Twilight set up some chairs next to her telescope as she and Astra came up to the top. Magic had always been her special skill. The two ponies looked up at the night sky, one in fear, one in wonder.

“It’s always so beautiful seeing the stars this bright.” Twilight smiled.

“This isn’t bright, Twilight. I remember that the stars were brighter before the end of the wars. I was there.” Twilight looked at her confused. Not very many ponies can live that long, Unicorns were more likely to have lived that long or Alicorns, though legend said that if you had at least five unicorns in an area, the ponies in the area would have extended lives, and alicorn magic counted for double that. “This is dim, as though whoever is in charge of them never truly understood how to keep them alight.”
Twilight looked to the mysterious pony with curiosity. She still wore her hood, but her hooves were starting to show as she gazed up. “Well I imagine Princess Luna is busy keeping the moon going. I’ve always known the stars to be like this. Who else would know how to brighten them up at night?”

“I would…” Astrana whispered. Astra put a hoof near the clasp of her cloak and wondered if she should take it off. She then looked to the pony next to her. She didn’t want to scare her. “Twilight, do you know what a nightmare is?”
“A bad dream… or did you mean the dark horses with dragon like wings that had holes in them and used nightmare magic?”

“The second one… when I was a young filly, I was playing with my twin sister. I heard something in the bushes and got in the way of a black blast that would have hit my sister. I was turned into a nightmare filly. At the time, no one cared about how I looked as long as I continued to act good as I had always done. I tended to scare off anyone but my sisters though with my looks. My little sisters were born after my transformation, so to them, my looks seem normal… that’s why I wear this though… I don’t want to scare anypony again.” Twilight blinked as she finally understood this pony’s fear.

“I won’t be scared. I’ve gone up against Nightmare Moon, and she turned out to be nice as long as her jealousy was down.” Twilight smiled.

“Nightmare Moon?”

“You mean, you didn’t hear? A few years ago when I had first come to Ponyville, back when I was still just a plain old unicorn, Princess Luna came back from being stuck on the moon for a thousand years. She was known as the mare on the moon, or Nightmare Moon. Supposedly she was being controlled by her jealousy, but somehow, I don’t know… anyway, my friends and I confronted her when we were trying to find out what had happened to Princess Celestia. We gathered the elements of harmony and managed to defeat her. She transformed back into Princess Luna and Celestia took her home. Since then, they’ve been working together peacefully to keep both the sun and moon moving for our world.” Twilight had explained calmly. She wasn’t completely surprised that Astra didn’t know about the “Nightmare Moon” incident since they were from out of town.

“But she’s alright now, right?”

“Oh, yes, Princess Luna hasn’t returned to that form since. We all appreciate the night more too, what with its stars, the moon, the planets, and all sorts of wonderful things.” Twilight backed away from her telescope. “Want a look?”

“I’m fine… Mind if I take off my hood? I don’t want to scare you, but I want to look at stars without this cloth over my eyes, and I haven’t spread my wings in centuries…” Astra surprised herself with this request. She looked and noticed the shadow of Hope walking down the stairs back towards Spike. One of Hope’s special abilities was to make ponies friendlier and calmer around others.

Twilight smiled happily. “No problem, like I said, we won’t judge you here, besides, I’m sure Discord looks worse than anypony possibly could.”

Astra took a deep breath and pictured something that gave her hope, like Hope Healer had always told her to do when she was worrying about something. She pictured her two little sisters looking up at her and smiling happily, even though she looked terrifying. She used her magic to take off her cloak and placed it on a chair. Twilight’s eyes widened as she saw the pony, not because of fear or disgust but because of wonder.

Astra was a dark purple alicorn with dark blue hair and a black and purple horn. She had purple and blue dragon like wings rather than the angelic like wings that were common to pegasi, without a single hole in them. Just above her horn, a small hair band like tiara that seemed to be made of gold and held an onyx gem in it. She looked quite similar to Celestia and Luna save for her eyes, which were black with a red slit, similar to an angry dragon’s eye. She looked up at the night sky with a bit of longing. She seemed to melt into the dark sky as the brightest of stars seemed to fill her dark blue hair. She smiled weakly towards the moon, as though wishing she was there. She then looked sadly towards Twilight with an apologetic look in her eyes.

“I know… I’m probably the most terrifying creature you’ve ever seen, aren’t I?”

“No, Nightmare Moon scared me more than you do. You look like you belong in the night sky though, right there with the stars…”

“I sorta do. My name is Astrana Compassion, but my sisters would often call me Astra Night, or Starry Night. My powers had to deal with making the stars shine brighter and being a guiding light to anypony in need… that is until… until the Nightmare War came upon us…”

“If… if you don’t mind explaining, could you tell me what happened?”

Astra looked towards the young pony and noticed no fear in her eyes, but curiosity and a thirst for intelligence instead. She smiled weakly towards the alicorn. “Alright, but please, tell me if it gets too scary.” Twilight nodded. Astra began her story, keeping names out of it. She explained that she had a twin sister as well as two younger sisters who were also twins. She then explained how she became captured and turned into what seemed like a normal pony but was really an evil puppet to the Nightmares. She ended the tale by explaining how her youngest sister flew just above her and flashed a golden light in front of her. The next thing she knew, Astra was being taken care of by Hope Healer in a valley over a thousand years after the war was over, and her littlest sister was nowhere to be found. “… and I have no clue what happened to her…”

“Wow… all those years… what about your other sisters?”

“That’s actually why we’re going to talk to the princesses. I guess you could say we were friends all those centuries ago and I’d like their help.” She wasn’t quite ready to tell her just who her sisters were.

It was at this time that Hope came up from the library. “And we won’t be able to get to Canterlot if you’re exhausted, you silly ponies. Princess Luna is going to lower the moon soon and here you are still up. Astrana you can stay up all night some other night, and the same goes to you, Twilight. Now go to sleep, you two.” She smiled like an old mother horse to her young. She knew she was younger than Astrana, but she felt like she had to pretend for her sake that she was older.

Author's Note

Okay, so I'm throwing in some clues as to what's going on here, but if you think its already insane, then you haven't seen anything yet. Wait until I show you the whole family tree of the Canterlot royals, or at least how I see it, argue if you want or even better, prove me wrong, I like being as accurate as possible.