My Beautiful Dark Twisted Reality

Dark Horse

As the applause (which was actually just ponies stomping their front feet on the ground) died down, there was a long silence. Everyone in the crowd started nervously murmuring to their neighbors. I don’t know what the typical protocol for this celebration is, but based on my observations, this wasn’t it.

“Is it supposed to take Princess Celestia this long to show up?” I whispered to Fluttershy.

“Not unless something horrible hap-”

She was interrupted by a flash of lightning and thunderclap on the stage. Turning my attention to it, I saw a large black pony with midnight blue hair and tail on the stage. What was weird about this one was that it was taller, yet skinnier than all the other ponies I’d seen. Also, it had a horn, wings, and a set of armor for some reason.

I assumed this was the Princess Celestia that had taken her time to show up, but the entrance was worth the wait.

“That was pretty cool. Is it like this every year?” I asked Fluttershy. When I didn’t get a response, I looked around to find out why she wasn’t talking. I found her cowering behind me, trying not to look at the pony on the stage.

“Is something wrong?” I asked her.

Instead of answering, she curled into a ball.

From somewhere else in the room I heard Rainbow Dash yell “What have done with the princess?” while attempting to fly at the pony on stage. She was held back by an orange pony wearing a...cowboy hat?

Maybe it killed Princess Celestia and took her place, I speculated.

The pony on stage responded by laughing, definitely an evil laugh, if you ask me.

“Am I not royal enough for you? Don’t you know who I am?” was its response.

“Ooh, ooh, I know! Hokey Smokes? Queen Meanie? It’s Black Snooty isn’t it? Black Snooty!” guessed a high-pitched voice from the front of the room.

“Does nopony remember me after my thousand year imprisonment? Does my crown no longer count?” the pony who wasn’t Princess Celestia asked.

“I know who you are!” another voice, this time from the middle of the room, announced. “You’re the Mare in the Moon - Nightmare Moon!”

Nightmare Moon, huh? I have to admit, that’s a pretty badass name. The name and the general reaction from the ponies in the crowd led to me believe that this was some sort of evil pony. Because only evil would make an entrance using lightning and laugh like that.

“At least somepony remembers me. That must also mean you know why I’m here,” the newly christened Nightmare Moon said.

“You’re here to...” the voice faltered, then gulped loudly enough that I could here it all the way from the back.

Nightmare Moon laughed (evilly) again, then announced to the whole crowd, “Remember this day, little ponies, for it will be your last. From now on, you shall live in eternal night!”

Eternal night? Shit’s gettin’ real now. I have no idea if that was a bluff or meant to be taken literally, but the ponies seemed to be interpreting it as the truth.

“Seize her! Only she knows where the princess is!” the pony with glasses demanded.

A couple of pegasi flew at the invader, only to get thrown back by a blast of some sort. Nightmare Moon then laughed at their attempt, and promptly teleported out of the room.

“Come back here, you coward!” threatened to the space where it used to be. A stunned silence came over the crowd, apparently struggling to take in what they’d just seen. I saw a couple of the ponies leaving, then felt Fluttershy nudging my leg.

“We have to go,” she told me, her voice barely above a whisper. We left without saying another word, and I followed her through the streets. Instead of going out the way we came in to town, she led me down a series of streets that ended with us in front a giant tree with doors, windows, and even balconies cut into it.

“What are we doing here?” I asked, confused as to why she’d take me anywhere but back to her house.

“I have to help a friend, and it wouldn’t be very nice to just leave you by yourself.”

That was good enough for me. Whatever help she was providing, I guess I could offer some of my own, as well.

We entered the house to find five ponies and something like a thousand books on the ground. For every book on the ground, there were at least two more on shelves set up all around the circular room. In the middle of the chaos was a purple unicorn, pacing around muttering about finding something called “the Elements of Harmony.”

I recognized Rainbow Dash, but other than that I didn’t know the names of any of the other ponies.

“Hey, Fluttershy. Hey, Shen,” was Rainbow Dash’s greeting to us. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and turned to us. Their jaws promptly dropped and their eyes grew wide as they saw me.

“W-what is that?” asked the purple unicorn.

“Oh, Shen’s something he calls a who-man. Don’t worry about him, tough. He’s practically harmless and pretty much house-trained,” Rainbow explained. I waved meekly and tried to put on a non-threatening smile.

Suddenly, a pink face appeared in front of mine, but upside down.

“Hiya!” it greeted me.

I jerked my upper body back in an attempt to get away from it. I kept my legs in place, however, which caused me to start falling backwards. Before I could hit the ground, I was caught by two legs and pushed back up to my own.

I saw the same pink face, along with its pink body and slightly darker pink hair, smiling up at me expectantly.

“You must be new here, too! Obviously, ‘cause I’ve never seen anything like you and if I’ve never seen anything like you then nopony else could have because I know everypony in Ponyville and if nopony’s ever seen you before then that means you don’t know anypony and if you don’t know anypony then you don’t have any friends so I’m gonna be your first and say welcome to Ponyville!” she said, progressively speeding up as she kept talking.

When I was certain that she was done talking, I cautiously stuck out my hand towards her. “Alright, I’m Sean. What’s your name?” I said.

“I’m Pinkie Pie!” she said, shaking my hand vigorously with one leg. I actually felt some sort of grip on my hand as she did this. Her name is extremely accurate, I thought.

“I thought Dashie said your name is Shen,” she said, clearly confused by the difference.

“Yeah, I don’t know why she can’t get my name right.”

Pinkie’s sudden appearance and offer of friendship seemed to alleviate some of the tension in the room. The three ponies who I couldn’t name didn’t appear to be as fearful of me (outwardly) as they had when I entered the room.

“Oh well, you have to meet my other friends! That’s Applejack,” she said as she pointed to the pony with the cowboy hat I saw earlier.

“Howdy,” Applejack said, tipping her hat with her hoof. She had a noticeable southern accent, which was odd to me.

“That’s Rarity,” I was directed towards a pure white unicorn with curly purple hair.

“Hello,” Rarity greeted me, with what sounded like a British accent that was equally confusing to me.

“You must know Dashie, ‘cause she said hi to you, and you obviously know Fluttershy since you walked in together, so that just leaves Twilight Sparkle,” Pinkie deduced, continuing her introductions.

The unicorn’s name reminded me of one of the worst decisions of my life, which was reading the entire series of Twilight books in one week when I was in 8th grade. Hopefully, that was the only thing about them she reminded me of.

“We don’t have time for this,” the purple unicorn said, clearly agitated. “We’re supposed to be looking for a book to find information on the Elements of Harmony.”

Pinkie Pie walked over to a shelf on the wall and pulled off a book with her mouth, then tossed it over to Twilight. “The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide,” she said as it sailed through the air. The book stopped flying before it could hit the unicorn in the face, covered in a purple glow as it levitated in front of her.

“How did you find that?” she asked incredulously.

“It was under ‘E’!” Pinkie replied.

I was equally stunned, but by something completely different.

“How is the book floating like that?” I asked, struggling to comprehend.

“It’s just a basic levitation spell. It’s one of the most basic forms of magic there is,” Twilight told me, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“That’s impossible. Magic’s not real,” I said with conviction.

“You’re looking at an example of magic right now, how can you possibly deny it’s existence?” she said, with a hint of anger creeping into her voice.

“I...uh...whatever,” I gave up my argument since I barely had anything to say. “Don’t you need to be finding out about these Elements of Harmony or whatever?” I gave up arguing since there was no better explanation I could see.

“Right,” she agreed. “There are seven Elements of Harmony, but only six are known: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honest, Loyalty, and Integrity. The last one is a complete mystery, though. According to this book, the Elements were last known to be in the castle of the royal pony sisters, which is in the-” she gasped.

“Everfree Forest,” she finished with dread.

“Oh, that is horrible! What could be worse than the Everfree Forest?” Rarity exclaimed.

If I remembered correctly, the Everfree Forest is where Fluttershy said I came out of, and it wasn’t that bad when I was there. “I don’t see what’s so bad,” I said.

“Ya don’t see what’s so bad?” Applejack squinted at me. I shook my head and she continued.

“The Everfree forest ain’t natural. The plants grow by themselves, the weather moves by itself, and there’s all kinds of nasty monsters in it,” she explained.

The monsters I could understand being something to be worried about, but weather and plants taking care of themselves? That sounded perfectly normal to me.

“Just avoid the monsters and we won’t have a problem,” I said. “That’s what I did.”

“Did?” Rarity asked me, eyes growing wide. “You mean to say you’ve already been in the Everfree Forest and found nothing wrong with it?”

“It was a little dark, but nothing a lot of walking couldn’t get me out of,” I responded. “I didn’t even see any of these monsters that you were talking about, either.”

If she could have, Rarity looked like she would have gone even paler at the information I presented her.

“Whoa! It’s like you’re some kind of grizzled warrior, who’s been there before and isn’t afraid of anything,” Pinkie said, puffing her chest out from her back legs and using her front ones as arms on her hips.

“It wasn’t that cool,” I muttered.

Twilight started leaving, but her bid for stealth was foiled by the fact that she was in the center of the room.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Rainbow questioned the unicorn.

“I have to go the castle to find the Elements,” she stated.

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not. It’s better if I go by myself.”

“No can do, sugarcube,” Applejack said. “Ah ain’t gonna sit here and let a friend of mine put herself in danger when I could be there with her.”

The rest of the ponies then voiced their intentions to come with Twilight.

“You can count me in,”

“As will I.”

“It’ll be fun!”

“Um...me too.”

All eyes turned to me, waiting for me to say something.

“The chance to get murdered by some super villain? It’s not like I have anything better to do, so let’s get going,” I said.

_____________________________________________________________

The forest was a lot different at night. It actually looked intimidating, and the idea of going into it alone didn’t appeal to me. Luckily for me, I was with a group of ponies, led by Twilight Sparkle. The others were fanned out behind her, with Rainbow Dash flying above, and me bringing up the rear. Pinkie Pie was bouncing - literally - with the group, easily getting two feet in the air each jump.

We had been walking silently since we had left the tree house. Rarity was the first to try to make a conversation, starting with me.

“Sean, is it?” I nodded. “What is that design on your clothing?”

“You mean this?” I said, pointing to my shirt. “It’s just the artwork for my favorite album.” It was a simple red shirt, with the ballerina from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy on it. It wasn’t my favorite album art, but it was better than an image of Kanye having sex with a “phoenix” or his decapitated head with a sword through it.

“But what is the artwork of?” she continued.

“It’s a ballerina holding a glass of wine.”

“And how does that represent the album?”

“No clue, but I liked the album, so I bought the shirt, and that’s all there is to say about that decision.”

“But why would you wear red? It clashes horribly with your mane,” she said. As I’d been told countless times before by my fashion-conscious mom and younger sister, gingers shouldn’t wear red. I didn’t care that much about what I wore, but it bothered them.

“I don’t really care what I look like,” I stated.

Rarity’s interview with me ended there, and we all fell back into silence. The path we were following led us up a mountain, which then forced us onto a path that only let us travel two wide at a time.

After about 15 minutes of walking, I noticed a weird purple smoke was drifting around us. It didn’t look dangerous, but being in a purple haze wasn’t generally a recipe for success.

“Hey, does this smoke look weird to you guys?” I asked, wondering if they were seeing what I saw.

“Well, purple smoke definitely isn’t normal,” Twilight started. “But it’s not impossib-”

She was interrupted by a landslide, which knocked Pinkie and Rarity right off the edge of the path. Twilight was caught by Applejack, while I had managed to grab the edge and was holding on for all I was worth.

“Fluttershy, quick!” I heard Rainbow Dash yell, along with the fading screams of Rarity and Pinkie.

Meanwhile, Twilight and Applejack were having their own conversation.

“What do I do now?” Twilight asked in a panic.

“Let go,” was Applejack answer.

“What!?” I was just as confused as Twilight. Was Applejack trying to kill her? “Are you crazy?”

“No, I ain’t. This is the honest truth. You let go, and you’ll be alright,” Applejack said.

I turned my head to get an idea of what was going on over there, and I saw why Applejack was so confident. Below Twilight, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were waiting, with Rarity and Pinkie watching from farther along the path.

Twilight fell, screaming, for a second, then was caught by the two pegasi and lifted back up to the path.

“Is everypony alright?” Twilight asked the group.

“No! I need a little lift over here!” I called out from my perch on the edge. “And if you could hurry before I fall, that’d be great!”

Rainbow Dash flew over and hovered near me, unsure of what to do next.

“What do I grab?” she asked, right by my face.

“Just grab a leg, then lift it onto the path,” I grunted out.

She did, but not in the way I was expecting. In my head, she would raise my leg around the side, so I could roll sideways. However, she took my leg, lifted it up from behind my head, went up my back and made me do a somersault. It worked, but it felt awkward.

“Thanks,” I said once I pushed myself off the ground.

“No problem,” she said, flying back above the group. I don’t know what happened, but something made her stop assuming I wanted to kill her, and now she was treating me like one of her friends.

Nothing normal’s happened since I got here, why would that be any different? I reasoned with myself.

Luckily for us, the rest of the walk along the mountain was short and uneventful. Back in the (relative) safety of the forest, was a different story. We had only re-entered it for five minutes, and there was already something in our way.

“A manticore!” six voices yelled out.

The roadblock, now identified as a manticore, looked like a rejected Pokemon. It was like a lion from the front, but with fangs coming up from the bottom of its mouth and resting outside it. Unlike a real lion, it also had wings and a scorpion’s tail.

Said manticore did not seem too pleased with our being on its path. To facilitate our understanding of its dissatisfaction, it let loose an extremely loud roar.

Rarity didn’t take kindly to this announcement. Charging up to the manticore, she quickly spun around and kicked at its jaw, making an audible thwap! sound. “Take that, you ruffian,” she said with her strike.

The manticore responded by roaring in her face with enough force to blow her curls into a frizzy mess similar to Pinkie’s do. “My mane!” she wailed before running back to a safe distance from the manticore.

Applejack stepped up next, employing a similar strategy as Rarity did. The manticore countered by batting her back with a paw, sending the pony flying back to where she started.

“Aren’t you going to attempt to show this brute some manners?” Rarity quizzed me as Rainbow Dash was repelled by the beast. “I do believe you said you were willing to risk death when we were in the library.”

“I said I was willing to get killed by Nightmare Moon,” I said. “In the world of assisted suicide, there are certain standards you have to live up to. I’m not gonna give this guy the privilege of doing someone else’s job.”

Twilight evidently had decided playtime was over. “Playtime’s over, kitty. Charge, girls!” she said commanded, with all but Fluttershy joining her in a coordinated assault on the manticore.

“Stop!” Fluttershy yelled as she jumped in front of the stampede. “Let me take care of this,” she said as she calmly trotted up to the manticore. She didn’t even hesitate as she got into striking distance of the manticore, who was snarling at the pegasus.

“Now now,” she cooed as if it were just a small kitten, “it’s gonna be okay you poor, little baby.”

“Little?” Rainbow Dash questioned.

“This might hurt just a teensy-tiny bit,” she told the manticore. Then, she pulled a huge thorn out from one of its paws. The manticore growled for a little bit, then it started purring. That wasn’t the end, because it licked Fluttershy’s hair in affection.

“How did you know the thorn was in its paw?” Twilight asked Fluttershy once the latter was released.

“I didn’t, but sometimes we all just need a little kindness,” was the answer.

And I thought I had a fucking death wish.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The trek through the forest to this mysterious castle continued, with two more obstacles behind our group.

The first had been a bunch of faces popping up in a particularly dark area of the forest. Most of the faces were simple scary faces, that were more about shocking you because of their sudden appearance than by being scary on their own. But one, one was legitimately scary no matter how much time I had to prepare for it.

“Oh God, Justin Bieber!”

Luckily for us, Pinkie wasn’t the least bit fazed by the faces. She just laughed in their faces. Then she started singing about how you have to laugh at your fears to make them disappear. Lo and behold, laughing at the faces made them fade out of existence, and with our combined efforts, the faces were cleared up in seconds.

The second event was a sea serpent (which I just learned totally exist in this place) who was in despair because of an uneven mustache. Excuse me, “moose-tache,” as he said. Apparently, the loss of half of his mustache was enough for him to get into a very dramatic fit about his predicament, conveniently blocking our way across the river he resided in.

I wasn’t sure if this sea serpent, who I was led to believe was male, was gay or not. If he was, he was doing absolutely nothing to challenge any of the stereotypes against gays.

Rarity, unwilling to let “such a crime against fabulosity go uncorrected,” started by buttering up the serpent with compliments, before admitting that he was hideous without his mustache. She then ripped a scale off his body, sliced off the majority of her tail, and levitated it up to the serpent, where it fused onto the mustache-less side of his face.

Rarity is metal as fuck, I noted.

Despite the glaring mismatch, the serpent was more than delighted with his new facial hair, and allowed us to cross the river using him as a bridge.

Which brings us to now. We were back to the boring walking that always seemed to happen after something interesting occurred.

I was just about to comment on how this cycle had seemed to exist when I saw two silhouettes standing in the path, right in front of a bridge.

The thing about these silhouettes, was that they were definitely not pony-shaped, or the shape of any other animal or thing that I’d seen since I woke up yesterday.

They were human-shaped.

Getting closer, the silhouettes became solid objects, confirming my theory that there were people in the way. The people in question were dressed in black suits, with white shirts and black ties under them. Also, they were wearing sunglasses, despite it being the middle of an eternal night.

Great, now I’m getting jumped by the Men in Black, I lamented.

“Sean, are these friends of yours?” Twilight asked me.

“No idea. Stay behind me and let me do the talking,” I responded.

“Gentlemen,” I said, addressing the suits, “what can I do for you today?”

“Sean Wilson?” the one on the left asked.

“Yes,” I said. I named this one Agent Smith, which naturally made the other one Agent Wesson.

“We’ve been looking for you. You need to come with us,” Smith said.

“Why should I?” I shot back.

“Your parents have been worried about you, and we’ve been tasked with bringing you back,” he said.

“Prove to me that you’ll actually bring me back,” I demanded.

“You’re 16 years old, born near Los Angeles, California, currently a junior in high school. You think “Hey Ya!” by Outkast is the best song in existence, but prefer Kanye West as an artist for reasons you can’t explain. The only sport you play is soccer, but you follow basketball more closely,” Smith told me. “Would you like me to go on?”

“What does that prove?” Everything they said was true, but it didn’t have any relevance to the situation or my question.

“Only the NSA could learn all that in such a short time,” Wesson finally spoke up.

“I’ll give you that,” I conceded. “Right now, I’m kinda in the middle of something, so if you could let us continue on our way, that would be nice.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Smith told me.

“Oh?”

“We were told to bring you back, by any means necessary.”

“Well, I can’t do that, because I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“Do I need to tell you about your browser history in the past month?” Wesson threatened.

Oh shit.

“N-n-n-no, we don’t have to go there,” I blurted out. “We can work something out. Tell you what, if I’m alive this time tomorrow, you can take me wherever you want.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t allow you any leeway in this decision. Don’t you want to see your parents again?” Wesson said.

“Yeah, but...I made a promise of sorts that I was going to help stop this Nightmare Moon character, and I can’t go back on that now.”

“I’m sure Madeline would be disappointed to hear that,” Wesson said.

That’s it.

“Fuck you!” I yelled as I swung a punch right at Wesson’s jaw. It didn’t connect, but not for the reasons I was expecting. My hand just went right through him as he disintegrated into smoke. I quickly turned to launch a kick into Smith’s groin, and was met with the same result as before.

That’ll teach them to taunt me with a girl who doesn’t even like me.

“You alright there, sugarcube?” Applejack asked me. I noticed that I was breathing heavily and my fists were still clenched.

Taking a deep breath, I unclenched my hands. “Yeah, I’m okay,” I assured her, but it didn’t sound convincing.

“Who were those guys?” Rainbow Dash wanted to know.

“If they were real, they would have been employees of my home’s government.”

“What’s a Madeline?” Pinkie prodded.

“I’m not talking about it now. Let’s just get across this bridge.”

I took a step onto the bridge, which was suspended by two ropes on the side with wooden planks to walk on. Almost immediately, the bridge rope snapped from my weight as I scrambled back onto solid ground.

“Uh, now what?” I asked, inspecting the damage I caused.

“Leave it to me!” Rainbow Dash said. “I’ll just fly over to the other side and tie it up real quick!” With that, she was off.

So we waited. I was avoiding eye contact with the ponies, just so I didn’t have to answer any questions about...her. The seconds turned into minutes, which seemed to stretch into eternity. I wondered what could have possibly been taking the colorful pegasus when she finally returned.

“Sorry about that, got a little caught up with something, but I never leave my friends hanging!” she announced. “The bridge is all safe to cross now.”

We got into a single file line, me bringing up the rear this time. The bridge didn’t break under our combined weight, and we crossed without incident. On the other side, a castle was revealed through the parting of the fog.

“Well, here we are: the castle of the royal pony sisters,” Twilight said. “The Elements should be in here.”

Inside the castle, it was a short walk to the first room, where a statue was sitting in the center of it. It was similar to a model of the solar system, with one big ball in the middle and six smaller ones around it at varying heights.

“There they are. See if you can get them down,” Twilight said upon seeing the statue. We complied, each of us grabbing one of the stone balls and bringing it back to her. The one I picked up was heavier than I expected, considering it was barely a foot in diameter.

“One, two, three, four, five...that’s only six,” Pinkie said, counting our spoils.

“Where’s the seventh?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“The book said: when the six are present, a spark will cause the seventh Element to be revealed,” Twilight quoted.

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but I have an idea. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, so stand back,” Twilight said.

“Come on, then. She needs space to concentrate,” Applejack said, leading us out of the room.

We waited outside while Twilight worked her magic or whatever it took to make that “spark” appear. The tension in the air was noticeable as we sat in silence. That silence was broken when Twilight’s voice broke it with a scream, which sent us into action immediately.

As we ran back to where we left her, we were all yelling out some form of acknowledgement that we were coming to save her.

“...can destroy the Elements of Harmony? Well, you’re wrong, because the spirits of the Elements of Harmony are right here,” I heard Twilight saying as we came into the room.

“What?” Nightmare Moon, who was on the far side of the room, questioned the unicorn. I was thinking the exact same thing.

“Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of... honesty!

“Fluttershy, who tamed the manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of... kindness!

“Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the spirit of... laughter!

“Rarity, who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift represents the spirit of... generosity!

“Sean, who offered to help me even though he didn’t know me, represents the spirit of...integrity!

“And Rainbow Dash, who could not abandon her friends for her own heart's desire represents the spirit of... loyalty!

As she said each of our names and what we’d done a golden necklace appeared out of nowhere and clasped itself around our necks. Of course my first experience wearing one would be in the middle of some fight between talking ponies.

“You still don’t have the last Element! The spark didn’t work!” Nightmare Moon said, though it sounded desperate.

“But it did! When I realized how happy I was to hear and see you coming, that’s when I realized that you’re all my friends! You see, when the Elements are ignited by the spark inside us, it creates the seventh Element: magic!” Twilight said.

With that, a seventh rock ball came down from the ceiling, nearly blinding me with its brightness. It broke up and presumably became a necklace for Twilight.

And that’s when things got really trippy.

We all started floating in the air, necklaces shining away. Then, a rainbow beam came out of the necklaces and shot at Nightmare Moon.

“Noooooooooo!” Nightmare Moon yelled as the beam hit it.

Then there was an even brighter flash right before I blacked out.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I finally came to, head pounding.

I really can’t let this become a theme, I thought.

“Is everypony alright?” Applejack asked in general.

No one answered, but the other chatter indicated everyone was.

Fluttershy and Rarity were fawning over their necklaces, which made me want to inspect mine.

My necklace, however, was easily the best in the room.

It was a dollar sign. Made out of what looked like emeralds. Encased in gold.

I have become every bit the pimp I have dreamed of being, I thought.

Looking around at the others’ necklaces, I saw that they all had designs that appeared to be made out of jewels. Fluttershy had a pink butterfly, Rarity a purple diamond, Applejack an orange apple, Pinkie a blue balloon, and Rainbow Dash had a red lightning bolt. Twilight was actually wearing a crown, with pinkish starburst on it.

A glowing light came from outside the room, which turned out to be the sun. The sun rose faster than any sun had a right to, and followed that up by sending a ball of light into the room. The ball of light then flashed before revealing a large white pony that with a similar body structure to Nightmare Moon. This one had wavy hair that looked like the northern lights and was wearing gold boots and chest plate.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight exclaimed before kneeling. I assumed this is who I was supposed to see before Nightmare Moon made its appearance earlier today.

The others kneeled after recognizing the princess, and I followed suit after a few seconds.

“Twilight Sparkle,” the princess acknowledged the unicorn. Her voice sounded every bit like the royalty that her title indicated. “I knew you could do it.”

“But...you told me it was an old mare’s tale,” Twilight protested.

“I told you that you needed to make some friends, nothing more. I was aware of the signs of Nightmare Moon’s return, and I knew you had the magic inside you to defeat it, but you needed the power of friendship before you could unleash it,” the princess explained. “Now there is one more who needs to accept friendship into her heart: Princess Luna!”

Our attention was directed to where Nightmare Moon had been standing. In its place was a pony that was between the size of Princess Celestia and the other ponies. The other princess had navy blue with a lighter shade of blue for hair. The horn and wings remained. She gasped upon hearing her name.

“It has been a thousand since I have last seen you,” Celestia continued. “It is time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister.”

“Sister?” the rest of us all said at once.

“Will you accept my friendship?” Celestia continued, ignoring us.

“Yes! I’ve missed you so much, big sister!” Luna said.

“I’ve missed you, too” Celestia admitted.

They leaned into each other after that, sharing a moment. Pinkie blew her nose with a handkerchief that I hadn’t seen before.

“You know what this calls for?” the pink one asked. “A party!”