Alex or Xander

Apologies, I considered making this the first chapter of the next story but saw that it made much more sense for it to be the last of this one.

Begin!

The Truth?

I awoke with my eyes closed, the distant sound of birds chirping happily being the only reason I knew it to be morning. Sighing tiredly, I opened my eyes and blinked the sleep away, rubbing them lightly with my right hand before shaking my head and looking around the cave I appeared to be in.

Where am I? The last thing I remember is…feeling afraid, deathly so. I remember…Luna, or a tiny piece of her. She brought me here and then…I don't know. There's something else…something flew at me, and spoke to me…but who?

I stood up gingerly and grimaced at the sudden jolt of pain running through my legs. But with some determination, I gritted my teeth and began to hobble towards the entrance of the cave. The light was so bright it nearly blinded me…but I refused to let it stop me, I had a goal and I was going to achieve it.

I have to get back home. I have to find Cadance and mom. I have to…I need-

A deep, feminine giggle snapped me out of my thoughts and caused me to stop in instinctive fear.

That voice…

"Now where do you think you're going my lovely Xander?" she cooed softly.

I flinched at the sudden weight of a wing trailing along my right shoulder, a blackness blurring the corner of my vision as it brushed against my cheek tenderly. A vision of pain, of torture and agony flashes before my eyes, and then is gone in a blink.

But the fear…that stayed, I couldn't imagine it ever leaving.

"Let me go," I whispered, unable to move, to do…anything more than that.

The clop of hooves against solid rock indicated her moving forwards, and the breath…the warm breath against the back of my neck told me just how close she was.

"Why would you want to leave me?" she asked, her voice gentle and…slightly hurt.

"Why?" I echoed, incredulous to her question. "Haven't you t-tortured me enough by now?"

A pause…then-

"Xander…that part of me was insane," she whispers, breath tickling my ear. "Utterly insane, a mind without morality, love without restraint. You know me; you know I would never hurt you intentionally. I love you."

"Know you? Before you tortured me I'd never even met you."

Another pause, a breeze, birds singing…silence, nothing more…until she spoke again.

"Look at me Xander," she asks pleadingly, quietly, softly.

"That's not my name."

"Yes it is…Xander please."

I shake my head.

"No."

"Please."

"N-No."

A gentle sigh is the only response I get in that moment…but then she retracts her wing, her breath and walks around, her face almost in sight before I turn my head and look at the barren wall.

"Xander please look at me," she says, a shoeless hoof grasping my chin ever so softly, turning my head, my eyes onto her turquoise, draconic ones.

They plead with me silently, I can…read them with an ease I never thought possible. You know me, they said. You can trust me, they cooed. I love you, they soothed

Nightmare Moon stood before me in all her glory, looking every bit the imposing, powerful alicorn she was meant to be…if not a bit thinner than any alicorn I'd met before.

She looked straight into my eyes, searching for something…and then frowned, her ears flattening in sorrow as she failed to find whatever it was she wanted.

"You really don't recognize me do you," she uttered sadly, falling onto her rump in defeat. "You used to look at me as if I was your whole world. You promised you'd never love another as you did me…what happened to change that my love? It was not me who hurt you, why do you look at me with such terror?"

"I know who you are," I correct, somewhat bitterly. "And I don't just mean your real name either. I know you named yourself Nightmare Moon before your banishment."

Nightmare looked at me and smiled knowingly.

"Because you come from a world where I and everypony else is naught but fiction, I know."

"W-What?" I backed away, stunned at her words. "How could you possibly…I never told you that."

"You never told my insanity given form that, no," she agrees, stepping close and placing her immensely large wings around me, stopping me from moving any further away. "But you told me. You told me everything…so very long ago."

As if sensing no resistance she comes even closer, her muzzle barely a scant few inches from my mouth.

"You told me your name and age. You told me about your family and friends, about being an only child, about wishing all your life for someone who would love and care for you as you would for them."

"I'm an only child?" I echoed, dumbfounded much to Nightmare's apparent confusion.

"You don't know?"

"I don't know much about my life on Earth," I admitted, not completely comfortable at how…comfortable I was beginning to be with her. I felt as if I'd known her for a very long time. Not the two years I spent in that hell, but before that…before I'd even met…

It unsettled me, and the way she looked at me unsettled me further, like I was all she could see, like I was the only thing in the world she wanted to look at.

I didn't realize until too late that she hadn't blinked once in a good ten seconds.

"Your mind is fine but…" she bit her lip worriedly, eyes regaining the focus that had shortly been lost. "But there's more inside your head than there should be, and I don't just mean what my insanity forced there."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, not very much liking the sheer concern in her gaze. Only a couple of ponies looked at me like that and this mare wasn't supposed to ever be one of them.

"There are locked memories in your mind," she explained soothingly, stepping closer ever so slightly. Maybe in the hope that I wouldn't back away…and I didn't. "Old memories, I could briefly feel the age seeping from them."

She bit her lip again in worry and stepped a touch closer, looking piercingly into my eyes once more…and then she blinked…and then she smiled warmly.

"I have an idea that may work," she said, stepping closer once more, her kind smile and tender gaze all but consuming my vision. "If I could just give them a nudge then maybe I can break the lock."

More mind torture? Fuck that!

Looking out towards the exit, I tensed my legs and prepared to make a break for it…only to find my face pushed back, Nightmare's soothing expression filling up my sight.

"Oh how has it come to this," she sighed, smiling tiredly. "I love you so much Xander. I do this only because my heart belongs to you."

She shook her head and sighed once more, before looking me right in the eyes and lighting up her horn.

"Xander Pentagast, I swear on my life and soul that I will never purposefully use my magic just to cause you pain," she promised, a sudden bright light glowing around her body right after.

And I knew what she'd done. It was only whispered around Canterlot and very rarely glossed over by my old school's mages. That Nightmare had just done it, had just said what she did…I was aghast.

"Do you have any idea what you just did?" I whispered, utterly shocked.

She smiled.

"I made a binding oath never to use my magic with the sole purpose of hurting you," she confirmed, smiling softly at my goldfish expression. "Because even if a spell might harm you, it will never be cast for the sole reason of doing so. That is my promise to you, because I can't think of anything else to help you trust me."

I…I couldn't think of anything to say in that moment. An oath was completely irreversible and completely impossible to refuse after it was promised. Nightmare Moon has just vowed to never do what that…thing had, and hurt me intentionally.

With her magic! a loud, angry part of my mind reminded me. There's nothing stopping her from knocking you out and going about it with a knife on your flesh for your own 'protection'.

My face scrunched up in fear as that thought passed me by…but then it was natural, shocked as I remembered what'd she had just said, promised…and who to.

"Pentagast?"

"Yes, that's your last name," she said gently. "Xander Pentagast, you were twenty four years old the last time I saw you."

"Twenty four?" I echo, disbelieving. "But I'm nineteen…or twenty one if you-No, I'm nineteen. I can't be this 'Xander' if you think I'm twenty four."

"There are spells that can regress age both physically and mentally sweetheart," Nightmare explained, her ears flat in surprisingly enough, shame. "Celestia used them as a punishment for those who tried to defy her rule, mostly leaders of rebel factions."

"Celestia would never-"I was cut off before I could start by a soft hoof on my lips.

"Maybe she doesn't do it anymore Xander, but she did then," she continued, no heat in her words despite her obvious hatred for my mother. "Seeing your inspiration turned into a weeping foal and then watching as that child willingly embraced the enemy did wonders for eradicating morale."

I couldn't help but feel sick as I listened to this. A large part of me simply couldn't believe that mom would do that to anyone…but then again it was one thousand years ago, things could have been different.

Maybe mom was a bit more severe with her rule back then…yeah that's gotta be it! There's no way I'm going to believe that she did shit like that right off the bat, it must have been a last option kind of thing, where the enemy refused and threatened to do more if they were left as they were.

That had to be it, I refused to think otherwise.

"What did…she do with the children?" I asked hesitantly.

Nightmare frowned and looked away at the question, her wings ruffling in…discomfort?

"My sister had the potential to be very cruel when she wanted to be," Nightmare said eventually. "But never to children. She and I could mate with one who does not have our divinity, but we could never have their child.

"The 'children' couldn't remember who they before, all of that was locked away in their minds. And they loved her dearly. Sister would take them to Sun Foaled Orphanage once they were fully regressed, and when she visited she fawned over them like she was their own 'mama'."

She…she did?

Noticing the hurt look on my face, Nightmare lidded her eyes warmly and stroked my check with a wing.

"I'm so sorry Xander," she said sympathetically. "Whatever my sister treats you like, and whatever you may call her…she's done this many times before. You were not the first memory bound child manipulated into loving her as your mother."

I staggered away from the mare as she finished her explanation. I…I don't know how to describe the sheer intensity of my emotions, my thoughts.

Mom manipulated me into loving her?

"B-But she took care of me when I first arrived here," I defended. "I had terrible nightmares and she used to sleep beside me so they would go away."

"And what were those nightmare's about, hmm? Your real parents? Monsters and fears from the inner most part of your mind?"

"H-How…" I couldn't even…

"Because they weren't nightmare's Xander," she explained patently. "They were memories that have been locked away, by HER. I know her magical signature and it coats them."

"But that's not possible, magic doesn't…didn't affect me back then."

"But it did somewhat before you were banished, by HER!" she countered, heat in her words as I tried to defend my mother figure. "She did this to you! I wasn't beside you when she did it and that has haunted my sleep in the moon all these years, but that doesn't change the fact that she did it. She couldn't regress you entirely with your magic resistance, so she locked away what she could, regressed you to an adolescent and sent you away from me!"

Nightmare was breathing heavily as she finished, her iris was thin and had a dangerous glint to it.

"Because you were taken over by my insanity I was gifted with what it knew about you, blurred memories and such. It couldn't get everything because of your initial immunity but it got enough to show me the truth."

"What truth?" I asked, though honestly I didn't know if I wanted to hear any more.

She took a breath and sat down on her haunches, looking up a touch to gaze into my eyes.

"When you woke up here as a fourteen year old child, Celestia came to the cell you were being kept in and looked at you."

"Yes…and?"

"Do you remember how she looked at you?"

I blinked at the bizarre question and tried to think back to that moment. It was a long time ago so I couldn't exactly remember everything, but what I could…

"She smiled at me," I remembered, voicing the memory aloud. "I remember feeling safe when she did so, warm even."

A bright light was all the warning I received before the memory I was trying to picture seemingly materialized into existence before me. Nightmare's horn was alight and pulsating softly, her right hoof gesturing to the three dimensional image.

Mom's smile brought one of my own so easily.

"Look at her again now," she said, myself doing so and frowning as I found nothing that stood out.

"Yeah, she's just smiling at me," I shrugged.

"Yes, but look at her eyes, look closely."

Sighing, I complied and looked at her eyes, smiling wider as I felt the warmth they were giving me and…

Wait…

Her eyes were warm, but…

Nightmare smiled at the realization in my expression and nodded approvingly; as if proud I'd figured out a great puzzle.

"Your magic immunity would have helped, but without touching her you wouldn't have noticed it right away. And even when you did she was ready for it so it wouldn't have mattered."

I was…aghast at what I had noticed. For the eye was looked at me with such warmth and kindness…was too shiny, even for a pony. It flickered and shone unnaturally, hiding the truth behind it.

And the truth looked at me with shock and familiarity. The truth knew me.

"Glamour," I breathed. "Cadance uses them sometimes to hide the bags beneath her eyes in the morning before we go to breakfast, I-I always had to make sure not to touch her then."

I barely noticed Nightmare wince at Cadance's name, but it was quickly overshadowed by a triumphant smile.

"Yes, a glamour can hide what you do not want others to see," she confirmed, voice actually happy at me shock. "And you can see it if you look close enough. She knew who you were the moment she looked at you, maybe she didn't mean to send you to the future when she banished you but that doesn't change the fact that she knew you.

"She knew you, she knew that she locked away your memories, she knew that she had regressed you by a decade, and she said NOTHING the entire time she was mothering you!"

"I-It can't be," I whispered, overwhelming amounts of hurt and betrayal flooding through me at my denial. "She loves me…"

"She doesn't beloved," Nightmare refuted softly, shaking her head and stroking my face with a hoof. "She doesn't see you as her child, she sees you as her toy to play 'mother' with."

I paused momentarily but then smiled in hope at a memory. "But when I was poisoned she was so angry that she nearly destroyed the Griffon capital. Why would someone who didn't love me feel that strongly?"

"Because she would have lost her weapon to use against me," she explained, her voice quiet and tender. "She's played you masterfully, moulding you into a 'son' who would do anything for her. And you would, wouldn't you? If we had never met and she begged you to use your immunity to try and kill me then you would have."

I shook my head. "I…I wouldn't have-"

Nightmare cut across me instantly, moving forward with a purpose. "Yes you would, if you really think about it then you know it to be true."

The image of mom begging me to stop Nightmare, tears streaming down her cheeks as the dark mare neared made me gasp as I realized the truth to Nightmare's statement.

I would have killed her if mom had asked me like that.

"Xander," her voice snapped me out of my thoughts and back onto her, eyeing her as she lit up her horn and looked at me tenderly. "I'm nowhere near as talented in the arts of mind magic as my sister; my realm has always lied with dreams and black magic. But if you'll just let me, I can try and unlock those memories…and then you'll finally realize that I speak the truth."

Her tone was pleading, even though she obviously tried to make it otherwise. I could see how much she needed to do this just by looking at her face, that expression unknowingly mimicking Cadance's after the prom.

The longing was almost palpable.

I had every reason to refuse her, to deny what she had shone and said and call it lies. But…but I needed to know if she spoke the truth. She had sworn to never intentionally hurt me with her magic, she had made an oath.

I had to believe that she really did just want to help me.

"Okay," I said quietly, watching as a wide smile broke out on Nightmare's face. "You can do it, but I have a question before you do."

Nightmare looked worried as to my request, but nodded nonetheless and motioned with her hoof for me to continue.

"If…If this is all true and mom…and Celestia really has been manipulating me, then tell me…what does that make Cadance?"

The dark mare looked unsurprised by my question, however the sadness in her eyes, the droopiness of her wings…talking about Cadance hurt her.

"I can barely recall anything from when my insanity was within her, only a few memories," she eventually said, sounding almost tired as she did so. "But I believe she has no idea of Celestia's manipulations. I believe that she l-loves you almost as much as I do, and I believe…I believe that Celestia will use her affection for you to make her hate me. There's no doubt in my mind that she do anything to get you away from me."

"S-So if this really is true and…and Celestia is some kind of manipulator, then Cadance is just a pawn?"

"Just like you, yes," she confirmed, shifting uncomfortably as she admitted such. "I…I don't like her. Unknowingly or not she took your heart from me, but that doesn't mean I'm going to tear her apart for doing so. I don't believe she even truly knows who I am, or what Celestia is."

"You don't want to hurt her?" I asked, disbelieving.

She shook her head and smiled sadly. "No, I don't. She's a young mare who loves Celestia as much as much as you do, my insanity felt it constantly."

Nightmare sighed and her ears flattened as she continued. "Celestia took her in shortly after her parents died, but she was living on the streets before that happened. She's overwhelmingly grateful to her for that, and I doubt she'd even listen to you if you tried to discredit her."

She never told me she was living rough before!

"Why didn't she tell...no," I shook my head and filed it away for later. "How do you know that?"

She shrugged. "I told you, when that part of my insanity was within her it was able to glance at a few memories, not all of them but enough for me to know that Cadance will never betray her mother figure."

She looked at me and smirked gleefully. "In fact she's more like Celestia than you think, that's what I got from her memories."

I…didn't like the way she said that.

"What do you mean she's like Celestia?"

I know that she's kind and loving…but Nightmare couldn't have meant that, right?

Nightmare looked at me unblinkingly before shaking her head and whispering something to herself that I couldn't understand.

And then she turned back to me, looking at me intently.

"Xander, she-"

BANG!

The sudden explosion of magic outside made the both of us jump in fright. Nightmare was in front of me in an instant, her stance aggressively protective, wings out and teeth bared menacingly.

"Whatever happens Xander, you need to stay behind me," she said firmly, looking back at me briefly and conveying the seriousness of the situation with but a glance.

She was scared.

Just as I was about to nod, she turned her head to face the entrance and snarled as a very familiar alicorn walked in.

Celestia looked worn out, her eyes shone with exhaustion and her legs seemed to shake but a touch with each step. Upon seeing me however, her eyes lit up and a wide smile crossed her face…until she saw the dark mare in front of her.

She looked positively inconsolable then.

"L-Luna?" she asked, voice taught with emotion. "Is it really you? I saw the moon but I never dreamed that you actually escaped."

Nightmare all but sneered at the alabaster mare and snarled her answer back. "Yes it's me, I am glad to see you've changed very little these past thousand years dear sister. How's the womb after I left it by the way? Did they ever manage to find a cure for a barren mare or are you still too much of a whore for it to take effect?"

Celestia visibly flinched and backed away slightly at the sheer venom in Nightmare's voice.

"Sister please, I'm sorry. If you would just let Alex go and listen to me than I could-"

"NO! WE ARE THROUGH LISTENING TO YOU!" The power of her voice made the cave tremble, and me. I'd only ever heard two other's speak like that and it was never any less terrifying.

"Alex?"

I watched and felt despair overwhelm me as Cadance walked into the cave, a teary smile so wide and full of love that anymore and it threatened to break her face. But I couldn't move, I could…but after all Nightmare told me, how could have I?

I felt like I hadn't seen her in an age…and really I hadn't. To see her then, looking at me but a short distance away took all my willpower to stay where I was.

"Alex do you…do you recognise me?" she pleaded, eyes wide and watery. "It's me, it's-"

"Cadance," I whispered, my voice carrying within the large cave. "Of course I recognise you, I love you."

"Alex…" she moved ever closer but stopped at Nightmare's snarl, the dark mare eyeing her dangerously as she shuffled. Not that it seemed enough to make her stop, Cadance just looked at her pityingly and then to me, warmly, with love I'd almost forgotten "Alex honey, can you come over here please."

Willpower all but evaporating, I took a step forward...but then stopped, Nightmare's revelations too heavy to ignore…even for her.

"I can't Cadey," I refuse gently, wincing at the way her eyes flashed with hurt.

"But why?" she pleaded breathily, looking back between Nightmare and I before the hurt turned to realization. "No, Alex whatever she's told you are clouded by her feelings for Celestia, your mother! Whatever she's said don't believe it!"

I shook my head and glanced between the three alicorn's, my heart pounding as they looked at me intently.

"I don't know what to believe anymore," I mumbled sadly.

"Then believe in me," Cadance asked gently, shuffling but a touch closer, coming dangerously close to Nightmare's wings. "Believe that I love you and would never lie to you."

The complete sincerity of her words actually made me move closer, the revelations of Nightmare being rethought with heavy doubt as I did so.

And then there was laughter from the dark mare, laughter as she looked at Cadance incredulously.

"Oh no my dear, let us not speak falsehoods around our beloved Alex," she giggled, her tone mocking the name. "Because we both know you're not entirely truthful with him all the time, don't we?"

Cadance looked at the chuckling mare with a fury I'd never seen on her before, ever. And yet after but a few moments it turned pitying, as if sad for the mare she looked at.

"I'm sorry Princess Luna, but he's not who you want him to be," she said softly. "Try to understand that the one you love isn't him. Please, I can help you, but Alex and I are mated and we love each other. Please don't deny us that."

To my surprise Nightmare didn't scoff or snarl at Cadance's request, in fact she actually looked as though she was going to accept it. She glanced at my marefriend and sighed unhappily, her ears drooping.

"Luna please," Celestia implored, walking fearlessly over to her sister before stopping at an arms distance. "I'm so sorry for what I did to you and Xander. Nothing I ever do can make up for the monster I was back then, but my son is not him. Just let him go and we can be a family again, please."

Nightmare looked at my mother right in the eyes for what felt like a millennium, her eyes never blinking, never wavering as she stared and…relaxed her stance and breathed outwards, her form glowing a bright white before shrinking rapidly, forcing me to close my eyes.

When I opened them a few moments later, a fully grown Princess Luna stood before us all, staring at the ground with her eyes closed, silent.

…

And let loose a horrible, keening wail as her knees buckled and she began to fall.

Mom instantly moved forwards and caught her, pulling her sister into an embrace and shielding her from the world with hooves and wings. Horrible sobs escaped the lunar mare, the parts of her I could see shaking terribly as my mother soothed and rocked her gently.

"I'm sorry Luna, I'm so, so sorry. Please forgive me for what I did," Mom had tears of her own streaming down her cheeks as she begged. "I was cruel and jealous, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"

I was unable to hear what Night-um Luna said as I was suddenly turned around and embraced tightly by the mare I loved so dearly. Cold drops were falling onto my skin as her body shook with both happiness and sadness.

"I missed you so much Alex," Cadance said softly, hiccupping as she swallowed and sniffled. "Please forgive me for putting that darkness in you." She pulled back and looked at me pleadingly, eyes wide and shining with tears as her lower lip trembled.

"You didn't know that you had that inside of you to begin with Cadey. There's nothing to forgive," I soothed, reaching out and touching her face for the first time in more than I could remember.

Being forgiven for something she couldn't have helped was apparently something my poor mare had dearly needed to hear, for the moment I did 'forgive' her she moved forward and kissed me with a passion I'd almost forgotten. I returned it as best I could but simply couldn't keep up in the state I was, and as if sensing this she slowed down and stopped, before nibbling my lower lip and giggling nigh hysterically.

"I couldn't feel it before," she whispered, though I think more to herself than me. "Your love for me, I can feel it now…"

Overcome with emotion, she put her head on my left shoulder and nuzzled the side of my head devotedly. As she did so I glanced over at the two sisters and instantly noticed Luna staring right at me, her own shoulder being nuzzled by mom happily.

I was lost on anything to say…until her iris's thinned and she winked secretively, a kind of cruelty in her smile as she looked back at my mother.

Was she just…acting?

"Come Luna," the melodious, joyful tone in mom's voice brought me out of my thoughts and Cadance out of her nuzzling, herself flapping her wings twice before landing on the ground and wrapping her tail around my right leg. "Let us go home and-"

"Be a family?" Luna's quiet, almost tortured voice interrupted, a shy smile on her face as she nuzzled her older sister. "I…I think I'd like that big sister. I'm really tired."

Simply being called that was enough for mom's eyes to shine with tears, though it was dwarfed by the wide smile on her face.

"It's okay, we can sleep together until I can organize a room for you," mom assured gently, nuzzling Luna as she yawned.

"Okay," Luna whispered, leaning against her. "Let's go home."

Mom smiled even wider and then looked at me, mouthing silently that she would speak with me later. In my stupor all I could think to do was nod and follow.

Because between everything that had happened, that been told and revealed. Between the torture of Luna's insanity, and the supposed manipulations of a mare I loved like a mother. Between the hatred of a mare to her sister and then the sudden forgiveness…an act?

I was honestly frightened of what was to come.

To Be Continued