Author's Note

Don't read this story.
I made the mistake of reading "Nightmare Mom" and it got my mind in a very dark place. Two days after reading it, something that was meant to be lightweight and humorous plagued my mind with rage and hate. I was really sick of it poisoning my every moment, the events, the consequences compiling themselves in my head into something I didn't like at all. The story built itself from ground up, from bits and pieces over the course of one afternoon, I took the evening to write it down and now I publish it. I have to get it down, to spill this tumor poisoning my mind. Maybe tonight I will be able to enjoy MLP again.
It's not edited, not proofread, and don't point out my errors, this thing doesn't deserve any TLC. It's a mental dredge of things I want to get out of myself to be able to write happier things again. Really, don't poison yourself with it.

Bedtime

"Tell me mom, xenodite is awfully expensive! How in the world did you afford it, to build that cage around my room?"

"Everything for my daughter! But the secret is that when I told I need a loan for something Princess Twilight Sparkle needs, the bankers were tripping over themselves to give it to me!"

* * *

Twenty months later.

"Your sentence is up, Twilight Velvet," the guard said, rattling the keyring.

"High time!" the elegant mare stood up from her bed. The cell was fairly decent, with neat furniture and all basic necessities, but for Twilight Velvet it felt abysmally crude. She'd send out letters with complaints about lack of comfort to her daughter every week. Surprisingly, her well-versed daughter would send her back only briefest letters. No visits, per sentence, but Twilight could really put more effort in these letters. "Love you mom, things are hectic right now," "I'm working on getting you out very hard."

Well, not hard enough! Full twenty months of prison for causing national emergency, reporting abduction of Twilight by Aliens, when it was Velvet, who abducted Twilight.

Too bad in the process she managed to anger Princess Luna so badly that the court declined Twilight's plea for probation.

Indignant, Velvet made her way after the guard through security gates and twisted corridors to the exit, signed her papers, took her small deposit bundle and headed outside.

There, by the gate stood... Twilight?

The skinny, tall pony wore a tight, worn and patched but clean jerkin around her shoulders. She had deep shades under her eyes. Her horn seemed... crooked? The coat was off-purple, grayish. But the cutie mark was right. It was Twilight Sparkle, her daughter.

And sure enough, Twilight exploded in smiles and ran to her mother. She opened her arms to hug her. Velvet frowned. "Such displays of public affection are nothing good. Also, where is that good-for-nothing stallion?"

"Uh... dad... couldn't come. I guess we'll visit him later, mom. But for now, mom, let us have a lunch together! I've been waiting for this moment for so long! I worked so hard to get you out!" Twilight's enthusiasm was diminished a bit.

"What are you talking about!? I did serve my full sentence."

"That is for the false national emergency. But if you failed to pay the debts, for that amount you'd spent another full twenty to thirty years in prison!"

"This is ein dreck. I sure couldn't pay them due to being in prison, and now that I'm out I can finally start doing so. I might need to curb my fashion sense a little but I'm sure... Why the look, Twilight?"

"It's not how it works, mom. Being in prison is absolutely not an excuse. I triple-checked, and then quadruple-checked my checks. By the time this sentence is over you'd have between twenty and thirty years, depending on the judge and your attitude. Also, did you check the value of the installments? The ten installments, to be paid every two months? Xenodite is really very expensive..." Twilight interrupted,starting to cough uncontrollably.

"Oh, but Niedlich! I was assured they are very reasonable. But let us not talk about money now. What about you? You don't look too good. Can we talk about it?"

"I... it doesn't matter. Can we go for that lunch? I'm starved!"

"If you wish it so much? The prison kitchen was abysmal! I'm looking forward to something decent!"

Twilight nodded eagerly and led her mother down a few streets to a small joint, a "lower middle class" restaurant with tables outside.

"I'm sorry, mom, that it's nothing better but I've been saving up for this meal for quite a while! I'm sure you will like it!"

They took a table by the street and studied the menu posted in a small stand on it for a while. They made their picks, Twilight went for a daisy sandwich, while Velvet picked deep-fried daffodils. Soon the waiter in a food-stained apron showed up. He scowled at sight of Twilight, but still held the pose. "How may I serve you?"

They made their orders, and he passed the bill with the amount to Twilight. She reached with her mouth into her jerkin and pulled a small satchel out. She poured coins on the table. There was two bits more than the amount indicated. "Tip for you," she smiled graciously.

He snorted and pocketed the money.

"What kind of restaurant is it, that asks money up front?" Velvet asked, scowling.

"Well, they... had some accidents... with customers not paying..."

"And you take me to a place like this?"

"Mom, I am sorry. I... I know you deserve better..."

"All right, all right. Now tell me where your good-for-nothing brother is? He stopped writing me after four months or so."

"Let us not talk about it, mom. Let's celebrate your release! It's really a big day for me! I worked so hard..."

Velvet frowned, but she nodded and waited silently. Soon the food arrived. Twilight dug into her plate like a starved animal, but stopped, interrupted by a loud cough of her mother. "Manners, Sparkle!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, mom!" Twilight nodded sadly, and picked up her sandwich with both hooves. She lifted it to her mouth and took a neat bite. Velvet nodded and lifted her utensils with her magic, cutting a piece of daffodil. She lifted it to her mouth, chewed for a moment, then spat it out on the ground.

"This oil is stale!" she complained.

"Can I try?" Twilight asked. The fork levitated to her mouth. She took a bite and chewed for a while, her face melting in bliss. "Tastes fine to me" she muttered.

"It's stale I'm telling you! Waiter!"

The waiter came soon.

"The oil is stale!"

"The oil is exchanged every week. Fresh oil day is tomorrow. No refunds. Especially for Sparkle's company." he smirked and left.

"Why? I... We're leaving this place this moment, daughter! Now!" Velvet stood up and stormed away. Twilight looked at the sandwich and the full plate with deep longing but followed her mother.

"We're going home, now!" Velvet huffed, as Twilight, tripping on her long skinny legs, followed her.

"Not this way, mom..." Twilight blurted out.

"I know the way to my home!"

"It's not ours anymore, mom!"

"How?!" Velvet stopped dead in her tracks, with Twilight bumping into her from behind.

"We had to pay your debt. We scrambled for scraps, sold everything we had, moved to a tiny room... me and dad. It was really a short notice, we were already behind schedule and missed the first installment. There was no customer for that much xenodite and the house was mostly ruined. After we collected all the money..."

"Where is that stallion! Our house! Our goods! My books, my dresses! I'm going to kill him!"

"Uh... you may be a tad late for that, mom." Twilight curled her ears. "It's just two streets away from here.

Velvet huffed, unable to process what Twilight just said, but she followed her daughter. The fear began dawning on her as the next corner revealed the fence of a cemetery, and cold dread began building up in her spine when Twilight entered the gate.

Then the shiver reached her scalp as they stood in front of a tombstone. "Night Light" read the sign. There were two more by it. A full-sized, "Shining Armor" and a tiny one, "Cinder Sparkle."

"Shining?!" Velvet cried out and stomped her hooves. "If this is a prank, Twilight, you are going to pay for it!"

Twilight silently removed three candles from under her jerkin. She worked hard with her hooves to light a match, then placed the lit candles on the graves with her mouth.

"And what is that 'Cinder Sparkle' thing?" Velvet exclaimed.

"It's my daughter, mom," Twilight whispered, tears in her eyes.

It dawned on Velvet that this was not a prank. Her husband and her son were dead. The truth only slowly penetrated her shell of self-confidence.

"Oh, Niedlich..." she hugged Twilight. "Tell me all about it."

They sat on the grass by the graves and Twilight held her head low for a long while. She wouldn't avoid this.

"Second installment was coming and we were nowhere near collecting enough for it. My friends are talented but not rich. Princess Luna was in therapy after your little stunt, after four of her novels didn't receive any acclaim, never mind awards, and Princess Celestia was furious about that, especially with Luna sensing a trap in everything she said. She wouldn't hear about giving any money to spare you the extra prison time. Dad worked triple shifts at a construction site while I'd seek any odd jobs I could do to earn the money. It was still not enough.

"Dad took a fourth shift. He'd carry heavy stone blocks up a newly constructed tower. It was raining. It was dark. He was overworked. He slipped.

Well, on the upside, his insurance covered the second installment!" Twilight gave a very crooked, sad smile.

Velvet was silent. Deadly silent.

"You know how you'd never agree with Cadence on matters of my upbringing. When she heard you needed a debt paid for building a prison for me, she adamantly refused any help. I kept nagging Shining Armor. He tried to sneak some money from Crystal Empire budget. They got in a row. He stormed out and left.

"He joined the Griffin Foreign Legion. It's one job that earns enough money to pay these installments regularly. But..."

"Did he die a hero?" Velvet muttered quietly, choking on her sobs.

"Actually, they were pacifying a small llama village. They were to murder all, adults and foals alike. That is a mercenary job, mom. Not the glorious lore of a soldier. Nopony wants to do this, that's why the salary is so good. Anyway, a mother of a foal he killed broke free from the soldiers that held her, and hit him with a rock, then kept stomping his head... till they killed her..."

Twilight broke off, seeing the pale shock on Velvet's face.

"It's getting late, mom. Let us move on." She nudged her to move. Velvet took some numb steps after Twilight. "Cadence blamed me for this. We haven't talked ever since. Well, at least the third installment got paid," she muttered as an afterthought.

Velvet sent her a cold glare.

They remained silent all the way to the cemetery gate.

"Well, and the third grave?" Velvet muttered as they passed back onto streets of Canterlot. "Is your husband helping you? Is he a good colt? Did dad at least get to bless you?"

"Uh... mom, I didn't get married."

"What?!" - the cold croak pushed all the grief away.

"Mom, fourth installment was coming. My friends were all out of money, Princess Celestia barely managed to keep Princess Luna from trying to thwart all my attempts to earn more, and then... well, I got an offer. A mysterious stranger left me a note that virginity of an alicorn is worth a small fortune. I hesitated, but then... well, I endured. He was creepy, fat, lewd, sweaty... but I endured and I covered the installment. Then I heard there are many others who would try to get on with an alicorn, and would pay good money. Not as much as for my virginity, but... that was a steady source of income for a time. I'd service one or another important pony, sometimes two in a night. I managed to save up enough.

Velvet stood aghast.

"Didn't your friends try to stop you?" she muttered.

"They did, at first. But I... I had to! You wrote these letters, your prison must have been a torment! I couldn't leave you there for another twenty years!"

"At first?"

"Well, there was that emergency... a swamp monster kidnapped some foals. My five friends went to save the foals. I wanted to go with them but... there was a customer appointed for the evening..." Twilight stood there, crying. "The swamps caught on fire. Rarity tried to teleport them away. She was never as good at magic as I was. They ended up... uh... I don't want to talk about it. The coffins remained closed during the funeral..."

"But, but... they were everything for you! They... all dead?"

"I still think what if I refused that customer. I could have saved them. But then, I'd never get the money on time. Fifth installment. It had to be that way."

"Twilight..." Velvet put her hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "How comes princesses allowed that?"

"Pheh. Princesses..." Twilight sniffed. "News of my occupation got out. Celestia was so disappointed. She stripped me of my title. She... she really wanted to convince me to give up. She'd take me as her student again. But then, I'd lose you. So, I said no. I... I'm no longer a princess.

"After I lost the title customers wouldn't want me so much and... well, not being a princess, I didn't need these anymore..." Twilight pulled on her jerkin revealing her sides. There were two stubs of wings, featherless, naked. "Alicorn down, that was a bedding material luxurious enough to provide sixth installment. And then came seventh..." Twilight reached to her horn and detached it, revealing a small stub on her forehead. "Alicorn horn is an ingredient that can grant extreme longevity. I was pregnant, and I needed the money for you and for my upcoming child. I didn't even know who was the father. There were so many...

The two mares walked in silence, Velvet too shocked to say a word.

"There was no way I'd collect enough money, deadline was coming and... oh well, I took a loan. From ponies one only learns about after several years in the slum. I was paying with my body, working daily. Instead of one rich stallion per evening, I began serving dozens of workers, slum dwellers, five bits a trick, a meal a trick... Actually, I was paying only the percentage on my debt but that was satisfactory to my masters... and the eighth installment was paid"
Twilight paused for a while, fighting an attack of cough, then continued.

"Well, little Cinder was born. I was relieved from work for a week, and Princess Celestia managed to slip me a package of money, to get me out of debts and allow me a new start. She made me swear I wouldn't spend it on you... or Luna would do some dire things."

"I disobeyed her. Sure, it was winter, it was cold. Cinder got cold. Sure Luna killed the main treasurer on the spot and left his head in Celestia's bed. Currently it's Princess Celestia who's in the therapy and... well, she called me a traitor. 'No good deed goes unpunished', she said. 'Mister Coin was worth thousand of the likes of your mother', many other poisonous things. She doesn't talk to me nowadays. She doesn't talk to Luna. They... the atmosphere in the castle is tense. There's some talk about secession, about 'Lunar Republic'. But I couldn't... I couldn't just go, move to a warm place, selfishly spend the money on myself and my daughter. Your letter arrived. You said the cells are cold and dim and damp in winter..."

"I might have..." Velvet felt a cold sweat on her spine, "...colorized things a little..."

"Well, the deed is done. I paid the ninth installment."

They turned around a corner, into a narrow, dark alley. A makeshift shed of rotten planks stood leaned against the wall. Twilight pushed the crude door open, used a match to light a candle inside. She invited her mother in. Velvet was too mortified by now to stop.

Cockroaches scuttled in all directions. There were two dirty bedrolls, one of them moldy, the other covered with a semi-clean rag. Upside-down crates served as tables and shelves for meager possessions, mostly assorted trash - a few candles, some bottles, a pitcher with some fresh wild flowers. The dump was smelling of mold, but it was tidy. And there were some things that stood in a stark contrast with the junk. A clean toothbrush and toothpaste, a precise clock, a good quality hairbrush.

"It's all my fault, mom, because I didn't obey your bedtime. It wouldn't have happened if I listened. So from then on, I never missed my bedtime. I never missed brushing my teeth and always tried to keep my mane tidy... even if it was plastered with stallion semen. I will never disobey you again, mom."

Velvet Sparkle stood there listlessly, tears streaming from her eyes.

Twilight lay on the moldy bedroll, then dug under the pillow made of straw. There was a piece of dry bread. A roach on it scuttled off down her leg. She didn't pay attention to it.

"Sorry mom, but I'm really, really starved. Can I? I've been saving up for a week for that restaurant and I hardly ate anything."

"Yes," the mare nodded. "Sure, Niedlich," she sobbed.

Twilight paid attention to take small, dainty bites of the dry, moldy bread, although it was visible how she was eager to devour it. She gave a satisfied sigh when she finished. "I kept another slice for you, mom. Do you want it?"

"No, Niedlich. Eat it if you like," Velvet choked out, masking her disgust at the sight and realizing she has nothing of value on her, nothing to buy her daughter a decent meal, nothing to get them out of this trap. She lay on the other bedroll, and blinked slowly. That was too much. How...

Then suddenly Twilight found something on a crate serving as a bedside table, and burst in tears. She cradled the item to her chest. It was a small purple scale.

"Niedlich?"

"Spike, oh Spike, I'm so sorry!"

"That was that tiny dragon, right?"

"It was all or nothing, mom! All or nothing! And he agreed that was the only way! He was faithful to me over all these months, he'd take care of Cinder when I'd go to service customers, he lived here with me, he sought food for me in the trash and he'd hardly ever complain."

"What... what happened?"

"Do you know about the Potion of Dragon Might? Well, you probably don't, it's an obscure, little known thing. Well, it's very expensive because the main ingredient is the heart of a dragon. Spike was just a baby dragon and his heart was tiny, but it still sufficed for the last installment. And besides, since Rarity died, he was... uh, he didn't really seem to care about himself. When I asked him, he said 'do whatever you think is needed. I trust you, Twilight.'"

Twilight sobbed. "He was so serene when I put the knife to his throat. He hardly struggled. My little brother Spike..." she choked on her tears. "He knew how much I love you, mom. He gave his life for you."

The sobbing was interrupted by an awful attack of cough. Twilight covered her mouth with her hoof. As she removed it, there was blood on it.

"Twilight, Niedlich! What is that?!" Velvet shouted, aghast.

"Oh, it's nothing mom, don't worry about it. It's not contagious."

"No, Twilight. Tell me! Are you ill?"

"It's just Black Snuff, it doesn't hurt all that much."

"Black Snuff is deadly if untreated! Why don't you see a doctor?"

"It's too late already. It's curable during the first and second phase, but I'm in third already. There are small black chunks in the blood I cough, I know. Only alicorn magic could cure me."

"But you are..." Velvet's voice trailed off as it met Twilight's crooked, fake horn. "But why didn't you cure it..." she looked around the shack. Of course the cure is not free, and even if it was, it would lock Twilight in hospital for months. Installment would be missed. "You should have asked the princesses..."

"Well, I didn't want... to miss my bedtime. Which is in five minutes."

There was a knock on the door.

"You're trying in vain, Luna!" Twilight shouted out before sinking in another fit of cough.

"Princess Luna?" Velvet suddenly whispered, filled by fear.

"Yes, she comes every evening, she began shortly after dad died, and she asks the same thing, but - oh well, I made a promise!"

"She's in there?" sounded a gentle, deep, feminine voice from behind the door. "That evil wretch is free at last? Maybe now you will change your mind?"

The two mares inside didn't answer, so Luna continued.

"Will you come with me now, Twilight? I'm still willing to extend my hoof. I'll heal you. I'll give you a new life. I can restore your horn and wings. I can't give you back your brother, father, friends, nor Spike, but you will recover all the rest. And with us in agreement, Celestia will forgive you too. Over time you will even recover the status of a Princess and we three will rule Equestria together. Come, Twilight. I will even allow you to keep that wretch with you, providing she never speaks another word to me. Twilight, come out, and let us watch my night together this one single time, please. Let us be friends again, I beg you..."

"No can do." Twilight answered cockily. "The answer is the same as always. I'd miss my bedtime."