Child of Nightmares and Everfree

Chapters

Ch. 1 - Nightmare Night
Ch. 2 - Royal Command
Ch. 3 - Ponyville
Ch. 4 - Family History
Ch. 5 - The Shadow of the Moon
Ch. 6 - A Mother's Love
Ch. 7 - A Mother's Loss
Ch. 8 - Til Death Do Us Part
Ch. 9 - When One Door Closes
Ch. 10 - One Year Later

Ch. 1 - Nightmare Night

Child of Nightmares and Everfree
Nightmare Night

A chill breeze crept across the darkened town of Ponyville, rustling the numerous paper cutouts of giant bats, ghouls, and other theoretically mythical monsters of Nightmare Night. All across the town, ponies dressed in outlandish costumes pranced and played through the starlit night with games, laughter, and far too much candy. It was a time of joy, celebrating the return of Equestria's missing princess as Luna passed among her subjects both young and old with an unaccustomed smile on her face.

Above the small town, the mood was much more somber. A few low-lying clouds were scattered around, including one being used by Rainbow Dash for nefarious purposes, if the occasional rumble of thunder and screams of young ponies was any indication. One cloud in particular bulked larger than the rest, as it held Princess Luna's chariot and the two guards who had driven it from Canterlot. Both of the bat-winged Night Guards peered off into the darkness with their golden eyes alert and attentive in their observation, except one had his gaze turned to Ponyville and the ponies in the general vicinity of Princess Luna as was his duty, while the other…

Sergeant Sunshine was peering intently away from Ponyville, into a small nearby clearing dominated by a statue of Nightmare Moon. It was not as odd to have a symbol of the legendary monster as one might think, because nearly every small town in Equestria had a statue much like it.

Mostly, the stone limbs and wings of the ancient night terror were overgrown with vines and weeds except for one night a year when the citizens of the town would prepare for the Nightmare Night celebration by cleaning the statue up. But not too clean. Oh, no. Nightmare Moon was best experienced by the frightened little colts and fillies of the town with a few curious vines still draped across her flank and their leaves waving silently in the chill breeze, or perhaps a dry spiderweb spun between armored legs. Ponyville had cast aside the ageless tradition this evening in order to make their statue of Nightmare Moon nearly pristine, and even after Princess Luna had tucked it behind some bushes in order to scare the bejeebers out of the Ponyville youth in a disguise, it still seemed to lurk in the moonlit shadows where she had returned it onto the original platform.

"Give it up, Sunshine." The guard who was watching Princess Luna laugh at the apple bobbing tank shifted positions uncomfortably on the cloud, unwilling to look at his fellow guard. "You have to admit it. She's been dead for years. You can't keep doing this to yourself."

The other guard did not respond, but simply stared harder into the small clearing around the lonely statue, decorated only with a sizable pile of candy heaped in front of it. In an hour or two, somebody from the town would visit the statue and pick up the 'tribute' to Nightmare Moon so that it could be redistributed to small ponies who had been unable to participate in the festivities, but for now, the sugary pile just sat there like a lump.

Or bait.

"I'm not giving up, sir," said the second guard. "You read the report. Something or somepony got into Ponyville's candy pile last year. They’re out there somewhere. Alive."

The two guards remained facing in their respective directions for a long time as the laughter and merriment of the small town drifted up to their sensitive ears. The first guard flinched at the sound of a broken branch and cast a brief look of his own into the nearby dark woods, then shook his head and returned to his duty of protective observation over the Lunar Princess below.

"It was probably a raccoon, Sunshine. You know that. It's been eight years. Eight years, and nopony has seen hide nor hair of either of them. The Everfree is a deadly place. Spark Gap can't—"

"She ran away from me, Breezy. She was so terrified of me that she ran into the deadliest place in Equestria rather than…" Sunshine remained quiet for a time while studying the empty clearing below. "I only wanted to help."

"Don't keep blaming yourself. Nopony saw it coming," said Light Breeze. "Her family was caught just as flat-hooved as the rest of us when she ran away."

"I tried too hard to get her to give up our foal for adoption," said Sunshine, still looking down into the clearing with such intent that he did not notice he was bunching little clumps of cloud in his forehooves. "I knew she was a little…" He trailed off with a sigh.

"Stressed," said Light Breeze, obviously suppressing a much more appropriate description of a young mare who would flee into a dangerous forest with a young foal.

"Crazy," said Sunshine, flicking his wings nervously. "I pushed her over the edge. She's still out there. I can feel it inside. I'm not going to give up on her again."

Instead of being drawn into Sunny's depressed musing, Light Breeze tried to concentrate on watching Princess Luna as she appropriated a small cloud to sneak around the Nightmare Night festival. She would pop up next to a pony one minute and exchange a few words, then vanish away into the night, only to surprise a small filly or colt into squeals of delighted laughter moments later. It was such a delightful change from the timid alicorn of just a few months ago that Breezy could not resist a small smile, despite his Royal Guard training. The party had already gone on a long time, and from the growing departure of small foals, yawning and complaining about not being tired, it would probably not last much longer.

It was a high honor to be selected as Princess Luna's drivers for this evening, and all of the little fillies and colts at the Stratus clan home tonight would be eager to hear about it. Even though the little ones had all gone out into the Canterlot night to procure their own candy supplies, they would be eager to see what tidbits 'Uncle Breezy' had brought back from his trip before being tucked into bed for a good day's sleep. Luna had promised to set a few pieces of candy aside for his family, and that additional proximity to their favorite princess would probably see several of the little nocturne foals tucking the candy away as a special keepsake instead of gobbling it down like the rest of their sugared hoard.

It was such an amusing thought that he almost missed his partner tensing up to the point where he could have been mistaken for a wooden pony, complete with rigid bat-wings and eyes narrowed into thin slits. Something in the clearing below moved, a small motion that anypony except one of their kind would have missed in the darkness and gloom.

"Raccoon?" whispered Breezy.

"Shh!" hissed Sunshine.

The two guards both watched as a very small creature flitted from shadow to shadow in the nearby clearing, ever so carefully approaching the pile of candy in front of the Nightmare Moon statue in a sinuous motion that was most definitely not a raccoon. As it ran out of cover, it paused almost within reaching distance of the sugary pile, seemingly hesitant to cross the last unshadowed stretch of ground.

"Oh," whispered Light Breeze, not sure if he was disappointed or relieved. "It's just one of the Ponyville kids, nabbing some extra candy…" The words dried up in his throat as the small greyish creature emerged out into the moonlight with its bat-like wings spread in preparation for a rapid escape, just in case.

"There's no nocturne in Ponyville," whispered Sunshine, just as rigid as if he had been turned to stone. "That's Emerald Dreams."

"Your daughter?" whispered Breezy. "That's impossible. That's… Where's Sparky?"

Light Breeze looked around the clearing for the lime sherbert coloring of Spark Gap's coat to no avail. He had only seen the mother once when she had been bigger than a barrel, with an acid tongue and vicious snap to her words as if she wished to draw and quarter all males for her pregnant predicament. The foal had been a nocturne, and although the Stratus clan had offered to take it in and raise it within the family, Spark Gap had reacted rather badly to the offer. Nocturne mares were bad enough when provoked, but crazy unicorns brought 'Domestic violence' to new highs.

Part of him had a little sympathy for the monsters of the Everfree Forest when Spark Gap had fled Canterlot and vanished into the green expanse, but the respectable portion of him had been properly sympathetic and respectful of Sunshine's grief. He had thought the tiny foal Sparky had taken with her was lost forever, but the little nocturne filly down in the clearing gorging herself on leftover candy could quite possibly be her…

Still, the mother was nowhere to be seen, and that bothered Light Breeze far more than the sight of the little filly, who seemed to be horribly disheveled and dirty even at this range. The way she was stuffing candy into her mouth and then spitting out the chewed paper was nearly feral, with darting glances cast around at any and every place a predator could hide in the clearing, and even a frequent scanning of the sky for airborne threats. She did not seem to realize the cloud could hold any predators, which seemed odd until he thought about the strange rules of magic within the Everfree Forest. There, a pegasus would be unable to use their magic to alter the weather or lurk within a cloud, which only reinforced the possibility that the little filly was actually Sunshine's lost daughter.

"I'm going to go talk to her," whispered Sunshine.

"Stay here," hissed Light Breeze. "We're supposed to be guarding the princess! If that really is your daughter, your wife is probably somewhere close by, probably in town. We can come back tomorrow—"

The little grey filly in the clearing looked up with a startled twitch of her head, staring right at the two Royal Guards.

Then she bolted towards the woods, with Sunshine plummeting off the cloud in hot pursuit, calling out, "Wait! Come back!"

"Hedgeballs!" snapped Light Breeze, his wings partially unfurled as his partner vanished into the woods as fast as he could flap. Close range obstacle avoidance was not Breezy's special talent, and the ability to control winds within a very precise range would be nearly useless if he were to pursue as well. The sounds of two batponies flying away into the woods died out almost immediately, swallowed up by the inky darkness and thick trees as if both of them had been consumed and turned into shadows themselves by the cursed magic of that place.

"Idiot, idiot, idiot!" Breezy kicked a chunk of cloud into vapor and stared out into the dark woods. Sergeant Sunshine was too smart of a pony to be busted down in rank as far as he was going to get slammed for this stunt, even if he was chasing after his long-lost daughter. It had been a long and difficult road for both of them to get assigned as Princess Luna's personal drivers for this important task. Even if Spark Gap and Emerald Dreams had been standing down in the clearing with a sign stating 'Come Back Sunny - All Is Forgiven' in huge letters, there was no way he should have broken off his sworn duty of protecting Princess Luna. Or protecting others from her.

It had only been a few months since Nightmare Moon had been defeated, and most of the guard still had faint feelings of doubt about Princess Luna being fully cleansed. Several of them had even voiced the opinion that a second exposure to the Elements of Harmony would only be reasonable, just in case there were any lingering bits of darkness needing to be purged. It might possibly explain her short bursts of anger at seemingly trivial things, or the way she would come lurking out of the shadows to scare the kumquats out of any guard she thought was not paying enough attention to—

"Lieutenant Light Breeze," said a soft voice just behind Breezy's right ear. "Explain."

~ ~ ~ ☾ ~ ~ ~

Several hours later, a much more bedraggled Royal Guard came slowly flapping out of the forest. Burrs and curled leaves tangled in his short tail, with more than a few spiderwebs floating almost delicately from his helmet's dented crown. A few long, silvery scratches adorned the enchanted surface of his dark armor, with one vambrace completely missing from a forehoof, and a second one caked in a slowly congealing mauve goo that glowed softly in the moonlight. He fluttered up to the cloud almost silently and landed directly to the side of his friend, talking and gesturing with one badly-scratched membranous wing even before his hooves touched the cloud.

"It was her, Breezy. I got so close just once and she looked back at me before ducking behind some vines. She's got the same green eyes as Spark Gap. There can't be more than one in a hundred of our kind with green eyes. Sparky has to be out there somewhere too! There's no way she could have grown up on her own, Breezy. No way. She knew that forest like the back of her hoof, and she was so fast! I almost had her twice, but she got away. Just twisted in mid-flight like the best flier I've ever seen, ducking and weaving. She's Wonderbolt material, for sure. This means Sparky has to be living around here somewhere! She could have even been in the crowd tonight! I'm so close, so very, very close. I just need…"

The faint but distinct sound of the Princess of the Night clearing her throat cut through the darkness, making Sunshine flinch at the realization that the cloud now had an occupancy of three ponies, one of whom was seated in her chariot with an expression of divine impatience.

"Drivers. I am prepared to return to Canterlot now. Let us be off."

~^^~

With a flutter of undersized wings, Dee zipped through the hole in the side of the hollow tree, made three circuits around the vast hollow inside, and flapped into a zoom climb shooting upwards past several other collections of The Folk, who had just settled in for a morning of rest inside Home. Huge moths fully her size and half-eaten fruits of all kinds were collected in their squirming and writhing niches as mothers pulled children off their backs and tried to make them not fight with their siblings over the night's repast. The other Folk hissed their greetings as Dee flew by in an ascending spiral, almost too excited to squeak back greetings of her own.

"Mama! Mama!" she squeaked, tumbling to a landing on the thin shelf of dry wood her family called home, crowded in among several other of The Folk who could tolerate Dee's deformities.

"Dee!" exclaimed Mama, extending her broad, warm wings to wrap up her only child. "I was so worried. It's almost time for the Burning to begin."

Dee made a disparaging noise, muffled to near inaudibility by her mother's warm wings. She tunneled upwards along Mama's soft hairy chest until she could poke her strange blunt face out and rub it against Mama's damp nose. "It's not that bad, Mama. I've seen the Skyfire before, and I didn't burn all up. The other creatures, they play in the Burning all the time, and they don't burn up either."

Mama's warm fang-filled smile vanished as she sniffed her daughter's face. She was the only one of The Folk who would smile for Dee. None of the other children would even try, no matter how much Dee begged and pleaded with them. They would call her names and pelt her with overripe fruit until Mama would fly over and beat them with her broad wings and snap at them with her sharp fangs. Those long fangs now brushed through Dee's tangled mane as Mama looked for ticks and fleas in an obvious attempt not to talk, but after a little grooming, she managed a quiet, "You didn't go there, did you?"

"Yes, Mama," said Dee, trying to wriggle back down into her mother's embrace.

"I told you not to go, my child. They're terrible monsters, and they'll gobble you up." Mama licked Dee's head and began to work her way down the neck, her long fangs tickling against her daughter's strange thin hide.

"I know, Mama," whined Dee, dropping her voice almost too low for her mother to hear. "There were all kinds of new monsters in the city tonight, different than last season. They must have eaten all of the other monsters up and moved in. But the big stone monster was still there. The monsters give it all kinds of tasty food so it won't eat them up."

Dee shuddered, even wrapped up in her mother's warm embrace. "I saw it move this season, Mama. It spoke really, really loud, and I could almost understand it. It made lightning hit the big monsters and bellowed at the little monsters. I thought it was angry, but when I came back, it had turned to stone again." She trembled harder, although she forced one deformed hand up through her mother's embrace to display a single waxy piece of the delicious food.

"You risked being eaten by the big monster for another piece of fruit?" Mama nosed the crinkling lump of sweetness, eventually unwrapping it with her agile fingers and sniffing it. Sharp teeth nipped it up and chewed for a long time, with many facial expressions and exploratory prods of her pointed tongue until the last of the sticky fruit had been dealt with. "It is different than last season’s fruit. The rind is still tasteless and bland, though."

"I had more," admitted Dee. "A monster chased me, and I dropped them to get away." She writhed in her mother's embrace until the additional words escaped. "It looked like me."

"Obviously a changeling," declared Mama. "They make themselves look like other creatures, but if you catch them and crack their shells open, they're good eating."

“Are you sure, Mama? It… knew my name.” Dee held out her rigid deformed hand and placed it against her mother's long webbed fingers. "It looked just like me, except for the eyes and a shell around its face and chest. I r-remember a monster when I was very small. Before you brought me to The Folk. I remember the way it shouted. It shouted just like the monster tonight. A-a-and I remember there was another monster then. Warm and smelling like you, Mama."

Mama sat for a long time, her black eyes blinking frequently as she looked away from her little child. Dee knew her own green eyes were different from the rest of The Folk, as well as her malformed hands and feet, and her odd face. She had always known her mother would love her no matter how strange and out of place she seemed, but there was something different about Mama this morning. Dee tunneled into the warm chest hair and brushed the side of Mama's face with her odd rigid hand, so wishing she had long, thin fingers like the rest of The Folk so she could fit in with them. There were times when she felt so alone, even inside Home with hundreds of other Folk and the warmth of Mama enfolding her. During those times, she would sit on a dry branch outside of Home and stare up at the moon, gazing at the dark patterns on the surface that stirred something deep in her chest.

Even that was gone to her now. One night when the moon had stayed up far too long, the patterns of darkness vanished, and something in Dee's heart twinged with a sensation she had never felt before. It made her itch with curiosity and want to fly there to see what had happened, but she dared not, for the moon was the home of the dreaded Owls. The mere thought of their silent wings and unblinking gaze made Dee hold Mama even tighter, only relaxing again at the reassuring touch of her fingers running through the long and tangled hair on the back of Dee's neck.

"Don't you worry, child. It's time to sleep now, while the Burning covers the forest and the monsters of light come out to eat. When we wake, I will show you something I've been keeping from you for many seasons. It is some distance away, and very dangerous, so you will need your rest. Sleep well, my little one. Do not worry. I will protect you."

"Sleep well, Mama," said Dee, shifting in position as large warm wings enfolded her tightly. "I'm so glad I have you."

"And I'm glad to have you too," said Mama, giving her only child an additional lick across the head to settle down a ruffled clump of her long hair.

It was difficult to sleep upright instead of clinging to the ceiling of their little niche in the giant hollow tree, but Mama had gotten used to it over the last eight seasons. While the rest of The Folk faded into a somewhat noisy slumber, she remained awake for a while with her ears upright, listening intently for the sounds of danger. The Folk had argued strenuously when she had brought Dee back with her, with many of them considering the odd little creature to simply be a snack being kept around for later. Many times over the years, she had nearly lost Dee to the dangers of the forest, but now her daughter was more agile and outgoing than even the most courageous Folk. If the strange hard coverings Dee had instead of hands and feet were not enough, the strange markings she had acquired on her rear during last season only emphasised how different the little batling was from the rest of The Folk.

The warm puffs of breath from Dee ruffled her chest hair, making Mama practice that odd 'smile' she had learned from the little one. It made a blazing warmth fill her body from clawed feet to her wide ears, a fire of determination and happiness at being a part of such a special little batling's life, and nothing was going to separate them.

Nothing.

Ch. 2 - Royal Command

Author's Note

Welcome back. If you read the first chapter of this story as well as City of Monsters a year ago when they were first released, I would strongly recommend you go back and re-read them, or you’ll be lost. They’re short, and we’ll be here waiting when you get back. Unless the Owls eat us.

City of Monsters is set a year before this story, and deals with Dee’s first Nightmare Night trip to Ponyville before the return of Nightmare Moon. ‘Child’ starts at her second trip to Ponyville, during the ‘Luna Eclipsed’ episode.

At the point you are reading now, Sergeant Sunshine Symphony is facing the consequences of having gone chasing after his long-lost wife and daughter when he should have been guarding Luna during her trip to the Ponyville Nightmare Night festivities.

For those of you who need reminding (or just spoilers), I’m including a list of primary characters behind the spoiler tags. (Seriously, I had somebody ID one of the characters as a manticore once)

Sunshine Symphony - Royal Guard, Night Division. A nocturne/batpony who lost his wife eight years ago when she ran away into the Everfree Forest, taking their newborn daughter Emerald Dreams with her.
Spark Gap (Sparky) - Emerald Dreams biological mother. Vanished after taking her daughter into the Everfree Forest eight years ago. Has been declared dead, along with her daughter.
Mama - A member of The Folk, which ponies call Giant Everfree Bats. Has adopted her strange and very loved daughter eight seasons ago.
Emerald Dreams (Dee) - Oh, come on. You can’t get this from the above two? She’s a batpony, raised by Giant Everfree Bats, which gives her a rather odd perception of her native ponies, who she thinks of as monsters.

Ch. 2 - Royal Command

Child of Nightmares and Everfree
Royal Command

The onset of Fall meant the wind at cruising altitude was a chill knife to his chest, but Sergeant Sunshine Symphony could barely feel the way the cold air froze a thin rime of ice crystals to his armor and congealed the tree sap across most of his legs into a sluggish mess. The tug of the harness connecting him to Princess Luna’s chariot was almost unnoticed when compared to the dull weight in his chest or the imagined glare of his sovereign from her position behind him.

Princess Luna said absolutely nothing during their trip from Ponyville back to Canterlot, not even when they swept down to the Royal Sisters’ private landing. The only noise was the faint clicks of the Royal Guards’ hooves as they touched down in near-silence, the chariot landing just a moment behind them and without even a turn of the wheels on the cold marble tiles. She stepped out while the two drivers remained at attention in their harness, but instead of dismissing them to go return the chariot while transferring the responsibility for her protection to the two other guards waiting at parade rest for her return, she stopped.

“Sergeant Sunshine Symphony. Unhitch yourself and stand there.” One silver-clad hoof pointed at where the ready guardspony was standing, and she continued, “Specialist Interregnum, hitch yourself up in his place and see to the returning of our transport to the hangar. Corporal Floribunda, you shall accompany me from here.”

Sunshine changed places with Interregnum, placing himself in the proper guard position as the chariot was being prepared. With an approving nod, Princess Luna began to stride into the castle, but she stopped abruptly as Sunshine turned to follow.

“Sergeant Symphony. Did I tell you to accompany me?”

“No, Ma’am.” Sunshine exchanged a quick glance with the two stallions in harness at the chariot before returning to his statue-like pose.

“You are to remain here until we return. Remain silent upon of the events of this evening,” said the Princess of the Moon before turning on her heel and striding away, followed closely by Corporal Floribunda. In moments, the landing pad was empty except for the two chariot drivers and Sunshine, who was feeling a little out of place.

“What’s going on, Sunny?” asked Specialist Interregnum, who was still strapping himself into the harness and seemingly a little hesitant about letting his fellow guard stand alone in the darkness.

Lieutenant Light Breeze interrupted before Sunshine could talk. “You heard the Princess, Specialist. Get those straps situated so we can fly the chariot back to the barn.”

“But that’s breaking protocol,” said Interregnum, trying to point in the direction the departing Princess had gone while fumbling with the last strap on the harness. “She’s supposed to have two guards with her at all times.”

“Specialist. Shut. Up.” Lieutenant Light Breeze exchanged a quick glance with his friend, who was standing perfectly immobile and awaiting Luna’s return with a certain sense of mortality. “Let’s go. And don’t talk about what happened.”

With a gust of the chill mountain air, the chariot vanished off into the night and Sunshine remained, alone at his post, with only the stars for company.

~^^~

Hours later, as the faint glow of false dawn pinked the horizon, the solid clicking of heavy horseshoes cut through the pre-dawn chill. Commander Swift Wings, an elderly but still quite spry pegasus, came striding out onto the landing pad with two snow-white Royal Guard pegasi close behind. He nodded at Sunshine as the other two pegasi moved to their guard positions.

“Good morning, Sergeant Symphony. Go ahead and hit the showers. Princess Celestia has an early morning trip south to Sãn Horsé scheduled for about an hour from now, so I’m getting the team all set up now. How did Princess Luna’s trip to Ponyville go last night?”

“Sir, the mission was completed, sir!” said Sunshine with a sharp salute, made even sharper by having spent several hours mentally reviewing the penalties associated with a Royal Guard abandoning his post, no matter what personal reason he might try to use in order to excuse his actions.

The elderly pegasus bestowed a rather benevolent look on Sunshine, much as one would look at a small foal who was being exceptionally nice in order to get a cookie. His eyes wandered over Sunshine’s armor, lingering for a moment on the long scratches across his breastplate and the green goop which had set up like dried paint all across his knees, and finished with a long, critical look at Sunshine’s bare foreleg.

“Sergeant, you’re out of uniform. Care to enlighten your commanding officer as to exactly what happened last night?”

“Sir, no sir!”

Commander Swift Wings paused with his lips drawing together in a disapproving expression normally used by officers determining just what unpleasant duties needing a volunteer existed within his jurisdiction.

“Well, I suppose I can get the report from Commander Buttercup this afternoon,” he admitted. “Go on, Sergeant. I need to brief the guards for Princess Celestia’s trip. Dismissed.”

Sergeant Sunshine bit his bottom lip briefly after considering just what Princess Luna might do if she returned and did not find him standing here. “Sir, no sir,” he repeated.

Both grey eyebrows shot up on the old pegasus. He gave Sunshine a sharp look of his own before drawing himself up to his full height and snapping off a perfect salute.

“Well, if that’s the way you want to play it, Sergeant. Watch Guard!” announced Swift Wings in a parade-ground bellow. “We are here to relieve you.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” responded Sunshine. “I have been assigned this post personally by Princess Luna.”

The sun took that moment to peek above the horizon, spreading a brilliant light across the castle and washing Sunshine Symphony’s normally glossy coat into a dull grey. Commander Swift Wings shook his head in the bright light and gave Sunshine a stern look. “Luna’s watch is over. Celestia’s watch has begun. Go on, hit the showers.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” repeated Sunshine. “I have been assigned this post personally by Princess Luna.”

The Commander paused, looking somewhat suspicious. “You mean to tell me Princess Luna ordered you to stand right here? Until when?”

“Until she returns, sir.”

A sense of enlightenment mixed with dread seemed to sweep over the old pegasus, and he leaned closer, addressing Sunshine in a low whisper. “Don’t tell me you went haring off after somepony you thought was your wife while you were supposed to be guarding Luna in Ponyville, Sunny.”

Sunshine did not respond, but he tightened his jaw and tried to keep his eyes forward.

“Oh, you poor suffering bastard.” Commander Swift Wings sighed. “You are so bucked in the head. Buttercup stuck his neck way out there to get you a post as Luna’s driver last night, and you mucked it up. Why? Why would you do that? Abandoning your post to chase ghosts?”

“She’s not a ghost. Sir.” Sunshine trembled in his armored shoes and swallowed what felt like a lump the size of the mess hall’s famous ironbread biscuits. It went directly against the order his Dread Sovereign, Princess Luna, had personally given him a few hours ago, but the knowledge trapped in his head demanded to be told to at least one pony, and a Commander of the Royal Guard was just one step away from the Princess. He took a short breath, and the Words He Was Forbidden To Say slipped out.

“I saw my daughter last night. Spark Gap had to have been nearby.”

“And you went straight off like a rocket after her, didn’t you?” The Day Commander pressed his hoof against his forehead for a moment, then gestured to the two guards who had accompanied him. “You two. Go over there and go deaf for a few minutes. I’ve got something private to talk with Sergeant Sunny about.”

Swift Wings waited until the two guards were a sufficient distance away and guarding a specifically empty section of castle wall before turning back to Sunshine and speaking in a low hiss. “You have exactly thirty seconds to convince me not to have Tweedledee and Tweedledum over there drag you off to a nice, quiet court-martial, and then kick you off Canterlot with an anvil tied around your scrawny neck!”

“I can’t tell you, sir,” hissed Sunshine in a near whisper. “She ordered me.”

The old pegasus commander had an impressive poker face, but Sunshine could see little flickers of emotion play tag across his face as he gave the rigid guard a good, long visual examination, from the missing vambrace across one foreleg to the scratches across his armor, much as if he were playing the events of the evening back in his head. At the end, the commander was breathing more evenly, and he had quit chewing on his bottom lip.

“Question,” said Commander Swift Wings. “You’re positive the little filly you were chasing through the Everfree Forest was your daughter? And I mean positive, not like the time in downtown Canterlot where you thought you saw your wife and went storming into a dress store and nearly caused a riot. Swear by your clan and on your word of honor.”

Sunshine swallowed and firmed his stance. “Yes, sir. I do so swear, upon Clan Hope and my word as a Royal Guard.”

The pensive expression which had settled onto Commander Swift Wing’s face grew only deeper as he spoke two words. “Describe her.”

He hesitated before bursting into a series of rapid words. “It had to be my daughter, I think. The more I think about it, the more I can’t think. It could have been another young nocturne with the same color eyes, but I’m fairly sure there aren’t any families in the Ponyville area, and if there are, I just chased one of their little fillies into the Everfree Forest and I’m so bucked—”

Sunshine came to an abrupt stop as Commander Swift Wings lifted a hoof. The old pegasus nodded, even though he was frowning. “Describe her.”

“Um.” Sunshine lifted his membranous wings and shrugged, showing the same grey coat and dark mane all of the nocturnal pegasi sported. “She was practically as thin as a rail, but wiry and fast, as if she were flying every night. Maneuverable too, with the sharpest cornering I’ve seen since the Wonderbolts. Green eyes, but you knew that. And a cutie mark of a pair of bat wings. Um, spread wide, I think. One on each flank. And her mane looked… strange. Long and snarled in places and raggedy short in others like Spark Gap had never trimmed it or even brushed it.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” muttered the guard commander. “That should narrow things down for the Missing Ponies report. Now, most importantly, you chased this little filly who might be your daughter into the freaking Everfree Forest?” Commander Swift Wings lowered his voice to a hiss. “What were you thinking?”

“I didn’t chase her there, sir!” hissed Sunshine in return. The early morning sunlight was giving him a fierce headache, even with one membranous wing lifted up to provide some shade. “I tried to cut her off and force her away from there, but every time, she would cut back on me and speed up.” Sunshine shuddered and blinked away tears in the bright sunlight. “She was afraid of me. My own daughter. She flew off into the hideous forest rather than let me catch her. Still, I almost had her when a tree tried to eat me.” He shuddered again. “So many teeth.”

Commander Swift Wings scowled and ruffled his feathered wings. “It’s possible your mysterious little filly is just a homeless pony, perhaps with a family around the edge of the woods. I’ll send a note to Ponyville’s Mayor Mare to see if she knows of any transients in the vicinity, and notify Foal Protective Services to see if they know of any batponies in the area, or if any with a matching cutie mark have gone missing recently. If you did chase some poor homeless pony into the forest, you’ll wish I had just tied an anvil to your neck and dropped you off the Canterhorn.” Swift Wings took a deep breath. “The Royal Guard looks after its own, Sergeant. We’ll courier the notes to Ponyville inside an hour. If whoever you saw is out there, we’ll find her.”

“An excellent decision, Commander Swift Wings.” It was patently impossible for an alicorn the size of Princess Luna to simply step out of the thin shadow of a nearby pillar in broad daylight, but one moment she was not there, and the next she was looming right over the commander. Luna’s colors looked somewhat muted in the morning sunlight, but her jaw was set in a firm line and her eyes flashed as if the stars inside were determined to break through into the day. “Thank you, Commander. Go craft your letters, and we shall provide you with a courier, forthwith.”

The elderly pegasus bowed and made his retreat. As soon as Princess Luna was certain he had gone, she turned to the cringing Night Guard. “Sergeant Sunshine Symphony, we are given to believe that one of Our young subjects may possibly be lost on the outskirts of the Everfree Forest.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Sunshine lowered his head. “I’m sorry, Your Highness.”

“We see no reason an apology is needed,” said the Princess of the Night as she turned on her heel and began to stride away. “Attend us, Sergeant Symphony.”

It took a quick sprint to catch up with Luna, who indicated with a pointed wing that his position was to be directly at her side instead of following behind as he was trained to do. She strode in silence for a while until their path took them away from any curious ears. Only then did she begin to talk, in a low, guarded tone.

“Before you even start, We think it only appropriate to inform you of the acuity of alicorn senses. Extremely few things happen within our vision without us officially noticing. For example, upon our visit to Ponyville last evening, your Princess of the Night noticed a small lost foal who had pillaged the sacrifice to Nightmare Moon. It is Our desire to see to the welfare of this little one, who we believe to be descended from my Nocturne.”

“Oh,” said Sunshine, still trotting along at a good clip to keep up with his princess and her much longer and brisk stride. “What about when I—”

“You will also find,” said Luna in a clipped tone, “when an alicorn states something did not happen, it did not. Do you understand?”

He had to trot for a short distance before responding. “No?”

“Good,” declared Luna. “Sergeant Sunshine Symphony, once you have made yourself presentable and delivered Our courier packet, you are hereby granted two weeks of administrative leave, during which it is… suggested you spend your time in Ponyville, assisting in the search for this lost foal. Should you require any resources in your search, any at all, send a request by way of Twilight Sparkle’s assistant Spike, and your requests will be granted.”

“I-I don’t understand, Princess.” Sunshine slowed to a halt as Luna turned to look him in the eye.

“Of all ponies, I know what it is like to have lost a child, only to find them again. Go. Bring back your family.”

Less than an hour later as the train carried him onward towards Ponyville, he reflected on Luna’s words. They were unsettling to his mind, and made it difficult to fall asleep on the short trip. As far as history claimed, Princess Luna had no children of her own, but he considered the membranous stretch of his own wings and the darkness of his coat, as all of his kind had possessed since the first emergence of Nightmare Moon…

His dreamless sleep was uneasy.

Ch. 3 - Ponyville

Child of Nightmares and Everfree
Ponyville

Ponyville looked much different in the noontime sun from ground level than it did in the moonlight from a cloud. Sergeant Sunshine Symphony of the Royal Guard (Night Division and Temporary Courier) stumbled off the train with a lumpy bag full of clean armor and a smaller bag containing a few personal possessions over his back. The pair of sunglasses he had grabbed from his clan home helped cut the glare down from head-splitting to only severely annoying, but he still moved from one tree’s shadow to the next as he made his way to the Ponyville Town Hall.

This year the mayor will listen. Princess Luna’s word must be worth something.

He nodded as he passed through the mayor’s outer office, the secretary taking one glance at the broad-shouldered Nocturne and finding something far more interesting to look at in the bottom of a file cabinet like a bureaucratic ostrich. After all, the secretary probably expected to hear the same upcoming argument he had suffered through several times before. By Sunshine’s count, he had met with this Ponyville mayor four times now, counting today, and had only lost his temper once.

He was determined not to make the same mistake again.

“Good morning, Madam Mayor.” Sunshine had the folder with Princess Luna’s symbol on it in his right hoof before the mayor could open her mouth. He dropped it on the paper-covered desk and promptly plunked his rump onto the visitor’s cushion, setting his jaw and remaining determined not to say anything until she had read the letter.

“Good afternoon, Sergent Sunshine.” The mayor nudged the closed folder and favored him with a very unfavorable look. “I must say our conversation is starting off better than usual. To answer your questions before you ask, there have been no reports of any unicorn matching the description of your deceased wife, nor any reports of any of your variety of pegasi, young or old, within the Ponyville valley area, including the Whitetail Woods and the Canter mountain valley.”

“I saw her last night,” said Sunshine, almost under his breath. “I saw Emerald Dreams and I lost it. I went screaming after her like some madpony.”

“So that was you?” The mayor seemed to be interested, as opposed to the normal impassive shield she projected. “I heard somepony go screaming off into the woods last night, and the candy was spread all over the place again this year. I thought it was Rainbow Dash trying to pull another prank.”

Sunshine remained quiet and sitting on his cushion until the mayor opened up the folder and began to read. There were a few “Hmmm’s” and an “Interesting” or two scattered around the page flips, but he concentrated on his breathing while she was reading, even when the secretary poked his head into the office to check why it was so quiet.

Eventually, Mayor Mare closed the folder and just watched him while tapping her forehooves together. “Until a few weeks ago, I might have thought you were crazy to say somepony is living in the Everfree Forest right outside of town without us realizing it. Then we found a zebra of all ponies who had apparently been living there for some time, and only has been recently befriended by our resident celebrities.”

“So you’ll help?” he asked, trying not to breathe heavily in anticipation.

“As much as we can,” said the mayor. “I’ll send Pokey over to Fluttershy’s with a message so she and her animals can check the edge of the Everfree Forest.”

“What about the sheriff?” asked Sunshine. “Can he put together a search party?”

“The sheriff moved to Appleoosa.” Mayor Mare looked out the window as if she were also considering a change of venue. “Right now, all we have is a prisoner on work release, and Jailbird’s parole won’t let him leave the city limits of Ponyville.”

“Oh-kay.” Sunshine Symphony took a deep breath. “Who does that leave us with to search?”

~^^~

“Attention everypony,” announced Twilight Sparkle to the growing crowd of ponies. “We have a lost little pony out in the Everfree Forest. Sergeant Symphony says she started at the statue of Nightmare Moon last night and flew towards the forest in an erratic pattern. She’s probably lost and frightened, so try not to scare her away if you spot her.”

“Do you have a description?” called out one pony from the crowd.

“She’s one of Princess Luna’s nocturnal pegasi,” said Twilight, reading down her sheet. “She has a bat wing for a cutie mark, green eyes, and—” She paused and waved a hoof rather generally at Sunshine “—looks like him.”

The general enthusiasm of the crowd lessened slightly.

“Did the Ghost Foal of Nightmare Moon return this year?” asked one little filly out in the crowd.

Twilight Sparkle frowned. “No, I’m fairly certain Princess Luna does not have any foals, natural or supernatural. Anyway, I’ve put together a search pattern for our teams that should cover the entire near side of the forest and— Sergeant Symphony? Where did he go?”

In the middle of the crowd, a young light-purple unicorn filly abruptly found herself the focus of the large batwinged guard as Sunshine forced himself to stop a length away and ask, “Did you see her? Did you see my daughter?”

Although several of the little ponies around the filly took a step or two away from him, the fearless little filly just nodded slightly at his question. “I think so, Mister Symphony. It was last year when we were all down at the statue of Nightmare Moon. I saw this little filly who looked a lot like you hiding in a bush. She had the biggest green eyes, but she was really skinny and didn’t have a candy bag, so I kinda-sorta left mine behind for her.”

Sunshine Symphony’s heart leapt with joy. He wanted to scoop this little filly up and give her the biggest of hugs, but with great effort, he managed to stay almost perfectly still as he asked, “Can you show me where you saw her?”

~^^~

Emerald’s hiding place turned out to be an ordinary bush in the light of day, sitting to one side of the path the little colts and fillies would use to bring their candy sacrifices to the statue of Nightmare Moon. A small collection of investigative-minded citizens had trooped down the path to it, following Dinky Doo as she happily rattled on about the events of last year and just where she had seen the ghostly little filly. Even though this particular trail was a year old and cold as winter, Sunshine could still see in his mind’s-eye a little filly sneaking through the bushes in order to watch the festivities she had undoubtedly been forbidden to join due to her mother’s order. Spark Gap had hated the idea of Nightmare Night, and had always found a reason to fight with him during the event.

Their fights had been legendary, and the make-up sessions twice as good, but he never knew from one day to another just what wife he would return to when he went home, and sometimes not even then from the way her abrupt personality changes had only gotten worse with the pregnancy.

He turned his attention from the past to the present, having Dinky stand where Emerald had been a year ago and slipping through the woods to approach her along the same path his daughter had probably followed. Three little fillies called the ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Investigators’ assisted him, including a verbal comparison of last night’s exciting occasion of Luna’s visit to the fairly ordinary Nightmare Night of a year ago. What they could not do was tell just where his daughter had gone last night.

“Detective Prancy Drew always has a reenactment of the crime,” stated Sweetie Belle, a small unicorn filly who was wearing a fedora reminiscent of a crime detective. “Why don’t you fly in the direction she did, and somepony can follow behind to look around?”

“Like Rainbow Dash!” suggested a second little pony with a joyful bounce into the air, although her little wings could not sustain her altitude.

“Or Fluttershy,” suggested a little earth pony.

In the end, several pegasi volunteered to follow him as Sunshine attempted to duplicate the erratic path of the little pony from last night, only slower, and stopping at the edge of the Everfree Forest. It would not have mattered if he had gone in anyway, because the small flock of pegasi following him did not look as if they would have followed. He returned to the clearing with the heavy tug of failure weighing down his heart, only to find Fluttershy talking with Mayor Mare and Dinky.

It looked like they had uncovered a possible lead, but when he rushed over to find out what it was, the shy yellow pegasus managed to vanish almost instantly.

“Smooth,” said Mayor Mare. She produced a tattered Nightmare Night bag with the word ‘Dinky’ scribbled on the top. “Fluttershy’s ferrets sniffed this out in the bushes. It has fresh candy in it, Dinky confirmed it was hers from last year, and—” She held up the cloth handle and pointed to a series of sharp tooth marks.

“Emerald Dreams,” breathed Sunshine, holding out his hoof but unwilling to actually touch the first physical indication he had of his daughter in eight years, and the evidence of his wife’s survival. “Spark Gap has to be out there somewhere.”

“I’m… not convinced,” said Mayor Mare, looking away into the woods. “I’ve sent for Twilight Sparkle, since I’ve never seen a dirty bag used by a unicorn before. She should be able to detect if another unicorn has used her magic on it.”

~^^~

Naturally, the first thing Twilight Sparkle did with the bag was to pick it up with her magic, which spoiled any chance for finding out if Spark Gap had touched it with her magic earlier. Still, a careful examination showed leaf litter, a little bit of squirrel fur, and some bark residue, which was enough to narrow down the search for where it had been for the last year to some sort of tree.

Since the Everfree Forest was made up of trees, that did not help much.

Their second attempt into finding out where Spark Gap and Emerald Dreams was did not fare much better either. Fairly soon after their abortive attempt to learn about the bag had gone south, Sunshine Symphony found himself trudging into the Everfree Forest with all six of the Elements of Harmony on an expedition to the fabled Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. The trip was all very sudden, giving him barely enough time to stuff himself into his spare set of armor. It was also quite odd, as in the bright afternoon sunlight, recreating the legendary terrifying journey of the Elements of Harmony through the dark forest turned out to actually be a casual stroll.

Although it still was quite odd.

Meeting the sea serpent was what really threw him for a loop. He could not work up the nerve to trot along his back the way the six legendary heroes did after their greeting and introductions, along with confirmation that Steven also had not seen either Spark Gap or Emerald Dreams. Instead, Sunshine flapped along overhead, trying to convince himself that keeping an eye out for other threats was more important than proving his stallionhood by a foolish display of…

Well, the Everfree Forest’s reputation was creepy enough to make anypony skittish, particularly one who was supposed to be a protector of others, like Sergeant Sunshine Symphony.

It was a humbling experience to say the least, but not as humbling as walking into the broken Castle of the Two Pony Sisters, with shattered stones and fallen buildings all around and the ghosts of ponies a thousand years dead seeming to moan in the unceasing cool breeze. On a deep and primal level, it frightened him right down to his armored shoes, and this was during the day. Every snap of a twig or rattle when a breeze disturbed a loose stone made him whirl and look into the growing shadows, who all seemed to look back at him with unbridled malice.

As his hooves crunched through the dry grass and the imagined dry bones beneath it, he thought about the original pony named Sunshine Symphony who had followed Princess Luna here so many years ago. Even though Luna had only been purged of Nightmare Moon and returned to Celestia’s side a few scant months ago, Sunshine could not think of the two sisters as being able to be divided, ever.

Still, a thousand years ago when Luna had succumbed to the temptations of Nightmare Moon, the royal sisters had clashed with tragic consequences. His own membranous wings twitched with the thought, as the race of Nocturne had been born in this place when the Nightmare had transformed Luna’s followers, only for them nearly to be wiped out to the last foal when Nightmare Moon drew back the power of their creation in order to fight Celestia.

What would the world look like if Luna had been purged of her dark taint without her banishment and the destruction of her followers, the newly created ponies of the Night? What could ponies and princesses have accomplished in a thousand years without that destruction, the forces of Day and Night united with a common goal? Nightmare Moon had clung to her stolen power so tightly that the removal of it had shattered far more than just herself. It had killed Luna’s followers, hurt Celestia far worse than she admitted, and thrown Equestria into a thousand years of near-stasis. Was he clinging to his daughter in the same way? If he really found his wife and daughter, would he destroy Spark Gap by removing the only child she had known for eight years?

“Um…” Fluttershy was gently touching him on the shoulder, and from the looks of the rather irritated rabbit with her, had been poking him for some time without him noticing. “I didn’t want to disturb you, since you were thinking.”

“Did you find Spark Gap?” he asked, although without the enthusiasm he had really expected. If they had found his wife, the confrontation he had been dreading for the last eight years would be unavoidable, and although he would be ecstatic, a certain portion of him did not want to face her again. He had failed his wife and infant daughter, and no number of years could take the sting out of that bleeding cut.

“No. I’m sorry. None of the creatures here have seen any ponies other than us for a very long time. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” said Sunshine almost out of reflex. “Never apologize for something which isn’t your fault. If there’s anypony who needs to apologize, it’s me for dragging you girls out here.”

“We volunteered,” said Fluttershy with just the smallest hint of ire in her voice. “Whenever I have a lost animal, my friends always help look, no matter what.”

It took a few minutes of internalized anger before he could respond. “You’re right. My wife and daughter are more important than some lost animal, so I shouldn’t feel guilty about asking you to help. Still, it should be me who apologizes, because this is all my fault. I… wasn’t a very good husband. My wife was not… She suffered some mental issues, and after she gave birth, they only got worse. Even with treatment, she wasn’t getting any better, and I didn’t think I could take care of a foal without her help, so I… asked her to give up Emerald Dreams for adoption.”

“And she ran away,” said Fluttershy, still sitting very quietly at his side.

“I drove her away,” said Sunshine.

“She ran away,” said Fluttershy. “Some creatures can’t accept help when they’re wounded. They lash out at anypony who tries. Sometimes they even… run.” She spoke the last word in a husky whisper, and the little rabbit who had been scowling at him from the cover of her pink tail hopped up next to Fluttershy’s hoof.

Angel wrapped two paws around her foreleg as far as he could reach and glared at him while Fluttershy continued. “They’ll hide as far in the dark as they can go and wait to die. Sometimes if the creature is a mother, they’ll even take their little babies with them down into the darkness before they die. If nopony finds them, the babies die too. That’s why we look, even if it seems hopeless. Because if we can save even one life—” Fluttershy gently stroked Angel down the back “—all of the pain is worth it.”

~^^~

It took longer than he was comfortable with to get all of the young mares gathered up for the trip back to Ponyville, with Rarity having brought one of the old tapestries out of the castle for possible restoration and Pinkie Pie having to be dragged out by the tail by Rainbow Dash after losing a short game of ‘Hide-and-Seek-Before-Night.’ The trip back to Ponyville went by without incident, even though Moonrise happened while they were still in the outskirts of the forest, and the sounds of night-roaming creatures caused all of the stalwart adventurers to speed up to a brisk trot.

It was just getting comfortably dark when Twilight Sparkle brought all of the Elements of Harmony together for an impromptu staff meeting at Fluttershy’s house, which was the closest point to the Everfree Forest and therefore the most convenient. It was not a very friendly location for Sunshine, as all of the animals were just a little cranky at having their caretaker away for the afternoon, and they seemed to have pegged him as the reason for her absence.

“That weren’t nearly the trip ah was hopin’ for,” said Applejack, turning down a glass of tea from a family of ferrets, who had been waiting anxiously for their return. “Sorry, little guys. Ah gotta get to bed to get up early tomorrow. Ain’t too many days before the snow flies, and we’ve got a lot of work to do out at the farm first.”

Twilight Sparkle had spread out a map of the Everfree across Fluttershy’s table and placed several empty teacups to hold it down. She was studying it with unusual intent, even though for the most part it was featureless and blank except for the ruined castle they had just come from and several small incursions into the outer edge of the forest. “There are a few promising areas of the forest to start our expedition into tomorrow, but a thorough exploration may take a few weeks as we work our way inward—”

“Weeks!” said Rarity, clutching the wreckage of her formerly-elegant mane. Her eyes flickered over to Sunshine with the unmistakable expression of a merchant seeing their last bit go spiraling down the drain. He could understand her reluctance and quickly managed to interrupt as she stiffened her spine and opened her mouth to respond.

“No, Miss Rarity. And Miss Sparkle.” He shifted uncomfortably under the sight of the six mares but quickly picked up again. “My daughter was flying into the forest. I thought my wife could only be at the outskirts of the forest because it was so dangerous, but we went a long way into it today. Even if Emerald was hiding her trip from Sparky, because Spark Gap hates Nightmare Night, flying means both of them could be living nearly anywhere on this half of the map.”

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash, hovering over the map. “I could make it all the way to the other side and back in an hour.”

“We could get some pegasus carriages and search the forest from the—” started Twilight only to be stopped by the barest touch of a yellow hoof on her foreleg.

“That won’t work either, Twilight,” said Fluttershy. “If they’re frightened and hide, we’ll never see them from the air, and if there’s a lot of pegasi flying around, they’ll both be very frightened.”

“If Emerald is like the rest of our kind, she will be sleeping during the day anyway,” said Sunshine. “Do you think you can see a sleeping foal from a flying carriage in the thick forest, Miss Sparkle?”

It took a while, but eventually the young unicorn shook her head.

“I thought as much.” Sunshine turned for the door. “I’ll go out on my own tonight.”

“No!” As he passed through Fluttershy’s doorway with wings half unfurled, his forward progress was abruptly halted by the clamping of a set of powerful jaws on his tail. He landed awkwardly on his chest, scrambling a little to get his hooves under him, but he stopped after turning around to snap at his captor.

“No,” repeated Fluttershy, a little muffled from the mouthful of tail hair.

“I’ve got my armor,” said Sunshine, feeling a little embarrassed about having the Element of Kindness clamped onto his tail like a tick. “I’ll be fine. Besides, I’ve read most of the published books about the Everfree, and my wife and daughter have been in this forest for eight years. It can’t be too dangerous.”

“Yes it is!” said Fluttershy, seeming to be almost in tears. “Some of the creatures in the forest at night aren’t very nice.”

“I’m going!” said Sunshine, trying to shake Fluttershy off his tail without hurting her. For such a meek little pegasus, she certainly had strong jaws.

Twilight Sparkle took several steps forward. “I don’t think—”

Whatever Twilight Sparkle was about to say was cut off as a pair of bear paws wrapped around Sunshine Symphony’s chest. It was a very large bear, but at present it did not seem to be too terribly angry, and Sunshine felt no real crushing desire to find out what would happen if it became angry. After all, the bear could peel him like a can of peas. Despite being provided by the best low-bid contractors the Royal Guard could find, the armor should protect him, but there was a lot of distance between theoretically should and untested in practice. “Nice bear?”

The bear did not exactly roar, but he did emit a somewhat cross-sounding growl with a snort.

“He’s just upset,” said Fluttershy once she had politely spit out Sunshine’s tail.

“He sure looks that way,” said Sunshine.

“Shush,” said Fluttershy. “I wasn’t talking to you. Now let him go, Hairy. Gently.”

The bear did, although it still looked irritated.

“And say you’re sorry,” said Fluttershy.

“Sorry,” said Sunshine automatically.

As an apology, the bear licked him on the face, which was an aromatic and physical sensation much like going face-first into a Royal Guard trash can after lasagna night. Fluttershy patted the bear on the back and fixed Sunshine with a deadly serious glare fully as strong as any he had received from the fiercest drill instructor at the Academy.

“I don’t want you to hurt any of my friends! The forest has scary monsters but it also has some very misunderstood creatures.”

After a careful look at the nearby bear, Sunshine swallowed once. “That’s too bad. My wife and daughter are in there somewhere, and I’m going after them.”

“Tomorrow,” said Twilight Sparkle with a disturbing note of command in her voice. “You’re exhausted, we’re tired, and I want to put together an organized plan before we go off into the forest again. Promise me you won’t go running or flying off into the Everfree Forest tonight.”

For some reason after Twilight said it, Pinkie Pie gave him a cupcake. He ate it carefully and nodded, which seemed to make the whole group relax. Well, except Pinkie Pie, who looked as irritated as the bear did earlier.

After their meeting broke up, the five other mares went back to their homes while Sunshine flew up into the starlit sky above Fluttershy’s house, taking a few minutes to relax by just making large circles around the town. He could trace their paths by the lights going on in their homes and then going out a few minutes later. It left the entire town cloaked in darkness except for the oak tree library, which he suspected would remain lit until nearly daybreak if the stories about Princess Celestia’s student were even close to correct.

He made one last circuit around the small town before a disconcerting thought made him hesitate in flight.

All of my gear is over in the Town Hall.

It would not be the first time he had camped outside since joining the Royal Guard. He glided down to the ground, considering the background information he remembered from his packet. For some reason, the apple trees at Sweet Apple Acres were rated four hoofprints for sleeping comfort, but there had been a reference to a zebra alchemist who lived just outside of town in the…

He turned to look at the forbidding forest and considered his promise. After all, a nighttime visit to one of Ponyville’s more odd residents would not be considered breaking his promise to not fly away into the forest, at least in court.

It should be perfectly safe.

Ch. 4 - Family History

Child of Nightmares and Everfree
Family History

Sergeant Sunshine Symphony was fairly unused to the concept of being alone. The clan where he had grown up had dozens of adults in the house and a fairly large cascade of foals of various ages, leaving him relatives of various types within sight range all the way through school and into the Royal Guard Academy. Even his fellow driver, Light Breeze, was a cousin several degrees separated who visited his clan house on a near weekly basis.

As he walked down the path which led to Zecora’s forest home, he was really starting to wish he was alone.

The old saying ‘The night has a thousand eyes’ seemingly underestimated the optical quality of a good, dark Everfree walk, as well as the number of assumed teeth and fangs associated with the unseen watchers. Sunshine had started his journey along the well-trod path at a casual walk, which had picked up to a fairly innocuous trot in short order once the forest canopy had closed over his head and his acute night vision could pick out the movements of creatures in the shadows. Friends with Fluttershy or not, if anything attacked him during his short-but-seeming-awfully-long-now trip, he was going to buck it in the face with armored hooves just as powerfully as he could, but some unspoken truce seemed to keep the dark creatures at bay until he came to a forest clearing with a single tree lurking in the middle.

It had to be Zecora’s house. Although the Everfree journals he had read described habilis ficus, or the Convenient Hollow Tree as a noted species inside the Everfree Forest, it was a wild version of the domestic quercus bibliotheca, the Library Oak, and quite rare. The academic papers had been quite vague on that point, but the Royal Guard briefing materials about Ponyville specified Zecora’s special status as a non-citizen who was to be given the utmost of deference. The phrase had been underlined three times. Just exactly why such special attention was paid to a seemingly low-income herbalist and alchemist was more than a little fuzzy, but as a Royal Guard he had faced much stranger orders.

Still, he could not think of any of them while looking at the fierce Zebrican masks and dangling bottles outside of the ominous tree.

There was a lamp lit inside the hut or Sunshine would most probably have just bolted back down the pathway just as fast as his wings and hooves would drive him. Instead, he slipped up to the open window and peeked inside to get a sense of what he was getting into. The living area of the tree looked smaller on the inside, a mixture of cosy and creepy which raised the hair all across his back and sent little prickles of ice around his hocks. A large iron pot in the center of the room bubbled with some dark green ichor which should have smelled chemical and vile, but actually made his nose twitch and a faint growl come floating up from the vicinity of his stomach.

Or at least he hoped that was his stomach.

The rest of the cosy room in the hollow tree was decorated in what he could not help but think of as Neo-Classical Zebrican Overabundance with a hint of Ponyville Chic, due to a few tasteful unicorn wall hangings. Wooden bowls and colorful gourds crammed nearly every flat space inside the hut that did not have a lit candle or terrifying mask, with a few open books scattered here and there for reference material, or possibly hints on where to find things in the confusing area. He was just getting ready to go knock on the door when a zebra mare abruptly appeared in the window, nearly eye-to-eye with him and just far enough away that her brief scream of fright momentarily deafened Sunshine.

The door fairly sprung open afterwards, with Zecora looking quite sternly at him and admonishing, “Oh, my heart! You gave me quite a start.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Zecora,” said Sunshine, trying to look in all directions at once just in case the scream were to attract things he really did not want to see attracted. “The Elements of Harmony said you were informed about my wife and daughter’s disappearance and the sighting I had of her…”

He paused, thinking. It seemed like so much had gone on in the last day. Was it only one night ago he had seen her? The memory of Emerald Dreams’ flight from him was already starting to fade like a dream, but those terrified green eyes still burned somewhere deep in his soul.

The zebra gestured him inside. “Yes, yes, the sighting of your daughter last night which gave those of us who heard you quite a fright. Come in, my troubled friend, and tell me the story of your plight, for I see your pain, and wish to set things right.”

The zebra listened to his story with a few uh-huh’s and the occasional nod, although she pushed a bowl of split pea soup into his hooves when his concentration started to fade about halfway through the story and would not let him talk until he had finished off a second, as well as a few vegetables he had never seen before and a great deal of water.

“Proceed, noble steed,” she said once he had finished eating, and listened again until he finished talking. It was surprising just how much of his personal history had come bursting out in front of the strange mare, and he found himself telling things which he had never even told his therapist. It was both embarrassing and highly embarrassing, but he sat quietly after he was done and waited for the zebra, which took some time.

“So after searching without result for your runaway bride, you thought my home was a place for your loved ones to hide.”

“I had considered it,” said Sunshine. “The more I thought about it, the less likely it was. Emerald Dreams was headed deep into the forest, not in this direction at all. She was fleeing to her home, and if my wife is anywhere to be found, it will be roughly along the vector she was headed. I’m really not sure why I came out here, but I’m willing to try anything to get them back.”

Zecora nodded. “I seem to be a slim reed upon which to place your parental need, but if it’s all you got—”

“—It’s worth a shot,” said Sunshine, although with a sudden glance at the zebra to make sure he had not angered her by stepping on her lines. He was tired and a certain nasty streak of passive-aggressiveness tended to leak out whenever he got less than an hour’s sleep in a day.

Zecora nodded again. “While I have not seen your daughter or her keeper, I agree that into the forest, you must go deeper. What you need to point you in the right direction to guide you to the pony of your affection is somepony who knows what secrets are concealed, and who to talk with for them to be revealed.”

“That’s a lot of help,” said Sunshine, and after a long moment of silence from Zecora, he added, “That’s sarcasm.”

“It is as you say,” said the zebra, moving to open her front door to the unwelcoming darkness outside. “So you should be on your way.”

“Thank you, Miss Zecora,” said Sunshine as he moved to the offered door. “If I ever find myself without a headache, I know where to go to get one.”

“One last thing before you go,” said Zecora once he was safely outside. “Remember, all you see may not be so.”

Then the door to the mysterious mare’s odd house closed and Sunshine began his brisk trot back to Ponyville, taking his headache with him.

~^^~

“Come on, Mama!” Dee fluttered ahead of her mother, darting among the treetops and snapping at the tiny moths rising up with the disturbed air of her passage. “We’ve been flying this way forever.”

Her mother did not respond at first, flapping along with short strokes of her membranous wings while squinting down into the forest canopy. “It’s been a long time,” said Mama after a few more short wingstrokes. “I’m not sure where it was any more. There is a stone lizard guarding the place. A dangerous lizard. You must not look at it.”

“I’m not afraid of some dumb lizard,” squeaked Dee with a quick loop. “I’m fast and quick. I’ll bop it on the nose and—” Mama abruptly turned and began flapping the other direction, leaving Dee to chase after her. “Wait up!”

“We’re not going,” said Mama. “I don’t want to lose…” Her rapid wingstrokes strengthened as she increased her speed, and for a while, it was all Dee could do to keep up.

“I’ll obey, Mama,” squeaked Dee just as soon as she could get her breath. “I’ll stay away from the dumb old lizard. Please? I just want to know.” As her mother flew on, Dee slowed to a hover over the top of a broad-spread tree and hung her head, eventually sinking down until she could stand on a sturdy branch without her useless hard feet skidding off the bark. The cool breeze blew through Dee’s unnaturally thick neck hair and brought a chill to her coat while she stood there in the brilliant moonlight.

Mama was always brave and protected her little Dee from any danger. She never fled from anything, not even the fierce Owls. This was the first time she had ever fled, and she was flying away from Dee.

It was unfair. All of the other batlings looked like their mothers, with long, thin fingers and normal flat faces instead of her long muzzle. They grew up fast, getting larger wings and higher voices until Dee could barely hear them, as the cute little balls of fuzz who rode on their mothers’ back turned to Dee’s size, and then so much larger just like Mama. They did not need to have their mothers lie down awkwardly to cuddle up for the day’s sleep. They did not look like all of the monsters in the distant city. They did not have a hairy tail, or six limbs instead of a more normal four, or—

The gust of a nearby flier made Dee look up in a panic, but it was not an Owl as she feared. Her mother swooped down and clutched onto a branch above Dee, turning to look her odd daughter in the eyes as she hung in a more comfortable fashion for The Folk, and in a way Dee could never duplicate, no matter how many times she tried and wound up on her head instead.

Her mother reached out one long-fingered hand and ran it through Dee’s shaggy pelt. The wide membranous wing that came with it gently brushed up against Dee’s side, and she raised her own broad wing to press against it. Even there, she was different, as her mother’s wing was softer and warmer than Dee’s rough surfaces, which were always dry and itched, no matter how much she or her mother licked them.

“I don’t want to show you,” said Mama.

“Please?” Dee lifted a clumsy foreleg and touched it to her mother’s damp face, brushing away a tear. “You said it would help me understand why the monsters in the city look so much like me. I want to know. I have to know.”

“No,” said Mama. “Come back with me to Home and we shall hunt powdermoths tonight until you cannot eat any more. Then I will groom you and hold you and—”

Dee bolted from the tree limb and began flying again, gliding along with almost negligible twitches of her long dark wings. Her mother followed with a series of quick flaps, catching up to her daughter and calling out, “Dee? What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for a lizard,” snapped Dee. “I want to see what you’re so afraid of.”

“No!” called out Mama. “It will turn you into stone and break you into pieces!”

“How do you know, Mama?” shouted Dee. She slowed back to a glide as her mother looked away, barely making headway against the warm breeze out of the forest until she spoke again.

“I’m not your Mama.”

Those were the last words Dee was able to get out of her mother as they glided together on their trip across the moonlit forest. After several exploratory sweeps, Mama eventually flew to the top of a large tree and huddled down on a branch. She did not even hold on with her hind legs and hang free as the rest of The Folk did, but crouched in an obviously uncomfortable stance and pointed with one wing at the forest clearing in front of them.

“We must be very quiet,” she squeaked, just barely within hearing range of Dee’s fuzzy ears. “The lizard does not like noise. Look, but be careful.”

Dee peeked over the edge of the branch, past her sprawled-out mother and down. In the clearing, there was a huge old redfruit tree with twisted limbs bearing evidence of surviving more than one lightning strike during its long life. The gnarled tree seemed diseased, with dead branches mixed with a few brownish leaves still clinging as if they were some sort of parasite, sucking the life and energy out of the dying wood, but the objects scattered around its exposed roots and ragged trunk caught her attention.

At first she thought they were bones, peeking out from beneath the forest mold and showing white in the moonlight where the forest breeze had cleared away the fallen leaves. A longer inspection made them look more like tree sloths and many of the huge moths of the forest, only strangely immobile and broken into pieces, as if they had been turned into stone and shattered as Mama had said. Even members of The Folk, both large and small could be seen broken into pieces throughout the clearing. There were many, many of them, far more than Dee could count, but one broken piece of stone made her heart almost stop beating.

It was a monster.

What little remained of the stone torso of the monster was wedged into a narrow crack at the base of the redfruit tree, battered and chipped, but still recognizable as a creature like herself due to the strange symbol on its rump. The legs had been broken off and reduced to mostly rubble, but the head was still somewhat intact where it had rolled under one of the protruding roots. It had a horn, much like some of the monsters in the city, and its… no, her wide, staring eyes were filled with the last of the terror of being petrified. The sight made Dee’s knees tremble as the face brought faint memories in the back of her mind floating to the surface.

Fly! Fly, Emerald! Don’t look back!

She did not know how long she stood there in silence, staring down into the dark clearing. It was a shock that made Dee twitch when Mama finally wrapped one warm wing over her body, which was as high as she could reach from where she was flattened against the branch. “That is your mother,” squeaked Mama in a raspy voice Dee could barely make out. “The lizard attacked while we were eating from the redfruit tree. It killed her and broke her. It would have killed you too if I had not saved you.”

“Mama,” said Dee as she slowly collapsed to her chest and wrapped her wings as far as she could around her mother. “Mama,” she repeated.

“I’m not your Mama,” said Mama even as she held Dee tight. “I stole you from the monsters. You will fly away to them and leave me all alone again.”

Ch. 5 - The Shadow of the Moon

Child of Nightmares and Everfree
The Shadow of the Moon

Morning in Ponyville was rumored to be the most beautiful in all of Equestria, with an uncanny ability to shimmer and shine far beyond all reason. Since Sunshine Symphony was walking through the center of town around noon, all the shimmering and shining was over, although there were quite a few curious glances he could pick up even from behind his sunglasses. His throbbing head appreciated getting away from the bright sunlight when he vanished into the shaded interior of the Golden Oak library, but there was something lurking there he much rather would have avoided.

“Mister Symphony? Where did you go last night? We looked everywhere for you this morning and thought you had gone into the forest!”

To her credit, Twilight Sparkle did look more concerned than angry about having a twig-decorated and rumpled Royal Guard of the nocturnal variety yawning on the floor of her library oak tree, but Sunshine took it in stride. His life seemed to have gained a trend of crazy females who lived in trees guiding his steps, although it was murder on his sleep schedule. It said something about how tired he was that as soon as he had left the forest, he had found a comfortable apple tree and gone straight to sleep even in the dark, moreso when he woke up to find the sun was already high in the sky. At least his sleep had been dreamless, which he suspected Princess Luna had something to do with, as well as his failure to awaken at moonset.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” he said with another yawn. “The trees in Sweet Apple Acres were so comfortable I slept ‘til noon. I was only planning on taking a nap.” He gave another yawn. “I talked with your town’s resident head-twister last night.”

“Zecora?” asked Twilight, looking up from the map of the Everfree Forest she had spread across the library table. Her map was only the rough shape of the forest with the path to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters marked in clearly, but just about everything else was blank except for a few sharp hills and a number of recently-marked ruins. “What did she say?”

“I’m not sure, but it rhymed.” Sunshine drew himself up on his rump and held one hoof across his chest. “I cannot help on your noble quest, but be assured, I wish you the best.” He collapsed back onto all four hooves with another yawn. “Or at least that’s what it sounded like. She should have at least waved goodby and called out, ‘Have fun storming the castle!’”

“Uh…” Twilight Sparkle shuffled a few notes across her impromptu briefing table and cleared her throat. “Zecora was like that a lot yesterday when the girls told her about your wife. She gets right in there between your frontal lobes. Although she’s sometimes a confusing friend, her advice always works out in the end.” Twilight scowled. “And sometimes she’s contagious.”

“Outrageous.” Sunshine paused with a sour grimace, then looked over the map, which had a broad vector marked from the Ponyville Nightmare Moon clearing into the center of the forest, passing near several labeled areas with numbered tags on them. “So, what leads do you have for me to follow?”

“Us,” said Twilight Sparkle. “I’ve made arrangements with the weather pegasi to check several of the ruins today. They will be flying well above the forest and only stopping at the indicated map points, so they should be fairly safe from the Everfree monsters, or at least we hope. They’ll be back in a few hours, long before it gets dark.”

Sunshine stood and looked at the map with a frown growing on his face. “How many ponies did you have looking for me this morning, Miss Sparkle?”

“Oh, once the search parties set out, about a dozen,” said Twilight, measuring distances on the map. “I helped search the orchard with Applejack and Rainbow Dash, while Pinkie Pie looked all over town.”

“Twelve ponies looking all over town for a full-grown Nocturne who was not even trying to hide in broad daylight, and they failed,” said Sunshine.

“Well, they…” Twilight Sparkle trailed off as she looked up, then looked all around the library for the armored guard. After pacing around the room, looking behind bookshelves, and checking the ceiling, she had just started looking under tables when Sunshine slipped out of the shadow he had been hiding in.

“Miss Spark—”

Twilight gave off a high-pitched shriek and scrambled halfway across the room. “Don’t do that, Mister Symphony.” She panted in place for a few moments, keeping a fierce glower aimed at the embarrassed guard. “Point taken,” she finally said. “but they will be looking for your wife too, and she can’t hide the same way your daughter can.”

“Yeah.” Sunshine Symphony looked over the map table with a frown. “About that.” He nudged a few of the numbered markers around on the table. “What if… she’s not hiding. What if Spark Gap… got so sick she became separated from our daughter in the woods or died or something else. You didn’t see Emerald Dreams. The way she was eating the candy was almost feral, like she had regressed into an animal or something. I mean she was chewing it all up and spitting out the wrappers. What if she doesn’t have her mother anymore? What if Spark Gap is… dead?”

“That’s…” Twilight Sparkle seemed unable to determine if she should be looking him in the eyes or staring at the table, and her gaze flickered back and forth. She moved several of the markers back into place. “The search parties might as well be blind out there if that’s the case,” she said after a while. “They could fly over or walk past your daughter a dozen times without even realizing it.”

“I’ll go join them,” said Sunshine, moving toward the library door, which promptly glowed purple and remained stubbornly shut.

“You’re staying right here,” said Twilight. “Go upstairs to my bedroom and go to sleep until the search parties get back. You’re not going to do your wife or daughter any good if you don’t get some rest. I’ll wake you up when they get back and we know more.”

At first, Sunshine was going to object, but the narrowed gaze of Twilight was suspiciously similar to Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia, and he lowered his head to trudge obediently up the stairs. Once out of sight in her bedroom, he moved to the windows and attempted to open them so he could fly out to join the search parties anyway, only to find the same purple magic which had locked the front door was also holding Twilight Sparkle’s bedroom windows closed.

“Sleep, Sergeant Symphony,” drifted up the staircase. “Or I’ll write a letter to Princess Celestia and have her make that an order.”

~^^~

Nocturne were attuned to the rising of the moon much in the same way roosters reacted to the morning sun, only with less crowing. Sunshine Symphony swam back to awareness, surrounded by soft sheets and feminine scents all around him. His heart skipped a beat as his sleep-addled mind became flooded with memories of Spark Gap, but the crush of familiar despair following his realization made him far too aware of the cold gap to his side where his missing wife should have been. He rolled out of bed by instinct, dropping all four hooves on the floor and giving a titanic yawn to clear his ears when he heard voices from downstairs.

“What was that noise upstairs, darling?”

“Just Sunshine, getting out of my bed.” There was a short pause. “Not that way, Rarity! He’s married!”

It took a few minutes to get his armor on and stumble downstairs to see the six famous mares all gathered around a table with a stack of sandwiches. The map of the Everfree was bare of the markers, but there was no look of happy discovery on any of the faces at the table.

“Nothing?” he asked with a hopeful glance at the short stack of papers in front of Twilight Sparkle.

“Nothing yet,” said Twilight. “All of the search parties reported back with no losses and no signs of any ponies living in any of the ruins, but I had the opportunity to research another approach.”

He sat down in the offered chair and ate the sandwich Spike brought over to him, but he was so distracted that he could not tell what kind it was as he waited for the Princess’s student to stop being such a unicorn and just tell him what she had up her horn. It took until he had eaten a third sandwich and polished off a glass of juice before Twilight Sparkle seemed to check off an entry on her mental checklist, gave a short nod toward the map, and began to speak to the group.

“All of my previous theories about how to locate the missing ponies depended on our ability to find Spark Gap, who as a unicorn, would be easier to locate than her daughter, Emerald Dreams. It is possible the two of them have been separated, but we know for a fact that the nocturne filly is still alive, and was headed in this direction when she left Ponyville. What I propose is to organize a very small search group of pegasi, with Sergeant Symphony’s abilities to operate at night and Fluttershy’s ability to talk to animals. This group, which I have designated Group Friendship—”

“I still think Task Force Awesome would be a better idea,” grumbled Rainbow Dash.

“—will depart from the statue of Nightmare Moon in Ponyville’s park and head into the forest along Emerald Dreams’ last known vector, with Fluttershy stopping on occasion to interrogate the local night-dwelling creatures. Politely,” added Twilight with an embarrassed glance at Fluttershy.

“How is this group going to be able to see at night like I do?” asked Sunshine.

“With this!” declared Twilight Sparkle, bringing out an old scroll covered in mystic runes. “Back when I was a student, I found a spell in the old archives that allows the superimposition of characteristics from one type of pony to another, much like the cloudwalking spell allows non-pegasi to walk on clouds.”

His heart beating a little faster, Sunshine sat up in his chair. “So you can transfer Fluttershy’s ability to talk to animals to me?”

“Um…” Twilight Sparkle fidgeted, setting the scroll back down on the table and exchanging a nervous glance with Fluttershy again. “Not exactly. There’s no known way to transfer a pony’s cutie mark—”

“Thankfully,” said Applejack.

“Agreed,” said Rarity.

“—but I can ‘copy’ your abilities as a Nocturne to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash,” completed Twilight Sparkle with only a brief glare at the two interrupters.

There was something wrong about her plan, but Sunshine squelched his feeling of unease. It would get him out into the forest, looking for his daughter, and that was the important part. Fluttershy was the key to the whole plan. Emerald Dreams was fast, and she was probably just as good at hiding as Sunshine, but she could not hide from a whole forest full of talkative creatures.

Fluttershy looked less than convinced, even after Twilight Sparkle went on and on about the spell being only temporary and easily reversed, but after some convincing, she took her place next to him with only a little shiver down her sides.

It took Twilight several references to her scroll before she lit up her horn, causing scintillating magic of every color of the rainbow to surround her two subjects. For Sunshine, it just felt cool and warm at the same time, with tingles running up and down his spine, but the shy little pegasus seemed to be far more affected. Her wings shimmered and stretched, with the feathers merging together and shifting into flawless expanses of dark membranes like dragon’s wings while her bright yellow coat and pink tail darkened to a mustard and magenta hue respectively in order to blend into the night. She closed her eyes in a pained wince, and when they opened, the pupils were slit vertically like a dragon’s eyes. Then the spell cut off and the new batpony fell to the floor with a cry of pain.

“Oh, no!” declared Rarity, flinging herself forward and cradling Fluttershy in her forelegs. “We didn’t realize this would be so painful, so nerve-wracking, so… gorgeous.” Rarity ran a pristine white hoof down Fluttershy’s face, from tufted ears to jaw and across her soft mane. “Your colors are so dark now. Darling, you’re going to need a whole new wardrobe and a really big stick.”

“A stick?” asked Rainbow Dash, hovering overhead. “Why would she need a stick?”

“To keep the stallions away, of course.” Rarity put a hoof under Fluttershy’s chin and lifted her face up for closer examination of her eyes. “You’ve got your natural beauty and that dangerous exotic touch of the unknown now, dear. Those eyes are just ravishing, like…”

“Like Nightmare Moon!” declared Pinkie Pie with a bounce around the room, trailing a banner that proclaimed ‘Nightmare Moon II — The Sequel.’

The other shoe Sunshine Symphony was waiting to drop, did.

He stared in muted horror at Twilight Sparkle, who was smiling and had her horn lit up again as she turned to her next pegasus friend. “That was far easier than I thought,” she said with a leering cackle that ran little bits of ice up Sunshine’s back. “I don’t have to stop with Rainbow Dash like I planned. I could transform hundreds of pegasi all across town, but why even stop there? We could blanket the entire Everfree Forest with search parties if I transformed every pony in—”

Sergeant Sunshine Symphony of the Royal Guard could not help himself.

He hit her.

Not just an open-hoofed slap, or a gentle pat on the cheek either. This was a full punch from the body with every muscle he had into it delivered directly to the madly cackling unicorn’s jaw. Twilight Sparkle rebounded from the impact, bounced off a bookshelf in a shower of periodicals, and landed back on the map table with all the grace of a bag of walnuts. The sound of books hitting the floor and a rain of little map markers which had gone flying to the corners of the oak tree library slowly died out, replaced by an incredible silence as all five remaining members of the Elements of Harmony, the heroes of Equestria who had personally saved Princess Luna, his Dread Sovereign, all stared at him with wide eyes.

~^^~

It took ten minutes for Twilight Sparkle to be encouraged into waking up, and another five before Fluttershy allowed her to sit up and take a drink of water. All during that time, Sunshine sat quietly a short distance away and did not say a word or move a muscle, other than to take the occasional glance out the library window at the risen moon. It was the end of his journey to find his wife and daughter, as well as the end of his career and most probably the last time he would be anywhere without bars on the windows.

He had struck Princess Celestia’s prize student. He was so bucked.

“So…” started Twilight, seemingly poking at a loose tooth in her jaw. She looked at Sunshine, then at the transformed Fluttershy, then back at Sunshine. “Princess Luna transformed your race right before she turned into…” Twilight trailed off and chewed on her bottom lip, eventually lighting up her horn, floating the scroll with the transformation spell on it out into the center of the table, and setting fire to it.

Once the last ashes of the scroll had been collected in the center of the table, she turned back to Sunshine Symphony, who expected much the same treatment. Instead, Twilight Sparkle gave a curt nod. “Thanks. And don’t ever do that again.”

“I’ll try,” whispered Sunshine. “If you don’t.”

“What, no apology?” snapped Rainbow Dash, who was hovering over the table and stirring the ashes of the former transformation scroll with her downwash.

“It wasn’t his fault,” said Fluttershy with a sharp frown. “Twilight should have been more careful with an unknown spell.” She paused and stretched out her wide, dragon-like wings. “Even if it worked really well,” she added.

“Well…” Rainbow Dash landed and gave Fluttershy a careful inspection while still keeping an eye on the immobile guard, then glanced back at where Twilight Sparkle had settled into a similar immobile stance. “You did kinda freak us out there, Twilight.”

“Thought you was gonna go full Nightmare Moon on us, sugarcube.” Applejack took off her hat and turned it over between her hooves. “Don’t know if any of us woulda been able to shake you out of it, but that weren’t no reason for him—”

“It was my fault,” said Twilight Sparkle. “Let’s learn from our experience and go from there. We have some lost ponies out in the forest to find.”

“If you say so,” said Rainbow Dash. “I suppose I can get a cool set of night vision goggles from Pinkie Pie’s Spy Kit and we can go out looking tonight, just to see how well this works. It’s too bad about the spell, though. I’ve always wanted to see if my top speed goes up when I’m turned into a griffon like Gilda.”

“Um… Rainbow?” Fluttershy fidgeted and seemed to be trying to hide behind her mane, which was working better than she expected in the evening lighting of the library. “You can’t go.”

“What?”

When Fluttershy did not continue, Sunshine Symphony spoke up. “You can’t be quiet. You’ll scare my daughter away.”

“Hey! I can be quiet! I can be ten times as quiet as you.” The pegasus paused, looking at the silent and immobile guard. She settled down on the table and struck a mirroring pose, holding perfectly still… well, mostly still except for little darting glances… somewhat still except for a few twitches and a fierce glare…

“Quiet is overrated!”

“Ten seconds flat,” said Applejack, checking the clock on the library wall. “A new record.”

~^^~

Far above Ponyville, ‘Group Friendship’ glided in the direction of the Everfree Forest, just as silent as a falling leaf. The two dragon-winged ponies passed over the statue of Nightmare Moon, glistening in the light of the full moon, before changing their course and drifting along at almost a walking pace.

“Should we be looking for owls?” asked Sunshine. “They might have seen my daughter.”

“Some owls,” said Fluttershy with a shudder. Many long, slow flaps later she added, “You shouldn’t feel guilty.”

“It doesn’t help,” said Sunshine. “I know flinging myself solo out into the Everfree to look for my wife and daughter is just another stupid way to deal with my guilt, but I won’t be much of a husband or a father if I get myself killed trying to find them. Maybe if I went back to Canterlot and got some of the researchers who have experience with the forest. Form a real expedition. Do this the right way.”

“No.” Fluttershy cast a look back over her shoulder at him with a flash of teal eyes making Sunshine suddenly think of Luna and one of her stern looks. “The more ponies we take into the forest, the more the shy creatures will hide or flee, just like your daughter flew away from you. Besides, researchers have gone into the forest before, and they didn’t find your wife or daughter then.”

“True.” Sunshine considered all of the papers and books he had read about the mysterious forest. “Still, most of the researchers only went out during the day, or at least the ones who came back.”

They flew in the direction Emerald had gone, stopping every so often so Fluttershy could talk to a local bird or bug while Sunshine kept watch. His opinion of the shy pegasus continued to climb with every stop as she whispered to wasps, buzzed to bees, and squeaked to all manner of creatures both large and small, some of which had more teeth or spines than he could count. It left little time to talk to each other, which seemed to be a mutually acceptable solution to their uncomfortable situation.

So he watched the forest, while the forest watched him back. It seemed oddly as if he were being examined by a vast green monster, curious as to why two little creatures were intruding into its body and asking questions of the insects who lived in its fur. Still, being examined beat being digested by a considerable margin and made him consider just exactly how the forest might have reacted years ago to the various research groups who chopped their way in while capturing whatever interesting creatures they found. Most of the expeditions had only stayed in the forest for a few days or a week at most before disaster struck in the form of a giant beast or a localized earthquake. Then they would limp out with their wounded to write books and research papers and most probably tell tales around the faculty fireplace, all tasks which would rid the world of trees in one way or another.

There were only a few expeditions which had remained for months at a time in the deepest of the forest, and they were mostly just made up of one or two researchers, typically old stallions or mares who most of their peers considered crazy at first and written off as eaten after a few months. Then the old ponies would come strolling out of the forest with reams of sketches and observations, publish a few papers or books, and vanish back into the woods again, over and over until they no longer came out.

Most of the book sketches Sunshine had seen while researching the forest seemed completely unbelievable, but after actually seeing some of the creatures Fluttershy was casually talking with, they made much more sense. Any successful Everfree researcher would be fascinated by the flora and fauna, and most probably inevitably eaten by one or both of them no matter how skilled they were.

Still, their journey was slow going, as Emerald had flown as fast as she could toward a known destination but the two of them were limited to short hops between talkative bugs and night-dwelling animals. It would have given him time to think, except for a sincere desire not to wind up having to explain to Princess Luna how one of the Elements of Harmony was eaten by a carnivorous plant while he was distracted.

It really was difficult not to be distracted by the forest, as every stop they made involved yet another strange creature who Fluttershy would talk with just as if it were a friendly neighbor she had not met yet. At every stop they made, more creatures poked their noses or other scent-gathering appendages into their vicinity just to see what was going on. Some were chatty and seemed to like to talk with the odd yellow nocturnal pegasus, some were less interested in talking and more in digestion, which made Fluttershy and Sunshine take longer leaps ahead.

In particular, there had been some sort of creature looking a little like a weasel with dental issues, who hissed and snapped around its fangs until Sunshine noticed a large number of similar fanged weasels moving into ambush positions around them. He had reacted by grabbing and quite nearly throwing the Element of Kindness straight up in the air while following close behind, although not quite close enough to prevent a pair of the ambushing weasels from managing to get their teeth into his tail hairs. Since Fluttershy was ahead of him and climbing up into the starry sky, he only felt a little bad about kicking the ravenous little beasts in the heads and watching them plummet back down into the clearing they had just left, but it turned his stomach the way the rest of their brethren swarmed over the bloody little creatures.

Fluttershy restricted herself to talking with creatures in the higher branches of the trees for a while afterwards.

~^^~

Sergeant Sunshine Symphony was a Royal Guard of the Night Division, which meant he was perfectly able to stand in one place in the pitch dark and remain totally unmoving⁽*⁾ for hours on end. At one time as a cadet, he had been assigned to guard a royal museum which housed quite possibly the most disconcerting painting in Equestria. Hour after hour, he had stood immobile in front of Celestia Among The Flowers until he could swear the painted little colts and fillies frolicking across the green hill were actually moving, and the indeterminate expression on Celestia’s painted face seemed to leer at him out of the corner of his eye whenever he looked away.
(*) Provided he had not had any coffee, and used the bathroom before duty.

Time had seemed to stand still then, but it certainly felt as if it were traveling backwards now.

The focus of the temporal anomaly was a slower than average long-armed sloth, who was speaking very slowly (of course) to Fluttershy in the top of a tree. Their conversation had been going on for about three and a half centuries, if Sunshine’s sense of time was correct, and looked as if it would go on until Celestia’s first wrinkle. As if the thought had triggered it, the first bright spark of sunlight burst over the eastern horizon and lit up a nearby tree in a most unexpected way. He did not want to leave Fluttershy alone, but the tree was worth investigating, a quandary which was solved when the pegasus in question quietly fluttered down out of the tree top and landed next to him.

“So, did your speedy little friend say anything interesting?” asked Sunshine, keeping an eye on the surroundings as the creatures of the Night finished their activity and the creatures of the Day began to emerge.

“I think he may know something about your wife, but I’m not sure,” said Fluttershy. “He said he saw Emerald Dreams and her mother around, but he sounded as if they were both flying. The sun rose before he was done.”

“Well, you could just wake—” Sunshine looked up at where the sloth had been, but the only sign of his presence was a lump on the bark about sloth-sized. “Oh,” he added, “a tree sloth. I should have known. This place is crazier than my wife.”

Fluttershy did not say anything, but her pained expression spoke louder than if she had shouted at him.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m just worried about her. Being isolated from ponykind, particularly here, is dangerous for the mentally ill. Also…” Sunshine swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded at the tree. “Nevermind. We should get back.”

“It will be hard to find this place again if we fly back to Ponyville,” said Fluttershy. “There are no good landmarks, and we could wind up taking just as long to get here as it took us today. Last night,” she corrected. “We should find a place to hide, like a den.”

“I… don’t think that’s going to be a problem.” Sunshine nodded down at the comparatively small tree he had noticed before, which was nestled against the thicket of towering pin oaks they were perched on.

“It’s a house?” said Fluttershy.

“Habilis ficus, or the Convenient Hollow Tree, much like Zecora’s house,” said Sunshine. “Several of the explorer journals had entries about them. They’re a rare Everfree species which seems to show up at the very end of a day, just when an explorer is about to make camp. There’s a lot of really wild theories about them, but since the domestic Library Oak is an offshoot of the species, most of the reputable researchers just seem to hum loudly and stick their hooves over their ears when the topic comes up.”

They poked their noses in the front door, which was well-balanced and only squeaked a little when opened, revealing an empty high-ceilinged main room with a few side rooms. It was simple, a little dusty, and quite nearly the last thing Sunshine had expected to see in the Everfree, but he relished his momentary supremacy of knowledge over Fluttershy, as following behind her for the entire night had made him feel a little superfluous. He really could not help chattering about the references he had found about the strange trees while inspecting the furnishings, all wood, of course, and ‘stuck’ to the floor or walls. There was even a writing desk of sorts looking out of a vine-covered ‘window’ with a good view of the clearing outside, but his introspective gaze was interrupted when Fluttershy cleared her throat.

“Um… Mister Sunshine? Did one of the explorers you were talking about have a cutie mark of a book with a leaf on the cover?”

It took a moment to think about his own research into the forest, but one of the authors did stand out. “Yes, an old stallion named Leaf Press. He wrote around four books and a couple of papers, but he vanished about—”

Sunshine ran out of words as he turned around and looked at the door Fluttershy had stopped in front of. It was overgrown with wood, as if it had once been a whole door, but the tree was slowly reclaiming the contents of both it and the small room beyond. On the door in a faded carving, there was an open book with a leaf inscribed on the cover, just like the cutie mark of Leaf Press embossed on each of the books he had written about the Everfree Forest. From the rate of tree growth, in less than a decade the door would be completely overgrown, and the resting place of the elderly stallion on the other side would become one with the weird and creepy forest he had lived in for his final years.

“He’s becoming a tree.” Fluttershy traced a hoof across the faded carving on the door and brushed up against the encroaching bark. “Sometimes, very old creatures will return to their dens to die. They love where they live so much that they collapse the entrance, and no other creature will make their den in the same place.”

Although Sunshine had read about these trees, and had even been inside Zecora’s house, this was an aspect of them he had never really thought about then, and really did not want to think about now. A long flight back to Ponyville and the possibly futile search for this place later suddenly seemed to be a far better option than sleeping through the day in a living crypt.

Fluttershy did not seem upset by the prospect, and even turned away from the sealed room to check out the other two doors, one of which led to a crude ‘one-hole’ latrine and the other to a room with a soft, somewhat disconcertingly squishy floor.

“The tree survives and thrives by having somepony live in it,” she said, stroking the pale bark of the doorway into the bathroom. “And in return, it protects its resident from the dangers of the forest. We should sleep here. It will be safe. I can feel it.”

Sergeant Sunshine Symphony was feeling something too, but he really did not want to say anything about it. After all, he was inside an insane forest, looking for his crazy wife with the assistance of a pony he had thought was sane, and anything he said would only make things worse. He put the contents of his saddlebags down on the floor and arranged himself in front of the ‘bedroom’ door as a proper guard would do, ensuring that if some pony-eating creature were to break into the tree-house, it would have to chew through the guard and his armor first.

The muted sunshine filtering in through the open windows carried a gentle breeze rich with the scents of the forest, each of which made his jittery mind jump into action as it attempted to identify the odor and determine if it were preceeding some huge star-bear or flock of fanged weasels about to attack.

The morning dragged on with the songs of the early-rising birds and wind whispering in the tops of the trees, but Sunshine was unable to fall asleep, which seemed to be a common problem in the tree ‘house.’

“Mister Sunshine,” whispered Fluttershy from the dark bedroom behind him. “What was she like?”

“Uh…” Sunshine shifted positions and bit his bottom lip. “She was… difficult.” It was a very few words to describe a very complex situation, but the words continued to dribble out in little bursts. “She really wasn’t all that stable when we were married, but I didn’t see it at the time. Love is blind, and I was struck. For weeks at a time, she was perfectly normal and I would just start to think she was over it, but then she would go into these… moods where she would snap and complain about everything. Sometimes, when it was particularly bad, she would lash out. She thought having a foal would help, that her illness was just something four little hooves and a smile could fix, but all Emerald did was break her further. The stress and the feedings. The earaches. The way Emerald was my kind of pegasus instead of a little unicorn like her, which made her sleep during the day and want to play at night. I tried to do everything I could to help, but whenever I tried, I was always wrong, and it drove her crazier.”

He sat there on the warm wood floor and thought about coming home to find an empty house, with clothes strewn all over and the crib shattered against the wall. He had been so terrified of finding his child dead in the rubbish or in the yard. It had actually been a relief when witnesses had been found who said Spark Gap had taken their little foal when she had fled town, then a horrid shock when he found where they had gone.

“I found out later,” he continued without really thinking. “The doctors think she might have had an untreated ischemic stroke during labor, which would explain a lot of her irrationality afterwards. If I had caught it. If they had caught it. If… So many ifs.”

The bedroom door creaked open and Fluttershy slipped out, taking a good, long look at where Sunshine was sprawled out on the cold wooden floor. Then she nudged him, gently at first, then with a sharp poke of a hoof. “You’re not doing yourself any good by staying up out here and worrying, and I’m not able to sleep without Angel. Come on,” she said with an additional nudge and following behind as Sunshine went into the room.

It was awkward, particularly when the shy little pegasus made him take his armor off, but she was warm and comforting in his embrace, and despite his best efforts to remain alert, he was asleep in very short order.

Ch. 6 - A Mother's Love

Child of Nightmares and Everfree
A Mother’s Love

~^^~

Moonrise brought Sunshine Symphony up from slumber and away from the most delightful dream, filled with warm feminine scents and the taste of sweet nectar on his lips.

It turned out to be less of a dream than he thought.

Fluttershy had the most astonishingly large teal eyes when surprised, and when he woke up with their lips gently pressed together, she was not the only surprised pony in the embrace. Moving slow enough to probably seem sluggish even to the tree sloth outside, Sunshine gently removed his legs (and lips) from the Element of Kindness while she did the same, then carefully scooted a little ways away on the cushioned floor of the strange tree-house.

“Pheromones,” said Fluttershy abruptly as she folded her wings across her back with the greatest of care.

“What?” said Sunshine as the thunderstorm in his brain began to fizzle out.

“The house.” Fluttershy glanced away several times, looking at one aspect or another of the fairly featureless room before her eyes would flicker back to the naked Night Guard. Sunshine remained right where he was, belly down on the cushioned floor and looked longingly at his armor just out of reach. “Pheromones. If the tree wants to attract inhabitants, what better way to make them stay than to…” She trailed off, swallowing and turning to look away from him. “You should get dressed,” she added.

“I really don’t want to stand up now,” he admitted. Actually, he did want to stand up, as well as do several other things, one of whom was in the room, but…

“Oh?” said Fluttershy. “Oh. Oh!” She scurried around the outside of the room with her rump up against the wall until she reached the door, then vanished almost as if she had teleported. Even then, it took a few minutes for Sunshine to stand up and get dressed in his armor, as the distracting scent of mare and the theoretical pheromones kept shifting his line of thought. He was just buckling the last strap when the door creaked open and several black squirrels came into the room with both the ugliest and the smelliest orange fruit he had ever seen or smelled on their backs.

“It’s breakfast,” said Fluttershy from the other room, or possibly outside with as quiet as her voice was. “My friends say it’s good to eat, and it should take care of any lingering pheromones smells.”

That part at least was verifiably true. After one whiff, Sunshine had no desire to do anything other than get the horrible scent out of his nostrils. With full knowledge of what Princess Luna would do to him if he laid an unwelcome hoof or lips on any of the Elements, Sunshine lowered his face right into the horrendous fruit and took a bite.

It was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him, and that was considering how he woke up this morning. With every motion of his jaws while chewing, more taste buds fired off in chains of delight and joy even while his nostrils were fighting frantically to stay closed and sending signals to his belly that whatever the treasonous mouth was eating should at all costs be kept out of the body, or preferably purged.

After a few bites, he found there was a trick to eating it. He had to turn his head, take several deep breaths, and hold the last one. Then dive into it teeth-first and chew, bite, and swallow as fast as possible before coming up for air away from it.

Once the sizable fruit was taken care of, Sunshine guzzled down half his canteen and stepped out of the tree-bedroom. “Thank you, Miss Fluttershy,” he managed to gasp, although there was no immediate answer.

He followed the black squirrels, who had quickly scooped up all of the fragments of the stinky fruit he had dropped, and soon found himself in a small glade with a thin stream of water cascading out of a rocky outcropping and forming a clear pool. There were a few little bits of rind at the edge of the moonlit pool, showing the beautiful pegasus had already finished her breakfast, and he quickly turned his back when he saw she was in the middle of a moonlit shower.

“Sorry, Ma’am.”

There was an almost silent “Eek!” from the pool and a somewhat suspicious snickering from the group of black squirrels who had led him here. Sunshine kept his face pointed away from the pool, and turned slowly around as he heard Fluttershy finish shaking herself dry and begin to walk over to him. As long as he kept his tail pointed to her, his far-too-perceptive eyes would not feed distracting images to his dirty mind. Or to any other parts of his body.

“Ah, you’re done,” said Sunshine, crabbing sideways toward the small waterfall and keeping his face turned to the risen moon. “I’ll just… be in the shower here ifyouneedme.”

“I’m sorry.” If it had not been for his exceptionally keen hearing, Sunshine would have missed it during his rapid travel toward the pool of cold water. He stopped and looked back over his shoulder to find Fluttershy in much the same pose, only facing directly away from him.

It really did not help his state of mind.

“Beg pardon?” he said, splitting the difference by turning part-way away from her and keeping his eyes fixed on a very interesting pebble on the ground in front of him.

“I’m sorry for kissing you this morning,” whispered Fluttershy. “I mean this evening. You were so warm and strong and looked so much like Angel Bunny does when he thinks about his family, but…” She rubbed her lips with the back of her fetlock as Sunshine found he had turned to look at her despite his best efforts.

“Pheromones,” he managed to say. “Obviously the pheromones.”

“Yes,” said Fluttershy. “My lips are still tingling.”

So were Sunshine’s, but he did not want to admit it. He had never actually read anything about habilis ficus putting off any chemicals except a pleasant smell much like pine, but there certainly was the possibility he had skipped over that particular section during his research.

“I… better go wash off those pheromones,” said Sunshine, edging toward the pool and the welcome stream of cold water dribbling out from the bare rock outcropping. He took a deep breath before submerging himself, armor and all, and scrubbed until he thought he was going to go bald.

~^^~

It felt good to get above the moonlit forest canopy and glide along ever so slowly with the twigs and branches just barely tickling at his hooves. The sloth’s news had brought a chill to Sunshine’s heart, and with every stop to talk to another animal, the cold grew. They did know about a dark pony with dragon-wings, but each animal insisted she was flying with an enormous bat, well over the size of a pony and most certainly not Spark Gap. Even if his wife had somehow managed a transformation spell, Spark Gap hated heights. She would not even climb a step-stool to change a bulb, but this other creature the animals swore was constantly with his daughter swooped and darted around in the sky just like Emerald.

His gloomy mood seemed to affect Fluttershy just enough to take the edge off her happiness. There was a little hesitation in her wingbeats as she happily flew along, making new friends with every tree they stopped at, but always with a cautious glance back at him. It seemed as if their trip had turned from flying down a straight path to wandering around a neighborhood full of vicious muggers and chatty grandmothers, sometimes in the same furry bodies. He did not want to bring up their early-evening… physical contact, but as they took a break in a moonlit grove, drinking sweet nectar out of glowing flowers the size of his head, he had to say something.

“You kissed me because I looked like your bunny?”

Fluttershy snorted nectar out of her nose and giggled once she had managed to get control of herself. There was a mischievous sparkle to her teal eyes as she smiled up at him. “You were all fuzzy and warm, and had this pensive little pout when you snuggled up.”

“A bunny.” Sunshine frowned and looked down into his glowing flower full of nectar. “Just… whenever we get back to town, don’t mention it to anypony, particularly any guards.”

“Bunnies are strong. They’re very loving and family is important to them.”

“And boy do they have family,” muttered Sunshine.

~^^~

A bellyfull of sweet nectar and a brief break later, they continued their search. It was a little frustrating at times, as many of the creatures Fluttershy tried to talk to were terrified of being eaten, while a few were obviously restraining their own appetites. Still, they made progress, although with more and more frequent mentions of the huge Everfree bat which the forest creatures said was with Emerald all of the time.

The night dragged on.

It was a long, slow search, but interspaced with moments of breathtaking beauty, such as when they were gliding over a field of trees seemingly made out of crystalline threads in glowing shades of violet and blue. In the breeze, clouds of purest viridian floated past, made of tiny moths the size of flecks of paint. Although they were too small for Fluttershy to talk with, they tasted almost like sugar when accidentally inhaled. The two of them had just glided out of the cloud and were heading for the next inviting animal gathering place when instinct caused Sunshine to grab Fluttershy around the hips and drag her under the cover of a thick tree.

They had barely come to a stop when a huge shadow passed overhead, making all of the creatures in the forest abruptly stop their constant chatter. Side by side, they remained almost perfectly still as the shadow passed by again, the silence broken by the choked-off cry of some unfortunate animal before the empty silence resumed.

“Owl,” whispered Fluttershy nearly into his ear and just barely loud enough for him to hear. “How did you know?”

Sunshine recovered his breathing and whispered back, “Little things. Shadows not quite right, just like the end of a shift in a quiet night when there are no disturbances. Everything’s going just right and you know something’s about to go wrong. We get a little paranoid at those times. Do you think there are any more owls?”

“No,” whispered Fluttershy, still huddled against his side. “They normally hunt alone.”

Sunshine swallowed and looked around their dark shadow in the treetop. It was not a very large a space, and Fluttershy was extremely close. “Do you think we should keep going?”

“In a few minutes,” whispered Fluttershy. “I need to calm down. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it.”

He could feel it too, as Fluttershy’s warm body was pressed up against Sunshine’s side with a hammering little flicker of fire across his coat which showed no indication of slowing down. After taking a few breaths to get up his courage, Sunshine said in as calm a voice as he could, “Maybe if you could back up a little.”

“Oh! Sorry.” Fluttershy shifted away from him on the branch, although he could still tell just exactly where she was by the sound of her slowing heartbeat and the soft, sweaty aroma of her coat. “Maybe we should find someplace to rest for the the day,” she said. “It’s almost dawn and we’re both tired.”

“Yeah, we both really need to go to bed,” said Sunshine, peering up out of a crack in the branch overhead, looking out into the moonlit night with a slow sinking sensation of having just unwittingly propositioned one of the Elements of Harmony, and his mind considered the very cold arctic posting Luna would arrange for him if even the slightest rumor got back to her very sharp ears.

He held his position. It was quiet. Not too quiet, because he could hear a quiet squeaking, and with a peek over his shoulder, he could see Fluttershy talking to a very small grey bat who was sharing their hiding place. There was an intensity he had not seen before in the way she squeaked and wriggled her nose, making her voice rise up the scale to the point where Sunshine could just barely hear. He could feel his heart beat faster, and not just because of the heartbreaking cuteness of the moment, or the way Fluttershy bounced up and down when excited, or even the joy in her eyes when she turned to look at him.

“This is great news! Eats Fruit says she knows where your daughter lives. Come on!”

~^^~

Following a fruit bat across the Everfree Forest was a lot like… nothing Sunshine had ever done before during his time serving in the Royal Guard. The scatterbrained little bat had no sense of direction or purpose, and constantly had to be reminded just where they were traveling. It seemed impossible for the little ball of fluff to know anything, let alone where Emerald Dreams and the strange huge bat she was with lived. Still, they followed until the faint pinkish tint of pre-dawn was lighting up the sky, and the little bat flew down to a lightning-struck tree. With a flick of one wing, the little bat vanished inside the tree trunk, and Fluttershy and Sunshine stopped on a nearby dry branch.

“She says they’re here,” said Fluttershy, following along with the little bat’s squeaks as it popped its tiny head back out of the hole in the hollow tree and looked at them, squeaking intently.

Sunshine looked at the opening into the hollow tree’s interior where an erratic stream of little bat bodies had begun to pour in as the dawn grew nearer. The hole was scarcely large enough for the little bat. Emerald would never have fit, even as a foal.

“Um… Not there.” Sunshine followed Fluttershy’s pointing hoof up… and up.

The Giant Sequoia can grow to a height of one hundred meters. In the grove Sunshine was looking at, that would barely be considered a seedling. Among the towering trees, some were flush and brownish-green with the growth of late fall in an attempt to gather every flash of available light before winter inevitably swept across their majestic expanse, while a few true monsters of the forest stood bare of leaf or branch.

They most certainly were not empty, though.

The brightening sky was filled with the sight of bats, wheeling and diving in clouds as they swooped into various openings in the huge hollow trees. From this distance, they could be easily mistaken for much smaller bats if one were able to ignore the gigantic trees they were entering much the same as the little hoof-sized bats were crawling into the hollow tree Sunshine was standing on. For one brief heart-stopping moment, he could almost see a young batpony in the giant cloud of giant bats, but Fluttershy’s delicate hoof across his chest restrained his instinctive dash in her direction.

“They’ll be tired and cranky after a night of flying,” she whispered. “I’m not even sure I can talk to them, since they’re so different from other animals. We’ll do better by having Eats Fruit show us which tree your daughter lives in and approaching them in the morning. I mean the evening, after a good day’s sleep.”

Every instinct in his body quivered with the urge to fly into the giant hollow trees in search of his daughter, but Sunshine held himself back as Fluttershy had requested. “I hope they’re more approachable before their first cup of coffee than Princess Luna.”

The both of them looked around the tree-strewn area, but none of them seemed to have the doors or windows of a house-tree to provide shelter for the day. Fewer and fewer bats filled the sky until the first eye-burning glare of morning burst across the area, and the night reluctantly gave way to the day.

“The forest is beautiful,” said Fluttershy from beside him. “All the animals and the trees.”

“Fighting tooth and claw to kill and eat each other,” added Sunshine. “What?” he added as Fluttershy gave him a cross look. “It’s true.”

Stepping off of the branch they were standing on and gliding to the base of the small hollow tree, Fluttershy pushed a prickly bush to one side and looked back up at where Sunshine was standing.

“Mister Symphony.”

She did not say anything else, but the sad look in her eyes spoke volumes. He heaved a sigh and followed her down to the ground, with the cool soil beneath his hooves feeling alien compared to the normal sensation of cool marble he had grown accustomed to over the last decade of service to the Crown. There was no doubt right now that he was in service to Princess Luna just as much as himself, and he had something that really needed to be said.

“I’m sorry I’ve treated you so poorly, Miss Fluttershy. You’ve done so much for me and risked your life, and all I’ve done in return is to disparage your special relationship with the creatures.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Fluttershy. She held the side of the bush back and waited until Sunshine nestled down into the revealed space. She curled up next to him and let the bush sweep back across their hiding spot, providing a cool place to spend the day and sleep. “Sleep, and tomorrow night we’ll meet your daughter.”

“Thank you.” Sunshine settled down and reluctantly allowed himself to be wrapped up in her embrace as a substitute rabbit, with armor this time. “Do you think Emerald Dreams will know where my wife is?”

“I hope so,” whispered Fluttershy, although she put her head down and turned her face away from him afterwards until sleep claimed them both.

~^^~

The screeches and squeeks of The Folk echoed constantly around Home as all of the inhabitants settled down for the day’s rest, including Mama and her odd little batling. As the sounds of activity died down, Mama concealed her unease. Eventually, Dee’s breathing became regular and she began to snore, which freed Mama for her task.

There had been a few of The Folk this evening talking about the strange pair of monsters roaming through the forest, coming closer and closer to Home, and Mama had to act. Thankfully, they had been speaking in normal pitches, far higher than Dee could hear, so Mama still had time. Once Dee had been positioned where she would not fall in her sleep, Mama glided through the clusters of her kind, exchanging a word here and a few quick questions there with sleepy Folk until she flittered to the doorway out of Home and paused before entering the brilliant Burning.

It was more than a little frightening to feel the fire of the distant ball of light as it reflected in through the twisted passage in the giant tree and warmed the dark hair on her chest. Every instinct called for her to return to Dee and sleep, but if the chatter of the rest of The Folk was right, the monsters were nearby.

She had to see them. She had to know.

Taking a deep breath, Mama spread her wings and plunged out into the Burning. It was less painful than she had expected, except for her eyes which she had to close into narrow slits. Nearly blind, she swooped through the bright sky in the direction the other Folk had chattered about. The hollow tree where the Little Folk had made their home was easy to locate from their shrill squeaking and rustling, and Mama silently touched down on the top dry branches of their dead tree in the unaccustomed light.

Below, tucked in tight against the tree trunk and mostly concealed by a bush, were two monsters. They smelled of familiar sweat, just like Dee after a long night’s flight, and Mama could hear their calm breathing as they huddled together with their limbs intertwined, much like Dee tried to do with her awkward body. They even muttered quietly while sleeping, in the low, grumbling tones that her daughter liked to do in her Mama’s neck. Still, she could not see them, even while she hung silently above them on the dry branch sticking out of the Little Folk’s tree.

It took considerable effort to force her eyes open just a little to see what the monsters looked like, and Mama felt her stomach fall into her throat at what she saw through watery eyes. They looked so much like Dee, particularly the male monster with the hard shell wrapped around his body. Her heart knew this was Dee’s father, here to fight for his daughter.

A fire lit up in her chest at the thought, even more powerful than the Burning. When the monsters met Dee, Mama would be unable to hold her back. Once her daughter was aware of the monsters, she would leave for her own kind, and that was something Mama had no intention of permitting.

Mama drifted away from the dead tree on silent wings and began to work.

Ch. 7 - A Mother's Loss

Child of Nightmares and Everfree
A Mother’s Loss

The only reason Sergeant Sunshine Symphony kept them from being eaten was because of his coffee habit.

That, and being without the beverage for two whole nights was making him twitchy.

Moonrise was still at least an hour away when his ears began to twitch to the low hiss of a noise almost exactly the way the barracks percolator sounded. At work, it was a signal that the Day shift was almost over, and their responsibility of making a fresh pot of coffee for their nocturnal counterparts was being fulfilled, much as Sunshine was careful to do for them every morning before dawn.

Occasionally while making coffee, some newbie in the Day shift would flip the lights on in the barracks before rising time for the Night shift, which normally triggered a barrage of pillows for the unfortunate guard and the derisive title of Princess Sunstroke, which they would keep until the next new guard managed to repeat the feat. The light filtering through Sunshine’s closed eyelids combined with the low hiss to make him reach for his pillow out of reflex.

That’s not a pillow.

His heart rate accelerated to a manic thumping as he grasped the soft and very warm mare’s flank, followed by his startled cry as his sun-blinded eyes caught sight of an unbroken dark wave of claws and jaws just starting to overrun their daytime nest. He flung both forelegs around Fluttershy and rocketed up into the air, spraying huge scout ants in all directions. It took until they were a good distance off the ground before he leveled off with an astonished look at the dark carpet sweeping over the forest floor, the noise of their passage making a low and sinister hiss.

Ants. Huge bucking ants, at least a hoof long, with jagged jaws and sharp stingers. Fluttershy was just beginning to wriggle in his grasp in what would have been a delightful and distracting way if Sunshine was not already distracted far beyond any comparison.

Fluttershy broke out of his weakening hold while he was distracted with biting furiously at an ant who had sunk its mandibles into a particularly sensitive section of his wingpit. He nearly had it, but almost crashed into the ground as she shouted at him.

“What are you doing!”

Petite little yellow hooves yanked his jaws away from biting down on the annoying ant, and Fluttershy swept the bloodthirsty little creature up for a good talking to. “Now I know Mister Symphony was in the way of your migration, but— Yipes!”

Something in Sunshine Symphony’s heart gave a little twinge of satisfaction as the ant clamped its mandibles down on Fluttershy’s sensitive nose, and once she had managed to paw the insect free, he quickly spoke up.

“I don’t think they speak your language, Miss Fluttershy.” He brushed off a few more ants which had not gotten as good a grip and looked down at the sea of dark hunger which was sweeping over where they had just been sleeping.

“Oh, no!” Sunshine’s heart almost stopped as Fluttershy flew down toward the churning mass, but stopping short at the hole in the top of the tree where all of the little bats had vanished last morning. “Wake up!” she shouted, hammering on the side of the tree with a hoof. “Hurry! They’re climbing the tree!”

Sleepy bats began to emerge out of the tree as Fluttershy continued to encourage their exodus. Small little balls of fluff clinging to larger bats squeaked plaintively as the line of dark ants continued to climb the tree, and in an attempt not to have Fluttershy still there when the ants reached her, Sunshine fluttered down to help with the evacuation in whatever way he could.

It was a little bit of a shock to be used as a baby bat carrier, with a few thousand (or so it felt like) tiny little bats clinging to the short hairs on his coat and his mane as Fluttershy made absolutely certain every little batling made it out of the den. The short trip over to a nearby tree out of the direct path of the swarming ants was made with great caution and only the slowest of wingflaps, but the itching sensation remained even after all of the little bats were hustled off his back and into the hollow of their new home. Still, it took two passes through his mane afterward to make sure no little batling was still hitchhiking.

Sneaking in a quick scratch while Fluttershy was occupied with a census and making sure no bat had been left behind, Sunshine squinted into the light to trace the trail of the swarming ants back into the distance. There was something wrong with their path, and as Fluttershy slipped back next to his side, he pointed with one hoof at a peculiar jog in the river of ravenous chitin.

“They changed direction. The ants were headed that way, then they shifted right toward us.”

“Could they have smelled us?” She tentatively sniffed his mane as he shook his head.

“We came up to the little bats’ tree from that direction, and the wind is all wrong. Something or somepony convinced them to change directions.” Sunshine lifted his tail and ran one hoof through it, looking at the sticky residue remaining. “Honey.”

Fluttershy blushed, paused, and recovered quickly, giving his hoof a quick sniff and a tentative lick. “Wild honey. But there’s no bees.”

“Spark Gap must have laid a trail of ant bait right up to my rear while we were sleeping.” Sunshine wiped his hoof off against his chest and sat down on the tree branch regardless of his precarious perch. “At least she’s alive, but I didn’t think she would try to get me killed.”

“Us,” said Fluttershy almost silently.

“It’s too dangerous for you out here. We have just about an hour or two before it gets dark,” said Sunshine as he stood up. “I’m taking you home. If we start right now and fly straight, we should be close enough to your house—”

Fluttershy held a hoof over his lips. “No. We’re too close to your daughter, and your wife is probably just afraid of us. When we find Emerald Dreams, we’ll just have to be very careful not to seem threatening, and to see if she can calm your wife down.”

Sunshine bit his bottom lip. “You’re sure? I mean, you almost got killed just now. Again.”

“Positive.” Fluttershy curled up next to him on the branch. “You’ve been a very good protector. I feel safe with you around. Once it gets dark, Eats Fruit will take us to the specific tree where she saw your daughter, and you can…”

In the resulting silence, Sunshine leaned back against Fluttershy and closed his eyes. “How am I supposed to tell a little filly that the father she hasn’t seen since she was very small wants to take her and her mother back to a place she can’t remember?”

Fluttershy did not have a response either, so the two of them sat together in silence on the tree branch until the moon climbed over the horizon.

~^^~

Dee stirred from her slumber with a sticky bit of hair stuck to her nose from where Mama was wrapped around her. She licked the sticky stuff, then spit it partially out before sucking all of the sweet honey flavor from the few strands. Only then did she spit out the used strands of hair and begin to look for more on Mama.

As she groomed her mother, Dee began to notice… odd things this morning, much as if Mama had slipped outside during the Burning and tangled with a beehive, even though Dee did not believe for a moment she actually did. Mama never went outside except in the darkness of night. But still, there she was, nursing the occasional painful lumpy bee-sting with splatters of honey on sections of her black coat as she slowly rose to a nearly awake state.

“Good night, Dee,” murmured Mama in a low squeak. “My daughter, forever.”

“Good night, Mama,” squeaked Dee in return. “I’ll never leave you.” She nuzzled closer to her mother’s sticky coat as memories of yesternight’s trip to the lizard’s collection of murdered stones swam up in her memories. “Am I really a monster, Mama?”

“You are my little batling,” chirped Mama, giving Dee a short nip around one ear. “From the night I found you, until the moon no longer shines. Now, let us put it behind us. The monsters will stay in their city and you will stay with me, forever.”

The chirp of ‘monsters’ echoed around the giant hollow tree filled with The Folk, repeated by many fanged mouths until a response came back in a series of alarm chirps.

“Monsters here! Monsters here! Flee! Flee!”

Mama whirled to look in the direction of Out with her scrunched-up face twisted into a vicious hiss. “Fight the monsters!” she cried. “Chase them away!” With strong beats of her wings, Mama darted down through the chaotic mix of The Folk and out into the moonlit night, with Dee right behind her.

Below, other members of The Folk gave short, dangerous plunges at two monsters who had stopped at the bottom of Home. Dee’s heart hammered with fear as she recognized the male monster who had chased her away from the city, as well as a terrifying yellow monster who looked like the one who lived in the cave with the bunny. Both monsters were cringing away from the aggressive motions of The Folk, while the Little Folk who had obviously brought them here scrambled to hide in the yellow monster’s thick pelt.

It was the smaller yellow monster who was closest to the plunging dives of The Folk, calling up to them in a voice Dee could feel all the way to her wildly-beating heart. She could almost understand the low, guttural words for just a brief instant.

Then Mama screamed and hurtled herself down at the two monsters, in a far more aggressive attack than any other of The Folk. It terrified Dee to see her dive straight at the two monsters with no intention to dart away at the last moment, made only worse when the smaller monster gave out a terrified scream of her own. The larger dark monster moved almost instantly in front of her and snarled his defiance, his hard shell glittering in the moonlight like the monster in her hazy memories.

Dark fur and bits of claws went flying as Mama and the dark monster clashed together. Despite being only half Mama’s size, the dark monster seemed undisturbed by Mama’s sharp fangs and talons, but also strangely reluctant to strike back even when Mama swiped at him, laying open thin red lines on his face before darting away. Dee did not think she was screaming, but the startled dark monster looked straight up at her with his golden eyes growing wide just as Mama returned to take another swipe. The pain seemed to send the monster into a fury and he bellowed loud enough to drive all of The Folk away in a flurry of panicked wings. Even Mama seemed frightened as she climbed up into the sky, and in the sudden empty space around the dark monster, Dee could feel his golden eyes burning in her direction, lit up with a hunger that sent her bolting away.

The huge trees of Home blurred past as she flew even faster than she had ever gone before, ducking and darting while her sharp ears could hear the huge dark monster gaining on her. He moved even faster than when he had chased her at the strange city, calling out in his deep booming voice as she wove through the trees. Somehow, she could understand bits and pieces of his words, and as she dove and twisted through the vines draped between the trees, that understanding made her fly away even faster.

She dove lower, through the twining roots of the immense trees and deeper into the grove, looking from side to side as she darted until spotting the telltale glint of silver threads among the vines. The heavy beat of wings behind her had grown as she flew, but when she twisted around the nearly invisible spiderweb, the monster took the obvious shortcut through the opening and came to an abrupt halt as it was ensnared.

Dee lifted her nose and began to climb toward the welcome open sky, but after a few wingbeats, she slowed, then turned around and landed on a jutting root in order to look back at the trapped monster. The monster looked… strange in the shadowy moonlight, with his golden gaze fixed on Dee as if she would vanish if he blinked. He did not even pay any attention to the huge spider a few body lengths away, which was eyeing its new dinner with many eyes.

After a long while of mutual staring, Mama fluttered down to perch next to Dee. She was breathing heavily and favored one wing, with a reddish patch of torn hairs on her coat where the monster had struck with one of its odd rigid feet, so much like Dee’s. They sat and watched the monster, who sat and looked back, and the spider, who watched all of them in apparent confusion. They might have sat there until moonset if the strange yellow monster had not fluttered down between the other monster and the spider.

To Dee’s sudden surprise, she recognized the other monster as the female monster who had the deadly bunny, only wearing a disguise, much like the bunny had. She was obviously a mate to the dark monster from the way she had placed herself to protect him from the spider, but oddly enough, she did not seem to be afraid of the spider either. In fact, she began to talk with it, in a low rumbling tone that seemed so close to Dee’s understanding.

“Mama?” Dee brushed her head up against her mother’s uninjured side, but her mother did not respond, not even when the spider began to carefully nip the captured dark monster out of her web instead of eating it. “Mama, should we fly away?”

“No.” Mama lifted her head up, her dark eyes brimming with tears. “They are here to take you to your new home, away from your Mama.”

Ch. 8 - Til Death Do Us Part

Child of Nightmares and Everfree
Til Death Do Us Part

Although the night was quiet, a veritable thunderstorm of emotions swept through Sunshine Symphony’s head. All he could see was his daughter, looking so skinny and terrified next to the huge Everfree bat, who she was clinging to for comfort. It was the moment he had been anticipating and dreading, but it bore no resemblance to any circumstance he had envisioned.

Physical transformation spells were difficult, and even Twilight Sparkle had hit a significant problem with the fairly minor one she had done transferring Sunshine’s attributes to Fluttershy. There was absolutely no way Spark Gap could have transformed herself into the monstrous bat, but Emerald Dreams was clinging to her just like she would her mother, nuzzling up against the monster’s thick coat and making pathetic little squeaking noises. The huge bat could have been some sort of Everfree monster able to hypnotize its prey, but the fierce look of maternal defiance from it could not be faked, or the way she huddled up against his daughter with one wing across her as if the monster were afraid of losing her.

He turned his watery gaze back on his daughter, trying to puzzle out just what had happened to result in … this. As much as he wanted to rush forward once the spider had finished clipping him out of the web, Fluttershy’s vulnerable presence held him back better than steel chains. As long as the huge bat did not attack again, he dared not either, or the inevitable bloodshed might not be limited to just themselves.

“It’s Emerald Dreams,” he whispered to Fluttershy as if to confirm he was awake, and not dreaming of his daughter as he had so many times before. “It’s her. I was starting to think she was some sort of delusion. But she’s real.” He looked around afterwards, but with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, realized he could not see any sign of Spark Gap.

“Let her come to you,” whispered Fluttershy. “Move up to that branch and just stay as still as possible.”

It was the most difficult order he had ever obeyed. Even his knees were knocking together in fear as Fluttershy crept closer to the monstrous bat. She talked in a low and calming tone at first, then switched to a higher register in near squeaks of her own until the bat seemed to calm down fractionally.

It was a dance of fear, with slow and careful moves and three participants, four if Sunshine Symphony’s frozen posture were to count. Ever so slowly, from perching on one branch or protruding root at a time, the huge bat and the filly came closer and closer. Fluttershy encouraged them in quiet squeaking tones until the bat sat down in a lump and refused to move, fixing Sunshine with dark, furious eyes.

“Take off your armor,” whispered Fluttershy.

It went against everything he had ever been trained in as a guard. The enchanted armor was more than just protection against blows and spells, but a symbol of what he represented and how he would die to protect others. Still, one piece at a time and a little embarrassed at stripping in front of his newfound daughter, he placed his armor down on the broad tree root beside him and waited.

Emerald Dreams did not seem to want to move from the giant bat’s side, not even when prodded by one of her broad black wings, but after several pokes, she shuffled forward along the tree root’s rough surface, one small step at a time until she was close enough to touch. One small hoof, chipped and rough from her years in the forest, gently rose up and touched him on the cheek as Emerald Dreams trembled. He could feel her growing fear when he lifted up his own iron-shod hoof and touched it to hers, but she recovered quickly and unfolded one small wing to reach forward and touch against his. It was dry and rough like sandpaper as she rubbed her wing against his softer membranes, and she twitched when he brought his nose back to his own preening gland to pick up a measure of the oily substance, and twitched again when he rubbed it against her dry wing.

They sat in silence for a while until Emerald Dreams reached back and rubbed her own nose against her preening gland, then sneezed at the unexpected sensation. A second rub was more successful and the two of them worked the resulting oil into the small dry wing with hesitant glances between each other. Sunshine thought there were tears in his daughter’s big green eyes, but could not be certain. Far too many tears in his own eyes blurred his vision as the two of them just sat there on the immense tree root, father and daughter, working together on her long-delayed preening.

~^^~

Dee had never been so frightened in all of her life, even when she had been chased out of the strange city by the fierce monster who was now gently oiling her wing. He was so big compared to her, but worked with the lightest of touches as if she were a moth, able to be torn in half with the smallest accidental twitch. Her heartbeat fluttered moth-like in her chest as she mimicked his motions, repeating the strange but somehow familiar motions that spread a welcome relief to the constant itching that had always plagued her wings.

“Are you my father?” she squeaked suddenly, looking up with the oil on her nose glistening in the moonlight.

The larger monster made grunting noises, paused at Dee’s puzzled expression, then reached down with almost sloth-like speed and picked up the shell he had been wearing on his head. Once he had it over his head again, he repeated the grunting noises, but to Dee’s surprise, she understood them somehow.

“Could you repeat that?”

Dee licked the oil off her nose and wrinkled up her lips at the sour taste. “Are you my father?” she repeated in short squeaks.

“Yes.” The monster stared back at her almost as if he expected her to vanish into the night at the admission. When she simply stared back at him, he asked, “Do you know where your mother is?”

Dee’s chest seemed to split open with agony and she turned to look at Mama, who was squeaking quietly with the other strange yellow monster. She would always be Mama to Dee, even though her first monster Mama had died. Among The Folk, the loss of a mate could drive the survivor away into the forest, never to be seen again. Mama had told Dee of losing her mate to the Owls a few moons before finding Dee, although she never mated again afterwards. She was Mama, Dee was her daughter, and she did not need a mate to be loved.

Dee had never thought about a father.

From the look in his eyes, the dark monster’s mate, Dee’s monster Mama, must have been very close to him, but he had recovered from his loss, and taken another monster as mate. Still, he must have still been in pain in order to search so far away from his city to find Dee. The sight of her monster Mama turned into stone and broken into pieces had struck Dee far harder than she wanted to admit, but for this monster, the pain would still be fresh. He would not want to know what had happened to his mate, but he needed to know, much as Dee had needed to know.

And after he knew, he would take her away to his city with the rest of the monsters, where Dee could be with her own kind.

Dee floated over to Mama in a few short flaps, landing in front of her and nuzzling in close to her warm coat. She did not want to make this decision, but Mama was wise and would know what to do.

“He wants to know what happened to my mother.”

~^^~

As the cool night air passed behind the four of them, Dee thought about her Mama and how much she loved her Dee. Life had been so simple before Dee had gone to the city of monsters and found out about the little monsters so much like herself and so unlike The Folk. The darkness they were flying in was comforting, even though the Owls lurked silently out there somewhere. It would make her life so simple again if a passing Owl were to eat both of the monsters, but it would not help the questions fluttering around in her head.

Was his new mate a good Mama? Did they have any other little batlings? Would they welcome her into their Home as Mama had done? Such a short time in his presence and she already could feel the tug of belonging, the urge to spend her time with others of her kind. So few of The Folk would even speak low enough for her to understand, and they turned their backs on her whenever she tried to get closer. Only Mama had held her, fed her, and loved her.

The monster’s names even felt comfortable on her mouth. The Folk had such complicated names with sharp trills and chirps Dee could barely duplicate. Monster names were simpler, like Fluttershy and Sunshine. They filled her mouth with unaccustomed motions of her tongue in ways Mama could never duplicate, although they made conversation between the four of them while they flew… complicated.

Dee could understand Mama, and Sunshine if he had his helmet with the ‘translation spell’ on. Mama could understand Dee and Fluttershy. But Dee could not talk with Fluttershy, and Mama could not talk to Sunshine. Still, they managed to communicate. Fluttershy was soft and loving as a good Mama should be, and could pass along even a complicated idea with little more than a pointed glance, while Sunshine and Mama… glared at each other, much like two of The Folk trying to figure out which of them would get a particularly juicy powdermoth.

So they flew across the forest in relative silence, keeping an eye out for predators while Mama guided them back to the deadly redfruit tree where Dee’s first Mama had been killed. There were so many things Dee wanted to ask, but her thoughts refused to turn into questions as they flew.

When they finally reached the clearing, it felt calm, almost tranquil and inviting. It was also a trap, much like a branch-slicer offering a comfortable place for a traveling bird to rest for a few moments and a good meal for it immediately after. The white flecks of broken stones scattered across the ground appeared undisturbed in the moonlight, but Dee knew the deadly lizard was lurking somewhere down there.

For the second time in two nights, Dee settled down on the branch overlooking the lizard’s clearing, only this time there were two monsters who settled down on a different nearby branch. Dee could not look down into the clearing, but instead watched the dark form of the larger monster, her father.

It was difficult to think of them as ‘ponies’ instead of monsters. This was the first time she had ever been able to just sit and watch a ‘pony’ like herself, without the odd sideways stance Dee had always taken around Mama to look more bat-like and less different. Sunshine was whispering to Fluttershy without looking down into the clearing either, then he remained sitting on the branch and hung his head when the yellow pony flittered away into the shadows.

The quiet filling the clearing lasted a long time before Dee rose up into the air with slow beats of her wings, glided over next to the dark pony, and landed. Almost on her tail, Mama settled down on her other side and seemed to find something in Dee’s unkempt mane to be fascinating, giving her an excuse to sit quietly and pick at it.

Dee still could not think of the dark monster as ‘Sunshine,’ despite the sense of calm he projected. There was a mighty terror concealed beneath his immobility, which could only be seen in the tiny little tremors across his flank and belly and which Dee could also feel in her own body.

“Do you see her down there?” squeaked Dee.

“No,” said Sunshine in a low and rumbling voice. “I’m afraid to look.”

Dee stood higher to lift herself off the branch and looked down into the clearing, which did not seem to have changed since the last time she looked. The broken stone body of her monster Mama still was wedged into the big cleft at the bottom of the redfruit tree. The sight looked far less terrifying and sad than it had just a few nights ago, but the faded memories still drew a sharp pain across the inside of her chest. Out of instinct, she extended one of her now-softer wings and reached out to ‘Sunshine’, touching him on the back and rubbing up and down the way Mama had calmed her when she was afraid. He twitched at her touch, then ever so slowly extended his own wing and placed it on her back.

Although Mama moved almost immediately to drape her far larger wing over theirs, she took a breath, pulled back, and resumed picking through Dee’s tangled hair instead.

The dark pony took a deep breath as well and lowered his head further before speaking. “A basilisk. If she had been attacked by a cockatrice, she could have been saved. Fluttershy says a cockatrice can turn their victims back from stone, but a basilisk eats the life energy from a living creature when it breaks them. Once they’re broken, they’re dead, and nothing can bring them back.”

“What was she like?” asked Dee in a timid squeak that made a cold shudder travel across the dark monster, so different than the Sunshine he had insisted on being called.

Sunshine stood on the branch for a long time, breathing in and out in short breaths until he finally looked down into the scattered broken stones of the lizard’s hunting ground. He stood there for a long time, looking at the shattered remnants of his mate at the base of the tree before he began to breathe again.

“Difficult,” he admitted after he had taken several breaths. “We loved each other so much. I could never forget it, even when she ran away from me. Her moods could change in the blink of an eye, from dancing through the house to trying to kill me. I should have been stronger to protect you, but I was so afraid of losing her that I lost you both. I failed. My weakness led her here…”

The dark monster trailed away, and Dee turned to translate for Mama. She did not understand all of the words, but Mama nudged Dee with one wing and pushed her closer to her father.

“Tell him,” Mama squeaked. “We were here. Ate redfruit together. You were not afraid of me. Then the lizard attacked. She fought. Fought like a good Mama. Fought the lizard. Brave monster. Saved you. Saved you for me. Good Mama.” Mama ran the thin fingers of one wing along the thick and tangled mess of Dee’s neck hair. “Good Dee.”

The dark monster did not move a muscle as Dee repeated Mama’s words. The ‘translation spell’ Sunshine was using to understand her low squeaks and chirps must have been working, because he twitched whenever Dee spoke, and in the end, a thick trickle of tears ran down both cheeks.

“Her family will need to know.” Sunshine finally moved his head, scanning from one side of the shadowed clearing to the other. “I’ll need to bring something of hers back so they will believe she’s gone. Otherwise—” He stopped, with his chest moving in little trembles like whenever Dee wanted to cry and was holding herself back.

She moved up against the strange large monster and placed her head against his neck, just in front of the hard carapace he wore. He was warm and comforting, just like Mama, with the hammering beat of a large, caring heart. Dee could feel Mama moving onto the other side of him as she spread her large wings over the three of them, father, daughter and Mama.

Somehow, Dee could tell why he needed to bring something of her monster Mama back to their family. The Folk never did understand Dee’s ties to material objects, but the monsters in her mother’s family would want something to grieve over, to look at and understand she was really gone. They were different than The Folk. When there were deaths from Owls or the dangers of the forest, life had simply gone on. Only Dee would remember the little things that made one of The Folk different from another, and worry about the way the lost were just forgotten in time.

~^^~

Royal Guards did not cry. Sergeant Sunshine Symphony was not a Royal Guard at the moment, as trickles of long-suppressed tears poured down his face and his long-lost daughter clutched to his neck. The huge bat wrapped around them both could have killed him without even trying, but she remained draped over the two of them, dripping tears across his face which she then licked off with a rough tongue. It felt as if they were crushing Emerald Dreams between them, only to pull her in half when they inevitably went their separate ways.

Sunshine used the back of his unarmored hoof to wipe away a missed tear and patted his daughter on the back once he had recovered somewhat. “I’ll slip down there and bring back… part of her. You stay up here with…” He paused and looked at the giant bat looming over him, standing spraddle-legged and braced against a higher branch in order to keep from falling down, but still massively intimidating. “Yeah.”

After putting on the rest of his armor, he edged a little closer to the end of the branch and looked around the clearing, being very careful to keep his eyes nearly closed. Recovering a part of his wife’s stone body would be extremely difficult and dangerous. Basilisks were able to camouflage themselves against the forest until it was too late for an unsuspecting victim, and he would need to identify the location of the deadly lizard before formulating a plan to draw it away. Even then, he would have to act fast. The enchantments on the helmet might provide a little bit of protection against a basilisk’s stare, but what would work much better was something solid to block…

It took several blinks to recognize Fluttershy down in the clearing, who seemed as if she were stretched across a large rock. With each blink, the camouflaged body of the basilisk became more clear, from the six stumpy legs to the squat head which Fluttershy was laying across, her wings spread wide across its eyes and one hoof scratching behind its ‘ears.’ She looked back up at him and smiled with what he could have sworn was a wink, then went back to giving the hideous monster ear scritches until Sunshine could swear its tail was thumping against the ground. Without Fluttershy, he would have most likely been ambushed and killed just the same way as his late wife, and he added it to the long list of things he owed the shy pegasus, a list which had reached several mental pages.

Father, daughter, and enormous bat descended from their observation treetop and down to the base of the ancient apple tree where Spark Gap had died. It was a quiet and funeral atmosphere, as the rubble of many years of the basilisk’s feeding shifted underhoof with every step. The stone torso was unmistakably Spark Gap, as her cutie mark had been quite rare, and had survived being turned to stone and shattered nearly intact. He took a short breath and bent down to recover her head instead, picking it up and cradling it in his forelegs.

Even turned to stone with several pieces knocked off, her face still looked just as fiercely defensive as the time she had broken a table over Sunshine’s head. There was a similar defiance to the way she had wedged her body into the crack running the length of the old apple tree’s trunk, shoved up against it so tightly as to still be nearly standing even after being turned to stone and broken. Her posture in death bothered him, as the crack in the tree was not nearly wide enough for her to hide in, and she could have run around the other side of the tree if she was trying to get away. In fact, she was wedged in almost sideways as if she were determined to protect something with her body even after death.

“One last thing before you go,” he whispered. “Remember, all you see may not be so.”

After a quick precautionary glance at where Fluttershy was still scratching the basilisk’s ears, Sunshine climbed over the petrified and broken body of his wife to reach behind, deep into the cleft of the tree. It took a few moments of careful maneuvering, but he came out with a much smaller stone bat which had been protected from both the elements and the basilisk by Spark Gap’s last stand.

“She was protecting the child,” said Sunshine very quietly in respect for the basilisk just a short distance away. He looked at the huge bat, who was trying not to look back at him. “Is it yours?”

Emerald Dreams translated his question to her huge protector, who squeaked back in short, slow bursts.

“Yes,” said Emerald Dreams. “Lizard killed Mama’s little batling. Would have killed me, but Mama saved me. Took me Home instead.”

Sergeant Sunshine Symphony brushed a hoof across the surface of the little stone bat and tried not to cry.

“Tell your Mama that my wife may have saved her little batling after all.”

Author's Note

Have to add an author's note here:

The credit for the plot point about Mama having a little batling turned to stone who *might* be able to be resuscitated belongs solely to Tek, who suggested it back in the original City of Monsters. It was the tipping point of this story, as without it I might have been forced to use a much clumsier plotline.

Tek: I'd spin it more into a fear of being forgotten that they will make her be something other than the daughter she has raised perhaps, or even just the fear of being lonely.

I am curious on one point are you playing the tarzan card in that mama perhaps lost a child just before finding Dee (if for no other reason than the question of whether Dee was weaned before her mothers death) or was she never able to have children and thus the reason she was willing to take in a pony daughter

Me: Perhaps a small batling, turned to stone and crushed next to Dee's mother, with the implication left unsaid.

Tek: If you leave it un-crushed you could spin your ending where Twilight
manages to revive it and Dee in a sense becomes an older sister and perhaps
feels better leaving her mother knowing she won't be alone

Me: Note, I'm crediting the hell out of you for this.

Ch. 9 - When One Door Closes

Child of Nightmares and Everfree
When One Door Closes

Dee was brave. She was Mama’s little batling, and Mama showed no sign of fear, so she should not either, no matter how strange the inside of the yellow monster’s den looked, or how fiercely the owner protected it.

Fluttershy was brave too. She stalked right up to Mama and made her spit out the mouse she had snapped up when they first entered the den. Mama never spit anything out, but after looking at the yellow monster for a long time, she opened her jaws and released the wet rodent unharmed.

The creatures in the monster’s den were not brave. They cowered in corners, all except for the little bunny who glared at Dee and Mama with fierce furry fury. Fluttershy was not terrified, of course. She fluttered from small nook to tiny cranny, gently reassuring all of the little creatures who made their homes in her den, although none of them came within pouncing range of Dee or Mama. Again.

The tension in their return to Fluttershy’s den had not been limited to a mouse, though. Several of her monster friends had been sleeping on the floor, awaiting her return. They had jumped up when Fluttershy came through the door, rushed forward with happy smiles when Dee had followed, and departed in giant leaps like a flock of frightened tree-frogs when Mama had swept in right on her tail.

The other monsters did come back, although they looked embarrassed, and one of the ‘windows’ would need to be replaced.

Afterwards, monsters had come and gone in a confusing hustle while Dee and Mama retreated to the far corner of Fluttershy’s den. There had been a purple monster who removed Fluttershy’s disguise and turned her back into a yellow feathered monster, which was a little sad, because she looked prettier with normal wings. Then there were several other monsters who only stopped by for a few breaths, including a brightly colored monster who could not hold still, a brilliantly-pink monster who seemed so excited she could not stop bouncing around the den, and several other monsters who the bunny met at the door and kept from entering, one of whom he actually slammed the door on.

They all had looked at Mama rather skittishly, much as if they expected her to bite them, but the last of Fluttershy’s friends, a striped monster named ‘Zecora’ behaved in a far stranger way. She bowed her head respectfully at Mama in the same way one of The Folk would use to show deference to her position, gave Dee a small smile as if she somehow knew everything would turn out well, and joined the purple monster in the other room.

When the huge, dark monster who had been in the city a few nights ago strode in through the door, Dee’s heart almost stopped. Despite how much she had changed by being turned from stone back into a living monster, she was unmistakably the same fierce monster who the rest of the monsters in the city had bowed down in front of and given all of their delicious fruits to. She must have been the most terrifying monster outside of the forest in order for the monsters to be so subservient to her, but the feeling of unreasoning terror only lasted until she swept her gaze up to meet Dee’s eyes, and all of the tension which had held Dee paralyzed vanished in a hammering heartbeat.

Those huge blue-green eyes were unmistakably those of a Mama. They had a depth she could have swum in, and for just one tiny fraction of a moment, the unmistakable impression of wanting to run across the room and sweep Dee up into a crushing hug, complete with tears, just like Dee’s own Mama. But the big dark monster recovered with a short nod in Dee’s direction before proceeding slowly across the floor and vanishing into the other room where the smaller purple monster was examining Mama’s little stone batling. It was such a shock to Dee that she almost did not notice the even larger monster walking past, this one a creamy white with a flowing mane all the colors of sweetflowers. She followed the other monster with an inestimable grace almost step for step, giving Dee a sideways glance with a reassuring smile before she too vanished into the other room.

It took Dee a few tense breaths before she recognized the smile as one a Mama of many Mamas would give to her little batlings. From the size of her, she was probably the dark monster’s Mama, which would make the purple monster a child of the dark monster, three generations of magical Mamas trying to restore the small stone bat.

Dee ran her deformed claw which was called a hoof down her Mama’s back, rubbing up and down in the way she had always done to reassure Dee during fierce storms. There was a subdued trembling to her muscles, showing Mama was not as calm as she pretended to be, and Dee huddled closer against her warm coat.

“Dee loves Mama.”

The quiet trembling calmed and Mama ran her fangs through Dee’s thick and tangled hair just behind her ears. “Mama loves Dee,” she squeaked back. After grooming her adopted daughter for a time, she asked, “Do you think the monsters can do it? Can they bring back my little batling?”

“They seem to think so,” squeaked Dee. “After all, the big dark monster was stone and now she is not.” She took a deep breath and looked at the stone head of ‘Spark Gap,’ sitting all chipped and fractured on a nearby table. Mama gave her a reassuring lick across the head to quell the tremors, and gave Dee enough courage to continue. “Sunshine said they can’t save my monster Mama. She’s dead because the lizard broke her. Your little batling didn’t get broken, so…”

The idea of her mother being dead bothered Dee less than the thought of Mama’s real daughter. Dee had always thought of Mama as her real mother, all to herself with no other batlings, big or small to share her with. Now, if the horned monsters, the ‘unicorns’ could turn the little stone back into Mama’s real daughter, the two of them would be a family again, just like before. The little batling would be just like Mama, able to hang by her hind hands in Home, or cling to Mama’s coat while they soared through the night sky. She even had a name. Ling.

The only thing keeping Dee from panic was the knowledge that Mama was just as nervous as herself.

Bitter smells and little flares of light continued to escape from under the closed doors as the monsters did strange things with the little stone bat. Even Sunshine seemed to be afraid of the grouping of big monsters behind the door, with his eyes flickering to every corner of the den, and in particular, his mate, the ‘pegasus’ who continued to flit around above them. Fluttershy looked odd with feathered wings, but somehow more comfortable too, singing quietly to herself and giving little glances back at Sunshine whenever he was not looking.

After giving Dee’s wing a lick, Mama stopped in her grooming with a puckered-up expression and stuck her tongue out at the sour taste. Resuming her grooming at the top of Dee’s head and keeping an eye on Fluttershy, still fluttering around the den, Mama added in a very quiet squeak, “Your new Mama will treat you well. She has much food in her den. Particularly the fat rabbit.” Mama licked her lips. “We could share it with her while waiting.”

“Not the rabbit,” said Dee, taking a look at where the bunny was suspiciously glaring back from between the bear’s back paws. “The bear would be easier to fight.”

“Definitely not the rabbit,” said Sunshine abruptly from across the room, which made Fluttershy look up from where she had been reassuring a family of voles.

“Probably not the bear either. They are—” Dee screwed up her face at the strange word “—pets. Not for eating.”

“Oh,” chirped Mama. She huddled closer to Dee, covering her back with one broad wing. After a time, Fluttershy slipped closer, taking frequent glances at the room where the other monsters were trying to change the little batling back. She made a few of the mouth-noises at Mama, which Dee still felt a little upset about just barely not being able to understand, although it did get her a quiet nuzzle from Mama afterwards.

Dee nuzzled back while Mama chirped the strange word as well as her mouth was able. “Fluttershy. Is good. She will be a good Mama for you.”

Fluttershy’s squeak in response was almost too high for Dee to hear.

~^^~

When it finally happened, the event was almost a disappointment. The flashes of light and high-pitched hissing of ‘magic’ from the other room cut off abruptly with one final bright flare and a sharp popping noise that hurt Dee’s ears, then a series of piercing screeches mixed with a frantic fluttering burst against the closed door, which did not stay closed long. A tiny batling only about half Dee’s size launched out of the door and was caught by Mama in one broad dark wing, spinning her almost all of the way around and landing the both of them on the floor.

“Mama! Mama!” screeched the little batling. “Monsters! Monsters!”

Dee almost could not watch as Mama hugged and cuddled the little batling, covering its flat little face with sharp nips and brushing her fangs over its fuzzy little head. Her tears made the long-delayed reunion blur into a one huge dark smear and Dee’s hind legs gave out as she watched, plunking her rear down on Fluttershy’s floor with a thud. The little batling was where Dee should have been, in Mama’s tight embrace, being nibbled and kissed with little squeaks of joy.

She jumped when Sunshine’s dark wing spread out across Dee’s back, a cautious embrace which trembled as if the big monster were also about ready for his hind legs to give out and involuntarily plunk his rump down next to hers. As much as she just wanted to fly away back in time to when it was only Mama and Dee, she hesitantly reached out her own wing and scooted a little closer to him. It felt as if her heart was being ripped out of her chest as she watched Mama and the little batling nuzzle once it had calmed down in her presence, but it was the way things were meant to be. Bats lived with bats. Ponies lived with Ponies. Even as different as ponies were, they were still all ponies, and not monsters as she kept thinking.

A small noise from the other side of the room made Dee aware of the monsters… that is unicorns who had turned the stone little batling back into herself. They had all quietly slipped out of the room and were watching the Mama/batling reunion with a few sniffles of their own. Dee wanted with all of her mind for them to have failed, but her heart, as pained as it was, was fairly singing with joy at Mama’s happiness. The little batling gave off a short squeak of terror and hid under Mama’s wing when it spotted the big monsters, but Mama nudged it out into the open with encouraging chirps.

“Ling. Do not be afraid.”

The little batling most certainly was afraid, with huge, staring eyes fixed on the towering monsters so nearby they could have taken several steps and touched it, but Mama’s calm chirps calmed it down enough to give a quick glance around the rest of the room. It still was frightened, but it pointed one little wing and chirped, “Monsters?”

“Not monsters,” said Mama. She pointed at the largest of the ponies, the one all pale with the flowing mane of soft colors. “Sun,” said Mama. The dark pony with the sad eyes she pointed to and declared, “Moon.” The tip of her wing faltered as she pointed at the purple pony and the one with stripes. “Others,” she declared after a short pause.

Dee could see her reflection in the big, dark eyes of the little batling as she looked up from under Mama’s enfolding wing. “Monster?”

“Dee,” said Mama, giving her a short lick across the forehead. “Sister.”

“Sister,” chirped the little batling. It shuffled across the floor in an awkward fashion until it could hold up a little clawed wing in her direction, which Dee matched by holding her hoof up against it. “Sister?” said the little batling, more than a little confused.

“Different sister,” said Mama with a sniff. “Love Mama.”

“Love Mama,” said Dee. She forced her eyes down to look at the tiny little batling, only half her size, and squeaked the words she did not want to. “Love Ling. You take good care of Mama. I’ll miss you both.”

“Sister!” declared the little batling with all of the force of a small child. She lept off the ground with rapid beats of her tiny wings and flung herself on top of Dee’s head. “Sister!” she repeated. “Not go! Play!”

Dee put a hoof up on top of her head and stroked the little ball of fluff. Even though Ling was very young and not a stone any more, she was still heavy. Mama moved over and tried to remove the not-so-little batling, but she had dug all of her little fingers into Dee’s tangled hair, repeating two words over and over.

“Sister! Play! Sister! Play!”

The dark pony, ‘Moon’ took several slow steps forward. All of the other ponies were afraid of Mama, even Sunshine who pretended not to be, but the dark pony met Mama’s eyes without the slightest flinch. She nodded ever so slightly, then helped Mama and Sunshine get the squalling Ling untangled from Dee’s tangled mane and placed on Mama’s back. Once there, the batling scurried around and dug thin fingers into Mama’s hair to cling tight, just like all of the little ones in The Folk, and like Dee had tried and failed to do for many seasons.

“We have to go,” squeaked Mama. She ran thin fingers through Dee’s hair, although she trembled when doing it. “You have to stay with your… ponies. Your father. You will be fat during the cold times, not alone and hungry. You will feast on the delicious fruit, and be happy.”

Dee sniffed as her tears started up again. “Not happy. Need Mama.”

“Need father like Dee,” said Mama. She reached out with thin fingers and fitted Sunshine’s wing over her trembling body, pressing down with her own warm, dark wing. Her dark eyes flickered over to the broken stone head on the nearby table before Mama gave the top of her head another lick. “Remember your monster Mama and how she saved you. How she saved Ling.” Mama licked her several more times before whispering, “Mama love Dee. Mama always love Dee. Even when you are gone, Mama will remember.”

She held her daughter close, with Sunshine’s wing pinned under hers while she trembled for a long time, before Mama took a hesitant breath and squeaked, “I’m afraid.”

“Why, Mama?” Dee struggled to get out from under Sunshine’s wing, but Mama only squeezed tighter. “Why are you afraid, Mama? Do you think they will hurt me?”

“No.” Mama relaxed her crushing grip and turned Dee to face upward, her dark gaze damp with tears. “I’m afraid they will turn you into a pony.”

“Will I ever see you again?” squeaked Dee.

Sunshine spoke up abruptly. “Yes.”

Author's Note

Author’s Notes:

Amazing things happen during editing. We were discussing how Fluttershy’s house suddenly gained a separate room, and I mentioned that the floorplan of the houses seemed to be dynamically variable.

Tek: I'll remember that if you ever feel the need for a fountain inside Twilights castle :)

Me: Twilight: We have a fountain?
Spike: Yeah, right next to the atrium and across the hallway from the greenhouse? What, don't you ever get out of the castle library?
Twilight: Of course I do. Why just yesterday, I was in... um.... the map room?
Spike: Which is next to the library, or you never would have found it.

Tek: Spike: we also have a nursery, wine cellar, treasury, ball room, cheese ageing room, a sauna and what i think is a dungeon from the number of chains on the walls and current count of guest rooms is 53. I still have a few more wings to explore, took an hour once to find the crusaders when they were exploring

Ch. 10 - One Year Later

Child of Nightmares and Everfree
One Year Later

The streets of Ponyville once again were filled with the delighted shrieks of young ponies, even though ‘young’ was relative in regards to certain residents who viewed the night as their personal playground. The pile of candy in front of the Nightmare Moon statue was taller than any year previous, the pumpkins flung with greater accuracy, and the apple bobbing tank had been completely emptied, even of Lunar Princesses who viewed popping up out of it to scare the residents as great fun.

At Fluttershy’s house, the severely-depleted bowl of candy outside was guarded by a fierce knight in shining armor, even though he was only one-bunny high, and limited the little visitors to a single sweet (or two, if petted and complimented on his costume). Inside the quiet and dark building, two ponies stood looking out of the window at three batwinged shapes who soared up into the sky for a family night of fun and togetherness over the Everfree Forest. The window was not very large, causing Sunshine’s unarmored flank to gently brush up against Fluttershy’s wings, but it was not an unpleasant sensation, and he felt no need to move.

“She’s growing up so fast,” said Fluttershy in her soft, pleasant voice that constantly distracted Sunshine whenever she spoke.

“Yes, she is,” agreed Sunshine Symphony, who was most certainly not in armor tonight, as two other guards had been placed in charge of Luna’s chariot, and he had been ordered by the respective princess in no uncertain terms to take the evening off, with pay, or else. “She’s almost up to the rest of her class in school at Canterlot.”

“I meant Mama’s little batling.” Fluttershy leaned up a little more against Sunshine, enough for him to feel the thumping beat of her heart under warm ribs. She lifted up one yellow wing, and with only a slight hesitation, placed it delicately across his back in a motion which nearly had him jump out of his shoes from the unexpected feathery touch. It was a motion of trust that needed to be reciprocated, so after taking a steadying breath of his own, he stretched out his own membranous wing and placed it across her warm back.

“That’s nice,” said Fluttershy. “You care so much for Emerald. You’re a very special father.”

“I have a very special little filly,” said Sunshine, still looking up at the star-strewn sky where Emerald Dreams had vanished, most likely not to reappear until just before dawn as she had every time when father and daughter took their monthly trip to Ponyville under the light of the full moon. Emerald Dreams would fly with Mama and Ling, playing catch among the powdermoths and drinking far too many sweetflowers full of nectar, which would give his little filly an unbreakable smile for the rest of the month. Then, when the cold winds blew and The Folk huddled together in hibernation, Sunshine and Emerald would still take their monthly trip to Ponyville to sit with Fluttershy and talk all night over a pot or two of tea.

It was… nice, as Fluttershy frequently said.

“So,” he said after a certain amount of time, “did you want to take a long walk again while we wait for them to get back? Everypony should be going to bed soon, so you don’t have to be scared of being pranked.”

“I’m not scared when you’re around,” said Fluttershy. “Well, I am. But not as much.”

Sunshine coughed quietly into one hoof. “Maybe I should go guard the candy bowl and give Angel a break.”

“No,” said Fluttershy as she moved her wing a little further over him and pressed up against his side. “He’s got it. You’re fine right here.”

The darkness inside of Fluttershy’s house was unusually quiet tonight. Normally, there was always a bird or creature rustling through the little houses or peeking out of a nearby hole, even when the gigantic bat was in the vicinity. Tonight, not even a cricket broke the silence, much as if all of the little creatures had conspired to give Fluttershy some rare privacy.

“Dinner?” he asked somewhat hopefully. “I mean nothing is open in town but I could cook something for you.”

Fluttershy pressed her nose into his damp mane and took a sniff, which made Sunshine blush even more than the sensation of a tail which was tracing a path up and down his hind legs. “You’re wet,” she whispered.

“Emerald and I stopped to bob for apples before we came over,” he said almost apologetically. “I must smell like apples.”

“That’s okay,” said Fluttershy as she ran her nose up his neck in search of more interesting areas. Once she found what she was looking for, neither of them said anything for a long time until they stopped to breathe and Fluttershy whispered into his ear.

“I love apples.”