The Nightmare Chronicles

by Maxypony

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Rainbow Dash, Nightmare Moon, Scootaloo, Adventure
Length: 4991

Nightnare moon returns a second time, banishing several ponies to a horric new relm: Alquestria!

This story comes in two parts: The Nightmare Chronicles and The Nightmare Chronicles: Rapture. Rapture is filled with mature content so I am submitting them seperately.
In TNC, Nightmare Moon is brought back by the Moonmare Apprentice she created. Upon her arrival NM banishes several ponies to Alquestria. Which is the distant world Alicorns came from. Everything Alquestria related is covered in Rapture.
The plot thickens, Nightmare Moon And Tyrant Celestia (who is pink not white btws) have been working in concert for 1000 years to take over complete power from the True Princesses. The Tyrant as a disembodied spirit has been manipulating celestia all this time, successfully obtaining the knowledge needed to harness the power of the elements of harmony via the friendship reports.
At this point I have 3-4 conflicting plot twists. Havent decided yet. And to acctualy get here i have a buck load of Writing to do. So thats what I got for now.

Published 2012-03-12 03:04:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-03-12 03:04:02 UTC

Discord/Impact

The Nightmare Chronicles
Chapter I
Discord

This was her only chance to follow her mistress Nightmare Moon down unto the ever changing green, white, and blue blur ever so far below.
Sapphire had heard stories of the place down below from her mistress, tales of the tyrannical sister Celista, who banished her to the moon. She also heard the stories of the earth ponies who walked upon the ground with four legs, as time went on sapphire fashioned herself four legs from the life giving clay of the celestial pool crater.
Then her mistress went on to the mystical lore of the unicorns and their powerful magic, guided by the horn on their heads. There were now horns to speak of upon the surface of her lunar home, so sapphire recut the twin sapphire tinted ruby's that formed her life essence, into two horns which she grew into her clay skull. The burgundy magic becoming blood to flow in her vains.
As a final touch sapphire using the tall tails told of the pegasii as a guide, took the skin from several aquabats and formed herself two wings to fly with. The final touch was to give the rest of her new body new colors besides that of the silvery gray of moon clay. Her coat a lustrous black, to match her mistress. Her mane and tail, formed from the fibrous filaments that make up the tails of comets and shooting stars.
The firey energy in her mane bought to its full strength through the expert weaving of the whispy blades that she pulled from any shooting star that passed by near enough. The regal flow of her tail came from the soft whisps of comet cotton.
These both colored of her trademark sapphire blue.
Her eye slits where colored from the place far below that she wished so desperate to visit. Her eyes were twin mesmerizing emeralds with swirling flecks of silver and sapphire throughout.

Looking too deeply into those eyes might just cause one to fall forever into a headlong spin into nothingness, such was their chaotic beauty.
With the world below torn apart into chaos with the release of an ancient deity there was no one below with the unity to prevent her from diving down to that tri-colored blur below. Of course that still left the most difficult part of the journey, crossing the void between her world and the one below.
Sapphire spent so much time staring into that void that the power of its empty nothingness had seeped into the void behind her own eyes, enhancing the already terrible pull her eyes held. With their power sapphire went eye to eye with a star, staring it down. The only way to cross the void was to ride upon the back of a shooting star. It took nightmare moon a thousand years to convince the stars to fall with enough power to allow her to cross the void and breach the magical wards her sister had shielding the kingdom of Equestria.
However with discord disrupting the balance of things it was a simple matter to stare down a star and ride it down to the mystical beacon that the ruined alicorn castle emanated. The beacon in place long before the two princesses feuded, long before Equestria was ever formed, long before ponies even walked upon that continent, the beacon came from the true antiquity; when sapphires shapeless ghostly people still held power over the land below, taking many forms, or every form in the case of discord.
However sapphire was the last surviver from the obliterated empire that once stretched to the moon and beyond.
The remaining members of her species had either gone completely insane or prisoners entrapped by the very magic they had eons ago.
Or in the case of discord, both.
There were others, the true primortal spirits, but they only existed as slumbering entities drifting through the endless void.
Besides all of this sapphire was only partly of the ancient kind, she came into being because of Nightmare Moons magic, so her spirit world essence was also part pony.
Now she was falling through the sky clinging to the ebbing contrails sputtering off of the dying star.
As the star burned its last ember sapphire made ger first encounter with that wonderful element that was air, she felt alive for the first time in her existence as her spread her leathery wings and soared through wave after wave of new sensation.
The world look and felt completely different this close to the ground, just a few more moments and she could touch the highest cloud.
The first clouds were mildly cold, then they became warm and wet. Wet was by far the strangest sensation she had ever encountered. It was so... Weird.
But soon sensations were outclassed by sights, the greenery was just too far away to see clearly, sapphire tucked her wings and rolled into a numbingly steep dive. Rocketing toward the trees below. The trees looked so soft and squishy, sapphire was rapidly approaching them, the just a moment after she reached out to touch the trees, a frightening new element reared its terrible head, pain shot through her entire body the most shocking and different sensation she had ever encountered. Then came something very familiar, darkness...

Chapter 2: Impact

Scootaloo flexed her tiny wings, tensely waiting for Dashie's signal.
Suddenly the crystal clear sunlit skies abruptly dimmed, as a billowing wave of black fire burst from above the suddenly shell shocked tree tops of Everfree Forest. The ominous shockwave of ghostly flames, swiftly dissipated into the horizon, but left behind foreboding storm clouds forming above the fading gold-orange sunset.
Despite the ominous cause, the breathtaking beauty created by the dying sun's last rays lighting the darkness above with a perfusion of fiery beams of golden colour, stopped everypony in their hoofprints. Slack jawed, the inhabitants of ponyville stared into the sky as the final rays of light crept bellow the horizon.

/)(\

"What in all of Sweet Apple Orchards was that... Th-" The rest of Applejacks verbal quandary was cut short by deafening, keening ear splitting metallic hoof on chockboard screech reverberated throughout the valley, echoing around the neighboring hillsides, only fading into the distance at an excruciatingly languid pace.

"Could it possibly be?" Twilight implored to no one but the solitary tree under which she was studying a dusty tome on ancient pre-equestrian history.
Swiftly flipping to the index in the back, before tearing through the pages until she settled upon a short chapter on "off hoof" archeology from eons before the three tribes had even formed.
Twilight skimmed across a free paragraphs before finding the faded passage she was searching for.
Twi look up at the air space above the gnarled Everfree Forest. And to her horror she saw the last fading filaments of fire burning in a downward spiraling pillar.
"OH NOOOO. Its! Its... Its a DemonicPainDoom! Mother of Celestia..."
Twilight bemoaned in horror.
"Is that even possible!?!! Wait what is it?" Spike enquired as he crested the top of the hill.

/)(\

Rainbow Dash stared at the sky in dumb struck awe struck stupification.
Words began to form on her trembling lips. "What is this, I don't..." her voice broke and trailed off into silence.
At which point the ever perky but starstruck Scootaloo chirped in with mind blown enunciation. "THIS. HAS. TO. BE. 9000% COOLER!!! Than anythING!!!" Ending with a high pitched squeal.
Just then Scoot looked down, tracking movement from the edge vision, to see Dash hit the ground in a dry puff of dust.
In throughout all the shock and awe Dashie's shattered and paralyzed brain forgot to flap.
"Outch." She winced.

"Heehee" Scootaloo giggled. "you /should/ see your /face/"
Stretching out two of the words in a excessively dramatic fashion.

/)(\

"Well, darn. I ain't never seen anythin' the likes of /that/."
Stretching the last word out as if to set a record in the syllable in Equestria's vocal history.
Big Mac replied in a similarly drawn out fashion. "EEEYYEUUPP..."

To be extended in a stylistically identical looooooooongcaaaat

Storms of Black Lightning

The Nightmare Chronicles
Chapter III
Storms of Black Lightning

Meanwhile, Back in Canterlot...

While setting her waxing charge into it ritual track in the rapidly darkening dusky starsteeked sky, Luna felt a quite unusual tremor from the glistening first rays of moonlight softly shining from the silvery orb drifting just above the horizon.
Such a tremor troubled Luna, something about it reminded the royal alicorn of her dark, and troubling past.
Luna's keen eyes lighted upon her dusky celestial orb, with a remorseful gaze panged with old regets. She deftly tossed her mane into the gentile breeze, and turning aside, Luna returned to her inner sanctum. Shrugging off the strange chills that ran from ethe foremost tuft of her mane to the longest hairs of her tail, brushing along the cold smooth expanse of the marble hall.

/)(\

Flying was hard work, gliding was easy.
Scootaloo hopped down from her perch, wings wide spread she glided softly down to dash, the branching crabapple leaves now no longer obscuring her view of the western sky.
"Dashie, you... Wha... Huh. How did that Gigantic storm get there. " scootaloo mused.
"There isnt any storm planned for to day so what aare you talking about!?!" Was dashies retort, to which scootaloo merely stuck a hoof out.
"OOhhh you mean that storm, well that would explain the gigantic." Dash replied. "Nope, don't know why that is there."
Dash looked back at the torbid cloud bank marching toward them, catching the last glimmer of light bouncing off the flat underside of the aproaching stormhead.
Darkness enveloped Dash and Scootaloo.

/)(\

Throughout ponyville, awe swiftly morphed into unbridled terror as the billowing storm clouds built up into a towering wall of menacing darkness. The last rays of the suns warmth, dwindling into nothingness cast the whole of ponyville into a chilling darkness.
To many a ponies suprise the golden sun rays were swiftly replaced by a new source of light eminating from the cloud in sharp flashes. Each flash was followed seconds later by an sinister crackle.
The shocking part of the storm burst was their color, instead of the classical silvery yellow of normal lightning, these poles of light were black. How black could be a form of light is hard to comprehend if you've never seen it yourself.
Shadows were blasted away, replaced instead with a uncannily visable, yet eerily monochromatic darkness. In between the flashes nopony could see a hoofs breadth in front of their muzzle.
Even the bravest of foals began to whimper as everypony rushed to get indoors. This was no storm to be outside in, or even fought, corralled or redirected. Everypegisii dashed for shelter.
All ecept Dash and Scootaloo, they were cought out in the middle of a crabapple orchard, more than a hop, skip and a jump from anyponies sheltering abode. They hunkered down beneath what shelter could be gleaned from the nearest crabapple tree. Waiting for the full force of the storm to hit.

/)(\

Sweet Apple Orchards was a hive of activity. Everypony from Grannysmith down to little apple bloom was bustling getting everything ready to weather the approaching storm.
Twilight raced toward the orchard's Stables, rushing past Applejack and Big Mac. Twi paused, turned and blurted out hurriedly.
"You are going to have to take care of spike during the storm. I need to teleport back to the library to lock up. I have TONs of research to do, all I know is that This Storm is very magical and extremely dangerous. Everpony be as careful as possible."
Applejack asked. "Sugarcube, y'all look out of sorts, what in the hay is going on?"
"I DONT KNOW! Ok, I don't know, and im scared. This is bad, very bad..." Her voice trailed off, and she took a deep breath. "I need to go Now." With a bright flash of purple magic twilight disappeared.
"By Granny Smiths wrinkles, I Ain't ever seen Twilight actin' that way before." Applejack commented, before herding everypony and a dragon into the shelter of Sweet Apple Orchards.
/)(\
2 Chapter 3: Storms of Black Lightning (Part 2)

The hollow crackle of black lightning smootly accompanied the pop of purple magic that announced Twilight's arival to the empty library.
Twilight arrived upside down and several feet above the ground, the mystic energies of the storm already playing tricks on her spellcasting. She landed with a dull thud, legs akimbo, for a moment looking like a dead spider. Rolling onto her Hooves Twilight called out for her Owl night assistant.
"Whoo." Was his only reply.
Fearing to use magic again, Twilight begain franticlly browsed the lower shelves for any books might hold a refrence to the Last Darkness. This was the only referable term Twi had found in the old Tome.
Realizing the monumental imposability of the task before her, Twilight prepared a spell to help narrow the search. However, before she could cast the spell, a tattered scroll landed onto the table beside her. A Owl followed moments after, pointing a talon at the venerable papyrus. It was a aged zebera scroll, full of archaic zebra nursery rhymes, Twilight was barrowing it from Zecora to practice translating the oldest know zebra dialect.
Although the subject matter was simple and familiar, the archaic lingua combined with the foreign, confusing script, meant Twi's progressed at a snails pace. Several day's before, Twilight quit in rage, at which the point the library's night Owl tried his talon at deciphering the coptic phrases.
Twilight found the segment underlined with a talon. However, the letters were so aged and faded it was nearly impossible make out, much less comprehend. Twilight glanced up at her companion who shrugged his wings in frustration, pointing his talon at the only decipherable portion. After a few minutes of struggle, Twilight was finally able to make out a truncated phrase.
/'...afore yon sun did light cast,
twixt Darkness antiquity doth Last.'/
Realizing there was nothing more to be deciphered until she could take the scroll back to Zecora, Twilight raced to batten down the library before the storm could get in and ruin her precious collection.

/)(\

The guard hairs bristled along her Spine as Rainbow Dash spread out her wing to help shelter scootaloo from the worst of the storm. Rain began to pour down in icy sheets as the dark clouds blotted out the world around them. The nightmarish Storm was just beginning.
The trees around them began transforming into spooky monsters, set off by lucid flashes of near blinding darkness. Inside the storm, flashes of lightning became packet of terror, turning everything in Dashie's field of vision into something she knew couldn't be there. The black lightning struck especially close to their shabby tree-shelter, causing scootaloo to snuggle tightly up under dashie's protecting wing. A nearby branch snapped in the escalating wind as Scootaloo let out what she wanted to be a brave sounding squeek. Instead, scootaloo hit a pitch normally reserved for classroom chockboards.
"I'm pretty sure tha- AAAAHH!!"
Dash screamed in the middle of trying to reassure scootaloo. Every hair on end as the dark lightning blasted into the tree they were huddled under.
"-Sure we should move, and NOW!" Dash finished as she jumped into the sky and sped off in the direction of ponyville.
"WAIT!" Cried Scootaloo as Dash shot into the sky.
"I can't fly! Come back!" Dash did an intricate spin looping back and scooping scootaloo up on her forehooves. Dash sprinted skyward, there was no way Dash could carry scootaloo all the way back to ponyville in the raging gale that was brewing. Years of storm flying, however, had lent valuable knowledge to the swift Pegasus. If you couldn't fly through a storm, you could always fly above it.
Flying through storm clouds was more than a uphill battle, and Dash, burden clutched tightly to her chest, had never faced a storm to compare with this one.

/)(\

The scene at Sweet Apple Orchards was hushed silence, everypony waiting for the thundering storm to brake around them. It did. Barn peppered with pounding sheet of rain, gale force wing tearing around the buildings with ferocious abandon. The wind howled around the chimney mimicking the baying of timberwolves during Zap Apple season. The terrifying flashes of luminous darkness bursting from the cloud bank in rapid succession. Powerful and dangerous, yes, but also somehow also interwoven with a rare beauty; or so thought a certain apple bucking expert.
Safe in the sturdy shelter of their barn, everypony took turns looking through windows and the strange storm washing around them.
"By Celestia's mane, this storm tickles my tail somethin' fierce." Applejack exclaimed. "Its terrifying and beautiful all at once."
A head or two bobbed in timid agreement.

/)(\

While Sweet Apple Orchards, give its more remote location, was built to take a beating; Ponyville was in no such shape. One building in particular took a hefty beating. Scaffoldings still up in someplace to assist in the repair of onepony's cross-eyed mishaps.
Scaffoldings collapsed, newly repaired boards were ripped away, tearing freshly laid nail work from it new home.
Throughout the town shingles tore from rooftops, windows broke as the blustering wings scooped loose objects off the ground and swung them around with tremendous strength.
Rain soaked the hard packed ground, turning streets into mud-walks and creating streams of turbid water racing toward every hollow in the ground.
Ponies were soaked to the bone in their once dry homes by torrents of icy rain. The curtain of water droplets enveloped the small town in a downpour so thick, a knife could be used to cut through it.
The residents were hunkered down for hour after hour as the storm continued its wonton rampage.There would be no relief for anypony until the storm passed.

CH#4/CH#5/CH#6

Authors note: tl:dr lots of editing and changes needed

These three chapters still need editing and some alterations in plot developement.
the biggest one is that scoots and dash get separated in the storm, only dash meets sapphire at first. Also i hope you heard it before now but... These chapters are only a prototype for the chronicles i intend to write. So i am planning a redux which will clean, extend, beautify and have fluid continuity. If anypony wants to help me with the daunting (to me) task of editing or proof reading please hit me up. Any and all comments or critcism is welcome, enjoy!!

...i tink the spoiler faildled, meh wahtevsr

Chapter 4: Verily, Forsooth!

Sapphire awoke in a very strange place; all around her was within reach. She was surrounded on all sides by tall shining black obsidian shards, some reaching up all the way to the roof of, what she realized, the cave she was inside of.
Something was very different than before, it took a moment for sapphire to put her hoof on It. The It, was that she was entirely part of herself, no longer was her body a ghastly monstrosity created to be a vessel of her essence and nothing more. Beyond that, she was also really a part of this new world she'd just arrived in. She had changed in every way. No longer a spirit, she was no a real pony, she could feel the powerful web of connections that made her more than a mere physically present spectator. Each tiny string of connection began vibrating with a unending wealth of information, the energetic strings building to a orchestral cacophony of unbearable magical wonder. Sapphire was overwhelmed by the sear depth existance that surounded her, every sparkle of magical existance plucked a string bringing an ever growing and building beauty to her starving mind. Back before, there had been nothing except her Mistress, and the bleak desolate expanse of identical pointless, nothingness in every direction. Now Sapphire could feel a tiny sliver of all things that filled this new land of blissful enchantment.
Sapphire reveled in the novelty of her new meaning to life, creation surrounded her: and it was good.
Time passed before Sapphire remember she existed in the person of a pony. Upon this realization she began to shakily stand, opening her eyes for the first time in her whole life. Instantly the world of her mind disappeared, instead a world of sights, sounds and many other wonders greeted her senses. To her great astonishment, the world of the senses held a unique glory all its own. Sapphire could feel with her mind, but she could truely experiance with her senses. Sapphire looked around her cave before noticing her reflection on one of the slabs of obsidian.
She truely had changed, instead of sickly and wrinkled black skin, her entire pony form was coated in a two tone downy fur coat. The underhairs were immeasurably soft midnight blue fibers, whereas the outer guard hairs were a much lighter sapphire gray. Together they formed a shimmering sea of blue-gray magic.
Her face lost all its menicing angles, replaced with soft round curves. Her twin daggers of red crystal softened into cute rounded triangles partly hidden in her tantalizing silver streaked blue tinted amber mane. Her eyes flashed in the obsidian, devouring her attention. Instead of the dagger like slits of her mistress Sapphire's new eyes were a strange mashup. As if each eye had twin slits crossed over each other to form a X-shaped black maw. Her eyes, fully adjusted to the darkness, appeared almost like a backward square, surrounded by a irregular verdant border. She smiled, revealing the sharp tips of twin pure white fanglets.

Chapter 2: Impact

Scootaloo flexed her tiny wings, tensely waiting for Dashie's signal.
Suddenly the crystal clear sunlit skies abruptly dimmed, as a billowing wave of black fire burst from above the suddenly shell shocked tree tops of Everfree Forest. The ominous shockwave of ghostly flames, swiftly dissipated into the horizon, but left behind foreboding storm clouds forming above the fading gold-orange sunset.
Despite the ominous cause, the breathtaking beauty created by the dying sun's last rays lighting the darkness above with a perfusion of fiery beams of golden colour, stopped everypony in their hoofprints. Slack jawed, the inhabitants of ponyville stared into the sky as the final rays of light crept bellow the horizon.

/)(\

"What in all of Sweet Apple Orchards was that... Th-" The rest of Applejacks verbal quandary was cut short by deafening, keening ear splitting metallic hoof on chockboard screech reverberated throughout the valley, echoing around the neighboring hillsides, only fading into the distance at an excruciatingly languid pace.

"Could it possibly be?" Twilight implored to no one but the solitary tree under which she was studying a dusty tome on ancient pre-equestrian history.
Swiftly flipping to the index in the back, before tearing through the pages until she settled upon a short chapter on "off hoof" archeology from eons before the three tribes had even formed.
Twilight skimmed across a free paragraphs before finding the faded passage she was searching for.
Twi look up at the air space above the gnarled Everfree Forest. And to her horror she saw the last fading filaments of fire burning in a downward spiraling pillar.
"OH NOOOO. Its! Its... Its a DemonicPainDoom! Mother of Celestia..."
Twilight bemoaned in horror.
"Is that even possible!?!! Wait what is it?" Spike enquired as he crested the top of the hill.

/)(\

Rainbow Dash stared at the sky in dumb struck awe struck stupification.
Words began to form on her trembling lips. "What is this, I don't..." her voice broke and trailed off into silence.
At which point the ever perky but starstruck Scootaloo chirped in with mind blown enunciation. "THIS. HAS. TO. BE. 9000% COOLER!!! Than anythING!!!" Ending with a high pitched squeal.
Just then Scoot looked down, tracking movement from the edge vision, to see Dash hit the ground in a dry puff of dust.
In throughout all the shock and awe Dashie's shattered and paralyzed brain forgot to flap.
"Outch." She winced.

"Heehee" Scootaloo giggled. "you /should/ see your /face/"
Stretching out two of the words in a excessively dramatic fashion.

/)(\

"Well, darn. I ain't never seen anythin' the likes of /that/."
Stretching the last word out as if to set a record in the syllable in Equestria's vocal history.
Big Mac replied in a similarly drawn out fashion. "EEEYYEUUPP..."

Chapter 6: Fire in the Sky

Just as Dash thought she might just be able to nod off, softly padding hoofsteps announced the approach of a stranger. This pulled Dash out of her growing stupor, the Everfree Forest was no place to go napping, no matter how exausted a pony was.
Dashed opened her eyes blinking at the bright red haze that surrounded her visitor. Blinking again eyes now focused on the strange pony before her.
"Who are you?" dash asked in puzzlement.
The strange blue-gray pony cocked her head to one side, revealing two crystalline crimson horns from under her mane. The mare before her closed her eyes, tilting her head forward slightly twin horns aglow.
Dash felt a strange tickling feeling at the back of her mind. Moments later a sweet feminine voice echoed softly through her consciousness.
"My name is Sapphire. I'm lost. Could you help me?"
By now scootaloo was also fully wake and pointing a hoof at Sapphire called out in an accusing manner. "Are you even a real pony? You arn't any kind of pony i've ever seen!" Sapphire looked at the both of them in confusion, head twisted sideward again in perfect mimicry of a sparrow.
"It really is true, you don't have wings like any pegasus, you have two horns so you definitely can't be a unicorn..."
Dashie's voice trailed off as Sapphire inflected her head and closed her eyes.
"I'm very new to your language, this may feel strange."
Sapphire screwed her eyes up tight, a look of intense concentration plastered upon her face. With horns brightly aglow she sent a beam of crimson magic strait into Dashie's forehead. Dash felt the powerful blood red magic course through her mind, Bringing with it an upwelling of words and meaning to the forefront of her consciousness. Within seconds the magic was gone.
Dash felt violated, nopony, even the princesses should be able to toy with anyponies mind like that.
"DONT EVER DO THAT AGAIN! The mind talk was weird but that, thats just messed up." Dash vehemently blurted out.
Speaking for the first time Sapphire abashedly apologized.
"I'm sorry, did i hurt you? I didn't want it to hurt."
"No, it didn't hurt." Dash stated, taken slightly a back. "But don't you know not to invade ponies minds or privacy like that? It's not, it's not right." She finished.
"Oh I'm sorry, i did't know. Where I'm from that is how we always communicated."
"Where are you from anyways?" Dash asked, raising a eyebrow in the process.
"As a dutiful apprentice, I came down from the Lunar Orb to follow my mistress Nightmare Moon and to assist her in her noble purpose."
Both Dash and Scootaloo gasped in shock, taking an unconscious step backward.
"What? Is something the matter?" Sapphire probed.
"Um, nothing. Just we need to be... Going. Yes going, there is somewhere we need to go to. Right now. Bye."
"Please, can I come with you?" Sapphire pleaded mournfully.
"Sorry-no can do-bye."
The blue pegasus got up, and attempted to dash off. However her forelegs gave out, dash crumpled in a miserable heap.
"Let me help with that." Sapphire called out soothingly.
"No! I'm fine, really. We have to be going now."
Ignoring Dashie's complaints, Sapphire sent a healing beam of soothing crimson magic, filling the distressed Dash full of new life.
"Noo!" Dash shouted as if the red energy was a swarm of angry killer bees.
Within minutes however, Dash was able to move without pain. Torn between mind's logic and heart's truth Dash stopped a short way down the path. Scootaloo pulling up beside her.
After a minute of deleberation Dash turned around and began walking back toward the softly sobbing blue-gray moonmare.
"What are you doing!?" The shocked Scootaloo called after Dashes rapidly diminishing flank.
"The right thing!" Dash shouted over her shoulder. Crossing back over the rickety bridge, back to the ruined castle, right up to the oddly innocent moonmare.
Sitting there sobbing, Sapphire, it was clear to the pegasus had to be much younger than Dash had originally guessed. Despite being only a half a head shorter than herself, Dash reasoned that Sapphire was alot younger than she looked. Dash was now pretty sure that Sapphire didn't really understand who Nightmare Moon truly was. This meant that Sapphire was not necessarily evil.
This reasoning made Dashes decision to take Sapphire back to ponyville easier to make. Plus, this way, Dash could keep an eye on her.
"It's ok." Dash whispered soothingly as she approached the sobbing moonmare.
"I didn't know you wanted to come with us all that badly."
"I can come with you?" Sapphire asked hopefully, glancing up through her tears. This was the first time Dash had seen Sapphire's eyes up close, the twin winking maws really creeped her out. But Dash was now firmly determined to take Sapphire along with them.
"Yes of course you can, now lets go before Scootaloo gets worried."
Smiling Sapphire nuzzled against Dash.
"Thank you very much."
"Its no problem at all. Just one rule, you cannot, under any circumstances, invade ponies minds with magic, Deal?"
"Deal." Sapphire said in a regal, official sounding voice before breaking down into fits of giggles.
'this pony is really, really, weird. But in a good way.' Dash thought to herself while catching back up with Scootaloo.

Bo ce tontinued...