and what did you tell her to make her give this to you?", he asked, still thinking his daughter did something wrong.

"Dad... Believe me! I met her down in the archives. We went into her study, and she told me that she enjoyed my company. To make sure I would be able to get down there again, she gave me that permit. So most likely, we will meet again tomorrow.", Lyra pleaded.

"Then I guess you don't mind, if I talk to her to confirm your story?"

"Of course not! I will go there again tomorrow. If she's there, you can ask her, and now give that back to me!", Lyra was desperate. If her father did not give the permit back, then he might just decide to make it disappear. He had never agreed with her studies about humans.

Lyras pleading did nothing to soften her fathers heart. Swinging a painting on the wall aside, he opened the safe that was hidden behind it. In it, he stored the permit.

"Until I have talked to the Princess, YOU are grounded. Now off with you. Dinner is ready, and we shouldn't keep your mother waiting.", he said, trotting off.

Lyra followed him, her head hanging low. This safe was magic proof, and she would not be able to break her permit out of there. Even though her mother had made her favorite, Cinnamon rolls, Lyra just prodded the food with her fork. Her mother, a light yellow Pegasus mare with white mane and tail, noticed that there was something wrong with her, but her father just shook his head. All night Lyra lay awake in her bed. Immediately after dinner her father had cast a spell on the front door and the first floor windows, making it impossible for Lyra to open them.

The next evening

Lyra was sitting in the living room, waiting for her father to come home. She could not wait for the apology that was surely coming her way, but she waited in vain. As her father came home from work, he told her that Princess Luna was nowhere to be found, and even Princess Celestia could not tell him where she was. Since she did not come by the library that day either, he had been unable to talk to her. Lyra was crestfallen at first, but then her ears perked up as she remembered the separate bedroom in Lunas private study.

"Dad! Have you checked if she is in her private study? She has a bedroom down there! I'm sure she has stayed there last night.", she called after her father hopefully.

"I'm sorry Lyra, but I am only allowed down there for the monthly check up. Do you even know what happens to somepony who wants to enter there without a permit, or is scheduled for a visit? Let me tell you: They won't get in at all! The doors will open, but behind them will be a giant brick wall. It's a safety measure, since down there are spell books that are not supposed to be accessible to anypony! They are dangerous, and powerful. That is one more reason why I don't want you down there, if I can help it.", he responded, without turning around.

The dinner that night, went like just as the previous one.

Several days had passed since Lyra had been in the archives, and her father always came back from work with the same message. He had not been able to get into touch with the Princess for a week now, and Lyra was starting to seriously consider to jump out of the second floor windows. They were sitting at dinner that evening, when a loud knock was heard from the entrance hall. A little irritated, Lyras father stood up from the table to get the door.

"Who in the name of Celestia would come by this late? The moon is already up.", he swore under his breath, when he opened the door.

"This better be important, it's.....", his eyes widened just as he wanted to lash out at their late visitor. In front of him, her mane flowing in a nonexistent breeze, stood Princess Luna. Immediately bowing so low, that his nose touched the ground, Lyras father changed his tone of voice.

"Your highness... It is an honor for you to grace us with your presence. I have tried to get into touch with you for over a week now, and I think it is important that we speak, if you would grant me the honor.", he said a little worried. Lashing out at one of the Princesses could very well cost him his job.

"Rise please. I am here, because I heard about your efforts to contact me. Also I believe there is a pony by the name of Lyra Heartstrings living here? I also desire to speak with her.", the Princess said, sounding a little annoyed.

"Sure.... please come in Princess.", the blue stallion said, leading her into the living room, and calling out to Lyra. Shortly after his daughter came into the living room, still hanging her head low, the Princess hugged her tightly. Doodies jaw hit the floor at this display of familiarity.

"I was worried Lyra. I had waited for you to come back, and then I heard your father had tried to contact me. Is there any problem, or are you already bored of an old mare telling you stories?", Luna said worried.

"No. I wanted to come back, but my Dad....", she gave her father a look of victory, ".... took the permit from me and grounded me. He thought I had stolen it from your study."

Luna released the mint green Unicorn, turning to her father.

"Mind to explain?", she said coldly.

Lyras father struggled to say something. Apparently his daughter had said the truth all along.

"Well... Princess.... I don't approve of my daughters obsession wit humans... it's not good for her. In her obsession I wouldn't have put it past her to get a blank permit from your study. That was why I wanted to talk to you for the past week.", he stammered.

"You know.... I am not that bad at magic. I can sense an imprisonment spell in this house. Adding to this, removing the royal permit that does not belong to you, is nothing less then theft. Your daughter is an adult mare. Imprisoning her in this house, is basically a crime. Taking the royal permit from her, is the same as stealing from myself personally.", Luna summed up, throwing a glance over to her friend who shook her head worriedly.

"But I am willing to let that slip. Lyra Heartstrings is my personal student. As such, she does deserve such a permit, and a room within the palace. If you don't mind that is.", Luna added.

Doodie looked up, directly into his daughters eyes. Lyra was just grinning, and nodded energetically. His daughter, who's special talent was music, was actually chosen to become a Princesses personal student. Even without her nodding her agreement, he would have happily agreed to it. Opening the safe, he got out the permit, and levitated it over to his daughter.

"If you don't mind Lyra, I will send some royal servants later to get your things. I await you in my study tomorrow.", the Princess of the night said, nuzzling her students neck gently.

"Sure thing Luna! I really look forward to it.", the mint green Unicorn responded, hugging her new mentor.

After Luna had left, Lyra explained, for what felt like the hundreds time, what had happened in the royal archives. She left out the topics she and the Princess had actually talked about, but that didn't really seem to interest their parents. It was well known that Twilight Sparkle got a generous allowance from Princess Celestia. Her parents hoped that the Luna Princess would do the same for her. She also had to explain, that Luna did not really care for ceremony, and preferred to be addressed with her name only.

The next morning was a hectic one. Several Pegasi guards, strapped onto several carts, had come to her home, packing all of her things. Lyra could still hardly believe that she would live in the palace from now on. It turned out that her room was in one of the many towers of Canterlot castle, just across the hall from Princess Lunas own bedchamber.

That afternoon found Luna and Lyra, once again sitting in her private study. They had gone over some documents, that Lyra had to sign, in order for her to be officially accepted as Lunas student. One of them had been about her "allowance" that she would now receive from the royal treasury. On seeing the amount, Lyras jaw had hung open.

"This is more then my Dad makes in a year!", she said shocked.

Luna just chuckled.

"This is nothing really. The income of the palace is quite steady, and we earn quite some Bits with train tickets. All of the railways are under royal control after all. The tutoring fees for the royal schools also add up to it. Believe me when I say, that this is not even a fraction of what we earn each month.", Luna explained.

"But then why don't you pay your servants better?"

"Oh they are paid generously. Each and every one of them can choose to live in the palace. Also they get enough of a salary to make a living, and still have some left to safe it for something. The reason why not everypony that works here gets a salary like this, is that we would be crowded with job applications. And compared to other places, we still pay them better then average.", Luna explained patiently.

After a while longer, in which Luna explained the meaning of each and every document, and a short break to eat a snack, the topic once again shifted to Zeo.

"What I wanted to tell you today, will be quite interesting to you I think. It happened only two days after Zeo and I had been to the royal dressmaker....", Luna began to tell her story.

Ever since he was only running around in his coat, Zeo felt uncomfortable. The nights were the worst, since he was not used to sleep naked. Sleeping in his coat, was just no option since the leather would not survive that for long. Because of this, he had asked Luna to turn around each time he slipped into bed, and under the covers. Soon they had gotten a second blanket, so they wouldn't have to share one.

In the nights following the arrival of the second blanket in the royal bed, Zeo slept even worse then usual. He kept turning in his sleep, and occasionally woke up because he had hit his cast somewhere. On these times Luna would use a basic pain-charm on him, so he could get back to sleep. The Princess was worried about her friend. In the mornings he was usually not as good natured as he used to be. In the afternoons, she would usually find him sleeping somewhere... This had to end.

Deciding that she had to do something about the current situation, Luna ordered a blanket that was big enough for the both of them, and removed the two separate ones from her bed. Even if Zeo would be uncomfortable with it at the beginning, it was at least worth a try. When he came into the room that evening, he stopped in front of the bed and looked a little confused. Luna on her part had already risen the moon, and way laying in bed.

"What is this?", he asked.

"You seem to be getting less and less sleep, since we tried it with two blankets, so I thought we should try it like this.", Luna explained.

"Well I guess I have no other choice.", Zeo sighed, as he put his coat on a chair near the bed, and crawled under the blankets with her.

This was the first time since she had taken off his clothes for the doctor, that Luna had the opportunity to compare his anatomy with that of a Pony. From what she was able to see, it wasn't that much different from what she knew about stallions. Sure he was standing on two legs, his neck was much shorter and almost everything was different from Ponies. But there were also similarities.

As uncomfortable as Zeo had felt at first, he could not deny that it was something different. On the nights before, he had always felt Luna through the sheets, but now he felt her right beside himself. The warmth radiating from her was.... pleasant. She even smelled nice, and nothing like he had expected from an animal. For the first time in days, Zeo slept comfortable, and fell asleep almost instantly.

Luna smiled when she saw that her friend fell asleep, almost instantly as his head hit the pillow. So her plan had worked out. Carefully stroking his hair with one of her hooves, she lay on her side and embraced him with her right wing. The contact made Zeo stir a little, and he moved closer to her unconsciously. Before Luna knew it, he was snuggled up in her furry chest. A little surprised, Luna couldn't help but smile some more.

"So you've just been lonely... Maybe we aren't that different after all.", she muttered to herself, before she rested her head on her pillow.

Back in the study

"So you actually cuddled with a human? What did it feel like?", Lyra asked interested.

Luna thought for a moment, trying to come up with a good example.

"Not to different from holding a Pony in your hooves actually. The only big difference was, that he had no fur. So.... imagine cuddling with a completely shaved Pony, and you should get the general idea.", Luna tried to explain.

"A shaved Pony? That sounds kinda disgusting...."

"Not really. If you hold a Pony, your furs touch each other which, I at least think so, gets quite uncomfortable after some time. With him it was something different. I don't think I have ever slept so well before. Humans are herd creatures as well you see. Being alone, and not feeling the warmth of another is not good for them. I may not be a human, but it seemed that he was still taking comfort from my warmth, and so did I.", the Princess explained, taking sip from her cup of tea.

"So... What your saying is basically that you enjoyed having him that close to you, instead of another Pony. Am I right there?"

"Yes. I know it may sound strange, but that's the way it i.. was. But the story gets better, believe me.", Luna said, continuing her story.

Celestia had set the moon and risen the sun. It was quite rare for Luna to neglect her duties, so she wanted to find out what had kept her baby sister. Trotting down the hallway to Lunas personal chamber, her thoughts went over a few possibilities. It wouldn't be the first time, that her baby sister would simply oversleep.

All this still going through her mind, Celestia knocked on Lunas bedroom door. Since no answer came, she opened the door with her magic and walked in.

"I'm sorry Luna I was worrying ab....", Celestia began, but her muzzle dropped open, and her eyes grew wide at what she saw.

There, in the bed, lay her little sister and that human. Her sisters right foreleg and wing were draped around the human, almost hiding him from plain sight. The human on the other hoof, was snuggled up against her chest. Celestia knew that kind of pose, and the only two implications in which it was acceptable for Pony-kind. The first one, was out of question. Zeo was by no means Lunas child. That only left one conclusion.

Luna slowly opened her eyes, as she heard somepony open the doors to her room. Seeing that the sun was already up, she realized that she must have overslept. As she raised her head, to see who was intruding into her personal chambers, she saw a shocked looking Celestia standing in the doorway. Her muzzle stood open, her eyes were as wide as saucers, and her wings were fully extended. Realizing what this must look like to Celestia, Luna tried to extract herself from the bed, but found that one of Zeos arms was wrapped around her.

"Tia, this is not what it looks like.", Luna said in a panic.

"Don't.... Better don't say anything. I am sorry if I interrupted something.", Celestia said, raising a hoof to silence her sister.

"No seriously! This is not what you might think it is Tia!", Luna called out to her sister.

Zeo woke up from all the shouting, and rubbed his eyes. When he saw how close he actually was to Luna, he threw himself backwards, and out of bed in shock. Laying on his back, he saw a white and pink blob standing in the doorway. Grabbing for his glasses on the nightstand, he put them on and finally saw that it was Celestia.

"So... ehm... good morning Celestia. Anything we can do for you?", Zeo asked a little self aware. He was still naked after all.

Luna stepped next to her friend, extending her good right wing, to shield his exposed body from Celestias accusing glare.

"Zeo... did you... I mean you and my sister... Luna... Let me see your neck.", Celestia stammered, coming closer to the pair. Luna was backing away from her sister, not wanting Celestia to check her neck.

"Celestia if I tell you we didn't, then we didn't. And I doubt he would bite me, even if we did what you hint at!", Luna tried to calm her sister down.

Seeing that Luna was in some kind of trouble, Zeo swallowed his self awareness and stepped between the two sisters. Putting his right hand on Celestias breast, he halted her advance.

"OK, could someone finally explain to me what all this fuss is about? Why would I bite Luna? I already told you Celestia, I don't fancy to eat another intelligent being.", Zeo tried to resolve the situation peacefully.

"You..... you beast! Answer me honestly! Have you, or have you not spent the night with my sister?", Celestia asked furiously.

"Well... of course we spent the night together, but we do that since I came here, so I still don't see....", but he was interrupted by a telekinetic blow from Celestia.

The solar Princess did not put too much force into the blow, beside her anger, so that human was still standing, but now had a split lip.

"So you HAVE done it! Luna I am very disappointed in you. What were you thinking? We are the rulers of Equestria! This is a scandal! If he has bitten you....", it was Celestias term to be interrupted. Zeo had moved his had upwards, from her breast, to her throat. She tried to remove it with her magic, but was in too much of a panic to focus the energy.

"Celestia, stop. I have gone two days without a smoke, so right now it's not a good idea to provoke me. So tell me, what this bite is all about, so we can go back to act like civilized beings again?", he said in a calm voice. The fire in his eyes however left no doubt that he was furious inside.

Luna wanted to interfere, but she trusted Zeo not to hurt her sister.

"Well.... If you two had been together... it's tradition to bite the mare on the right side of the neck.... It's tradition...", Celestia pressed out through grit teeth. His grip around her throat was loose enough to let her breath easily, but strong enough to make her uncomfortable.

Zeo took a deep breath, and released his grip on Celestias throat, before he walked over to Luna, gently brushing her mane to the side to expose her neck.

"Do you mind Luna?", he asked.

Luna, who thought he meant the brushing back of her mane, she shook her head, when she felt a strong bite on her neck, that made her wince a little. It took all her willpower not to draw away from Zeo, not to break off his teeth. There would be enough time to chew him out after this. Celestia just watched the scene in shock.

As she had regained her composure, she turned around, flicking her tail at Zeo and Luna and sighed.

"I am glad you finally found a mate Luna, but I really would have preferred it if you had chosen a Pony instead. You should go and see the doctor about that bite.", she said, before trotting out of the room.

"There, are you glad now? This was certainly not the right thing to do Zeo.", Luna reprimanded, when he let go of her, and raced to the balcony to spit out the blood in his mouth.

"What do you mean? She said something about tradition, so I did it. I'm sorry if I bit too deep though.", he said, scratching his neck.

"This is tradition if you had MATED with me, Zeo! She didn't mean, sleeping in the same bed!",Luna added, putting a hoof on her forehead.

Lyra was shocked, when Princess Luna made her mane reveal the scar that Zeo had inflicted on her that day.

"But... did he really not understand? I mean.... Your sister was quite specific....", she asked shocked.

"Well... I don't think he did. At least not at that point. Those "Cigarettes" he was alway smoking, were not available here in Equestria. The withdrawal was clouding his judgments and also his ability to understand what one was saying. Also his short temper was, as I learned later on, a result of that. We tried to explain this to Celestia, after I had gotten the would treated, and Zeo had calmed down. She understood that she had overreacted, and that Zeo and I were not in a romantic relationship. However, did that not change the fact that I had been bitten now. No other stallion would ever approach me with romantic intend ever again. Zeo was very sorry about that. He was not used to any of our "traditions" or any of our laws. So basically I was now his responsibility.", Luna explained with a sigh.

"So... your married Luna?"

"I won't tell you yet. That was however the start of the rumors in the palace. The doctor, that had treated me, had kind of a big mouth and told anypony who wanted to listen, that I had found a mate. Soon the guards who already knew Zeo, made the connection and the rumors began to spread all through Canterlot. You can't imagine the scandal. The biggest problem was that, so far, no Pony that was not involved with the palace, had seen Zeo. We had wanted to keep his presence a secret, but now we had to tell everypony the truth..."

Two weeks after the incident in Lunas bedroom, the royal sisters made a public announcement. Almost the whole population of Canterlot had gathered in the castles courtyard. The Ponies were mumbling amongst them self, since most of them had heard the rumors about the younger Princess having found a mate. All of them wondered who it might be, when the double doors to the palace opened and both of them stepped out in front of them. Both had their wings extended to hide something from view.

"My little Ponies, I have heard about the rumors that are going around, about my sister having found a mate.", Celestia began.

"The rumors are only half true. It is true, that I was marked, but that was merely a misunderstanding.",Luna continued.

"My sisters guest is unaware of all of our traditions, and the way our society works." Celestia explained.

i]"And that is because he is not a Pony, or even from this world.", Luna added.

"My dear sister was attacked some time ago."

"And I tried to teleport back to the palace."

"But her spell went wrong."

"And so a human was transported to our world."

"So let us present to you... Zeomak Seline Salchar. The first of his kind in Equestria.", the sisters said in unison as they lowered their wings.

The Ponies in attendance gasped as they saw Zeo, who was dressed in his black jeans, black shoes and a lavender shirt. Raising a hand in greeting, he adressed the crowd and stepped forward.

"Hey there! Glad to meet you all. Yeah, I'm sorry for that bite. I thought it meant something else, but if it really is tradition in this world, I guess I have no choice but live up to what is expected from me.", he said, walking down into the crowd of Ponies. Some of them backed away from him, while others prodded him carefully with their hooves. His left arm was out of the cast, but was still a little sensitive. From all sides, he was barraged with questions.

"Looks like our subjects take it much better then I had expected.", Celestia said to her sister.

"Well, I told you he can be very gentle and interesting. And, now that he can't hear us, let me assure you that he is still awfully sorry for attacking you."

"No need to apologize for your husband Luna.", Celestia teased her sister with a smirk on her face.

Luna blushed hard, and stomped her hoof down in irritation.

"He is not my husband! It was a mistake.", she said in a whisper.

"Didn't you pay attention to what he said? He said he would live up to the expectations placed on him. That practically makes him your mate.", Celestia chuckled.

Lyra was watching as her mentor blushed a little.

"So... you ARE married!", Lyra said.

"Well... I guess yes I am.", the Princess of the night admitted.

"So... those rumors..."

"As I said, I won't confirm, nor deny anything at this point. Let's just say, that we had separate bedrooms, but rarely were deprived of each others company."

The two mares talked about things, that did have nothing to do with Zeo after this. Luna was determined to take her role as a teacher serious. Originally she had not planned on taking on a student, but this Unicorn was reminding her too much of herself, when she was younger. The curiosity, the drive, the determination to learn... If she taught her the right things, then Lyra could maybe.... some day....

Ambush

Chapter 4

Ambush

It had been two days, since Lyra had last heard a story about Zeo from Princess Luna. This mostly was because, she wanted Lyra to learn some spells as well. According to the Princess, Zeo had a part in creating those. Lyra could understand what the Princess had meant by that. The scribblings she had given her to study were nowhere near anything she had seen before. All of them were handwritten, with several diagrams and crossed out sections.

At first, Lyra didn't understand a word that was written there. It was only when Luna had told her to look at it from an Earth ponies point of view, that she had started to understand. The scrolls talked about mana as energy, about focus as regulator and about the magical strands that formed a spell, as layout. There were other differences, but soon Lyra had been able to translate it into terms she knew. Still.... One of the spells the Princess had wanted her to learn was for something called "Phase shifting". Lyra did not know what that meant. Sure she had heard of "Shape shifting", but this was not what was described here.

It described frequencies and other stuff that Lyra did not understand. When asking the Princess to maybe demonstrate it, she had been unable to. At first that had discouraged her, but Luna had explained that she simply couldn't do it because she was an Alicorn. A lesson on Alicorn magic had followed this. Lyra had never known that each and every spell an Alicorn used, had to be adjusted for their use. Unicorn spell books were just no use for them. And this was a spell developed by a human....

At the evening of the second day, Lyra had understood what was meant after finding a book on frequencies and wavelengths. According to that book each and every thing had such a frequency. In theory, another object would be able to pass through, if it's frequency matched the one of the object you wanted to penetrate. Using a spell she had already memorized, she tried it out on a door. The result was stunning. In her mind numbers and pictures of moving waves appeared. Combining it with the other spell, she tried to match her own with that of the door. It proved complicated, and resulted in the destruction of the door, and a major injury to her left foreleg.

Thinking she got it right, Lyra stuck her foreleg out and tried to push it through the closed door. At first it had worked fine.... but then complications had come up. The waves in her mind had began to fluctuate, and her concentration had been thrown off by Luna stepping into the archive. As the spell fizzled away, her hoof had melted with the doors wood. Hearing her scream of pain, Luna had immediately rushed to her side, and freed her by blasting the door apart. The damage was done however. A portion of her lower left foreleg was fleshless, and it had required a lot of magic from the ruler of the night, to make it heal. Still, it would take a while until she would be able to walk on that leg again.

"I am so sorry Lyra. I should have stayed with you during your studies on that spell. I knew it was potentially dangerous, but I thought you could handle it...", Luna apologized for what felt like the hundreds time.

"It's OK Luna. I almost had it. Something went wrong in the last moment however, but I think I can make it if I try it with two objects that are not part on my body. But I'm wondering... what are these spells actually for?", Lyra repeated herself.

"They are for medical purposes.", Luna said, while looking everywhere but Lyras eyes.

"Medical.... I mean I know one of your domains is healing, but you said you were unable to do this spell...."

"This spell was originally developed as a substitute for surgery. The healer would be able to just reach into his patient and fix whatever was wrong with them. Even removing germs would be possible in theory. If you could master it, you could do much good for Pony kind.", Luna explained much more exited now.

"Wait! So you say you are teaching me to be a healer? My special talent is music!", Lyra complained.

"That doesn't matter, and in fact qualifies you even more. Music is an act of control and precision, just like these spells. Besides, there are diseases that we have no cure for. If you were to master some of these, we would finally have the means to fight them. You could teach them to other Unicorns, and Equestria would truly become an Utopia."

"But then why are these scrolls gathering dust down here? If you wanted them to be known, then why didn't you teach them to somepony before me?", Lyra wondered.

Luna averted her gaze again, and looked straight into the fireplace of her private study.

"Because you are special. These spells are created by a human. Only somepony that is willing to learn about them as well, will be able to master them, of that I am sure. There have been great Unicorn scholars who have sat where you are sitting now. They all wanted to know about Zeo and his research into magic. But all of them just wanted to know the facts. They would not try to understand what kind of person Zeo i... was. That is why I locked all the knowledge about him up down here. I think understanding him is very important, if you want to understand his work. You are the very first one to come here with exactly that intend Lyra. That is why I chose you."

Lyra was stunned. Sure she wanted to know about humans, and what they were like, but she had never looked at it this way. Thinking back to their previous conversations however, she found it to be true. Already she was thinking of Zeo as an old friend, instead of a mythical creature, of whom she wanted to know more. She wanted to understand him. She wanted to understand what drove him forward, and what made him write all these books. But aside from all of that, she wanted to know what kind of.... "person" he had been.

The two mares sat there in silence for a while, when Luna finally broke the silence.

"So..... Lyra... do you still want to study under me, now that I told you all of this?", the Princess asked.

"Are you kidding? OFCOURSE I WANT! But please tell me, I thought humans were unable to do magic...", but Luna just shook her head.

"That same question was asked by Starswhirl the bearded, so long ago. Same as with him, I will not answer you. Not until we reach that part on his story at least. Starswhirl lost his patience with me at this point and left. I hope you will stay.", Luna said hopefully.

Lyra nodded, and waited for her mentor to continue.

"Well.... I wanted to tell you about something else today. Zeo had been accepted by most of the Ponies in Canterlot, and surely was making friends with many of them rather quickly. Some of course just wanted to take advantage of him, since he was my mate, but he saw through those right away. The downside was, that he had also made a habit to party with them all night in a local bar...."

Luna was trotting through the streets of Canterlot. At her side were six royal guards, all of them Unicorns. Each of them wore a mageblade. Celestia had insisted on that escort, and Luna was not sad about it. Ever since she was attacked that night when Zeo had come into her life, she had not left the palace. But ever since they had made his presence public, he had spent more and more time outside the palace. Mostly in the evenings, in a bar close the local airship docks. There all the sailors turned in, and it was considered bad company. Rumors about how much he was able to drink, had already spread and Luna intended to put a stop to that. Even so he never returned too late, and was never drunk, she didn't like it. He spent most the bits he got from the treasury there, and that was just asking for trouble. As the docks came into sight she halted.

Half an hour until midnight. He would soon come out of the bar, and make his way home. That was when Luna intended to confront him, and tell him she didn't want him to come here again. Sure the bite mark on her neck had been a misunderstanding, but that didn't change the fact that his actions threw a bad light on her. The group waited for a moment, when suddenly all six of her guards dropped to the ground around her. Luna knelt down to investigate and found a crossbow bolt in the neck of the closest guard. Backing away from the dead stallion, she slipped on the blood that was now spilling on the ground. Six dark hooded Ponies emerged from the shadows between the buildings, and surrounded her. On their belts she could see the crossbows that had most likely killed her guards.

"You were quite stupid to leave the palace with only this many guards, you silly little filly.", a cold female voice said.

"You did not only refuse to step down, but now you are also mating with that.... monster! You are a disgrace to all of Pony kind!", a male voice to her right spoke.

Zeo was sitting at a table near the window of his favorite bar. The stuff they served was not bad, even if it was only the taste he liked. The Ponies that drunk it were throughly trashed after one or two jugs. For him, it was even less then a beer but it tasted delicious. Taking a look at the clock at the far wall of the room, he saw that it was almost time for him to go. That was, when he threw a glance out of the window, and saw...

"Luna?", he muttered to himself as he got up.

Some of his drinking buddies saw what he had seen, and also made their way out of the bar. Zeo threw a glance at the barkeeper, giving him a serious look. The yellow and blue coated stallion understood immediately that something was wrong, and soon most of the patrons made their way to the doors.

Luna was frightened. She did her best to fend her attackers off with her magic, but she was unable to do more then levitation and pain blocking charms.... That was when the doors to the bar where thrust open so hard, that they almost fell off their hinges. Out came....

"Zeo, watch out!", she called out, as her attackers shifted their attention to the sudden noise.

Zeo saw the dark hooded Ponies, that surely did not just want to have a nice chat with his friend. Without asking what they intended, he grabbed one of the Cider barrels that stood next to the entrance, and threw it at them. He did not wait until the forty liter barrel hit the ground in front of them, and shattered, before he charged in. They were distracted by the splashing cider for a moment, but that was enough for him. He rammed into two of them, that had blocked Lunas path.

"What are you waiting for? GET OUT OF HERE!", Zeo shouted, as the two surprised Ponies were still laying on the ground.

Another one of the Assassins grabbed one of the mageblades in her magic, and attempted to attack Zeo from behind, when she was tackled against the wall of a building by a red Earth pony stallion, with short black mane and tail. He had only one eye, but that one eye stared at her in utter furry.

"Da think ah would let ya attack mah buddy from behind? Da thought wrong!", he snarled, and pressed the Unicorn mare even harder against the wall, until she stopped struggling. The remaining three of the attackers now slowly started to back away, as they saw the mass of Ponies rushing from the bar. All of them coming into their direction. Soon the street, that had been almost deserted just minutes ago, was filled with Ponies, with Zeo towering over them and barking orders.

"Find them! Don't let them escape! I'm tired of this kind of thing!", he shouted, and his friends spread out to look for the three escaped Assassins. Then he turned to Luna, who still sat there in shock. Carefully he embraced her, and began to stroke her mane.

"It's OK now Luna.... You are safe....", he whispered into her ears, as she began to cry, and weakly beat her hooves against his chest.

"I was only here because of you! You idiot! I wanted you to stop drinking! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!", she cried, while sobbing into his chest.

Zeo took all the insults she was throwing at him, and all the hits she dished out with her hooves, without complaining. He just knelt there in front of her, holding her under the light of the moon, while his friends took the three captured Ponies to the nearest guard station.

"Wow! So they tried again to kill you? The first attempt would have been able to pass as an accident, but... this would have been plain murder!", Lyra said outraged.

"Well... they certainly tried. We never were able to find the three escapees that night. The three we captured however, were not very talkative either. We were able to find out why they were so good with weapons however. They all had been special operations Ponies during the war of the races. Rouge soldiers in other words.", Luna said with a sigh.

"So.. was that the end of the attacks on you?"

"Sadly... no. For a very long time I was unable to leave the palace without a massive amount of guards at my side. But I can assure you that this night changed my opinion of Zeos friends. They didn't know me, but I was Zeos mate and that was enough for them to help me. They didn't even ask why these Ponies attacked me. All that mattered was that they were going after their friends mate..... A good many of them, as I found out later, had also been soldiers during the war. As by Zeos request, I recruited them all as my personal body guards. You see.... at the time, the royal guard mostly consisted of unexperienced Ponies. My sister didn't really want soldiers in the guard, but I talked her into it. That was how the royal night guard was formed. Not the most prestigious company I can assure you. They were all rough, and many were alcoholics, but they never once neglected their duties, or disobeyed an order. In a way, they were the finest guards this castle has ever seen. Their loyalty to me did not come from my title, or anything. It came from their friendship to Zeo.", Luna explained with a distant look in her eyes.

"Sounds really great! So they were able to keep you safe?", Lyra wanted to know.

"Yes. I would love to say that none of them got hurt in the process, but some of them were even killed. I had to deal with those attacks on my life for years, and it was very taxing. But what I wanted to tell you actually, was what happened that night, after we got back to the palace. Of course, Celestia was upset about what happened, but she was happy that we were safe...."

After Luna and Zeo had their little talk with Celestia, they returned to their shared bedroom. Luna was still looking very sad, and let her head hang while she walked. Never once did she look at Zeo, who was rubbing his chest. Luna had not struck him hard, but there would be bruises later. Her hooves were pretty hard compared to the soft hands of a human girl.

When they entered the room, Luna suddenly came to life once again. She turned on Zeo with her wings extended.

"Hadn't you not gone on one of your drinking sessions again, this would never have happened!", she screamed.

"I am sorry about that, and I swear I won't do it again. But Luna....", he said softly, approaching her carefully.

"...It would have happened either way. If not tonight then some other night. They are still after you. We got amazingly lucky this time, but you must be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you.", he added, as he stroke her face with his right hand.

Liking the touch, Luna pressed her face against his hand, before she realized what she was doing and that she was still not done being mad with him. Abruptly she drew her face away, regretting it the instant she did it.

"What does it matter to you? You are only here by accident anyway! For you I am nothing more then another HORSE!", she screamed in tears.

Zeo scratched his head. A gesture, Luna had seen on him often when he was embarrassed or confused.

"I must admit that I was not too happy when you first summoned me here. And yes I was more then shocked to find a world inhabited by Equines, but no. Over the last two months I have learned that you are not a horse. You are an Alicorn. No you are no mindless animal, but you are Luna. You can do magic, and you can fly. You are sweet, kind, compassionate and you care about my well being. May it be because you really like me, or feel guilty for uprooting me, I do not dare to judge, but you care either way. I may not have been the best guest so far, but I assure you that I am willing to change if that is what you wish.", he said, kneeling in front of her.

Luna felt her rage subside at his words, and her wings folded to her sides almost out of their own accord.

"I... I don't want you to change, neither do I want you sorry. I want you to understand, that some of the things you do and say, hurt me. You are right. I am no animal. I am an intelligent being, capable of feelings and thoughts. Also of self awareness. I am glad you understand that.", Luna said, tears still in her eyes.

What came next however, Luna would never have seen coming. Zeo brought his face close to her own, stroking her neck with one of his hands. The touch itself made her shiver. They stayed like that for a while, both just looking into each others eyes, before Zeo stuck out his tongue and liked her nose. Luna began to blush.

"Did I do something wrong? I assumed it was the right way. I saw other Ponies do it and thought it was the equivalent to a kiss.", Zeo stuttered. Luna didn't respond with words, but instead began to lick his face in return. To his surprise, it wasn't unpleasant either. The two of them continued like this for a while until Luna finally stopped it.

"You get better at Pony customs.", she chuckled, the blush on her face even showing through her fur.

"I am a good observer is all.", he said, chuckling a little himself.

"So what was that "kiss" you mentioned earlier? You learn our ways, so I would like to know about yours as well.", Luna explained with her eyes half closed.

Zeo thought for a moment. The difference in anatomy would surely make the attempt alone quite difficult. Not to mention that her snout was much larger then his mouth. Shrugging his shoulders, he gave it a try and leaned in, pressing his lips on hers. The difficult part came shortly after that. Carefully prodding her furry lips with his tongue, he made her open her mouth. Lunas eyes shot wide open at the invader in her mouth, that started to play with her own tongue. Soon she realized what was expected of her, and tried to fight back with her own tongue. Both of them soon danced between their mouths. Once Zeos tongue was intruding on hers, while on some occasions she pressed past it into his.

Zeo was the first one to break the deep kiss, to catch his breath. A small trail of saliva connected them, until it broke. Lunas eyes were vacant, and she was breathing hard. This had been something she had never felt before. Sure she did have a colt friend before, but she had never felt like this. Licking each other, was considered the most intimate thing, aside from actual intercourse....

"So what happened next Luna?", Lyra asked excited.

Luna blushed, and looked away.

"Let's just say, that this night, Zeo truly became my mate.", Luna said smiling.

"Awww... no fair!", Lyra pouted.

"I tell you everything Lyra, but this is a little too intimate for comfort.", Luna reprimanded.

"But wait! If you mated... So I guess humans and Ponies really aren't genetically compatible.", Lyra sighed.

"Quite the opposite. Some research we did in later years, discovered that we Ponies don't differ too much from humans. And I actually got pregnant. The foal however was born dead, and I became unable to conceive another one after that. It was not Zeos fault, but those damn Assassins. In fact I was poisoned, close to the delivery of the foal. I survived, but the little one did not. My ability to give birth has also been affected by that poison. Zeo was very supportive the whole time, and put up with all my mood swings. Celestia was not too happy about it, but she came around eventually. Also he got very determined to find those Ponies, after the foal was born dead. I don't think I have ever seen him so angry ever again. I am sure, had they been in the room with us, he would have killed them all.", Luna sighed.

"But how? You said there were Unicorns with that group. Surely he was not immune to magic.", Lyra wondered.

Luna began to laugh.

"No he was not. But our... connection..... had consequences. Not only my pregnancy....."

Luna awoke in the middle of the night. Something was shining more then bright, right in front of her closed eyes. As she opened them to find the source of it however, Luna could only see the silhouette of her mate, lit by the moonlight. Closing her eyes again, her magical senses once again replaced her eyes, and she realized what she was seeing. She was staring at her mates magical circuit that was slowly drawing in more and more magical energy. In a panic, she shook him to wake him up.

Zeo felt strange. Usually it took him quite some time to wake up, but now he awoke almost instantly. Lunas touch had hurt as if she had frozen the place where she had touched him. Also his body seemed to burn, while his blood felt as if it was boiling in his veins. Looking down on his hands, he saw a pale blue aura radiating around them like flames.

"What... What the hell is this?", he shouted in a pained panic.

"Your drawing in mana! You must stop or you will hurt yourself!", Luna urged him.

"Easier said then done! I don't even know how I am drawing all this energy into myself!", he said with a frown. The pain in his body grew stronger, as his body caught up with his waking mind.

"Go to the balcony! You must try and release as much as possible!", Luna screamed, worried about his safety.

Zeo, naked as on the day he was born, jumped out of bed, and into the cold night air. The cold air felt nice on his burning body, but he began to shiver.

"Quick!", Luna said urgently.

"I don't know how!", he retorted.

"Point your outlet to the sky, and just let it flow out! There, it's in your left hand. DO IT!", she said, nudging his left elbow with her muzzle.

Reluctantly Zeo raised his hand into the sky, and concentrated on the burning sensation in his body. Slowly strands of pale blue energy formed in front of his inner eye. The burning feeling in his body went out like a candle, as he forced it to leave his body. Hurting all over, Zeo fainted onto Lunas back.

What Luna saw, left her muzzle hang open. Out of Zeos left palm came a whirlwind of pale blue mana, that rose up into the sky. The amount was not as much as she would have expected, but the intensity was impressive. It shone brightly enough to illuminate the courtyard in front of her balcony with ease. The light illuminated a dark cloaked Pony, that quickly ran away as it's cover was no more. Luna wanted to give chase, but Zeo collapsed on her back.

The next morning, Zeo was still unconscious when Celestia examined him.

"Luna... I would usually not ask this, but... did you actually mate with him?", Celestia asked, with her eyes closed to be able to see his magical circuit.

Embarrassed, she nodded.

"I thought so. From the day you introduced him to me, I knew he had a magical inlet and outlet. The problem was that he was unable to use magic. Both were crippled and not connected to the circuit. I can only assume that his kind was once able to use magic, but lost that ability over time. Your connection with him, forced some of your raw magical energy into his crippled circuit. Unable to get out again, the magic connected and healed the in and outlet. Since he is not used to using magic, his body began to absorb more and more magic, until it woke you up. But I think he will be out for a while longer. His circuit is not used to hold any magic at all, so this could take a while.", Celestia explained.

"So you KNEW this might happen?", Luna said in shock.

"It was only a theory, and I had no proof. It could just as easily been, that nothing at all had resulted from this. It was even way more likely, that his body would refuse your magic all together. That's why I didn't think i needed to say anything. But it seems I was wrong, and I am very sorry about that. For now, I will seal his inlet, but once he awakens he will have to take magic classes with you."

"Celestia... this could have killed him easily. Wouldn't it be better to seal his inlet permanently?", Luna pleaded.

"I don't think so. If we did that, there is no telling what the results may be. You remember the slumber spell I put on him a few nights after he arrived here? It didn't wear off like it was supposed to, and he was weak for several days after. Our magic apparently has a very different effect on him, then we are used to.", Celestia explained, opening her eyes.

"So you are saying he has to start learning magic from scratch like me?"

"That is exactly what I mean. I just hope his body can take it. The burns on his skin aren't that bad, but the internal injuries to his circuit worry me a bit. He will most likely never be able to do strong magic, but some basic things should be possible."

Luna was scared for her newfound mate, and lay down in bed next to him, resting her head on his chest so she could hear his heartbeat. Celestia smiled at the display, and left to take care of some very important things. Lunas teacher would not be suited for Zeo, but she had the feeling that her sister would want to learn together with him. So she would have to find a new mentor for the both of them....

"So your... ehm.... shared night... reanimated his magical circuit? But I thought something like that would be impossible. I mean, my dad is an Unicorn, and my mom is a Pegasus. She can't do any magic, just because they slept with each other.", Lyra wondered.

"That is because Pegasi and Earth ponies have no inlet. They do have an outlet for magic, and absorb it like any other creature when they breath, but they can't direct the energy. For Pegasi, this passive absorption gives them the ability to walk on clouds, while Earth ponies are a little stronger then the other two races. Zeos kin however, as he told me later, had legends of great spell-casters. He had always assumed that they were just that, legends, but now knew that was not so. Some event in the evolution of his kin had caused their in and outlets to become crippled. Zeo wrote down many books of human history once he did not need my help for that anymore, so maybe you can find out what it was. He always told me that he was clueless, of what it might have been."

"Wait.... So you tell me that he wrote some of those books before he learned magic?"

"As I told you, he used to hold my horn and I wrote down what his mind transmitted to me. Actually several books at a time sometimes. He may not have been the most intelligent being I ever encountered, and his thoughts were unorganized and scattered, but that's why he often thought about several topics at once. We started that, only a week after he came here actually. He was bored and so I suggested it, since I had already noticed that Pony kind could learn much from him. Some of the things he described were far above our technological level at the time. Even today we don't have the means to reproduce things like his cellphone, or other wonders he described. But that was also because Zeo himself had no idea how they worked in detail. Some things, like cranes, trains and elevators however he could describe to us and we could rebuild them.", Luna explained patiently.

The two mares talked for a while after that, and Luna asked Lyra not to try and use the Phase shifting spell in the near future. Just as Zeo all those years ago, she was to let her injuries heal, and then continue with her studies. When the mint green Unicorn left her study, Luna sighed. She was sure that she was on the right way here, but it would take a lot of work. Lyra was likable enough but also a little reckless. Before she taught her any more magic, Luna wanted to make sure that fact changed. She liked her very much, and would not want to loose her like....

Magic kindergarden

Chapter 5

Magic kindergarden

Luna sat in front of a particular door in the royal archives. Left of it, was the entrance to her own personal study, while her sisters was on the right. Ever since her return from the moon, she had felt unable to go inside, afraid of what she would find. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she remembered all the good times she had spent in there. The private study of her mate, her husband, had been the place for so many happy memories....

"You are still afraid to see for yourself?", a gentle voice from behind Luna called out.

"Yes.", the midnight blue Alicorn said, without turning around.

"Luna.... It has been a thousand years. I'm sure you could....", Celestia whispered, as she drew closer.

"I don't.... I can't.... Sister, I'm afraid of what I may find.... You know what it could be....", Luna said, sobbing.

"Of course I know. I myself sealed that door, shortly after I had to banish you Luna. But why would you be afraid?", the elder sister asked, wrapping a wing around Luna.

"But what if...."

Lyra had heard enough. She had wanted to keep her appointment with Luna, but had been a little early. Noticing the Princesses, she had approached them, until she had heard the sobbing. Not wanting to intrude on an embarrassing situation, Lyra had tried to sneak away, but the conversation had peaked her interest. What was it with that door? There surely was no seal on it now, or she would have noticed it on her previous visits. She had even tried the other day, to get inside. The door however, had resisted her permit.

Twenty-three minutes later

Lyra had watched Princess Celestia leave, while hiding in the relative darkness of the archives, pretending to look for a book. After she had made sure the elder sister had left, Lyra stepped once again into the brightly lit technology section of the archives. Luna was still sitting in front of the door, but she had stopped to cry. She did not turn around, as Lyra closed in on her, but her tone of voice made it quite clear that she had been noticed earlier.

"So you finally come out.... I didn't mean for you to find out this way Lyra, and I'm sorry.", Luna sighed in defeat.

"Ehm... Luna? I am sorry that I listened in. I was early for our meeting, and....", she tried to explain in a panic.

"I'm not mad at you Lyra, but please tell me.... how much did you hear?"

"Uhm... I left when you talked about the door being sealed.", Lyra said honestly.

Lunas ears perked up.

"So you didn't hear all of it? I am very sorry Lyra, but what Tia and I talked about will have to remain a secret for now then.", the Luna Princess said, turning around to meet her students gaze.

"But.. why?"

"If you had found out now, I would have to ask you to leave. I can not revoke the permit around your neck, but I would have refused to teach you any further. I am more then sorry Lyra, but if you find out too soon then...", Luna muttered, averting her gaze.

"So... you have a plan for me? What is it? Tell me! I am willing to do what ever I can to help you!", Lyra demanded.

"Yes... I do have a plan for you, but please don't think that I have lied to you. I have told you the truth, even if I have not told you all of it. I still want you to be able to help other Ponies, but there is a task I want you to help me with, and for that you will need the skills and knowledge that I am teaching you. That is all I have to say for myself. Do you still want to help me, even though I don't tell you everything just yet?", the dark blue Alicorn said, hanging her head.

"Of course! Luna, you are not only my mentor, but you are also my friend! If you think this is how it has to be done, then I trust that you will do the right thing. Besides...." Lyra combined the two spells she had practiced in secret over the last two weeks. Her body began to blur and became semi transparent, as she walked through one of the bookshelf's, sticking her head out of it to look at Luna again.

".... I haven't practiced so much, just so I can give up now!", she finished, making Luna laugh at her students playfulness.

The Luna Princess couldn't help but laugh, and be amazed at the same time. She had not predicted that Lyra would master those two spells this fast. It was the first step in the right direction, and also showed her that her student had learned to keep herself under control.

"Very well then.... You want to keep goofing around, or shall I tell you another story? The one I have in mind for today should be at least as amusing, as seeing your head stick out of a book about turning gears.", Luna said with a chuckle.

Emerging from the bookshelf again, Lyra looked back at the place where her head had been just seconds ago. True enough, it was a book about mechanics. Chuckling a little herself, Lyra followed Luna into her private study, that had kind of become the Princesses second home. Settling down onto one of the comfortable sofas, Luna began to tell her another story.....

Zeo awoke slowly. His whole body ached, and he felt weak. Turning his head, he saw a being of pure energy sitting next to the bed. The pale white flames that made out it's being, were only interrupted by fine lines that ran through it's body, like veins.

"Has nopony ever told you, that it is impolite to stare at ones magical circuit?", a familiar voice spoke from the flames.

"Luna? But... oh my god you are on fire!", he stammered, sitting up in bed.

"Shhhhhh.... It's alright. Open your eyes, and you will see everything is alright.", she cooed.

Zeo didn't understand immediately, but soon realized what his lover meant. Opening his eyes, he saw Lunas face only inches away from his own, and the flames he had seen earlier were gone. Had he imagined them? No. They had been way to realistic for a hallucination. Then he remembered what had happened before he had passed out. Quickly looking at his hands, Zeo looked for the blue flames that had erupted from them the last time he had checked.

"What... what happened Luna?", he asked a little shaken.

Nuzzling against his cheek, Luna tried to reassure him.

"Everything is alright dear. There just have been some... unforeseen complications from our.... unity."

"Complications? You mean those flames that came out of my body? I wouldn't mind if that didn't happen again, if I'm honest. By the way, how long have I been out?"

At that, Luna pulled back from him, so she could look him directly into his eyes. Since he now sat on the beds edge, Luna put her front hooves on his legs, to prevent him from jumping up in surprise.

"Three months. You have been in a coma for three months. The only reason you may not feel like it, may be because we stimulated your muscles with magic, while you were asleep. To be exact, I did it against my sisters advice. It's not a difficult spell, so I could manage it.", she explained, never breaking the eye contact.

Zeo slumped back to the bed from the shock. Sure it had been a shock to him already that he had actually slept with Luna, who wasn't even of the same species as him, but this? This was just a little too much to take in, so shortly after having woken up.

"So... what were those flames? And what did you mean when you said I was staring at your "circuit"?", he finally asked, still laying down.

Crawling into bed with him, Luna positioned her flank behind him so he could rest his head on it, while she rested hers on his chest. This way they could lay down comfortably, and still look each other in the eye.

"Zeo... when we were.... connected.. some of my raw magical energy, found it's way into your system. It seems that your kin was able to do magic in the past, but your magical circuit was.... damaged, so you became unable to. My magic that got into your system however somehow reactivated that ability, and healed the damaged parts. That is also why you were able to see my magical circuit. If you close your eyes, you will see me as a being of pure magical energy. That will be so, until you have learned to push your magical senses aside. The problem that has arisen from that however, is that you will have to learn how to use magic properly, or we will just have a repeat of what happened that night. Next time however, you might cause some more serious injuries on yourself, and that is why I have arranged for you to take magic classes with me."

"So, you're going to teach me about magic, huh?", he said,stroking her mane softly.

"No, I will not. I was not born with magic either. I told you how Celestia and I became Alicorns. She was a born Unicorn, while I was born a Pegasus. I have to learn many things myself, before I am anywhere close to be able to teach you anything. That is why Celestia has found a teacher that is fit for the both of us. In fact, I was about to head out in a few minutes, to meet her. If you feel up to it, how about you come with me?", she explained, gently rubbing his chest with the side of her neck.

Zeo thought for a moment, then nodded. For some reason he did not feel hungry or as if he had to go to the restroom. Why that was, he supposed he rather did not want to know. That he was supposed to be able to do magic now, just confirmed his suspicions, that he should better not wonder about anything in this world. Gently putting his hand on Lunas neck, he pushed her head aside so he could get up from the bed. Taking a quick sniff under his arm, he realized that someone must have washed him recently. Glancing back at Luna, he saw her smiling.

Luna watched, as Zeo walked over to the dresser and got some of the clothes the royal dressmaker had made for him. They were a little to wide now, since he had lost some weight during the time he had been out, but that suited her just fine. He had never been on the plump side, but definitely overweight. Now she saw that this was no longer the case. When he was finally ready, he stood in front of the bed, in the same clothes he had originally arrived in, except the new underwear and lavender shirt and his black coat.

"Do you really have to wear that thing?", she asked with a pout.

"Why? It's fashionable.", he said, before realizing who he was talking to. Sure his coat was not made of horse leather, but still.... Shaking his head, Zeo got rid of the coat, and put it back into the dresser. Instead, he pulled out an equally long coat, of the same color. This one however was made of linen instead of leather.

"Better?", he asked hopefully.

Luna nodded her agreement, and got up from the bed. She always felt uncomfortable when her mate wore that cloak made of skin. That had been the reason why she had asked the royal dressmaker, to make a replica out of another material.

As they both walked through the halls of the palace, it became apparent that the guards had gotten used to Zeos presence. None of them stared anymore, but greeted them respectful instead. Stealing a glance at Luna, Zeo couldn't help but notice that something had changed about her.

"Luna... I don't want to be rude or anything, but did you gain some weight while I was out?", he asked cautiously. He had asked another girl a similar question once, and it hadn't ended too well. In fact he had to buy new glasses afterwards. Luna however just looked at him with a smile.

"Indeed I have, and it's your fault."

"Wait... my fault? How could that be...", but then the gears in Zeos head started to turn, as he remembered the last thing that had happened, before the incident with that strange energy.

"No... you don't mean to tell me.... I mean.... We aren't even of the same species!", he stuttered.

"It didn't seem to be a problem for you at the time, I hope it is none now.", Luna said, looking a little downcast.

"Of course not! Man, I'm going to be a dad! I don't know how that would even be possible with a Pony, but I won't question a good thing!", he shouted out so loud that each and every guard turned into their direction. Luna blushed a little, and turned her head away from him.

"I have no idea either, but it seems that our species aren't that different after all.", she said in a whisper.

Zeo was now fully awake. Even the prospect of going to "school" once again, which he had always thought of as boring, could not soil the good news. But then he suddenly realized something.

"Ehm Luna? I mean... you are a Princess and all. Won't it hurt your reputation to have a child with someone you're not married to?"

"It will, and in fact it has already. Some Ponies didn't take the news too well, when we made it public that you are my mate. They took it even worse when news leaked out that you are the father of my foal.", Luna explained in a quivering voice.

Zeo put a hand in front of her to stop her. A little startled, and Luna came to a halt. Zeo knelt down in front of her,and pulled her face down to his, until their noses almost touched. Gently stroking the side of her face, he said what he wanted to say.

"Luna, I don't know how this is even possible or how it happened, but I have fallen in love with you. You are beautiful, kind and you always watch out for me. I don't want you to think that I am only doing this because you are pregnant. I do this because I want it. So Luna.... will you marry me?", he said, never once looking away from her eyes.

Luna was stunned. She had expected anything, but not this. Drawing back a little, she stumbled and fell to her rump. For a moment an awkward silence dreaded to befall the pair, when one of the female guards that stood at the corner of the hallway began shouting.

"Oh C'mon! Just say yes already!"

This outburst provoked more then a few laughs from the other guards along the hall, while others looked at the mare in shock. Looking around, Luna caught a glance at the mare, and noticed a familiar magical aura whirling around her.

"Tia.... Seriously... Don't you think you are a little old for illusion spell pranks?", Luna said, as the guard transformed into Princess Celestia, causing every guard in attendance to bow quite low.

"Oh Luna, I seriously thought I had you there, but don't change the subject. I have said nothing so far, but it would only be appropriate if you two married.", the solar Princess said, while approaching her younger sister, and the still kneeling Zeo.

Zeo saw something he had never seen before. As Celestia approached him, he could see tendrils of what looked like colored smoke come from her. The "smoke" whirled around her as if it was a being of it's own, but the pure white Alicorn did not seem to notice it. Glancing back at Luna, he noticed that the same smoke came from her as well. Why had he not seen it earlier? Noticing the confused look on Zeos face, Celestia began to chuckle.

"Well, I still want an answer, but Luna it looks like your fiancée has developed mage vision. I remember it only too well when you first began to see mana.", she said, turning from Zeo to Luna.

Luna had quite the shock to digest, but composed herself relatively fast after her sisters good humored joke.

"Ehm... yes. Yes, of course I will.", she said, getting back to her hooves, and walking over to her would-be husband.

Zeo could not believe his luck. First he got transported to a strange world that was inhabited by... HORSES! Then he actually discovered that these... Ponies as they call them self, could actually talk and had some kind of society. To top it all off he fell in love with one of them, and slept with her which caused him to be able to use magic.... Not to mention that she was now pregnant because of him, and he suddenly began to see strange smoke coming from her body. It all crashed down on him in that instant. His mind, unable to process everything, denied any further input of information and just shut down.

Luna sat next to her collapsed fiancée, and looked up at Celestia. Her older sister however just shrugged.

"I think you should take him with you to your lesson. Maybe he comes around if he gets some fresh air.", she said, appointing some guards to carry the unconscious Zeo.

Two hours later

Zeo woke up for the second time today. His head hurt a little and something was tapping his face repeatedly. Noticing that something also smelled rather uncomfortable, he opened his eyes to find a small Unicorn filly poking him with one of it's hooves. Seeing the diaper around the little ones hindquarters, he could guess where the smell was coming from. As he tried to get up, he noticed that several other foals were sleeping either on or around him. A light red Unicorn mare came into the room he was laying in carefully. As she saw he was awake, she began to lift the foals off him with her magic, all the time mumbling apologies.

"I am so sorry your highness! The little ones seem to have taken a liking to you. Here let me help you up.", she said, offering a hoof to him. Instead, he put a hand on her back to give him something to get some leverage.

"Excuse me... but... why do you call me "Your highness"? Just Zeo is fine. And where am I?", he asked, already thinking that waking up to strange places, or strange news, had already become an uncomfortable part of his life.

"Well... ehm... Zeo was it? You are in the magical kindergarten located in Weat-street in the northeast part of Canterlot. You came here earlier, with Princess Luna.", the mare explained to him, not once letting him out of her sight. She was obviously uncomfortable around him, even so Zeo had absolutely no idea why. He had lain completely still, while she had freed him from his involuntary sleeping companions. The last thing he wanted to do, was hurting one of the little ones, by moving his comparably big body.

"Magic... kindergarten... Why would Luna bring me here? I thought we were on our way to some teacher for magic."

"Well of course. Princess Luna attends my sisters class two times a week, and she is doing great progress. I take it you are the new student we were informed about then?", she asked nervously.

"Student? I don't really understand. Would you mind bringing me to Luna? I think she has some explaining to do here...", he said confused.

"Of course. Please come this way.", the mare said, as she led Zeo to a room across the hall. Peeking through the small window in the door, he saw an emerald mare with blue mane and tail stand in front of Luna. Lunas horn was glowing as several objects floated through the room. Without knocking, he opened the door and stepped inside. Luna was so startled at his sudden appearance, that all the books, vases, chairs and pencils dropped out of the air. One particular well filled glass with tomato juice, had been floating right above the door, through which he had just entered. With a painful sounding thump, the sound of shattering glass and a short yelp from Zeo, it shattered on his head. Ignoring the annoyed look on her teachers face, Luna ran over to him, and started to speak in a rapid pace.

"Oh Zeo, I'm so sorry! I was just exercising my magical focus, I'm terribly sorry! By the way, I did say yes to your question, I just say this because I don't know if you heard it before you passed out and /(/&%)/(/"

She was cut off when Zeo put a hand on her muzzle, holding it shut as gently as he cut.

"Ouch! OK, I understand. My fault entirely.... And yes I did hear your answer before I passed out. All I actually wanted to ask you now was, why I am in a kindergarten...", he said slowly getting up from the ground. With all the tomato juice that had spilled over him, he looked like he had been in a terrible accident.

As he felt something warm and wet against his hand, he noticed why he was not getting an answer. He still had his hand on Lunas muzzle, and she licked it to make him aware of that. Immediately he removed it, not wanting to hurt her.

"We are here so the both of us can learn how to use magic.", she said matter of factually.

"And I am kind of disappointed that you don't seem too happy with my response.", she added, hanging her head.

Hugging her head to his chest, Zeo stroked her mane.

"I'm sorry. Of course I'm happy about it! Happier then you can imagine. But please understand that this is by far the strangest day I had, since coming here. It's just a lot to take in."

Luna nuzzled against him, when a somepony cleared their throat behind them.

"I don't mean to interrupt, but we are still in class. Now, I suppose you are "Zeo".... Well I have never seen a creature like you, but I guess if you have an affinity with magic then I can beat it into you if I have to.", the emerald mare said, stepping closer to the two of them, and cleaning the tomato juice off Zeo with her magic.

"I may not be good at Pony customs yet, but I think, since you seem to already know my name, it would only be polite to introduce yourself. I am sure our customs don't differ that much in that aspect.", Zeo said, pushing Luna behind him, and matching the cold unfriendly tone the emerald Unicorn used.

"She is..", Luna started, just to be interrupted by her teacher.

"I can speak for myself Luna, thank you. My name is Good Cheery. Miss Cheery for you. So now that I have introduced myself, can we get this over with and see what you can do? I don't have all day, you know.", Cheery said in an annoyed tone of voice.

'Not very cheery now is she... ah well, if that is how it has to be...", Zeo thought and stepped into the classroom.

Luna followed in his wake, staying behind him, as if hiding from the other mare. Zeo could feel that she was much more at ease now that he was at her side. Without a warning Cheerys horn glowed a dark red, and Zeo could feel something disappear from his right hand, even so he could not see what it could have been.

"Now... I have removed the seal the Princess put on your inlet. Show me what you can do. I need to know with what I am supposed to work here.", she spat at him, and already Zeo could feel the same thing he had on the night he had passed out. Energy was flowing into him through his right hand, and coursed through his body. It was not unpleasant like last time, but still hard to control. As he did not want to pass out again, he concentrated hard and closed his right hand for emphasis. As a result, the energy stopped flowing into him.

"Looks like Celestia was not exaggerating.... You really have absolutely no control over your magic. Just now you needed way too much concentration just to close your inlet. To be honest, I don't see the point in continuing with this. If I had my say, I'd just chop off the limb that held your inlet and be done with it.", the mare scowled.

"If you are done with your disrespect and sarcasm, you might actually be able to teach me something. If not, be gone. I'm kinda loosing my patience with you.", Zeo snarled at her.

Luna, who was still behind him, got a little worried. Sure the amount of magical energy he had pulled into himself was not much, but she had seen just how much his outlet amplified it.

"Oh? So you don't like my teaching methods? Probably think just because you bucked a Princess, you are something special, now do you? So why don't you show me just how special you are? So far I have seen nothing to peak my interest from you.", she challenged him.

Thinking for a moment, Zeo raised his left hand, opened it and aimed it at Cheery, palm first. Not really thinking about it, he let go of all the energy he had absorbed earlier, sending the other mare flying against the wall as a massive wave of pale blue energy erupted from his palm. She tried to fight it with her own magic, but was overpowered before her spell could even take hold. When Zeo was out of mana, she dropped to the floor, and Luna rushed to her side to check if she was OK. Cheery however brushed off her hooves, and struggled to get up by herself. Looking around the demolished classroom, she could not help but be impressed. She could have sworn that he had not absorbed more energy then a foal on it's first humble try at magic. Sure it had been nothing major. It hadn't even been any kind of spell. All that creature had done, was thrust all his absorbed energy right into her face. Her interest was definitely awakened now that she had seen his raw power. But she would have to be very careful. Was she as reckless as before, she could just as easily be killed. Straightening her mane, she approached Zeo with an approving smile.

"I must admit... yes you are something special Zeo. I underestimated you. But tell me, did you truly feel the flow of energy?", she asked more politely now.

Zeo was still dumbfounded at what he had just done. The room in front of him, was a complete mess. Tables, chairs and any kind of furniture had been pressed against the far wall of the room. Strange enough, nothing was broken or damaged in any way. Even the few vases that now lay against the wall, were unharmed. It was then, that he noticed Cheery was talking to him.

"Ehm... not really. I just let go without controlling it. I'm sorry if I hurt you by the way.", he answered her embarrassed.

"Now now my boy. No need to be sorry. I asked you to show me what you can do, but I must say that you are quite mistaken. You DID control that blast, or I wouldn't be standing here now.", she said with a smile. Her change in behavior caught Zeo a little off guard.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you didn't really want to hurt me, did you? Had that been your intent, you would have succeeded. Instead your blast just pressed me against the wall, and overpowered every attempt I made to draw magic into myself. That was mostly because, I was completely enveloped by your magic. There was no raw magic I could have drawn into myself. And I'm sorry for my earlier comment. Here, let me give you a piece of advice for your future dealings with magic. It's especially for your inlet. Just imagine a door. That door is your inlet. Can you do that?", she explained to him, completely ignoring Luna now. This creature was way more interesting then the Princess.

After three hours of practice, and several other outbursts of uncontrolled magic, Zeo had the hang of controlling his in and outlet. It still required him to think about them consciously, but Cheery had assured him that this would change the more practice he got. Luna had been satisfied to watch her mates progress in the meantime. It was impressing how fast he understood what Cheery was teaching him. It had been days before she had been able to control her in and outlets. But then on the other hoof, she had been studying under a different mentor at the time. Regal Script, the royal teacher, had been competent, but he had always expected her to know what he was talking about. Cheery on the other hoof, was more rough then him, but she explained everything from scratch. Luna wondered if she would be better at magic by now, had she learned from her from the start....

"So Zeo was kind of a natural at magic? Is that it?", Lyra asked excitedly.

"Not really. Cheery was just a very good teacher. Impatient and arrogant at times, but she never gave up on anypony. The reason she was so rough sometimes was, that she had actually been a military instructor before. Many Ponies who had been with the military before, now had different jobs. I even once met a stage performer, who had been a blacksmith during the war. Or a baker, who made the most horrible cakes in all of Canterlot. His former profession had been to cook for the troops in the field.... Stuff like that was pretty common back then. Most of them actually tried to fit into the society, while some others went rouge and became criminals. I can't count how many times the royal night guard had to move out, because some of them thought it a good idea to attack trade routes. There even were some nasty incidents, when somepony from the night guard recognized an old friend that was now with the bandits... Those occasions rarely ended well. Some of them we could convince to switch sides, while others didn't want to see reason and ended up in our dungeons.", Luna explained with regret.

"Ah! So the pupil is only as good as the teacher... I see...", Lyra nodded.

"Which is why I hope ever so more that you turn out a great student Lyra.", Luna said with a smile.

"You can count one me!", Lyra said, pounding her chest with a hoof.

"Well... Anyway... After some time in which Cheery had explained Zeo how magic actually worked, he was able to do simple levitation. It seemed like that development even surprised her. As I explained to you the other night, Alicorn magic is so much different from Unicorn magic, but the basics are pretty similar. That is why I was studying under a Unicorn, and why Celestia was able to perform complex magic shortly after our transformation. She has always been a natural at magic. But for tonight Lyra, I think you really should turn in. Next time I might tell you about my wedding, if you would be interested.", the night blue Alicorn said softly.

"Sure! I'd like to hear about it! But why stop now? It's not that...", Lyra gasped in shock as she looked at the clock over the fireplace. It was already 2 am, and she hadn't slept a single second yet. For Luna, she knew, that was not a problem. The Princess could stay up for several weeks if she wanted too, but Lyra would have to attend some other classes in the morning, which Luna had arranged for her. Hugging her mentor, she rushed out of the study towards her own room in the archives. She just didn't feel like returning to her room in the tower tonight....

Canterlot Wedding

Chapter 6

Canterlot Wedding

Lyra sat in a classroom in Princess Celestias school for gifted Unicorns. She had graduated from magic school years ago, but Luna insisted that she took these classes. Sitting amongst the future healers, made her slightly uncomfortable. The oldest of them being almost half her own age....

The topic on the other hoof, was more then interesting. Today they learned about magically induced illnesses and poisons. It seemed that their teacher, a Zebra she knew from Ponyville, was quite knowledgeable on these to say the least. Just a few minutes ago, Ms. Zecora had told them of the different ways a poison could affect a Pony. Lyra had paid special attention to that part, since Luna had told her that she herself had been poisoned once. She had thrown in a question at that point, since she was curious if there was a cure for the particular poison she thought of.

"Ehm.... Ms. Zecora, I have a question concerning magical poisons."

"Go ahead and ask, to teach you is my task.", the Zebra had said in her sing song way.

"You see... I have heard of a poison that could make a mare barren, and abort a pregnancy if one is under way. Do you know anything about that? Is there any cure for it at all?", Lyra had asked hopefully.

For a moment Zecora had tapped her chin with a hoof, as if she was considering if she should reveal information on that matter.

"I am very surprised at you, what do you intent to do? The curse you mean is very bad, it would drive any mare mad. To this day there is no cure, of that I am quite sure. It affects the mind, and is very hard to find. Also barren the mare will be, not fertile like you and me.", she had answered.

Lyra had not completely understood it, but had decided not to ask any further. The look her teacher had thrown her, was more then enough to tell her that the Zebra already thought she had said to much. Obviously it was knowledge that was either forbidden, or considered a dark art....

"Well figures... making a mare barren and....", she thought to herself, when her ears perked up and she slammed a hoof on her desk. Without saying anything more, Lyra ran out of the classroom and into the archives, leaving behind a very surprised Zebra and several laughing classmates....

In the archives Lyra went directly to the potion section, and started to look up the poison she thought about. If she could find anything about such a thing, then it would be here. After handling some of the ancient tomes with less care then they would have deserved, she finally found what she was looking for.

"AHA! There it is! Death root extract! I knew I'd find it here.", she shouted out triumphantly.

Death root Extract:

To make this potion you require at least twenty gram of Death root, a pot of led and a spell-caster. Let it be known at this point that no non-Unicorn can brew this poison.

Lyra read on. The coming articles described how the poison was to be made, and what the effect was. Abortion of pregnancy in very low dosages was only one of them however. The result of making a mare barren, was described to happen in higher dosages. The side-effect on too high doses however, was exactly the one thing Lyra was looking for.

....... In a too high concentration the Death root takes root in the victims magical circuit. It also will affect the victims behavior, and in extreme cases drive them insane. The loss of the ability to give birth is also associated with the extract rooting in the magical circuit. No cure for that is known to this day. The insanity varies from Pony to Pony. The usual outcomes are extreme schizophrenia, headaches, magical surges and ultimately the loss of control over ones magic.

Earth ponies will become very weak, while Pegasi loose their ability to walk on clouds and eventually become unable to fly. Unicorns however are the ones that are afflicted the worst by this poison. If the victim develops schizophrenia, magic can turn that other personality into an actual being.

"Nightmare Moon....", she heard a familiar voice from behind herself. As she looked around, Princess Celestia approached her from the relative darkness between the bookshelf's.

"Princess!", Lyra said, quickly bowing as low as she could.

"Please rise Lyra. Zecora told me about your interest in this poison, and how you stormed out of her class. I was sure I would find you here.", the pure white Alicorn explained.

"Your majesty.... I am very sorry if I was disrespectful. I will apologize to her, the next time I see her."

"I suggest you do so. Even so Zecora does not hold a grudge because of your actions, I think it would be the right course of action. So... ", the Princess said, levitating the book Lyra had been reading over to herself.

".... you have found what you were looking for... In fact, I wanted to destroy this book for what it's contents have done to my sister, but my brother in law would not let me do so.", she said with a sigh.

"You... you mean Zeo, right?"

"Yes... He always hoped to find a cure for my dear sister, but as far as I know he never found one. I must ask you though, not to spread this knowledge. It is true what is written there, and the doses Luna absorbed was strong enough to drive her to insanity. I did not notice for a long time, until it was too late. Nightmare Moon had been born from the feelings of rejection Luna was experiencing, and from the hate she felt for me at the time. My days were loved, while she felt that her nights were ignored. The Pony nobles wanted me to reign alone, while they wanted her gone.... I know she didn't really hate me, but I became the symbol for all her suffering....", Celestia said, laying down next to Lyra.

"But... Nightmare Moon was driven out of Luna by the Elements of Harmony, wasn't she?", Lyra asked hopefully.

"She...", Celestia began, but was interrupted by a strand of shadow that wrapped around her muzzle.

Stepping out of the shadows, as if she was a part of them, came Princess Luna. The usual gentle expression on her face replaced by one of utter rage.

"It is not your place to tell my student of my past Celestia! I will tell her when the time is right.", she shouted at her older sister, who was obviously dumbstruck by her sudden appearance. Even so Lyra was sure Celestia would have been able to dispel the shadow around her muzzle with ease, she decided not to do so. Instead she got up, nuzzled her sisters neck and walked away into the darkness. When she was gone, Luna addressed Lyra, her expression back to her gentle self.

"I am very sorry you had to witness this Lyra. You are early by the way."

"I... ehm... I kinda skipped class since I wanted to research something on my own."

"Oh? From what I overheard, you must have looked into that wretched poison that affects me to this day.... But you know... you could have asked me. Be assured that i have read all of the texts that are about Death root extract.", Luna said with a smile.

Lyra was unsure if she should bring her suspicions to her mentors attention, but she trusted the midnight blue Alicorn.

"Luna... The spells you had me learn.... The medical knowledge you let others teach me.... Especially the lessons about magical poisons and illnesses... You said you wanted me to help you with something, before I could be the healer you want me to be. After reading all this.... Do you maybe think that... well... that I can heal you with Zeos spells? Is that what this is all about? You think I can restore your ability to give birth?", Lyra asked, her tone barely above a whisper.

Lunas eyes widened in response and she sighed.

"You know... you are more intelligent then I gave you credit for... Lyra, close your eyes and take a good look at my magical circuit. Tell me what you see.", she instructed her student.

Lyra did as she was told and before her stood a being of pure energy. Lunas magical presence was so strong, that it made it hard for her to see her circuit lines, but then she saw what the Princess had meant.....

"Luna.... I am so sorry! I didn't know it was THAT bad...."

"Describe what you see."

"I see.... Your lower body.... the circuit lines.... Almost all of them are ripped apart! And....", Lyra shifted her inner gaze at Lunas horn.

"... your horn... it has a crack on it. The lines running from it to your brain look quite new in comparison to the rest of you. I can only assume this is not the horn you got when you ascended."

"That is true, and well observed. This horn has grown magically. My original one was broken off.... The blackness you see in my lower body, does not indicate that my circuit is ripped however. It's the last remnants of that damn poison. As long as it stays there, I will be unable to conceive a foal.", Luna said, as tears formed in her eyes.

"So... you really do want me to heal you? I don't think I can... Maybe with some of Zeos other spells, but..."

Luna shook her head.

"I don't want YOU to heal me Lyra. You will have a part in it though.", the Luna Princess said.

"What do you mean?"

"Not yet Lyra. Everything has it's time. For today I promised you a story about my wedding. Do you still wanna hear it?"

"Of course!"

Lyra and Luna went, to one of the other rooms once again. This time however, Lyra did not recognize the room Luna led her to. As she walked inside, it was shrouded in complete darkness, until she heard a gentle click. Suddenly hundreds of bright lights erupted from the ceiling, and she had to put a hoof in front of her face to shield her eyes. After they had adjusted to the invading light, she spotted a grinning Luna, standing in a vast room that was several stories high. There was a brown fluffy carpet on the floor, while there were hundreds of picture frames on the walls. As Lyra stepped closer, she saw that all of them held newspapers.

"Disaster at the royal wedding"

"Will the Princess of the night be alright?"

"Former high ranking Pegasus gone rogue!"

These were only some of the headlines she could make out on the enchanted paper. Turning to her mentor, Lyra noticed that Luna had not stopped grinning, even so this wedding seemed to have been far from perfect.

"What is this place?", she asked.

"This, my dear student, is the place that holds everything concerning my wedding. Look....", the midnight blue Alicorn said, gesturing to the far wall of the room. There, conserved in two glass cylinders, Lyra could see what surely had been Lunas and Zeos attire. Lunas dress was easy to differ from her grooms, since his was clearly made with a bipedal creature in mind. The dress was, as was Lunas coat, midnight blue. The almost transparent fabric was designed to end right under the Alicorns wings. It was longer then anything Lyra had ever seen, so she assumed that her mentor had dragged it behind her. The mannequin that wore the dress now, also wore silver horseshoes and a matching tiara. Zeos tuxedo was much like what she saw on Ponies these days, except that this one had a pair of pants to go with it. What caught Lyras attention however, was that it was in a very bad shape. Parts of it were torn, and the light blue bow-tie was splattered with blood in places. Were they actually attacked during their wedding? What Pony would be so vile to ruin someponies happiest day in life? Turning to Luna with a inquiring look on her face, she pointed at the torn parts of the tuxedo.

"You have a good eye Lyra.", Luna responded, walking up to the cylinder as well, and placing a hoof on it as if remembering something.

"But... if you were attacked during your wedding.... how come you are still smiling? Isn't it a sad memory?"

"It isn't. Indeed you might think so if you were not there, but for me it still was the happiest night of my life. My dress might not show it, but I was also hurt badly. Still... I still think it was a wonderful night...."

Two months after Zeo had asked Luna to marry him, the preparations were on for real. Since Zeo was not Equestrian, Luna had agreed to a wedding that fitted his customs. For that occasion alone, Celestia and some of her best Unicorn mages, had erected a cathedral for the ceremony. Every detail was as Zeo had described it to her, and Luna could only stare in awe when she first walked down the aisle.

"Zeo.... it's so beautiful... So you say your people have such beauty?", she asked in disbelief.

"No need to be so surprised. I may be a brute in many ways, but yeah... this is a church. But seriously... Celestia shouldn't have replicated the biggest one I ever visited. A small chapel would have done.", Zeo answered a little embarrassed.

"I don't think so my dear Zeo. This is the wedding of my little sister, and to be honest, I am a little jealous. I would have never thought that she would get married before I do.", Celestia interjected, as she walked into the room.

The three talked everything over that afternoon. The big night would come in two nights, and they had invited all of Canterlot. Celestia had tried to convince her sister to hold the ceremony during the day, but Luna had insisted on a nightly wedding.

"I am the Princess of the night after all. The moon shall witness my bonding, and that decision is final!", she had said. Celestia found it harder and harder to deal with her sister since her pregnancy. The mood swings were annoying at least, and outright dangerous at their worst. Just the day before Luna had been aggravated by something minor, and had blasted almost the whole kitchen apart. Zeo had repaired the damage with his magic swiftly, but she was seriously considering to horn lock her sister until the delivery. The both of them had made quite some progress in their magical studies, even so Zeo had stopped attending the lessons. After understanding the basics, he had wanted access to the royal library. Even so she had been hesitant to grant it, she was soon astonished at what he could do. Just one day after she had let him in there, she had woken up to a completely trimmed garden, with statues of herself and Luna on either side of a beautiful fountain. Even so she had to admit that Zeo had paid much more attention to detail on her sisters statue, she had to admit that she was impressed. When she had asked him how he had done it, he had just shrugged.

"You know.... it's like working with your mind. I just pick up a tool for the job and imagine what I want to do. The magic does the rest. I can't explain it exactly, but it's like I use it as an extension of my arms. Even so I might be clumsy with my hands, my magic always seems to do exactly what I want it to do.", he had told her, while scratching his head.

Two nights later

The night was finally there. Princess Luna and her mate Zeo would share the eternal bond. Zeo had instructed Celestia, who would perform the ceremony, on what she had to do. The ceremony was to begin at midnight, but the royal family and some servants had already gathered in the Cathedral at 10 pm to get ready. Zeo was dressed pretty quickly, while Luna took her sweet time.

Zeo stood outside to greet the arriving guests, and thank them for coming. It was already 11pm, but so far he had only welcomed twenty Ponies in formal attire, and a beggar that surely just wanted some free food.... He was just about to go inside and tell Celestia that he did not expect many more guests to arrive, when he heard a rough voice call out to him.

"Da thought da could get da'self married and wa would net show up, did da?"

As he turned to the stallion that had spoken, he spotted all the Ponies he had come to know so well during his time drinking by the docks. He still sometimes went there, but with Lunas permission this time.

"Red Steel! It's good to see you guys! What did you do to get all of those drunks to come here? I guess you heard about the big cider order I filed.", Zeo laughed, as he embraced the one eyed stallion, who had actually dressed in an old looking suit for the event. Dragging him down with one hoof, Red Steel put his foreleg around Zeos neck, rustling his hair with the other.

"Da know exactly why we arr here.", the elder stallion said with a smile. Zeo had not only been one of his best customers over the last few months, but he also had helped him out of a very bad situation. Not all the booze in the world was going to keep him and his other customers away from this event.

"So were is your lucky mare?", a female voice caught Zeos attention.

"Rosy! Oh damn I'm glad to see you! How's it going? I heard you got into some trouble again.", he laughed, embracing the emerald Unicorn mare with blond hair, actually lifting her off the ground.

Before long, Zeo was encased in an enormous group hug. He knew that these Ponies were considered bad company by most of the higher class, but he didn't care. They were loyal friends to him, and that was all that counted to him. After directing them to their seats, almost two hundred guests were in the Cathedral. Some late comers arrived as well, even so they did not accept his greeting. The room was still mostly empty, but it was at least more crowded then before.

Luna looked into the room from a door in the back, and tears began to roll down her face. Not even one of her so called friends had come. The few nobles in attendance had surely just come as to not miss out on a royal event. They didn't care for her at all. She could not even talk to Zeo about it right now, since it was tradition for his kin that the groom shall not see the bride before the ceremony. She wanted so badly to be held in his arms and to hear his gentle voice tell her, that everything was going to be alright. But she could not. He was trying so hard to do everything just to please her, and to learn Pony customs, so she had to at least honor the traditions of his kin.

"Luna... whatever is the matter? You should be overjoyed! It's your night of honor.", a mare with blond hair spoke up as she approached her from behind.

"Ehm... I'm sorry... do I know you?", Luna inquired a little confused.

"Oh, c'mon now! I'm Rosy! Well my full name is Rose Blossom, but everypony just calls me Rosy. I'm a friend of Zeo, and you are his wife to be, so that means I'm your friend too if you would have me.", Rosy introduced herself.

"Sorry... But I don't think he ever mentioned you."

"That's OK. Well, that aside.... you seem quite sad.... you wanna talk about it?"

"I don't know... I barely know you.", Luna hesitated.

"Well, Luna, as I just said: You are the wife to be of one of my best friends. If you have something you want to get off your chest, then I'll listen. I may not be of noble blood, and yes I might have a criminal record as long as your dress, but that does not mean I'm a bad Pony. So you wanna talk?" Rosy said, waving a hoof.

Luna looked her over. Sure she was not a beauty, and she smelled like sweat and cheap wine, but in her eyes there was nothing but sincere concern. Sitting down, Luna began to speak. Halfway through Lunas story, the older mare sat next to her, putting a comforting hoof around her. Even so the smell emanating from her was unpleasant, Luna felt safe with this mare. After she had finished, she looked up into her eyes, only to find that they looked as if they weren't seeing her at all. They looked broken, and strange somehow. The mare opened her mouth, and coughed up blood. No words came however, and Luna pulled back from her immediately. As the lifeless body of Rose Blossom fell to the ground, Luna could see the blade sticking out of the back of her head. A Pegasus stallion with blue coat and gray mane walked up to the corpse, and pulled his throwing knife out as if he was pulling it from a training target. Luna screamed in terror....

Two minutes before

Something was wrong here. Red Steel, former special operations commander, could feel it. The air was not filled with joy and happiness, as he had expected from such an event. Instead he could sense an intense blood-lust lingering in the air. That was when he saw her. A yellow Earth pony mare with an amber mane and tail sat down just one row in front of him. Even without seeing her eyes, he knew that she had cold gray irises.

"You have gotten careless Commander. You used to notice me from a mile away.", she said as if she was talking to herself.

"Sharp Blade! Da know dat you arr not welcome here. Ah had thought dat...."

"That I was dead? Lesson number four: If you want to disappear, then fake your own death....", she interrupted him, just to be interrupted by Lunas scream from one of the rooms in the back. Everything after that happened pretty fast. Red Steel grabbed a blade he had hidden in his suit, blocking the dagger that shot at his face from the mare in front of him. All around him, he could see that several other Ponies drew their concealed weapons. Some of them were Ponies he had brought with him. All of them former operatives. Most of the others however, did not belong to his party. Pushing the mares dagger away, with sheer force, he put it into his mouth and jumped after her. He had predicted something like this might happen, but had not wanted to worry his friend. After all, it could have just been him getting paranoid....

Zeo saw the fight breaking out between the guests and he heard Lunas scream, as she emerged from one of the rooms in a full gallop. Through the open door he could see the corpse of Rosy, and a Pegasus stallion following his bride. Without thinking, Zeo threw the jacket he wore away and ran after him. This however proofed to be a major problem. From all sides Ponies attacked him, and he could feel the impacts of several telekinetic blows on his body. Casting a minor shield charm around himself, he pushed on, desperate to reach Luna. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Red Steel fighting a mare, he felt he had seen before....

Celestia saw what was happening and rushed after her sisters attacker, from one of the upper floor balconies, just to be knocked out of the air by several Pegasi. Before she could complete a defensive spell, one of them put a horn lock on her as the group crashed into the wooden benches below. Celestia felt one of her wings break and screamed out in pain. Soon after the first of the three who had her pinned down, dropped dead, his eyes rolling up the whites, while the two others were thrown off of her by a spell. A red Earth pony stallion with a red coat and short black mane and tail, offered her a hoof to help her up. His body was covered in small cuts and he was breathing hard, but he still bowed to her once she stood upright again.

"Who are you? Are you OK?", she asked him concerned.

"Red Steel former Commander of fifths special operation squad. Earth pony defense force, at your service your highness.", he responded, as he slashed at a charging Pegasus casually, slitting his throat open.

"Your injuries... what is going on here? Where are all the guards?"

"I suspect your guards have been taken out your highness. As for my injuries... I endured worse in my days, so don't worry. You on the other hoof have to get out of here. It is clear that they don't want to kill you, but that doesn't mean no stray spell could injure you...", he groaned as he fell to one knee.

Celestia rushed up to her savior. Unable to use her magic, she pulled him into a room, away from all the fighting.

"What has happened to you? You are clearly straining yourself... please rest."

Red Steel brushed her hooves off himself, as he stood up again.

"One of my former students did a number on me.... I should be proud that she was able to get away from me, but I guess I'm just getting old.", the red Earth pony said, as he practically vanished into the shadows.

Luna was standing with her back to the wall. Where was Zeo? Where was her guard? Where was Celestia? The Pegasus stallion who had chased her here came closer and closer, his still blood dripping blade held firmly in his mouth. She tried to keep him at a distance by throwing things at him with her telekinesis, but he was unimpressed by each of her projectiles. Just as she thought that this was it, a fearsome raw from behind caught her would-be murderers attention. Without slowing down Zeo tackled the stallion into a wall of the small dressing room. The knife he dropped when he hit the wall, was quickly enveloped in light blue magic, and thrust into his belly. The stallion stopped struggling, and dropped to the floor, breathing hard.

"Are you OK Luna?", Zeo shouted over his shoulder.

Luna was stunned for a second. Zeo was covered in small cuts, and his right eye looked like he had just wrestled with a griffin. The gashes that ran from above his right eye to his left cheek were deep, and bleeding badly. Even so he asked HER if SHE was OK.... Running up to him, Luna hugged him tightly, before beginning to lick his wound to clean it. Wincing slightly, Zeo pushed her away.

"Not now Luna. The fight's not over yet. This room is so far off the main battle, that you should be safe here. Keep an eye on that stallion, and I will go back to help the others. Lock the door after me.", he said, but she shook her head.

"I will not let you go out there alone!"

"Luna... think of the child... If you get hurt the foal might get harmed."

That convinced her to stay behind.

"OK... but promise me you will come back.", Luna pleaded.

He nodded, gave her a deep kiss and took off into the main room of the cathedral again, the assassins knife in his hand. Only when he shut the door behind himself, Luna could see that his white shirt was torn and dyed a deep red, just above the left arm.

The fight dragged on for several more minutes, until Zeos friends finally overpowered the attackers. Many of them had died, and not a single noble had made it out alive. Celestia had been locked in a broom cupboard by Red Steel , and was not too happy about it when Zeo finally freed her. Breathing hard, he leaned on her. The injuries were finally taking their toll on him. But there was one last thing he had to do before he could pass out. Without answering any of Celestias questions, he staggered to the room in which he had left Luna behind. On his way he could hear Celestia barking orders to his friends. She wanted all of the surviving attackers arrested. Who did she think she was? Some of them looked at him, as they heard the order, and he nodded in agreement. Only then did his remaining friends begin to take care of the attackers.

As he opened the door to the small dressing room, a scene that froze his blood in his veins played out before his eyes. An Earth pony mare was standing over the bleeding body of his bride. She had several blade wounds on her body, and was only barely conscious. Rage welled up inside of him, and new strength ran through him. Tumbling towards the two, the mare looked at him disgusted. He knew that look. She obviously thought she could make short work of him, but that was her death warrant. As soon as he was close enough, strands of magic erupted from Zeos left hand and enveloped her. He did not form them into a spell, but instead used them as additional limbs. The mare gave out a loud yelp as the strands became visible to her, but at that time it was already to late. Her knife was ripped from her mouth, while she herself was lifted into the air. Kneeling down next to Luna he coughed up some blood.

"Luna... Luna, please don't leave me!", he pleaded, barely above a whisper. The world was starting to blur in front of his eyes.

"I... I'm OK... Just... need some rest...", she answered, and mustered a small smile.

Looking up at his captive Zeo began his gruesome work. Luna would never forget the screams of that mare. The strands of magic penetrated her body, without hurting her skin, only to break her bones one by one, and tear at her internal organs. The moment the strands took out her heart, the mare was not conscious anymore. The pain had been just too much for her. As her life faded, Celestia walked into the room. Seeing her sister in such a state, she rushed over to her, trying to heal her wounds with her magic. Red Steel had been so kind as to remove the horn lock.

"Marry us.", Zeo said weakly.

"What? Seriously? Now?", Celestia asked shocked.

"Do... it... sister.", Luna confirmed.

Both of them knew that there was a good chance that either one or both of them would not make it. They wanted to be united before that happened. Sighing Celestia asked both of them the questions that would bind them together for all eternity.

"Zeo. Do you want to marry my sister, Princess Luna? Do you want to hold her dear, obey and support her in good as well as in bad times, as long as the two of you might live?"

"I do", Zeo coughed.

"And you Luna. Do you want to marry this human, Zeo? Do you want to hold him dear, obey and support him in good as well as in bad times, as long as the two of you might live?"

"I... do" Luna pressed out.

"Then I declare the both of you Husband and mare. You may now kiss the bride.",Celestia concluded. As they kissed each other, they both fainted and Celestia smiled as a tear ran down her cheek. She was sure that both of them would pull through....

"Wow! I can understand that the newspaper would call that a disaster!", Lyra told her mentor.

Luna chuckled a bit.

"Well... it was quite the carnage. Two nights after that Zeo and I awoke, as if nothing had happened. The only reminder of this, were the scars on his face. The royal physician had not been able to erase them. It was also that night that Zeo asked me to employ his friends. All of them had stayed in the castle anyway, and after a long talk with Celestia, we decided on the title "Night guard", with Zeo directly responsible for their actions."

"But.. I don't understand... Why did you still call it the best night of your life? I mean you nearly died, and many Ponies lost their lives."

"Well Lyra... My husband was fighting for me, and he would not have left my side if he had seen another choice. He honestly thought I was safe, which got me hurt in the end. But the love he fee...felt for me became apparent to me the moment he started to torture the mare that had hurt me. That really showed me that he was not only mad at her, but also at himself. He love...d me so much that he could not bear the thought of me getting hurt because he had left my side."

Lyra thought for a moment. She still did not quite understand it, but it sure was something to consider. Zeo had been willing to get hurt to protect Luna. That much had become clear in other stories her mentor had told her.

Mourning

Chapter 7

Mourning

Lyra yawned, while laying on her bed. Her last lesson with Luna had been over a week ago, and she hadn't even seen her mentor since then. She was just nowhere to be found. Her personal study in the archives was locked, and even Celestia had no idea, or didn't want to say, where her baby sister had gone off to. Deep down, Lyra could understand that Luna needed some time to herself, since the last story she had told her, was bound to bring up unpleasant emotions. She had looked happy enough, but Lyra saw that for what it was. A mere mask. Nopony would seriously enjoy their wedding to turn into a massacre after all.

How had Zeo felt about the whole thing? Those questions haunted her pretty much each time she thought about the stories Luna had told her. She had told her many things from Zeos point of view, but nothing to deep so far. He seemed like a likable guy, but she was not to sure what to make of him. On some occasions, she thought he would definitely be a candidate for her life-long friendship, on others she couldn't help but face hoof. Had she caught him drinking each night, even if it didn't affect him, she would have smacked him over the head. Apparently humans were much more complicated then she had always thought.

Up to the point where she had started her studies with Luna, Lyra had thought they were not so much different from Ponies. Up to a certain degree she still thought so, but she had also found some behavior patterns, that were unseen with Ponies. One of the strongest of these being, to smoke. She had never seen a single Pony smoke. But just the other day she had found something in one of the books. „Cigarettes“ were mentioned AND described as quite unhealthy. Not not only that, but also addicting. Except from Pinkie Pies addiction to sweets, or Twilight Sparkles addiction to books, Lyra had yet to see another being to act upon urges of addiction.

The book she was currently reading, was one she had sneaked out of the archives. Storing something in her own body, using the phase shifting spell though, was something she could sure live without. The book had rested just under her heart, while being in a state of phase shifting. It would have only threatened her, had she lost her focus on her way to her room, but that wouldn't be a problem. By now she could use that spell without any problem. Sure.... It had been pretty embarrassing when she had lost control of it, a day after her last lesson with Luna. She had been in the bathroom by that time, and taken a shower. Just to fool around a bit, she had tried to phase shift her hoof through the wall.... The result had been screams of horror from the other side of the wall. Curious of to what was behind it, Lyra stuck her head through the wall, just to discover that her bathroom was next to the guards dressing room....

So far so good... She had apologized and tried to pull her head back, but then had slipped in her shower and fell right through the wall. At first the guards were shocked beyond good and evil, since they obviously had never seen this spell at work, but when she had picked herself up off of the ground, the laughter had started. They surely hadn't wanted to laugh at her, but she couldn't really blame them. She looked like she had fallen into the pool, and due to her wetness, the fur that usually hid her mare hood, was now hanging down limply... Galloping back to her own room, in that state, had not helped much either.

Lyra had been so shocked at being exposed, that she actually totally forgot the most logical thing to do. It hadn't been until she had slammed her rooms door behind her shut, that she face hoofed. Had she just used the spell again, she could have just stepped back through the wall, and avoided running wet maned, and apparently pretty arousing, through half the palace. Why there was no corridor that connected the part of the tower in which her and Lunas bed chambers were, to the part the guards used as barracks, she just didn't understand. To make matters worse, the incident had been brought to Celestias attention. The solar Princess had not punished her or anything, but she had been subtly hinted that her guards were quite distracted these days, and that she did not encourage such behavior....

Sighing Lyra closed the book on the world humans lived in. There were some plants and animals in there, that looked very interesting, but what had made her unable to go back to the tower without it, had been the section about human evolution. Equestria had no such thing. Nopony knew how their race came into being, and apparently nopony cared. Humans on the other hoof had gone to great length, just to find out their origins. She had hoped to find some similarities, but had found nothing. The most interesting thing was, that humans actually were omnivores, so Luna had not stretched the truth there. Lyra could not imagine eating another being, but then again.... She already knew that there were predators in Equestria. The most intelligent ones among them, being the Griffins. Taking a look over to her nightstand, Lyra saw that it was already ten past midnight.

„So no lesson today either....“, she sighed, putting the book away, and using her magic to put out the lights.

In the Canterlot royal gardens

Luna sat in a clearing between some trees, looking up at her moon, when she felt the presence of a fellow Alicorn coming closer. These last few days, she had always relocated herself whenever that had been the case, but not tonight. Not due to lack of trying though. The golden Sphere that had suddenly come into life around her, was a dead give away that her sister was tired of her moods. It faded away the moment Celestia trotted up to the clearing, giving her an annoyed glare.

„So we are using imprisonment spells on each other now, big sister?“, Luna pouted.

„You have left me no other choice Luna. For nine days and nights now have you avoided me, and everypony else. What is the matter?“, Celestia said, a tad worried.

„I need time to think Tia. Can't you respect that?“

„All the trouble of Nightmare Moon could have been avoided, or at least delayed, had I been a little more interested in your feelings. I don't want to make the same mistake again. I don't know if I could survive it, should you turn again.“, Celestia said, while nuzzling her sisters neck.

„Don't worry Tia.... I have myself under control, and the traces left in me are harmless, unless they are reconnected with the mind that was behind them.“

„I wouldn't call something that makes you barren harmless. Also is your magical ability not what it used to be. That horn of yours, is just not meant to channel our amount of magic.... And you used to be so...“

„I know Tia... I know.... And I miss my magic. All I can do with that.... prosthetic... is basic magic. If Discord were to return these days, I'd be more useless then a teenage Unicorn. Tia... I want my horn back.“, Luna cried into her sisters shoulder.

Celestia let her cry, while stroking her back with a wing. Lunas horn had been lost over a thousand years ago.... It still was in the possession of the royal family, yet Celestia did not dare to try and attempt to put it back onto Lunas forehead. The spells needed for that, were not beyond her, yet were there other dangers, involved with that cursed thing....

„Luna... you will have to tell her eventually....“

„I know... Celestia... But I must do so gradually. If I rush things.... my last hope could be lost.“, Luna pressed forward between sobs.

„You miss him, don't you?“

„More then you can imagine.... It's my fault... It's my f....“, she stammered, unable to say much more for the rest of the night.

The next morning

Lyra woke up slowly, when the first rays of sunlight hit her face. Still half asleep she noticed a flowery scent hanging in the air, and jolted wide awake. There, sitting right next to her bed, was Luna, smiling as if nothing had happened.

„Luna!“, she called out, before catching the Princess in an enormous hug, that would have made her friend Pinkie Pie proud. The midnight blue Alicorn endured it with dignity. She understood that it had been unfair to her student, to avoid her for so long. But today would be the day, on which she would reveal her second worst memory in her long life.

„Hey... When have you gotten so clingy?“, Luna laughed.

„You idiot! I was worried! Nopony knew where you were!“, Lyra shouted, almost directly into her mentors ears. Luna on the other hoof, let the insult slide. Lyra was more then just her student for her, and she just couldn't bring herself to act like a Princess anyway, unless it was an official event.

After some more screaming, some tears of relief, a few explanations from Luna and some more screaming later, the pair found them self in front of Lunas private study. But instead of unlocking the door, Luna paused, and looked over to the bigger door to the right.

„What's wrong Luna?“

„Ehm... Lyra... Would you... Would you like to see „his“ study today? But I must ask you to keep out of it's bedroom.“, Luna asked, throwing Lyra a serious look.

The Unicorn in question smiled widely, and nodded her head. She had been Lunas student for over two months now, and finally she would see what was in there. Not that she had not tried to get in there herself, but to no avail. Which was something she didn't understand. She had even visited Princess Celestias study once, with and once without the sun Princesses invitation.

With a heavy sigh, Luna stepped away from the door to her own study, and placed herself in front of the one emblazoned with a big „Z“.

„Lyra... I have not been in there since I came back from the moon, so I don't know what it will be like in there. The door has been sealed for over a thousand years, by my sisters magic, so not even one of the maids could get in there to clean. It could very well be, that all we will find has turned into dust.“, Luna warned, before putting her hoof onto the door. A soft blue light began to emanate from the door, before it was replaced by a golden one, that faded out as well. Lyra recognized a magical barrier when she saw one. But why hadn't she noticed it when she had tried to unlock the door herself? And... why had there been two spells that needed to be broken? The golden one, was by Celestias magic, no doubt about it, but the blue one....

„Was that...“

„Yes. That first spell was placed here by my husband himself. It was to keep Celestia out in fact. She did not approve with some of his research, so he made sure that everypony except my sister could get in. But since my magical presence has changed since those days, that spell could easily mistake me for my sister. That is why I had to break it.“

„Then why didn't Princess Celestia break it?“, Lyra asked, tilting her head in confusion.

„You do... didn't know Zeo. Had he come down here, and found his spell broken... Lets just say it would not have been pretty. My sister and him have been at it more then once. The result of their last „argument“ was that the west wing of the palace had to be rebuild. After that, they agreed to try and not loose control of their emotions again, since that was quite expensive, considering they only fought over the usefulness of the phase shifting spell. They could get quite aggressive when they were emotional.“, Luna explained matter of factually, pushing the door open.

The inside of Zeos study was dark. There was not a single source of light inside. Luna was first to canter inside, and immediately start coughing. After she found the fireplace, and had lit it, Lyra could see the outlines of ancient looking furniture. The layout was quite different of Lunas. There was only one sofa that faced the fireplace. Or at least Lyra thought it was a sofa. The remains of it consisted mostly of rotten wood, black fabric and sawdust. Behind that stood a big table with several tools, parchments, books and some things that Lyra did not recognize. Strange enough this was the one and only furniture that was neither rotted, nor buried under a ridiculous amount of dust. The table itself looked as if it was made of wood, so Lyra was a little confused. Even more so, as she noticed that the table looked pretty strange in it self. Under it were what looked like miniature book shelfs and cupboards. They looked so small that barely one of her hooves would fit in.

Luna noticed her student staring at Zeos workplace. She chuckled.

„Never seen a preserving spell before I take it?“, Luna asked, stepping closer to the table.

Lyra just shook her head in awe. A flash of Lunas horn later, much of the dust in the room was cleared away, and the lights in the ceiling began to spring to life, illuminating a giant room. It wasn't so much the width of it, but the heights... She could see metal staircases that winded up several stories high. The stairs also seemed to be under the influence of the preservation spell, since they were not rusted in the slightest.

„How... How is this possible? This is so high it must go up into one of the castles towers!“, Lyra wondered.

Luna chuckled. „That is, my dear student, not the case. We are in fact several miles below the ground.“

„What?“

„Well... We are not even in the city you know as Canterlot. I mean... we are in Canterlot, but not the one you know.“, Luna explained, still chuckling a bit. Even so just being here awoke many memories from so long ago.

„I don't understand. There is „another“ Canterlot?“, Lyra asked, obviously not catching on.

„Well... the city you know... it's actual name is NEW Canterlot. We are currently in the original one, which is located in the part of Equestria, known to you as the Ever-free forest.“

„WHAT? We are in Ever-free? But... how?“

„The door to this place, as well as the elevators that connect our studies to the royal kitchens, are magical portals. It was pretty much easier to install them, then to try to move or destroy the archives. To destroy them, would have been impossible for Celestia on her own, since we both placed our best protection spells on this place, and so did Zeo. Her own, and maybe even mine she might have been able to break with time, but Zeos added protection was too much. She could have broken it alone, but not with the other two spells in place as well.“, Luna tried to explain.

„Ah, so like when you can easily break a branch, but if you take several branches of the same size, it suddenly becomes impossible? But... Wait... you said you crashed into Ever-free when you summoned Zeo. So if the capital was IN Ever-free....“, Lyra asked hopefully.

„Yes. Pretty much like that. Anyway, Celestia installed the portals since the knowledge down here is way to precious to be just lost. Even if she had destroyed all of it, she would have done so, using a spell to absorb all the knowledge, so it would basically not be lost. Also... Yeah... You must know Lyra, the forest was much bigger back then. You know the area in which Ponyville is now? That whole area was part of the forest back then. Sure I did crash in the forest, but still miles from the city.“, Luna said proud of her pupil.

Gesturing to follow her, Luna began to walk up one of the staircases, until they reached the third floor, whichs door was, in turn, locked like the entrance had been. This time Luna put her horn into the keyhole, to pour a bit of her magic into it. With a loud screeching sound the door swung open, and revealed but a single pedestal, standing in the middle of the room. The room was dark, and only the pedestal was illuminated by a circle of light. Cantering over to it, Luna looked at the two objects that lay on it with a sad face. Lyra could see the tears forming in her mentors eyes, even through the indirect light of the single source of light.

As she got closer, she saw a lock of hair that seemed to belong to someponies tail, and a strange device. It looked like a metal pipe with a handle and a trigger attached to it. When Lyra wanted to reach out with her magic, to inspect it, a quick flash of magic struck her horn and caused her incredible pain. It happened all way to fast, for Luna to react. When Lyra stumbled back a few steps, she rushed to her friends side.

„Lyra! Are you OK? I'm so sorry, I should have warned you... That ray of light is a magical protection, that Zeo put up. It's also a preservation spell, that only he himself and I could penetrate.“, the Princess of the night explained franticly.

Lyra just waved a hoof, prodding her horn with the other. She winced a bit when she touched the little charred spot on it's tip, immediately relaxed when she noticed that her ability to use magic was not affected. So this was just a little slap on the hooves, if you wanted to get at whatever these two things were, without Zeos permission... Pretty effective, she had to admit. She on her part, had surely not desire to try again in the near future.

„So... why is it so important to preserve and protect these two objects anyway?“, Lyra inquired.

Lunas head dropped a little, before tears began to break free from her eyes.

„The hair is from our daughters tail. Zeo wanted to preserve it, as memento to her. The object is a weapon he build on the very day she was born. It is in there with it, since he was intending to use it on the Pony that poisoned me, as a revenge not only for me, but also for our dead daughter. It's dangerous so he put it in there, so nopony would accidentally trigger it and kill them self.“, Luna explained with a sigh. Hesitating a moment, she levitated the hair out of the barrier and held it close to her own muzzle, taking in the scent that had also been preserved for so long. The scent of a Pony that had never seen the light of her sisters sun, nor the beauty of her night, just because somepony thought it unfitting how she had been conceived....

Lyra stared at the pure black strand of hair, and the streak of midnight blue that ran through it. From the scent her nose was picking up, it was the hair of a female. Lyra could only assume, that had that Pony been allowed to live, she would have been beautiful indeed.

„Silk Light...“, Luna muttered.

„Pardon?“

„It was her name... We named our daughter for her burial, and since we wouldn't have been able to live with ourself, if we had buried her without a name....“, Luna explained tears rolling down her face, before she began her story...

Princess Celestias birthday celebration. Something that Luna and Zeo alike, did not look forward to, but there was just no avoiding it. They had already celebrated with Celestia in the kitchens, but the celebration that was planned for the nobles to congratulate the Princess of the sun, would be boring indeed.

„Do we really have to go?“, Luna whined, her pregnancy definitely showing. Being ten months along, didn't help her mood swings either.

„I am afraid so dear. If we don't go, Celestia might understand, but the nobles don't like our relationship as it is. If we don't go, then they will definitely make things harder on us, as they already are. But I think it might be OK if I went alone. I can always say you are not feeling well, if you really don't want to go.“, Zeo said, while stroking Lunas mane as she lay on the bed.

„And let you roam that party alone, so you can pick up some other mare? As if!“, she tried to growl, which was pretty hard for her since she enjoyed his stroking way too much. That was another thing that Zeo had to deal with these days. Luna had become incredibly jealous of other mares that were around him. Just to avoid any more ugly „accidents“ like the other day when he had asked a female guard, if she could run an errand for him, he had it arranged that all the guards around him were male. He had even gone to the length as to reroute the female guards and servants to an entirely different part of the castle, since he did not want to have to restrain Luna ever again.

A jealous Alicorn, with mood swings like a paranoid child, and an anger potential that exceeded everything he had ever seen, was serious if you were on the business end of her horn. The guards mare had barely survived the encounter, and most likely wouldn't have, if he had not interfered....

Half an hour later Zeo already regretted attending Celestias celebration. Shortly after he and Luna had entered the ball room, he had been separated from his wife by some Professors from the local school for magic. They were quite taken with him being able to use magic, and for quite some time now had they bugged him to participate in some experiments. Luna on the other hoof, was quickly encircled by lesser nobles that wanted to get back into her good graces... Ever since their wedding, the younger of the two sisters had turned a cold shoulder their way. Zeo could understand that quite well. They had not bothered to attend the wedding, and so Luna was now not bothering to see to their requests. Now both of them were stuck with annoying Ponies that wanted something from them, that they were not sure they wanted to give....

„So Mr. Zeo, how are your studies of medical magic coming along. I have heard that you are trying to find less harsh ways to heal internal injuries.“, a magenta coated mare with gray mane and tail asked.

„I am making quite some progress actually. And yeah.... I mean using a fire spell to burn out the inner wound, may be effective, but it is also dangerous. If you put too much strength into it, like that one case in the Canterlot general hospital the other day, your patient will be redistributed on the rooms walls. Further more does that create another injury, which can put the patient into a state of shock. I am sure I don't have to tell you that this can be lethal as well.“, Zeo explained a little annoyed.

„But you must admit, that invading ones body with strands of unrefined magic has it's risks as well.“, a stallion with red coat interjected.

„Yes it does, but the worst thing that could happen is that you damage the patients magical circuit. He or she would be rendered unable to use magic to the same degree as before, or be cut off from the mana all together, but isn't that still preferable to loosing ones life?“

„I am not too sure about that. A Unicorn without magic, or a Pegasus without the ability to walk on clouds... That could do much damage to the mental health.“, the mare threw in.

„Professor Candy is right. Loosing those abilities, might very well drive the patient insane. Isn't death the better option then?“, the stallion agreed.

Zeo sighed, letting his shoulders hang a bit. They just didn't understand. Medicine in Equestria was even worse then in the medieval times he had read about back home. Not to mention that the concept of therapy in any way was far beyond their understanding. Those few unlucky ones that were suffering from mental illnesses, he had been horrified to discover, were simply locked away or put down on the spot.

„Listen... I have explained to you already that the mind is not as fragile and beyond repair as you all make it out to be! With the right therapy and medication, maybe even applying magical means, can heal mental illnesses. And even if they cannot be completely healed, you can weaken the symptoms to a degree in which the patient can live a relatively normal life.“

„Are you sure? I mean... what would you do to a Pony that.... let's say... has hallucinations? You can't simply tell them they are not real.“, Professor Candy asked.

„Even those originate either in a chemical imbalance in the brain, which you could try to heal with magic, or in a trauma. The later you can attempt to heal with therapy that anchors the patient in reality. Such a treatment might be life long, but he or she could still live relatively normal. The way you are treating these Ponies right now however, is disgusting! I have seen one of your „Madhouses“.... The patients don't even have the opportunity to use a restroom, but have to relief themselves on the ground. The same ground by the way that they have to sleep on.“, Zeo was getting quite angry at this point.

„So? The cells are cleaned two times a week, which should be sufficient.“, the stallion huffed.

„And you seriously wonder why so many of your „patients“ die due to infections in minor cuts? I have seen those „cells“.... And that is another matter. Cells are for inmates in a prison, not for patients in a hospital so....“, Zeo was starting to unload on the two Ponies in front of him, when he felt an immense surge of magic.

Looking for it's source, he spotted a group of minor nobles that were slowly backing away from something. He could only assume that somepony had offended his emotional unstable wife. As politely as he could, Zeo excused himself from the two Professors and made his way through the crowd. As he heard Lunas scream of pain however, he stopped being considerate. Pushing Ponies out of his way left and right, he ran to her side. For some reason Lunas eyes were glowing white, while her body was enveloped by tendrils of black magic. Closing his eyes, Zeo inspected Lunas magical circuit. He could see that the tendrils were not only invading his wifes circuit, blocking the parts they invaded, but were also headed for their child.

Zeo put his hands on her flank, injecting his own magical tentacles into her body, halting the black ones at bay for the moment. It was a loosing battle, and he knew it.

„What happen? Someone get the damn royal physician!“, he shouted.

A young mare, one of the servants, ran off to get the doctor, while one of the nobles approached him and began to explain.

„Ehmm your highness... The Princess ate one of these....“, the noble pointed at a plate with melon Cupcakes, „.... and then she suddenly began to shake and these things came out of her body....“

Even without checking if there was magic in those Cupcakes, to see that there was something wrong with them. Instead of the light red filling that those usually had, the only one with a bite taken out of it, leaked a pure black liquid. Taking a quick smell, he noticed a sweet smell, and assumed that it would taste just as sweet, but it smelled nowhere close to melons....

That was when the doctor arrived with two nurses and four guards with a stretcher. Taking a step backwards, he let the Ponies do their work, all the time keeping a close eye on them. His wife had just been poisoned, and he did not trust any of them just now. Celestia had pushed her way through the crowd, and now stood next to the petrified Zeo.

„What... What happened to her?“, she asked with a quivering voice.

„Poison.“, Zeo said flatly.

„What?“

„You heard me Celestia. Somepony has poisoned my wife, who is also your sister. Red Steel!“, Zeo explained before calling out to his guard captain. The Earth pony staggered through the crowd, and he could see that his friend had obviously found the stronger stuff he himself had brewed. Without taking that into consideration, he barked out his order once Red Steel came into view.

„Steel! Luna has been poisoned! Lock the castle down!“

The Earth pony stopped staggering, and shook his head irritably before looking at Luna who was still on the ground. Nodding, and suddenly sober as one can be, Red Steel galloped of to fulfill his orders. Luna was put on the stretcher by that time, and carried of the hospital wing. The doctor turned to Zeo and shook his head.

„Prince... I am sorry to say that your wife has consumed Death root extract by the looks of it. That's what is in this pastry over there at least.“

„Will she make it?“, Zeo asked in a panic, before Celestia could get a word in.

„There is a problem your majesty.... Death root is used to abort pregnancies, and can make the mare barren if the doses is high enough. That seems to be the case here.... Prince... I need a decision from you.... I can safe her....“

„THEN DO SO!“, Zeo interrupted him.

„.... or the Foal...“, the doctor finished.

„.... You... You can't safe both?“, Celestia asked, looking worriedly at her brother in law.

„No your highness. It's either the Princess, or the Foal. Her circuit is already infected to much to do much else. If I safe her, then the connections to the Foal with be severed, and it will inevitably die. If I safe the Foal, then it will strain her body very much which will most likely result in her heart stopping... I am sorry your majesties... Your decision please... I have to start soon, or we will loose both.“, the doctor said in a sad tone, letting his head hang, not wanting to look them in the face.

„Safe her...“, Zeo said, tears starting to pour from his eyes.

„As you wish.“, the doctor responded, galloping of to the medical wing.

Celestia put a comforting wing around him, pulling him closer to herself.

„I will find them....“, Zeo muttered.

„We will find them.“, Celestia added.

„No... Celestia.... I will find them, and then I will kill them all. They will curse the day their fathers bucked their mothers.... I will whipe them out... I will...“, was all he could mumble, before Celestia hesitantly put a sleep spell on him. Had she not, he might have snapped in a ball room full of Ponies, and she wouldn't even be able blame him for it. Tears rolled down her own cheeks aswell, as she used her royal Canterlot voice to address all the Ponies in attendance.

„My little Ponies! This celebration is over! The royal solar guard and the royal night guard will soon come to interrogate each and every one of you. Please cooperate with them, and we can resolve this situation peacefully!“, she shouted.

„That is outrageous! I am an Earl! Why should I let you interrogate me?“, a white stallion with blond mane and tail shouted back.

„Because I will personally beat you into a dungeon cell if you DON'T cooperate!“, the usually so calm and collected Princess threatened.

At that point Luna broke out in uncontrollable tears, and collapsed into Lyras outstretched forelegs. For a very long time, the Alicorn was unable to say anything. It felt like hours for Lyra, who did her best to console her friend. It may have been over a thousand years, but some wounds never heal.... After Luna had composed herself, she stood up again and cleared her throat several times.

„Luna, you don't have to say more... It hurts you...“, Lyra pleaded.

„No... you need to know the rest...“, Luna exclaimed, wiping the last tears from her eyes.

„They extracted the Foal from me, using a teleportation spell.... which killed the Foal.... This kind of high level magic is dangerous to use on a newborn.... I hated Zeo for quite some time afterwards... I blamed him for his decision, and therefor for our daughters death. It almost drove us apart. You should have seen... the little one.... She was wonderful... A perfect Alicorn filly. Her coat was dark blue, her mane and tail were pure black, with one singe streak of midnight blue running through them... Her eyes were a different story.... The right one was green like mine, while the left one was brown like her fathers.... We buried her in the castle courtyard, wanting to have her close. After that Zeo buried himself in his research. He blamed me for nothing. It took me three years to realize that he took it way harder then I did.... He had made the decision.... He had beard that pain all alone.... I finally came around, and we talked about the matter. It saved not only our relationship, but also our sanity....“, Luna explained, before a lump in her throat rendered her unable to speak again.

A thousand years ago part 1

Chapter 9

A thousand years ago Part 1

Lyra was once again going through documents Luna had provided her with. She had no idea where she kept getting them. After all she herself had looked through most of the documents and notes in Zeos study. Most of them had been safe for fillies. No dangerous research, no personal notes and surely no notes on the night Nightmare Moon had first awakened. Seeing these notes on hypothetical dimensional travel, Lyra wondered if her mentor had maybe cleaned out everything she didn't want her to see. Even so she was pretty much fed up with her secrecy, she was much more curious of where this was going. After all, she had kinda promised Luna to see this through as well.

The documents on dimensional travel seemed to belong to a part of Zeos research, that had been abandoned. Some were simply notes of how the magic most likely saturated all worlds, and therefore made travel between them possible. Others listed similarities between the worlds for which he could not find a single explanation. There was the language for example. Zeo referred to Equestrian as English. From what she could make out that wasn't his native language either. Which was the reason why she was unable to make out some of the notes at first. Luna had been kind enough to cast a translation spell on them. Zeo stated that he believed there to be a direct link between his own world, and Equestria. Obviously he had looked for a way home and had wanted to invent a spell to do just that.

Lyra assumed that he had worked on this during the three years, that he and Luna had not talked to one another. Seeing as the notes seemed incomplete, he either had given up on that endeavor or Luna was trying to keep the results from her. The unicorn could not blame her mentor for this. Dimensional travel, especially to a world were magic was once common but is not anymore, could mean problems for Equestria should the traveler be discovered. What she found most interesting, was Zeos theory about the passing of time in Equestria. Apparently he had first had that idea after he had checked his cellphone over and over again. Every function related to tell the time seemed to work very slow, while all other functions seemed to be alright all together. Picking up another of his notebooks, a few pages fell out of it. Lyra picked them up with her magic, hoping to find further elaboration on his plan to go home.

What Lyra did not expect, was to find that the pages belonged to another brand of research entirely. Just the title alone gave it away. This research was about the Death root extract and it's effects.

Found some Zebras in the southern border lands. They have vast knowledge of poisons and herbs of all kinds. My travel there last week revealed to me that they are the equivalent to the African natives back home. They are.... But who am I to judge them. After all, we are in a world that's foundation is magic. However they are really quite amazing. The books Celestia has provided me with had quite some information on the topic, but none of them came even close to what they were able to tell me. They refer to it as "Demons Blood". According to them the insanity is not the only side effect. The wicked magic is sure to drive a magic user insane, but there are other effects. If the magic is somehow able to absorb a will for it's own, a very powerful and purely evil being can be born. Sadly this makes my research into the matter ever the more urgent. Luna has changed recently. She tries to hide it, but she can't fool me. Her appearance.....

The mint green Unicorn wanted to finish reading, but suddenly the notes were yanked out of her magical grasp. by a midnight blue hoof.

"Where did you find those?", Luna inquired, unable to hide her irritation completely.

"It was in one of the notebooks. Just fell out when I picked it up. So hoof it back here, if you don't mind, it's quite interesting.", she replied a little angry that her research had been interrupted.

"I am sorry Lyra, but this has nothing to do with what I wanted you to work on tonight." , her teacher chastised her.

" I don' even get why you want me to read about this. It's neither medical nor of any use. All I found are half baked theories at best."

"I wanted your opinion, if you see a chance to interrupt such a spell, or to nullify it.", Luna clarified coldly, as she sat down in front of the fireplace of Lyras own personal study.

"Interrupt it? Nullify it? I don't see why that would be so important, but yes it would actually quite easy. The theory states that it will only work if the caster has on object from the world he or she wanted to travel to. It has something to do with magic harmonics, but I don't really understand that part. If one where to take that object away, the spell would have no focus, so the magic would disperse. But why is that so important to you?" Lyra elaborated, a little proud of herself. She had not forgotten the other notes however and planned to see if she could find references n Zeos study later.

"It is possible that humans may discover this world. Their electricity acts much like our magic, so I thought we could maybe hinder them from coming here."

Lyra didn't buy it. From what she had learned, the two were entirely different forms of energy. And even if her mentor was telling the truth, so it was highly unlikeable that humans would be able to come here, using such a half baked spell as a layout. They would need something from Equestria and that they didn't have, as far as Lyra knew. Unless Zeo had actually succeeded. In that case they could have something,, which still didn't change the fact that they could not do magic. The slightly nervous smile Luna gave her didn't help ease her suspicions.

******

Three hours later

Luna had to hold court this night, so Lyra was able to do some independent study, or so she had thought. What she had not expected to find, when she returned to her study after getting some books, was Celestia laying on the carpet in front of her fireplace.

"Luna will not be able to interfere this time. It is important that you an I have a little chat. Alone." The sun princess stated without looking back at her. Instead her usually gentle expression, was now stern and fixed on the magical fire.

"Your highness, ehm.... I don't understand." The mint green Unicorn stammered.

"I am not going to beat around the bush. I am happy that Luna has found a friend in you, but I was against her taking you on as her student. I never wanted to deny that right to her but the topics she has you learn, are usually not meant for Pony kind. We agreed to that aft she had returned from the moon. Yet I see that she is doing it again. Tell me, what do you know about the second Nightmare Moon incident?", Celestias voice was cold, and almost emotionless. At the same time however Lyra had the impression that the princess feared what she would hear. Her whole body was tense, as if she prepared herself for action, that she hoped would never come.

"Well.... As far as I figured out from what Luna has told me, it was due to Starswhirl meddling with the mind-link spell. Why do you ask?"

"Did you not read Zeos notes I slipped in your work today? Didn't that give you a better idea of the matter?"

"I'm sorry, but Luna took them from me. Wait, you slipped them in there? Where did you find them, and why did you do that?"

Lyra put down the stack of books she had been carrying, and set herself on the sofa she had bought the day before. Either Celestia was uncomfortable that she was now on higher ground then herself, or wanted to make true to her position' but she stood up and placed herself on the sofa as well, so she could face Lyra.

"It is quite unfortunate that she has found out. I will have to fill you in myself then it seems. So tell me, what do you think happened to Starswhirl?”, the princess inquired.

“Well... I suppose his mind got fried when the mind-link spell went wrong.”, she stammered, not quite comfortable with the white Alicorns gaze on her.

“You have it partially right. He was quite a skilled Unicorn mage, and thought he could do better then Zeo. Zeo however had put in precautions in the weaving of the spell, to prevent the participants from being hurt. He did so after one of his experiments went wrong. Starswhirl removed those, thinking them useless. When he then performed it with Lunas mind as a host, the worst thing possible happened. His mind was drawn from his body, as he died and towards the Death roots magic. The two combined and overpowered Lunas own mind, locking her in that same mental prison she keeps that magic in nowadays. Starswhirls will got split from it when my own student, Twilight Sparkle, and her friends used the elements of harmony on her. After that the magic was harmless again, unless you count the strain on my sisters sanity. She was able to lock it back up again, so she has been mostly fine these days. I myself had to exile her to the moon, since I tried to save her AND him. I failed at that task. I could have saved either her or him, but I was simply too weak to make that decision. So I exiled her in the end, before she could defeat me. I don't know what Luna has told you about the reason she teaches you all of this, but I can only ask you to be very careful. My sister has a good reason, and I understand her feelings better then she can possibly imagine, but I don't want any harm to come either to you, nor to her. Do you understand Lyra?”, Celestia explained, tensing up once again.

Lyra thought for a moment. If Celestia thought it necessary to come and talk to her about it in private, she surely made it sound much more dangerous then she had imagined. The Unicorn trusted her mentor, but that didn't mean that a direct warning from Equestrias ruler was to be taken lightly.

“I do not know what this is all about, and I don't think you are going to tell me. Luna has a plan, that much I know. It has something to do with the magic that made Nightmare Moon, but I don't know much more. She had me promise to use the “purge” spell on her, should it overtake her.”

Celestia gasped.

“The purge spell? That would kill her!”, she exclaimed.

“I am aware of that your highness, but your sister seems set on trying it anyway. She told me, she wants to rid herself from it's corrupting influence once and for all. I think she wants to do it even if it would mean her own demise.”, Lyra explained hanging her head.

“That is more then foalish. You have to try to talk her out of it! It's not worth it!”, Celestia was not so regal now. In fact her eyes were full of terror and conflicting emotions.

“It is not my place to do so. From what I understand she plans on doing it soon, and I will assist her as good as I can. I am confident in my abilities, and I am sure I can do it. Even if my talent is not magic, but music, and it tires me greatly to use spells outside of my affinity, I think I still am a better choice then anypony that would attempt to hastily learn these spells.”, the mint green Unicorn said, avoiding Celestias gaze.

“What? You know it could mean her death, and you are still willing to do it? What kind of friend are you, willing to take that risk?”, Celestia accused.

“A very good one. A friend that is willing to bear the burden of killing a friend, if it means putting that friend out of her misery. A friend that is not afraid to help if asked to do so, even if it could possibly bring uncomfortable consequences.”, Lunas voice cut her sister off.

“Lulu?”, Celestia gasped, as her sisters voice came out of the shadows.

“You have been warned Celestia. I will not tolerate your interference in this, seeing as it is not a danger to Equestria this time.”, Lunas voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, and even Lyra was starting to feel a little scared. She had seen Luna angry before, but not to a degree that she used her magic to actually scare another pony.

Celestia jumped up from the sofa, and ran for the door. Before she could reach it however, shadows enveloped her from head to hoof. Lyra wanted to interfere, once she saw that Celestia began to struggle against the shadow magic that enveloped her, but it was too late. It slowly dragged the sun princess into the ground, making her disappear after only a few more seconds. Before her muzzle disappeared however, she glanced over to Lyra.

“Be.... careful....”, she stammered. Her voice was not worried for herself, but for Lyras sake...

Only a moment after princess Celestia had disappeared into the stone floor, Luna stepped out of the shadows snickering.

“What did you do to her Luna?”, Lyra accused instantly.

“Oh? Nothing really. You don't think I would harm my dear sister, now do you? It's nothing more then a light slap on the fetlock, don't worry, she is completely fine. I have send her back to new Canterlot, using my affinity with the dark. To be precise, I made her appear in Donut Joe's. She hates Donuts.”, Luna laughed.

Lyras muzzle stood open for a moment. Yes, sure the scene had certainly looked pretty bad, but she also knew that Celestia had much more magical power then her sister. Had she wanted to, she would surely have been able to overpower her.

“But why was she running then?”, she asked confused.

“Her affinity is light, mine is darkness. If my magic touches her, it is very uncomfortable for her. It also works the other way around by the way. It's not painful, but more like uncomfortable cold feeling for her, a hot one for me. I will most likely not hear the end of it for quite some time, but I just could not sit by. I have told Celestia time and time again, that she is not to meddle into my affairs.”, Luna answered, now having taken her sisters former place on the sofa.

“Besides, I could not let her banish you.”, she added.

Lyra was dumbstruck. Banish her? Why would Celestia want to banish her? She had done nothing wrong and was surely no threat to Equestria in any way. Her teacher began to chuckle.

“Don't worry. Had she done it, it wouldn't have been for long. I'd have gotten you back as soon as I had noticed. She is just a little overprotective of me. So, want to continue todays lesson?”, Luna asked nonchalantly. Lyras muzzle hang open, and she could not help but suddenly doubt her mentors sanity. Without waiting for Lyra to answer, Luna began to talk....

Zeo was working on a potion in the eighth floor of his personal study. That at least was what he had told Luna. In all reality he had started to make some more potent alcohol to drink. He did this a lot these days. Red Steel and the other members of the night guard covered for him, whenever he overdid it but even he knew that it could not go on like this. Usually they just hauled him over to the barracks when it happened, and hid him there. Nopony wanted to put up with an upset Princess Luna. She had been very distant these last three years, and had been found talking to herself more then once. Some of the night guards even swore they had seen an unknown pure black Alicorn in armor strolling the castle. Investigations on the matter had brought no results whatsoever.

A knock on the door, got Zeos attention.

“Come in.”

Red Steel entered the room, not pleased to smell the alcohol in the air.

“You at it again, lad?”, he asked in a disapproving tone.

“As if you don't like it yourself. Don't think I have not noticed the few barrels missing from my storage. So what can I do for you old friend? Want to actually ask me this time, before you take some of my Vodka?”, Zeo mused.

“Nah. Ah hav' much betta news for ya. We've found'em. Big shot this time. Sharp Blade will be there ah guess.”, he said.

“That's good news indeed. You know what to do. We'll get them this time. This time we won't let them escape. Have the Unicorn learned that spell yet?”

“Da antiteleport magic? Sure. Had dem work overtime ta do it. Dere will be no escape dis time. But Zeo... Ya want ta reconsider. Killing dem all will not bring back yer daughter.”, Red said, looking more then uncomfortable.

“Is that what you ask of me? Do you want me to spare them?”, Zeo asked, looking his longterm friend in the eye.

“If dey surrender, let'm be. Take'm prisoner. Da mines can always use more workers. Please do meh dat favor Zeo.”, Red Steel pleaded.

“I guess... I guess I can do that. But only because it is you Red. Had anypony else asked me, I would have denied the request, I hope you know that.”, Zeo said, gathering his things.

This night would hopefully put an end to the attacks on his wifes live. After that he could put his full attention to healing her. He already had the general idea on how to do it, but he still had to refine some of his skills. The method was not the problem... The resistance he was anticipating was what worried him.

Thirty minutes later

Zeo hid in a bush near a cave, at the base of mount Unicornia. At his feet lay a dead Earth pony mare he had killed just moments before. He had done it with his own hands, without the use of magic. He had never done that before, and it sickened him. Killing another living being was not in his nature. He wanted nothing more, then to get this over with.

He had strangled the mare, not to make to much noise or alert their targets with the use of magic like last time. Zeo had wanted to give her the chance to surrender, but at that point it had already been too late. Feeling her life and panic filled struggle under his hands, had been too much for him. But there was no changing what had been done. Other then he had seen the Ponies in his group do, he had not let her lifeless body slump to the ground. Instead he had put her to the ground gently. She had been just another mercenary. She knew what had risks that included...

Still, that didn't make it any easier for him what he had to do now. His troops had taken position around the cave, and would invoke the anti teleporting charm as soon as he entered the cave. He had ordered them not to follow him. Every pony that escaped from the cave was to be given the chance to surrender. If they did, they were to be brought to the mines in the south without trial. If they didn't, he had authorized on spot executions.

Turning around fast, he vomited as his stomach turned. Back home he had never had to do such things. Hell he had even refused military service. But now here he was, commanding a force of Ponies, intend to kill other Ponies.

Slowly he stepped out into the moonlight, and the anti teleport spell was put in place. The two Unicorns that stood at the entrance to the cave noticed him instantly. One of them ran back into the cave, while the other one charged him. The stallion was tried to envelop him with his magic, but it got absorbed by the gems he had attached to his coat. The stallion was dumbstruck, and tried again.

“Give up. Your magic won't work. Surrender now, and you will live.”, Zeo stated coldly. His voice held more confidence then he actually felt.

The stallion changed his tactics and started to charge at him. A quick lash from one of the magical strands that were now surrounding him, decapitated the poor stallion. Zeo could hear shouting and the clip clop of hooves approach from deeper inside the cave. More swiftly as anyone/pony would have anticipated, Zeo ran into the cave to meet the last of the rebels head on.

Red Steel watched as his friend charged into the cave. His heart sank as the screams of dying Ponies reached his ears, and the smell of blood filled his nose. To his surprise however, he had to find out that the screams didn't come from the direction of the cave at all. They came from the bushes all around him. When a Pony in black leather armor and a dark hood jumped at him, he knew for sure what was going on. He himself had done similar operations in the past. He jumped back as fast as he could, evading a short sword his opponent carried in his mouth. They had walked right into a trap.

“Well played Sharp Blade... Well played indeed....”, he mused, as he started to fight off his attacker. The two short blades attached to both of his front hooves, glinted in the moonlight as he shouted out orders.

“Keep da Unicorns safe! Somepony get ta Zeo! He has ta know 'bout dis!”, he shouted to nopony in particular when two more Assassins jumped at him from the shadows. He had quite the hard time to fight off three opponents at the same time. They were skilled, that much he could tell. Dodging a sword from the right, he jumped to the left only to be met with another blade. Breaking off both of his own blades, he used his front hooves to jump backwards against a tree. Mid-flight he bucked at the tree to gain speed. Planning to jump over his attackers to run to the cave and inform his friend, he saw a crossbow bolt out of the corner of his eye that came straight for his face....

Zeo fought against a seemingly never ending tide of Ponies. At first he had tried to make good of his word to Red and give them the chance to surrender, but that had soon become way to dangerous. Most of his anti magic gems were already used up, and he thrown them to get rid of the spell-casters in the rear lines. They were obviously smartening up. Had they just charged at him at the beginning, they were now trying to break through his defenses from afar. The problem was that they were doing a pretty good job at it. Three of his five shield spells had already collapsed due to the strain of bolts and other things hitting them. Not even his magical strands were doing him much good, since had to use those to defend himself from attacks that came from behind. Something was definitely wrong here. Red would never let anypony attack Zeo from behind. Something must have happened outside, but Zeo could not go outside to check without making himself vulnerable.

That alone was not the biggest problem however. Throwing spells left and right, while he continuously fed his last remaining two shields with magic, was taking his toll on him. Already could he feel that same burning sensation that he had felt that night over three years ago. His magical circuit would not be able to endure that punishment for much longer. When his fourth shield broke, he jumped into a side-tunnel. There was no getting through here. He had not anticipated so many opponents at all. Just who was behind all this? Who had enough money to hire that many mercenaries?

Panting like he had run a marathon, he fired one last spell against the ceiling of the runnel he had just entered. It collapsed with a loud bang, burying some Ponies who had tried to follow him under several tons of rock. Zeo was sure that they would need quite some time to clear that way again. Just in case they tried it with magic, Zeo placed his last three gems amongst the rubble. Would they try levitation, the gems would absorb the magic until they were full, and ultimately explode.

Already straining himself hard, Zeo dropped his defensive magic and the energy he got from it to open up a hole in the wall. After staggering inside, he collapsed the entrance behind himself, or that was the plan at least. With a blinding flash of light, a anthracite and gray colored Unicorn suddenly stood in front of him. He did not recognize the Pony, for he had been blinded by the teleportation. Just before he felt a slumber spell being placed upon him, Zeo knew that his friends outside had most likely been defeated.

Luna lay on the grass of the courtyard lawn. This had become one of her favorite past time activities lately. it was just so peaceful. It helped her to calm down. Lately there had been gaps in her memory, and she got angry and violent for no reason whatsoever. Even being with Zeo failed to comfort her these days. Her feelings for him had not changed as far as she knew, but his presence made her sad above everything else. The way he looked at her, when he thought she couldn't see him didn't help either. It was as if he was inspecting her like a wild animal that could strike at any second, rather then his beloved wife. Sure, they had not spent much time with each other until she had sought him out two weeks ago. All this time, all those years lost because he had chosen to safe her life. She blamed herself for it in the end. Zeo had made a very hard decision that had been harder on him, then it had been on her. There also were other things that she felt bad about. Cherry Punch, one of her few friends amongst the night guard, had told her that Zeo had stayed true to her all this time. She on the other hoof had entertained some relationships....

Just as Luna was about to fall into another depression about her own mistakes, something fell into the grass just a few hooves away from her. Looking upwards, she could barely make out the outline of a Pegasus speeding off into the distance. As her gaze fell upon whatever had fallen in front of her, her heart skipped a beat. There, barely breezing and a crossbow bolt sticking out of his neck, lay....

"Red Steel!", she screamed, running up to him. He was barely awake, and from the puddle of blood that already formed under him told her he would not make it.

"L... Luna.... Zeo...in...d...danger. It was a....", the dying stallion panted between coughs. Before he could finish what he had wanted to say, his body gave one final jerk and became limp.

Next to the now dead stallion Luna found a map that had a cave at the base of the mountain marked. It must have fallen out of Red Steels saddlebags....

Without thinking Luna spread her wings and took flight. Her husband was in danger. She had done him wrong in so many ways, and he had never stopped to look for those who were after her life. And now his loyalty and love had gotten into trouble.

Lyra face hoofed. Even she would have seen the situation for what it was. The rebels surely had dropped Red Steel there to lure Luna into a trap. Sure she would have gone as well, but not before getting each and ever available guard to help.

"You seriously fell for that?", she asked a little confused.

"In hindsight, I know i was stupid. But it was my beloved one that they had in their clutches. Had they made the demand for me to step down as a condition for his release, I would have done it. I was also feeling quite guilty... You see... I had some lovers in the time Zeo and I avoided each other. Of course he knew about it, and it was mostly me avoiding him... I was feeling guilty, and I wanted nothing more then to help him then. I wanted to make up for all that I had put him through....", her mentor explained, a pained expression on her face.

Zeo came to slowly. His head hurt pretty bad and even before he opened his eyes he could feel that he was chained up against a wall, and his magic had been sealed. As his eyes opened slowly, he looked into the grinning face of a yellow coated Earth pony mare with amber mane and tail. Her cold gray eyes gave away her excitement.

"So you are Sharp Blade I suppose?", he asked as calmly as he could.

"Oh I see my old teacher has mentioned me, creature. Well... he won't mention anything anymore after tonight.", the mare responded, her grin never leaving her face.

"What have you done to him?Where are Red and the others?"

"Let's just say he and your other "Night guards" now finally have the peace they always wanted.", she chuckled.

Zeo slumped against the wall again. All of those he had brought with him... dead... It was hell on his conscience.

"And soon all of this will finally be over. Then Equestria can finally grow and flourish under one single ruler.", a new voice spoke up. Zeo closed his eyes. He knew this voice. Over the last few months he had heard it almost on a daily basis. He had trusted this Pony, and even informed her of his actions and tactics tonight. Having been a commander during the war he had thought she could give him some pointers...

"Platinum... So you merely spied on me, didn't you?", he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Of course you silly creature. Luna and Celestia were born in my kingdom. Imagine the shock when I found out that there was a Pegasus born, in the Unicorn Republic! Celestia was originally a Unicorn. She should rule alone. That way, even if nopony really sees it that way, we Unicorns have won the war of the races after all.”, she explained in a dry tone.

His eyes still closed, Zeo shook his head.

“You know... there has been racism where I come from as well. You know, it didn't end well. The guy who did it, shot himself in the end, because he was too afraid of what he would have to face if he was captured. I can promise you however, that you will not have that kind of mercy, Platinum. Once I get out of here, I will show you that it is a bad idea to get on my bad side. You will curse the day your father bucked your mother. What I will do to you, will be spoken off for generations to come.”, Zeo said, his voice burning with barely suppressed rage.

“Don't make me laugh, creature. We have already sent a message to your oh so dear wife. Once she has swallowed the bait, and comes here, it will all be over.”, Sharp Blade taunted.

Zeos head sank to his chest. He knew that Luna was in a state of emotional turmoil right now. She was not able to think straight. If she was to somehow find out about this, then she would not get reinforcements. She would likely come alone. The thought alone sickened him. He wanted to do something, alas with his magic sealed he was unable to do anything.

“AAAAhhrrrrrgggg....”

The scream made Zeos head jerk up in surprise. His eyes shot open, to see two Pegasi in heavy armor that lay against the far wall of the room he was in. Platinum and Sharp Blade seemed to be at least equally stunned. Then a torrent of flame burst through the only entrance to the room. More screams reached Zeos ears, as the smell of burnt flesh reached his nose. Soon afterwards, everything was silent yet again. Only the slow clip clop of hooves could be heard in the distance.

“Go see what's going on.”, Platinum ordered, obviously not so sure about her plans anymore. Sharp Blade nodded, and galloped out into the tunnel. Her dagger was in her mouth before she reached the door.

Luna trotted slowly through the caves tunnels. The Ponies here had tried to attack her, but she had defended herself. Many of them were dead now. She did not know how she had done it exactly. One moment she saw several spells coming her way, the next she stood in a tunnel whichs walls had been burned. All over the place Ponies lay motionless, while there was little more then ash left from others. At that moment, she didn't care. All that mattered was that she HAD succeeded in defending herself. It was then that she heard hoof steps coming closer and closer.

She did not stop her advance. Her mind was blank except for one thought, and that was that she had to safe her husband. A yellow coated mare with amber mane and tail came running towards her. The dagger in her muzzle was ready to strike as she jumped Luna. Again Lunas vision blurred as if she was fainting. The next thing she knew, was that she stood over the body of the mare, one of her front legs crushing her skull. Revolted, she drew her hoof back and inspected it for a moment, before she heard a cry of pain from deeper within the cave. Her hooves started a gallop even before she could order them to do just that....

Zeo was bleeding. Platinum was afraid and tried to push that fear of death away, by torturing him. Her magic was not very strong, but she was skilled with it. The tiniest hit, even if it did not come with much force behind it, caused a great amount of pain. Already was he panting. His friends were dead. He would soon join them, and if Luna met with Platinum, who was much better at magic then her, then it would all be over. He had failed not only his friends, but also his wife and his daughter... He was worthless....

The door slammed open and a panting Luna entered the room. Without any hesitation she grabbed Platinum, who was obviously surprised that she had made it this far, with her magic and threw her against a wall. She then approached her bleeding husband, who was also panting heavily. Each breath seemed to be labored, and he was fighting just to stay awake. Lovingly the Alicorn removed the chains that bound him, and undid the seal that held his magic in check. For what seemed like an eternity to her, Luna held her husband in her hooves and cried.

A gray blast of magic threw Luna off balance, causing her to drop Zeo and hitting her head on a rock, knocking her out. Zeo, who was still fighting not to faint from the pain that had been inflicted on him, saw Platinum approach.

“Well... That was easier then I had thought it would be. I think Celestia will need someone to confine in soon, and who better then me, who has been with her for so long? Now all that is left is to dispose of you two. In fact, I must thank you before I do. That you took out all these mercenaries for me, really saved me some time. Wouldn't have wanted to leave loose ends, now would I....?”, Platinum monologued, when something caught her eye. Before she could react however, something that looked like a pure black feeler smashed fight into her and knocked her back several hooves. That was when Zeo finally gave in to the blackness....

When he came too, he was laying on the grass of the castle lawn. It was still night, and that just could not be. Carefully he struggled to his knees. Checking the clock on the highest tower of the castle, he found his fears confirmed. It was already eight in the morning.... The sun should have been up hours ago, not to mention that he had absolutely no idea how he had gotten here. Suddenly he heard voices from nearby, and crawled towards them. He needed medical attention, that much was more then obvious. Zeo just hoped that whoever it was, would be a friend rather then a foe. In the latter case, he would not live to find out why the sun was not yet up.

As he approached, he saw two Alicorns standing in front of each other. One was Celestia, her Pink mane moving in an non-existing breeze. The other one he did not recognize at first. It was pure black, wearing light blue armor. It was not until he saw the eyes of that second Alicorn, that he realized that it was Luna. Rummaging through his pockets, his cellphone fell to the ground. While picking it up, he hit the record button by mistake, just to stop the recording almost at once. His fingers trembling, Zeo worked himself to his feet and mustered all his remaining strength. What he had feared for so long, had finally happened. He had to get to his study and get “it”, if it was not too late already....

Lyra stared into the eyes of her teacher, but Luna did not say another word.

“What? That's it? What did he go to get? What happened then? Luna, come on, I wanna know!”, she pleaded.

“I'll tell you tomorrow. For tonight I think you should get some rest, and I need to set the moon for Tia.”, the midnight blue Alicorn explained. The two of them said good night to each other after that, even so Lyra was still a little irritated by the way Lunas story had ended. Not only that, but Celestias warning also was still fresh in her mind.... Why would she tell her to be careful?

After deciding she would sleep in her study tonight, Lyra turned in for the night. Even so many things were on her mind, she was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.....

Half an hour later

Lyra was tossing and turning in her sleep. A nightmare was torturing the Unicorn. A nightmare about the events that transpired a thousand years ago. She kept seeing Nightmare Moon attacking and eventually killing Zeo.... That was when a pale blue light crawled into the bedroom of her study from under the door. It almost looked like some kind of mist, but also as if it were alive.... It raised up as if it was looking around, before it enveloped Lyras horn. The Unicorn instantly stopped wriggling around in her bed, and her breathing became much more relaxed.

Pony-eating darkness

Chapter 11

Pony-eating darkness

Lyra lay in her bed, oblivious to the pale blue mist that was connected to her horn like a sucking leech. Her body lay in the bed, her mind however was a thousand years in the past. She found herself running through cold and dark hallways towards a gold-rimmed double door.

Her hands reached out, shoving the doors open without stopping. Lyra felt the impact of the doors on her palms. It was painful do to her speed. Something was very urgent. She had to get somewhere very fast, even so she knew not where. Her whole body was aching from being close to an arcane burnout. She had been close once in the past, but not THIS close. Her circuit felt as if it was on fire, while her muscles strained on each an every step. But... something was off. She was walking on two... feet?

Lyra started to come to her senses. She could feel, see and hear everything, yet she could not interfere with anything. Even the angle she saw was beyond her control. Being unable to shift her eyes, was disturbing on more then one level. Finally she got her bearings and realized where she was. She was running through the archives. Soon she burst through the door to the technology section. It looked a little different f!om what she knew, but the three doors on the far end of the room were what gave it away. She assumed that she was seeing through Zeos eyes right now. How this could be, she did not know. Searching her own memories, she remembered going to sleep. Was this a dream? If it was, then it was surely a vivid one. She could not remember ever having such a lively one before. Was Luna using the mind-link-spell on her while she was asleep? But if that was the case, then why did she see everything from a humans perspective?

Again shifting her attention to the images before her eyes, she saw two hands, one of them badly burnt, rummaging through the drawers of a cabinet. Each time the digits on the right hand moved, Lyra could feel the pain of high grade burn wounds.

Finally the left one shot out of the drawer again, putting something small and almost transparent away before she could get a good glimpse at it. Shortly after the right hand emerged as well, pulling out another object. It was a red gemstone, and as soon as the fingers closed around it, all the pain and exhaustion she felt subsided, like a candle that was blown out.

Again her vision shifted. Running down the stairs to the first floor of Zeos study and out into the archives. Zeo was running so fast, that Lyra got a little dizzy. The hallways of the old castle were unfamiliar to her, but Zeo navigated them , with the ease she would have found her way around her parents home. Suddenly she was standing in the courtyard, looking at Princess Celestia who lay on the ground, while Nightmare Moon was towering over her.

Lashing her right hand forward a whip of pale blue magic shot towards Nightmare Moon. She evaded it with ease, but had to leave Celestias side to do so. Thinking about it, Lyra thought that that had been exactly Zeos intention.

To her dismay, Lyra was unable to listen to the conversation that followed this. She heard their words, but did not understand a single one of them. One thing however was perfectly clear, and that was that Zeo said something that made the eyes of the dark mare widen in surprise. He had obviously told her something she had not thought he knew.

Not much more talking followed this, because Zeos tone of voice became aggressive. Even so Lyra had not understood a single word, she suddenly felt cold all over. She had only been this afraid once, and that had been in the actual presence of a Timberwolf.

Lyra could feel how her body tensed up, ready to fight if it had to. She had hoped it would not come to this, but then it happened. Zeo crouched down, grabbed Celestia and teleported her away. Meanwhile Nightmare Moon advanced on him, shooting blows of midnight blue magic at him. He reflected those with his outstretched hand, and Lyra could not help but be impressed. After Celestia was brought to safety, Lyra closely observed the fight that took place.

The time for talking seemed over. Zeo clenched his right fist, causing his knuckles to become white. He walked towards her slowly, to meet her in the middle of the courtyard. His left hand disappeared in a pocket of his coat, drawing out a transparent gemstone, that was wrapped into some hair. As soon as Nightmare Moon saw it, she began to retreat backwards. As he still did not halt his approach, she lashed out at him. Lyra saw a midnight blue whip appear in mid- air and hit Zeo straight in the face. He caught his glasses before they could shatter on the ground, but blood was dripping from his face nonetheless. Nightmare Moon had drawn first blood.

Lyra could feel how Zeo jumped forwards, trying to get a grip of Nightmare Moon as he did so. The dark Alicorn however, evaded his attempt of contact with ease and took flight. From her higher vantage point, she began to fire spells at him, that Zeo had to run away from. She was unable to shift her gaze, unless her host did so, so she could not tell what happened all around her. All she could make out, where the sounds of crumpling stones and explosions behind her.

Zeo put his hand onto his chest, while running, and a pale blue light enveloped him, lifting him into the air. Lyra recognized a levitation spell. It would not actually make him fly, but enable him to pursue the dark mare wherever she decided to fly.

The now airborne combatants hovered for a moment, before Nightmare Moon turned and tried to make a run for it. She was fast, but Zeo was even faster, as he fired a blast spell from his left hand. The movement that followed was far from the graceful flight that his opponent was showing, but it did the job. Just about in the middle of Canterlot he managed to tackle the surprised Alicorn to the ground again.

From the words she hissed, Lyra could make out that she had to foreseen that he could actually catch up with her. She shot a fire spell in his direction, but he dodged it, causing the multi-story building behind him to be set aflame. Ponies came running into the street now, all of them looking at the two combatants. When they saw that one of the buildings was on fire however, their attention was soon directed elsewhere.

Zeo retaliated her earlier attack with five magical strands, one coming out of each of the fingers of his left hand. He was obviously not willing to use more lethal spells, but tried to restrain her instead. One of the strands curled around one of Nightmare Moons forelegs, and she tried frantically to remove it. Zeo on the other hand, jumped upwards, igniting two jets of white hot flame beneath his feet to give himself more momentum as he climbed into the air, dragging Nightmare Moon with himself. Then, when his flames died down, he turned mid-air, and did the same again, gaining speed towards the ground this time. Nightmare Moon hissed something again, but Lyra still didn't understand the language she spoke.

Just before Zeo would have hit the ground, he used levitation again, to slow down his fall, whipping the strand that held Nightmare Moon to the ground as hard as he could, slamming her into a fountain in the middle of town-square. From all around them Lyra could now see Ponies fleeing the scene. Nightmare Moon got up, relatively unhurt by the impact, and charged at Zeo, throwing spells of different kinds at him as she went.

Some of those, he dodged, others he took head on, to shield Ponies in the street or building behind himself. As Nightmare Moon had closed the distance, her horn buried itself deep into Zeos shoulder. He tried to grab it with his hand, but with a flash of midnight blue light, the Alicorn had teleported out of his reach. Strangely enough, Lyra did not feel any pain from the wound, and neither seemed Zeo. His stance never faltered, nor did his following movements show any signs that he even knew that he had been severely wounded.

The two charged at each other again, throwing spells at each other in a dizzying speed. Some hit their marks, while others were either dodged or deflected. The city around them was burning at this point and Ponies were screaming for help, or in pain. It was hard for Lyra to listen to this. Why didn't he try to take the fight somewhere else? This was a densely populated city! A fight between two magic users was a disaster like no other.

Finally Nightmare Moon took to the air again, and Zeo pursued her with his levitation magic. Just as he got close enough to grab her, she suddenly turned in mid-air and bucked at him with what Lyra supposed was her full strength. Zeo began to plummet to the ground, but was able to get two more spells to hit Nightmare Moon. One she recognized as a silencer, which was a spell that temporarily robbed Unicorns of their magic. The other was a magical strand that wrapped around her foreleg once again. He dragged her to the ground with him, only barely able to wrap himself into a shield spell before he impacted in the asphalt. The dark Alicorn didn't seem to know such spells. She hit the ground full force, and was struggling to get to her hooves this time. Before she could, Zeo was on his feet again, unharmed by the long and hard fall. He raised his left hand, that still clutched the red gemstone, and pale blue bindings came out of the ground, all around Nightmare Moon. She was silenced for a short while, and she was unable to move. For all meaning of the words, she was at Zeos mercy at that moment. Instead of doing whatever he had brought the transparent gemstone however, the two of them began to talk.

Again she could hear the words, but she couldn't make sense of them. They sounded vaguely familiar, but they didn't even resemble ancient Equestrian in the slightest.

Lyra couldn't feel any pain, but it was obvious that Zeo was exhausted. A small clicking sound could be heard as Zeo opened his right hand involuntarily. Lyra could feel that the gem he had clutched had slipped out of his grasp. As soon as it parted contact with his skin, she screamed out in her mind. The pain that suddenly flooded her mind was barely bearable.

Zeo was no better off it seemed. He began to stagger as he grabbed Nightmare Moons horn with his now free right hand.

"....you are...kill...AGAIN!", Nightmare Moon screamed at the top of her lungs, and this time Lyra understood the words, for this time they were speaking Equestrian.

"You are... already dead...", he said between pained breaths.

Lyra could feel that he had gone way past his limits. The gem must have been some kind of magical suppressor, so he did not feel his body protesting. The next thing she saw, was a gigantic flash of midnight blue light and then.... blackness....

Lyra shot up in her bed, a cold sweat dampening her sheets. It was almost as if she had gone through the ordeal she had just dreamed off herself. What was this anyway? It was too vivid to have been just a dream... But what was it then? Had she just witnessed Zeos death? If that was the case, then how could she have seen it?

She doubted that it had been real, but could not help to think even higher of him now. He had never stopped to look for a cure for Luna. The Death-root magic had no will right now, and was therefore almost harmless. Who had been her will at the time? Zeo seemed to know who it had been. Had he succeeded in extracting her will from Luna? If so, then what had happened to it? If he had done it, then how had he died? Had Nightmare Moon managed to get one final spell out before he had finished? Nothing made sense anymore. The weirdest part was, that she was thinking about this "dream" this hard. After a few more minutes of wrecking her brains, Lyra lay back down again and tried to sleep....

Morning came all to fast for the mint green Unicorn. Only three hours had passed since she had awoken from her earlier dream when somepony, that she assumed to be her mentor, shook her awake. Lyra was not too pleased by this, since she had went to bed pretty late as it was, and only about five hours of sleep just didn't cut it for her.

She swatted at the offending pair of hooves with one of her own, trying to get Luna to stop shaking her. To her surprise however, it was a little fillies voice that she heard as her hoof struck something solid. It was accompanied by a high pitched scream of pain, that jolted Lyra awake in an instant.

As she looked down on herself, she saw a small Alicorn filly sit on the bed next to her, and clutching her head. Tears were forming in the corners of the fillies mismatched eyes. The right one was of the same green as Lunas, while the other was brown in color. Her coat looked a little dirty, and her feathers ruffled. Her dark blue coat, pure black mane and tail with only a streak of midnight blue running through it, made Lyra recognize the filly at once.

"Silk... Light?", she asked in disbelief, to which the filly nodded, and drew away from her a bit.

Lyra wrapped her forelegs around the crying filly and pulled her close. She had helped Pinkie Pie with the cake twins more then once, so she knew how to console a foal. After a few moments of stroking the fillies mane, she finally calmed down and stopped trying to get away from Lyra again.

"So Silk... what brings a supposedly dead Alicorn Princess into my bedroom?", she asked jokingly.

"I... I... Why did you hit me?", the filly stammered.

"I thought you were Luna, and were trying to wake me up for some more lessons. I would never intentionally hit her either, but it's hard to aim with your eyes closed.", she responded, sticking her tongue out at the little filly. Lyra did not know what to make of this. Silk Light was supposed to be dead for over a thousand years, just like her father. How could she be here then? Was it possible that she was still dreaming? If so, then why did all of this feel so real? She could even smell the slight scent of ash and sweat, that emanated from the filly in her hooves...

"I wanted to see if you hate me too...", Silk Light muttered barely above a whisper.

"Hate you? Why would I hate such a cute and sweet little filly?"

"But even mom and dad hate me... They always try to get rid of me...", the filly began to cry again.

"Shhhhhh.... It's alright. I'm sure they don't hate you. Your mother was crying just as you are now when she told me about your death..."

"But then... then why don't they want me to live?"

Before Lyra could answer this time, the door to her bedroom burst open. At first the Unicorn didn't see what had caused it, since she saw only blackness. Was her study that dark? No. She had left the fire in the fireplace going, so there should be some kind of illumination. The darkness was caused by something else... Something way more sinister.

A wall of thick black liquid oozed into the room, and black tentacles formed and aimed for the filly in Lyras hooves. As she realized this, the mint green musician sprang off of her bed, with the filly still in her forelegs. Silk struggled and screamed in fear, but Lyra didn't let go of her.

"If this is a dream, I will never eat another banana-walnut muffin before I go to bed." she thought to herself, as she cast the containment spell Luna had her learn. Since she needed all her concentration for this, Silk was able to struggle free of her hooves and hide behind her, while shivering in fear.

It seemed to work, since a mint green fore-field erected itself around the blob of blackness. Just as Lyra wanted to sigh in relief, she had to struggle to maintain the spell. The thing grew bigger and bigger, the more strength she used to hold it contained. The bigger it grew, the stronger it pressed against it's bindings, until the field finally shattered like glas...

Panting, Lyra fell back a few more steps until she felt that she was already pressing Silk against the wall with her plot.

"Horse-apples!", she screamed, and began to chuck the furniture of the room at her attacker.

The effect she had desired however, never came. The damn thing didn't flinch, or slow down in any way. Instead a tentacle shot straight for her. With nowhere to run, Lyra made herself as big as possible to shield the still shivering filly.

SMACK

The impact on her face felt as if she had decided to stop a train with it. She was knocked back against the wall, and only barely avoided crushing the filly behind her. Lyra felt dizzy as she got up again, but she had to try. That thing blocked the doorway, which was the only way out of the room. Putting Silk on her back, Lyra started to channel the phase-shifting spell. To her surprise, it worked like a charm. As soon as she has her own and the fillies frequency in sync, she rushed towards the other side of her bedroom, passing through her own bed as she did so. Her plan was to phase through the wall and into the bathroom of her study. She did not want to attempt shifting through the attacking blob, since she had just realized why it had grown so fast while she had tried to contain it. It had absorbed the magic she had poured into the fore-field, and strengthend itself with it.

Just as she reached the wall where her dresser stood, she was knocked into the far wall once again, hitting it head first this time. She could feel the filly tumbling to the ground as her spell fizzled away on contact with one of the things tentacles, that had lashed out at her. The would-be escapee Unicorn lay on the remains of her nightstand, unable to get up. Several bones in her body seemed to have broken from this last attack, while she was barely clinging to consciousness...

The last thing she saw, was one of the tentacles grabbing the kicking and screaming filly by one of her hind-legs. Lyra tried to reach out to the filly, but could not ,move anymore. The horrific screams subsided, as Lyra was enveloped in blackness...

Desperation

A nightly guardian

Chapter 11

Desperation

Luna sat by Lyras bedside in the hospital wing of the castle. Several tubes were running in and out of the Unicorns body, supplying her with all the nutrients she needed, while removing the waste products. It had been Luna who had found her three days ago. She had wanted to tell her the final part of Zeos story, even so she knew that it might have had dire consequences. Had her student refused to do, what she would have asked of her, her last chance would have been gone....

The Princess of the night had walked into Lyras bedroom, a little surprised that the Unicorn was not yet up and barraging her with questions. From the moment on she had set a hoof into her study, she had felt uncomfortably nervous, even so she could see nothing wrong with the place. At the time, she had chalked it up to fears about her students reaction to her terrible secret. Once she had opened the bedroom door however, she had been stopped in her tracks by shock. The room was a mess. Drawers stood open, the dresser on the right side of the room had been smashed to pieces, and the bed was nothing more then a pile of wood. Between all the debris, the Alicorn saw a mint green and white streak stick out from under what had once been the dresser. Without hesitation, she used her telekinesis, throwing debris left and right until she had dug up Lyra. Her student and friend was barely breathing, and blood flowed from her muzzle with each breath. She had immediately put her onto her back, and galloped back to the exit of the archives. Once she was back in the library again, she ignored the shocked looks on Lyras fathers face, and teleported to the hospital wing....

There she had stayed for the last three days and two nights, without leaving Lyras side even once. All the while the younger of Equestrias ruler was crying her heart out. The accusatory looks her students family had given her, didn't help one bit either. Her father was surely blaming her for what had happened to his daughter, while her mother couldn't bring herself to even speak to the Princess. Luna felt a wing on her shoulder and looked up. It was Celestia, trying desperately to comfort her.

“Have the results come in yet? Will she be alright?”, Luna asked hopefully, for what seemed like the millionth time.

“No, dear sister. The doctors seem to be at their wits end. They have tried everything they can, but not only is something preventing her wounds to close, but they say she would not survive the surgery that she would need. Several of her inner organs are injured, while several of her ribs are broken. Not to mention her right foreleg.... I am sorry dear sister, but they said it is highly unlikely that she will wake up again....”, Celestia whispered in a comforting tone, a tear running down her cheek.

“It's all my fault... I can't explain it, but this is my fault! Had I not insisted on trying again, after what happened to Starswhirl...”

“Shh... it's not your fault Luna. You have tried to do what you thought was right, and I supported you in any way I could...”, Celestia began to say, but her sister interrupted her.

“No! You have not helped me in EVERY way you can.... He would... he could safe her....”, Luna began to shout, but broke out into sobs again.

Celestia knew exactly what her sister was getting at. She had, so far, refused to help Luna with much more then looking for students, or covering up any mishaps that happened during the training of those, she deemed worthy. She had been afraid that, should the procedure fail, Equestria could loose both Princesses, but she just could not watch her little Ponies succumb to this any longer. She had two options in this predicament. She could either banish Luna to the moon once again, or....

“I have neglected my duties as your sister it seems... I will help you, if you so wish.”, Celestia sighed in defeat.

Luna could not believe her ears. For years she had begged her sister to reconsider on the matter, and now she was the one offering it out of her free will. Celestia had been the first one, to learn any of Zeos spells, under Lunas instruction, but had chickened out in the last moment. The younger sister struggled to regain a modicum of composure, before nodding. She threw a final look back at Lyra, who would not live for very long anymore, if the doctors were right...

“It will all be alright... I will fix this... my friend...”, she whispered, almost only to herself, as the two of them walked out of the hospital wing and straight into the archives.

Half an hour later

The royal sisters stood in front of the door to Zeos study, considering what they were about to do for a final time, in case one of them wanted to back out of it.

“I wonder Luna... Why has your student never ask why I didn't do it instead of her?”

“I lied to her... Told her Alicorns could not do it. But in fact, I have performed many more sins, and I have much more blood on my hooves then I like to admit. This little lie... is nothing compared to the atrocities I have performed over the years....”, Luna responded, her head hanging low.

“I am sure she will understand, and you are not completely to blame for everything that has happened over the years. I could have stopped you at any time I wanted, but I did not, for I know how important this is to you. I can not imagine how it must feel...”, she trailed off, looking at the door in front of them.

The pair exchanged a look, then both nodded their agreement. They both knew that, if this failed, Equestria would most likely fall. Celestia had, without Lunas knowledge, sent a letter to Twilight Sparkle in which she ordered her to gather the elements of harmony. Ever since the incident with Discord, the necklaces resided in Pony-ville, with their respective bearers.

“Should this decision bite my flank off, at least there will still be hope for Equestria as a whole...”, she thought to herself as she walked alongside Luna into Zeos study.

******

Doody was sitting by his daughters bed, holding one of her hooves in both of his own. He had once read that comatose patients felt it when somepony touched them... His hopes about getting his daughter back however, were lost the moment he had spoken to the doctor responsible for Lyras treatment...

“What do you mean you can't help her? This is the royal hospital for Celestias sake!”, he had shouted at the young yellow coated mare, with a pink mane and tail.

“I...I... uhm, I'm sorry. The treatment does not seem to be working and.. ehm... it might be better if she didn't wake up...”, the mare told him timidly.

“What is that supposed to mean?”, he had growled at her in anger, to which the mare, that called herself Fluttershy, shrank back a few steps.

“Ehm... I.. ehm...”, she had stuttered, until one of the older doctors had intervened, obviously unable to take the mistreatment of his younger co-worker any longer.

“Mr. Heartstrings, what doctor Fluttershy is trying to say is, that we can not do anything for your daughter at the moment. If she were to wake up, she would only be in immense pain, and I can not see you wanting that, now do you? All that keeps her alive right now is her will to survive, and the machines we have attached to her body. If either of that fails... well... I think it better if you stop shouting at the Ponies that actually do their best to help, and go to see your daughter. I don't know how long she still has...”, the elderly brown stallion with gray mane and tail had told him, in a comforting tone.

******

Celestia and Luna walked right past all the stuff in the main room of the study. The comfy couch and all the devices on a nearby table were all but ignored. Their goal was the door at the far end of the room, on the left side of the fireplace.

As Luna opened it carefully, Celestia saw that this room had not been cleaned up like the main room. The floor was covered in a thick layer of dust, in which she could see several hoof-prints. They all ended at a specific point in the room. She could now tell where her sister had been all those times she had been unable to find her...

“You have slept here, haven't you Luna?”, she asked in a tone that only asked for a confirmation.

Luna simply nodded, following the path through the dust to a blanket and pillow that lay on the ground where the bed had once been. All that was left of the once beautiful four-poster was dust and some of it's gold-rim. Next to these stood a statue that was as big as Celestia herself, surrounded by whirling pale blue and pure black magic. It was a statue that perfectly resembled her brother in law. His face showed a shocked expression, his long leather coat, now made out of stone, seemed frozen in a non-existent breeze. Both of his hands clutched something, and Celestia was reminded of that fateful night over a thousand years ago, when he had tried to free Luna from Nightmare Moon once and for all....

“Luna, you DO know that this is risky, don't you?”, she asked, still hoping her sister would reconsider.

“I know, but I have to try. Lyra tried to help me, and now look at her. If I can safe her life by doing this with you, then so be it!”, Luna responded, never taking her eyes of the statue of her husband.

“I will not be able to help you, once we have started this Luna. I will only act as a relay, and will therefor be unable to intervene in the fight that is sure to come. Are you sure you can take her on?”

“I am, this time more then ever before. Besides... I trust him.”, she smiled with determination and longing in her eyes.

Celestia sighed and began to intone the spell, once Luna had given her the go ahead. Her horn began to glow in an intense golden light, and her eyes shone brighter then the sun, illuminating the whole room. Slowly but steadily the object in the statues left hand began to phase through the cold stone that was holding it. As soon as her magic made contact with it, Celestia could feel the sinister magic and will of the original Nightmare Moon. With a quick use of telekinesis she grabbed her sisters prosthetic horn, and removed it at exactly the spot where it had been broken off so long ago.

Luna winced as her sister began to cut off her horn, but she tried to stay as still as the statue in front of her. This pain would ultimately lead into her friend being saved, her being rid of Nightmare Moons influence, her getting finally getting rid of the Death-root magic inside of her and....

She saw her original horn float to her forehead at a steady pace. The pale blue magic that came from the statue tried to pull it back into it's grasp, but Luna could see that her sister would have none of it. Each time the pale blue magic tried to envelop the horn, Celestia would overpower it with her own magic. This didn't even slow it down....

The moment the horn was attached to her forehead again, Luna could feel her original powers return to her. It began to heal in the fraction of a second, and she was once again a full Alicorn. Not only a Pegasus with a crippled horn.... But she could already feel it. Nightmare Moon had already noticed that it had been reattached, so she could not waste any time now....

Celestia panted heavily. Reattaching a horn that had been separated for that long should have been impossible , but Zeos spells had made it possible. The upside to the magic of Nightmare Moon residing in it, had been that the horn was still as fresh as it had been on the day it was broken off. The downside was that the hardest part was yet to come, and she did not know if she had it in her to channel another one of his spells after only such a short time of rest.... But she had to try, once Luna had done her part in this...

Luna struggled, stomping her hooves on the dusty floor, having her eyes closed and shaking her head violently. It was hard to concentrate all of a sudden. If this went on much longer, she would not be able to do what she had come here to do. With a tremendous effort, she shoved the whispers at the back of her mind aside, and started to use the last remainder of Nightmare Moons magic, that she had held present in the horn. Her will however, was already attacking her mind once again...

The white Alicorn settled onto the dusty floor, since this could take a while. She was already exhausted, and wanted to safe up every bit of strength she had left. Suddenly, her sisters eyes began to glow with a silver light, that showed her that she was intoning a spell with her Alicorn magic. Soon a brilliant burst of silvery light burst forth from her horn, and shot directly at the statue. The stone began to crack in places, and the swirling pale blue magic seemed to rip off the parts that where breaking. Soon she would have to hold her promise to her sister....

******

Zeo slowly came to. He lay on a dusty floor of a room that seemed both familiar and unknown to him. His body hurt all over, and he raised his right hand to see that it still held a transparent gemstone. The hair he had wrapped around it, however had withered away...

It came all back to him, when he heard a familiar voice call out to him. He looked up and saw Luna, black magic whirling around her, while she seemed to struggle against an invisible enemy. In the far corner of the room sat Celestia, her horn aglow with her own magic, ready to cast a spell.

“Zeo!”, he heard her shout.

“Celestia! You foolish mares! Why did you let her do this?”, he raised himself up to his feet. His knees were a little unsteady, and he felt a headache coming on that was stronger then the worst hangover he had ever had, but that didn't stop him from glaring at the ruler of all of Equestria with anger.

“There is no time for this! Are you ready for a mind-link?”, she asked, shaking her head.

“Mind-link? ARE YOU MAD? It'll kill her!”, he growled, steadying himself by leaning against the wall. He wanted nothing more then to go over to his wife and hug her, but at the same time he wanted to slap her for her stupidity. Usually Zeo would have never harmed Luna, but this was just too much...

“There is no TIME! Are you ready or not?”, Celestia asked again, a tone or urgency in her voice.

Zeo nodded, and pointed his left hand at Luna to intone the spell, but Celestia never gave him the chance to complete it. Instead he felt himself being pulled out of his body, and right into Celestias mind. He was wondering what the meaning of this was, when Celestia pushed his mind out of her head, and towards Luna. Then he understood.

“You clever mare.... You clever, clever mare... Spreading the strain of interspecies mind-link between the two parties and a relay... brilliant!”, he thought to himself as he began to enter Lunas mind.

******

Luna flew through the gigantic library that was her mind, Nightmare Moon hot on her heels. While she had used the counter-spell for the imprisoning-spell the dark Alicorn had used against her husband so long ago, it had ceased the opportunity to break open the doors behind which the Deathroot-magic had been sealed. After absorbing it, Nightmare Moon was once again stronger then her. Bolts of pure black magic struck left and right of her, as her dark counterpart tried to ground her.

“Stop this running, and submit yourself to me! This time there is no human that will save you in the last minute!”, Nightmare Moon laughed.

“I WONT'T GIVE IN TO YOU AGAIN!”, Luna screamed, turning herself onto her back mid-flight, returning the fire with her own magic. All of her attacks struck true, and the dark Alicorn was knocked out of the air, landing in one of the enormous book-shelfs.

“Did I get her?”, Luna wondered hovering and watching the cloud of dust that rose up from the place, where Nightmare Moon had landed.

Suddenly, the dust moved into a different direction, and Luna knew what was coming. She tried to brace herself, but it was too late. Nightmare Moon dashed out of the cloud at amazing speeds, and tackled right into her. The two of them exchanged blows with their hooves and horns, while plummeting to the ground. By the time they did, Nightmare Moon was on top, holding Lunas legs down with her own hooves.

“Looks like this is it “Princess””, the dark Alicorn laughed. Lunas attacks on her had barely left a scratch on her opponent, while she herself was breathing hard and found it impossible to free herself from her grasp. If Nightmare Moon killed her here, she would have free reign over her body, and nopony would be able to wrestle that away from her again, since it would be hers then...

Luna closed her eyes, awaiting the final blow that would end her existence. Why wasn't Zeo coming? Had his circuit not regenerated since he had been imprisoned? It was a possibility, but most books she had read told her that it should have... Did he maybe not want to help her?

At that moment Nightmare Moon screamed in terror and the weight was lifted off of Lunas legs. Her eyes snapped open in an instant, as she saw her opponent enveloped in pale blue strands of magic. They lifted her up, while she struggled against them. A few meters behind Nightmare Moon, stood a figure Luna knew only too well, and had missed greatly over the last millennium.

“ZEO!”, she shouted out in glee as she galloped towards him. He however rose his free right hand to stop her. His expression was a mixture of joy and utter fury.

“We will talk about this later Luna. You have ALOT to explain. Just pray that the plan I made up works, or you'll be a widow this time...”, he snarled before he disappeared with Nightmare Moon in tow...

******

Celestia could feel that Luna was loosing her struggle with Nightmare Moon, since her magic got weaker and weaker, but she could not help her. She could only hope that her brother in law would be able to do it, while tears continued to run down her face. Suddenly her eyes snapped open. The spell had been broken! For a moment she wondered if her concentration had wavered enough to make her drop it, without intending to, but she found that this was not the case. Instead she could see Luna stumble a few steps, before falling unconscious.

Celestia rushed to her side, checking carefully for any traces of Nightmare Moon as she went. In Luna, she could find none... Zeo however...

She looked over to her brother in law that was slumped against the wall he had been leaning against. Again pale blue magic began to course around him, like it was battling the pure black magic that was now coming from his body as well. In an instant she knew what had happened. Zeo had extracted Nightmare Moon from Luna and taken her back to his own mind with him...

The white Alicorn dragged Luna over to the pillow and blanket her sister had used, when she had spent the nights here. She looked so peaceful as she slept. Celestia could not help but smile. For the first time in over a millennium, her little sister would not be plagued by nightmares, for Nightmare Moon, and her Death-Root-magic had finally left Luna. She threw a worried glance over to Zeo, whom she would have liked to place next to her sister, but did not dare to do so.

She was feeling weak and useless as she watched her brother in law doing everything he could to safe his wife, while she was spent and unable to assist him in his mental battle with Nightmare Moon...

******

Nightmare Moon trotted through the darkness that was all around her. She was not scared, far from it since darkness was her element. Still, it was a little unnerving. Usually she would be able to control the darkness and shadows, but this darkness refused to listen to her commands....

Just as she was wondering where she was, a voice sounded from the shadows around her, and a small portion of her surroundings got illuminated by a spotlight.

“So I guess I got you where I wanted you. The question now is, what I should do with you now that you are here.”, a male voice spoke up that she knew all too well. Looking around she saw the owner of it step out of the darkness and into the light.

“I don't want to do this.”, she said, holding the stare of the man that now made his way towards her.

“Neither do I, dear. But... I must wonder... You tried to kill me back then, and now you are having second thoughts? I only survived by sheer luck since your spell was incomplete, and imprisoned me instead. Had you finished it, we wouldn't be having this talk right now.”, he said, still coming closer.

Nightmare Moon took a few steps backwards, knowing that he was right.

“You left me no choice. You would have killed me! I saved your life back in that cave, don't you remember? Why would you betray me like this?”, Nightmare Moon stammered, trying to avoid his gaze.

“Dear... You were going easy on me the entire fight. Had you gone all out I wouldn't have been able to ground you, even if I was in top form. And I think you know perfectly well why I had to do it then, and have to do it now. The way you are now, you are a danger to Equestria. As much as I was delighted at my discovery, that it was you, I was also very sad. You should finally get your peace, not be the corrupted and power hungry thing that you are now.”, he sighed, taking off his glasses and rubbing the scar that she had inflicted on him so long ago.

It hurt Nightmare Moon to hear him say these words. Part of her wanted to agree with him, while another one wanted to crush him where he stood. It was an equal match, but the later eventually won...

“Then you leave me no choice! Remember that I'm doing this simply out of self defense!”, she screamed, while charging at him. Zeo was ready, not even attempting to block her blows, but redirecting them instead, so she simply hit the ground behind him.

While sidestepping another one of her frontal charges, five magical strands shoot from Zeos left hand. Trying to wrap them around her neck, he didn't see her mane start to act differently. The moment he was sure he would be able to get a hold on her, it lashed out, knocking him back to the edge of the illuminated area. Before he was able to stand up again, his eyes fell upon six spell-bolts that were coming for him.

Unable to dodge them he took them head on, creating a shield spell to protect him from the worst of the damage. Explosion after explosion Zeo had to recreate his shields in rapid succession. The dust they created, obscured his vision momentarily, hiding his opponent from his sight. Being more experienced then his wife, he knew what was coming from the start and was prepared for it. One especially long and thin strand formed at the top of his left index finger, as he awaited an attack. He was not disappointed, for Nightmare Moon tried to jump at him from the side.

Raising his left hand, he met her charge with his ultra thin strand. Knowing that she could take serious damage from this, the dark mare tried to evade it. To her credit, she almost managed it but it still grazed her face, leaving a deep cut behind. Instead of blood coming forth however, the color of her coat changed at this particular spot. Instead of black, it turned a dark blue.

“You may hide under illusions, now that you have lost contact to Lunas powers for shape-shifting, but I still recognize you.”, Zeo panted as he stepped out of the dust cloud.

Another strand formed at the tip of his right index finger, and he started to use them like whips, bringing then down on every part of his opponent that he could reach. They did not seem to hurt her in the slightest. She did not cry out in pain, each time she was hit, but ran from them nevertheless. Each time they cut into her body, another part of her fell away like black slime, only to evaporate on the floor. Her coat was now almost completely blue. All that remained were some dark spots on her coat, her waving magical mane and tail and those turquoise draconian eyes...

Nightmare Moon stood at the very edge of the spotlight, trying to escape into the darkness beyond, but found a barrier that prevented her from doing so.

“You really think I would bring you into my head, without taking precautions? You must really think that I'm an idiot.”, Zeo snickerd, but it could not have been more evident that he was not enjoying this. With a quick flick of both of his hands, he created a strand on each and every one of his fingers, forming a tight net out of them above Nightmare Moon.

“Don't do it!”, the black and blue Alicorn cried out.

“I have to. You deserve your peace.”, he said, a tear running down his cheek.

In the moment the net came crushing down on her, Nightmare Moon closed her eyes. A single tear began to run down her face as well at the realization that she could not hold back any longer, if she wanted to live. Just nanoseconds before the first strand made contact with her mane, she teleported out of it's reach, and came out just above Zeo. The surprised look on his face told her, that he had not anticipated this. A quick flash of her horn later, and a gigantic pillar of dark flames raced towards him. He raised his arms and one more shield-spell. It held, but the flames drove him back against the barrier he had created to act as their little arena.

Soon enough the shield-spell failed him, and Zeo was enveloped in her dark flames. Just before they would have killed him, Nightmare Moon interrupted her spell and floated down to the now barely conscious Zeo. She landed right in front of him, as one of his magical strands, shot up from one of his hands, slashing her right across the eyes. It caused her to close them for a second, before she could look down at him again. He lay there, breathing heavily. His coat was nothing more then a burnt mess, and the shirt he had worn was completely gone, as was his short black hair. All the skin her flames had been in contact with, had been burnt away, and the flesh beneath was sizzling as if it was being cooked.

Nightmare Moon knew that this damage was only present on the spiritual level, but it still hurt her to see him like this. Her eyes began to tear up, and she already regretted having done this, even so it had been in self defense...

“Why do you hate me so?”, she asked, keeping her eyes closed once more.

“I.... don't.... hate you.”, he pressed out between pained breaths.

She opened her eyes, showing him their mismatched colors for the first time. One was turquoise, while the other was brown like his own.

“Then please don't make me do this, dad!”, she cried while tears ran down her beautiful face.

Redemption

A nightly Guardian

Chapter 12

Redemption

“Then please don't make me do this, dad!”, Silk Light cried, watching her father struggle to stay awake after what she had done to him.

“You are... like your mother.... You never listen...”, he chuckled, coughing while he did so. Her flames had obviously burnt some portion of his spirit bodies lungs.

“Listen... You can still live dad. Just drop this barrier and reunite with the rest of your mind, and you can heal yourself.”, she pleaded with him.

“As if... You are not yet... at peace...”

“You still wanna kill me?”

“As I said... you never listen.... I said peace... not death...”, Zeos voice was getting weaker by the second, and Silk knew that she had won the fight. She did not feel any happiness from that realization. What did her father mean? She was just so confused. For the first time since she had come into existence, there were barely any voices at the back of her mind, telling her what to do...

Could THAT be it? She looked down on herself. Only her flank, where her cutie-mark should have been, a few small spots on her coat and her mane and tail were still full of Death-Root-magic.... The strands her father had used against her, could have easily cut her to pieces, yet they did not. Instead they had ripped her from almost all the magic, that had kept her alive in the first years of her existence. However... she was now able to push the few voices that remained away, and think for herself, for the first time....

“What do you mean?”, she asked timidly.

“Peace... Not death... I want your mind to be finally at peace....”, he whispered in response. Silk had to lean in to understand it, and even then she could barely make out the words.

“My... mind?”, now she finally understood what this was all about. A thousand years ago her father had tried to extract her will, and her will only, from her mothers body. He would have left the Death-Root-magic behind, to extract that later....

The weight of what she had done suddenly crashed down on her, and she fell to her knees. The Death-Root did certainly refuse to be dispelled. It began to whisper to her harder then any time before, as she struggled to keep her own free will....

“He's lying!”, it whispered softly

“He's my father!”, she screamed back.

“They never wanted you...”

“I'm not sure about that anymore!”

“He attacked you, didn't he?”, it asked sarcastically.

“Yes... But he didn't hurt me. He just dispelled the illusions I cast on myself, and destroyed you!”, the teenage Alicorn responded dimidly.

“He's useless.... He is not even of your own kind! Why would he want you as his child?”, it whispered, a tone of amusement in it's soft voice.

Zeo watched his daughter struggle on the ground in front of him. She had her eyes closed, and for the first time he saw actual hope, that his plan was working. The few dark spots on her coat, that he had missed, were trying to expand, but each time they did they were pushed back again.

“That's my girl.”, he thought proudly to himself.

Then, the unthinkable happened. Her mane and tail began to envelop the body of his daughter, and he could hear her scream from within. The Death-Root was obviously not giving up that easily. As long as she had given in to it's corruption, it had lent her it's power, but now that she was fighting it, it turned against her.

Zeo dropped the barrier all around them without hesitation. A library even bigger then the one in Lunas mind swam into view. The great difference however was, that this one was much less organized. Books lay scattered everywhere, while strange devices were lined up on the walls. As soon as it was fully illuminated, Zeo could feel his strength return to him. His spiritual body was healing fast, and he could already breath much easier again. With a great effort, and still not completely healed wounds, Zeo threw himself into the black sphere that now held his daughter.

Silk Light was enveloped by darkness. She could only feel bone chilling cold, that threatened to freeze her very heart. Even so she was unable to see anything in this void of never ending sadness and rage, she heard voices. The voices of Ponies that had hated her. Ponies that fled at the mere mentioning of her name....

“No... It was not MY name... I''m not... I'm not Nightmare.... Moon...”, she cried into the darkness.

She saw the city of Canterlot burn all around her. Ponies that fled when they saw her. Ponies that burnt in her dark flames. She would make them pay for all the pain she had to endure, for all the time she had been unable to roam free. They would all suffer for her murder.

“I.... I...”, she stammered to herself, unable to fight these feelings and memories. They were here own. Not much in her mind was her own, but these were part of who she was. Silk spread her wings and tried to fly away from all the horrible scenes she saw. She just wanted to get away from here... She just wanted to get her.... peace....

But it was no use. The Death-Root was still too strong. What was even worse was, that she now realized that even her massive amount of knowledge about magic had not been her own. It had all come from the wretched poison that had almost killed her mother, and forced her father into a decision he had regretted up to this day. It began to overpower her once again, transforming her body into that of Nightmare Moon...

But then she felt something. Silk opened her eyes, seeing her father had jumped into the darkness with her, embracing her neck and holding on as good as he could without hurting her. The darkness tried to rip him away from her but he did not let go. It tore at his limbs, ripping out one of his legs, it whipped at him with strands of shadows, but he didn't react to any of that in any way. All he did, was holding her as tightly as he could, looking directly into her mismatched eyes.

“Silk...”, he whispered.

“My... my name is Nigh....”, she wanted to shout, but with a last effort of her TRUE self, Silk Light pushed that thought, and the remainder of the Death-Root off of herself.

“MY NAME IS SILK LIGHT! NOT NIGHTMARE MOON!”, she screamed as the magic that had twisted her thoughts for so long fell from her and evaporated on the floor. The moment it did, she looked at her fathers face again. He was smiling, with tears of pride in his eyes. She wanted to say something, to apologize for all the things she had done. Not only for those she had done to him, but for what she had put all of Equestria through. But then, she spotted it... A spear, made out of shadows, was stuck in her fathers back. Even the energy he got from the reunification with the rest of his mind, didn't give him enough strength to heal himself.

“No....No!No!No!No!No!”, she cried, her voice quivering.

Zeo did not respond, he just went on smiling, before he closed his eyes, knowing he might never open them again. But that was OK with him. If that would come to pass, he would at least have died while he protected what was dear to him. He was fine with that.

Silk gently placed her father on the floor. The only thing that was keeping his spiritual self alive right now, was the mind that was it's home. It could not provide enough strength to heal him however. An idea struck her. No longer restrained by her fathers barrier, Silk flew off and searched every shelf in the vast library.

******

Celestia could not believe it. There was not a single trace of Nightmare Moon left in Zeo. Instead she felt another presence inside of him. It was a presence that she had never felt before, but it felt strangely familiar.

But even if she had been an Earth Pony, and therefor unable to sense this new presence, she would have noticed that something was up. The black magic had completely disappeared. The pale blue one, was getting weaker, but it was now encircled by a light pink glow that seemed to feed it. Small strands of magic extended from the pink magical clouds, and connected themselves to the pale blue ones. Since they were the ones that vanished after a while, Celestia deducted that they were giving up all their energy, so the pale blue magic did not vanish completely.

The white Alicorn did not fully understand what was going on, but she knew that this pale blue magic was Zeos. Without hesitation Celestia used her remaining magic to intone a spell, that would do the same thing, the pale pink magic was doing. She was unable to help her brother in law directly, but she would not let him die. If she had to give up some of her magic for that goal, then this was how it had to be.

Golden clouds of magic formed around Zeo, connecting themselves directly to his body, and began to force feed him with Alicorn magic. As she did that, one of the pink clouds broke away from the bunch, flying off without her noticing it.

******

Doody sat by his daughters bed, still holding her hoof. His wife had a nervous breakdown this morning, and had been unable to come to their daughters side. Even without the heart-rate-monitor that stood next to Lyras bed, her father could tell that she was getting weaker by the second. A scream from the hallway drew his attention to it, the door burst open, and before he had fully turned around, a pink cloud of magic came flying into the room. It enveloped his daughter, and pushed him away. He wanted to get rid of it with his own magic, but found that his horn was silenced for some reason...

The instant the pink cloud sank into his daughters body, her eyes snapped open. The heart-rate-monitor showed that her pulse was getting faster, and her blood-pressure was raising again. She looked at him with a stern look on her face, as he wanted to embrace her.

“There is no time for this. I have to go dad. A friend needs my help.”, she said, as her horn began to glow and she phase-shifted through the bed and the floor below.

******

Twilight Sparkle and her friends had arrived at the hospital wing of Canterlot castle, to pick up Fluttershy. She had brought her friends element of harmony, and was wondering what the Princess wanted them to do with them. There was no threat she knew of, and Celestia had not mentioned anything in her letter, only that it was urgent and that it could not wait.

Just as the five of them were making their way to Fluttershys office, a pink cloud of magic flew past them. It threw over chairs, cupboards and everything else in it's wake. Even some Ponies were knocked off of their hooves. Twilight recognized it for what it was, even so not even the stunned doctors ,that looked after it, seemed to realize what it was.

“Regeneration magic...”, she muttered.

As fast as she could she galloped after it. Her friends were hot on her heels, thinking that this could be the threat they had been summoned here to deal with. She came to a stop just outside of Lyras room and was just in time, to see the mint green Unicorn disappear into the floor.

******

Luna slowly regained consciousness. The first thing she noticed was, that she was covered by her blanket, and her head rested on her own pillow. Had all this been just a dream? No. She opened her eyes to see her sister, with her wings spread and concentrating hard, pouring energy into a collapsed figure that was leaned against the wall. Luna sprang to her hooves as she recognized him.

“Zeo!”, she shouted, and wanted to go to his side, but Celestia stopped her.

“Don't Luna. He is dying. Something has happened and he has beaten Nightmare Moon, but now there is another presence instead of her. I can't tell who it is, but it is definitely trying to safe him. At this rate however, I don't think it will be successful.”, Celestia explained, tears running down her cheeks.

Luna looked back and forth between her husband, and her sister. He had ripped Nightmare Moon out of her, and pulled her into his own mind, to wrestle with her there. He had saved and cured her at last, and now he was dying as a reward for his actions. It was the same as back then, when he had saved her life during their very first meeting. He had saved her then, and his reward had been that he had never been able to see his friends and family again. Now he had saved her again, and his reward this time, would be death.

She just could not take it anymore. Without thinking, Luna took up a position next to her sister. At first Celestia thought she wanted to help strengthen her husband, but she couldn't have been more wrong. Instead Luna intoned the mind-link-spell and rushed to the aid of whomever was currently keeping her husband alive. It would be a strain on her, but her regained Alicorn powers might just be enough for her to survive it without a relay.

******

Silk had found what she was looking for. The phase-shifting-spell and the theory of magical strands manipulation. Instead of reading the books, she absorbed them by making them part of her spiritual form. In an instant she knew everything there was to know about the two subjects, and even so she now possessed everything she needed to safe her father, she still began to cry. The realization struck her. She was not powerful enough in her current state. Not at least if she continued feeding her father her own magic to replenish his own supplies. But if she stopped that, he would die in a matter of seconds....

“Who are you?”, a voice from behind her called out.

As Silk turned around, to face the newcomer, she spotted her mother hovering not ten hooves behind her. She was in an upright position, a frown on her face and her forelegs crossed. Her mother was obviously not amused to find her here, nor did she recognize her. Silk tried to back away, intimidated by the sight of the older Alicorn, but Luna didn't give her the chance. Her face softened, as she spoke again.

“Look, I do not know who you are, but I am grateful that you are trying to help my husband. Is there any way I can assist you? What happened to Nightmare Moon?”, Luna asked much friendlier then before.

“I.... My name.... My name is Silk Light. I was Nightmare Moon.”, Silk stammered, avoiding her mothers gaze.

“Silk....Light?”, Lunas eyes widened in realization. Of course! The Death-Root-magic needed a will to act. There had been nopony else that had died in her vicinity, other then daughter. It all made sense now. The strange feeling she had when looking at that mare, the feeling of knowing her, but yet not knowing her. Also the strange reluctance of Nightmare Moon to use her powers to their full extent back in that fight Zeo in the old capital... The hesitation to wipe her from existence, and simply locking her away in her own mind....

With a sudden rush, Luna tackled her daughter, knocking over some of the book-shelfs in the impact. At first Silk thought her mother was attacking her, until she felt the tears that were dampening her fur.

“I am so sorry... I am so sorry!”, Luna cried into her daughters chest.

“It is OK. It was not your fault that I died, I realize that now. I realize that I have put you and dad through much. It is me who is sorry, mom.”, she cried, while returning the hug her mother gave her.

“But we must help dad. He won't make it much longer, at this rate.”, she pushed Luna away from herself.

“What has happened to him?”

“He has freed me from most of the Death-Root, but in it's final struggle for my will, it pierced him with a shadow spear. In the physical world he would be dead by now. Here that thing is not making him bleed out in a literal sense. Instead it makes his magic seep out of him drop by drop. As soon as it's gone, he will die. It drains faster and faster, and even so I can feel that aunt Celestia is trying to help, she is actually making it worse. She does it too fast, and too direct. I have no means of telling her that though.”, Silk elaborated, while the two midnight blue Alicorns made their way to were Zeo lay.

******

Lyra burst into a gallop as soon as she had entered the archives. She had to get to Zeos study. She did not know what awaited her, but the voice of the filly that had visited her in her dream, was still reverberating through her mind.

“You must come to my fathers bedroom. I need your help!”, it had said.

Behind herself she could see that the double doors opened once again, and six Ponies came galloping after her. She recognized Twilight Sparkle and her friends. Lyra came to a screeching halt, waiting for them to catch up.

“Lyra, what is this all about?”, the lavender Unicorn asked in confusion.

“I don't know exactly Twilight, I just know where we are needed.”

“Then what are we waiting for? If there is some big bad that needs a kick in the flank again, then let's do it!”, Rainbow Dash shouted enthusiastically.

“It's not that. There is somepony that needs help down here, and if my suspicions are correct, then the elements of harmony are exactly what we need.”, Lyra explained.

“Whatever do you mean darling?”, Rarity interjected.

Lyra took a deep breath and started to explain, even faster then her friend Pinkie Pie had ever done.

“Luna was poisoned over a thousand years ago because the Ponies back then did not agree with a diarchy and because she had married a human. The only human that had ever come to Equestria. They had a foal together but due to the poison that foal died before it was even born. It also changed Luna into Nightmare Moon some years later. I have had a visit from said foal in one of my dreams lately and I am positive that it was the genuine article since what came to get the foal was what ended me up in the hospital wing. Now that same foal has called out to me to come and help and I will not abandon her.”

All six Ponies in front of her, had their muzzles stand open. Even Pinkie Pie was more then impressed. Shaking of what had just happened, the bearers of the elements of harmony followed Lyra to the technology section of the archives and three big doors at the far end of it. The middle one stood open, and they rushed in without a second thought.

Lyra remembered that her mentor and friend had told to never go into Zeos bedroom. The door to that particular room however, stood wide open now.

******

Luna and Silk tried to remove the spear from Zeos spiritual body, but had little success.... It just didn't budge, and even the phase-shifting-spell didn't work on the spiritual plane. Silk had reduced it's mass however, by slashing the parts that sticked out of her father to bits with her magical strands. The parts that fell to the ground, evaporated immediately. She had read about this in her father mind. His magical circuit was not compatible with the Death-Root, so it died when it came it into contact with it without a host.

“Why doesn't this work?”, Luna asked her daughter.

“We are on the spiritual plane, and I can't get a good frequency reading from him. I guess he could push it off himself, like I did in the end, but he is not strong enough for that anymore. We would need something to separate him from it, so it will be destroyed at contact with his circuit.”, Silk elaborated.

“Only the elements could do that. I will go and get them as quickly as I can. You hold out here Silk, I will NOT let you die again.”, Luna said, tears in her eyes as she hugged her again. In the blink of an eye she was gone from Zeos mind.

******

Luna felt herself regaining control of her own body. She had a terrible headache, but that was to be expected. Just as she wanted to turn to her sister however, to tell her they would need the elements of harmony, she was stopped in her tracks. Lyra, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack and Pinkie Pie were looking at her with great concern.

“You don't know how good your timing is.”, she chuckled.

“Ehm, ah don't wanna sound rude or anythin' but what exactly is that?”, Applejack pointed a hoof at Zeo.

“That Applejack, is a human.”, Lyra said proudly, sticking her chest out.

“A human? I was thinking you were talking a lot of nonsense up there, but if that is actually a human then....”, Twilight looked at Luna.

“Yes. He is my husband.”, the Princess admitted.

“That's.... something.”, Rarity added. She looked a little sick at the prospect of interspecies relationships.

“Look girls, there is no time to waste. I see you have the elements with you. Use them, right now! Use them on him.”, Luna commanded.

The friends looked at each other, and then at Princess Celestia.

“You heard her. My sister has the same authority as myself, so you don't have to seek confirmation from me.”, Celestia snapped, without taking her eyes off of her brother in law.

The six shrugged. They did not know why they had to use the elements of harmony on Lunas husband, but they assumed they had their reasons. With their usual formation, they began to use the elements. A giant beam, made of twin rainbows, shot from Twilights crown and hit Zeo.

******

Silk could feel it. Some very strong magic was being used against her fathers body. All of her magical clouds that were keeping him alive had been overpowered, but she was delighted to see that her mothers plan seemed to be working. Slowly, but gradually the remains of the spear that had impaled her father, came out of his back until it fell fell to the ground. It did not evaporate however. Instead it formed tentacles out of it's remaining mass and clung itself onto Silk once again.

She screamed in terror.

******

“Something is wrong.”, Twilight said.

“What do you mean Twilight Sparkle?”, Luna inquired.

“There is some dark magic inside of him, but I can't get a fix on it. It jumps from one mind to another. Why does he even have two?”

Lyra did not understand what was happening, but she knew that she could help. The bearers were busy using the elements, and the Princesses looked quite groggy themselves. It had to be her. Charging up a bit of magic in her horn, she intoned the mind-link-spell.

******

“Help! Father! Somepony! Help!”, Silk screamed, as she tried to get rid of the tentacles that slowly spread across her left foreleg.

“You called?”, a new voice came from directly in front of her. A mint green Unicorn stood there, smiling brightly. It was her mothers student, whom she had hurt, and whom she had safed.

“Can you help me get these things off of me?”, she pleaded.

Lyra looked at the tentacles for a second and her grin grew even wider. This was more then an easy job for her after all the months of training with Luna, and getting medical lessons. Her horn glowed and a mint green aura enveloped the tentacles, effectively pulling them off of Silk. When they tried to grab her this time, her grin grew impossibly wide.

“Payback time buddy.”, she said as she intoned the purging spell. In a flash of blinding flames, the tentacles evaporated into nothingness. At the same time Lyra could feel herself being forced from the humans body by the elements of harmony. It was not a pleasant sensation, but she welcomed it. She knew that a prolonged mind-link-spell could have killed her....

******

Back in her own body, Lyra watched as the twin rainbows circled around Zeos body. She knew the deed had been done and grinned. Suddenly Twilight moaned in what seemed to be sexual arousing...

One of the rainbows broke away from Zeo and started to form a small tornado for itself. As the elements finally stopped working, their bearers fell to the ground and fainted instantaneously. The strain of using the elements for this long had been to much for them.

Luna looked over to the bearers of the elements of harmony, who lay unconscious on the dusty floor. They had deserved themselves a good long rest. The only thing that made her wonder was,what had happened to her daughter....

Then she heard a moaning from where the second rainbow had broken free to. As the Princesses eyes fell upon that spot, she could hardly believe them. In the debris that had once been a cupboard full of different tools lay her daughter. Unconscious, yes, but alive.

A thousand years ago part 2

A nightly guardian

Chapter 13

A thousand years ago part 2

Celestia, Luna, Zeo, Silk Light and Lyra Heartstrings sat at a table on one of Canterlot castles many balconies. They were having breakfast together, like they did every morning ever since that fateful day when Nightmare Moon had finally been destroyed, Zeo freed from his unjustified imprisonment and Silk Light had finally been born into this world. It had been two months since then, and the newly reunited couple had not wasted any time. Luna was pregnant once again, and the doctors were confident that the foal would be alright. She knew it would be, but she just didn't want to take any chances....

“So what will you do now Zeo?”, Celestia asked, taking a bite of her salad.

“Well isn't it obvious? I destroyed all of research into defensive and offensive magic. Now I can concentrate on my medical research again.”, he said with a chuckle.

“I think Celestia meant what you plan to do about the other Ponies. Some of them seemed pretty shocked when we revealed you to them yesterday.”, Luna clarified with a smirk.

Zeo frowned. The Ponies from a thousand years ago had welcomed him with open arms/forelegs, while the ones of the present era showed mixed emotions. Some of them had even fled the scene in terror as he stepped from behind the wings of Luna and her sister. That however could have also been caused by the revelation, that Silk had originally been Nightmare Moon. The royal family had presented both of them to the citizens at once.

“Well I guess I have to start over and show them that I am not as bad as they think I am. How did these rumors even come to life? I mean... I read some legends while I was in the hospital wing, that say that humans favor the taste of Pony-meat. What rubbish is that?”

He looked over to Celestia, who tried to look innocent but failed utterly in his opinion.

“No you didn't....”, he said, face-palming.

“It might have slipped my tongue.... Sorry about that.”, Celestia apologized, unable to hide the grin that was spreading on her face.

“What does she mean, dad?”, Silk Light edged closer to her father, looking into his eyes with curiosity.

He sighed.

“Guess it's no use hiding it now. Yes I have been living as a vegetarian for ALMOST all the time I am here. Celestia here caught me eating once, and it HAD to be the only time I actually tried eating a Pony....”, he tried laugh it off. The reactions of his companions couldn't have been more different.

Luna dropped the piece of melon she had levitated to her mouth, effectively having it smash right into her cup of tea which then proceeded to fly off the balcony, propelled by the impact of the melon on it's saucer.

Celestia broke out in laughter, and almost a pretty decent backwards dive off of the balcony as well.

Silk Light stared at her father in disbelief. Her jaw hung open, and her mind was unable to process what he had just said.

Lyra however looked more interested then anything. She had floated a notepad and a pen over to herself from her saddlebags, to write down any interesting information. She did that a lot, while being around the only human to ever set foot into Equestria....

“It's not what you might think....”, Zeo added, throwing his hands up in a defensive gesture.

“Then explain please. How did come to be that you tried to eat a Pony? I thought you promised not to...”, Luna demanded.

“Well.....”, Zeo began, looking at Celestia who was obviously enjoying this more then she had any right to.

“You remember those two Earth Pony settlements that did not want to be part of an united Equestria?”, Zeo asked his wife, trying to ignore the stare his daughter was giving him, and the excited look on Lyras face. Luna nodded.

“Well... Celestia sent me out to talk to them. I went alone, since I didn't want to take any of the guards with me. At the time you were still threatened almost every day, so I didn't want to weaken the wall of guards around you for my own personal benefit. Those rebells got wind of that and decided to ambush me. What they did not know yet at the time, was that I was able to do more then just medical spells. They sent two Earth Pony stallions and one mare after me, while I was traveling through the Ever-Free-Forest. Thing was, that they still decked me pretty good, until I got my first shield-spell up and running. After that it was a walk in the park. They were unable to break it and so I decided to give one of the spells Platinum had taught me a try. Let me just say, that I will never use that spell again, unless I have to. It was a fire spell. In one moment three Ponies stood before me, in the next I saw three delicious smelling piles of meat..... Don't get me wrong, the thought of eating them still felt strange for me, but I had gone without some for almost a year by then. Needless to say that my more primal instincts took over, and I took a taste of the mares corpse....”, he added, all the while trying to sound disgusted at his own actions.

“So how did it taste?”, Lyra wanted to know.

“Actually not too bad. You Ponies are definitely edible. The thing was that the moment I swallowed my first bite, Celestia here showed up. My fire spell had drawn her attention. It wasn't pretty at all, I can tell you.”, Zeo said, touching his left cheek in reminiscence.

“What happened? Did you two get into a fight?”, Silk asked, noticing her fathers movement.

“Yes we did. The moment I saw what he was doing I was determined to purge him from the face of Equestria. I thought he had attacked those Ponies for the sole purpose to eat them. At the time it all made sense, since there had been some strange disappearances all over the place....”, Celestia elaborated.

“But... You didn't have anything to do with those, did you dad?”, Silk asked hopefully, placing a hoof on his right arm.

“Nah.... We eventually found out that the rebells had been recruiting many Ponies off the streets. Due to Platinums wealths, I suppose they had no shortage in funding. At the time time however, I myself was wondering how they did that.”, he explained.

“So... I take it the fight was a draw?”, Luna wanted to know while taking a bite out of her melon, to try and hide her smile.

“In fact, no. If he had wanted to, he could have killed me.”, the Princess of the sun admitted.

Lyra, who had just taken a sip of coffee spit it out in utter surprise.

“He beat you?”, she managed to ask between coughs.

Before she could answer, Zeo broke out in laughter.

“Don't be so modest Celestia, it doesn't suit you at all. What happened to the mare that just loved to stalk me everywhere I went and play pranks on me? You should tell them the truth. I only won because YOU had skipped your flying lessons one too many times, to try and prove that I was dangerous to Luna.”, he laughed.

“Well....”, Celestia blushed.

“How so?”, Silk interjected.

“I tried to explain the situation to her, but she wouldn't listen. Since I knew she could blast me to bits if she hit me full force, I tried to restrain and silence her with my strands. It worked in the end, but only because...”, he broke out in laughter again.

“Only because I tried to evade him in the air and knocked myself out on a tree....”, Celestia finished his sentence. She didn't seem to mind that Zeos laughter only intensified at her stating this so bluntly. Instead a diabolic grin played around her muzzle.

"So you two talked it over and you understood, Princess?", Lyra asked, never stopping to write down what she was hearing.

"After a lot of screaming, and false accusations made, yes. But I still gave him an ultimatum. Either he can eat all the meat he wants or....", her grin grew even wider. Zeo stooped laughing abruptly.

"Or what?", Luna had became more then curious.

"Well or he could stay able to have a physical relationship with you.", Celestia smirked.

"Yeah... Told me she make sure that a certain something would be removed in my sleep.", Zeo sighed.

Again a shocked silence fell over the group, while everypony looked back and forth between Celestia and her brother in law. One was grinning ear to ear, while the other one was red with embarrassment. Luna was the first to find her voice again.

"So you stopped eating meat because...", she started, but didn't want to finish her sentence in front of her daughter.

"Yep. I am kinda fond of my body-parts and well you know....", he blushed even more, which had seemed impossible just seconds ago.

Lyra, who was more interested then embarrassed, made a mental note to ask about that later when she was alone with Zeo or Luna. She felt the building tension however and changed the subject for her friends sake.

"I was wondering Zeo.... How were you able to show me that fight against Nightmare Moon back then? You were turned to stone at that time after all.", she asked and Zeo jumped at the opportunity.

"Interesting question Lyra. Kinda surprises me you haven't asked about that before. Well you see, even when you are turned to stone, some modicum of self awareness. I was awake all the time, but I couldn't see or hear anything. After about two hundred years however, I learned that I could use small amounts of magic and sense others if they were in the archives. I began to observe what Luna was doing, even so I was unable to speak to her. My magic wasn't strong enough to establish a full mind-link, so I settled for the next best thing. When one is asleep, their mental defenses that the mind-link usually bypasses, are pretty much down. I wasn't able to establish two way communication, but I could at least show her dreams of the happy times we had shared together. When I sensed that YOU were around however Lyra, I was forced to take action against you. I didn't agree with Lunas plans to free me, nor with her plans to use my help to get rid of Nightmare Moon. My mind was fully awake, but I didn't know what state my body would be in if she freed me, nor if I would even be able to defeat Nightmare Moon, should I awaken weakened. That's why I used the same, less potent mind-link, to share my memory of that night with you. I wanted you to understand how strong she was and that I only won in the end because she went easy on me... Guess that didn't work out and I could have saved me my metaphorical breath. Silk here noticed what I was doing, and part of her broke away from the Death-Root, that lay dormant for quite some time now.", he finished, looking at his daughter so she could finish the story.

To his utter surprise, Silk looked everywhere but at Lyra. Then he understood. Zeo drew his chair closer to his daughter, and put one arm around her in an effort comfort her. He knew she still blamed herself for what had happened to Lyra, even so the Unicorn didn't seem to share those feelings.

"Come on dear. I know Lyra can be a little annoying...", he began.

"Hey!", the Unicorn shouted in indignation, but he went on.

“You were not the cause for her injuries, and she had already forgiven her several times over, hasn't she?”, he looked at Lyra who nodded rapidly, even so she still seemed a little angry that he had called her annoying.

Finally, Silk Light looked over to her mother, who had carried the burden, that everypony had thought she could turn into Nightmare Moon again at any time, for some time now. The older Alicorn nodded her agreement, and gave her daughter a reassuring smile. Sighing, she turned to Lyra who was watching with interest.

“The thing was, that the Death-Root-magic lay dormant, as my father has already stated. Most of myself however was still in it's grasp. The little bit that wasn't, used my fathers spell, to enter your sleeping mind. I enjoyed your company, and I really am grateful you tried to defend me from the Death-Root that had come to get the rest of me back. “

“I don't understand. In my dream you were nothing but a filly... But here you are, an almost fully grown Alicorn. Also, how was that stuff even able to almost kill me? Wasn't it just a dream? Not to mention all the damage it did to my bedroom....”

“That was yourself. The Death-Root had barely anything to do with it. When it attacked you, you were not entirely sure if you were dreaming or not. For quite some time you assumed that it was all real. In that moment your magic kicked in. It's kinda like a dog, that will make running motions while asleep, if it dreams of chasing a cat.”, Zeo interrupted.

“Great! So you're telling me, that I almost committed suicide?”, Lyra rolled her eyes.

“In a sense yes, but it is more complex then that. You were not aware of yourself using magic. So whenever you were hit, or flung around, your magic made that happen to your real body as well. A better explanation then Zeo used, may be sleep walking. Just in your case it's sleep-spell-casting.”, Celestia clarified.

“Still makes me sound strange.”, Lyra scratched the back of her head with a hoof, and suddenly remembered something.

“Wait! That memory you shared with me Zeo... At the beginning of it you had a conversation with Nightmare Moon. I didn't understand a word of it. What were you saying, and what was that strange language?”, she blurted out, excited to finally find out what had been said back then.

To her surprise neither Zeo, Silk nor Luna bothered to give her an answer, until Celestia cleared her throat to let them know that they were being impolite.

“You really want us to translate that for, don't you?”, Zeo asked.

“Yes.”, Lyra confirmed eagerly.

The three looked at each other, slumping their shoulders in defeat. They had promised to tell Lyra anything she to know about the incident, and now they were regretting it.

“See... That language we spoke... It was mother-tongue. Silk here has inhabited some basic knowledge from me, aside from some other things. Speaking like I did back in my world is one them.”, Zeo explained.

“Maybe it's better if we just them dad. Easier and less embarrassing then talking about it.”, Silk said, blushing slightly. Her father nodded, and both of them cast a spell that formed a sphere above the table. In it they could see the gardens of the old castle. Celestia lay on the ground behind Zeo, while he was facing Nightmare Moon. The two of them began talking, in Equestrian this time.

“Why are you doing this? Celestia has never done anything to harm you!”, the image of Zeo asked in a calm tone.

“Step aside beloved. I have to dispose of her. Her sun is threating my night.”, the image of Nightmare Moon responded almost lovingly, and everyponies eyes shifted to Zeo and Silk.

“Beloved? I love you, but not in that way. If I am not mistaken, and I'm not, then you are my daughter. And you are NOT the ruler of the night. Luna is. In other words, your MOTHER is!”, Zeos image stated a little more aggressive then before.

“My mother? If I am your daughter as you insist I am, then why do I have those memories of our time together in my chambers?”, the image of Nightmare Moon winked at Zeos image seductively.

“Memories of... Wait!”, Luna interjected, her face as red as could be.

The images in the sphere stopped moving, and everypony looked at Luna now.

“What is it? You don't want us to continue?”, Silk asked her mother curiously.

Luna tilted her head to the side, as if to ask if her daughter was seriously asking this question.

“You dug around in MY memories, mistaking them for your own?”, she finally blurted out, the embarrassment showing in her voice.

“You must understand that this night was the first time I was ever strong enough to come forward. I was always in the background in a state of hibernation. You had called me out before but only for short periods of time. These were not enough for me to gain a sense of myself. So yes, I looked through your memories, and found the night that I was conceived. I remembered every last detail of it, and I was confused that father told me that these were not mine.”, Silk elaborated, her face competing with Lunas in terms of redness.

“You... you don't remember those things now, do you?”, Luna asked a little fearfully.

“If you mean if I still remember how it is to sleep with my father, then be assured that I DO still remember, but now that I know what these are, I try to forget it...”, Silk giggled.

“Yeah.... told you we didn't really want to translate this for you.”, Zeo added.

“What else did you remember?”, Luna wanted to know, a tone of urgency in her voice.

“All twenty one.”, Silk stated bluntly, giving her mother a disapproving look.

“All... oh by Starswhrils beard! Luna you had... twenty-one? Seriously?”, Celestia gasped, and her sister averted her gaze in shame. Before she could try to defend her actions, Zeo spoke up.

“I knew all of them. It hurt, but I knew the cause. The Death-Root had made her desires stronger then ever before, and after Silks burial we didn't really talk to one another. Not a lack of trying on my part, but that was not her fault in the end. I don't blame Luna for any of it, just to make that clear.”, he said, jumping to his wifes defense.

“But... How was it that the Death-Root had such an effect.”, the ruler of the sun wanted to know.

“I think I can answer that.”, Lyra spoke up, and everypony, and a human, looked at her.

“Death-Root has differing effects. They depend on the intend of the Unicorn that makes the poison. In this case I can only assume that they wanted to discredit Luna, and make her look like she would jump into bed with every stallion that crossed her way. Assuming they were not actually trying to kill her that is. But if what you have told me is true, then the dosage was way to low to kill an Alicorn. Had Luna still been a Pegasus, then she would have succumbed to it after mere seconds.”, the mint green Unicorn explained energetically.

“Well, I don't think we need this anymore.”, Zeo said, and waved a hand to dismiss the sphere showing him and Nightmare Moon.

“Since we are talking about it anyway, I think you're right.”, Silk said, blushing a tad.

“So what happened next? You two seemed pretty angry after a while.”, Lyra asked, picking up her pen again.

“That was actually my fault. I started to describe each and every affair mother had to him, in detail.”, Silk said, looking away from her mother.

“YOU DID WHAT?”, Luna shouted, unable to hide her fury and embarrassment. This morning seemed to be full of embarrassing moments it seemed.

“Well... I tried to make an argument. I wanted to know how I could know all this stuff if he wasn't my beloved. In truth I did, and still do, love him, but now I know that it is NOT in a romantic way. I was just too young at the time to tell the difference. But I must say, that I would never have anticipated you changing yourself into a stallion so you could be with a mare.”, Silk defended herself, enjoying the look of disbelief on her mothers face.

“Changing... into a stallion? Is that even possible?”, Celestia asked amused.

“I don't know how far her powers go Celestia, but I can assure you that Luna can make a fine impression of a human woman.”, Zeo laughed, glad that the conversation was headed away from him and Silk. He just hoped that his wife would be a good sport about it, and not make him pay for it later.

“Zeomak Seline Salchar! I thought we agreed you'd not tell anypony!”, she hissed.

The conversation went on for quite a while longer, in which Luna had to assure her sister several times, that she did NOT use her shape-shifting skills for sexual activities only. From there the talk somehow got directed into dirty dreams, to which Luna just blushed. Everypony knew that she had the power of entering foreign dreams after all....

After a while however, Lyra brought the conversation back on track, and wanted to know how Zeo felt about never being able to go back and see his family again. She stated that, after a thousand years, they would surely have passed on by now.

“Why do you think that?”, Zeo asked surprised.

“Well... for one, your notes stated that a normal humans lifespan rarely exceeds even one hundred years. I think it's safe to assume your family is able to live for over a millennium.”, she said, a tad sadness in her voice. Lyra knew that she had just stepped into potentially painful territory, but she wanted to know nonetheless.

“Well and that is where you are mistaken Lyra. My notes are true, but you assume that time goes by the same way in my world as it does here. That assumption is incorrect. In fact, time runs much faster here in Equestria then where I come from. One year here, equals about one second in my world. And believe me, I am older then I look, even before I was turned to stone. If time would go by for me, the same way it does for you, then I should have died of old age by now. Instead, even so we celebrated my birthday each year, I have not aged a single day. I can tell you that in all the years I spent here, barely eighteen minutes have passed in my world. Everything I brought with me, including my body, will never sync itself with the Equestrian time. I exist out of time, and therefor will not age at a pace that is normal for you. Instead it will take several more millennia, for me to age a single year. I could go back right now, but if I did that, even only for a day, centuries would have passed by here. I don't that. I don't want to leave behind Luna or Silk, and they can't come with me, because I don't know what effects my universe would have on their Alicorn physique. It might make them age rapidly, so I have no choice.”, Zeo explained, looking a little crestfallen.

“Why... Don't you just ask your family to come here as well?”, Lyra added.

Zeo did a genuine double-take. He had never thought about that when he had completed the portal spell. His father was unemployed, and his grandmother was long dead. His sister was studying however, and he did not want to uproot her.

“Well... I don't know. I think I could ask.”, he said scratching his head.

“How would you go about that, if you can't go over there?”, Luna wanted to know.

“Easy. I still have this.”, Zeo answered, pulling his Smartphone.

“As soon as I open a small portal it will get a signal. I tried that already back then. I could simply call my dad and ask him if he would like the idea, of living for several centuries.”, he laughed.

Everypony looked at him with wide eyes. Celestia was not sure if she agreed to this, but if they were anything like her brother in law, she thought that it might not hurt to give them a chance. He had surely been a great help in Equestrias technological development. In the field of medicine his skills, had no rival either, so Equestria might benefit from this as well.

With a quick motion Zeo formed a portal that was no bigger then his palm. Immediately the device in his hand sprung to live, giving off a shrill sound, indicating that it had a signal. The others watched him for a few moments as his fingertips rushed over the display and he put the device to his ear. After several seconds he began to talk....

“Hey dad....”

The End?

An Unexpected Guest (R)

Chapter 1

An Unexpected guest

Lyra Heartstrings was finally at the place she had been dreaming off. For months now, she had researched in the royal Canterlot library for any traces of humans. She had been able to find some Hoof notes about them, but they all referred to one author, that she couldn't find anything about. "Reference: ZSS", was written in all of those Hoof notes....

The strange thing was, that even a library as vast as the royal Canterlot one, there was not a single book of him or her. Could they have been removed on purpose? That brought her back to her conspiracy theories again. Maybe the Princesses had removed all of them, since they did not want anypony to learn about humans? Did they maybe have something to do with their disappearance from Equestria? Had Equestria maybe even been inhabited, by the time the first settlers had arrived here? No that couldn't be it... She had already looked through many archaeological books, and could be sure that there was not been a single excavation site that featured human artifacts.

So she had tried to convince her father, who was the head librarian in Canterlot, to let her into the royal archives. That however had not gone too well. Her father had denied her entry vehemently, stating that he would not support her obsessions. For weeks Lyra had tried to convince him, but he had stayed strong.

A few days before, when she had just failed to convince her father once again, she had met Twilight Sparkle. Lyra knew Twilight, but they usually didn't talk all too much. This day had been different however. Seeing how crestfallen she had been, the lavender Unicorn had approached the park bench she had been sitting on.

"What's the matter Ms. Heartstrings? I think I have never seen you so unhappy before.", she had asked concerned.

"I told you before, to just call me Lyra. And... well it's nothing... I don't think you can help me with..... it...?"

Then Lyra had remembered who she was talking to. Of course Twilight could help her! She was Princess Celestias private student after all. Surely she would have access to most areas within the library, maybe even the archives.

"Tell me Twilight, have you ever been in the royal Canterlot library?", Lyra asked hopefully.

Twilight grinned.

"Well of course Ms.... ehm Lyra. Before I came to Ponyville, I spent most of my time there. Is there anything I can help you with? I'd be glad to help, if I can."

"Well Twilight.... You know that my father is the head librarian, right? I have looked through each and every available book, but all I can find are Hoof notes about a specific author. Since all the dates in the Hoof notes go way back, I thought I might find something about him in the archives, but my father won't let me in there. Any chance you can help me with that?", Lyra asked hopefully.

Twilight thought for a moment, tapping her chin with one of her hooves.

"It's about humans again, isn't it? Well I can understand your father, but you have put so much effort into it already. It would be such a waste, if you wouldn't be able to find something, just because you were denied the chance to do proper research. I will write a letter to Princess Celestia, and see what I can do, OK?", the lavender Unicorn promised.

Lyra had been so excited about it, that she had barely been able to sleep for the next two nights. Then, on the morning of the third day after her conversation with Twilight, a royal courier knocked on her door, delivering a letter with Celestias royal seal.

Dear Ms. Lyra Heartstrings,

my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle, has brought it to my attention that you wish to access the royal Canterlot archives. I was hesitant at first, to grant you permission to the archives, but Twilight ensured me that you have no ill intent. Please know that whatever you might find down there, is not meant for publication. Attached to this letter is a visitors pass that is valid for one whole day. Should you need more time to research, I suggest that you ask my dear sister, Princess Luna, about it. I have already informed her of your interest in the matter.

Princess Celestia of Equestria

Why she was supposed to talk to Princess Luna, she had not understood. The visitors pass however, was now hanging from her neck, as she stood in front of the enormous double doors that led down into the archives. Her father sat, like usual, at his desk right next to the lever that would open the doors. Lyra approached him with a wide grin on her face.

"Let me in.", she said, hard pressed not break out in laughter.

Her father looked up from the documents he had been reading, and took his glasses off.

"I told you more then a dozen times already, Lyra, I will not open these doors for you. The only thing that could make me do that, was if you were to have a royal permit, but I doubt that you .... Hey what's that around your neck?", her father asked confused.

He pointed a hoof at the golden card around her neck, that was emblazoned with Celestias royal seal.

"My royal permit of course!", Lyra grinned.

Her father stammered a few words, trying to make sense of it all, before he levitated the permit over for inspection. What he had not anticipated, was that his daughter would not let go of it so easily. He had to practically drag her along with the card, to take a closer look at it. Turning the card over in his magic, while Lyra was bend uncomfortably over his desk, he gave it a good look. He was not putting it past his daughter, to have forged a fake permit, so he would have to let her in after all.... But... he could not find a single thing wrong with it. It worried him a little. With this permit he HAD to let her in, and she would have access to all the books in there. Moreover, it was a permit for private study, so he was not even allowed to send a royal guard in there with her. This kind of permit he had only ever seen on one other pony....

"Twilight Sparkle... You got Twilight Sparkle to help you, didn't you?", her father sighed.

"Yep!", Lyras grin grew even wider.

"Well then... I guess I have no choice then to let you in, since that card around your neck is somewhat of an extend of Princess Celestias power. That doesn't mean we won't talk about this later however. Also, I must ask you to heed certain rules while you are in there. Number one: Be careful with the books and scrolls. They are ancient and very valuable. Even my whole years salary would not be enough to pay for one of them! Number two: No eating or drinking. We would not want a glass of juice to spill over a scroll that is over a thousand years old, now would we? And at last, I have a request, since this permit around your neck allows you to do so anyway. Please do not go into either Princesses private study. You are a musician, and I doubt you would understand the advanced magical theory they study. If you try, you might hurt yourself. Did you understand what I just said?"

Lyra nodded energetically. She had no interest in the Princesses private research projects anyway, nor had she any food or drink on her. Having spent most of her free time in libraries, she knew those rules already. Seeing as he was unable to stop his daughter, her father pulled the lever to his right with his magic. The double doors, that were almost two times the size of any Pony, opened with a loud creaking sound. Unable to wait to finally start her research, Lyra darted through them, even before they were completely open.

Immediately Lyra noticed that all the lights in the archives were dimmed, so she could just barely see anything. On some of the reading tables however stood lamps, so one could read comfortably. The bookshelfs were all dusty, and the floor looked like it had been build centuries ago. The marble plates it was made from, were chipped in places. Lyra guessed that barely anypony went down here, and so there was no real need for maintenance. Looking at the bookshelfs, she found a map, that was pinned onto one of the first ones. Studying the faded map for a moment, Lyra made her way to the mythical section of the archives.

Two hours later

Lyra was almost completely hidden behind a large stack of books in the mythical section. It was frustrating. All these books were mentioning humans at some point, but all she got for her efforts, were more Hoof notes about "ZSS". Then, in a book about imaginary human inventions and technology, she found something. It was only a Hoof note, but it mentioned a book rather then just "ZSS".

"All information, from ZSS Journal of Technology."

Lyra ran off toward the end of a bookshelf again, and looked for a map. She had soon discovered, that those hang on almost every shelf. It took her a while to decipher the faded paint on it, but she found what she was looking for. One floor down, then to the right, and she would be in the technology section of the archives. Those had always fascinated her as well. All the technology that Ponies used, was originally invented by humans, or so she believed. Almost galloping down the stone steps to the second floor of the archives, she turned right and found herself in front of a wooden door. It was relatively clean, compared to what she had seen so far. On it's front was a slot to unlock the door, in which she stuck her visitors pass.

As the door slid open, Lyra stood in a room that was not dusty at all. Nor were the lights dimmed. The whole room was brightly illuminated and had about twenty fully packed shelfs in it. At the far wall stood a wooden desk, on which a stack of parchments lay. Lyra guessed that somepony must have done some research here fairly recently, and forgotten their notes. As she approached the desk however, she saw the title on one of the books, out of the corner of her eye.

"Electronics and steam powered engines, by ZSS"

Lyra forgot all about bringing the parchments to her father, so he could give it to the pony who had forgotten them. She rushed to the shelf, and almost fainted when she read the titles of all the other books that stood next to it.

"Easy Tools by ZSS"

"Architecture by ZSS"

"Combustible engines by ZSS"

As Lyra looked around she saw that almost all of the books in the first shelf, had been written by ZSS! Some titles however, confused her a great deal. They didn't make any sense to her.

"Things I miss the most by ZSS"

"Linux how-to by ZSS"

What in the hay was Linux? Why did he or she miss anything? What was a combustible engine? Lyra picked up the book "Things I miss the most", and sat down right there on the floor. Flipping through the pages, she noticed one thing immediately. This was no printed book, but a hoof written original! The writing was barely legible however.... Not that the ink had fainted, but the Pony that had written it, was just terrible at it. There was no index, and no page numbers. It wasn't all about technology either. Instead there were crude drawings of several things. One looked like an open book, but it lay in an odd angle. Nopony would be able to read from that angle. There were also drawings of.... faces? But these were no Ponies. The nose was all wrong, and the ears were on the sides of their heads. Then Lyra understood. These faces, were human faces. Each drawing was entitled.

"Dad"

"Petra"

""Gramps"

There were many more, but Lyra was unable to look at all of them. How lonely could a Pony get to draw those who he or she missed? Or had it even been a Pony that wrote all of this? Just as she thought that, she heard sobbing. Up until now she had assumed, that she was alone in the archives, so the sound startled her a bit. Putting the book back onto the shelf, Lyra began to trot towards the sound. As she reached the end of the shelf, and looked to her left, she saw a half open door at the far end of the room.

Looking through the half open door with one eye, Lyra witnessed something she had not anticipated to see. There, in the middle of a very small room, sat Princess Luna, pressing a book to her chest with both of her forelegs. Princess Celestia had told her, that she should talk to Princess Luna, but Lyra didn't want to intrude. Even more so ,since she had never seen either of the Princesses cry, or show much emotion in public. Slowly retreating, her gaze fell on the book once more.

"Journal of Zeomak Seline Salchar"

Lyra burst through the door, pointing a hoof at the book.

"ZSS! Zeomak Seline Salchar!", Lyra burst out, before she knew what she was doing.

The Princess was startled by her sudden appearance, but composed herself quickly. Lyra did not miss however, that Luna tried to hide the book behind her back.

"Ehm... Ms..... Heartstrings, I presume? I am sorry, but I thought I was alone here.", Luna said, wiping tears from her eyes.

"Princess... I am awfully sorry for my outburst just now, but could you let me see that book? I think it's been written by a human, and that's the prove I have always been looking for!", Lyra blurted out.

Luna sighed. She had hoped the mint green Unicorn had not seen the journal, but that would have been too good to be true. Still, she would not just give her the book. It was her most important treasure, and nopony ,except herself, was allowed to hold it! Even though Celestia had given that Pony free reign in the archives, she would not give it to her.

"I am sorry, but I can not give it to you. This book is private property of mine.", Luna said, trying to sound genuine. The expression on Lyras face however, told her that she was not being very successful.

"Why? If that book is yours, then why does it not say that it is your journal?", Lyra asked, getting a little impatient.

"It is the journal of a very good friend of mine, and I don't think he would want...."

"Aha! So you do know something about ZSS! Please Princess! Your sister already told me, that I should speak to you on the matter, and now I find you here, with a book that I suspect to be written by a human. I beg you, please let me read it!", Lyra pleaded.

"My answer is still no! But....", Luna looked away.

"What Princess?"

"If you promise me, not to think badly of him... I might tell you his story. Big sister wanted me to anyway...."

Lyra nodded vigorously. She would do anything to get a first hoof report about an actual living human!

Luna sighed, and settled down on the floor. The journal however, she kept hidden from plain view under her left wing. Lyra settled down opposite of her, and waited impatiently for Luna to begin.

"It was... a very long time ago. Zeo wrote almost all of the books in this archive, with my help. When he touched my horn, I used my magic to write what went through his mind. Some of the books, are in his handwriting however. You already know, that my sister and I were not always the rulers of Equestria, and that the three tribes had been led by a single ruler before the unification?", Luna asked, and Lyra nodded.

"Well you see... after we started to rule together, some Ponies did not appreciate the idea of such a diarchy very much. They wished for one strong ruler, and not for one strong, and one not so strong one. I tell you this, because you must know all the details, if you want to know the truth, about the one and only human to ever set foot into Equestria...."

Lunas thoughts trailed off to a night that lay over a thousand years in the past.

Back then her mane and tail had not yet reflected the night sky, but had been light blue. Just a few months prior she and her sister had defeated Discord, and united Ponykind under one flag. The side effect of them using the elements of Harmony, had been their ascension into Alicorns. All of their friends were suddenly bowing in front of them, and there was barely anypony who treated them like just a normal Pony.

Soon after, they had started to rule Equestria together. That however did not sit too well with their subjects. They wished for one strong ruler. And that would have been Celestia, so they had asked time and time again for Luna to step down. Celestia however had told them that, no matter what they said, Luna would not step down for such a reason. Due to that, Luna had gotten even more secluded, until she was mostly alone. The only Pony she could turn to at that time was her sister, which was not exactly the same as having friends.

Just to be separated from her sister for a while, she had taken on the habit to fly over Equestria at night, when she had risen the moon. She had been young and naive. She had underestimated the old ways, and those who wished for a single ruler to Equestria. Playfully flying through the clouds close to where Ponyville was today, something had suddenly hit her left wing. All the joy she had felt, had left her in an instant, as the bone broke and she went into an uncontrolled fall. Plummeting towards the ground, Luna looked back, and saw three Pegasi, hovering where she had just been flying.

She did not understand it. Why had they attacked her? She had just playing a little, to have some fun. Was their hatred towards her really that bad? Crying from the pain, Luna flapped her wings even though it hurt badly to do so. She had to slow down her fall, or she would not survive. Still way to fast, Luna crashed into the Ever-free forest. Immediately she felt the oppressive magical aura of the forest, but didn't care much for it at that moment. Instead, she struggled to her hooves, just to be knocked down by an Earth pony stallion. Rolling around so her hooves were under him, she kicked him off.

"Why? Why are you attacking me? I never did anything to any of you!", she had cried.

None of the Ponies had answered her. She saw several Earth ponies and Unicorns approach her now, as the Pegasi circled above. This was an ambush, she realized. Luna concentrated on her magic as hard as she could. It was still new for her, since she had been born as a Pegasus. Trying to focus on a teleportation spell, a brilliant dark purple light began to shine around her horn. The Earth ponies amongst her attackers tried to prevent her from casting a spell, but it was already to late for that. Luna could feel that the spell was escaping her control, but she continued to pour magic into it. A booming sound could be heard all the way to Canterlot, as the magical energy exploded right in front of her. Her attackers were blown off of their hooves for a moment, while Luna was blown deeper into the forest.

Something heavy landed on her back. With a scream she looked around, half expecting to find one of the Pegasi, but instead she saw a creature she had never seen before. It had glasses on it's nose, was almost completely hairless as far as she could see, and dressed in black. The coat it wore was so long, that it reached the ground even though it sat on her back. What surprised her the most however was, that it looked at her almost as surprised as she felt.

"Excuse me, but would you mind getting off my back? You are kind of heavy.", she asked as politely as she could.

Jumping off of her back, the creature stretched and looked around, before bringing it's almost flat face uncomfortably close to her own.

"You got to be fucking kidding me! What the hell is this shit? Did I drink too much? Damn I really should cut back on the booze, but I have never dreamt of talking horses before... Interesting... and with wings and a horn too... Let's just hope that I wake up soon, because this is WAY to strange.", it said, inspecting her right wing before it noticed that her left hang limply at her side.

"Oh my god, are you hurt? I mean, this might be an alcohol induced dream, but I'm still a nurse you know.", it said gesturing to her to lay down.

"There... there really is no time for this... What are you, and what is your name?" Luna inquired.

"I should be asking you the same. Never dreamt about a talking horse before, or at least not that I could remember. Just call me Zeo, and I am.... well I am a human, what else?", it explained.

The slightly plump figure of the "human" unwrapped a scarf he wore around his neck, took a branch from one of the nearby trees, and began to treat her wing rudimentarily.

"OK Ms. Horse, care to explain all this? I mean... this is MY dream, but I have absolutely no clue where I am, why I am dreaming about... well YOU, or what I am supposed to do here. Usually I don't dream this sort of thing.", Zeo asked her.

"First of all I would appreciate it if you would stop calling me "horse". My name is Luna. Princess Luna of Equestria to be precise. As for why you are here, I have no idea. I can only presume that my spell went wrong, and transported you here."

"Spell... You are actually trying to tell me that you can do magic, and this...", he gestured all around himself.

"...is actually not a dream? You are trying to tell me, that I am here because some little Princess messed up a spell?", he shouted.

Luna let her head hang, and explained everything to him. How she and her sister had become Alicorns, that they ruled Equestria, and that she was attacked earlier, because some Ponies were not too happy with a diarchy. Tapping his chin with one of his strange looking hooves, Zeo had looked her deep into the eyes. After a while, he brought his face close to hers again.

"OK, if this is not a dream, then let's see how this feels.", he said, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead. Shocked and surprised at this, Luna used her telekinesis to shove him back a step. Zeo struck a tree with his back, and winced at the impact.

"I... I'm sorry! I... I'm not used to my magic yet. I can't control it yet, but....", she stammered, but the "human" just laughed.

"I know this is no dream now. That hurt like a bitch, and I'm still here, so I guess.... Well... That can wait until later. You said you were attacked. Do you think that, if I get you out of here, you can send me home again?", he asked hopefully.

"I... I am not sure if I can, but my sister may know more."

"Alright, it's settled then. But I expect some compensation for my troubles!"

"And what kind of compensation would that be?", Luna asked, a little scared.

"A good meal will do.", he laughed.

Just as the pair of them wanted to start towards the edge of the forest, some of her attackers from earlier caught up with her. Two Earth pony stallions, and a Unicorn mare came charging at her. As they saw Zeo, they stopped in their tracks.

"Step aside, creature. This has nothing to do with you.", one of the stallions said.

"Oh but I think it has. See, I still don't know if this is a dream or not, but I won't let you gang up on someone who is injured.", Zeo sighed, handing his long leather coat to Luna, who spread it over her back.

The three looked at each other for a moment, before they attacked. Zeo sidestepped the first stallion, hitting his neck with his elbow, and producing a sickening crunching sound. As the second stallion reared up to hit him with his front hooves, Zeo tried to block the blow, but that was not a good idea. The hooves of a Pony were harder then a humans bones, and so his left arm got broken. He staggered backwards a few steps, holding his arm, but the Earth pony already charged at him again. The Unicorn seemed content to make sure that Luna didn't go anywhere. Ignoring the pain for the time being, he charged at the surprised stallion, and used his good right hand to press down hard on his head. That caused the still galloping stallion to fall over an hit the ground with his face first. Zeo didn't loose any time, and threw himself onto his fallen opponent with all his weight. These Ponies only reached up to his hips, so he almost completely buried the stunned Earth pony under himself.

The Unicorn mare finally joined the Frey, and enveloped him in her magic. With a quick jerk of her head, Zeo was lifted off of her companion and thrown into a quite thorny bush. At that point Lunas horn flashed to life, and the mare was thrown back all the way out of the forest. Luna lifted Zeo out of the bush. The shock, the pain and most likely the magic, had made him pass out. Gently placing him on her back, Luna trotted off into the direction of Canterlot.

The sun was already rising by the time she arrived at Canterlot, collapsing from the exertion of carrying Zeo, right in front of a pair of royal guards. They took Zeo of off her back and escorted her inside, while two other guards were called to bring the much heavier creature along.

A few hours later

Luna had awoken to the sight of her older sisters worried face.

"What has happened Luna, and what is that thing you brought along?", Celestia asked.

"I... I was attacked."

"Then it's a good thing that I let the guards put it into the dungeons. I have never seen a creature like it before."

Luna had jolted up in bed at that.

"You threw him into the dungeons? Why? He saved me! The only reason he is here, is because I tried to cast a teleportation spell, and messed up. I promised him to try and get him home, if he helped me.", Luna said in a panic.

Celestia eyed her sister carefully.

"You tried such an advanced spell? Impressive that you did not hurt yourself. But who attacked you then?", she wanted to know.

"The Ponies that wanted me to step down! They ambushed me close to the Everfree forest, bound me to the ground by breaking my wing, and tried to kill me! Zeo came out of my messed up teleportation and helped me escape. Sadly he got injured in the fight and passed out.", Luna explained.

Celestia raised an eyebrow.

"Well... I will immediately arrange that he is transfered from the dungeons, to one of the guest rooms, and that a doctor looks at his arm. Other then that, there is the matter of this....", Celestia levitated Zeos black coat over to Luna from a nearby chair.

"You have been wearing this when the guards found you. Care to explain why you wore another animals skin?"

"Skin? Ehm... it... it's Zeos. He gave it to me so it wouldn't get into his way while he defended me, I guess."

"Luna... Are you sure about this Zeo creature? I mean.... wearing another creatures skin as clothing isn't exactly the nicest thing to do, is it?", Celestia asked a little worried.

"I don't really know much about him, but I know that he saved my life. That is more then enough reason for you to trust him. If you'll excuse me now, I will go get him out of the dungeons myself."

With that, Luna stood up despite Celestias efforts to make her lay down again. She took Zeos coat from her, and put it on.

In the Canterlot dungeons

Luna had gotten the keys from one of the guards, and walked up to the cell Zeo was in. He lay, his arm still untreated, in one corner of the small cell. From what she had seen, he wouldn't even be able to get up in this small room. He was just too big for that. Unlocking the cell, she levitated him next to herself, while she trotted off to one of the guest rooms. On her way there she noticed, that the guards hadn't even bothered to break the slumber spell, that the Unicorn had put on him. For the time being, Luna didn't see a reason why she should do so either. She didn't want her savior to wake up, and find out he had been thrown into the dungeons.

An hour later

Zeo opened his eyes slowly. Everything hurt, and his left arm felt stiff. Otherwise he was quite comfortable. The bed he lay in was a little too small , and as he looked down on himself, he noticed that his left arm was in a cast. Also, to his utter surprise, he was naked.

"So you finally wake up.", a gentle voice next to him said. It was definitely female, so Zeo was prepared for the worst.

Did he drink too much , and woken up at some girls place again? Man, that happened more often then he cared to admit. But why would his arm be in a cast then? Then it came all back to him, and as he turned around he saw the owner of the voice. Next to him on the bed, lay a dark blue horse with wings on it's sides and a horn on it's forehead.

"L...Luna, was it? Where the heck am I, and why am I naked?", he wanted to know.

"This is my room, and the doctor insisted on giving you a full examination, that's why I removed your clothing. I would have brought you to one of the guest rooms, but the beds there are just way to small for you."

"Oh....", was all Zeo was able to say.

So he was in bed... naked... with a horse... In that horses bed....

"Tell me... ehm... would you please give me back my clothes? I mean I don't think you would care about running around naked all the time, but...", he stammered.

Luna just looked at him, and pointed a hoof at a nearby chair, where she had put his clothes. After prompting her to turn around while he dressed, Zeo slipped out of bed and stepped over to the chair. Putting on his underpants and jeans had been hard enough, but he was not able to get his shirt on.

"Ehm... Luna?"

The Princess turned around.

"Could you help me? I don't get this shirt over that cast."

Luna chuckled and her horn started to glow. The shirt spread a little and then wriggled itself over his injured arm. The coat, was nowhere to be seen.

"My coat?", Zeo added, pointing a finger at the empty chair.

"I... ehm... Well I was told it was made of skin, and I wasn't too comfortable with the smell.", Luna explained.

"Yes duh.... It's a leather coat. Of course it's made out of skin. I need it back, since there are some things in there, that I need right now.", Zeo said angrily.

Luna flinched a little, and levitated his coat inside from the balcony. Grabbing it with his good hand, Zeo sat down onto the chair and started to rummage in the pockets. After a while he got out a small red package of tobacco, and started to roll a smoke. Not an easy task with only one hand.

"Do you mind if I smoke?", he asked, but Luna just looked at him.

Deciding that it was not a good idea to expose this horse to the smoke of his cigarette, Zeo stepped outside onto the balcony. Grabbing his lighter from one of his pockets, he lit his cigarette, inhaled deep and relaxed. Hearing the clip clop of hooves from behind him, he turned around.

"So... How about getting me home, and maybe something to eat? I don't want to sound rude, but being around talking horses, is kinda strange for me.", Zeo said a little embarrassed.

Luna let her head hang and shook it.

"I am sorry, but even my sister has no idea how you ended up here. My teleportation spell went out of control, and brought you here. I can't even reproduce it, since we have no idea if it would sent you back, or just get another human here."

Looking up into his hazel eyes, she continued.

"But trust me. I will not rest until I find a way to get you home!"

"You don't have to do that. I don't want you to work yourself to the bone, for a futile effort. I still don't know if I am dreaming for sure, or if I am in a coma of some sorts. Maybe I drank too much again, and fell down the stairs? The problem is, that the last thing I remember, before falling on you, is that I was heading out for a weekend of partying at a friends house.", he sighed, and leaned on the reeling.

Luna felt terrible. He had saved her life, and would be stuck in Equestria as a reward.

"Besides....", he broke the silence once again, while turning to her.

"I would appreciate it, if I could get a bed of my own. I mean I don't know much about horses, but your voice is female, and since I am male, even though we don't even belong to the same species, I think it would still be better...."

"I would appreciate it, if you stopped calling us horses. We are Ponies...", Luna reprimanded.

"Ehm... OK Ponies then. OK about that bed..."

"I will have one made for you. Until then you can stay here with me, unless you feel uncomfortable around me."

Zeo had to admit that he actually felt pretty comfortable around this hor... Pony. She didn't even smell as he would have expected. A soft flowery smell emitted from her, and besides, he had liked animals ever since he had been a little boy. Growing up on a farm, he had gotten used to being around animals all the time. They just had never talked to him, and that was the only thing that he actually felt weird about. Being a big fan of fantasy stories, like Lord of the Rings or The last Unicorn, seeing a Unicorn with wings kinda excited him, more then it frightened him.

He shook his head.

"No of course not... You know what? Forget it. I will stay here with you until you find a way to send me home, if that is alright with you."

"Make yourself at home."

Beginning of the end

Chapter 8

Beginning of the end

Lyra was exploring Zeos personal study. After Luna had broken the protective spells, she could finally enter it. Not only that, but Luna had actually encouraged her to do so. The study itself seemed way to expansive, to fit in a room of these dimensions. Judging from the size of Lunas and Celestias studies, it should only be about ten hoofs in radius. But the first floor alone was forty-three hooves in radius. Some of the higher floors were even bigger. She had found one room even that was as big as the Cloudaseum in Cloudsdale. How this was possible, was something she would have to ask Luna on their next meeting. The room she was currently skimming through, was filled with several pedestals, workbenches, desks, book shelfs and a simple bed that stood in the far corner of the room. As much as she wanted to look at all the fascinating objects that lay on the several pedestals, she remembered the last time she had tried to touch something here. Her horn had not healed completely yet, and she could live a happy live if she never got it burnt again.

There were all kinds of things. Swords, armor parts, strange looking devices and in the middle of the room she even found what looked like a model version of the royal Canterlot railway. On it was a miniature train, that looked pretty close to the ones she knew, even so less colorful. As she approached the desk that stood next to the bed, she noticed several parchments that were spread over the entirety of the quite large piece of furniture. On a smaller desk next to it were only small piles of dust. Lyra had found several of those, and she assumed that these were documents that had not been lucky enough to be placed in a conservation spell.

"So much knowledge lost.....", she thought to herself.

After deciding that it was no use to cry over spilled milk, she turned her attention to the bigger desk again. The desk was definitely surrounded by a conservation spell, but no protective barrier. Having encountered quite some of those in here, she had learned to notice them beforehoof. Encouraged by this, she started to read what had maybe Zeos last research project.

Magical strands able to interact with other magical energy. Maybe able to draw foreign magical energy out of an object with them?

Gemstones successfully drained of magic. Possible uses for them? Have to look into that further. If they can be filled with magic again, they could maybe act as a vessel to store Energy?

Experiment failed. Energy stored forcefully injected in Gemstones will cause them to explode after a short time. It looks like they can't hold any other Energy then the one they slowly produce on their own. Still.... They do absorb the energy. If not filled to the brim, they don't explode, but neither do they store it. Tried casting some spells at them. The energy was completely absorbed, without damaging the gemstone. Looking for a cure, I again have found a possible weapon... why is that?

Red Steel has brought it to my attention that our agents have managed to find the rebels headquarters. This will be a good field test for my new coat. Hopefully this will finally be over once we have wiped them out. Luna wants me to arrest them, but I won't have any of that. They poisoned my wife, and killed my child. When I am done with them, they will beg for death. Red Steel and the others are with me on that. As much as I hate to do this behind Lunas back, it is better that way. This way the attacks on her life will just suddenly stop, without her having to bear the burden.

The coat worked wonderfully. Sadly we did not get all of them. We were discovered long before we reached our destination. Ash Dash accidentally set off one of their alarms, so most of them were able to get away from us.... again. We suffered not a single casualty, but that was most likely just because we only had to face a small group that was covering the retreat of the rest. Most of them were Unicorns. The plating on my coat worked just as I intended it to do. The gems absorbed every spell they threw at me. Once fully charged I could simply take them off and use them as projectiles. It is a terrible weapon, and I don't want the knowledge of it's creation to ever leak out. I will burn these documents, once my research is done, or at the very least lock them up in the vault. The Ponies are trying to create a society of peace. The last thing they need is research into very powerful magical weapons.

Celestia has approached me about my detonator gems. She wants to use them for her mining operations in the north, but I refused. Were I to agree to it, I would have to share the knowledge of their creation, and I won't to that!

Magical strands improved once again. I was able to extract energy from a Unicorn volunteer. If my research in this field keeps proceeding at a steady pace, as it is now, I may be able to help her soon. Also the Mind-link finally worked. Sadly however, it killed Good Heart. Human minds are just not compatible with Pony minds. He volunteered to help me, but that does not change the fact that I am to be held responsible for his death. We were linked for about one minute, before the signal became unstable and a sudden magical burst fried his mind. I had to put him out of his misery. He didn't actually die from this, but his mind got totally wiped. There was nothing left. I think he was better off with the bullet I put through his skull. Should there be an afterlife, I hope I meet him there. Even if it's just to apologize....

Lyra was fascinated on one hoof, but appalled on the other. The human had written about killing Ponies so casually, that it almost made her sick. What earned him some points with her though, was that he had been unwilling to share the knowledge of his potentially dangerous discoveries. Sure, the text stated that he was not actually researching weapons, but rather looked for a cure for Luna, but he sure had been quick to find violent purposes. After going through most of the parchments, something dropped from the table, as Lyra moved some of them aside. She had wanted to read the rest of it, but the object that had been hidden beneath, and unintentionally dropped to the ground, was more interesting to her. It was a small white rectangular object. There seemed to be three silver buttons on it's lower half, as well as four on one side. What Lyra made out to be the front of the device, also had a smaller, black, rectangular part. It looked almost exactly like the "Cellphone" Luna had described to her time and time again.

But... according to her mentor, Zeo hadn't gone anywhere without it. So why was it here? She enveloped it in her magic to put it back onto the table, but that certainly had an effect she had not anticipated. All of a sudden a loud sound, like that of a million alarm clocks, resonated from the device as the formerly black part of it came to live. Lyra set it down on the table, poking at it with her hoof, while trying to cover at least one of her ears with the other. If she would be deafened by this, she wanted to minimize the damage. To her surprise, the sound stopped after a few seconds. At first Lyra was surprised, but then she noticed the pale white aura around it. Turning around, she spotted Luna who was smiling widely. Apparently her little run in with the Cellphone had amused her.

"I see you found it. Zeo was looking for it everywhere.", she snickered, as she came closer.

"Yeah... but... what was that horrible noise, and why is it still working? Hadn't you said that it needed to be charged regularly?"

"Well yes, but it's been inside a conservation spell. Meaning it's power is most likely still undrained. As for the alarm you triggered, that's it's basic reaction to being enveloped in magic.", Luna was now standing next to her student.

"But why doesn't your magic cause that reaction?"

"Oh it does, but I cast a silencing spell on it. All sound that it produces is now confined within that small barrier. It's just how it reacts. Technology from Zeos world just reacts funny when it is exposed to magic. At least things that originate there. The ones we recreated from his descriptions, show now reaction whatsoever.", Luna explained, placing her muzzle on the phone and moving it in a funny way.

"What are you doing?", Lyra asked curiously.

"Shutting off the alarm of course. It doesn't react to anything except the touch of ones skin. Quite hard to operate such a device I can tell you.", Luna frowned.

Lyra watched in awe as the screen, that had gone dark after she had placed it back on the table, came to life one again. She could see a photograph of her mentor, and several objects in front of it as Lunas tongue moved over it.

"Tastes just as bad as I remember it....", she coughed, before releasing her spell.

"There you go. The alarm is deactivated, but I suggest you don't try to use magic on it again. The electronics inside just go crazy if they are exposed to it.", Luna explained, before putting the phone on her hoof and giving it to the mint green Unicorn.

"What shall I do with it?"

"Well... you wanted to know about Zeo, and I think this thing holds quite some information about him. Once you are done however, meet me downstairs. There is a new spell I would like you to learn." The midnight blue Alicorn said, before trotting off once again.

If Lyra had hoped for instructions on how to use the device, she was disappointed. But soon she had to find out, that it was quite easy. The little pictures on the screen stood for the several ways the device could be used. Since they were all labeled, Lyra soon had figured out how it worked. Some of the pictures simply called forth a message that informed her, that there was no "Service" in her current area. She assumed that these were the options that needed some sort of connection, to a network that Luna had mentioned to her once. Others however were quite interesting. A picture labeled "Video" had provided her with several new pictures. As she touched them with her nose, which was quite difficult since they were so small, moving pictures and sound started to play. It startled her quite a bit at first, but she observed the scenes playing out on the screen curiously.

Lyra saw several humans hugging each other and obviously talking. She could not understand a word however, since they were drowned out by very loud sound. The fact that the pictures had been recorded in almost complete darkness, didn't help her to recognize much of it.

Another one showed a beautiful field, from which the observer could watch all the way to the next mountain, and the one behind that one. The scene seemed wonderful, and she could even hear some birds chirping. Then something red shot past the one holding the device, causing that Pony to drop it and swear loudly.

"Du Arschloch! Pass doch auf wo du langfährst!", a male voice shouted.

Lyra did not understand a single word, but got the aggravated tone of voice rather quickly. A hand came into view, covering the device and the recording ended. There were several others. Some even made here in Equestria. On one she would see a much younger looking Princess Luna, trying to cast spells. What became quite obvious, pretty quickly in those videos, was that Luna was, or at least had been, very skilled at shape shifting. In one of those Lyra could actually witness how her mentor changed from being a Pony, to what looked like a mix of human and Pony. She still had her coat, mane and tail, but her entire physique had changed dramatically. Lyra wondered if Luna could teach her that spell some time in the future. She already knew some basic illusion magic, but this was nothing like it. An illusion spell would not be able to bring on such drastic change.

After going through most of the "Movies", as she identified them now, she had finally reached the very last one. Her blood froze in her veins, as she recognized what the camera had picked up. It was Nightmare Moon, standing in the courtyard of the ancient castle of the royal Pony-sisters. It was evening in the "Movie", which she could make out by the time code being displayed at the lower right part of the screen. Had that not been the case, she would have assumed it had been in the dead of night. In front of Nightmare Moon stood Princess Celestia, unharmed, but with a worried expression on her face. The recording was not very long, but it was quite disturbing.

"So Zeo was there when Nightmare Moon showed up.... But... why did he record this, instead of stepping in? What happened that evening?", she thought to herself.

Lyra decided it was time to get some answers. Luna was waiting for her downstairs anyway, so she could get to that right now. It was quite the ordeal moving up and down the stairs all the time. This particular room had been on the tenths floor, so Lyra now had to canter down all these stairs. It was easier going down, then up, but it was still taxing.

By the time she reached the newly renovated first floor, she was panting heavily.

"Everything alright? You seem to be quite out of breath.", Luna asked concerned.

Just then Lyra realized that she had broken out into a full out gallop,while descending the stairs. While panting she started to address what was on her mind.

"Nightmare.... Moon.... Zeo was... there.", it wasn't a question. She was stating a fact. Lunas eyes grew wide, and her head drooped a little. She had obviously not meant for her student to find out about this.

"How did you find out?", she asked, her tone as flat as could be.

"The phone had a recording of Nightmare Moon and Celestia in the castle gardens. What I don't understand, is why he did not...", the mint green Unicorn started, but got interrupted by a glare from her teacher.

"Do not assume he did just sit idly by. If you found his phone up there, then that means he went here to get something before he did. I will not deny that he interfered with Nightmare Moon, but I can tell you now that I will not tell you about it just yet.", the trembling Alicorn stated, afraid that all her hopes were lost.

Lyra was still panting, as she lounged herself on the couch in front of the fireplace. Luna did not take her eyes of her all the while, as she was contemplating her options. Her teacher had made it quite clear several times in the past, that her lessons would be over, would she learn something out of order. Now she surely had done exactly that, but not exactly if she was honest with herself. She had learned about a fact, but not the whole story. That Luna had admitted that Zeo had actually done something about it, was surely a way for her to try to minimize the damage to her plans.... Finally Lyra came to a decision.

"I do not agree to this. I want to know about that night, but I will respect that you do not want to tell me about it right now. Just promise me that you will do so in due time, or we are done here. I've put up with you keeping things from me up to this point, so you can at least give me that, can't you?", Lyra was surprised at her own bashfulness.

Lunas expression lightened up a bit, when she nodded.

"Of course my little Pony. I was planning to tell you about it eventually. But be sure that the day, or night, that I do your studying with me will be over. It will be the last chapter in the story I have to tell you. Are you OK with that?"

"Yes. OK so you wanted to show me something. What is it?", Lyra relaxed, glad that her gamble had worked out so well.

"Today I will not tell you a story. We will have to work on another spell that you will need for the task I have in mind for you. Do not fret though my friend, it is also a medical one.", Luna explained, after placing herself on the sofa, next to her student.

"Which spell is it this time? You already had me learn about ten spells, and I can't see uses for all of them in medicine. Some, like the analyzing spell or the phase-shifting one, surely do have their uses. But what about things like the containment or even the purging spell? I can understand that it might be needed to contain a Pony that is infected with some terrible disease, but purging them? I couldn't rightfully burn a sick Pony.", Lyra huffed.

"Now now... you will see in due time. The purging spell is only a last resort. You will have to use it, if the task I have in mind for you fails. You must promise me that you will use it, no matter the consequences.", Luna pressed.

"I... I don't know...", she stuttered.

"You will understand once you know what we are attempting to do. Just trust me when I say, that it will be for Equestrias good if you use the purging spell, should our little..... experiment fail."

Lyra nodded. She still had no idea what Luna was getting at. What could be so dangerous that there was no other way to deal with it, other then to burn it to a small pile of ashes? She just hoped that this new spell would not be so.... dangerous. A hope that was soon crushed however.

"What I intend for you to learn today, is the Mind-link-spell.", Luna explained.

"The what????? But Zeos notes state that it killed one of his volunteers!", Lyra gasped.

"So you found these notes, eh? Well... Yes....Good Heart was a victim to Zeos research. The problem was the incompatibility between human and Pony minds. They reject one another. At least as long as the Ponies mind is still connected to their body. In later experiments, it became quite clear Zeo could pull it off, even so he was never able to perfect it. I, on the other hoof, have done some research on my own, and I can tell you it is safe for two magically skilled Ponies to do it.", Luna tried to reassure her.

Lyra was feeling more and more like this was a terribly bad idea, but she had chosen to go through with it, and so she would. She nodded.

The next two hours, Luna explained the spell to Lyra. She also made it quite clear that Lyra would have to be the one to initiate the link. Her damaged horn prevented her from using such advanced magic. Furthermore Luna put quite some emphasis on the fact, that one the link was established Lyra would be in her mind. Luna wanted her to go about it gently, as to not damage anything in there. She would be there with her, but the spell was designed to overpower the actual host, so Lyra would have to be careful, if she didn't want to turn her mentor into a drooling husk of a Pony.

The first try was a failure, but on the second one Lyra directed her magical strands towards Lunas horn. This time she could feel a tuck at her own mind, as if somepony had wrapped her brain into a net and was now trying to drag it out through her horn. It was an unpleasant experience, to say the least, an outright painful one to be honest. Lyra tried to fight it at first, but the pain only intensify once she did so. The more she fought it, the harder the imaginable net started to pull on her poor brain. Once she started to relax a little though, the pain subsided. The less she fought against it, the more she could feel herself travel through the magical strands into Lunas mind.

Once she opened her eyes again, she stood in a vast room, or so she assumed. Most of it was in complete darkness. The only thing she could see clearly was the smiling face of her friend and mentor.

"You have done it. I'm quite proud of you right now. The control you have due to your musical talent, has enabled you to do this. Even Starswhirl failed at this."

"He did?"

"Yep. That was actual... well it was the day he died.", Luna explained.

"WHAT? I thought you said this was safe!", Lyra exclaimed.

"It is. But you must know that he was quite full of himself, and I tried to teach him this much sooner then I taught you. He thought the spell I had recreated from Zeos notes to be imperfect, so he meddled with it. Had I not noticed this, when his mental image began to fade, and severed the connection, I would have died as well. He was quite the dumb Unicorn, for being remembered as one of the greatest ones."

"But... wait... First of all, when was that? And didn't you say that Starswhirl walked out on you?"

"He did. But he came back a few days later. He was a stubborn and persistent one. He wouldn't stop annoying me, until I continued talking to him. In retrospect, it would have been better if I had stayed strong. His meddling with the spell actually caused something terrible. I escaped death, but it still had.... side-effects.", Luna said, while walking through the darkness with Lyra at her side.

Slowly but steadily book shelfs, doors and many many cupboards faded into existence. As she looked about she saw that all of the shelfs and cupboards were labeled. There were shelfs labeled "Spells" or "Recipes", while others had their labels obscured. All the doors had large padlocks on them. Lyra assumed these held knowledge that her mentor either did not want to share yet, or wanted to forget herself. The fact that she did not get an answer to her question as to when Starswhirl had been her pupil, had not escaped her either. Just what was the reason for this? Why couldn't Luna tell her what his meddling had caused? Was it really something that terrible?

After trotting for a while, the two of them reached a giant double door. From under it Lyra could see strands of pure black magic pour out. The door itself was red with golden rims, and in the middle of it was a lock that was bigger then Celestia and Luna together. All around it were warning signs. Lyra had a very bad feeling about this.

"What is behind that door?", she finally broke the silence.

"Nightmare Moon... or at least what is left of her. The elements of harmony, after they were used on me the second time, sealed that what was left of her in there. I am not truly free of that monster, as you very well know by now. Lyra.... let me ask you... do you trust me?", Luna asked, her voice shaking in fear a little.

"I wouldn't be here, if I didn't. I just hope you trust me as well."

Luna took a deep mental breath, before continuing.

"On one day in the near future, I will have to open this door. This is part of why I have you learn Zeos spells. I want to finally be rid of her, and you will have to play your part in it. If it fails however, you shall not allow Nightmare Moon to walk freely.", she explained.

"The purging spell...."

"The purging spell."

For quite some time the neither of them said a single word, and just stared up at the mental lock that kept the mental door shut. Finally Lyra could not stand the tension anymore. Something was quite amiss here.

"But if this is where Nightmare Moon is sealed away, then why is she not fighting against her bonds?"

"This is only her essence. Her will is not here. The Nightmare Moon that was defeated by Twilight Sparkle and her friends was not the original Nightmare Moon. The terrible event that was caused by Starswhirls meddling.... it broke down this door. I created it on the night I first turned and overthrew her in my mind. Zeo had something to do with it aswell.... He weakened her considerably. The one that Twilight Sparkle and her friends defeated was but a mere shadow of the original. Let me assure you that, had they faced the real monster, then we would not be having this talk. She would have made short work of them, and laughed about the use of the elements for the toys they are.", Luna explained with a sigh.

"But.... Then you turned more then once?"

"Yes I did. How that happened though is a story for another day, my faithful student. This spell is exhausting me a great deal, and I don't want to take any chances. So can you promise me to use the purging spell, should the worst come to pass? Celestia is no match for the real thing, and I do not want it to harm her again.", Luna inquired.

"Yes, if that is what you wish.....", Lyra responded hesitantly. She would not want to harm her friend, but if it was necessary, and it was her wish, then she would do so. Even though she knew, even now, that she would most likely break from doing so.....