Lunar Lunacy
Prologue
It had been useless to even try, it seemed: for every spell in her knowledge she performed, it would backfire terribly on the imprisoned mare. Escape seemed impossible, and so the next obvious solution was possession or causing destruction down on Equestria: no such luck with that either. She could no more adjust ocean levels or change weather patterns than she could summon a demon to control a butterfly. All of this newfound power, and yet she could not do a damn thing with it!
“Curse you, Celestia!” Nightmare Moon shouted, snorting and stomping against the dusty soil beneath her hooves in frustration. She had been this close, this close to achieving her dream of eternal night, of finally getting the ponies of the world to love and fear her, and her dear sister had gone and ruined it all! Bucking and snorting and engaging in all the expected panoply of anger, she ran around, kicking over stones and blasting craters into the lunar surface with her newfound dark powers. After several minutes of this, and leaving one very small portion of the moon’s surface resembling a warzone, she slumped onto her backside, the effects of the battle with her sister, her recent outburst and her imprisoning teleportation getting the better of her.
She yearned to shout something terribly cliché, like “We shall have our revenge!”, but she did not. After all, even though the magic of her imprisonment on the moon meant she could breathe and make noise and whatnot, who would listen to her out here? She was doomed to an eternity of exile up here, brought forth by her plans to bring an everlasting night. It had been the perfect plan!
“But noooo, Celestia had to just... go and ruin it!” the queen of the night snorted, stomping her two front hooves deeper into the dusty substrate. “It is insulting to us that, even with all of our newfound power, we cannot yet escape from this stupid place!”
Indeed, the moon is a rather dull place to be for an extended period of time. Sort of like a furniture store, or perhaps one of those grand meetings with the minor nobles that Celestia seemed so impatient with. Either way, it took about three weeks for Nightmare Moon to become bored.
Really bored: the kind of bored where you’d wish anything would happen. Even a meteorite impact off in the distance would be nice, but no, the cosmos was silent in that regard.
So it was that, with her power, Nightmare Moon tried all sorts of things to do: make copies of herself out of shadows and moon dust to talk with, make a giant dust castle for her to live in, and even invent a new form of the alphabet. But, the copies faded away faster than she could begin enjoy them, the alphabet thing was just too dumb to try and continue on her own, and the castle’s halls felt so cold and lonely. To think, she was evil, and yet she didn't like being alone.
So, Nightmare Moon set about trying to open up a portal to another dimension. She had already tried it with Equestria, and if that could not work, then maybe she could at least find a way to a different place, one where she could potentially become a conqueror.
After seven weeks of trying, she managed to open up a portal for about ten seconds. The only thing was, upon trying to go through, she was electrocuted and sent five feet into the lunar dust dunes she had made the week before. For all of her concentration and subsequent attempts, Nightmare Moon soon realized she truly was stuck on the moon; she could not go through any portal she created, no matter how hard she tried nor how long she focused.
After several days of depression at this new obstacle (which was followed by an immediate and somewhat-satisfying destruction and reconstruction of her dust castle), Nightmare Moon thought of a new idea. “If we cannot go through a portal to another dimension... then we shall simply bring something from another dimension to us!”
It was the perfect plan, but sadly, try as she might, almost none of the other dimensions seemed to want to properly “line up” for her magic. They just didn’t exist on a similar or parallel plane, it seemed, and as such, through one such portal, she brought back a tiny creature that looked like a cross between a seagull, a lizard and a mildly obese manatee.
It exploded after phasing in and out of existence for several seconds. It had taken several hours of magical scrubbing to get the creature's ink out of her mane.
After trying with numerous other portals and achieving similar results with quite a few other odd-looking creatures, she settled on one portal in particular that most closely matched her own. She wanted to call it another dimension of her own, but she didn’t know if that was true, or if she simply lived in a dimensional form of that dimension’s parallel dimension.
Dimenception.
At first she tried to bring through an animal that could keep her company, a large flightless pigeon from some uninhabited islands. It froze to death nearly instantly.
“I’ll have to make this place warmer,” the mare said, and thus it was so. The temperature was comparably nice to what it had been, a rather steady seventy two degrees by day and around sixty degrees at night.
Then she tried summoning an army of what appeared to be sapient creatures to her, resplendent in armor and trained in ways she found most appealing. The entire legion suffocated within minutes.
“Guess their empire will never know what happened to them,” Nightmare Moon muttered as she magically swept the bones away and piled shields, armor and swords into the castle basement. “I must give this place air then.”
So she continued this pattern of bringing something through a portal over the course of many, many years, albeit usually less significant than that legion, and the same thing kept happening.
She brings over a flamingo: it flies off into space. Hence, a rule on no flying things and an artificial ceiling made from magic, just in case.
She transports an entire colony of those same sapient creatures as before: they die of starvation within weeks after killing one another for food and shouting something about “Croatoan”. In response (after cleaning up the mess), she comes up with a spell that eliminates the need for food or water, and thus starvation.
She brings through several cow elephants, and for a while, they seemed just fine. They were intelligent, and while they lacked the ability to speak, the mare in the moon found them a comforting presence. Sadly though, after several decades, they all died out, leaving her alone once more.
“An ageless spell,” the queen of the night said as she attempted to open a portal once more. “Whatever comes through now shall have no need to eat or drink, cannot fly, and shall have no fear of the ravages of time.”
And thus, on the one hundred and sixty sixth year of her imprisonment, Nightmare Moon opened a dimensional portal and brought forth a new companion to ease her continued loneliness and boredom.
His first reaction as to his new surroundings?
“What the hell?”
Author's Note
My own first take on a HiE story, although technically it could be called a HoEM (Human on Equestria's Moon) story. I honestly have no idea how long it will be, but it will be primarily a comedy.
Also, if anyone knows of some good cover-art that could go with this story, send me a PM.
Props to those of you who can tell what some of the more "mysterious" things were she summoned.
Chapter One
Introductions
“What the hell? Where am I?” the creature asked, shaking his head as he rose from the pile of dust underneath him. To think, he had just been on his way back from his physics class, and then-
FOOM
-he was lying face down, covered in dust. Pushing himself off the ground with one hand and readjusting his glasses with the other, the creature looked to his right and saw a vast wasteland, white and gray and utterly lifeless.
“That’s nothing new,” he muttered, knowing full well Wisconsin looked like this during the winter. Only... wait, there weren’t any trees. Or buildings; he’d been in the middle of a city the last he remembered, and...
“Greetings, stranger. We welcome you to our presence,” a voice said, and looking straight ahead of his, the creature saw... a pony?
Well, it sort of looked like a pony, if ponies were colored by someone high on acid and had grown wings and a horn: the pony, not the person who colored them. Deep blue, almost purple, and wearing what he could only assume was armor, and it’s mane seemed almost like a trail of smoke.
“How hard did I hit my head?” he muttered, pressing his face down into the dust once more. “I don’t think I hit it that hard...”
“We are glad to see thou knoweth thine rightful place, but thou need not be so modest; bowing before us is merely a formality,” the pony said, and at that moment, the creature knew he wasn’t unconscious, or suffering some severe head trauma.
How? He saw the dust move with the pony’s encroaching steps towards him. That kind of stuff you don’t notice in a dream or a delusional state, or at least, he wished he could. Trouble was, he’d never done drugs before, and he believed he didn’t have a history of mental illness...
“Creature, what is thine name?” the pony asked.
“Uh... um... Ben?” Ben replied. Okay, so, this was definitely the strangest thing that had ever happened to him. Here he was, talking...
Wait a minute, where exactly was he? “What’s your name?” he asked in reply.
“We are Nightmare Moon, true heir to the throne of Equestria and Queen of the Night!” the pony said, flashing her fangs as she said “night”.
Whoa, pony with fangs? That wasn’t encouraging; was he going to be her dinner or something? “Where... where exactly am I?” Ben asked, trying to rise to his feet. Only, when he pushed off the ground, he flew up a good three feet and flailed wildly before settling back down onto the dusty ground. The hell? Had gravity gone insane too?
“Thou art on the moon,” Nightmare replied simply. “We have summoned thee to be our companion during our exile.”
At the word “moon”, Ben stopped blinking and instead stared at the creature like she was made of cheese. His breathing slowed down, and for a few minutes, he looked like he was on the verge of... well, it was hard to tell, but the pony thought he looked constipated.
“Are thou alright? Is thou cold?” the pony asked. “We have had others before, but most died due to the moon’s harsh landscape. We have thus granted thee with several enchantments that will ensure thine survival.”
Ben started to laugh, a low little chuckle that sounded hallway between a crazy guy’s maniacal laughter and a sob.
Crying and laughing at the same time.
Craughing, if you will.
“What does thou find funny? Is it something we said?” the pony asked, taking another step closer.
“Well, that clinches it; I’ve definitely gone crazy,” the creature called Ben said, slowly pushing himself to his feet. “There’s no way any of this is real, right? You’re just a figure of my imagination, and this is all probably some dream brought on by my exhausted brain. I mean, come on; you're a talking pony, and I’m on the moon? That can’t be right: I’ve never dreamt of that before, and I’m pretty sure I don’t know anyone who has done that either. Look, I’ll prove it to you: this is a dream, and I’ll start flying any second now.”
Ben thrust his arms up into the air like an idiot, striking what he must have thought was some sort of heroic pose.
Nothing happened.
“Any second now.”
Still nothing happened.
“Come on, any second, I know I can do this, I’ve done it before.”
Then something marvelous happened, something utterly outrageous and- no, wait, nothing happened at all.
“Are thou mocking us?” Nightmare Moon asked the strange and possibly mentally unstable creature, her tone taking on a slight edge. “We do not take insults lightly.”
“Oh, come on, you’re threatening me in a dream? That never works,” Ben said, fanning his arms out like some stupid eagle. “Come on, I had a dream like this last night, only I was breathing fire, and I was riding a plane like a surfboard.”
“If thou wishes to test the credibility of our claim, then thou may simply turn around.” Nightmare Moon wasn’t sure what to make of this “Ben” character. On the one hand, if they were always like this, then her time here would not be very boring at all. However, if indeed he was crazy, she might have to kill him, or at least restrain him in some way.
With a scoffing noise, Ben did as she said and turned around. Yep, up there was Earth, same as-
No, wait... those continents were all wrong: one even looked like some giant dick. And... wait, what?
“What is that?” Ben asked, pointing to a shrinking, pulsating... orb.
“That was the portal through which thou has come to be in our domain,” Nightmare Moon said slowly, as if explaining to a mildly slow child. In a flash, it was gone, and with its departure, Ben’s posture changed. His arms fell down to his sides, his head bowed, and he started whispering to himself. The pony could not make out the words, but it sounded an awful lot like “oh shit, oh shit, what the hell, oh God...”
“Pray tell, who is this “God” of which you speak?” the pony asked, stepping up alongside the creature.
Ben simply turned to look at her, and tentatively, reached out and touched the very tip of her mane. It curled around his finger like a silken snake, and he froze.
“Jesus Christ, you are real,” he muttered. “This... this is all real.”
“Who is this “Jesus of the Christ” fellow? Does he know God?” Mightmare Moon asked. This creature sure seemed to know plenty of others; hopefully his disappearance wouldn’t be noticed. Then again, after the fiascos she watched unfold after the legion and Croatoan debacles, she thought that the whole “dimensional freezing” idea was one of the best she had ever had. With luck, it would hold long enough so that if she ever grew tired of him and/or escaped her exile, she could send him back and nothing would have changed in his world.
Hopefully, anyway. There was still no telling just how long this creature would survive with her on the moon.
After a few more minutes of silence, the pony looked from her stolen kingdom, far away on the Earth, and then back to the stricken... thing. “Ben, was it? What does one call thineself?”
“Um... a person?” he said, sounding both confused and very, very depressed. “A human?”
“Human? That is the name of thine species?” the pony asked.
“Y-Yeah,” he replied. “What... what about you?”
“We are an alicorn, the most noblest and powerful of all the pony races,” she replied. “Come, we have much to discuss in our castle, you and us.”
As she walked off, Ben gave one last glance where the portal he had traveled through had vanished. He was stuck on the moon, probably an alternate moon, orbiting an alternate Earth in an alternate universe.
He wanted to cry, but somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to. What good would tears do him now? There was no way home, so far as he knew, and maybe... he’d just have to live with that. There would be time to grieve later, when he was alone and likely a good ways away from this... alicorn pony thing. Right now, as he turned away from the alternate Earth far away, he did the only thing he could do.
Hoisting his backpack and readjusting his glasses, he set off after the pony, taking care with every step. After all, the gravity here was far weaker than where he was from, so walking wasn’t exactly easy.
Author's Note
Yay for short chapters!