People And Ponies

Hello, readers, I am Scribble, Scribble the Scribe, transdimensional voyeur, informal biographer and your omniscient first-person narrator. Please forgive me if my tenses slip, I have a hard enough time keeping track of my place in space-time as it is. I’m not involved in the stories I tell, except as an undetectable recorder sitting on the other side of the fourth wall, just writing everything I see down without being seen myself. This includes Pinkie Pie, as I can assure you she cannot break the fourth wall.

At least, not this version of her.

Enough about personal introductions though. Let me tell you a story about ponies. Except, it doesn’t start with ponies, or even in Equestria. Quite the opposite in fact, on the exact opposite side of the world, in a nation quite different yet quite similar to Equestria, with a people about the same.

Let me set the mood for you. You’re in an underground dungeon crawl. Not necessarily a dungeon, really. It could be a tomb, or a lair. It could be a lot of things, really, you couldn’t be sure if you were there. Or what it used to be, anyway.

The cracked cobblestone, the eerie silence punctuated by the growls of beasts forgotten by the light, the mildew, the cobwebs. It all gave the impression of something long abandoned. Suffice to say, it’s dark, it’s damp and the only beings who bother to come down here are looking for monsters to murder and treasures to take.

We’ve got one such group gallivanting down here right now. They weren’t ponies, I hope I made it dreadfully clear there aren’t going to be any right this second. They’re not around for a world away. No, these beings were different, very different.

They stood on two legs, twice as tall as a pony. They had mostly furless skin, with colors ranging from pale sand to wet sand. On their forelimbs, they possessed long delicate digits. Their bodies were heavily ornamented with clothes, as if they sought to censor their bodies.

They looked a lot like you. You, yes you. You. If you want further descriptions on these people, go look in the mirror. There, bam, these people. Sure, some of them possessed wings and some of them possessed pointy ears. Some did not, and the overall effect was still the same.

These were humans.

“Alright, how in destiny did it get down here?” This one had a voice that sounded like he gargled gravel and phlegm.

“Well, I’m thinking this one must’ve been one of those that got dropped and someone else just chucked,” Here was a voice that trickled and hopped, giving up on one accent before he got to another.

“Yeah, I gotta say, that seems like it. This place had, what, a gremlin tribe we just bribed our way past? No traps, no guards, no nothing,” She sounded disappointed. She sounded like a voice used to cruel laughter and screaming, in both pain and delight at the same time.

“It’s defense was anonymy. Without this spell, we simply never would have found it,” His voice was as flowing and cold as a spring river. He spoke with finality and without passion.

They were humans, I assure you, but you wouldn’t say that for half of them, if you saw them. ‘Humanoids, sure, but two of them are elves,’ you would say. You would be correct, but I would reiterate that they are also human. ‘So half-elves then?’ Ignoring you, I would add that the other two are dwarves, as well as being humans.

‘Impossible,’ You would say, ‘They are neither ridiculously short nor bearded. Especially that tall skinny one, he can’t be a dwarf!’ You are wrong. So kindly shut up and listen.

In the front was an elf, her skin brown as wet sand, her body short, muscular and stocky. Her hair was worked into a ball of spikes, like an afro masquerading as a porcupine, itself masquerading as an unbloomed flower. Or, at least, those three things in a some order. Her eyes were a solid glowing electric blue, the same color as the actual electricity dancing between her right fingers.

She held up that hand, casting a flickering light in the dungeon. She brought it particularly close to the wall as something like interest flickered in her expression.

Hers was the cruel voice, “Mugen, c’mere, check this out.”

Second, the other elf,with black hair that curved over his head like an ocean wave and then cascaded down like a waterfall, curling at the end. Very 60’s style ladies’ hair. Purple eyes, eyes that were round and wide, a face just the same, very effeminate.

The walls here were gray rectangular bricks, stacked in a criss-crossing pattern. Except where she was emphasizing with her light, one particular patch of the wall, the bricks were off blue-gray squares. Not that they noticed the blue color, since everything was blue with her light.

The second elf rolled his eyes upwards, and I will tell you that he was consulting the spell he referenced before.

His was the cold voice, “Yes, Saufier. It’s this way.”

Third was the first dwarf, but he looked like he should be an elf. His ears weren’t pointed though and, like I pointed out, he was human, but also he was a dwarf. Except his ears, everything about him was pointy, his nose, his chin, his fingers rubbing his chin. His eyes were yellow, narrowing into points at the side. His hair was straight and shoulder length over the shoulder, but slanted upward as it closed near the back, making a point right over his shoulders.

He looked over the spot being discussed, and he grinned. It was a smirk, like he was trying really hard to be annoying with it. No one was impressed, each giving their own measure of half-lidded tolerance; plus amusement, exasperation and apathy respective to each of the three.

His was the trickling voice, “Don’t worry, I got this. Araji?”

Last, the second dwarf. He was a dwarf’s dwarf, shorter than the rest, stocky and thick with muscle. His chin was set with a lantern’s jaw, his black eyes had a hundred yard stare, looking into three feet away and his hair resembled so much like a gigantic porcupine’s pelt was sewn into his scalp. No beard though. Despite everything you think, the beard isn’t important.

His voice was the gravel and the phlegm, “Vinten.”

Saufier and Mugen stepped back, looking at Vinten. Vinten tilted his body and placed his head against the wall, directly in the middle of the odd patch. He looked directly at Araji, grinning. Araji had been in the back of the group, but in a second moment was in the middle, imposing his physical presence on that spot like the towering clouds of an oncoming storm.

He didn’t look at Vinten or anyone, staring at something he couldn’t see a hundred yards off into the darkness. Without looking, he grabbed Vinten’s head, a fistfull of hair. With a heave and a ho, he smashed his companion’s head through the wall, turning brickwork into rubble. Not a human flinched at this action, least of all Vinten.

“I got it!” Muffled through broken stone and a punctured wall, Vinten’s voice still came, unpained and very much alive. The dwarf who looked like an elf put his hands on the wall and pulled his head out of the hole. Held between his teeth was a glimmering glass shard, which he presented like a well-behaved hound proudly presents a ball.

***

Alright, let’s get a little bit of context. Let’s roll this back, just about circa a millenium and a half ago. Let’s flip the globe too, we’re heading back to Equestria. Here, there is a primeval forest, even then in the process of shrinking as ponies conquer nature in their own way. Here, there is a castle and surrounding it a capital city. In time, this castle would be abandoned, its city left to crumble. In time, this forest would remain, to be the place where pony kind would imprison all of nature’s horrors. This forest would become untouched by pony control, Everfree.

On this castle was a balcony. Actually, there were a few balconies. The one I’m concerned with was neither the highest or the lowest. On it were a pair of beings, entities, presences. Technically, you could use those words to describe a lot of things, and therefore it describes very little. Consider the connotation though, ‘being’, ‘entity’, such neutral words often used to describe something beyond describing. Something akin to gods.

Please excuse me, I’m getting a little purple and it’s not going to stop for another couple of paragraphs. I could beige my way through most anything, but these two aren’t most anything. They’re masterpieces of sentient cosmic functions writ small into tiny understandable demimortal, demigod bodies. I’m going to trail off, just a little bit.

She had that magic second heart that pumped the land’s essence through an earth ponies body, she had those wings slick with natural magic oil that made the intangible tangible for pegasi and she had that spiraling outgrowth directly from her brain that allowed a unicorn to make her will manifest upon reality. She had a pure white coat, a living mane colored like the dusk, eyes like the dawn and a soul that beat with the nuclear furnace of blazing star. She was Day Stella, Princess Of Sun And Joy. In modern time, she is known as Celestia.

She had that second liver that balanced all the forces into perfection in a dwarf’s body, she had those wings with feathers that let harpies twist and hear the immaterial and touch the inaudible and she had those ears like an elf’s, vestigial indicators of unnatural eyes that let her change what she saw with a glance and a thought. She had skin like driven snow, hair as black as a starless night, eyes that shimmered like a glacier and a heart as bleak and cold as the void. She was Winter Mab, Queen Of Death And Darkness. In modern times, she is known as That Ice Cold Bitch, and sometimes Oh Damn Mab’s Right Behind Me Isn’t She.

With a great deal of irony, this is proceeded with calling her “Mercy”. Or maybe that’s just begging.

The human stood twice as tall as the pony, but only because she stood on two legs. In all, Stella more likely outweighed her by a significant factor. Admittedly, that was in part because of all the cakes.

Their natures were utterly contrary to each other, and yet the two stood together, shoulder to waist. Mab had her arms crossed and Celestia, if she had arms, would have had her hands set tentatively on the edge guard. She managed with her hooves, and the two stared far down the capital’s main street.

“Dirt.”

“What about it, my dearest Mab?”

Mab glared critically across the Equestrian capital, “In Manscow, the streets are paved-”

“With gold?”

Mab turned her glare on Stella for interrupting her, but the Sun Princess just gave her signature serene smiles.

“With stone,” Mab corrected, turning back to Stella’s city, “But yours? It seems like a hovel.”

“My, my, you’re awfully blunt, Mab,” Stella chided, with a twinkle in her eyes like the sun’s last light, “Usually you pick your words more carefully.”

The bare hint of a smile, like a ghost in a blizzard, briefly flickered on Mab’s face, “If Luna were here, or any of your peons, I would. I can speak freely around you, Stella.”

“Should I be flattered?” Stella asked. In a few moment, she giggled so softly when Mab didn’t answer, and continued on into the silence, “A great many of my little ponies enjoy a more rustic style.” She placed extra emphasis on that next to last word.

“What, was it your elves?” Mab asked, with haughty tribalism.

“My dwarves,” Stella corrected, “My earth ponies, mostly.”

Mab thought about, rolling her eyes, translating that over her own people and applying her prejudices. They failed to line up. “Odd.”

Stella’s giggle was halfway towards the sound of tiny chiming bells. If it matters, silver bells. “Oh, my dearest Mab. Today, you’ve learned-”

“I haven’t learned anything.”

“-that not everypony or even everyperson can follow your preconceived notions.”

“Except that I hate dirt.”

“By setting aside such prejudices, you can-”

“Oh Merciless Fates, you’re doing it again.”

“-find out about the pony or person deep inside. That way you come closer together, as friends.”

“You’re giving me a friendship lesson again.”

“I always seek an opportunity to fit some learning into the day,” Stella explained, “Especially lessons in harmony to make the world a bright place.”

“Doesn’t your sun already do that?” Mab lightly joked with a small smirk. Her face turned serious, “Perhaps, if you like teaching so much, you should get a student so that you may hound them day and night with lessons.”

Stella gave Mab a measuring gaze, before looking thoughtfully out into the distance, “Perhaps- oh! Our sister are returning.”

Aaaand here I go again.

Her eyes and coat were perfect midnight blue, her mane and tail a flowing star filled nebula. Her heart was mercurial, darkness speared full of light, horror pierced by deathless hope. She was Night Luna, Princess Of Moon And Dreams. Her companion, she had eyes that shimmered with all the colors of wild flora, hair baked dark brown by the sun and hair that rippled with the hues of fire. Her soul was inferno, blazing chaos and ever consuming emotion. She was Summer Titania, Queen Of Life And Light.

“Sister!” Luna said loudly, some dozen dozen meters away from the balcony, up and a distance forward. Her wings, the same color as her fur, were spread out and flapping. Pegasi flew like that, half acknowledging physical exertion even if their bodies were too big to fly like that alone.

“Princess,” Titania said softly when the pair of them approached a closer distance. Her wings, the same color as her hair, were spread out and stock still. Harpies flew like that, without physical exertion and by magic force alone.

“Sister,” She said in addition, nodding to Mab as she sent gently down on the balcony. Luna only acknowledged Mab after she thoroughly hugged the feather stuffings out of Stella.

“Hello to you too, Queen Mab!” Luna was incapable of speaking in anything except exclamations. Also, it’s useful to note that all four of them are speaking archaic forms of modern language. Truth be told, modern Sapistanians and Equestrians don’t really speak English either. So as long as I’m translating everything, I’ll do away with ‘thee’s and ‘thou’s.

Mab gave each of them a silent nod, preferring to keep her solitude from sound.

The four demimortals turned one at a time and descended together.

For Stella and Mab, this was a solemn affair. Well, for Mab this was a solemn affair, for which she wore a solemn expression. Solemn isn’t the right word for how Stella proceded. Cordial works better, with her light smile and her gentle eyes. Every servant and courtier she passed, she made eye contact with, lifting their hearts before they lowered their heads. For Mab, they bowed too quickly, putting their gaze to the floor before they had to make contact with those cold merciless eyes.

Luna and Titania were a different story.

“Do you remember how Stiff Lip shrieked?” Luna said, trailing behind Mab.

“You think he’d never seen two women bathing before!” Titania said, striding behind Stella.

“That colt? His upper lips are the only thing he gets named for,” Luna said, and both girls giggled at her crude joke.

“On other hand, I’m a bit offended by the male not fascinated by my naked form,” Titania pouted, thinking about the stallion who ran away in fright.

“Oh? And about my naked form?” Luna asked.

“You’re always naked.”

“Exactly!”

“Ah, of course. I suppose he just knows where all a human woman’s bits are now.”

“I think he ran away too fast to get a proper mental map.”

“I suppose so. Then, why did he seem so put off, if everyone is always nude?”

“Nude, yes. Dripping wet is another matter.”

“Yes. Now that is a sight he can take to bed!”

Both girls laughed. Solemn they were not.

“Presenting! The Sovereign Of Sorrow and The Sovereign Of Sunlight! The Sovereign Of Somnia and The Sovereign Of Simmering!”

The four powers stepped into the sea of a hundred colors, the pastel, neon and earthy colored ponies parting before their diarchs and their guests, bowing. They stopped right there at the entranceway to the court. More specifically, Mab stopped, the other three followed. She turned to the majordomo, who had her head low to the ground as well.

“‘The Sovereign Of Sorrow’?” Mab asked.

“Yes, your majesty!” The majordomo said. There wasn’t a quaver in her voice, although other eyes looked toward, feeling, showing, fear for her.

“I quite like it.”

Celestia thanked Poetic Justice for her clever titles as a path cleared through the throne room. Right to the back, and there stood two elaborate seats, each obviously decorated for the night and day respectively. Standing between them was a standing vanity mirror, as tall as an angel, decorated as a purple horseshoe, with plenty of swirly frills. All four sets of royal eyes were upon it, anticipation and anxiety roughly equal between them.

“Let go home, sister,” Mab said.

~

A similar mirror stood on the opposite side of the world, on the opposite side of fifteen hundred years. Like its counterpart, it was oval shaped with a flat cut bottom, most of it rimmed by purple metal. Discarding the horseshoe shape and much of the other decorations, it was held in a giant human hand of indigo stone. The fingertips pressed against every side, with the base against the palm.

It wasn’t where it was supposed to be. No thrones or great hall flanked it at this time. The place it was in was less grand than all that. Rather, it was someone’s basement, one haphazardly constructed into someone’s cheap laboratory. Let me take you for a tour.

Four wooden tables, things that were almost benches, were arranged in a grid-like pattern. Each one was devoted to a different field of arcane study. The alchemy table was cluttered with glass jars, glass beakers, glass tubes swirling this way and that, all of it filled with semi-translucent liquid of every conceivable color. The table for applied spell casting was covered with a veritable crypt of half-finished things, abandoned when whatever enchantment laid upon failed to live up to expectations. A third table towered with books, with a tiny white light, like a star, hung suspended over the middle, an open book always beneath it.

The walls were covered in shelves and these shelves were filled with things. When any of the tables overflowed with stuff, that stuff became things and things went on the shelf. Here were finished projects that hadn’t found a place in the outside world, abandoned and forgotten to collect dust. Here were books with an unorganized organizations, different sections organized by different means, those means having no rhyme or reason, except momentary whim. There were alchemy supplies, a great deal of it gone rotten and in need of being thrown out. There were also tools, some of them mundane, because even a magician can find use for a hammer and nails, if he’s a hand-on and tinkering sort, and some less mundane, custom made, wands and rods and staffs, rings, bracelets, jewelry of all kind. A tiny obsidian obelisk laid on its side on the bottom, carved with enchantments of deceit and beguiling to aid in the work of illusions and trickery.

The fourth table, that one I skipped earlier, was a table for artifice. Those strange tools and the Obelisk Of Lies were made there. The top of it was clear, the projects that had previously been laid there before the last carefully haphazardly placed underneath in a way that only the meticulously absent-minded can manage, except for their cousins, the absent-mindedly meticulous. They’d been cleared off for the mirror, but then that mirror had been cleared off to be set into place of its great stone hand.

Four human adventurers stood around, you already know this lot. Plus, two newcomers, each of them with a pair of giant fluffy wings that marked them as human pegasi, harpies. Both were female and seemed to have a fondness for the same kind of braid. France doesn’t exist in this world, but you’d call it a French braid. Or maybe you wouldn’t, because you don’t what that is. Look it up.

One was platinum blonde with a creamy coffee color to her skin and pale blue eyes. Her wings matched her hair, and they shimmered with what little light came from the open basement door. She was a rubenesque woman, plump, motherly, draped in a blue dress. Also, a mother. She levitated idly above the ground, her toes just millimeters above the ground. Her wings were foci for the magic that kept her afloat by force of will, something she personally did with very little exertion.

“It’s almost done?” She asked, her voice was powerful and warm, like a stiff wind on a hot sunny day.

The other had wings that matched her eyes with a pitch black color, topped by dark cherry red hair. She was underweight, and her nakedness would show ribs probing through her sides. Instead, she wrapped herself in a purple outfit, crossing a robe with a business suit. She seemed to prefer her feet to be on the ground.

“Yes. However, preceding would have proceeded more quickly had we proper geomancers,” She said. Her voice was neither warm nor cold. It was the steady unmoving air of an empty white room.

Vinten voiced his indignity at that remark. Well, first, he looked at Araji to see if he was indignant, but his fellow dwarf had that same thousand yard stare at the mirror, based on a disappointed frown like the whole world was his child telling him they were going for a liberal arts degree. Seeing no support from those quarters, he turned to the red headed harpy and sounded indignant for the both of them.

“Heeey,” He whined, “I think we did just fine.”

“Both of you do exceedingly well in your chosen fields of expertise,” She countered without inflection, staring expressionless at the mirror, “Geomancy is not that chosen field.”

Mugen cut in, looking at red-head, “Wallum, do you sense anything on the other side?”

Wallum finally showed expression then, frowning and narrowing her eyes. Her ebony wings unfolded and, with extreme dexterity, cupped themselves behind her ears. “I hear singing. Joyful singing, songs of love, hymns of order, a thousand voices making a chorus that harmonize perfectly. This is in the background, however, although it is very loud. In the foreground, there is the cackling of things that will not be bound by the singing, but will be contained. There are the whispers of forgotten secrets and stories long untold. And there is a tension, a violin’s note being drawn out. Something is waiting to happen.”

“Well, golly,” Vinten drawled sarcastically, “That doesn’t sound ominence, like, at all.”

“That’s what we rely on you for,” Mugen said, as he looked at the skinny dwarf, “You may enter when ready.”

Vinten did a double take and a couple blinks at that, “What, right now?”

Saufier leaned across Araji to Vinten, a single blue bolt of electricity leaping from her finger as she jabbed him in the side, “What, scared?”

“Surprised,” Vinten said, his whole body merely shuddering from the shock when most people would have yelped in pain. He waved his hands at the mirror, “This thing doesn’t look-” He struggled for a word, “On.”

“Its magic is powerful, but subtle,” Wallum said, her wings settling back on her back, her face slipping back into expressionlessness, “But I can hear the humming and twiddling of a waiting artifact.”

That whole time, the first harpy, platinum blonde hair hanging around her face, leaned forward expectantly towards the mirror. “Just imagine it, Vinten. You’ll be the first of our kind to step on those lands for a thousand years.”

“Yeah, Ivian, you’d be into that.” Vinten stared at the mirror, trying to discern the magic his dwarven anatomy denied him the power to see. He stepped forward and placed his hands on the edges, and inhaled. Oh yeah, he could feel that. Visual effects may be sparse, but this thing was On.

He felt a shadow fall upon his back, and Araji was suddenly so closed to him he could feel the other dwarf’s breath on his neck.

“Uh-”

With a shove, the larger shoved his skinnier fellow into the mirror who made less of a surprised yelp and more of an understanding one. He fell into his own reflection, leaving only a ripple in the briefly liquid surface as he disappeared. The only one who showed any shock from his callous action was Ivian, but a lack of any reactions from the rest had her settling uncomfortably down.

“Worry not,” Araji rumbled turning slowly towards Ivian, “He is Vinten Thickskin.”

“Vinten With Skin As Thick As Rock,” Mugen enounced slowly.

“Really, it just makes him sound like he ignore insults really well,” Saufier said.

“He does do that,” Araji said.

“Well, yeah, he knows how roll with the punches. All of them,” She admitted, “But it’s no where near as evocative as Mou-”

“Hey guys!” Vinten’s head popped out of mirror, a cheerful grin on his face. Of the other five, only Araji and Wallum didn’t jump at the sight of a disembodied head, “Come on in, the water’s fine!”

~

Ivian left Wallum down there to her silent contemplation. Neither of the harpies were adventurers, just scholars, their own long associations with that adventuring party aside. Ivian was heading up to her office. She hovers out on the first floor, she spots, she stops.

“Freydolf, what’s the matter, hun?”

Freydolf was a child, a boy child. A little more than half the height of an adult, he sported long lemon yellow hair, lemon yellow eyes and fluffy lemon yellow wings. Yellow was a theme with this kid. He was pressed against the glass of a first story window, peering outside with a confused frown.

“I dunno, mom,” He said, “What time is it?”

“Oh? It’s around,” She looked at the mechanical clock hanging on one wall, “The seventh hour of the day. Why?”

“Why is it nighttime outside?”

~

The party consisted of it’s default line up. Vinten lead from the front, chatting away. “Yeah, it’s old ruins in here and a dense jungle out there. Seems like your standards lost civilization. But get this, guys, they had armor for their dogs!”

The elves took up second position, walking side by side. Mugen was closest to the windows, and he stared out into the green foliage and black darkness of the night shrouded jungle. His specialty was the study of magic, but his scholarly mind yearned to know what undiscovered or forgotten fauna. Once, there may have been detailed lists, but so much had been lost in war and fire.

“What, their dogs, seriously?” Saufier asked, actually paying attention instead of brooding about her people’s bloody history. “These people must’ve liked their pets.”

Mugen actually turned his gaze away from the dark forest and musings over dark pasts, “Let me see those.”

“Oh, yeah?” Vinten was walking backwards as he made this tour,so he just looked at the pale elf, “Man, alright. They’re right over here, hall after the next.”

“Hey.” Araji brought up the rear and when they turned to look at them, he raised a hand to signal them to stop. He pointed to his ears, “Do you hear that?”

Each one of them crane their ears to listen. Of in the distance, they heard frantic sounds and the familiar exchange of two elves, or some local equivalent, exchanging concussive blasts.

“It sounds like combat,” He added.

Each one of them was an adventurer. The possibility of violence was an invitation. They broke into a rush, Araji slipping into the lead to use his superior ears. Through stone corridors, they finally found themselves in a huge chamber, specifically an alcove of that room, behind a row of pillars.

They weren’t alone. The room had two other inhabitants, a pair of quadrupeds, one easily mistaken for an adolescent of her species, the other an adult. Purple and pitch black respectively, with hooved feet and the latter bearing a man full of twinkling stars.

“She,” Vinten peeked from behind the pillar after each of them ducked for cover. He identified them both as female, actually, since he had an eye for that sort of thing, “Looks like the Night Mare. From the old stories, yeah? Or her evil twin.”

The black mare, each human knew enough about horseflesh to see the biological connection, reared above her cowering purple counterpart. Who is Twilight Sparkle, by the way. Twilight and Luna as Nightmare Moon. Just in case you hadn’t figured that one out.

“Without the Elements Of Harmony, the night will last FOREVER!!!”

“I’m leaning towards evil twin,” Saufier said.

“MWAHAHAHA!”

Araji grunted an affirmative.

“Yeah, that just clinches it,” Vinten agreed.

Each one of them was an adventurer. The possibility of violence was an invitation.

~

The Queen Of Eternal Night did want any good villain did and gloated. Rearing unto her hind legs, she laughed a good, hearty evil laugh.

“The world shall be shrouded in endless darkness! Never again will you little ponies see the sun! And maybe, just maybe, you’ll actually learn to appreciate my nights!”

She settled down unto four legs, stamping her hooves with tiny click clacks, actually looking contrite, “I mean, do you know how hard I worked on those stars? A thousand tiny little firefly motes to weave constellation spells over the hungry void that were both functional and beautiful.” Nightmare Moon stamped her hoof firmly, “And did you even notice!?” She slammed her hoof against the ground, “Did ANYONE notice the LOVE and the DEDICATION I placed into the night sky!?” She slammed her hood so hard it left a crack in the stone, “I put my WHOLE SOUL into it and they- ARE YOU EVEN PAYING ATTENTION TO ME!?”

Throughout her whole little rant, Twilight Sparkle had begun to look sidelong, as if there were something more interesting than Pony Satan standing right in front of her. Eventually, she was just flat out staring in that direction and Nightmare Moon, as the intro story to the first episode explained, did not like being ignored.

The Nightmare turned herself, “What are you even- oh, good Fates, is that a human?” Twilight stared with continued incomprehension, and so Nightmare Moon kept talking, “Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re too late, ape. Go back to your Queens and tell them they serve an Empress now.” So scratch that first title back there, Empress Of Eternal Night, “My sister is defeated and the only hope of defeating me lies-” And for the third time in as many second, Nightmare Moon’s train of thought was interrupted, “What are you doing?”

See, it was Vinten, all by himself, who slipped out of cover and started approaching the pony pair. He didn’t simply approach, however, he strutted, he sauntered, he wiggled his hips. He smirked like he spotted an easy looking girl across the bar. When he stopped about half a dozen meters away, he was bouncing on one foot. Nightmare Moon had to stop her bragging when that movement turned into full-on swaying. He didn’t stop there, he shuffled, he spun, he even sashayed. He turned around and shook his ass at the Empress Of Eternal Night.

Twilight stared in growing incomprehension, but she wasn’t alone. “I- I don’t understand,” Nightmare Moon stuttered, her face flushed at such a lewd display. She was an old fashioned gal and, four legs or two, that kind of dancing simply wasn’t done! “Are you- are you trying to appease me? Are you hoping to seduce me so I spare your people? What are you doing?”

Vinten turned his face, pouting at her over his ass, his hands rubbing across one cheek, “I’m just trying to distract you.”

It was around THAT point that Araji just appeared out of nowhere at her side and decked the Dark Empress across the face with a right haymaker.

END 1