Shadows of the Moon

Luna layed on her bed looking down at the foal asleep by her hooves. The Unicorn's chest was rising slowly up and down. A tear dropped down her face as she mulled over both what was lost, and the comfort she had now gained. She wondered how this foal before her would grow, how would he interact with the world around them. A name came unbidden to her mind, "Nightshade" Smiling to herself she thought, "Yes, We shall name thee Nightsade" Before she settled herself down to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3 days later~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After several days of allowing both Luna and the Foal, Nightshade to settle in. Celestia decided it was time to test him for any untoward energies or magical signatures to best discover what the effects of the mysterious magics that had been unleashed there were, and if anything would need to be done in order to keep both Nightshade and her little ponies safe before she would release his existence to the rest of the kingdom. To this end she had summoned her old student Princess Twilight Sparkle, The element of magic and Princess of Friendship to the palace as she knew of nopony better to perform this task.

Twilight was sat inside the library of her palace researching Transdimentional Portals and the hypothetical effects they would have upon the world around them as they were displaced from their world to another. Running through possibilities in her head, she was interrupted from her thoughts as Spike entered the room a letter bearing the seal of Princess Celestia held within his grasp.

Quickly taking up the message in her telekinetic field, Twilight thanked spike and began to read the letter. Glancing over the page for several minutes before Spike spoke up. "What does it say Twilight?"

"It's an immediate summons to Canterlot Spike, Princess Celestia wants me to perform some magic based tests on somepony. Though it doesn't say who, only that it is of the utmost importance and that I should tell noponyelse what the true reason for my trip is."

"Spike will you look after the Palace whilst i'm gone please?"

"No problem Twilight. The Palace will stay in tip top condition, i'll make sure of it" replied Spike as Twilight began a checklist of all the possible things that she would need for a trip to Canterlot.

Having checked her list several times, Twilight gathered her stuff and teleported to Canterlot to meet with Celestia. When Twilight arrived, she briskly walked to Celestia's bedroom where she was set to meet her old mentor. Knocking on the door and announcing her presence, Twilight watched as the golden hue of Celestia's magic unlocked the doors before she told Twilight to enter the room.

After greeting each other, Celestia decided that it was time to get down to business. Letting out a sigh Celestia spoke up. "Three days ago several "Events" happened in the Palace. The first and most important was that Luna miscarried in her pregnancy."

This revelation elicited a gasp of shock from Twilight as she listened to her fellow Princess.

"The second and third events are linked together. The first of these two events is that an unknown creature was propelled through the window to the throne room. This creature was severely injured so he was transported to the infirmary within the palace."

"This leads into the third event. To save the life of this new creature, Cadance, Luna and I all set about a complex healing spell to save the life of this creature. During this process something unexpected happened. The magic acted upon its own and, after draining a large portion of magic from all three of us, there were unexpected consequences. Upon awakening, the creature had been transformed. In its place was an Alicorn foal, but with some rather glaring differences. Instead of the usual Pegasi wings, he had the wings of a Thestral and eyes of a dragon". At the mention of his physical appearance, Celestia repressed a shudder which came unbidden with her memories before she continued with her explanation.

"Due to this regression in age, I though it best to seal the memories of his past life. The brain of a foal would not be suited to such an overload of information so to prevent potential injuries and other more dire consequences, Luna sealed away the memories, which also appears to have sealed away the magic linked to his Thestral nature and thus sealed away his wings."

"My task is for you to find out what caused this strange occurence, as well as if the foal will pose a threat to either himself, or any of the citizens of Equestria. Currently Luna has taken it upon herself to rear the foal. I have allowed this as I hope it will help her to heal over what she has lost in these past days. I am allowing you leeway to perform any tests you deem necessary, though I will ask that you refrain from causing undue harm, i'm not sure Luna would be able to take the mental strain of another unfortunate event occurring again."

"You'll have a week to perform your assessment, we can only keep the infirmary cordoned off for so long, and the energy signatures will most likely have faded by the time your week is up. I only ask that you keep the testing and the results between us. We don't want this information leaking out, especially with Luna's intentions to raise him as her own."

Suppressing her excitement and curiosity, Twilight affirmed to her mentor that she would work in secret and have the results before her alloted time was up. With the meeting concluded, Twilight left Princess Celestia's chambers before making her way to the infirmary to begin  with her testing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2 days later ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Twilight stood before a graph reading off its results to try and gleam some more information on what had happened in the room several days ago. She had collected stacks of notes and had set up multitudes of magic detecting instruments within the room. There were four distinct magical signatures left behind in the room from "the event" The first and most prominent was that of Princess Luna, the next Princess Celestia and Cadance respectively. The final signature was still a mystery to her, it appeared to be the most closely related to Princess Luna, and still relatively close to Princess Celestia but she wasn't yet sure of who it belonged to. Running through several scenarios in her head, Twilight decided that she would best move on to the next set of tests. Looking at the time, Twilight noted that it was nearing mid afternoon. For her net tests she would need both Luna and the foal awake. Twilight spent the next hour packing away the magical instruments and storing away her notes before she walked to the kitchens to grab a meal. Once she'd finished eating Twilight went to her room to get some rest.