Sins of the Mother

Chapters

Blood of the son
Curse of a murder
Bonds of the innocent
Words of a friend
Tales of the Strange
Voices of the Silent
Eyes of the Insane
Questions of the Mind
Fire of the Heart
Worries of the Wise
Faces of the Legion
Wrath of the Deserted
Feast of the Wicked
Sins of the Writer
Sins of the Mother
Something of the Something Else

Blood of the son

Present day

Las Pegasus, Equestria, Equus

The city was as alive as ever, despite the hour. One would suppose that such a city would never sleep, and one would be correct. The lights of the city filled the skies with an artificial sun, blocking out the stars and the warmth they’d bring on a cold night such as this.

Had somepony sober enough and smart enough to recognize the difference noticed, they would have seen a pillar of light momentarily pierce the heavens like the beam of light emanating from the tip of the Luxor Building. They would have tracked this light to a place just outside the urban quarters of the city and found a rather strange sight: an alicorn darker than Princess Luna’s coat and no larger than Princess Twilight in size.

But nopony did notice these changes. Instead, this alicorn stood up on solid ground for the first time in his life and immediately noticed the change in gravitational pull.

Taking to his wings, the Alicorn pulled his cloak over his body before he turned off towards the edge of the nearby city, hoping for some answers.

***

“I swear to… somepony! How long does it take to retrieve their son from the moon!” I hissed under my breath, my wings working overtime to keep me aloft in this increased gravity. My body simply wasn’t adapted to such a heavy pull and I was forced to stop and rest a while before continuing.

“I suppose I don’t necessarily know how long it’s been since mom disappeared, but it seems like she may have actually succeeded in conquering Equestria and plunging it into eternal darkness!” I noted, looking up at the skies above me and the lack of a sun. “Or she failed, was captured and imprisoned and it’s just the middle of the night cycle. Would certainly explain the lack of rescue for me.”

Standing up shakily on my hooves, I cast a simple strengthening spell on my body to ensure that I could at least walk further than a few hundred steps before collapsing back down again. This weakened state was going to pose a problem for me if I couldn’t fix it soon.

Eventually, through a combination of trudging and bursts of flight, I managed to reach what looked to be some sort of simple, domestic domicile. Climbing the few steps -which seemed to be a task in of itself- to the door, I took a breath and held a hoof up to knock.

“What? What is it? What time- oh fucking Tartarus! Fuck off!” a burly sounding male demanded from within and above me. Probably in a bedroom. “Who the fuck goes knocking on someponies door at this time of night!”

“My apologies sir, but I just need to know a couple things then I'll be out of your mane!” I called back, trying to sound cordial and relieve the dweller’s fury.

“Then go bother somepony else! You’re wasting your time here!” the male demanded, shutting off the lights that I hadn’t noticed had been turned on.

“Fine, sorry to disturb you!” I shouted back and half stepped off, half fell off the steps as I retreated from the yard. Looking across the street, I noticed what appeared to be firelight in a basement and figured I might have a better chance there.

Crossing the street with difficulty, I gradually approached the door and repeated my previous action of knocking.

“Hello? Who is it? Nero, is that you?” a female voice demanded, sounding eager for this Nero character. Suddenly the door was flung wide open and a young mare in a black cloak stood at the door, staring at me. “You’re not Nero.”

“No, no I'm not. My name is Eclissi and I just need some information and I'll be out of your mane.” I replied, sitting back in the darkness of the planet while the mare’s body was dimly backlit by the firelight from within.

“Mmm, very well. It would not be very kind of me to turn away a lost, weary traveller. Please, come inside!” The mare grinned graciously, stepping aside to let me in.

“Thank you, though if you don’t mind I’ll just remain here in the lobby.” I replied, carefully stepping inside to try and hide the fact that I was about ready to give up the ghost from the mere task of walking.

“Very well, I'll go fetch you a cup of water.” the mare replied quickly before zipping off to do just that. I had no idea water was something to be drank… I thought to myself as I tucked my wings under the black cloak, only now noticing that my wings and the fabric were of a similar shade; save for the faint red of my wings of course. Mom and I only ever even ate for something to do. According to mom, she’d survived for at least several hundred years before growing so bored that she began to eat.

“There we go, here you are.” The mare suddenly appeared again with a cup on a small saucer, held between her teeth. Her cloak also remained up and over her face.

“Thank you again.” I replied, magically taking the dishes and lifted the cup to my mouth before letting the surprisingly cold fluid run down my throat. This shocked me and made me choke on it, nearly dropping the cup and saucer in the process if it weren’t for my wing shooting out and catching it.

“You- you’re an alicorn?” the mare demanded in surprise as I recovered and lifted the cup back up with my red flavoured magic.

“Uhm, yes?” I replied, slightly concerned about the need for surprise. Were alicorns something rare or illegal? This was not going to be good.

“That- that’s-” the mare trailed off before jumping on me and tackling me to the ground. “That’s blasphemy against the true princesses! Everypony, come here! I need help to deal with this false Alicorn!” she shouted into the house. Suddenly a group of ponies appeared from downstairs and joined in on the piling and restraining of me.

“What is this about? What are you talking about, blasphemy? My mother is Nightmare Moon herself!” I shouted whilst wriggling around as best I could to free myself. A large face appeared before my own, surprisingly a mixture of black and white stripes across his face.

“Did you say, Nightmare Moon?” he demanded in a deep, husky voice.

“That’s right, and you’d be wise to release me!” I growled back, no longer struggling as I was more focused on the strange face before me.

“Does this impostor not stop with the lies?” The male declared as I was picked up and carried downstairs. I was rather unceremoniously dropped onto my side before what looked like some kind of altar or something, candles illuminating pictures of two female alicorns. Looking them over I only barely noticed my mother from the vaguely similar colour of the coat.

“What is this? Who are you ponies?” I demanded, fighting to stand up though a pair of hooves were pressed down on my wings rather excruciatingly to keep me down.

“We are Purity. We celebrate the four legitimate Princesses and we protect them from impostors like you.” The female who’d offered me shelter and a drink announced, stepping up onto the plinth on which the stone altar sat upon.

“Technically there’ll be five once Princess Cadenza gives birth.” A random male pony spoke up before returning to silence.

“Right, five legitimate Princesses once Flurry Heart is born.” the mare rolled her eyes before turning back to me. “That being said, can you see why you are an impostor? Take a good look and think about it for a moment.”

“I’ve got nothing.” I admitted after staring at the photos for some time. “What’s your point?”

“They’re all female! Never in the history of Equestria has there ever been a male alicorn!” The female shouted angrily, throwing her hooves up around her head dramatically.

“Now I know that’s not true. I’ve studied Equestrian history in depth and I can tell you there were exactly three alicorn stallions. The last of which was my grandfather, Princess Luna’s father.” I remarked, earning a swift buck to the chest by the male with the strange fur markings.

“Then tell me, if you were born to Nightmare Moon, how did she manage to become impregnated on the moon and why don’t you have the same eyes she did before being defeated?” the mare demanded. These were actually decent questions, both of which I’d tried to bring up on my own but were never answered.

“Mom never told me either. My theory is that the eyes are because I was very likely the result of artificial, magical self-insemination or I was conceived before she was Nightmare Moon and banished.” I announced, still clutching my chest while the ever present heavier gravity continued to bear down on me.

“A likely story. Now, given you have magic I have to assume that you were originally a unicorn and somehow grafted a pair of wings onto your body and somehow got them to work like pegasi wings.” the mare began pacing back and forth on the plinth, thinking out loud for all to hear. “I shudder to think what you did to the pegasi you took the wings from.”

“I can answer that right now, these are my wings! I didn’t steal them from any pegasi nor was I a unicorn!” I yelled back furiously. Way I saw it, somepony would be leaving here bloody.

“You tell me another lie like that and I'll cut out your tongue as well as remove your wings!” The striped male scowled as he bucked me in the ribs, knocking the wind from my lungs and some blood from I'm not sure where.

“What?” I wheezed, looking up wearily at the stallion now holding what looked to be some kind of scissors. “What’re you doing?” I demanded as the blades neared my outstretched wings. “Stop! What do you think you’re doing?” I began to struggle again, though this just pulled on the joints in my wings rather painfully as the blades rested just over the tendon in my wing. “Stop!” I screamed as the blades dug into the flesh and promptly severed the tendon.

Screaming out did nothing as the blades came back out covered in blood and quickly moved to my other wing before repeating the process, making me scream out once more.

As though reacting of it’s own accord, my horn fired up in a crimson red glow and a steady gale of wind began swirling around within the basement. The ponies around me backed away as far as they could as I began to levitate off the ground, my regularly red/orange eyes now glowing a fierce white.

“I think we’ve fucked up!” A pony shrieked before I magically reached out and took hold of the scissors used to mutilate my wings and ripped them from the grip of the stallion holding them. They quickly spun in the air and plunged the blade into the chest of the stallion before ripping along the horizontal line and let spray the life of the victim.

Turning my weapon to the next pony, the mare who’d accused me of being an impostor, I didn’t even give her a chance to protect herself as the blades of the weapon dug themselves into her eyes; one blade for one socket. With a firm squeeze of the handles, the blades cut through the bridge of the nose before plunging in, handle and all, into the mare’s cranium before wiggling things around a bit.

Extracting the scissors and small gobs of brain matter on the tips, I let the bodies hit the floor before turning to the ponies who’d restrained me and made quick work of them; drawing the blades across their throats to let them scramble to staunch the flow of crimson.

Turning to the remaining three ponies, conveniently a pegasus and two unicorns trying to throw up a makeshift shield, I levelled my glowing horn at the first unicorn and thrust it into the shield, dispelling it through sheer force of will.

With the shield now shattered like glass, I took hold of the pegasus’s body and held it aloft, stretching his own wings out like mine had been.

“Wait, wait please don’t! I'm sorry, I didn’t want to be a part of this! I’m still new to Purity! I didn’t know any of this would happen! I’m sorry!” the sincerely young sounding stallion wept as the scissors plunged into his wing and clipped the tendon before doing the same to his left. Dropping the scissors and the stallion as one -I didn’t even pull the weapon from his wing- I turned to the unicorns and lifted them aloft.

“Please, don’t…” One mare sobbed through blurry eyes. I pulled the first one up close to my face, letting the light from my eyes illuminate the tear stained teal fur and the blurry golden eyes. “I promise, I’ll go home and never do anything like this again, I swear! Please, just don’t kill me!”

“Relax.” I whispered, my voice otherwise would have blown out the windows and exploded eardrums had I not. Was a skill I’d learned from my mother on a boring day some time back. “I'm not going to kill you.”

“Oh thank you!” The mare tried to throw her hooves around my neck, but I pulled her away just enough that she was out of reach of me.

“But that doesn’t mean you’ll get off scotch free.” I added, lifting a candelabra from the altar and floated it over. “Make sure you remember this lesson whenever you look in the mirror.” I grinned as the base of the candelabra came down and shattered the horn of the unicorn before me.

Tossing her aside I grabbed onto the tail of the remaining fleeing mare and pulled her back screaming before bringing the base of the blunt weapon down on her own horn, breaking it off and knocking her out as well.

Dropping both the weapon and the pony, I began to settle down as my hooves became damp in a mixture of bloods seeping out from the bodies around me. My eyes returned to normal and my horn glow receded into nothingness for a moment before taking hold of a nearby cloak to tear off a large strip of material to hold my desiccated wings against my body.

Tying the knot I pulled my own cloak back over my body, grimacing from the faint touch of the material on my wounds as I began to slowly climb the stairs up and out of the grisly scene behind me.

As soon as I was out of the domicile I turned away from the city, noticing that I seemed to have adjusted to the new gravity if enough to at least walk slightly quicker and a bit further without winged assistance. As soon as I reached the grass, I did my best to wipe off the accumulated blood before stepping onto the street and continuing to flee the crime scene.

I only made it half a block before the blood loss of my own wings got to me and I embraced the cold cobble road.

Curse of a murder

“Ugh, my head… What hit me?” I mumbled, pressing a hoof to my forehead to try and rub some relief into it.

“The road, I suppose.” A distinctly female voice replied, making my eyes shoot open and have me sit up in what apparently was a bed. The covers flew off and left me cold and confused.

“Who’re you, where am I?” I demanded, looking around the room furiously until my eyes caught upon a rather proper looking pony with grey fur and a darker grey mane and tail.

“My name is Octavia, and you are in my home. I found you in the early morning lying on the road bleeding profusely.” Octavia replied as she approached my bedside and opened a leather bag of what I assumed were either medical supplies or torture instruments. “I took you home and have been tending to your wounds for the last several hours.”

“Oh. I suppose I should thank you then?” I wondered aloud, taking the time to actually think about it. “Thank you, Octavia. For saving the life of an alicorn Prince.”

“I knew it.” Octavia hissed under her breath, halting her care of me. “When I saw those bound up wings, I figured you had to be either some kind of strange mutation or the first male alicorn I'd ever seen.”

“Yeah, Nightmare Moon is my mother. Was born on the moon… Not very interesting.” I remarked, lying back while doing my best to ignore what I figured to be some kind of stitching in my wings.

“You’re Nightmare Moon’s son? Why didn’t you come back with her five years ago?” Octavia asked inquisitively. My head shot back up again, ignoring the pain in my everything in the process.

“Wait, how long ago?” I demanded.

“Five years give or take… Oh, and she’s no longer Nightmare Moon, she’s Princess Luna now.” Octavia explained as she pushed me back down with a gentle hoof. “By the way, how old are you anyways?”

“I dunno, something like eighteen maybe?” I replied while my mind wandered to the fact that I'd been left behind for five years. “Did my mom never say anything about having a son?”

“I don’t think so. What was your name? Maybe I heard it in passing while working a Gala?” Octavia offered as she pulled the bandages from my right wing and rebound it in fresh ones. I managed to sneak a peek at what looked like some kind of sewing holding the wound together.

“Eclissi.” I muttered, more focused on my wings. “How’d you mend them like that?”

“Oh I had a friend who’s a doctor come in and do it. Couldn’t stand the sight of all that blood. Frankly, I'm only able to replace your bandages now that they’re mostly clean.” the mare replied, already looking ill just by thinking about what I assumed to be the scene of me on the ground in a pool of mostly my own blood.

“Ahh, well thank them for me.” I laid back again, staring up at the ceiling. “So my mom never said anything about me… Five years. She said she’d conquer Equestria then come and get me… She promised…” I hissed and closed my eyes. “We’ll see what she says when I go and see her.”

“Hah!” Octavia suddenly burst into a short fit of laughter that had my eyes open once more before instantly calming down and glaring at me. “You’re not going anywhere in that state!”

“I didn’t mean I'd go talk to her now!” I rolled my eyes at her before closing them again. “I meant after I healed and get a chance to fix my wings, I’ll fly to wherever she is and have quite the talk with her.”

“Uh huh.” Octavia eyed me over warily before turning from the room with the medical kit in her teeth. “I’ll be back in a couple hours to replace your bandages again. Get some sleep.”

“Yes mom!” I groaned and pulled the covers up over my black and red body.

As soon as I was sure Octavia was out of earshot, “I was serious about going to talk with mom now, by the way.” I whispered and crawled out of bed as quietly as I could. Crawling up to a window I looked out towards the city with it's huge buildings penetrating the skyline with odd shapes. Looking down I also noticed that I was a story up, meaning I'd have to find some way to climb down without being seen or using my wings.

Thank goodness I'm an alicorn with awesome alicorn powers!

My horn sparked to life and enveloped my body with the usual red glow before lifting myself up off my hooves and into the air. With a nudge of the nose I pushed the window open and gently floated outside a ways before sinking to the ground.

Evidently my body had acclimated to the gravity of the planet overnight as I found no issue in walking down the street.

A quick glance down both directions had me notice gold armour that made me immediately think, “Royal Guard” and turn in the opposite direction.

“Hey, look at that one.” I barely overheard of one guard. A quick look back and they were on me. “Hey, stop! We want to ask you some questions!”

Shit, somepony must’ve witnessed me coming from the house and now they’re out to kill me! I bolted as fast as my weary legs could carry me, aiming for a house at random and dived into the side yard before pressing my body up against the back of the house, my horn ready to go.

“He went this way!” A guard announced. Not that the sound of their hoof falls wasn’t a dead giveaway that is.

Three

Two

One

I activated my magic and grabbed onto some kind of shovel thing and swung it low and fast. The blade of the weapon dug into the first pony’s forelegs and severed the meat quite readily. The weapon came up and spun around before plunging the tip into the neck of the second guard and severed his spine.

The third one was quicker to react as he drew his weapon from a sheath on his back and brandished a sword at me. It’s too bad he didn’t realize that my glowing horn was not only moving the shovel but also the gate behind him. His rear end was struck by the gate and sent him forwards into my weapon as it came down on his withers and struck home.

Gotta get outta here! Gotta run! I thought as I took off, the adrenaline dulling all sensations of pain I may have been feeling in my heaving body as I galloped hard.

I suppose no amount of epinephrine can dull the sudden explosion of pain that usually comes from suddenly getting stabbed in the side. Keeping my pace I looked back at the wound that had reopened on my wing in all the exertion and shook my head.

I should’ve been watching where I was going because as soon as I turned back forwards my face ended up planted firmly in the side of a mailbox, my horn protruding into and out the other end of the thin metal.

~~~

“Ugh, we doing this again?” I moaned as I finally came too. I was completely expecting to wake up in some kind of dungeon or prison or whatever, so imagine my surprise when I pulled the covers off the same bed I'd only just escaped from with a very angry looking grey mare watching over me like a hawk.

“Yes, it appears we are doing this again, Eclissi.” Octavia replied with a scoff before turning away from me to work on my wing now outstretched. “I told you to rest and off you go, gallivanting through the streets and killing guards looking to solve a murder! Come to think of it, I don’t suppose you had anything to do with that massacre, did you?” Octavia asked, pausing her care of me.

“If I said yes, what would you do?” I asked, turning my head to watch the pony as she wearily applied some kind of medicine to my wound. She gagged at all the fresh blood and I winced and the sharp shooting pain coming from the wound.

“Well, I suppose I'll have to hide you regardless of what happened now. You can’t possible heal like this with the Royal Guard out for your head.” Octavia replied once she’d set down her tool.

“Yeah, beheading usually isn’t beneficial to a healthy lifestyle.” I remarked with a chuckle that lasted for as long as it took for Octavia to glare at me again.

“This is not the time for jokes! Your life, and my life by extension is at risk right now!” Octavia exclaimed, forcefully putting the same medicine onto my wing to achieve gaining even more wincing from me.

“Why? Anypony who theoretically saw me should be dead now.” I shrugged back once the pain died down. “Easiest way to keep from being stopped is to eliminate all witnesses.”

“I- You- Celestia’s mercy, what did your mother teach you up there?” The mare exclaimed in disbelief as she packed up and helped me out of bed. “Come on, there’s a place you can hide that a friend of mine uses to hide her valuable equipment. You won’t be found there should anypony come knocking.”

After a sigh, “Thanks again, Octavia. I appreciate everything you’re doing for me.” I gave my best smile, despite the existing pain.

“Oh don’t get me wrong. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for the son of Royalty.” Octavia really did put it quite bluntly, didn’t she?

“I remember that if or when I get a crown.” I replied with a smirk as Octavia lead me to a halt before an otherwise plain section of floor.

“Wait a second.” Octavia ordered before moving to the nearest wall and pushed a candle on the corner table over a few inches with her nose. A few barely audible clicks followed by a heavy thud had me raise an eyebrow before a panel of wood in the floor popped open; the edges of the hole tracing the ends of the floor boards. No wonder it was impossible to see, the floorboards would sit neatly in place and no one would tell the difference.

“Dare I ask what your friend hides down here?” I inquired almost afraid of what I'd find in such a perfect hidey hole.

“Just her more expensive DJ equipment. She says the stuff goes for thousands of bits so I offered her this. Used to be a storm shelter in case of extremely bad weather.” Octavia replied, backing down into the hole and turned on the light behind her. “Well, don’t just stand there, let’s get you situated!” Octavia called up. I sighed and began the slow descent down the impossibly steep staircase before tripping and ending up falling forwards into Octavia.

“Ow, sorry Octavia…” I mumbled, feeling my chin resting on something soft and warm. “Gravity sucks.”

The only answer I got was from a sort of whimpering as I gently prodded at whatever it was my chin was resting on.

“What is this anyways? It’s soft and warm…” I muttered. Then it hit me. “Oh shit.”

“You pervert!” Octavia screamed, spinning off her back and dropping my head off what I found out to be quite personal and not my business. Giving a quick kick to my shoulder, Octavia skittered off into a corner and curled up, glaring at me.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to end up touching that!” I replied, remaining where I lay with my black fur covering up the reddening of my face. “I just fell and that’s how I landed!”

“I- I never!” the mare remarked, curling up tighter. “You still seemed to have enjoyed it, even a little bit!” she accused, pointing back at me.

Raising an eyebrow, I dropped my head before dropping to my stomach with wide, embarrassed eyes.

“That’s just biology! I absolutely did not enjoy anything about what just happened!” I exclaimed defensively. “I absolutely do not think about you that way! Never!”

“Never?” Octavia suddenly switched to anger. “Never! What, am I not good enough for the ‘Royal Treatment’?”

“What? What just happened?” I asked, completely dumbfounded.

“You think you’re so above me just because you were born to a Princess on the moon, well let me tell you-” Octavia bellowed before a rapping at the door had us both freeze.

“Hello? Is anyone home?” A male voice inquired from above and outside. “I heard a commotion from next door and I thought I'd come make sure everyone was alright.”

“Uh, yes, thank you. I’m fine!” Octavia called back quickly, shooting me a glance before trotting up the stairs to the main floor and shut the door behind her; killing the lights in the process.

With a sigh I lit up a small light from my horn and delved deeper into the room, taking note at all the black cases that likely held all the equipment. Finding a sheet I spread it out on the larger, sturdier looking boxes and climbed up onto it to try and rest.

“So, first couple days on Equus and I'm already a criminal and a sexual assailant. Great job Eclissi.” I whispered to myself, the light dying off completely. “I hate this planet.”

Bonds of the innocent

“You know, all this darkness probably isn’t very good for me. I am a living creature, I need sunlight!” I protested mostly in jest. In truth, I’d been kept down here in Octavia’s cellar for a few days now and she’d taken it upon herself to see that I didn’t just dry up and die on one of her friends equipment boxes.

“I’m aware, but there’s currently a pony-hunt for the one who slaughtered all those cultists and those three guards.” Octavia replied as she watched me tear into today’s lunch of a light garden salad. I’d taken quite well to the fresh vegetables, compared to the grey things back on the moon, and Octavia was more than content to feed me such items.

“Were there any witnesses that could point them in my direction?” I asked once my mouth was full. I quickly filled it again with a bite from a large red bell pepper; bell peppers very quickly became my favourite vegetable, right next to cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions -this actually confused and disturbed Octavia in the fact that I could eat an entire Red onion by itself- and cauliflower.

Octavia sighed and rested her chin on her crossed hooves. “Fortunately for you, the call for witnesses came up dry. So no, there’s no witnesses who could point you out. The only reason i’m still keeping you down here is-”

“My charming personality and pleasant company?” I interrupted with a smirk, earning a grape tomato to the face.

“Is because the Guard are looking for somepony heavily bandaged in this area. I’ve already had to incinerate the bedspreads and everything left behind from caring for you as it is.” Octavia stared dully at me as she made her explanation.

“So other than that i’d be out on my rump, huh?” I popped previously thrown tomato into my mouth and had to smile at the mere taste of the juices.

“Well, you did sexually assault me.” Tavia replied casually, almost too casually.

“Jeez, you’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” I sighed for the lack of interest in her teasing.

“Never. Just like you’d never look at me that way, either.” the grey mare grinned as she stood and gave her rump a dust off with her tail. “If you’re done, i’ll clean up.”

“No shit, i’m stuck down here. When do you expect me to be able to leave?” I inquired, dropping the remains of the bell pepper stem onto the plate before reaching back to scratch at my quickly healing wings. Alas, I was still flightless; much to my chagrin.

“Why, you going somewhere?” Octavia stopped at the stairs and looked back at me curiously.

“Yeah, for as much as I like living in your root cellar… I’ve got things to do, ponies to talk with, places to go and things to know.” I sighed and rolled onto my back and magically pulled a blanket up over my body.

“Oh, okay…” Octavia seemed to be in a state of emotional confusion, between disappointment and eagerness. “Well provided you don’t pull your stitches out for a fourth time, I think you’ll be good enough to leave by tomorrow.”

“Excellent. Thank you again, Tavia. So much thanks for all your care over the last few days.” I grinned warmly as the mare nodded gratuitously before silently ascending the stairs up.

As soon as the door was shut, the lights automatically switched off and my horn fired up with artificial light. Crawling off the case I approached a small hole in the wall and stuck my hoof inside.

Extracting the only object within, I carried it back to my resting place before settling down with the single photo sitting on the casetop before me. It was the only photo i’d ever managed to take with mom while we were together and she protested the whole thing the entire time, evident with how her head was turned up and away from the camera though her wing remained outstretched over my back.

Ahh, such good times… I thought to myself, before stamping a hoof over the photo with a grimace. Shame I have to do something to get revenge on you forgetting about me on the moon.

Suddenly the trap door creaked open, startling me as I hastened to pull the photo under my body.

“Hey, Eclissi?” Tavia stuck her head down to look at me, her face slightly flushed.

“Yeah, Tavia?” I replied as casually as I could, ignoring the rolled paper underneath me.

“You, uhm…” Tavia now completely descended the stairs and flipped on the light. “The patrolling guards have given up on the pursuit, apparently. Do you… I mean…”

“Words, Tavia. Use your words.” I egged her on, hopping down from the case and taking the photo with me.

“Do you want to… come… spend time… with… with me?” Tavia seemed to be completely refusing to even look at me but I could still tell from the deep shade of red on her nose that she was feeling extremely embarrassed.

“And by ‘spend time you you’, you mean… what? Dinner and… I don’t know what else ponies do on this planet...” I inquired, taking a few steps forwards towards the uneasy mare.

“I.. that would probably… That’d be a better way to start… yes.” Tavia replied and lifted her head as she noticed exactly how close we were to each other. “I hadn’t thought of… of starting with that…”

“What exactly were you planning on starting with then?” I narrowed an eye suspiciously at the creature before me.

“I… uhm… thought you might have been… might’ve been…” Octavia drifted off as she seemed to lose her train of thought, staring up into my eyes. “Uhm, dammit, why is this so difficult!”

“I dunno, I have no idea what you're getting at.” I shrugged back, remaining in place to stare back at Tavia’s lovely lavender eyes.

“Right, okay. Let me try again.” Tavia requested, breaking the staring contest with a deep breath and shut her eyes again. “I thought you might’ve been lonely down here all by yourself and I thought i’d offer to give my company for tonight if you were planning on leaving tomorrow, never to be seen again and I only do this because it would make me sad if you left without being able to spend time with a mare or that you’d end up spending time with a random mare or Celestia’s white coat a stallion and forever brand yourself as such a kind of stallion-” Octavia rattled off at a million miles an hour before I pressed a hoof to her lips to silence and surprise her.

“Punctuation, learn to use it please.” I requested with a small smile. “I thought you thought I was a pervert and that I disgusted you.”

“I- I know. I thought I did too. It’s just… Every night as I was in my warm bed, I could only think about you…” I raised an eyebrow and smirk at this before the pony continued. “I mean, about how you were stuck down here in the cold which wouldn’t have been good for recovery… So I thought… I’d… Offer to let you sha- share a- I mean, my bed… with… me…”

“Right…” I honestly had no idea where my cognitive functions had gone, but all I could manage was, “I see…”

“S-so? Wh-what do you say?” Octavia looked up at me apprehensively. “I mean, i’m not adverse to your idea of a… date… before tonight…”

“Right…” still nothing…

“Then after that… I- uhm…” I held another hoof up to Octavia’s lips to silence her and let myself restore cohesive sentences in my head.

“Let’s just start with the dinner and whatever else ponies do on dates. Are we planning on going out in public for that or are we going to stay in?” I suggested. This seemed to calm the mare quite visibly and let her recover.

“I suppose since you’re not only without proper attire and without a bit to your name we may want to stay in. Can you cook?” the mare inquired with a thin smile as she lead me out of my previous dwelling.

“I like to think i’m pretty good in a kitchen. Most of the time I was cooking for my mother and I but we never had the same quality of ingredients as you do here…” I replied, waiting till Octavia was completely out of the cellar before ascending myself. Did not want to put her off by making her think I was staring.

“Okay, so then do you want to spend some time in the kitchen going through the fridge to update your palettes?” Tavia offered, helping me out of my hole before shutting the door behind me.

“Might as well. If i’m going to show off for my date I might as well, right?” I replied simply.

“Heh, yeah. I suppose so…” the mare once again defied looking back at me as she escorted me into her kitchen. “So, if there’s anything that you come up with with ingredients your missing, let me know and I’ll pop out to pick them up, alright? Till then i’ll be in the study.”

“Absolutely.” I smiled back at the mare as she left with a smile on her own face. I’m not sure if I was supposed to see it but as soon as she thought she was out of sight she did a tiny prance in place before zipping off and I turned to the fridge.

A minute later and I could hear the sound of a very deep instrument having its strings being played.

“Hey Octavia, what is that you’re playing?” I shouted out while tasting a green version of cauliflower. Had a kind of sharp flavour to it.

“I’m just warming up actually!” Tavia shouted back over the sounds coming from her direction.

“No, I mean what’s that instrument? I’ve never heard anything like it!” I shouted back.

“Oh, this is a cello. It’s kind of difficult to play since it requires me to stand on my back legs and it doesn’t seem to be built to be played by ponies but I still manage!”

“What’s the point of having an instrument that isn’t meant to be played by ponies?” I shouted back in mild confusion.

“For me, it’s the challenge of becoming the best cellist in Equestria despite it’s difficulty to play!”

“Ahh, fair enough.” I replied and turned back to my sampling.

The warm-up very quickly died down to a much slower tempo before the notes began to take shape of a song I was actually fairly familiar with. With a nearly evil grin and shifty eyes, I silently set everything down and fired up my horn and begin a rather simple conjuration spell.

Standing just on the other side of the wall from Octavia, I lifted myself up onto my hind legs and rested my back against the wall as I took hold of the fretboard and waited for the proper cue. With a small snicker I calmed myself down and hit the first chord, surprising Octavia and killing her own sound for a few bars before she picked up and I carefully stepped around the corner to join her with my guitar.

The guitar itself was an electric variant, with the amp cord fading into oblivion and the sound being pumped out of my horn. Doing it this way, instead of synthesizing the sound myself, had the effect of greatly enhancing the quality of the sound. I’d discovered this instrument and figured out how it worked from some very old books in the old palace library.

About halfway into the song, where it slowed down for a couple bars, “Where in Equestria did you learn that?” Octavia demanded through astonishment and wide grins as the tempo picked back up again.

“Remember, I had a lot of free time all alone on the moon. You’d be surprised what kind of books you could find hiding in the depths of mom’s library.” I replied as I continued to let my hoof strum away from muscle memory. “I’ll be honest though…” I paused to flail my way through a particular set of bars. “I haven’t played this in ages!”

“I think you’re doing just fine, darling!” the cellist replied with a grin as we finally reached the end of the song and let the notes drift away. “I must say, not even my friend can achieve similar sounds with her deck! That was… that was…” Octavia seemed to be suffering from a lack of appropriate words so I opted to help her out.

“Awesome?”

“Yes! I’m not the type to use such language but that was indeed awesome!” Tavia remarked. “What else can you do? Can you sing?”

“Ehhh, I have no idea.” I replied in defeat. “I didn’t get many chances to learn to sing properly so I have no idea.”

“Well, you have a beautiful tenor voice, perhaps you could sing melody for somepony else? Or if you learned an appropriate song that suited your range?” the mare suggested, setting her cello down to take a seat on the floor next to the instrument. Resting the guitar on my back I followed suit and took a seat myself.

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t know any to start with.” I admitted. Octavia had none of it as she stood and rested her cello in it’s case before trotting over to a bookshelf to peruse its contents. “Oh, wait! I may know one!”

“Oh, do I know it?” Octavia raised an eyebrow interestedly as she looked back over her shoulder at me.

“Maybe.” I replied before taking up my guitar again. Magically changing a number of settings, mostly they were all in my head anyways so it was a matter of thought, I started up a simple loop of gentle tapping on the body of the guitar. Adding in an acoustical version of the song, I gently lead into the lyrics which simply dropped Octavia’s jaw. To the floor.

She quickly recovered however, and with a smile took over the second verse with me keeping in harmony.

I will never admit it but halfway through the song the two of us were so perfectly in sync that we both began tearing up and fought with choking up on the song through to the end.

“My word, that was quite something!” Tavia noted as she wiped at her eyes. “You certainly have quite the singing voice.”

“That only worked because of your voice, I merely harmonized.” I shook my head in response.

“Don’t sell yourself short, mares love a stallion who can sing you know?” Octavia replied as my horn lit up and the guitar vanished from the realm. Landing back on my hooves, I had to shrug as I turned back to the kitchen.

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.” I remarked. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have ingredients to taste.”

“Of course, of course. Please, take all the time you need. If your cooking skills are anything like your voice, i’m certain to weep from joy when we eat.” Octavia grinned as I waved back to her.

~~~

“So, are you on the verge of tears yet?” I chuckled over my prepared dinner. I had a bit of trouble refraining from completely consuming the ingredients beforehand but somehow I managed to crank out something edible.

“Very funny, Eclissi.” Tavia smirked bemusedly as she tentatively took another bit of her own dinner. She’d even gone so far as to get dressed up in a dark purple dress, complete with a touch of makeup and stylization of mane. I obviously couldn’t be outdone and magically dressed myself up in a black and red suit shirt and jacket. “But this is quite excellent, I must say. Well done for a first time!”

“Thank you, I appreciate that.” I grinned back to Octavia’s warm smile. “So, what’s up next after all this? We’re obviously dressed up to the nines so are you thinking of something fancy?”

“Perhaps, or maybe we could just stay in and see what other songs we can play together. Develop a sort of setlist as it were.” Octavia shifted around in her seat, perhaps unintentionally, enticingly. I shrugged and cleaned off my plate with my fork.

“I would not be opposed to such activities.” I noted, receiving a smile from the mare before me. “Then we can see what happens as the night goes on. We don’t have to do anything if you’re uncomfortable with it.”

“Thanks, but I think i’m certain now.” Tavia replied with a small smile before hopping down to round the table and take my hoof. “Come on.”

“What about the music?” I asked as I let myself be lead up the stairs towards the mare’s bedroom.

“Oh don’t worry, I think we’ll be making sweet music together regardless of how it’s done.” Tavia grinned and I could already feel biology responding. Nevermind that we’ve only known each other for just shy of a week. This was going to be interesting…

Author's Note

Okay, so I just remembered that I'd left in a couple of musical notes while writing that I don't think translate over properly so i've made the proper changes. Should work much better now, sorry!

Words of a friend

“Hey… So, uhm…” I muttered, sitting on the side of the bed. Octavia laid on her side behind me, playing with my mane affectionately. “Look, I’m sorry that I.. Uhm…”

“Oh it’s nothing to worry about. You did wonderfully for your first time.” Tavia replied with a sigh, her voice indicating a contented smile.

“Thanks, but I was talking about this next part… The part that neither of us are going to be very fond of…” I replied, sliding down off the mattress to gather up a set of clothing that Octavia had mistakenly kept from an ex-coltfriend. It mostly consisted of a blank, dark red set of saddlebags and a weather resistant cloak.

“Oh, you mean you’re still leaving… after last night?” Tavia’s voice dropped into utter disappointment.

“Yeah… I still have plenty to do and as much as I want to, I can’t stay.” I replied, lifting the packs onto my back before covering everything with the cloak.

“But what if-”

“No, I can’t have you come with me. Again, despite how much I want you too. I can’t guarantee your safety if you did join me and I couldn’t tell you how long we’d be gone or if we’d ever return here.” I shook my head, my heart sinking at Octavia’s pouting.

“You- you mean you don’t know if you’ll ever return here? To me?” Tavia whispered in shock.

“I don’t know. I’m mostly just going to start off in a direction and see where I end up, see what I learn.” I sat back on my ass and ran a hoof through my mane.

“Weren’t you going to confront your mother? Wouldn’t you just be aiming for Canterlot?”

“Logically yes. I first want to explore the rest of Equestria first, learn everything I can. I don’t want to approach mother unprepared. I have to learn the ways of the world before I go speak to it’s government.”

“Oh. I see.” Octavia said as she rolled off the bed and approached me. I stood and let her nuzzle against me, and I her, before she pulled back just enough to come back in and plant a kiss on my nose. I brought our noses down and bumped out foreheads together in return before breaking away and turning to exit the room.

“Look, I may not be able to help you but i’ve got a friend who’s going to be hopping a train out to Applewood today. See if you can get to the train station in time and join her. Tell her I sent you and she should be more than happy to have you join her.” Octavia announced with a heavy sigh as she dug around in a coin purse on her dresser. “This should cover the ticket.” she added, pulling a couple of bits from the pocket to drop them into my right saddlebag.

“Thanks, Tavi. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me so far.” I smiled back to her gift and let her lead me down the hallway and down the stairs to the front door.

“I know, I just wish you could stay longer.” Tavi sighed in defeat, sitting at the foot of the stairs.

“Hmm…” I let my mind start roaming through my magical repertoire before a spell struck my mind. “If you can find me a piece of paper, I’ll inscribe it with a spell that will allow us to speak over long distances instantly.”

“You can do that?” Octavia looked up at me in confusion and hope. I nodded and she zipped off into the study to collect a page of paper and a quill/inkpot combination. “How?”

“Well, you may not like it but it is dark magic. Not completely black magic, so there should be minimal risk of corruption.” I explained, setting everything down before me. Closing my eyes I concentrated on the spell and rather than cast it, let the red light of my horn flare out to seek the page before engraving the page with a circular spell network.

“So how’s it work?” Octavia asked once I’d finished and held the page up to examine it. Setting the page before Octavia, I instructed her on it’s use.

“Simply place your hoof on the seal, think of who you want to talk too and it should make the connection. Keep in mind that it only works for creatures of magic who either have that seal or know the spell. A random unicorn won’t receive the call if they don’t know the seal network.”

“Like this?” Octavia inquired, setting a hoof on the center of the seal before shutting her eyes and probably think about me. Did it work?

Indeed it did. You’ll hear everything I say directly in your mind and the same goes for me. I replied mentally, simply watching the mare before me in silence as she jumped a bit at the suddenness.

Oh, that’s quite amazing. Now, you said it was dark magic, so there’s a minimal chance of corruption. what exactly is corruption in the first place? Octavia inquired, now looking back up at me in silence.

“Most of the time it takes the form of a blackening of the skin and fur. The victim would experience strange mood swings and would find their thought processes becoming gradually more and more violent or destructive.” I explained verbally, magically lifting Octavia’s hoof off the seal before whisking it off into the study to sit on her desk.

“So how do I prevent contamination?” Octavia replied, watching the page float off before turning back to me.

“Best way, don’t use dark magic.” I shrugged casually. “But if you have to use it, use it in small doses. It’ll minimize the amount of exposure you get to it. That being said, we won’t be able to have long, drawn out conversations through the seal.”

“Aww, and I was hoping to try ‘seal sex’ with you tonight.” Octavia smirked and I rolled my eyes and grinned.

“Yeah, sorry no. Would we try that, we’d both risk heavy contamination. An hour of using the seal equates to about point five percent of your total body being contaminated. Our best bet would be to only talk in bursts of about fifteen minutes or so with an hour break between; that would mean it would take us about eight and a half years to reach a mild contamination level.” I explained, finding myself having sat down on the floor again.

“What if it was a thirty minute conversation with fifteen minute break?” Octavia asked, settling down on her stomach.

“Then it’d take significantly less time to contaminate our bodies. But, i’m sorry that I can’t stay and prolong my visit.” I announced, standing up against. Octavia did the same and stood once more with a pout.

“Aww, and here I was hoping to delay you long enough that you wouldn’t have to leave.”

“I know, and again, i’m sorry.” I replied, once again nuzzling against her neck. “I really want to stay now but I can’t. At least now we have a method of contact.”

“I know,” Tavi sighed in disappointment. “Then I suppose this is goodbye?”

“Only for a while. Who knows when we’ll see each other again.” I replied, pulling away as I magically opened the door. Turning away from my new lover, I stepped past the threshold to the outside world and looked back as Octavia waved me off.

Turning onto the street, I followed signs towards my first destination: the train station.

~~~

“I completely forgot to ask who Tavi’s friend was, I have no idea who i’m looking for…” I sighed as my eyes wandered over the ponies boarding and disembarking the train.

My eyes settled on the bright blue head of a white unicorn with equally bright purple shades on and the strangest device over their ears.

“They seem… DJ-ish I suppose.” I mumbled to myself and took off at a trot towards the pony. My approach seemed to have caught the attention of the pony as she turned to stare in my direction until I slid to a halt. “Excuse me, would you happen to know an Octavia Melody?” I inquired hopefully.

The mare nodded with a smile, lifting her sunglasses up to look straight at me with large cerise eyes.

“My name is Eclissi, I’m a… uhm… well I’m a friend of Octavia and she suggested I tag along with you to Applewood, if you don’t mind?” I asked hopefully. The mare merely shrugged and nodded towards the train before walking off again with her ticket being pulled from her bag. In a bout of confusion, I galloped to the ticket vendor and purchased a similar ticket before galloping back to meet up with the white mare.

Taking a seat next to her, I slid my bags under the bench and took a seat. “So, you know my name, what’s yours?” I asked, trying to make conversation. The mare simply looked at me as though bemused at my question, which only confused me more. “What?”

The mare opened her mouth and pointed into her throat before closing and placing her hooves against her throat.

“I don’t follow…” I mumbled as the train lurched forwards and we took off. “I wonder how this thing works… There weren’t very many books on the subject on the moon…”

Now it was the mare’s turn to look at me in confusion, as though i’d said something completely unbelievable. “Oh, right. I’m the son of… Princess Luna I believe she’s called now. I was born and grew up on the moon while she was Nightmare Moon and only appeared a couple days ago.” I whispered in explanation. As far as I knew, there were still ponies looking for me for my crimes.

A raised eyebrow had the mare look at me in surprise as I shrugged, “There wasn’t a lot to do up there beyond read and practice all three main forms of magic; light, dark and black. But don’t worry, I have no ill intentions for anyone here on this train…”

The mare’s raised eyebrow turned into one of, ‘On this train? You mean there’s somepony out there you are going to use it on?’

“Yeah, my mother who forgot about me on the moon for the last five years. I’ll teach her what it means to be forgotten in isolation. Again…” I hissed, lying down to curl up next to the mare.

“No, Vinyl, I’m not overreacting.” I replied to her question. Then I shot up as I realised something. “Wait, how’d I know what your name is and what questions you asked?” Vinyl shrugged and looked up at the glasses on her forehead, just beneath her horn.

“You used magic to plant information in my head? Wait…” I narrowed my eyes at the DJ and fired up my horn in a darker red than normal. Can you hear this?

Holy shit, someone who knows the spell! Vinyl’s eyes shot wide open in shock, as did my own. For the longest time i’ve had to use a modified version of this spell to plant ideas and thoughts into ponies’ minds in order to speak! You weren’t kidding when you said you studied dark and black magics!

No, I really wasn’t. I replied mentally. Now, let’s start over and try to keep this short. Why can’t you speak verbally?

Vocal chords didn’t develop. I’m permanently mute and no amount of magic can help me. Trust me, all the best medical unicorns have tried. Vinyl replied with a silent sigh, laying down on the bench next to me. So how do you know Tavi?

She rescued me from a group of cultists trying to kill me because i’m the only male alicorn on the planet. I replied, lifting my cloak a bit to reveal my bound wings. I’ve been clipped so I can’t use them and I have to keep them tied or they just flop around.

Really? Wow, that sucks. I can’t imagine what that’d be like. Vinyl shook her head in disbelief. Would probably be like if I had my horn broken or otherwise damaged.

It’s mostly exactly the same, actually. I closed my eyes and tried to let the train lull me into a sort of wakeful sleep. So anyways, I escape from the cultists and collapse on the street from blood loss and epinephrine withdrawal. I wake up in Tavi’s house under her care with my wounds stitched and bound. Of course, i’m thinking i’m such a big hot-shot that I don’t need her help and I try to escape.

What happened?

Well, I… uhm… slaughtered the cultists to escape and when I broke out of the house, there was a squad of Royal Guard investigating. They saw me and I took off with them chasing me. I explained uneasily.

Wait, hold on. You were the one who slaughtered that house of ponies? Dude! you only left like, two of them alive! Vinyl kicked me in the side, making not only my existing bruise pulse painfully but also added another one. The only reason i’m not going to turn you in is as a favour to Octavia!

Well, I appreciate that. Imagine if you had to tell her that you sent her lover to prison. I replied as I tried to recover from the kicking.

Wait, what? Vinyl almost exploded off the seat, standing just ahead of me in shock. You’re her what now?

She and I went on a date and spent the night together. Simple. I replied with another shrug, the pain in my side finally dying off.

Damn, I know i’ve always been bugging her about finding a coltfriend… But an alicorn prince? I’ve really gotta step up my game now! Vinyl backed down and returned to her seat to curl back up again.

Well, I wouldn’t say “alicorn prince” since i’m as of yet uncrowned. Call me the uncrowned Prince if you want. I thought back at her. Oh, we’re reaching the fifteen minute mark of this conversation. If we wish to refrain from corrupting ourselves, we’d best take an hour break.

Alright fine. It was nice talking to you, Eclissi. Vinyl smiled and turned to face the wall and nap. I did the same and let myself get lulled to sleep by the train.

Tales of the Strange

Applewood: the city of stars, fame and fortune. Or so the tourist brochure advertised anyways.

Hey, Eclissi… What gives? Octavia’s voice nearly made me jump at the suddenness of her “appearance”. You leave and you don’t call me as soon as you get on the train? And here I thought we had something special!

I was going to, but then I ran into your friend Vinyl. She and I got to talking and I began to wonder how I was getting information like her name or questions. Turned out she uses a modified version of this spell to indirectly influence a pony’s brain to plant information into their heads. When I found this out, she and I chatted telepathically to the point where we had to take a break. I explained, searching for some indication of where I should go or what I should do.

Vi can use this spell? So I can talk to her as well? Octavia’s mental voice sounded surprised, though I suppose I was as well when I found this out just over an hour ago. Can you hear me, Vinyl?

Woah, Octavia, is that you? How’re you using this spell without any magic? Vinyl’s voice joined in on the chat room now taking place in my mind.

You can blame me for that one, actually. I inscribed the physical form of the dark magic spell we use onto a sheet of paper for Octavia. I explained as a headache began to worm itself into my cerebellum.

Oh, cool. Why didn’t I think of that? Vinyl asked “out loud”.

Well, when Eclissi did it, it looked rather strenuous. I’m not sure if you would’ve been able to do it yourself. Octavia replied as I strolled the streets nearest the station. Speaking of Eclissi, how’re you finding Applewood?

Big. I genuinely have no idea where to start, where to go or what I’m actually doing here. I sighed both audibly and mentally. Oh, and no Vinyl wouldn’t have been able to the the inscription herself if she doesn’t know the specific spell that does inscriptions.

And who’s to say I don’t know that spell? Vinyl demanded, feigning insult. Who’s to say if I already know one dark magic spell that I don’t know that one as well?

Easy, it’s not dark magic, it’s black and I’m almost willing to bet my useless wings that black magic is more or less outlawed in Equestria right? I explained, gaining a gasp from both mares in my head.

Ehh, yeah. While not in any physical writing or similar forms, black magic is mostly forbidden. Vinyl admitted. Mostly because of how corruptive it actually is. Which leads me to my next question, how are you not suffering from black magic pollution?

I was born and raised by Nightmare Moon. I have some level of black magic running through my circuits at all times. I believe the late King Sombre was the same. I explained, stopping in front of a city map to look at the attractions. Any stops I should make in the city? Sights to see or things I should do?

How do you know about King Sombre? He was long before your time and was defeated before you got to our planet. Check out the Red Dragon theater, by the way, there’s usually some kind of show you can see. Octavia remarked before offering in advice.

My mom would occasionally talk about the fights she and her sister got in with other ponies of power. Sombre was one of her favourite topics and had me study a number of his black magic spells. My growling stomach instantly made up my mind for where I would go first and after a quick glance to the map, turned towards salvation.

So… Not to suddenly swap topics, I could almost tell Vinyl was grinning like a fox. If foxes could grin anyways… I hear tell that you’ve got a new coltfriend, Tavi.

I suppose you could say that… Octavia replied dreamily. I could almost feel her tail swish against my backside despite the distance between us.

Despite having only known each other for just shy of a week… I added as I pulled myself over at a relatively cheaper looking cafe. If there was such a thing with the cheapest item being thirty bits.

You’re going to very quickly learn, Eclissi, that a week is sometimes all it takes. Besides, I’ve always got you and Vinyl a thought away now. Octavia reminded me. I rolled my eyes and ordered myself a straw and lavender sandwich.

Hey, all these voices in my head is starting to bring my corruption up faster than normal. You two can keep chatting for another… I’d say ten minutes or so before you’ll start feeling it too. I announced, mostly just trying to give myself a reason to have some mental silence.

Aww, the big bad alicorn doesn’t want to stay and chat with two lovely mares? Vinyl teased with a telepathic chuckle, but she soon calmed down and continued, alright, that’s fine. I’ve gotta check into my hotel anyways so I should probably get going as well. Talk to you later Tavi, same to you Eclissi.

Very well. I’ll call you tonight, alright Eclissi? Tavia sighed before I could feel her end of the conversation go dead, followed by Vinyl’s.

Hello? I telepathically asked. The responding silence was wonderful. “Awesome.”

“What’s so awesome?” a female’s voice asked of me from behind me. “The world sucks as it is, I can’t imagine what could be so awesome.”

Turning myself around, I found myself sat near to a light blue mare with the strangest purple cap and pointed hat on.

“I was merely noting that mental silence is quite nice after a threeway telepathic conversation.” I replied, turning back to my own table as my lunch appeared before me in the teeth of a waitress.

“A what?” The mare now turned around completely to face me. “You can have telepathic conversations with ponies?”

“Yeah, it’s a relatively simple enough trick if you know how to do it and don’t mind the consequences.” I shrugged back as I dropped a number of bits onto the table for my meal.

“The Grrrrreat and Powerful Trixie wishes to learn of this trick! I request that you teach it to me!” the mare suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the table from me with pleading eyes.

“Do you have any affinity for dark magic?” I asked with a partial mouthful and a raised eyebrow.

“It… it’s a dark magic spell?” The mare seemed to completely deflate with this revelation. “Oh, alright. I’m sorry for having bothered you.”

“It’s alright. Not every unicorn has the affinity.” I shrugged back with the intention of eating in peace.

“But, doesn’t having an affinity for dark magic mean you are that much greater of a unicorn? I know somepony who certainly is greater than I and has cast at least one black magic spell. She is the greatest!” Trixie gushed, having reappeared at my table for a second time. “She was Princess Celestia’s star student at one point and even became an alicorn for her skills!”

“Oh really?” This piqued my interest. “I don’t suppose this new princess would have much of a relationship with Princess Luna, would she?”

“I suppose, they are all royalty you know. Way I see it, as soon as you become an alicorn, you become royalty.” Trixie shrugged, leaning back in the chair with a foreleg resting on the table, her head perched on the hoof.

“What if an alicorn was born but never recognized?” I suggested, now halfway through my sandwich. “Would they still be considered Royalty?”

“I dunno, never met an alicorn who was never recognized…” the mare sighed and let her lead loll backwards on her shoulders. “But imagine that huh, running into an uncrowned alicorn. Imagine the things she’d know, the things she’d have seen?”

“Yeah, imagine if said alicorn was also a male…” I narrowed an eye at the mare to see if she’d catch my point. Instead, she merely burst into a fit of laughter.

“Hah, a male alicorn! That’ll be the day!” Trixie chuckled to herself for a while before hopping down from her seat and I swallowed the last of my lunch. “Ahh, good talking to you, you really helped take my mind off life. I like you, you should come to one of my shows sometime.”

“Maybe. I first have to go find a doctor about restoring my wings first…” I announced as I slid off my own chair and magically passed her a couple bits for a drink or something. “See you later, Trixie.”

“I…” Trixie stared at the previously levitating coins now on the table as I walked off. “Wait hold on!” The mare leapt from the table, with coins in telekinesis, and chased after me. “You said you have to get your wings fixed, but you just used magic! What gives?”

“Well you see…” I began, casting an area of effect spell to turn the two of us invisible. I then pulled off my saddlebags and cloak to show off my black fur with the red tinge, as well as my equally coloured wings tethered to my side.

“You… What?” Trixie shrieked as I released the belts holding my wings down to let them fall limp to the ground. “B-but your… you’re a stallion…”

“Last I checked, yes I am.” I remarked.

“And… And you’re an alicorn!” Trixie got in close to study my wings. “what’s wrong with your wings?”

“Clipped. They’ve been stitched up but I need a medical pony to use a restoration spell on them to restore my flight.” I explained as I magically lifted them back to my side and strapped them down again.

“Then.. everything you said about imagining an alicorn unrecognized as royalty… you were serious? B-but, how’d you get to be an alicorn?” Trixie sat back hard in disbelief.

“I was born and raised an alicorn.” I replied simply. “I was never turned into an alicorn like this new princess was.”

“But then… you’d have to have been born to an existing alicorn, right?”

“That is how genetics work, yes.” I nodded. “I was born to Nightmare Moon during her banishment on the moon.”

“You… You’re Princess Luna’s son… I’m talking to Princess Luna’s son...” Trixie’s voice was becoming gradually more and more faded until she eventually collapsed altogether.

“Oops. That can’t be good for your health… I hope the healthcare is good in Equestria.” I muttered as I hoisted Trixie’s unconscious body onto my back as soon as I had cloaked and equipped my bags. Dispelling the illusion hiding us, I had the joy of giving a couple of ponies a jump upon my appearance before running off towards what I hoped was some kind of clinic.

~~~

After a bit of navigation and asking of directions, I trotted into a medical care facility and let Trixie fall onto a gurney carried by a pair of nurses.

“Her name, what happened to her and your relation?” an administrator asked, a clipboard held in his wings.

“Trixie, don’t know her last name, fainted and we just met.” I replied. “Also, what’s the going rates for restoring a pair of wings to full functionality?”

“Well, that depends on the wings conditions. I’ve seen wings completely removed and put on ice before we successfully put them back on and got them in working order. Judging by your horn, I’d hazard a guess that this request if for a disabled family member?” The admin looked me over, spotting my horn poking out from my mane.

“Uhm, not exactly. Can we speak in private somewhere?” I requested, turning to look over the pony before me as Trixie was hauled off through a set of doors.

“I… think we’ve got a room available for a quick conversation…” the admin rubbed his chin with his hoof thoughtfully. “Yeah, just follow me.”

Doing as instructed, the pair of us followed Trixie’s procession through the doors but continued on past where the mare was now resting. Entering into a doctor’s office, I was requested to wait patiently.

Fifteen minutes of playing with the safety dark magic spell I knew, the door swung open and a female doctor in a white lab coat and appropriate stethoscope around her neck entered.

“Afternoon, what can I do to help?” The doctor asked, hanging her coat on a peg before taking a seat at her desk. I’d already shed my cloak and had let my wings hang free from my side. “Uh… ma’am?”

“Now what makes you think I'm a mare?” I grinned at her utter shock at my very masculine voice. “Is it the wings? It’s the wings isn’t it?”

“I.. uhm, yes, sorry sir. I’m sorry, who’re you and why’re you an alicorn?”

“My name is Eclissi and I am the uncrowned alicorn prince born to Nightmare Moon. I have finally managed to leave the moon after five years of my mother neglecting to retrieve me like promised. I was ambushed by a cult of ponies who called my existence blasphemy against the four princesses and so, for my sacrileges, my wings were clipped. I have since had them stitched up and are mostly healed, but the main tendon has remained unrestored which leaves them hanging rather…” I took a breath from my explanation to swing my useless wings around. “Like this…”

“Uh… huh…” the doctor murmured, staring at me in confusion. “So you’re here for…”

“Hopefully for a restorative spell to fix up my wings completely, or to learn such a spell for my own use…” I replied, magically tying up my wings again.

“Right. Well, normally for Royalty such a treatment would be free of charge…” the doctor began, still staring at my bound wings before I covered them in my cloak again.

“But?” I frowned, her tone of voice indicated a ‘but’ coming and I was sure not to like it.

“But, because I've never heard of an alicorn Prince, I can’t give you the discount. I’m going to have to charge you the normal rates, plus whatever else it takes to properly reset your wings depending on if your story is true or not; those wings could’ve been artificially grafted onto your body so we’d have to forcibly grow the tendons from scratch.” Doctor pony sighed and pulled a clipboard from the desk to flip through a couple of sheets.

“So, I'm almost too afraid to ask, what would that cost me?” I asked anxiously, leaning back towards the wall.

“To start, four thousand bits for the reconstructive spell.” my jaw dropped open in absolute shock. “Because this isn’t a medical emergency and I can’t guarantee that those wings are natural for you, the usual medical care coverage doesn’t cover this.”

“Holy shit… What about what it would cost to teach me the spell itself?” I hoped. Those hopes were dashed quite quickly.

“That’s another issue. We can’t just go teaching a restorative spell as powerful as the ones we use to just anypony. The more powerful restoration spells, like the one you’re requesting, requires an in depth knowledge of the equine body that’s only gained from eight years of medical school. There are lesser spells that could be used, but the effects would be temporary and more likely to cause harm then help in the long run.” The doctor explained, sitting back in her leather chair with her forelegs crossed over her chest.

“So I'm fucked…” I muttered in defeat. “Uhm, what about… dark magic restorative spells? Do they exist?” This question had the doctor’s eyes go narrow and twitch before I was magically lifted with all my things and dragged out of the room, then thrown out of the building itself.

“You dare to ask about dark magic in life saving medicinal practices?” The doctor shouted at me before turning away in a huff. I quickly donned my packs before setting off down the street, avoiding looks from other ponies all inquiring about what just happened.

“Yeah, that went well…” I muttered as I magically rubbed some feeling into my nethers. “Sorry wings, you’ll just have to wait a while longer I guess…”

~~~

“I’m doomed…” I muttered, staring up at the ticket prices at the train station. The closest trip that wasn’t Las Pegasus was either to the “Smoky Mountains” up north, or a long walk across the San Palomino Desert to what looked to be a… rock farm? How do you farm rocks? There was a train going to someplace called Ponyville, but tickets were currently sold out for that ride.

Octavia, you there? Octavia? I mentally thought, aiming for the sheet of paper. If she wasn’t nearby, my message would’ve been left as a message with the seal indicating the waiting communicae. Hey, Vinyl?

Yo, bro. Whazzup? Vinyl replied, sounding like her head was filled with the sound of some kind of heavy musical beat.

I’m just wondering if I should go to the Smoky Mountains next or take a trek through the desert to a rock farm… I replied, still staring at the map. It’s still going to take me a bit to source the funds after lunch, so… yeah… Take your time.

Isn’t there a rail line going to Ponyville? I know a couple mares there who’re pretty cool. Vinyl suggested.

Yeah but it’s sold out for the next four days.

Hahah, damn! Who’d have thought that the mainline into Ponyville would be so active? Okay, uhm… I dunno, go to the rock farm. I’d steer clear of the Smoky Mountains, they’re a… lively bunch to say the least. Vinyl sighed. Look, I'd love to stay and talk, but I'm in the middle of a concert and all this chatter is messing up the wubs!

I’ll just pretend to understand what you’re talking about. Thanks though! I thought back before “hanging up” on her.

“Excuse me, sir?” A stallion with an unrecognizable accent pulled my attention from the board. Stood before me was a brown coated gentlecolt with an oddly coloured scarf wrapped around his neck. “I don’t suppose you’re out of bits and looking to get a ride somewhere are you?”

“Uh, that depends… Why do you ask?” I continued to examine the stallion and his appearance. The backwards flaring mane sort of drew the eyes away from his scarf, despite the warm weather. Though I suppose I was in a cloak so I was no better.

“I’m looking for somepony willing to help me with a quick experiment. I’ll pay handsomely or do you some kind of favour if it’s in my power to do so, of course.” The stallion requested eagerly. “I assure you, it’s nothing dangerous to a unicorn like you.”

“What’s the experiment?” I inquired, slightly interested in this offer.

“I’m trying to find a way of making unicorn’s capable of flight for relatively long durations of time. So far you’re only capable of self levitation but it only lasts for as long as your magic.” the stallion explained eagerly.

“Really? How do you plan to do that?” Now I was very interested.

“Artificial wings.” the stallion grinned in his whispering voice. “I’ve developed a machination that simulates a pegasi’s wings and channels existing unicorn magic through them to achieve lift! I just need somepony to test them on!”

“Why not try them on yourself?” I inquired, standing to join the stallion as he lead me off.

“Regretfully, earth magic is unable to charge the wings enough to give more than a hop.” the stallion admitting sorrowfully. Maybe he had tested them on himself and was sorrowfully disappointed.

“Okay, and what if a pegasi with disabled wings were to use them?” I wondered as we stood before a… blue.. police box. “What’s this?”

“This… Oh it’s just the entrance to my laboratory.” The stallion chuckled and keyed the lock. He quickly disappeared into the looming darkness with the door still open for me. “Are you coming?”

“Uhm, is there going to be enough room?” I asked, poking my head into… the most impossible room I'd never seen. “Uhh…”

“Yeah, I know…” The stallion chuckled and trotted down the catwalks to a central console almost eight times larger than the box itself. I stuck my head out the door again to check the exterior before pulling back in…

“It’s smaller on the outside?” I asked, pausing the stallions’ trot.

“Huh, they usually say, ‘It’s bigger on the inside.’ No matter, same thing! My name, is Doctor Whooves and it is my pleasure to make your acquaintance!”

“Eclissi, likewise.” I muttered, my head on a swivel as I examined all the strange and fantastical contraptions hanging around.

“But to answer your question, I suppose I could refit them to fit a pegasi’s existing wings but it would all depend on what kind of disability they’re faced with.” Whooves remarked, leaning against his console of everything but the kitchen sink.

“Main tendon in the wings clipped, didn’t get reconnected in the medical care.” I replied, still looking everything over as I approached the Doctor’s position.

“Oh, then yes, I suppose I could fit them to their wings.” The doctor replied before retrieving his aforementioned contraption. “Now then, shall we get to work?”

“Yeah, but you’ll probably wanna make those edits you were talking about.” I announced, magically stripping myself of my cloak and bags, then the belt that held my wings down. “I don’t think I'd be compatible otherwise.”

“Wait, hold on.” The Doctor’s jaw dropped, as did his machination with this news. “You’re a male alicorn? But that hasn’t happened in over a thousand years!”

“I know, I know. The last one was my grandfather I’ve never met.” I replied, magically lifting my wings above my head to stretch them out as best I could.

“But, that would mean that you’d be one of the eldest Princess’s son!” The Doctor remarked before producing some kind of glowy stick in his mouth and pointed it at my body. “Astounding! You’re actually a direct descendant to Princess Luna herself!” the Doctor exclaimed, looking at his… pen? “Though you were born to Nightmare Moon almost twenty seven years ago, you spent the first twenty one years studying all forms of magic!”

“Twenty-seven, but I'm only eighteen!” I tilted my head at the even more confusing stallion.

“To you, I suppose it would’ve seemed like eighteen years. The moon’s lesser gravity would’ve meant that time would flow a bit differently than on Equus so you’re actually much older than you think. Tell me, why didn’t you come down with Nightmare Moon five years back?” the Doctor began examining my body much more closely, running his tool through my mane and tail, over my fur and my wings.

“I tried, but the spell only took my mother. She promised me she’d come get me but after what seemed like only a year, I worked out the banishment spell on my own and banished myself here.” I explained, trying to ignore the prodding.

“Really? You banished yourself to Equus? I suppose that’s one way of doing it.” Whooves remarked in surprise. “Okay, so let me make a couple adjustments to my device and we’ll get you strapped in.”

The Doctor then returned to his device and began unscrewing almost eighty percent of his invention, leaving the frame the only really thing left aside from what I surmised were the things that provided lift.

“Alright, let’s get you strapped in.” the Doctor requested eagerly. With a sigh I nosed myself under the contraption until it sat snugly on my back, the frame cradling my spine quite comfortably. “Alright, and the wings!” he mumbled as I magically held my wings up to the exo-skeleton to let the stallion strap them in.

“So now what? Can I fly again?” I inquired, trying to move my wings. Without the tendons that usually did most of the work, they remained yet still though at least flared outwards.

“Let me turn the darn thing on first, then we’ll see!” The Doctor smirked before pressing the glowing bit of his device against the machine. The frame seemed to react almost instantly as my wings stiffened before relaxing again, this time resting naturally against my body.

“Oh, hang on.” I mumbled, slowly stretching my wing out for the first time in days. The joints all cracked and protested from having been cramped up for so long and it was nothing but bliss to be able to do so again. “Ahh…” I sighed in content.

“So? Are you going to give it a go? Try flying!” The doctor pranced about on his hooves eagerly to see the results.

With baited breath I spread my wings wide and flapped hard, finally achieving lift again. With a chuckle the Doctor watched as I lazily cruised around his room until I came in for a landing again.

“I bet that felt good.” The Doctor noted as the machine powered down to an idle.

“Oh, you have no idea!” I remarked, testing my range of motion. “I am noticing a slight hitch in the joint here when I try to raise my wings up over my head.” I replied, pointing out a particular joint in the machine that paired up to my wing.

“Oh, yeah i’ll fix that as soon as I can. So, what do you think?” The Doctor inquired nervously. “Do you think it’d work for unicorns?”

“I have no idea. Sorry I couldn’t help you out like you’d wanted, being an alicorn.” I sighed as the machine powered down and my wings were released and tied back up again. I slipped out from under it once free and let it sit on the ground.

“Oh it’s quite alright, it’s quite alright. May I ask about the circumstances of your wings state or… no?”

“Ehh… If you can get me to the rockfarm across the desert i’ll tell you about it.” I offered with a shrug.

“Sounds fair.” The doctor shrugged back and began pushing buttons, pulling levers and making all sorts of noises. “Hold on!”

“To what?” I demanded as the entire room began shaking.

“Good point!” The doctor grinned as he rested against his console, staring up at the screen. Pushing a lever back up, the entire room went silent again. “And we’re here as promised.”

“Wait, what?” I demanded before galloping for the door. Pushing it open with my nose I looked out at a quaint, if bland, farm house surrounded by miles of farmland and rocks. “Well I’ll be my mother’s son!”

“Yeah, I suppose you don’t have a choice there, do you?” Whooves remarked, appearing above me and on my back. “Now then, i’ll expect you to keep that promise of telling me that tale, but at a later date. I suspect you have things you need to do yes? Come on, let’s go meet the locals!” the doctor flew from the door and skidded to a halt for a moment, as though about to have some great burst of inspiration.

“What?” I asked, stepping out with my stuff floating behind me.

“Allons-y!” The Doctor declared, running off towards the house like a maniac.

Oi…

Voices of the Silent

“What is Tartarus is going on out here? Nobody better have touched Holder’s Boulder!” A rather pissed off dull purple mare demanded, galloping hard out of the farm house. I remained safely at the blue box while Whooves dealt with her.

“Relax, no one has touched your boulder.” Whooves smiled, trying to calm the mare down. I wasn’t sure if that would be possible or not.

“You!” the mare screamed, glaring directly at the Doctor. I set a hoof back inside the box if we needed to make a hasty retreat. “You dare show your muzzle around here, after what happened last time?”

“Yeah, I’m not planning on staying very long.” The Doctor grinned nervously, scratching the back of his head with a hoof.

“No. You’re not.” The mare growled. “I don’t care what you’re doing here, but you’re not welcome!”

“Ooh, and here I was going to finally cache in on that favour your family owes me.” The Doctor remarked as he turned back towards me. Giving me a slight wink, I had to watch him warily for any stunts he may pull next.

“I couldn’t give a damn about your stupid favours! You nearly destroyed my farm!” the mare’s attitude really didn’t have me in a frame of mind that desired to stay much longer.

“Keyword, nearly.” The Doctor held a hoof up pointedly. “As I hear, you had a recent visit from a sister and a cousin right? I believe they did more damage to your farm than I ever did.”

“How did you hear about that?” The mare appeared before the stallion, getting right up in his face with her unending scowl. “No matter, we will have no business with you!”

“Oh don’t mistake me, my dear Limestone.” The Doctor tempted fate by patting the seething mare on her head. “My favour won’t be cached by me. It’ll be cached in by him.” the Doctor swung his hoof back and pointed at me, my head the only portion of me poking out of the doorway into the impossible room. “And trust me, it would be wise for your family to get along with him.”

“And why is that?” The mare nearly bit Whooves’ head off with each word.

“Because he’s an alicorn.” the stallion replied with a smile. Her eyes switched over to me and I swear, the hate coming from her eyes was palpable. “He’s the first male alicorn in over a millennium and he’s not royalty. Yet.”

“I don’t believe you.” Limestone growled. I sighed and stepped out again, leaving my cloak and packs behind to show off my horn and wings. “So? He could just be a pegasus with a horn grafted onto his forehead!”

I rolled my eyes and fired up my horn, teleporting myself directly next to me. Releasing my wings, I had to subtly use my magic to move them around in their state of disability in order to show them off as well.

“Okay, so he’s an alicorn! What do you want from me?” Limestone demanded, backing away and actually calmed down as she sat back on her rump.

“I want you to give him a job. Maybe pair him up with your sister for a while, have him work with her to… I don’t know what you ponies do on this farm, thinking about it now.” The Doctor replied thoughtfully. I dropped my wings and jaw at the same time.

“You want me to work for her?” I demanded, pointing directly at the mare.

“Yes, I want you to work for her. She can provide you work, let you earn a proper living so that you can afford your next ticket out of here.” the Doctor explained. I had to admit, he had a point there.

“Ugh, fine. I’ll stick around and work here if she’ll have me.” I groaned.

“Hang on a second!” Limestone growled. “Don’t I have any say in the matter?”

“Not particularly. I’m more or less dumping him on you now! Allons-y!” The Doctor grinned and ran back to his box to deposit my items on the ground before the door slammed shut and the box faded away.

This left me with a rather furious mare and no other option besides walk off the farm and hitchhike.

“Bastard Doctor, not even a real Doctor…” Limestone grumbled under her breath. Turning back to me, “Well, grab your shit, let’s get a move on! I’ll show you your living space while you’re here!”

“‘Kay…” I muttered, floating my items to me as I chased after the unpleasant mare.

~~~

This is where you’re staying, this is where you’re sleeping, breakfast is at 0500 hours, lunch is at 1200 hours, dinner at 1830 hours and after that is freetime. All the rest of the time you’re working with my sister.” Limestone Pie explained, showing me around the room i’d be staying in. “If you last long enough, you’ll be paid every two weeks.”

“‘Kay…” I mumbled again, dropping my stuff next to my assigned bed to tighten the belt on my wings. I’d have loved to have kept that exoskeleton but I suppose it would’ve been too much to ask for judging by it being his only prototype.

“Come on, Marble’s already out in the quarry. You’ll shadow her around for the remainder of the day. Don’t talk to my parents, don’t talk to her beyond work, don’t bother me what so fucking ever, and we’ll be golden.” Limestone demanded, getting up in my face just as before.

“‘Kay.” I replied, resisting the urge to drag my tongue across her face. The urge passed as Limestone Pie nearly dragged me back out of the house and towards a rather huge hole in the ground, the sound of something striking rock echoing from within.

“Just follow this path down, then when you reach the bottom follow the noise. Should lead you right to her. Tell her I sent you down.” Limestone ordered before giving me a swift kick in the backside to get me moving.

“Damn, ever tried common decency?” I mumbled under my breath once out of earshot. With a sigh I held my wings open and leapt off the edge, letting myself glide down silently.

“I’ll be damned, he’s actually an alicorn…” I barely heard Limestone mutter from above me as I shook my head in reply and continued down. Landing softly, I tucked my wings back into the belt and let my ears try and pinpoint the source of the knocking.

Following the sound I entered into a well lit cave lined with crystals and gemstones of all shapes and sizes. Singled out among the seemingly luminescent crystals around her stood a single mare with a tiny pick in her mouth, beating away at a rock in the shape of a rearing pony.

“Excuse me?” I coughed, startling the mare entirely. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. My name is Eclissi and I was sent down here to work alongside you by Limestone.” I explained, slowly approaching the mare.

The poor mare seemed to only recede deeper into herself and the stone surfaces around her with each step I took. Realising this, I stopped and sat down. This seemed to slightly relieve the pony despite the still burning red in her otherwise grey coat.

“You don’t say much, do you?” I inquired after a minute of silence and awkward staring at everything but each other.

“Mm-mmm.” Marble shook her head in reply.

“Okay, so then…” I sighed and scratched at my neck. I looked up and caught Marble staring at me, or more precisely my horn. Having noticed this, she diverted her gaze away again, back to her project in shame. “What? Don’t have much exposure to magic?”

“Mm-mmm.” Marble shook her head shyly again, though at least her eyes returned to me.

“Have you seen much magic performed then?” I began to smile, having finally reached a topic that she seemed to be interested in.

“Mm-mmm.” Marble shook her head again, staring at my horn again.

“Wanna see a cool trick?” I offered, remaining planted where I sat as I began searching for a loose gem.

“Mm-hmm.” the mare let a smile poke through her lips as she all but turned to face me as I telekinetically retrieved a dark purple stone -likely an amethyst judging by it’s colour and apparent magical conduciveness- before my horn began to fire up a second, underlying spell.

“Let me ask, and I apologize if this makes you nervous, but are you afraid of the dark at night?” I inquired as I mostly focused on the spell being performed within the stone before me.

“Mm… Mm-hmm…” Marble nodded shamefully.

“That’s quite alright, thank you for your answer. I used to be afraid of the dark as well, but my mother… well let’s not get into that just yet.” I remarked with a sigh as the spellstone activated and began to cast a strong purple light all around me, the light from within refracting with the structure of the gem.

I heard Marble gasp in surprise as I let a wind sweep through the cavern, dousing all the torches lit to plunge us into darkness, save for the luminescent amethyst in my possession. Slowly turning the crystal cast spectacular lights onto the ground, walls and ceiling. Marble seemed to forget that she was currently in a dark cavern as she watched the colour dancing all around her, a huge smile on her face.

“I can enchant each stone to give off a different colour of light. I used to do it with moonstone back home all the time before my mother forbade me from doing so. Said it was like creating new stars in her skies or something…” I explained, setting the glowing stone down before me to slide it across the ground to the Pie sister.

“Her… Skies?” Marble whispered as she got down close to the stone to examine it in greater detail.

“Yeah, you may have noticed that I also have wings. I’m the first male alicorn born to a Princess in over one thousand years.” I explained, magically lighting the torches again. The stone reacted by dimming it’s light to a dull pulsing, indicating an idle state of magic.

“Which…” Marble began to ask, seemingly having warmed up to me upon receiving my gift.

“Luna, actually. Though I was born to her when she was banished on the moon as Nightmare Moon…” I shrugged.

“Mmm…” Marble sighed as she shook her head clear of the stone and turned back to her work. Her actual work, not the project she’d been working on. Raising her hoof to point, my gaze was directed at a set of four pickaxes, the same small size as the one in her mouth before she then pointed to a set of geodes nearby.

“‘Kay.” I replied, having understood her directions. Lifting all four magically, I trotted over to my assigned workstation and began chipping away at four growths all at once.

A clearing of the female throat had me turn to see Marble with a rather perfectly cut Peridot in her mouth.

“Magic… please?” Marble asked timidly, setting the stone down before me before backing away.

“‘Kay.” I replied, lowering my horn and started up the illumination spell again and inscribed it into the stone. “Good choice for stone, by the way.” I smiled as the spell was set and the stone began to pulse to life in the brightly lit cave. “Both stones will brighten up in darker areas.” I explained as I carefully tossed the stone back to Marble before returning to my job.

“‘Kay.” Marble echoed me, taking the stone and dropped it next to the amethyst before picking her pick up again and took a position nearer to me.

“Are bigger stones better?” I asked as I worked at clearing the stone away from a chunk of rose quartz as large as I was.

“Mm-hmm.” Marble grinned, seeing my progress and the size of gem I was currently working on. With a shrug I placed the tips of each pick in relatively precise places before bringing them all down on their marks in one motion.

A loud crack echoed throughout the cavern as the rose quartz chunk fell from the wall and rolled a bit before settling on a couple of spires.

“What. The. Fuck. Are you doing to my farm!” Limestone’s voice echoed from outside the cave. A minute later and the mare slid to a hard stop, panting heavily. “Marble, are you okay? What happened?” she demanded, searching frantically for signs of distress.

“Mm-hmm.” Marble smiled and pointed to the Quartz. Limestone’s jaw dropped at the sight of the thing. My own jaw dropped as well, but I was staring into the hole where the quartz had previous sat.

“Holy… shit.” I mumbled, drawing the attention of the mares.

“What’d you do no...w… Holy shit-snacks!” Limestone glared at me before getting a peek at what I was looking at. “Is that…”

“Let me dig it out and we’ll find out!” I remarked, stepping into the hole with only two picks. Mining out a sure line around the stone itself, I placed both picks in place and brought the heads of the second two down on the first two, cracking the stone along its lines to let it pop out of the wall.

“Well? Is it?” Limestone demanded anxiously. Marble disappeared a moment before reappearing with the enchanted Peridot, using it’s light to illuminate the hole in the wall. “What the?” Limestone wondered, staring at the stone before turning back to me.

“Let me test it and we’ll see.” I whispered and fired up my horn with a simple illumination spell, casting white light in the hole around me. I focused the light into the stone and all three of us grinned as the light turned red, the stone in my grasp lighting up light a Ruby. “Ladies, this is a Red Diamond.”

“Oh…” Marble gasped, dropping the peridot and let it roll off.

“You’re sure? You’re not just making this up because you have no idea what you’re talking about?” Limestone demanded, snatching the stone away to stare into it with her naked eye.

“Limestone, I’ve studied the structure of every gemstone on this planet in detail. I had a lot of free time and a lot of books. I’m like… ninety-seven percent sure it’s a Red Diamond.” I replied bemusedly. Limestone instantly galloped out of the cave with the diamond in her teeth with Marble hot on her tail.

Figuring I’d not be left out, I chased after the pair and skidded to a halt at the farmhouse with everypony dancing about gleefully.

“Huzzah! Thou hast bequeathed unto us the perfect stone! We shall present unto the Princesses this stone as a gift in hopes of further funding for our humble farm!” The father announced, holding the stone up for all to see. “And it shant been possible without you, my boy!” He announced as the mother wrapped her hooves around my neck in appreciation.

“It’s not really worth all the hugging…” I muttered as the mother released me and returned to dancing with her husband.

“No, you don’t understand.” Limestone announced, stepping up to me without a hint of anger. “You’ve just saved our farm with this!” she added, actually wrapping her hooves around my neck as well. “We’d never let our sisters Maud or Pinkamena know, but we were on the verge of losing everything because production was slowing to a crawl.” Limestone explained, pulling back from me with honest appreciation in her eyes.

“With this gift, we shall be back in business again!” The father exclaimed with tears of joy. Real tears of joy.

“Well damn…” I muttered. Sitting back in moderate disbelief, I found myself next to Marble, our bodies lightly brushing against each other for a moment before she too hugged me for a moment then returned to her sister, completely embarrassed for her behaviour. “No worries Marble, I’ve got my own special somepony too. I won’t say a thing.”

“Mm-hmm.” Marble nodded appreciatively.

“I dare say, this calls for a celebration!” the mother exclaimed. “If only Pinkamena were here, she’d throw something spectacular together.”

“Well, she isn’t so we’ll just have to make do.” Limestone remarked. “I’ll get started on the rock cake!”

“Not that I don’t enjoy a good party as much as the next stallion but,” I looked out the window. “If you don’t mind, i’ve had a long day and I’d like to get some rest. You all can feel free to celebrate in my absence.”

“‘Kay!” Marble squeaked up to me as I ascended the stairs for the remainder of the night.

Eyes of the Insane

Good morning, my uncrowned prince. Octavia’s melodic voice echoed from deep within my mind, interrupting a dream of me meeting some strange alien beings on two legs with what they called hands.

Does it have to be morning already? I groaned internally as my body began to respond to the heightened brain activity. But, good morning beautiful.

Unfortunately, it does. It’s already late in the morning and I’m certain you have things to do today, right? Octavia inquired, sounding like she’d only just woken up herself.

Yeah, I’m currently at a rock farm helping them to raise some bits for my next train trip outta here. I’m actually surprised my boss hasn’t come and woken me up already. I replied, cracking open an eye to see a seething Limestone glaring at me. Nevermind, she’s here and she looks pissed.

Is that normal for her?

Regretfully so. I sighed and raised myself up to address my boss. “You know, if your pissed off at me for being late to work, it’s not my fault I didn’t get a wakeup call or can wake myself up on time.”

“What, so it’s my fault you're three hours late to work?” Limestone growled. I yawned and magically stretched out my wings.

“Not necessarily your fault in particular, but it would've been better for the both of us if someone had come to wake me.” I replied, dragging myself outta bed with the blanket trailing after me having hooked it on my left rear hoof. Kicking it off I turned back to Limestone. “So, lead on!”

“Don’t you tell me what to do. You’re no prince.” Limestone grumbled, turning from the room to lead me out of the house and back down into the quarry. “Now, we’re hoping there may be more Red Diamond in that hole you made so Marble should be currently down there already working at exploring for more. You’re going to go help her.”

“Yes ma’am.” I mock saluted before holding my wings out to jump off the edge of the cliff before the mare could slap me. Landing just as softly as yesterday, I magically collected the four picks I was using and trotted into the cave; aiming for the hole i’d previously made.

Except the hole wasn’t there. It was covered in fallen rocks.

“Oh shit.” I could tell my eyes went narrow as I began carefully mining through the rock as quickly as I could, gripping two picks each by the handle to get them spinning to break away the slide. “Marble, are you in there?” I shouted and turned my ears forwards.

“Mmm…” came the faintest of replies.

“Hold on, i’m going to get you out of there alright?” I shouted, now dropping the picks entirely to start up a rather complex spell. A large seal appeared before me in a deep red colour and began to slowly spin as I pushed it into the rocks trapping the mare. The noise that it generated as it disintegrated the stone’s materials very likely would have alerted everypony within a five mile radius of the quarry, something I was counting on as an alert of the Pie’s up above.

Increasing the rotation a bit, all free falling rocks merely fizzled away into smoke as they came in contact with my deep earth mining spell until A small grey hoof stuck out of the rubble. Changing the aspects of the spell, I made sure that no organic matter beyond stone would be dissolved as the spell began to clear up the a second, then third and then finally four hooves until Marble’s belly was revealed.

“H-help.” Marble requested weakly as I cleared away the remainder of the stone, as well as most of the wall around us away from her. Ending the use of the spell I crouched down and began to gently prod at her body, checking for severe injuries.

“That’s what I plan to do, don’t worry. I’m sure your sister heard the sound of the drill so she should be here any minute.” I explained warmly. Creating a small mote of warm light, I carefully lifted Marble’s entire body without moving anything awkwardly and held her aloft over my back as I gently walked out of the cave itself and to Limestone.

Her face went from sheer rage to sheer terror as she saw the state of her sister.

“What did you do!” she demanded as I set her sister down so she could inspect her. “How did this happen?”

“He… rescued me.” Marble whispered. “Cave in, my fault.” she explained, her eyes remaining shut as the ground beneath her became damp with blood.

“How’d you get her out so quickly?” Limestone looked up at me with tears for her sister in her eyes.

“Magic.” I explained with a shrug. “Come on, you gotta go get a proper doctor here to take care of her. I figure she’s got at least eight broken ribs and maybe a punctured lung, never mind all the internal bleeding she’s suffering.”

“But… Can’t you do anything? Don’t you have some kind of amazing spell that can fix her right up? Some kind of Restoration ability?” Limestone demanded, getting frantic as her parents galloped hard down the path into the quarry to check on things.

“I wish.” I sighed and let my wings hang at my side. “If I did, my wings wouldn’t be mostly useless beyond gliding. The doctor I spoke to back in Applewood said that I would need an in depth knowledge of the Equine anatomy which comes from eight years of medical school. Since Marble’s injuries are likely worse off than my wings, the spells I do know won’t cut it.” I explained, mostly parroting the female doctor from before.

“Then… I dunno, can’t alicorn’s teleport? Aren’t you supposed to be so great and powerful of beings?” Limestone demanded, now switching back to anger as her parents slid to Marble’s side to comfort her.

“Well,” I drifted off anxiously. “I technically do, but there’s something you should know about it.”

“I don’t care! You have to save my little sister!” Limestone pleaded, taking me by the scruff of my neck in her hooves.

“The spell I know is black magic, okay?” I shouted, making everypony present gasp. “Not all the magic I know is light. Some of it is dark, some of it is black. If I use the spell on Marble in her current state, I don’t know what would happen to her!”

“What do you need for it?” Limestone asked sternly, staring at me dead-set in the eyes with her own bright green irises.

“It requires a lot of blood. I have to not only transport myself, but I’d have to bring a broken body with me and keep it from being the sacrifice.” I sat back defiantly.

“How much?” Limestone demanded, picking up a sharp stone with her teeth to hold it over her fetlock.

“About ten litres…” I mumbled. The rock was dropped from the mouth of the mare as the mare’s mouth hung wide open, as did everypony’s at the announcement.

“That… That’s like half of our blood!” Limestone stared at me in shock.

“Yeah, I know. In return I could take her across the world in one go.” I replied quietly. Marble whimpered as her breathing became more and more laboured.

“What if we three were to donate a portion of our life blood to get her to care?” them other inquired, offering up a relatively decent idea.

“Three and a bit litres of blood from all three of you, that would work.” I replied, looking up in thought. “Shouldn’t harm you too badly and the spell would have enough that it wouldn’t try to take whatever’s left of Marble’s.”

“How dost one go abouts performing such a malevolent incantation?” the father inquired, stroking his beard.

“A bit of preparation for one… We’ll need a really large bucket, a paint brush and something sharp to draw the blood.” I replied. All three ponies disappeared, looking for the appropriate items while I remained with Marble.

Marble poked me in the leg with her hoof, an even her straining to do so would’ve made a lesser pony cry.

“It’s alright, you’ll be in good hooves soon enough…” I whispered, gently stroking her mane from her face as she rested with laboured breaths.

“Okay,” Limestone panted, having returned with a large enough pale that they could all let their blood run into. Her parents returned with a brush and a knife from their kitchen, hopefully freshly cleaned. “We’ve got everything, now what?”

“Now, we bleed you three.” I remarked, taking the knife in my magic. “Just hold your hooves over the bucket and I’ll make the cut.” As instructed, all three earth ponies rested their hooves over the edge of the bucket and allowed me to draw the blade over their flesh one by one. “I hope none of you faint at the sight of this.” I mumbled as I watched the crimson fluids quickly drain from their bodies and fill the bucket.

As they offered their a portion of their lift, I wiped the blade off on my fur before drawing a line of blood from my own hoof to begin painting myself with it, my fur matting at the sticky substance. I then moved to Marble and began painting the same tribalistic marking on her own fur, making the older ponies’ eyes go wide.

“What are you doing to her!” Limestone shrieked, pulling her hoof back and held it with her free one once the bucket had filled.

“I’m marking her with my blood in order to transport her.” I explained, drawing a single line down her nose from her forehead. “If I don’t, she’ll die.”

“Oh…” mother Pie whispered, holding her own injury to halt the flow.

“You all best get those cuts wrapped up. You… also may not want to be here for the next part.” I grimaced, already imagining the next step. It was not going to be fun… “Is there a particular hospital you want me to take her to?”

“Uhm, Ponyville General is closest I guess.” Limestone replied as she limped off with her parents. “Take good care of her and tell the doctors there to get in contact with Pinkamena, okay? She’ll want to make sure Marble’s alright!”

“Alright, i’ll tell them!” I shouted as I dyed the paintbrush red and began painting the ground with it in a particular spell seal pattern. Setting the brush and the remainder of the blood in the center next to Marble and me, I fired up my magic and could immediately feel my eyes change shape to slits; the most definite marker that I was born to Nightmare Moon.

Marble seemed to have looked up at me and noticed my eyes and began quivering as I stood over her, the blood seal around us firing up in a bright red light.

“Just close your eyes and ignore everything about to happen.” I instructed before I began chanting. The seal broke away from its stony surface and began to spin around us, gradually increasing in speed.

Soon enough large sanguine tentacles rose up from the aspects of the seal and began to reach for us, tasting my blood on both Marble and I. The largest, the main, began to reach around the rest of the circle until it found the blood in the bucket.

Stabbing it’s tip into the bucket, it began to drink heavily until the bucket and brush were dry again before it let the other tentacles began to explore our bodies while the light began to grow greater and greater till all at once, everything died away and the tentacles wrapped themselves around our bodies and dragged us into the seal.

Despite her punctured lung and broken ribs, Marble let out the shrillest, most terrified scream i’d ever heard a pony make as her body sunk into the lake of blood that spilled out from the center. I too desired to scream, the feeling of the tentacles on my body would have been enough to scramble the brains of many but I bit my tongue and held onto nothing.

Our heads sank into the pool and seemed to drag the black magic with us as we were unceremoniously dropped on ourselves before what appeared to be a large white hospital denoted by the medical star on it’s exterior walls.

Oh, and the squadron of elite Royal Guard with their weapons drawn and pointed at the pair of us. There was that too…

“By order of the princesses, you will not move! You are under arrest for the use of black magic!” The captain demanded. I weakly pointed to Marble as she gasped for air.

“It…” I coughed up a lungful of blood. “It was all me, she needs medical attention. I just got her here.” I explained before collapsing. “Tell the doctors to tell a Pinkamena Pie her sister is here.” I requested before blacking out.

~~~

“Where did you learn that black magic?” A guard demanded, giving me an eighth kick in the stomach as I hung from my hooves and wings in what appeared to be my cell.

“I was taught by my mother.” I coughed back, the blood coming from my mouth no longer from the Pies, but rather from my own supply.

“Who was your mother and why would she graft wings onto your body? Did you aim to claim the royal throne?” The guard demanded, at least keeping from causing me further injury while I was cooperative.

“My mother was Nightmare Moon, I was born on the moon and my wings are just as natural as my horn.” I explained again. This had the guard kick me in the side again, probably breaking a rib. Another rib.

“You don’t want to tell us, fine! Then explain why your wings don’t work?” The guard smirked, thinking he’d found a flaw in my excuses.

“I was captured by a group of cultists in Las Pegasus and they clipped the tendons in my wings. I’ve since had the wings mended but I haven’t been able to restore the tendon.” I explained wearily.

“Cultists huh? You wouldn’t happen to have been talking about that murder a few days back, would you? Cultists who believe in keeping the Royalty purely female alicorns as decided by Celestia and Luna would certainly seem like the type who’d hate on a fake like you.” The guard remarked, slowly circling my broken body. “I suppose that black magic like yours would achieve results like the murders found in that house.”

“It probably would, if I was the one who did it.” I wheezed. “They clipped me and threw me out on my ass.” I blatantly lied, though in my state I’m pretty certain that I could lie pretty convincingly. Octavia, the Guard have arrested me for black magic. They’re pretty damn sure i’m the one who murdered everypony in that cult house so they’re likely to come looking for whoever harboured me. Get out as soon as you can, I’ll not tell them anything about you. I warned mentally. Even if Octavia wasn’t by the page, she’d still get it when she next went to use it. Oh, and destroy the page entirely. burn it.

“You know, I don’t really believe that’s what happened. I think they got you, clipped your fake wings and you got revenge by slaughtering all but two. That’s your biggest problem, you left them alive to easily identify you from their hospital beds.” The guard chuckled to himself, now facing me head on again. “I find it interesting that all you did to them was break off one of their horns and clipped the pegasi’s wings. What I wanna know, why didn’t you just kill them?”

“Maybe they didn’t have anything to do with the precedings? Even if it was me they’re identifying, I’m not heartless. I’d have let them go if they were repenting their actions.” I sighed, pulling on my chains to lift myself up enough to give my body a shake; try and get some feeling back into my wings.

“Even though you knew they could identify you?” the guard inquired. He had me and we both knew it. I wasn’t going anywhere until my execution.

“Yeah, big mistake on my part, huh?” I replied with a yawn.

“Yeah, yeah it was. By the way, I know there wasn’t any black magic used there. The Princess of Friendship went down to check and said the place was more or less clean.” The guard explained, turning to leave from the cell. “She did find traces of dark magic though, but she says that’s not illegal so she left it alone.”

Damn.

“How’d she know all that?” I asked hoping for some interesting information to think about.

“Heard she used her Element of Harmony by order of Princess Luna. It apparently boosts her already incredible alicorn magic enough to let her detect traces of all kinds of magic, or something like that.” The guard replied before trotting off and my cell latched shut.

“Element of Harmony, huh?” I mumbled to myself. “Ordered by my mother, no less… I know what I’ll do to punish my mother for leaving me behind.” I grinned to myself as I examined my chains. My heavy chains. “Oh right… these…” I uttered as I gave my leg a kick, jingling the steel links binding me.

“Hmm, seems like you're in quite a bind.” an older male voice noted, the origin of the voice seemingly coming from the wall ahead of me.

“So it does, yes. Who’re you?” I demanded, looking around for the source of the spoken word.

“Who, me? I’m surprised your mother never spoke about me during your lessons on the moon.” the voice remarked, sounding insulted. A pair of yellow eyes with red irises appeared in the concrete, with a single cheshire smile forming in the cracks beneath that.

“She probably did, but since I can’t make out any distinguishing features… I’ve got nothing to go on.” I replied, watching the face turn into the shadow of a head with a pair of strange horns on his head; one an antler and the other I wasn’t sure what it was from.

“Oh, of course. My apologies. Let me make a proper introduction.” The multi-creature remarked with a flourishing bow of his serpentine body. “I am-”

“Discord, spirit of Chaos and disharmony.” I finished his sentence with my own. “Yeah, mom did talk of you. Said you were defeated before Sombre and her banishment.”

“Oh good, you have heard of me! I’m so happy!” Discord smirked as he stood before me, claw/paw on his hips.

“Uh huh, so too what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? I thought you were reformed?” I inquired, wishing I could scratch my back.

“Oh I am, I am…” Discord replied first chipper, then dropped it for complete boredom with the second. “It gets so boring being a creature of chaos in a world of harmony. It’s so dull! But you, you’re free to act!”

“Not really at the moment.” I noted, giving my chains a shake. “Kinda tied up at the moment.”

“Oh right, right. Let me help you with that.” Discord replied and snapped his fingers. The chains turned into what I assumed was some kind of sausage link, something I’d read was quite popular with some extinct species or something…

“Right… And in return for my release, I owe you… what?” I asked, rubbing some feeling back into my limbs.

“Well it’s quite simple: I return something lost to you, you return something lost to me.” Discord replied casually, pacing back and forth in thought. “See, long ago I had a couple of powerful stones of my own but they were lost with my stony imprisonment some thousand years back.”

“I assume you’re talking about the Elements of Chaos?”

“Yes, however did you know? I never even had a chance to reveal them so there shouldn’t be anypony who knows about them, past or present…” Discord inquired interestedly, getting down to look at me in question.

“Logic. You’re a creature of Chaos and if they were likely formed as a counterbalance to ultimate stones of Harmony, the logic dictates that they’d be Elements of Chaos. So what, you want me to find these Elements of Chaos for you?” I sat back and worked at massaging my wings, flicking the sausages off them.

“Oh, not just find them. I want you to use them in your goals to get revenge for being left behind on the moon.” Discord grinned malevolently.

“That’s pretty evil sounding for a supposedly reformed ally to the princesses.” I noted with a glance at the single tooth hanging from the creature’s lips.

“Probably, but as far as I’m concerned, this conversation never occurred. You heard about the stones in your research on the moon after your mother left you behind and I had nothing to do with any of this.” Discord replied, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Right. Now, so you said I help you retrieve something you lost, you’ll help me retrieve something I lost. What’d I lose?” I asked, tucking my wings back against my body before tying them up.

With a click of the claws, I could feel the warmth of the power of flight radiating from my wings again. With a curious grin, I stretched them out in their full glory without the use of my magic and sighed at the cracking joints.

“So, have we got a deal?” Discord grinned hopefully, his paw outstretched towards me.

“Deal.” I grinned back, planting my hoof in his and shook. “Now I just have to get outta here.”

“Dealt with.” Discord replied as a guard with spinning eyes approached with the keys and unlocked my cell before dropping a rolled up document at my hooves.

“Wow, you’ve just thought of everything; haven’t you? You must really want those stones back.” I asked, pulling open the scroll to silently read out my pardons.

“Yes, I really do. Now, you’ve got some work to do. Fortunately, the first stone is actually fairly close by. Try the dark, scary forest south of here.” Discord suggested before fading from view.

“Dark, scary forest… Right then!” I declared with a hop in my step, my pardons in my magical grip. “Let’s get started then!”

~~~

Having successfully exfiltrated the jailhouse I was captive in, I was now sat with my personal effects at the edge of the Everfree Forest; the name having been given to me by a guard as I signed out of the cell.

“Dark, scary forest…” I mumbled, staring into the depths of tartarus. “Yeah, no shit Discord… It’s certainly not the forest of light and fluffy things…”

With a sigh I stood and began placing hooves in front of hooves, beating tracks into the depths of the Everfree Forest.

Questions of the Mind

I’d already tried to fly in but the higher I rose, the more likely I found myself of being struck down by some invisible force; as though it didn’t want me to rise above the top of the treeline. So now I strolled, on alert, wary of anything that may have wanted to rip me limb from limb and consume me.

As I delved deeper into the forest, I could begin to get the feeling of being stalked. That feeling of eyes watching you move, no matter where you went. Swivelling my head in all directions, I could only hazard guesses at what it was watching me and only hoped it wasn’t hungry.

All around me I could see eyes; all scowling, all hungry. Which gave me an idea.

Closing my eyes, I looked back into my memory to mentally find the spell book I’d remembered reading some years back; after Mom had already left and I was searching for a method to get to Equus.

There it is. I thought, seeing the unassuming blue book with silver embossed lettering. I couldn’t quite remember the name of the book but as I flipped through the pages, my memory settled on a very specific page and I fired up my horn. I could feel my mane as it began to turn to a plasma state, the ends slowly whipping backwards behind me and the black in my mane only becoming darker until it looked like a hole in space; the red tinges acting as a sort of event horizon of a black hole.

My tail followed suit in the same way while my wings flared outwards, standing straight up and at attention. I could also feel the changes happening to my eyes, the pupil sharpening at two ends to a fine point as my teeth began to sharpen to a daggered tip.

All as this was happening I could feel my internal affinity swing from light/dark to more dark/black magic and I liked it. I liked it so much I felt a deep, guttural laugh develop within me, begging to be let out. So I did.

It started off as a giggling, then a chuckle until it rose into a full on deep, maniacal laugh as my mane and tail shot upwards with the power as my changes were complete.

I’d become Nightmare Eclipse; I was my mother’s son afterall.

“Oh, yes.” I checked myself out, examining my new body and was surprised that my voice had also changed; it’d dropped and become much more sinister. “I like this. I can see why mother was always so… comfortable in her body. The amount of power I can feel in my possession! It’s… Invigorating!” I exclaimed, turning my now glowing horn to the treeline and the nearest set of eyes.

With a burst of magic, the trees and surrounding forestry exploded outwards to reveal a pair of manticores now completely terrified of me; and rightly so. Almost immediately a small number of eyes disappeared as their owners scurried off. To my right, a single, rather large cockatrice emerged grinning.

Keeping my eyes away from looking at it’s eyes, I lowered my horn to the creature and picked it up with my magic to bring it closer to me as it struggled to look me in the eyes. The telekinetic glow crawled up it’s body until only it’s head was held and I began to squeeze.

After a minute, the cockatrice’s head let out a rather bone chilling crunch as it nearly imploded from within. Tossing the dead creature aside, I turned to another emerging creature; one of the manticores from before as it glared and growled at me, pawing at the ground.

With a grin I lowered my horn and took a running start as the mighty beast charged me, tail raised and ready to strike. As we neared, my horn shimmered long enough to summon a large scythe in my colours; mostly black but with the red tinge along the edges of the blades.

With a flourish, I swung hard and the tail of the beast fell to the ground as we passed each other and slid to a halt. Turning to face each other once more, I held my weapon at the ready and smirked as the manticore tried to ready its tail before I placed my hoof on the stinger and crushed it.

With a roar the beast charged me again, probably already feeling the blood loss, as I held my own and swung hard. The battle was won and I was the victor as the manticore’s head rolled towards it’s mortified partner.

“Anything else?” I challenged with a shout, flourishing the scythe around my body effortlessly. Everything backed away and the eyes blinked out, drawing a groan of disappointment from me as my bladed weapon vanished from this plane of reality. “Ugh, and I was hoping for a bit of exercise.” I grumbled as I resumed my walk into the forest.

~~~

“Huh…” I mumbled, looking up at the doorway to a rather large castle laying in ruin. I’d come across it when I saw a rope bridge that looked relatively recently disturbed. “Wonder if this was the Castle mom used to live in…” I ascended the steps up into what looked to be some kind of lobby or something and looked around interestedly.

It was all mostly collapsing, but I could still get an idea of what it would’ve looked like over one thousand years ago.

Hey, Octavia? Are you there? I think I've found where my mom used to live. It’s pretty cool. I thought, figuring my message was drifting off into the abyss if she’d done like I'd asked and burned the seal page. Kinda sucks that it’s been neglected over the last millennium. I added, this time to no one in particular.

Entering into what I assumed was the grand hallway, the grand staircase at the end was a dead giveaway, I was rather surprised when the sconces all lit up in a bright blue flame upon my entry.

“Huh, magically enchanted light sources.” I noted in my sinister voice, ascending the stairs and took to the right. “Cool.”

Turning the corner onto the second story, I came to a sudden halt and stared in surprise at a purple alicorn mare with a darker purple mane and tail, a magenta streak running through it and a book held in her purplish magical grasp. She too stared at me in open mouthed shock, though I suppose looking like I did would have this kind of effect.

“Uhm…” I tried to fight for words, but the book dropped and I quickly found a horn pointed in my direction.

“Who in Tartarus are you and what’re you doing here!” the pony demanded, her horn glowing something fierce.

“Uhm… I’m Ecl-” I had to stop and consider my appearance. “My name is Nightmare Eclipse and I am the son of Nightmare Moon!” I declared forcefully, standing up with proper stature as my mother had drilled into my head.

“Nightmare what?” The mare raised her head slightly in confusion. “Never heard of you!” she lowered her horn at me again as my own horn lit up and summoned my scythe, holding it ready to strike just behind her.

“I was born on the moon and when my mother returned to this planet, I was left behind!” I exclaimed, feeling the point of a blade at the back of my neck. She had to be feeling the edge of my own weapon at the back of hers, as well. “I spent five years trying to figure out how Nightmare Moon was banished to the moon in the first place, and when I learned of the spell, I banished myself to this stupid planet.”

“Then explain why Princess Luna never said anything about you when she was defeated!”

“I’d love to, if I knew! She told me she’d come and get me!” I angrily stamped my hoof in reply. “She left me behind! She forgot about me, her own son!”

“Dang, that sucks.” The mare lightened up a bit, her horn still glowing and the point of her blade retreating from my neck. I removed mine as well as a show of good faith but kept it handy. “What’re you doing here then?” she demanded as she pulled her weapon to her, a relatively simple looking short sword and held it close to her defensively.

“What do you mean, here? Do you mean here in this castle or here in this place? In this country? On this planet?” I replied as I pulled my own, significantly large weapon from behind the mare.

“Uhh…” the alicorn replied, staring at my weapon. “Here, in this country. Then in this castle.”

“I came here to…” I stopped to think. I wasn’t going to risk telling her what I planned and have her alert the princesses since she was an alicorn herself. “I came here to learn. I came to this place by accident and was going to explore the castle my mother lived in. I wasn’t expecting anypony to be here but I suppose the signs of disturbance at the bridge should’ve tipped me off.”

“Oh, what’re you hoping to learn about? And I’m sorry I held a blade to your neck, it’s just that appearance really startled me.” the mare explained, setting the sword aside against the wall as my scythe vanished once again.

“My appearance?” I tilted my head as I ran a tongue over my razor sharp teeth. “Oh, right! Sorry, lemme just change back!” I finally clued in and fired up my horn again. All the changes I subjected myself too before instantly reversed, including my affinity, and I soon stood before the mare in my simplistic glory.

“Wow, I have to say, i’m quite surprised that there’s an actual alicorn stallion in Equestria… There hasn’t been one in…” the mare noted with a sigh.

“One thousand, four hundred sixty seven years by my count. He was my grandfather.” I replied for the pony, earning a raised eyebrow from her.

“Okay, so how old are you?”

“Well, I thought I was eighteen but… I think I remember something about being older than I actually am so I dunno.” I shrugged, sitting back on my rump with the alicorn. “How old are you?”

“Didn’t your mother tell you it’s rude to ask a mare her age?” the mare smirked at me. “But I’m seventeen, eighteen in a couple months.”

“Cool, cool…” I rubbed the back of my neck. “So…”

“What?”

“Kind of a shame that this castle was let fall to such ruin, huh?” I noted, looking around at all the fallen or cracked stone bricks.

“Yeah, imagine what it would’ve looked like in it’s prime, the things that Celestia and Luna did here?”

“It was quite awesome from what I remember.” I replied with a sigh, lowering myself onto my side as the princess tilted her head at me.

“What you remember? You said you were only eighteen right? How could you remember what the castle looked like a thousand years ago?”

“Oh, mom had a lot of time and painted.” I explained casually and with a yawn. “What time is it? I’m exhausted.” I inquired, trying to get an estimation from looking out a relatively nearby window.

“Probably near dinner time?”

“Mmk. Oh, by the way, my name’s Eclissi.” I stood up and offered a hoof in introduction.

“I thought it was Nightmare Eclipse? Twilight Sparkle, by the way.” Twilight replied, shaking my hoof with her own.

“Nah, only when I look like that. The rest of the time it’s Eclissi.” I shrugged back. “Well, Miss Sparkle, it was nice meeting you, but I'm going to try and find my mother’s old room and hole up there for the night.”

“Want me to show you the way? I’ve been here enough that I could probably guide you.” she offered with a friendly smile.

“Nah, it’ll give me a chance to explore. Thanks.” I shook my head and walked off. “See you later!” I called back as I turned down a random hallway.

~~~

“Note to self, get Twilight to guide you around the place!” I huffed from being out of breath as I crawled across the floor on my belly before collapsing onto my mother’s very, very old bed; a cloud of dust exploding from the impact in all directions. “This place is fucking huge!” I complained, panting heavily.

The sound of a rumbling stomach had me groaning at the thought of having to descend those hundreds of stairs to get back down the tower to find sustenance. Rolling onto my side, I managed to pin my wings under me rather uncomfortably and without thinking about it, stretched them out behind me.

“Or I could just fly down like an idiot who didn’t think to fly up in the first place!” I grumbled, pushing myself up onto my hooves again before hopping down to find the nearest window large enough for me to exit the room from. Apparently my mother had the same idea as I found myself standing out on a rather large balcony overlooking the tops of the castle and I could occasionally see a purple mare walking around through the holes in the roofs.

Spreading my wings, I leapt off the edge of the balcony and flapped hard, I was thoroughly enjoying the freedom that flight allowed for as I circled around a couple times before coming back down again. As my misfortune would have it, I also smacked my wing on a protruding beam in the ceiling and came crashing down near to Twilight Sparkle, startling her for the second time today.

“Ow…” I moaned, laying on the cold stone floor in agony as I heard the clopping of hooves coming near to me.

“Eclissi, are you alright? What were you trying to do?” Twilight slid to a halt and immediately began checking my body for injuries. Her horn fired up and I could begin to feel the restorative effects of a fairly high tiered spell and before long, I pulled myself to my hooves and shook my head clear of the concussion.

“Land. Was going to ask you if you knew where I could get some food.” I explained, twisting my head to crack my neck quite pleasantly.

“Oh, uhm… I don’t think there’s anything worth eating here in the castle but if you wanted to come with me, I could take you to Ponyville and get you something to eat there.” Twilight offered, dropping a random book into her saddlebag. “I was actually just heading out myself so it’s no trouble to me.”

“Mmm… sure.” I shrugged and took up a walking position near to Twilight as we removed ourselves of the castle.

“So, can I ask you something?” Twilight tentatively inquired as soon as we crossed the rope bridge.

“Go for it.”

“You said your eighteen right? Thereabouts anyways?” Twilight seemed like she was trying to avoid something embarrassing.

“Yeah, and?”

“How are you a fully grown stallion and don’t have your cutie mark?” Twilight blurted out suddenly. The both of us stopped and looked first to Twilight’s flank, then to mine. True enough, mine were bare.

“Remind me what a Cutie Mark is?” I requested, having not gone over this with my mother or read about it in the library.

“A Cutie Mark is a visual representation of a pony’s special talent. It may often allude to some sort of destiny if one were to believe in such things, or it may just be nothing more than a cute picture that will remain with you for the rest of your natural life. How have you never found out what your special talent is?” Twilight explained before looking me over curiously. “Was that never brought up when you were raised by…”

“Nightmare Moon, my mother?” I raised an eyebrow bemusedly. Twilight nodded in silence as we continued our walk. “No, it was never brought up. I always thought my mother’s was some kind of birthmark or something.”

“A very strange birthmark? That looked like a crescent moon?” Twilight asked incredulously.

“Well, it could’ve been a mixture of fur colouration and birthmark…” I replied now becoming uneasy about my misgiven understandings.

“Fair enough, I suppose.” Twilight muttered, lost in her own mind. “So, what do you suppose would be your special talent? What’re you good at and what do you like doing?”

“Pretty good at magic I suppose…” I replied, trying to evaluate my skill-sets.

“Magic? Like what?” Twilight stopped directly ahead of me, staring into my eyes with determination to mine my brain for information.

“Uh, it’s mostly a combination of moderately powerful light, dark and black magic spells.” I explained, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Wait, hold on. You know black magic spells?” Twilight glared at me. “You may wanna keep a lid on that particular piece of information, Eclissi. Black magic is illegal in Equestria.”

“Yeah, so I found out the hard way. Was arrested for using blood magic to teleport myself and someone else to the hospital after she was in a cave in.” I sighed and shivered at the memory of those tentacles roaming my body.

“That was you? Was the mare Marble Pie, perchance?” Twilight’s glare turned to surprise as she stood back upright and we continued our walk. “Wow, when Pinkie found out that her sister was in the hospital… She wanted so much to thank you for your help in getting her there, despite the methods.”

“Pinkie, would you happen to mean Pinkamena?” I inquired as I could feel the wary eyes of creatures on all sides of us.

“Her friends call her Pinkie. She only becomes Pinkamena when… Well let’s just say she loses her colour.” Twilight informed me. “Why do I feel like I'm being watched?”

“Because we are.” I replied, staring at the eyes of some manticores who apparently remembered me from before.

“Why aren’t they attacking us? With so many of them they could easily kill and eat us.” Twilight asked and found that she was walking significantly closer to me than either of us had realized.

“I… May have established dominance over them on my way to the castle…” I chuckled at the memory of utterly defeating that manticore, even though the memory of beheading a living creature should sicken or disturb.

“I…” Twilight stared at me as I reminisced. “I’m not going to ask for details.”

“Probably best…” I sighed and continued on in silence.

What would be my Cutie Mark, if I had one?

~~~

“Hey, Twilight, how was your trip to the castle?” a blue pegasus mare asked as soon as we broke the Everfree Forest line. “Who’s this?” She asked, turning her rainbow maned head to me as she hovered near to us.

“Hey Rainbow Dash. It was fine, turned out to be more exciting than I had originally planned.” Twilight replied and broke away from me to approach the mare named Rainbow Dash. “This is Eclissi, we ran into each other in the castle while he was exploring.”

“Hi.” I held a hoof up for a quick greeting as I watched the conversation unfold.

“Hey. Are you new here? I don’t recall seeing anypony of your… vaguely familiar colour scheme before.” Rainbow Dash nodded towards me in greeting before landing and approached me.

“Eh, you could say that. I wasn’t exactly… Local.” I replied with a smirk.

“Eclissi was actually born on the moon and banished himself here under… less than ideal circumstances.” Twilight explained. “It should also explain why he looks so familiar.”

“Hold on, hold on. How did a unicorn end up being born on the moon?” Dash shook her head to pause the conversation in her confusion.

“Well, a couple things. One, I’m not a unicorn.” I replied, flaring my wings out to drop the jaw of the mare before me. “I’m the first male alicorn in over one thousand years. Two, Twilight tells me you know my mother.”

“You’re mother?” Dash looked even more confused before it suddenly struck her. “Holy white flanks, you’re Princess Luna’s son?” She wheeled backwards in shock of her realization as I nodded confirmation. “But wait, if you were born to Princess Luna on the moon, then shouldn’t you look like Nightmare Moon?”

“I can change my appearance to match my heritage, yes.” I shrugged, scratching at my mane. “I prefer not to as it alters my magical affinity and kind of… inhibits certain behaviours while reinforcing others.”

“Yeah, don’t need a demonstration, thanks.” Rainbow replied, turning back to Twilight. “Continue.”

“Well, that’s about it. Eclissi is going to be holing up in the his mother's old room in the castle and got hungry so I offered to take him here for some food.” Twilight replied as the three of us continued our walk into town.

“Oh, food! Great idea, i’m starving!” Rainbow announced as she took to the air to hover nearby and clutch at her stomach. “Mind if I tag along?”

“I don’t mind, do you?” Twilight turned to me and I shrugged in silence.

“Hey Eclissi, I’m sorry if this is really forward of me, why are you blank flanked?” Dash inquired. She was checking?

“Apparently never found out my special talent while on the moon.” I replied. “Why are you looking back there anyways? Actually, why were you both looking back there in the first place?” I inquired, circling round to pause the progression of our band of misfits.

“Scientific inquiry.” Twilight held a hoof up while Dash actively avoided eye contact.

“Moving on.” Rainbow demanded, flying ahead of us both with her face red as her mane.

“Uh huh. I appreciate the interest or at least curiosity, but i’ve already got somepony special.” I remarked, making Twilight chuckle to herself as Dash’s face went impossibly more red.

“I wasn’t- I didn’t- I don’t-” Dash flustered as I grinned. “You ass, you’re making fun of me!”

“Not intentionally, but yeah. I suppose I am.” I grinned again as Twilight and I continued past the mare in blue. “Come on, what about food?”

“Yeah yeah, i’m coming.” Rainbow replied in defeat.

Phrasing! Boom! I chuckled to myself before all three of us took to the skies on wing.

Fire of the Heart

“So, you were actually born on the moon?” Twilight asked of me with a hayburger held between her hooves. Dash was currently face deep in her hay fries, though why they didn’t have potato fries was beyond me.

“Yes, Twilight, I was actually born on the moon.” I replied once i’d cleared my mouth of my own sandwich. “Gravity was significantly less there than here so when I appeared here I could barely walk under the new gravity. I was forced to use my wings up until the point of them having been clipped. I spent a week in recovery and strengthening my body to be able to move further than a couple feet under my own hoof power.” I explained before taking another large bite of my sandwich I’d more or less custom built with produce found in the town.

“Okay, ignoring the fact that your wings seemed to have healed a crippling injury so quickly, what about life on the moon? What was it like? What kind of accommodations did you have? Was there air to breath? Do you even breath?” Twilight rolled me over with her questions, drawing a groan of mild frustration at her incessant inquiries.

“You wanna know what it was like living up there? Think of living under Nightmare Moon’s care for your entire life, all alone save for her. She had been up there long enough before I was born that she erected an entire dark castle to reside in. Yes, we would breath air but there were many rooms that were unpressurized and so we’d very quickly acclimated using magic.” I set my sandwich down and took a slurp of a fruit smoothie to clear everything out of my mouth and from between my teeth.

“How did you fly up there in no air? Wouldn’t that make it more difficult?” Dash looked interested to know this so I figured i’d help her out.

“From what I gathered from watching you two flying, you seem to rely on air pressure more than anything, right? You create a sort of cushion of air under your wings to glide but use your inherent pegasi magic to actually achieve lift required to lift your bodies.”

“That’s more or less how it works, yeah.” Twilight replied for Dash who only looked confused at my explanation.

“Okay, on the moon where there is often no air at all, I’d just use the wing power to move myself. Since there was no air resistance I had nothing to slow myself down with if I was to use my wings, so it was all just by sheer force of magic.” I explained and took another bite to finish my sandwich as Twilight wrote everything down and Rainbow Dash simply stared at my wings.

“So how do you fly now? The techniques between moon and planet would be significantly different, right?” Dash finally asked as I took another pull from my drink.

“Depends on how much power you use. I can achieve the same kind of flight here as I did on the moon, it just takes more power from me under the increased gravity and presence of air resistance.” I shrugged back with a partial mouthful.

“Please don’t speak with a mouthful.” Twilight scolded me, reminding me of my mother greatly.

“Yes, mom.” I mumbled and all but ignored her glare at me.

“Have you learned how to fly like the rest of us? Using air resistance and all that to fly instead of sheer power?” Rainbow almost concerned for me with this question.

“Ehh…” I mentally examined my recent flights and figured i’d still had much to learn in that regards. “Not… really… I know and understand the idea how to do it, it’s just putting it into practice.”

“Then it’s official!” Dash declared, slamming a hoof down on the table which startled not only myself and twilight, but a number of other patrons in the building.

“What is?” I was almost too afraid to ask, really.

“I’ll be your official flight instructor! You’d have no better teacher than the fastest flier in all Equestria!” Dash declared, at least this time quieter than before.

“That’s quite a title, sounds made up.” I smirked. Dash glared at me and Twilight chuckled.

“Actually, that is her legitimate title. A couple years back she earned that title at a Junior flier’s competition hosted by Princess Celestia. Rainbow Dash is officially the fastest flier in all of Equestria.” Twilight explained, only bolstering Rainbow’s ego in the process.

I remained silent, as though impressed with this accomplishment of hers though I was mostly thinking about what would happen if I were to combine the flight techniques of myself and Dash. How fast could I fly then? And what about with magical assistance?

“So, what did you mostly do on the moon? I can’t imagine it was very exciting up there, looking down on our planet.” Twilight broke the silence save for Dash slurping at a near empty drink cup.

“I read books.” I replied simply. There really wasn’t much need for much more explanation. “Studied all kinds of magic too…”

“Right, I forgot about that. I still wanna see what spells you know that I don’t; see if I can learn them.” Twilight nodded in reply, tucking her notepad and pencil away into her bags. “Well, two thirds of the spells you know anyways.”

“Two thirds?” Rainbow looked as confused as I was, though I quickly caught on; affinity.

“Right, yeah. Can’t have random ponies running around with the other third…” I mumbled, still not letting the pegasus in the room in on the conversation in it’s entirety.

“Would somepony please tell me what the hay you’re talking about?” Dash demanded almost childishly. The pout she’d put on would’ve given Octavia a run for her money in adorableness.

“Not in public, no.” Twilight replied under hushed tones. “We’re talking affinities and it’s illegal to practice one of those affinities.” Twilight explained in a whisper, making sure only the three of us could hear what she’d said.

“Oh, you’re talking light, dark and black magic…” Rainbow nodded in reply, ensuring to keep her voice low as well. Then turning to me, “Why do you know black magic?”

“I am a Nightmare, after all.” I shrugged back, my voice back to a regular volume now. “Maybe not right now, but if I felt so inclined I could go full Nightmare and unleash magic unlike anything anypony has seen before.” I added, not exactly realising the rest of the building had gone silent upon this announcement. “Not… that I would, I mean… Why bother?” I added as everypony around me watched me with unease.

“Great job keeping a low profile, Eclissi.” Twilight scolded me as she cleaned up her tray and deposited her garbage into the appropriate receptacles, as did Dash and myself before we hastened our retreat from the building.

“Yeah, not my best move. I’ll admit that.” I replied, watching everypony watch us leave before the doors swung closed again. “And with that said and done, I thank you both for accompanying me tonight.” I announced, turning back to the mares before me. “With it getting as late as it is and the day i’ve had, i’m gonna head back to my mom’s old castle for the night.”

“You don’t have anywhere else to stay? I could put you up for a while.” Twilight offered helpfully, though I shook my head in reply.

“I appreciate the offer, but I wanna use this as a chance to go through the older books my mom used to have there. I’ve got some stuff to try and find and I wanna see what I can learn in the Everfree.”

“Well, alright then. Don’t stray too far from the paths if you can help it.” Rainbow replied for Twilight before offering a hoof bump to me, which I returned and took to wing to head “home.”

~~~

“So, did you find anything?” discord asked of me with a mischievous grin. I was sprawled out on my side on my mother’s bed looking over a set of books that i’d pulled from the library about an hour ago.

“Nah, Rainbow Dash didn’t know anything about the Elements of Chaos. Did a search through her mind and the only thing I could find was something about an Element of Loyalty; couldn’t pull more information than that.” I sighed and magically flipped a page.

“That spell you used to do that, what was it again?” the Draconequus inquired as he tapped his claw and paw together.

“A black magic spell that allows me to forcibly rip information from a pony’s mind whether or not they’re aware of it. I didn’t use it on Twilight because I know she’d detect the invasion to her mind.” I explained, looking up from the book to the creature trying to look as innocent as possible, and failing miserably.

“Yes, Twilight always was a good little student. She studied under Celestia’s tutelage you know, groomed to be an Alicorn from the get-go.” Discord sighed and allowed himself to flop back on a magically appearing lounger.

“I could tell she’d had some impressive training just from the magic radiating off her. Had no idea she was my Aunt’s student.” I remarked and rolled onto my back with a groan to scratch at my belly with my hooves. “Did my mom have a student after she was… recovered?”

“Not that i’m aware of, no.” Discord put a claw to his chin in thought. “But Since her return she’d been more of the beta princess anyways. She really wasn’t much of a teacher to begin with.”

“No shit. Even as Nightmare Moon she tried to do anything but actually teach me magic even though she never let me not study magic.” I shut my eyes to the world and let myself drift off into the darkness of my mind.

“I’m curious,” Discord’s voice seemed to get closer. Soon enough I could feel a claw being dragged along my belly from my stomach to my neck. “You’re the son of Nightmare Moon, why do you look like a normal alicorn? Shouldn’t you have slitted pupils and razorlike teeth?”

“Only when I want to.” I replied, swiping at his claw to keep him from uncomfortably tracing my body again. “It’s not so much of a use of spell as it is forcing the switch in magical affinity within myself.”

“But didn’t you use a spell earlier to become Nightmare Eclipse when you were in the forest outside?”

“Not… exactly. That was more along the lines of burning out all my light magic in one go to leave myself mostly dark.” I replied, opening my eyes again. “If another alicorn was nearby, they’d have been able to overcharge themselves on my magic that i’d expelled from myself.”

“So, you just give up all the light in you and you go Nightmare? Could anypony do that?” Discord wondered aloud, looking like he had a bad idea.

“Nope, they’d need to have affinity for all three forms of magic first. If they tried to go Nightmare without having black magic affinity within themselves, they’d just suffer a burn out.” I explained, magically drawing a graph with an icon for an alicorn without a tiny icon for black magic that followed my explanation.

“Couldn’t they just tap into the inherent dark magic within them?” Discord looked almost disappointed at my replies.

“No. Dark magic acts as the buffer between two extremes in magic. It’s a mixture of both forms and as such would get pulled out with the light upon expulsion. Similarly, if I was to expel all my black magic at once, i’d also expel all the dark magic in myself which would leave me with only light magic.”

“Okay, so what if you were to use up all your light magic power? You’d automatically switch to dark and then black magic?” Discord sat himself down in his lunger again, this time with a cup of tea.

“Not exactly. If I was to use a spell that required constant use of light magic, I’d burn through the light magic first before i’d burn through the dark and then finally black. In order to turn Nightmare, I have to sever the link that the dark magic has to the light magic in order to prevent burning myself out completely.” I sat myself up and turned back to my books.

“Huh. Okay, then what about negative magic? Where does that come into play?” My head turned to look at Discord in confusion.

“What’s negative magic?” I asked, forgetting about my books entirely.

“You don’t know? Negative magic isn’t exactly magic. It’s more of the purification of magic no matter what kind.” Discord explained. “It was originally used to cleanse chaos magic -my magic- but after my imprisonment it quickly became forgotten since it has absolutely no other use than to clean up rampant magic.”

“Then I suppose somepony would have to have an affinity for negative magic in order to use it. Since i’ve never heard about it up till now, I have no idea how it would fit into the scales.” I shrugged and turned back to my books again. “So, do you think that your Elements of Chaos would help me defeat the Elements of Harmony to deal with my mother?”

“Absolutely. Even though I made only three of them, those three are still more than enough to counter all six Elements of Harmony in their entirety.” Discord nodded affirmatively. “Once you collect all three, you will have more than enough power to face your mother and do whatever you want to her. What are you going to do to your mother, anyways?”

“You know, i’ve been thinking about that for quite some time…” I replied with a sigh. “My name is Eclissi which is a word from some old, dead language for Eclipse. I figure that the best plan i’ve got is to banish not only my mother, but my aunt and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony to the stars.” I found myself starting to grin and my rump began to itch a bit.

“You’re not going to banish them to the moon?”

“With the amount of luxuries they’d have up there, it wouldn’t be much of a banishment, now would it?” I glared boredly at the creature, as though his question was pointless.

“Fair enough. So then what do you plan to do to banish them to the stars?”

“That is going to take a bit of effort.” I began. “Because of who I am and the magic i’ve trained with, I need a very specific celestial event to occur in order to supercharge myself to turn them all into stars where they will be forced to watch as their beloved planet is made to not require their magical intervention. I’ve watched the planet from on high enough to know a bit more about science than they do now and I have a plan that will make their magic pointless.” I continued before I paused to take a breath and scratch at my even itchier flanks.

“That sounds like it’ll require an obscene amount of magic.” Discord noted while staring at the decaying ceiling. “What event are you waiting for?”

“An eclipse. Conveniently enough there’s one that’ll be due to come in about a month, a Lunar Eclipse.” I grinned and scratched even more at my flanks. “Dammit Discord, did you do something to make my hide itch so badly?” I demanded, my itching getting more and more furious.

“Me? I would never!” Discord looked honestly hurt that i’d insinuated such an idea. I looked back and my eyes went wide as a section of my flank had begun to shine and shimmer with a white magic. “It seems you’ve found your destiny.”

“My what?” I asked as what I figured was a lunar eclipsed moon appeared on my flanks, burning itself into my fur and skin.

“I mean, you have just received your cutie mark. I’m sure Twilight would have explained it over dinner, yes?” Discord noted, sitting up to get a better look at my flanks; specifically his eyes appeared from my body to look at it before blinking back into his head.

“Yeah, something about special talents and destinies or some bull. So what, it’s my destiny to eclipse the moon?” I asked incredulously.

“It would appear so.” Discord mumbled before vortexing himself into oblivion.

“Good, then that mean’s i’m on the right path.” I grinned and turned back to my books, my vigor refueled once more. “I think I’ll need a castle for myself for after my plan is put into action.”

~~~

“Hey, Eclissi... Wake up…” A female voice echoed throughout my slumbering mind. “Hey, wake up silly!”

“...tavi…?” I mumbled, fidgeting in my sleep. “What’re…”

“Who?” the very chipper voice asked of me. “No silly, my name’s Pinkie Pie!”

“Oh… ‘Kay…” I murmured in weary response. Then my eyes shot open. “Who are you and what’re you doing here?” I demanded, ensuring I was still under my blankets.

“I just told you, I’m Pinkie Pie! It’s time to get up and start your day!” The very pink with an even more pink mane and tail replied, her face right up close to my own with her hooves on either side of my body.

“I say again, what’re you doing in my room?” I demanded again as I mentally checked myself and began to work at calming my body down.

“I’m here to wake you up! Come on, you’ve got a busy day ahead of you!” Pinkie exclaimed, pulling the covers off me with her teeth just as I managed to save my dignity.

“No kidding, i’ve got plenty more books to read for my project.” I replied, turning onto my side to stand up and crawl down from the bedside.

“Really? You sound just as boring as Twilight!” Pinkie noted with concern. “Come on, i’ve got plenty of things for you to do, so many ponies for you to meet!”

“No thanks Pinkie, i’ve got too much to do today. I’ve gotta go looking through the forest for a very specific stone.” I replied as I set to organizing my bags for the day.

“Oh! I can help with that too! I’m really good at identifying different stones! What’cha lookin’ for? Garnet? Amethyst? Blood stone? Ingneous? Metamorphic?” Pinkie hammered at me with questions. “Jade, fluorine, emerald, diamond, quartz, ventrite?”

“How the hay do you know all those?” I asked incredulously, mostly just to shut her up.

“I grew up on my family’s rock farm! Shame it’s always so dangerous though, heard my sister was recently in a cave in. But she’s okay, somepony working temporarily for them saved her!” Pinkie announced cheerfully. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if Marble was so severely injured…”

“Hold on, Marble Pie? You’re Pinkamena Pie?” I asked in disbelief, dropping my pen into my bag.

“Yeah, how’d you know my family name?” Pinkie noted with a grin on her face.

“I… I was the one who was working for your family and saved your sister, actually.” I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck with my hoof.

“Really?” Pinkie’s eyes began to water as she sat back on her backside just long enough before she rushed me and wrapped my neck in her hooves, tears flying. “Th-thank you s-so m-much!” she cried, soaking my fur with her tears.

“Uhm, not a problem?” I replied, tentatively patting her back with my own hooves as her weight forced me to sit. “Okay, i’m not really comfortable with all the hugging, please stop now.”

“Right, i’m- i’m sorry.” Pinkie replied, wiping her tears off on the back of her foreleg to collect herself. “I just… Thank you for getting my sister to the hospital! I won’t even ask about the blood markings on her fur!”

“Yeah, that’d be for the better.” I remarked and continued packing. “I know i’m going to regret asking this, but what did you have planned for today?” I asked with a sigh.

Pinkie brightened right up again, bounding back onto her hooves. “Oh, so much! I wanna introduce you to the rest of my friends, there’s a couple ponies who wanna meet you and I think I know a place where you would really enjoy working!”

“Who’d want to meet me? Who even knows i’m here besides Twilight and Rainbow Dash?” I narrowed an eye suspiciously.

“I ‘unno, she said she and her friend were friends of yours. They recently moved here to Ponyville too and they wanted to know where you ended up!” Pinkie shrugged with a grin.

“Friends of…” I tracked through my mind to who she could mean, but only two faces came to mind; for lack of options anyways. “Oh! Was one grey with darker grey mane and the other white with bright blue hair?” I asked excitedly.

“Yeah! How’d you know?” Pinkie looked at me with confusion.

“There aren’t very many options for who they could be.” I replied with a grin.

Hey Vinyl, you got your ears on? I thought hopefully.

Yo bro, wassup buddy? Vinyl’s voice replied casually and full of energy.

I heard you and Octavia were looking for me in Ponyville, is that right?

Yeah, we were going to try and surprise you but we couldn’t find you and no pony had even heard of you except Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. Vinyl explained with an audible sigh.

Yeah, i’ve taken up residence in Everfree Castle. I’ve got a lot to do here so I figure i’d stick close, ya know? I replied, staring at a very confused Pinkie Pie.

“What’re you staring at me for?” she asked, tilting her head at me.

“I’m telepathically talking to Vinyl.” I explained with a chuckle.

“Oh, say hi for me and tell them we’ll be at their place in a bit!” Pinkie requested, prancing from the room to the stairs.

Hey, Pinkie says hi and that we’ll be to your place soon enough. I parrotted to my friend as I joined Pinkie in the descent of the spiralling staircase.

I’ll let Octavia know, she’s getting anxious. Vinyl remarked and I could almost feel the smirk behind her voice. It’s rude to make a mare wait, you know?

Yeah yeah, we’re coming. I sighed both mentally and audibly.

Phrasing, boom! Vinyl laughed in my mind before going silent.

“So, how’s the telepathy thing work? Is that an alicorn ability or what?” Pinkie inquired as she pranced down the stairs with me steadily gliding behind her.

“It’s a spell. A dark magic one, to be specific.” I explained, keeping pace with Pinkie via pulses of retrograde magic thrusters. “It requires both parties in the telepathic conversation to have access to the spell. I can inscribe a page of paper to allow non-unicorns and non-alicorns to use the spell and join in.”

“Which is how you managed to get Octavia to join in, right?”

“Correct. Because of… circumstances I had to have her destroy her seal to prevent being traced from me and get her in trouble.” I added as we finally reached the bottom of the stairs where five more ponies were waiting for us.

“Oh good, you were up there so long we were thinking something unspeakable was happening.” A mare noted from below a brilliant purple mane. The rest of her was as white as Vinyl though her attitude was that of Octavia, if not to a much higher degree. Next to her stood an orange mare with an amber mane and tail under a cowpony hat and freckles on the face.

Behind those two stood a yellow mare with a bright pink flowing mane and tail currently hiding behind said mane as she watched me exit the tower with Pinkie. Comforting the yellow mare was Twilight and Rainbow Dash, Dash’s head quite noticeable amongst the other heads of hair.

“Nah, you were the only one sugarcube.” the orange mare noted, quite unimpressed with the comment.

“Hmph, you could at least let me entertain the idea.” The white one replied with an upturned nose.

“What, and risk spreading malicious rumors ‘bout somepony we haven’t even been officially introduced too? Doesn’t really give you a good first impression, does it?” the cowpony added as she approached me where I stood. “Howdy, ah’m Applejack, a pleasure to make yer acquaintance.” she announced, resting on two legs while the other two rested against the first.

“Likewise, I’m Eclissi. I don’t suppose Twilight, Dash or Pinkie told you about my heritage?” I asked cautiously.

“All they told me was that you were an uncrowned prince. Meanin’ you ought t’have been born to a princess, right?” Applejack remarked firmly. “Ah figured you’d tell me who your mother was if you wanted to tell me. Not in my place to bother ya ‘bout it.”

“That works, thanks.” I replied as Applejack was replaced by the white one.

“Rarity, darling. A pleasure to meet the first alicorn stallion in over a millennia.” She announced with a warm smile. “I do apologize if my note about your activities upstairs with Pinkie sounded a tad rude, I understand how first impressions are and all that.”

“Mm-hmm.” I mumbled, keeping my distance from the unicorn. Turning to the third and final, I noted she stayed directly in place and cowered.

“No introduction?” I asked, sitting back on the cold stone floor.

“S-sorry... “ The mare replied in the tiniest of voices. “M-my name is…” her voice drifted off into oblivion.

“I’m sorry?” I turned an ear towards her to try and hear her better.

“Oh for... this is gonna take forever.” Dash interrupted as she took the yellow mare in her forelegs. “This is Fluttershy, she’s very nervous around new ponies until she finds something relatable between you two.”

“Nice to meet you, Fluttershy.” I replied with a courteous nod. “You have very nice hair.”

“Oh, uhm… thank you.” Fluttershy replied in a slightly louder tone of voice, her face going red.

“I presume these were a number of ponies who you wanted me to meet?” I asked, tilting my head to Pinkie.

“Of course! There’s still a number of ponies to go, but these are my friends!” Pinkie replied as she rejoined her friends with a grin. The group pose they all struck had me thinking this was not the first time they’d introduced themselves like this.

“Hey,” Twilight noted from the center of the pile. “You’ve got your cutie mark now!” she exclaimed, breaking away from the mares to inspect my flanks. “Congratulations!”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Whatever.” I shrugged back and sighed as Dash joined twilight to take a look.

“What is it? It’s just a red dot.” Dash tilted her head for a different perspective.

“It’s a lunar eclipse.” I replied, already bored of the conversation. I was too busy thinking about Octavia to be interested in what was on my ass. “Shall we get a move on? I’ve got somepony waiting for me.”

“You do?” Rarity appeared directly in front of me with gleaming eyes. “Who is it? Are you formally together? Have you kissed her? Was it romantic?”

“I do, Octavia, yes, yes and yes.” I replied as best I could, trying to match up answers to questions.

“Do you have a special thing already? Something you two like doing together?” Rarity asked again, looking like she was about to need a moment to herself in dream land.

“Well, we found out we work really well together playing music…” I replied after a second.

“She’s a cellist, right?” Twilight stepped forward to help the conversation along and to maybe help deny Rarity her fantasies.

“Yeah, she was playing a song and I thought i’d surprise her with my own flavour.” I smirked with reply.

“What do you play? What was the song? Maybe we should get the two of you to play us all something when we go and see her.” Rarity demanded cheerfully.

“Maybe, if we ever get outta here we’ll see.” I replied and took to wing, as did Rainbow and Twilight. I noticed that Fluttershy seemed content to remain on the ground, despite her winged nature. “Shall we be off?”

“Let’s go!” Applejack announced with a motion of the hoof to move us forwards.

~~~

“Wow, that’s… quite a house…” Rainbow noted as everypony stared at the two level, split colour scheme house. One side was a more rustic, classical design while the other had a much more modern look to it, probably Vinyl’s side of the house.

“Yeah no kidding. Back in Las Pegasus it just looked like the classical side. Granted it was mostly just Octavia living there…” I replied and stepped up to the door and knocked.

“Hello?” Tavi’s sweet voice beckoned from within. “Who is it?”

“Hey Tavi, it’s me.” I replied with an edging smile as I stood at the door with the mares behind me.

“Eclissi!” Tavi’s voice shrieked before the sound of somepony falling over themselves in excitement. A second later and the door flew open with my favourite mare standing before me, breathing heavily. “It’s you!”

“It’s me.” I grinned back and the two of us collided in a hug and kiss. “How ya doin’ love?”

“So much better now. I got your message and really didn’t want to destroy that seal you gave me.” Octavia replied once we’d parted. “I did though, so don’t worry.”

“Awesome. Sorry I had to get you to do that but if they traced you from me with that and got imprisoned for it, I dunno what i’d have done.” I sighed in reply and nuzzled my mare.

“I know what I was planning to do…” Tavi replied with a chuckle. “I’d already developed a way to break you out of prison.”

“You were in prison?” Twilight asked in disbelief.

“Yes, for a very short time; not important now.” I replied, turning back momentarily to direct the question to the alicorn before turning back to Tavi. “You know that wouldn’t have ended very well for you, right?”

“I know,” Octavia sighed as she nuzzled me back. “I know. But I couldn’t see myself just letting you rot away in prison. You know the wing rot would’ve been fatal had they not dressed your wounds; which are looking great, by the way.”

“Thanks!” I grinned and spread said wings wide to the surprise of the mare before me. “I got lucky and came across somepony who was able to fix the tendons free of charge.”

“Wow, those are quite the wings.” Octavia noted before grinning and took to my side, getting herself under my left wing. “So comfortable, so warm!” she grinned and leaned into me to be kissed. “Now then.” Octavia recovered and addressed the ponies behind me, two of which were more interested in our love affair. “All of you, come in, come in! I just put on a kettle!”

“Ooh, thank you dear. I’d love for you to tell me all about this relationship of yours over a cup.” Rarity replied eagerly as she and the rest followed Tavia and I into the house with Twilight in behind to close the door.

“I’ll see if i can find a page of paper so I can inscribe you a new seal, alright?” I whispered to my beloved.

“Of course, the study is just down the hall and to the right.” Octavia replied before giving me a peck on the nose. “Be quick.”

“Absolutely.” I replied and happily trotted off with directions in mind.

Entering into the study I took a look around the desk for a page of paper and eventually found a blank one just next to a photo of Octavia and another stallion. Brother? Father? Not really paying much attention to it I floated the page to the floor and fired up my horn with the black magic to inscribe the dark magic seal.

As the black magic swirled around my horn with the dark magic riding shotgun, I lowered my horn to the page and began the inscription. The dark magic began to shimmer as the seal etched itself into the heavy paper until finally it was finished and the glow on my horn dissipated to nothing.

“Eclissi, what was that?” Fluttershy’s meek voice timidly asked, turning my head to meet her frightened face.

“What was what? The inscription?” I offered a warm smile, but she took a hazardous step backwards.

“Th-the eyes and the teeth…” she replied firmly afraid of me.

“Oh.” I dropped my head. “That.”

“Who- Who are you? Really, I mean.” Fluttershy demanded, now at least standing her ground though she was scowling at me.

“My name is Eclissi, my mother is Nightmare Moon. Because of how I was raised and the affinities of magic I have, I have a form I call Nightmare Eclipse. Whenever I use black magic, like the inscription spell, I apparently undergo a temporary physical change.” I explained calmly, this seemed to lighten Fluttershy just a bit, but she still remained cautious around me.

“Isn’t black magic corruptive?” she asked, entering into the room to examine the page i’d just made.

“Black magic is, yes. Dark magic is as well, but not to the same degree. You can limit how much dark magic you use to prevent being corrupted, but black magic isn’t like that.” I nodded in response. “Black magic, for any other pony, would likely corrupt them within three uses of the magic.”

“So why aren’t you corrupted?” the pegasus mare’s questions were turning into an interrogation.

“Who says i’m not already?” I smirked in reply at the mare’s fearful look. “Relax, i’ve been training with black magic for years. Having a strong affinity for it also helps.” my smirk was unsubsiding with my words.

“I see. So there’s no danger of you losing control or anything?” Fluttershy returned to the hallway to leave.

“Nope, i’m good.” I shook my head and with the page in my magical grasp the two of us returned to the living room where Vinyl had apparently shown up and gotten onto her tables to entertain the guests.

Oh! Eclissi, can you do me a huge favour? Vinyl requested as soon as she spotted me.

What’s up? I thought back as I took a seat on the couch next to Octavia, the mare cuddling up close into me upon my doing so.

I know you just got comfortable, but everypony is requesting to see your musical talents. Tavi tells me you play a wicked guitar? Vinyl smirked at me as she started playing a couple songs at random to see if I knew how to play it. I can fill in the other instruments if you want me to.

Hmm… Can you play this one? I requested before thinking of a particular song in my mind.

Mmm, I think so. That’s some pretty solid guitar there if you can manage it. Vinyl replied with a full on grin, a grin of which Pinkie noticed.

“What’s with the sudden grins? I’m all for a good smile every now and then but I usually have a reason to do so.” Pinkie wondered as she bounced around the room.

“Hey Tavi.” I whispered into Tavi’s ear, making it twitch. “Do you know I Burn? Can you sing it?”

“I know the song but I don’t know the words, sorry. Why? You and Vinyl planning something?” Tavi grinned at the idea as she and I both hopped down from the couch, making the guest mares look at each other with confusion.

“Yeah, she’ll fill in the rest while I cover the fun parts.” I grinned back and before Octavia left to retrieve her cello, I took hold of her and spun her around and startled her before I not only kissed her but gave her the new sheet.

“What’s going on?” Twilight asked from a laid position on the floor. “Why do I detect traces of black magic?”

“No reason.” I replied quickly as I began to summon up my guitar, the cord vanishing off into the abyss that was my magic.

“Oh, you’re finally going to play for us?” Rainbow’s head perked up as I warmed myself up with a few random chords and Vinyl loaded up the rest of the song. A short time later Octavia appeared with her cello on her back and set herself up on the couch.

“Well, you all asked for us to do so. Let’s let Octavia and I warm up first though.” I requested and the two of us began the slow introduction to the song that had helped kickstart our relationship, the song i’d first introduced my ability to play the guitar.

~~~

A full concert of music played by a combination of myself, Octavia and Vinyl finally ended with the song that quickly became “our song” for Tavi and I; the acoustic version of With or Without You.

“Wow, I can’t believe you’ve got all those skills! The ability to play the guitar like that, sing, and perform ridiculous magic! You’re like a mare’s perfect stallion!” Rarity announced as the performers put our equipment away.

“Thanks Rarity, I appreciate the compliment. I think.” I replied as I lounged back on the couch trying to cool myself down from the performance.

“Mmm, I have to agree with her, Eclissi.” Octavia spoke up from behind the couch before she appeared next to me, curled up within my embrace. “You are a perfect coltfriend.”

“I do my best, and you are the perfect marefriend.” I grinned back with a kiss on the nose. With the release of a large breath from the both of us, I rested my head on her neck while she rested hers on my forelegs and we both addressed everypony else in the room.

“So what’s happening for the rest of the day?” Octavia inquired casually, looking to Twilight and Pinkie for an answer.

“Well, I had someplace that I figured Eclissi would be great at being an employee at, but I think i’ve got a better idea after that concert. I’m going to have to talk to somepony’s about it first.” Pinkie explained, mentally assessing who she could talk to.

“I appreciate that, Pinkie, but I don’t see myself doing much work beyond studying in Everfree Castle.” I said.

“But, don’t you also need money for daily living? Food, supplies and the like?” Twilight looked at me with concern.

“Such things don’t cost very much so i’ll be able to get by doing miscellaneous jobs as the need arises.” I explained. “I don’t really want to be forced to waste my days on long work days just to make a living. I’ve already got someplace to sleep that’s free of rent and all the materials I’ll need already in the Everfree Library.”

“And you’re always welcome here to eat, whenever you like.” Octavia added, looking back at me with a warm smile.

“Thank you. Well there you have it, I don’t even need much money for food.” I smirked and adjusted myself to a more comfortable position. “Speaking of which, what’re we all doing for dinner?”

Worries of the Wise

“This is where you’re staying?” Octavia asked as we stepped past the threshold of the tower stairs into my room of the Everfree Castle. She seemed to take most discomfort in the fact that a section of the ceiling had fallen in on the other side of the tower room but since I didn’t really need a walk in closet, I didn’t care as much.

“Yeah, it’s free of rent and I don’t have to worry about many uninvited guests.” I shrugged back and took a seat on the edge of my bed. “Most ponies are too terrified of the Forest around here to want to come bother me.”

“But, it’s so…” Octavia wandered the rest of the room, from the large decrepit bathroom to the collapsing closet on the other side of the wall. “Ruined… You’re sure you don’t want to come live with Vinyl and I?”

“Tavi, as much as i’d love living with you again, I don’t think I have the patience to deal with Vinyl’s music all hours of the day.” I replied honestly and with a smirk as the DJ in question glared at me crossly.

The nine of us, Twilight and friends with Vinyl and Octavia all opted to come check out my living spaces and Octavia wanted to see why I prefered to stay here than with her in town. The others had all decided to explore the rest of the castle and agreed to meet up here in my room later when they were done.

I’ll have you know I don’t play music at all hours of the day. Vinyl broadcast to Octavia and I.

“No, just most hours and your ‘upgrades’ to the appliances have become… A nuisance.” Octavia admitted as she rejoined me and hopped up onto the bed with me. Despite the dust i’d tried to clean off last night, as soon as her weight hit the mattress another cloud of dust erupted from underneath. “Ugh,” Octavia coughed a couple times before continuing. “These living conditions are…”

“In need of work, I know.” I replied, dropping onto my back with my hooves in the air. “I do plan to go through everything and give it a good whirlwind of a cleaning.”

“I do hope that you plan to do that relatively soon.” Octavia replied as she too flopped back and hooked her hoof in my own; the pair of us ending up like otters in a pond. “Especially if I’m to swing by every now and then.” she added with a smile and a kiss.

“With motivation like that, I’d rebuild the entire castle.” I grinned and kissed her back. “But I am going to need to start with the ensuite. Having to glide down all those stairs to find the only working bathroom on the other side of the castle has become a tad ridiculous.”

Yeah, where is that exactly? Vinyl asked, poking her head into the rundown ensuite to find the conditions unappealing.

“From the bottom of the stairs follow the red line I painted. It’ll lead you to the bathroom.” I replied and Vinyl took off down the stairs like a flash.

“Her purple shades are likely to confuse her, i’ll go make sure she doesn’t get lost.” Octavia announced, rolling off the bed to take off after her friend.

Then I’ll take the chance to open some windows and clear out the dust. I figured as with a burst of magic, every door and window out into the evening sky flew open.

Next came a simple wind spell to bring up all the dust and collect it into a small space ahead of me. Once I had just about all the dust collected and it looked like a giant ball of glitter, I fired it out the nearest window like a cannon.

“That’s certainly one way to clean your room.” An older female voice noted behind me, startling me and making me jump. Turning to face my new visitor, my eyes went narrow as I recognized the muzzle of Princess Luna. Of my mother.

“Hello, mother. Or should I call you Princess Luna now?” I grit my teeth together as I could feel the black magic bubbling up within me.

“Eclissi.” my mother sighed at my name. “I realise it’s been a long time-”

“Since you forgot about me on the fucking moon? Yeah, no fucking shit!” I shouted back, turning away from her to walk to the closet and try to work on fixing it’s instabilities.

“May I explain why it took me so long?” Luna asked hopefully, though I simply remained silent. “The spell was only able to bring me back. Because you weren’t banished to the moon like I was, the magic didn’t know how to bring you with me.”

“Doesn’t explain why you left me up there for so long.” I grumbled as I begin levitating stone bricks up to pile them together for later use. “I had to banish myself here to get myself back and I find out you didn’t even mention me when you were ‘reformed’. Do you even know what I went through because I looked like an alicorn impostor simply because my own mother failed to even make a note of my existence? I had my wings clipped!” I stomped a hoof to the last of my sentence.

“I heard, yes. I also heard that because of such an incident, you found love.” Luna replied with a thin smile. “You cannot disagree that your misfortunes hadn’t brought any form of benefit.”

“Yet I seem to be a broken record here, but you left me on the moon!” I shouted back again, completing the task of building the pile and moved on to the task of using a relatively weak time spell to undo the damages to the building in which my mother and I currently stood in.

“And I’m sorry for that!” Luna shouted back at me, sounding like she was becoming desperate for my forgiveness. “But you have to understand that things hadn’t been very good for me here on Equus either! I was quite busy in recent years simply trying to earn back the trust of the ponies!”

“I don’t see how that would prevent you from trying to get me off the moon!” I retorted as the supports under the tower replaced themselves and became a rigid structure to let the floor rise back up from the ground below and fill in the gaps. “Twilight told me you had plenty of time to yourself so explain why you blatantly forgot about me, your own son!” I wheeled back around to face my mother with tears in my eyes. Doing so also had the parts of the building behind me collapse again, making Princess Luna have to recover them and fix things herself.

“I… I was too bus-” Luna began, using the same line yet again.

“No! You weren’t! You just up and left me behind! Does Celestia even know about me? Does anypony?” I demanded, my magic completing the task of fixing up the tower entirely.

“Your Aunt knows! Celestia knows!” Luna insisted, but I figured she’d only been told of me when Luna found out about me.

“Now! She probably only found out when you found out I had returned!” I glared at her before moving around her to the bathroom to begin repairs. “I’m almost willing to bet my left nut that Aunt Celestia didn’t even know I existed when you returned as Nightmare Moon! You were so set on taking over the planet that I bet you didn’t even stop for a second to think about what had happened to me!”

My magic began to flow over the surfaces of the bathrooms interior; peeling away the thousand years of grime and dirt to leave a mostly clean sink, toilet and walk in shower.

“I’m almost convinced that if you had succeeded and banished Celestia to the moon in your place, that her surprise to find me already there would’ve…” I drifted off as I magically replaced the blacks and dark blues of the room with a gold, silver and light brown scheme.

“Would’ve what?” Luna asked after i’d been silent for a minute or two.

“I dunno. Maybe things would’ve turned out differently. Maybe I wouldn’t be as bitter or maybe I’d have a better relationship with aunt Celestia and we could’ve worked together to get ourselves off the moon.” I sighed and began the work of polishing and buffing the new surfaces. I also removed all the torch sconces and set about inserting enchanted sunstones into the ceiling to act as light sources. The castle wasn’t equipped for electricity afterall.

“Where’d you learn all these spells? I don’t recall them being in the library.” Luna shifted the topic at hand to the new bathroom as she stepped in and looked everything over.

“They’re mostly spells that I had to adapt from other, existing ones in order to keep things organized. The sunstones aren’t perfect sunstones because they used to be moonstones that I magically edited while practicing my dark magic.” I explained, looking up at the glowing rocks set into golden pot lights in the ceiling. “I then enchanted them to give off light when I walk into the room.”

“Amazing. You’ve really improved in my absence.” Luna smiled at her attempt to compliment me.

“Yeah, I kind of had to.” I grumbled and exited the bathroom. With a bit of concentration I began to task of restoring the rest of the tower room itself and changing it’s colour scheme to the gold, silver and light brown like the bathroom.

Replacing all the long dead plants with false fiber plants to add colour, I set a plinth in the corner between the bathroom door and the staircase entrance. Moving into the workspace section of the circular room, I reinvigorated the wood fibers in the desk to give them their original golden brown colour again.

Taking a break to catch my breath and let my magic replenish, I sat down on a black faux leather couch to rest and examine my work. Almost all at once, the remainder of the work I had to do -cleaning and polishing the black marble tiles of the floor, clean the blue curtains and turn them light brown, clean out and replace the entire bed and add in more sunstone light- instantly was done in a shimmer of blue sparkles, my mother’s horn glowing twice over. The only things she left for me to do was to change the colours of what remained but she even added the golden sunstone pot lights into the ceiling at appropriate distances from each other.

“I thought I’d at least offer you a welcome home gift in helping you to restore my old room.” Luna admitted, approaching me to sit on the couch next to me and wrap me in a wing. “I truly am so sorry for leaving you on the moon for so long. I don’t expect you to forgive me immediately but I do hope that you will come to do so in time.”

“We’ll see.” I mumbled back and already began to doubt my plan to banish her, aunt Celestia and the Harmony bearers to the stars.

Woah! What happened in here! Vinyl’s voice echoed in my mind as she appeared with mouth agap in the newly restored room. Am I in the right place?

“Yeah, you’re in the right place.” I replied, hopping down from the couch to welcome my friends. “I was just taking a break from the work.” I added before magically changing the curtains and bed spreads to their new colours; the curtains to their light brown and the bedspread to a tan colour with silver highlights.

“How’d you get lighting up here so quickly?” Twilight asked as she too entered into my room, along with the other six. “The time it would take to wire all this up…”

“Would make it an impossible venture so my son enchanted some sunstones to take their place.” Princess Luna announced, appearing from around the corner. Everyone who wasn’t royalty or related to her bowed for a moment upon her arrival.

“Princess Luna!” Pinkie exclaimed cheerfully as she bounced around the room to look everything over. “Great to see you!”

“It is a pleasure to see you all as well, my friends.” Luna grinned and looked over everypony one at a time. “Octavia Melody, right?” she let her gaze rest on the nervous mare and smiled.

“Yes, your highness.” Octavia bowed once more but had her head lifted back up by a blue hoof.

“No need to worry about such formalities. I just have something I need you to do for me.” Luna chuckled as Tavi seemed to lighten up a bit.

“Yes?” the mare asked eagerly. “Anything!”

“Take good care of my son for me, can you do that?” Luna requested and pushed me over to my marefriend’s side. I took the cue and rested a wing over her back, bringing her closer to me.

“Yes ma’am, I absolutely will!” Octavia beamed at my mother, then at me and nuzzled me affectionately.

“Good. Twilight, I’d like to speak with you and my sister in private later on if at all possible.” Luna looked to the third alicorn in the room before turning towards a balcony door. “But until then, I think i’ve overstayed my welcome. Eclissi, you’re more than welcome to come to Canterlot for an official meeting of your Aunt anytime.” she added as she spread her wings and took off.

“Bye!” everyone wished her off in their own way but I was the one who stayed back from the window with Octavia.

~~~

“It seems like you’ve reconciled with your mother.” Octavia sighed into my chest as she tried to catch her breath from the night’s activities. Everypony else had gone home hours ago which let Octavia and I get reacquainted. “That’s great.”

“It would be, if I had reconciled with her.” I mumbled back, wrapping my wings around Octavia in a hug. “Frankly I’m still mad at her for leaving me on the moon for so long.”

“Well, that’s to be expected. It’s like a mother leaving their child in the market for a couple hours or something. A child would almost be expected to get mad at their parent for that.” Tavi looked up at me as she spoke.

“Well sure, but my situation is to a much larger scale. It’d be like she forgot me in the market in another city, says, ‘I’ll be right back’, and then leaves you there on your own with no way to get home for five or so years.” I replied, staring up at the ceiling. The lights directly above us had been dulled by my magic while the other’s were turned off entirely so it was as though there was a faint ray of light coming down on the bed in which we laid.

“When you put it like that…” Octavia nuzzled up closer to me and shut her eyes. “I guess I can understand the anger. What’s it going to take for you to forgive her and let go of the past?”

“Mmm… I’ll forgive her when once I fix this castle. I’m taking it over entirely, by the way.” I could feel the both of us slipping into sleep, indicated by Octavia’s steady breathing and my mumbling of words.

“I’ll help however I can…” Tavi’s voice drifted off with her consciousness and as did my own.

~~~

The next morning I pulled myself out of bed, finding it empty gave me a start, and jumped into the shower to wash off and clean myself up for the day. I was determined to find the first stone if it killed me.

“Octavia?” I called once I exited the shower with a towel magically drying me off. “You here love?”

Sitting on my desk was a page that I didn’t remember placing there before. Trading the towel for the page in my magical grasp I read,

Hey Eclissi,

Sorry I had to leave so early this morning but I have a concert to prepare for in Canterlot and I need all day to get ready.

I didn’t forget that I said i’d help you fix up the castle, but I hope you can understand that I need to put my career first otherwise I’d have no hope at providing you with said help. I’ll be in Canterlot for a couple days before I’m able to come back home to Ponyville.

I’ve got that new seal with me if you need to reach me and i’ll be sure to let you know when I get to Canterlot safely.

All my love,

Octavia.

“Well isn’t that nice, she took the time to write.” I smirked and set the page back down on the desk before turning to see the empty plinth.

With a bemused grin I conjured up a simple ponnequin on which to store my Nightmare Armour and scythe. Focussing on nothing in particular, I worked at bringing up all my light magic and expelled it suddenly. The sudden drain of power left me feeling empty before my affinity shifted from light/dark to dark/black and the black magic within me overwhelmed me. My mane and tail fired up into its black hole-ish plasmid state as my teeth sharpened themselves to points and my eyes pulled into slits.

Denying myself the evil chuckling simply for lack of anything to laugh at, I fired up my darkened horn and summoned my Nightmare Armour made of blackened steel with red highlights around the edges.

“Hello my friends.” I grinned and summoned forth my scythe, giving it a flourish and let it rest against the white marble of the stone plinth to manually remove my armour and set it onto the ponnequin.

“Ugh, if there’s one thing I don’t like about this transformation it's that in order for me to do so I have to completely expel all my light magic.” I sighed and stepped onto the balcony to spread my wings. “Means I have to wait until I have enough light magic within me to make the change back and not burn myself out in the process.” I grumbled and launched off the stone surface to glide down into the main hallway below me.

Once I landed, I began to analyse the building to see how much work i’d have to do to fix my castle. Holy shit there was a lot to do.

For lack of anything else to do while I waited for my change to begin my search, I started the work by replacing the self-lighting torches with sunstones enchanted to remain on at all times.

A grand crystal chandelier rest on the floor nearby and after a quick glance up, I hoisted it up and replaced it on it’s hook once the chain links have been repaired, polished and gilded bronze. It’s crystals which would normally refract the light from the main piece lay broken on the ground beneath, some burned black from a fight between sisters ages ago. Replacing those would take money and time, neither of which I had any of.

Gliding back to the ground I set to cleaning up the floors of debris, moving salvageable objects to the walls where I’d later make use of them.

Next came replacing the old, cracked floor tiles with new black granite with small magical inscriptions on the backs of them to preserve the stone for significantly longer than normal. Once the granite tiles were in place I went over them all with a magical polish and buffing spell till I could make out distinguishing features in my reflection.

“Looking good Eclipse,” I grinned at myself. “Looking good!” I raised my head back up and the good feelings instantly washed away at the sight of the rest of the room. “Shame the rest of the castle doesn’t match…” I sighed and tested my levels of magic. Just enough to make the change.

“My word, I’ve never seen such a thing.” Yet another female voice echoed behind me. “These floors don’t even have so much as a ding.” And she rhymed… Turning on the new comer, I came muzzle to muzzle with a zebra; quite a ways away from home if I recall. “Oh, I seem to be mistaken. Are you not the one who’d been forsaken?” she asked, showing no signs of fear of me.

“I don’t follow.” I replied in my low, sinister voice. “Who’re you talking about?”

“Of the one I speak, who’s been on this planet for only a week.” the zebra grinned and circled around me, examining my form. “I can see the family resemblance, but I’ve yet to reach acceptance.”

“Okay…” I watched the zebra as she circled back around in front of me and stood before me with an air of wisdom. “What’s a zebra doing what the hell out here in Equestria?”

“T’is a secret I keep, but I shall tell you the truth if you promise a trust runs deep.”

“‘Kay…”

“From my home, i’ve had to flee. The zebra lands had become hostile to me.” she explained, her face deadpanned at this revelation.

“What happened? I always read that the Zebra lands were quite hospitable to your kind.” I inquired as my horn fired up and I prepared to expel all my black magic and return to my original form.

“This is normally a truth for our land, but the climates had become more than we could stand.” All this rhyming was getting to be a bit much for me.

“What, did it freeze over or something?” I smirked. The smirk quickly faded as the zebra’s face indicated i’d hit the nail dead on. “Wow, okay. Didn’t think that was possible.”

“Nor did we, and we tried to fight it. In the end, we had to hide it. Nopony knows of our misfortune and in the years it had become distorted. But enough about that, I request introductions. My name is Zecora and I am skilled at giving instructions.” she smiled warmly.

“Eclissi, son of Nightmare Moon.” I replied just as the black magic was forced out of my body and the changes i’d made not long ago were undone. My affinity shifted back to normal and my appearance repaired itself. “I’m skilled at light, dark and black magic spells.”

“So I see, this skill of yours. The practices you’d have experienced would’ve been quite the chores.” Zecora replied, still rhyming and I was honestly getting tired of it.

“Yeah, took me a good long time and didn’t allow me to do much else. A random question? You seem to have seen a lot in your lifetime right? Would you happen to have ever come across a stone that may have altered a pony’s behaviours negatively?” I asked hopefully in the idea that she wouldn’t give up my plans. “I’m looking to do a bit of research on them but i’m having issues finding them.”

“The Elements of Chaos are the stones you seek.” Zecora’s face went dark with this. “Indeed i’ve encountered one and it left its host weak.”

“They probably didn’t have the affinity for black magic Like me. i'll be able to keep it controlled.” I assured the mare, placing a hoof on her shoulder to try and convince her. “Afterall, I am an alicorn with awesome alicorn magic.” I grinned and flared my wings outwards.

“Of your species, I am aware, but I fear the weight too great a burden to bear.” she warned with all seriousness in her voice.

“I’ll be fine, Zecora. I can handle it.” I replied, once again trying to assure the zebra.

“This is a fight where no pony wins, not when dealing with the seven deadly sins.”

“Seven? I was told there were only three.” I looked at her confused.

“Three were the first created long agos. Seven now hide, each in a different borough. Through the ages they did evolve, each with their own independant resolve.”

“Huh… I guess my search got that much more complicated.” I sighed, the end goal in mind drifting further and further away. “Can you just tell me where I can start looking for the first one?”

With a sigh, “The first stone you seek, is the sin of wrath. I fear if I tell you, i’ll need to cleanse my soul with a healing bath. Follow me.” And with that, Zecora turned from the room and made for the exit looking like she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life. Little did she know, she probably was.

Author's Note

I hate writing Zecora, all that iambic pentameter and having to rhyme everything! Ugh!

Faces of the Legion

Having followed Zecora into the Everfree and to her place of residence, I was told to wait outside while she retrieved a box. She soon returned with it on her back and a look of great concern on her face, but she released it to me nonetheless. I then hurried back to the castle with my prize in tow and some warning about the path I was taking ending badly or something.

Now I was sat at my desk with the box before me. I could hear something like a low pulsing, much like a heartbeat, coming from within. I reached out with my hooves and placed them against the lid, intending to open the container, but something in my gut told me that if I did that i’d come to regret it.

Shaking the voice of reason from my mind I lifted the lid and let the sound of the magic within free, let it roam around the room searching for a partner; a host. It soon found me and my ears were filled with the heartbeat. No, my very body was filled with the heartbeat as it matched its rhythm to my own.

It begged me to pick up the stone, to hold it in my hooves like I would a lover. It cried out for a master, for a partner and a friend. I lowered my right hoof into the box and placed it against the stone, as though to console it.

Then it bit me.

The stone reacted as soon as I made contact and seemed to latch onto me, refusing to let go no matter how much I insisted. Extracting my hoof again, my previously black hoof walls had now become red as blood and seemed to course with magic.

Within my mind I saw Nightmare Moon looking back at me as the tunnel tried to pull her away, heard her tell me she’d come for me then five years pass and I banish myself to the planet with hate boiling within me for what my mother had done. The stone latched onto this feeling of hate and only served to make the emotion grow to the point of forcing me to change into Nightmare Eclipse without expelling my light magic.

With a roar that would scare the mightiest of dragons, I let out as much of my frustrations and rage as I could; my mane and tail firing out like a fire out of control. Galloping out of the room, I took flight as soon as I was clear on the balcony and soared up into the sky before circling around on the castle itself. I had to get rid of this frustration and channeling it into black magic would be easiest.

Levelling my horn towards the ruins of my mother’s old home, I let the black magic course through my every being and up into the channels of my magical instrument. The stone seemed to catch on and automatically cast a pair of seals beneath my hooves for me to stand on; which after realising this, I did.

Now standing above what I figured was the main ballroom, my horn coursing with black magic began to write a neutral time spell which set about undoing the time gathered onto the castle. Nothing happened at first, but as the clock rolled backwards bits and pieces of the ruins began to shift in place until they began to move and rise back up into their original place.

Soon the entire castle had been restored to it's former glory, each stone securely in place and magically bound to its position in space. With this, I felt my rage burn down to embers and the wrath stone in me calmed to a dull thumping; the sound of my own heartbeat.

The seals beneath my hooves faded away and I spread my wings to control my fall, soon landing on a freshly restored balcony to enter into the castle ballroom.

My shoes clicked against the bright white tile of the floors and my entrance was marked by the eruption of white flames in enchanted torch sconces.

Then my face went cold and I could feel a sweat coming on suddenly. The coldness in my face quickly spread through the rest of my body and the last thing I saw was the world going sideways as I lost consciousness.

~~~

“So, what do you think? Think he’s alright?” a voice echoed in the back of my mind. The voice itself wasn’t so much as a voice as it was I could feel the words themselves, disembodied from a voice.

“I haven’t the foggiest idea.” Another set of words replied. “It looks like a regular case of magical burnout, but this one’s case looks much more severe.”

“What about that red thing in his body? What do you make of that?” The first set of words inquired. Slowly they were taking on a voice and this one sounded feminine.

“That… Yeah…” The second set, becoming male, replied with concern. “I have no idea what that is. It could be anything from alicorn physiology to some kind of disease.”

“Can you tell it’s it’ll be hazardous to his health?” the female asked hopefully. Her words seemed to suggest a familiarity to me that would be exclusive to us. Mother, sister or lover; I couldn’t quite make it out yet.

“At this point all we can do is wait and see what happens.” The stallion sighed in defeat. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back into town before dark.”

“Of course, thank you doctor.” The female’s voice suggested a faint smile, a faint ray of hope for my recovery. I still had no idea who she was though. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay. You’ll recover and you’ll rule the world.” she whispered into my ear, stroking my face with a hoof. This lulled me back into darkness.

~~~

With fragments of memories from the last time I had woken up, I cautiously cracked open an eye to check my surroundings. It looked like my room; black red and silver, but something about it felt off.

Like how it looked like my room in the moon castle.

Bolting upright I let my head turret around as I examined my environment in greater detail and sure enough, everything was just as I’d left it on the moon when i’d gone to the planet.

Keeping as silent as I could, I crawled out of bed and nearly collapsed to the floor when my hooves hit the dark red carpet. With as quiet of a groan as I could manage I lifted myself up straight and stealthily snuck around my own room, checking to see what level of detail my captors had gone to into designing this obvious cage.

“What is going on here?” I whispered as I pulled open one of my dresser drawers and extracted my old house coat to wrap around myself and keep warm. It even had my scent on it. “What am I doing on the moon?”

Pushing the bedroom doors open with my wings -my magic still hadn’t recovered fully so I was left without telekinesis- I poked my head out into the hallway, the very empty hallway, and began the familiar walk towards the kitchen.

Passing by empty corridors and dark passages, neither of which bothered me all that much given my previous experience with true isolation, I stepped into the kitchen and the scent of my own cooking wafted through my nostrils. Pizza. The smell of it drove my mind back to the day that I banished myself to the planet; this was my last meal on the moon.

Stepping up to the wood burning oven enchanted to not actually burn wood but run off pure magic, I gazed into the flames at the greyscale pizza slowly gaining colour as it cooked.

“How did I get back here?” I wondered aloud as I pulled a glass of cold water from the fridge dispenser. Downing the entire glass in one go, I set the glass down beside the sink with a sigh and a cold breath and examined the rest of the large room. The black and white tiles below me looked more pale than I remembered but I suppose the atmosphere and level of light coming in from the windows across the hall could have that effect on colours.

The walls themselves looked ruined, falling apart at seams and cracking along edges. I never did get around to actually fixing the place up since I was expecting to leave it all behind today…

“Hello?” I called out, coughed and tried again. “Hello! Is anypony here?” I stepped out into the hallway again and this time aimed for the grand hallway which, if I felt so inclined, would lead me to the exit to the surface of the moon itself.

Passing through the archway into the grand hallway, the place felt truly empty like it had for all that time before i’d gone away.

Pressing my face against the pressurized glass of the grand entrance doors, I let my eyes wander out over the grey of the moon surface beyond and shook my head. Whoever took me either went to ridiculous lengths to make me believe I was actually on the moon, or somepony powerful enough to do so had actually sent me back.

“Oh good, you’re awake.” the female voice from before exclaimed from behind me. “How do you feel?” she asked as I turned to face my captor.

“Confused.” I answered, taking in the appearance of a bedazzled griffon female. She was clad in what looked like some kind of battle armour with a helmet hanging off one of her hips. “Who’re you and what’re we doing here? Why have you taken me?” I demanded, growing more and more bold despite my weakened state.

“Relax, sire. I mean you no harm. I work for a group who wants to see your plan come to fruition.” the griffon replied, holding her talons up in surrender as she explained herself. “We’d been watching you since your arrival on Equus and we quickly learned of your intent for revenge against the royalty.”

“So what am I doing here?” I demanded again, at least stopping my approach to sit down and catch my breath. “Why does it appear that I’m on the moon and how did you recreate the castle so well?”

“Like I said, my employers have been watching you for quite some time.” the female smiled warmly as she descended the grand staircase to stand before me. “Now if you’ll permit me, sire, I request that you return to bed and regain your strength.”

“Stop calling me sire. I haven’t been crowned.” I ordered and with a groan, stood and let the griffon pick me up and place my body her on her back between her significantly larger wings.

“Be that as it may, I have been ordered to refer to you as a highness for preparation of your reckoning.”

“My what now?” I would’ve glared at the creature that now carried me but as she walked me to my room on her back, all I could do was sigh and feel her ridiculously powerful muscles moving around beneath me.

“Your reckoning. It’s what my employers call you ascending to the throne of Equestria and banishing Celestia, Luna and the Harmony Bearers to the stars.”

“How do you know that? I haven’t told that to anypony.” I demanded, fighting to escape and return to the floor but the large wings acted as a barrier and kept me in place.

“No pony, no. You did however tell a certain creature of Chaos, who relayed the message to my employers.” she explained, making me roll my eyes at the memory of talking with Discord.

“Okay, okay. Let’s stop a second.” I requested. The griffon obliged and pulled me off her back and stood me before her.

“Yes?” she looked as though ready to rip open her own stomach if I so ordered her to do so.

“Introductions. Who’re you, who’s your employers and who else is here?”

“Oh, of course. My apologies for forgetting. My name is Georgia Steelwing, at your service.” Georgia replied before giving a deep bow, her beak almost hitting the floor with eyes closed.

“Okay, Georgia, ignoring the really strange name, who’re your employers and what’s your job for them?”

“I work for a group calling themselves Dark Eclipse who’re intent on ensuring that your plan to take the throne and rule not only Equestria but the rest of the world. I work as an indentured servant for them and as such, I have been ordered to serve you till I draw my last breath. Should you so desire, I will self terminate and another will take my place.” Georgia bowed again, this time keeping her head down until I manually lifted it with my wing.

“You’re… you’re a slave?” I looked at her incredulously. “What.. how’d that happen?”

“We prefer indentured servant, my king. I was bred into it if that’s what concerns you. I come from a long line of serving griffons, all of whom have served kings and queens in the past. We are bred, taught proper behavior and then sold to whoever has need of our talents. My father worked for Queen Schatten of the Dragons and my mother worked for a prince in Saddle Arabia. My grandparents all have worked for royalty of some kind so I assure you that I have serving royal lines in my blood.” Georgia smiled kindly and after offering, placed me back on her back again and continued the walk to my room.

“But, you’re… you’re a slave! There’s no good way of putting it, you’re a slave!” I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that there was still slavery in the world. “Has any of your… lineage worked in Equestria?”

“Not in the last thousand years, no sire. They have long outlawed the practice of owning us.” Georgia explained and this had me at least breath a sigh of relief. “I believe Princess Luna was the last to make use of our services before she was banished a thousand years ago.” And the nerves caught back up again.

“My mother owned one of you?” I let my jaw hang open in disbelief. Entering into my room I was assisted to my bed by Georgia.

“Oh no, she owned many more of us than just one. Records indicated that she had an entire flock of us under her ownership.” Georgia replied as though she had just told me the sky was filled with stars as she tucked me into bed.

“But, haven’t you thought about freedom?”

“What would I do with it? I come from an extremely long line of service and i’ve been in service for my entire life. I don’t know anything else.” Georgia shrugged back and removed herself from my bedside.

“Okay, fine. A couple more questions before you go.”

“Of course, your highness, anything.”

“Are we still on Equus or are we on the moon?”

“We are on the planet you call Equus, yes.” Georgia replied simply.

“Okay, then why did the Dark Eclipse build the moon castle? Why not just move me back to my room in the Everfree Castle and prevent this confusion?”

“Like I said, owning an indentured servant is illegal in Equestria so we had to move you in order for me to be able to serve you while you recover.” Georgia explained again, this time sitting down to get comfortable.

“Okay, then where was I moved to? Where are we?” I sat up in bed and rested my head against the headboard.

“We are currently in a castle built into the side of Aconcagua Mountain west of Equestria.” Georgia replied, pulling a map for me from my desk.

“Aconcagua Mountain? But that’s…” I let my mind go through the information in my head. “Thats a good couple thousand kilometers away from the Equestrian border! There’s literally three countries between here and Equestria!” I exclaimed as the map was set down before me in my lap. “Why’d we have to come way the hay out here?”

“Because as I’m told, those three countries are Equestrian controlled so the servitude laws apply there as well.” Georgia replied, removing the map to place it back on my desk. “Now, if you’ll forgive my behaviour, no more questions. You need to sleep and regain your strength.”

“Right, yeah. Sure.” I muttered, slinking back down into my covers and shut my eyes as Georgia killed the lights and took up guard outside my doors.

~~~

Three days later

~~~

“Good morning, your highness.” Georgia announced, pulling the curtains open in my room to let the light reflect off the mountain snow and into my room. The illusion of being on the moon was just that, a complicated illusion spell cast by the Dark Eclipse mages who remained unseen. They were the ones responsible for ensuring that all the magical devices in the castle remained active, since Equestria was the main country of magic.

“Uhhhnn, try again in half an hour.” I requested groggily, pulling the covers over my face to shield myself from the blinding light.

“You said that half an hour ago.” Georgia replied firmly but cautiously. She quickly learned I could be an asshole in the morning if woken abruptly.

“Dammit, fine!” I groaned and tried cracking my eyes open under the blankets, letting myself adjust to the light and actually wake up. “What’s going on today anyways?”

“Today, my lord, you meet the rest of the servants under your care.” Georgia replied as she prepared a set of black and red steel shoes similar to the ones i’d seen my mother wear when she visited me in the Everfree Castle. I’d also been given a collar similar to hers with my butt print branded onto it’s surface to wear in place of a crown.

“Oh good, I was wondering who was doing my laundry in my absence.” I muttered while rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Stepping into my ensuite bathroom, I emerged a couple minutes later feeling at least somewhat refreshed. “Well, where’re we going first?”

“Kitchen, my lord. First meet your kitchen staff while they make you breakfast. After that everyone else has gathered in the main hall.” Georgia replied as she lowered a wing for me to hop up onto her back to ride.

“How many griffons do I have?” I asked in concern. I still hadn’t adjusted to the fact that I had even one slave so having even more was starting to irritate me.

“Just me, my lord. All the others work directly for Dark Eclipse. You’ll also meet them after breakfast.” Georgia explained as she took off at a light run down the halls to the kitchen.

“Oh good, was getting irritated at the idea of having more than one slave…” I sighed in defeat. “And now i’ll get to ask some questions of your bosses.”

“Correction, you’re my boss. I was merely bought and paid for by the group and given to you as a gift in return for your destiny.” Georgia remarked as she slid to a halt, using her wings as airbrakes before the kitchen doors. “My lord, may I introduce the kitchen staff.” she announced as the entire griffon kitchen staff bowed to me all at once, as though choreographed.

“Hi, thanks for your hard work.” I waved nervously and chuckled just the same. “Good job with the meals over the last few days, keep it up.”

“Yes sir, thank you sir!” The head chef grinned and bowed. “Now, what can we make you for breakfast?”

“Uhm… surprise me. Something I can eat on the go. Georgia and I are going to make a stop in the library before we hit the grand hallway so maybe try and have one of the servers find us in either location when foods ready.” I requested and silently ordered the griffon below me out of the room.

“Of course, sire.” The head chef bowed again and turned to his subordinates, yelling something as the doors swung shut behind us.

“What business have you in the Library?” Georgia inquired as she took off in a run towards the aforementioned space.

“It has the best acoustics of the castle.” I explained as I fired up my horn and summoned my guitar in it's usual settings.

“You can play the guitar, sire?” Georgia noted in surprise as I turned onto my back, resting against the lower portion of her neck to keep still.

“Yep. Got bored a couple years back and decided to try and learn one of these instruments.” I remarked and started up the acoustical version of With or Without You again as Octavia had been on my mind for the last couple days.

Georgia slowed to a walk as she listened to the music, to the sound of my voice as I sang across time and space to Octavia. I could imagine that she was playing and singing the same song at the same time, or at least I could hope.

As soon as we entered into the library, the sound seemed to reach out into the room and fill every single possible corner of the room. My voice did the same and echoed throughout without distorting the sound.

With Georgia standing in the middle of the room and me resting back to back with her, I noticed a couple library staff appear from the shadows to watch and listen through to the end of the song where they disappeared into the woodwork again.

“You sound like you’re singing to someone.” Georgia noted after the last note drifted away.

“I suppose I was, yeah. I’ve got a mare waiting for me in Equestria and we kinda got together over that song.” I replied and switched to a couple random chords, mostly just plucking noise while I fought for a song to appear in the chaos of my hooves. After a minute of incomprehensible noise, I simply gave up and let the guitar shimmer off into infinity.

“Is that all?” Georgia inquired, trying to be helpful. “Was there anything else you required from the library?”

I sat in silence for a moment, trying to think of anything. “Nope, that’s it. Let’s go to the grand hallway and meet everyone.”

“Of course, sire.” Georgia tried to bow her head to my request but with me resting against her neck she did the best she could without making me fall off.

With my “indentured servant” taking off at a casual walk I watched as the hallways flew by in reverse, oddly enough giving me a different perspective on the castle. One always sees the world going forwards, but it was certainly interesting to see it going backwards.

“Sire, I suggest that you enter on your own accord. Riding on my back would give the appearance of weakness before the Dark Eclipse.” Georgia announced, stopping before a set of doors into a tiny secondary set of stairs and the larger double doors to the grand hallway.

“Right, yeah. Don’t wanna appear weak in front of the troops.” I sighed and with a following groan, rolled off the powerful back muscles and onto my hooves with a clack. “Shall we?”

“Absolutely. Allow me,” Georgia requested, taking hold of the door handles and pulled hard. The hinges resounded with a solid, echoing screech as the door slowly swung open before me. I could already see a rather large congregation of hooded ponies already kneeling before the stairs where I was apparently going to be standing behind a trio of significantly older looking creatures; one a pony who I was unsure of the sub-breed, a very large, very imposing Griffon in black and red steel armour, and most oddly enough, A dragonling with bright yellow scales.

“Presenting his Highness,” Georgia bellowed as I slowly entered into the large room and the rows upon rows upon rows of hooded creatures behind extended down the length of the hallway. There were at least fifty rows, each twenty creatures across.

“Eclissi, son of Nightmare Moon!” Georgia finished and the entire congregation either bowed, or deepened their bow upon my arrival.

The eery thing was how silent everyone was; I swear I could hear my own blood pumping through my veins had I not been moving, it was that quiet. Set up on the halfway landing of the grand staircase, outlined in my quickly becoming royal decor of red and black, sat a rather large and plush throne lined with what looked like real leather.

“Where’d this come from?” I tilted the question and my head towards Georgia as I approached the throne. I had whispered the question only to her but with the existing silence already in the room, accompanied by the grandness of the hallway’s ability to echo, I may have just shouted it on the top of my lungs.

“A gift, your highness.” The dragonling replied with a flourishing bow. “To commemorate the Dark Eclipse’s oath to serve you until you ascend to the throne in Equestria.”

“I didn’t ask you.” I muttered and took a seat. As soon as I was comfortable -which didn’t take long with how stuffed the cushions were- a squadron of griffon kitchen staff swarmed me, setting up a table outlined in gold leaf and began setting up every sort of breakfast item I could think of and then some. “Uh,” I stared out at the spread before me. “Fruit first, I suppose.” I requested and a bowl of diced mixed fruits appeared before me with a silver fork next to it.

Turning to the waiting crowd before me with the fork in magical grasp and a melon speared through, “So, where do we begin?”

“My lord, if you’ll forgive me,” the griffon in combat armour placed a claw against his chest in a sort of salute. “Should we introduce ourselves?”

“Go for it.” I replied and popped the melon into my mouth. Honeydew.

“My lord, I am Gerald White. I command the entire griffon force you see behind me.” The aforementioned legion of griffons stood up as one and raised their heads for a moment before returning to a kneeling bow. Of the twenty columns, about seven columns had stood. I could only guess the other ones were ponies and dragons. “I’m also the one who had purchased and gifted you Georgia as your personal indentured servant. If you are not pleased with her capabilities, please speak to me and I shall have her replaced.”

“‘Kay.” I popped in a mouthful of maraschino cherries, banana slices and a couple orange slices. Tropical, especially for the current climates of the mountains.

“My lord,” the dragonling stood and gave her own salute before continuing. “I am called Vera and I lead the dragon army behind me.” Again, a third of the legion stood and raised their heads before kneeling again. “We are the ones responsible for maintaining the levels of magic in the castle as, aside from the ponies, we are the closest beings to magic.”

“Sure…” I’m not entirely sure how the short answers were going to help me maintain appearance, but frankly, I had some semblance of manners and as such, I’d prefer not to talk with a mouthful of fruits.

“My lord,” the pony spoke up and Vera kneeled once more. “My name is Camber and my forces are dedicated to your personal service, no matter the task. We are skilled in everything from search and recover to simple acts of restoring the vigor to your soul. Our females are also skilled in a variety of… Specialized tasks, should you require such things.”

“I probably won't, just saying.” I remarked as the herd behind Camber knelt back down again. “So, aside from me eating breakfast, what’s going on here? Why and I here in the first place?”

“Did Georgia not explain it to you?” Gerald inquired, glaring at the griffon behind me.

“Kind of. She said that you, Dark Eclipse, are bent on ensuring I complete my goals of banishing the Equestrian royalty and the Harmony Bearers to the stars. What I want to know is, why?” I leaned against the foreleg rest of the throne to let my stomach digest everything so far.

“We would see your quest in so that we may assist you to your rightful place on the throne. We believe that you would serve as a better monarch than Celestia and Luna, with our assistance of course.” Vera explained cordially and with a smile that hinted at something. What that something was, I had no idea.

“‘Kay. You understand that such an explanation suggests to me that you’d act as the true ruler, using me as a figurehead for whatever plans you have hiding in dark rooms.” I noted and pointed out a cup of tea to be poured for myself and Georgia.

“Yes, we understand this.” Camber spoke up. “We wish to assure you that that is not our goals. Truly, we stand behind you in your goals and we will recognize your authority upon your coronation. We are merely the agents to bring you to that end.”

“Uh huh.” I magically held the teacup out to Georgia, who looked at it curiously for a second before taking it gratefully.

“That being said, what would you have us do? We are eager to begin your crusade.” Gerald requested of me, almost sounding demanding in the process.

“Well, nothing is going to happen if I can’t get rid of the Elements of Harmony,” I began.

“So you wish for us to remove them for you?” Gerald looked eager for a potential fight.

“No no, I wanna do that myself. I want my mother to know that it was me who took out her precious weapons, all by myself. What I need from you all is to gather information on the remaining six Elements of Chaos. You will bring this information back to me and I will go out and retrieve them.” I ordered. A single, resounding thud of claws and hooves hitting chests echoed through the room in reply.

“But, sire.” Vera lifted a finger to break into my train of thought. “Would it not go faster and be a better use of resources if we brought you the Elements ourselves?”

“Normally yes. However I don’t know what would happen if your forces came into contact with the Elements. When I touched the stone of Wrath, it was absorbed into my body and I have no idea if it’s possible to remove it if I wanted to.” I explained, taking a sip of the black tea.

“Of course. We will see to it that none of our forces interact with the Elements.” Vera bowed with a fist over her scaled chest.

“Awesome. In the meantime, I want someone to go to Equestria and see what the state of affairs have become in my sudden disappearance. Don’t interact with anypony, I just want to know what’s happening with my friends and marefriend.” I requested, looking to Camber for this order.

“Yes, my liege.” Camber bowed his head in response.

“Gerald, your forces are the ones on protection duty, right? Come see me later on, I wanna chat in private.” I requested, pushing the table aside to stand. The entire room stood up once I had done so and after grabbing another bowl of fruits and berries along with my tea, I trotted from the room with Georgia behind me and aimed for nowhere in particular.

~~~

“Sire, what do you wish to speak with me about?” Gerald asked once he’d caught up. “You are excused.” he ordered of Georgia, but I held them both up with a wing.

“She can stay.” I argued, looking at Georgia as she turned to leave. “I want to know about what kind of protection your forces are capable of and what kind of weaponry they have at their disposal. I’m also curious about the armour choice.” I notd, looking over the steel plates hanging off the Griffon’s enormous body. Georgia was big, at least twice as big as I was, but Gerald stood a whole head and shoulders over her.

“Sire, I have legions who’ve trained in military practices their entire lives. They’ve trained to act as both silent guardians, keeping watch from the air as well as from the shadows on the ground. If you’d prefer a more… presidential treatment, I can have a squadron of my very best accompany you at all times.” Gerald explained with a grin. He was proud of his troops and it showed.

“Kay, let go with the silent guardian for now. I don’t like being… crowded.” I remarked, shuddering at the idea of standing in a tight group of really large birds.

“It will be done.” Gerald saluted with a fist to his chest. “In terms of weaponry, we have the finest blacksmiths in all of Griffonia working round the clock to forge the best steel for use in armour and armaments.”

“And those armaments are…” I sat down in the middle of the hallway, with Georgia staring out a nearby window at the mountain side.

“Everything from swords to battle axes. I’ve taken the liberty of having enough scythes made if you wished to have a sort of special ops unit who use your type of weapon.”

“Ehh…” I considered the idea, but couldn’t decide if I liked it or not. “Not right now. Have them distributed to whoever has training for them for now. What of armour?”

“We have recovered your Nightmare Armour from Everfree Castle and it’s currently being stored in your personal armoury. We’ve used it’s designs to create armours for our officers and specialists. I regret to inform you that we don’t have enough steel in Griffonia to provide armour to the lower ranks.” Gerald lowered his head with his apology, looking like he was going to kill someone for the lack of resources.

“Ehh, they’re disposable.” I shrugged and looked to Georgia’s armour. “What about Georgia? What are her capabilities for protection, weapon training and such?”

“Sire,” Georgia turned to reply once she heard her name. “I have been trained to use both one and two handed swords. I usually have a greatsword on my back and two twin swords on my hips, but with the location I don’t feel the need to carry weapons. I am also highly skilled in claw-to-claw combat, so there is no need for worry if someone does attack you.” Georgia replied with a smirk.

“And armour?” I raised an eyebrow to appraise her current outfit.

“I can wear all types, light, medium and heavy. I prefer light to medium armour, however.” Georgia explained, giving her attire a dusting off.

“‘Kay. Have Georgia made a set of medium weight armour like mine. I want the troops protecting me to be protected as best they can be, to their preferences. Use whatever resources you need for it, whatever it takes.” I ordered and stood up again. Georgia took to my side as Gerald excused himself to follow through on his orders.

“You seem to be taking to ordering us around quite well.” Georgia noted, hinting at a smirk. “I find it quite pleasing to see, sire.”

“Ehh, I might as well make use of them if they’re offering.” I shrugged casually. “Question, does this castle come with skis?” I grinned, looking out at the fresh powder on the mountain side. The mountain looked like it was placed in the absolute perfect place for skiing with a small basin at the base of the castle.

“I do not know. I’d have to ask around. I didn’t know you skied.” Georgia remarked, looking out the window with me.

“I don’t. I wanna start though, it looked fun in my books.” I smiled bemusedly and hopped up onto the window sill, pressing a hoof against the cold glass. “I’ve never experienced snow before, now that I think about it…”

“Then let me give you some advice, if I may.” Georgia leaned against a pillar of stone bricks, one leg crossed over the other. “Dress warmly. Even for a pony like yourself, the temperature up here can become ridiculously frigid quickly.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Could you have someone get me some appropriate clothing then? I’ll leave the specific details up to you.” I requested and hopped down from the window to continue walking, staff members stepping aside as I passed by them with a bow of the head. Now that i’d met them all, I noticed they were everywhere.

Wrath of the Deserted

Four Days Later

“Vera, a moment please?” I requested, standing just inside the doorway into the Arcanaeum. The room used to be my mothers in the blueprints, but since she wasn’t here it was turned into the room that the Dragons now used to harness the magic i’d rely on.

“Of course sire, just a moment.” Vera nodded in reply before turning back to shout at one of her underlings. I stepped back out into the hallway to wait as Vera finished up her own duties.

“Yes, sire? What can I help you with?” Vera ducked under the doorway that really wasn’t made for her height. That being said, she lowered herself onto all fours in order to look at me at head level.

“I’ve become aware that there’s no black magic being charged… I’m only able to restore a third of my magic right now.” I noted, sitting back despite figuring that this would be a short conversation. “Dark Eclipse wants me to be at my very best right?” Vera nodded in reply, looking worried. “I can’t be at my best if i’m missing two thirds of my magical power, can I?”

“No, sire. I suppose not. I will speak to my own and see what we can do to restore black magical functions for you.” Vera bowed with a flourish before backing herself into the room again.

“Awesome, thanks.” I offered a kindly smile as the doors shut, but as soon as the latch was set the smile disappeared and I took off down the hallway with Georgia right on my hooves.

“Why do you need black magic now? You haven’t seemed to have worried abut it up until now…” Georgia inquired, keeping pace with me even in her medium armour.

“Yeah but up until now i’ve only been using light magic. The lack of ability to restore my dark and black magic is becoming a hazard to my health.” I explained, looking up and over my shoulder at the griffon watching over me. “If I can’t start regenerating those affinities then I fear what would happen to me.”

“What’s the worst that could happen? It’s not like you’d die, is it?” Georgia asked skeptically. The look I shot her had her eyes go wide, however. “Wait, you could die?”

“Not in the typical sense. If I don’t restore the flow in those magical circuits then they’ll essentially dry up and disappear. Meaning I’d only be stuck with a third of the magical power i’d need to complete my goals.” I remarked, continuing on down towards the kitchen.

“And you wouldn’t be able to restore them? Then we need to get you some dark and black magics soon!” Georgia decided, pounding a fist on the nearest wall.

“No, that’s wrong. We can’t get dark magics because dark magic is the blending of light and black magics. It’ll come when Vera starts loading me up with blacks.” I informed, holding a hoof up pointedly.

Stepping into the kitchen, I set forth to creating myself a sandwich with the kitchen staff arguing that I shouldn’t have to do anything.

“No, i’m bored and I’m getting lazy. I’ll make my own damn sandwich!” I barked as I pulled a loaf of whole wheat bread from the fridge with the ingredients I planned to throw into it following in a dark red shimmer and set everything down on the counter with all tools i’d need at the ready; the kitchen staff watching me intently and curiously instead of doing whatever it was they needed to be doing.

Slathering a slice of bread with a bit of butter, I layered on the following: a couple healthy leaves of lettuce, followed by red, green, orange and yellow pepper slices, tomato slices, cucumber, pickles, onions and a clawful of potato fries from last night’s dinner.

“Oi,” I turned from my sandwich before me to a nearby bartender. “Make me something good with whisky.” I had soon discovered good alcohols from beyond Equestria: Whisky from the North, Rum from the South and a couple different ales from the East and West that I didn't mind during my stay so far.

“Of course sir, right away.” The griffon bartender remarked before pulling bottles down from a shelf behind her and poured everything together. Soon a tall glass of cold alcohol mixed in with some kind of soda appeared on a silver tray with a wedge of lime sitting on the rim.

Taking it in my magic, as well as the sandwich, I took a swig and tested the alcohol content. “Awesome.” I smirked once I'd swallowed and made to exit the kitchen. “Thanks!” I raised the glass to the kitchen staff as I turned the corner into the hallway and the sandwich in my mouth mid-bite.

“Where-to next?” Georgia inquired as she wiped her mouth of something she’d hastily ate while I was prepping my own sustenance.

“I’ unno…” I shrugged with a mouthful. “I’ve become so bored in recent days that all I seem to do is walk around the castle in laps.” I remarked once I'd cleared my mouth out with a drink. “I really kinda wanna go back to Equestria… Once I've got the stones, I mean…”

“Lord Eclissi!” Camber’s voice echoed down the hallway from behind me. Both Georgia and I halted in our tracks and turned to face the newcomer. “A word if I may?”

“‘Kay.” I remarked and bite down on my sandwich again.

“Sir, my scouts have returned with news that they’ve found five of the stones you’re looking for.” Camber grinned, though was panting heavily.

“Seriously?” I asked with astonishment, my mouthful nearly dropping out in the process though I quickly caught it and finished it. “Awesome! Where are they?” I demanded eagerly.

“They’re currently spread out across the world. I believe one of the stones was up in the mountains of Yakyakistan and another was south of Equestria in the Saddle Arabian Deserts.” Camber replied, producing a world map to point out a couple very large circles with his hoof.

“Tho- those circles are huge! They cover an area larger than these mountain ranges!” I exclaimed in disappointment. “Is there anyway to narrow those down? Maybe to at least a kilometer radius?” I asked hopefully, my eyebrows raising up in expectation.

“Well…” Camber drifted off, rubbing his chin. “Not really. These are the best results we could get with the resources we have available to us.” Camber sighed, still looking at the map with Equestria just off to the right of the center of the map.

“So, if we had more resources you could do it?” I could feel an idea coming on, but whether it was good or bad… Nah, it was a good idea. I needed those stones and damn the consequences. “There are towns and mines nearby, right?”

“Yes, sire. There are various towns all along the base of the mountains each producing their own resources that they sell to their governments and beyond.” Georgia replied, pointing out general locations along the mountain ranges where we lived. “It’s how they’ve managed to remain active towns for centuries.”

“Yeah, don’t care. Have Gerald go down with some of his fighters and ‘acquisition’ as much of their resources as you need to narrow those search areas down.” I grinned, rubbing my hooves together as a gentle pulsing echoed in my ears.

“Sir? Are you sure-” Camber began, but the glare I shot him tightened up his lips and had him saluting me before trotting off down the hall; foregoing the recollection of his map.

“Sir, if I may speak freely?” Georgia requested in a respectable tone of voice.

“What?” I snapped and took a drink before returning to my sandwich.

“Those towns require those resources in order to flourish. If we were to acquire those materials, through any means except through monetary payments, those towns won’t be able to sustain themselves and the mines will be shut down.” Georgia replied, sounding worried for the well-being of others.

“Georgia, Georgia Georgia Georgia.” I shook my head in disappointment. “You’re job isn’t to worry about the well-being of others. You’re sole purpose in life is to ensure my well-being so that I can claim the throne in Canterlot, correct?” I demanded, attempting to sound somewhat helpful. The pulsing in my ears began to grow louder, sounding more and more like a heartbeat.

“Ye- Yes, my lord.” Georgia bowed her head in sad response as she followed after me down the hall, once again aiming for nowhere in specific.

“Good. Let me worry about other towns and do your job.” I ordered and finished off my sandwich. I needed more alcohol, and for this pulsing in my head to stop.

~~~

“Georgia, any word on the collection of resources?” I requested, looking up from a spell book that I'd almost completely forgotten was in my personal collection.

“Yes, sire. Gerald has deployed a battalion of griffon warriors to escort Camber and his own forces to retrieve the necessary materials.” Georgia replied dutifully, standing guard at the door to my room as I sat at my desk.

“Good, good.” I grinned and went back to my reading. The heartbeat in my head had grown progressively louder over the last three hours and the five alcoholic drinks I've had in that time have done nothing to quell it’s incessant beating. “Ehh, have word sent to Camber to just clear out all the acquired materials in… two of the towns. I’ll leave it up to you which towns those are.” I sighed in boredom and sat back in my chair, my hooves crossed behind my head.

“Ye- yes. Sire.” Georgia’s face became downcast as she saluted her exit from the room to follow through on her orders.

“Ugh… I’d love it if this fucking pulsing in my head would quit!” I exclaimed to no pony in particular. “Georgia!” I shouted, rolling off my chair to stick my head out the doorway, holding up the griffon.

“Yes, sire?” She halted and turned to face me, already arming herself with her weapons.

“Take it all! All the towns, I want everything they’ve got!” I demanded before pulling my head back into the room to press my hooves against my head and squeezed. “Stop it! Stop it!” I shouted as the heartbeat turned from just sound to an actual, second heartbeat in my head. “What more do you want from me!”

Everything.

Suddenly, my horn was fired up without my consent and a dull yellow liquid began to drip from the tip. This liquid began to flow more and more rapidly and I could feel the back pressure in my mind begin to ebb away until finally, just as the liquid stopped dripping to the floor, the pulsing was gone.

“What… What is this?” I murmured out loud, feeling drained as I stared at the viscous pool before me. “What just happened?”

[i]You called? A sinister voice replied, sounding like it was grinning with razor sharp teeth.

“What? Who said that?” I demanded, looking around the room for my potential intruder.

I did. Did you not call for me? Have you not been looking for me and my kin? The voice asked again, sounding like it was insulted. You said you wanted everything, right? The resources, the crown, the world! Well, I want the same things!

“You,” I looked down at the yellow fluid before me. “What are you?”

Who, little ol’ me? the fluid began to ripple and flow into a shape. A shape I recognized. Well, I have my own name, but… The shape suddenly looked into my fiery red eyes with it’s own, similarly fiery red eyes. My eyes. With my face, but in dull yellow. I’m you.

“Oh.” I sighed in relief, actually chuckling lightly to myself. “Good, I thought you were Discord for a second there.”

Wait, what? My yellowed face looked up at me in surprise. Aren’t you horrified at me because I look like you? Are you not quaking in your shoes at the realization that I am you in your purest form?

“Nope.” I shook my head once and sat down before my misshapen mirrored image. “The wrath stone within me was enough of a shock as it was. I figure you’re probably another one of the stones, right?”

Wow, I was not expecting that. The fluid admitted, looking disappointed in itself. Okay, then who am I specifically?

“No idea.” I admitted firmly.

Then let me make my introduction. You may call me, Greed.

“Pleasure.” I smiled and stuck my hoof next to the liquid. “Now then, I suppose you’ll be wanting to be absorbed into my body like Wrath, right? So, let’s get it over with.” I announced, sliding my hoof across the floor until it touched the surprisingly warm fluid.

You… You’re willingly letting me take over your body? Really?

“Take over?” I grinned. “Hah! No. I’m letting you ride along with your kin!” I chuckled as Greed began to flow up and seep into my flesh, just above the walls of my hoof. “I want everything this world has to offer, and you’re going to help me get it!” I grinned.

Greed seemed pleased with this and with a grin of his own, plus the brightening of his colour to a more pleasant yellow, injected himself into my leg entirely to settle in at the back of my mind.

“Get comfortable in there Greed, this is going to be a bumpy ride.” I grinned as I exited from my room to head to the library with my guitar shimmering onto my back.

~~~

Entering into the materials processing room quite some time later, I was quite pleased with the innumerable boxes of unprocessed supplies being loaded into the place with equine labour. On the left sat the large trailers being unloaded of huge crates and on the right sat the currently unpacked boxes, sitting at least thirty stacks high and at least five or six stacks out from the wall.

“Sire, as you can see we’ve returned with the requested materials. We will be able to decrease the search areas significantly with these supplies and I've already tasked a legion of workers to get them into workable states.” Camber announced happily with a clipboard held in his grasp.

“Excellent. Use as much as you need and get me those locations as soon as equinely possible. Spare no expense and if you have to, get more from further out regions.” I ordered and turned from the room and back into the hallway.

All of a sudden a wave of black magic surged from the depths of the castle, beginning to restore my dark and black magics.

“Oh, fuck yes!” I shouted in immeasurable pleasure as my horn drank up the radiating magics. “Ohhh, fuck me, yes! That’s good shit!” I grinned and threw my head backwards, allowing in impulse of magic overwhelm me and turn me Nightmare.

With a deep, guttural laugh I let my teeth sharpen and my eyes change as my mane and tail exploded outwards. The change hadn’t gone unnoticed by the workers and everyone nearby lowered themselves into a deep bow at my arrival; some of them grinning along with me.

“Holy fuck that feel so fucking good to have black magic at my beck and call once again!” I exclaimed with a grin, turning to address the troops. “Hey! Get back to work you lazy fuckers!” I screamed, scaring the ponies back to work at twice their original speed.

To warm myself up again and get the black magic flowing through my circuits again, I took hold of one of the random, nameless workers by the throat and lifted them up into the air towards me.

“Sorry you had to go this way, it’s nothing personal.” I grinned malevolently at the terrified stallion and began to squeeze harder with my magic. “I’ll make sure your family works hard in your absence.”

“Please…” the stallion wheezed pleadingly, his eyes looking ready to explode. “Don’t…”

“Like I said, nothing personal.” I smirked and wrung his neck completely, snapping the spine and severing the brain connections to the rest of his body. Tossing the body aside, I stared out at the ponies working four times harder now, aiming to not be my next victim.

“Clean this up.” I ordered calmly, stepping out of the room as a pair of ponies dragged the corpse away to be disposed of. “And get his family working for me!” I shouted back as I launched into the air on my wings, Georgia staring open-beaked as she followed behind me.

“Oh, damn. It’s been too long!” I chuckled to myself as I glided through the hallways towards the Arcanaeum to congratulate Vera and her staff on their accomplishments.

“Sire, it’s good to see you in such high spirits.” Georgia announced, turning my head back towards her for a quick smile. “It’s a pleasure to finally see you in all your Nightmare glory.”

“It is, isn’t it.” I chuckled and landed at the Arcanaeum doors and flung it open with my magic. “Vera!” I shouted into the room, all the dragons flying about stopping what they were doing to bow at my entrance.

“Coming!” Vera shouted from somewhere beyond the shadows. “What can I do for you…” Vera skidded to a halt as she caught sight of my appearance. “Your highness?” she bowed lower than before. “I am pleased to see the Royal form, my lord.”

“As am I. Great job on getting some black magic flowing through the castle.” I remarked and lifted Vera’s head with my wing. “Well done.”

“Th- thank you, my king.” Vera beamed before turning to scowl at her staff. “Get back to work!” She barked, her voice switching from sweet and melodic to rough and almost as sinister as my own. A dragon after my own heart, as it were. Hmm… She was quite attractive, now that I thought about it.

“Vera, would you meet me in my chambers in a little while? Finish up whatever you’re doing and then come see me for some… special tasks.” I requested with a smirk as her eyes went wide in surprise, as did Georgia’s.

“Ye- Yes sire! It would be my honour!” Vera beamed again, fluffing herself up - if that was even possible with scales- before excusing herself to prepare.

“Georgia, go station yourself outside my room.” I ordered as the pair of us left the Arcanaeum and returned to our destination. “No one bothers me while I'm busy.” I demanded.

“Of course sire. Under no reason will I allow any interruptions to your… activities.” Georgia nodded and saluted as she slid to a halt outside my door to take up position. I, on the other hand, let myself in and set about getting the room itself ready for a bout of heated sex.

“Lord Eclipse,” Vera’s melodic voice announced herself as I cast a spell to make my entire body a bit bigger; just smaller than Georgia but large enough to make this upcoming adventure worth the effort. “It is I.”

“Come in.” I growled with a grin and the door swung open. Vera ducked under the door and entered into the room looking ready to enter Nirvana, a huge smile on her face and her scales neatly washed and polished to the point of glimmering.

“My lord, I love what you’ve done to the place.” Vera noted, looking at all the crackling flames I'd set upon candles and in the fireplace. “If it were molten lava I'd feel right at home.”

“Glad to hear it.” I replied and let Vera come to me before the pair of us fell onto my bed, a magical barrier preventing sound from escaping into the hallway.

~~~

“My king, if you’ll permit me to say so,” Vera panted heavily, clutching at the blankets that covered us with a huge grin on her scaled face. “That was amazing!”

“Thank you, thank you!” I smirked back, also breathing heavily as I could feel myself getting ready for another round, the eleventh round in four hours. “Wanna go again?” I looked over to the dragon with a grin, she grinned back and I pounced. Here’s to number twelve!

~~~

“Ahh, I can’t move any longer.” Vera groaned in bliss as I stepped out of the bathroom, having taken a shower to cleanse my dark self. I had enough light magic in me to let me change back if I wanted to, but I was enjoying being Nightmare Eclipse too much.

“Well, you still have plenty of work in the Arcanaeum; don’t you? Best get a move on before your staff starts worrying.” I remarked, having gotten over the exuberance in the shower. I was now left with feeling bored again.

“Of course, sire. May I clean up in your shower? Prevent leaving a mess in the hallways?” Vera requested, sitting up looking hopeful.

“No. There’s another one just down the hallway. You’ll have to do your best not to leave a trail.” I remarked sternly as I lowered the sound proofing to step out into the hallway.

“Evening, my lord.” Georgia saluted to my exit, the heat in the room escaping en force. “Had a pleasant ride?”

“Indeed I did.” I smirked and let Georgia follow after me as Vera took off down the other direction. “I don’t see myself doing her again for a while.”

“I see.” Georgia mumbled to herself. “Sire, I’d gotten news that Camber’s forces have not only narrowed down the search areas, but they’ve also found all the stones already.”

“Excellent.” I grinned and looked over to Georgia. Our comparable sizes had me remember that I was still under the effects of the size enhancement spell, but I left it alone for the time being. It was interesting being this tall. “Something else?”

“Yes sire. Camber’s scouts reported that the stones looked…” Georgia paused to consider her words. “Unassuming. They looked like regular gemstones.”

“So how do they know those are the Chaos Elements?” I inquired, raising an eyebrow with grit sharp teeth.

“They were only found in the darkest or more deserted of places, protected by ancient magics.” Georgia recounted, pulling a scroll from somewhere to look it over. “They uhm…”

“Spit it out before I extract it myself.” I ordered with a glare, stopping with Georgia to stand before her threateningly.

“They had to move the stones from their resting places in order to properly secure them.” Georgia replied, looking fearful for her safety.

“They moved them?” I demanded, my mane and tail exploding outwards. The added fury had the effect of actually bending the light around me, making the hallway light flicker quite noticeably.

“Y-yes, sire. They were forced to… bring… them here…” Georgia cowered back at my display of furious power but looked ready to give her life up if I so desired it.

“They brought them here?” I demanded in a terrifying calm tone of voice. “They brought them here!” I screamed, my hair flaring out yet again as I cracked a tile beneath my stamped hoof. “Somebody is going to die!” I declared and took off down the hallway with Georgia hot on my ornately decorated hooves.

Feast of the Wicked

The wait until my return to Equestria was long, and my longing for Octavia was reaching a level of uncomfortable pain that I found aggravating. I realized that while I could take out my sexual frustrations on any of my slaves- no, they’re indentured servants.

They’re slaves. While I could take my frustrations out on any of my female slaves, I could only think of Octavia. Her smooth grey fur, her powerful earth pony body, her gentle smile when I did something stupid like escape from her room to murder a couple of guards…

“Ugh!” I groaned, rolling from my right side to my left in physical pain radiating from my nethers. Seriously, it felt like something was going to explode if I couldn’t get some wonderful Octavian release.

“Sire?” Georgia knocked on the door a couple times before poking the yellow tip of her beak into the room. Just the beak, nothing else as per my instructions. “Is everything alright?”

“No!” I barked back, shooting up to a seated position. “I’m too cramped up on this ship and I swear my testicles are going to explode if I don’t see Octavia soon!” I complained, uncaring of who else on the ship was within earshot. I could throw them off the side of the ship if they made any kind of remark. It was a long way down and most likely that the perpetrator would die of a heart attack before they died on impact.

“Oh…” Georgia gasped, pulling her beak from the door now. “Uhm… I am capable of… relieving your stress… sire…” Georgia offered as she pushed the door open to enter before closing it to try and tease me by slowly, and quite awkwardly, undress before me.

“Yeah,” I dragged the word out over my tongue. “No.” I held a hoof up to stop Georgia’s clumsy advance. “Thanks for the offer, but i’ve filled my want for interracial sex for quite a while with Vera.” I sighed and dropped onto my back again, completely uncaring about my stallionhood resting full mast against my stomach, or that the only female in the cabin with me was staring at it.

“Something else?” I demanded, turning Georgia's face bright red as she beat a hasty retreat from the room in silence. “Seriously, this fucking sucks.” I mumbled, still in pain but at least the distraction helped to calm me down, if at least a little bit.

Rolling off my bed, I trotted into the shower -a closed unit that recycled a limited amount of water- and cranked the water to as cold as possible before taking a deep breath and stepped in.

“Argg! Holy fucking shit that is cold!” I cried out as the freezing temperatures had the intended effect of making little me crawl back inside for warmth. As soon as it was safely out of view I hopped out and shook as much of the ice water from my coat as I could before taking to a towel to try and warm myself up further.

Dashing from the bathroom I drove into bed and pulled the covers as tightly around my body as I could, shivering intensely.

“My King, are you alright? I heard shouting!” Georgia demanded, bursting into the room with her twin short swords in her grasp and looking furious.

“I- I’m f-fine. J-just f-f-freezing!” I shuddered in reply, curling up as tightly as I could. Georgia was apparently satisfied with this answer as she sheathed her weapons on her hips and entered, pulling the door shut behind her.

Once the room was secure, Georgia began to disrobe again, leaving on the bands of cloth that protected her modesty.

“Georgia, I t-told you already…” I began to protest as Georgia completely ignored me and stepped up to my bedside in what would be equated to some kind of undergarments.

“I know, my lord. This is not that.” Georgia replied as she tentatively pulled the covers back enough that she could pull my shivering body up and against her own. “The best way to warm up safely is to share body heat. If you'll forgive my brash behaviour, sire, I will warm you with my body.”

“You do realize that that's only for when I'm fighting hypothermia, right? A blanket and a warm drink would work just fine right now.” I muttered, though my words did not match my actions as I curled up tighter against Georgia's body.

“I know, my King. But considering you seem to be clinging onto my fur like a newborn, I think you find these accommodations fitting?” Georgia let herself smirk at my foal-like behaviour, despite my silent protesting.

“Whatever…” I grumbled. But to be honest, Georgia's powerful body was quite agreeable. Her fur coarse but not so coarse that it was unpleasant, her feathers freshly washed and thus soft, yet the heartbeat I could hear and feel against my own was strong and steady.

I didn't know anything about griffin physiology but I could figure that her heartbeat suggested she felt absolutely no kind of arousal or physical attraction to me; this was nothing more than a servant warming her master’s body with her own.

I accepted this readily and let myself relax, the shivering in my bones slowly receding into nothing.

“Sire?” Georgia called calmly.

“Mmhmm?” I replied with content. Frankly I was on the verge of falling asleep like this, and I was fine with it. Of course, if anyone found out I’d deny it.

“I think you're warm enough now. You’re no longer shivering.”

“I know.” I replied with a yawn. “Frankly, I'm quite comfortable right now and I haven't actually slept today.”

“Would you like me to stay here till you fall asleep?” Georgia suggested, shifting around to get comfortable.

“Please. Tell anypony about this and I'll filet you myself.” I replied sternly.

“Of course. Then allow me to get myself more comfortable.”

~~~

Waking naturally in my bed, the first thing I thought of was if Georgia was still with me right now. Searching the mattress a little bit on either side of me, I found I slept alone as no female griffin bodies were with me.

In fact, the room itself was empty. My eyes roamed the modestly sized room in the candle light -apparently it had become night and remained as such while I slept and had awoken to darkness- for any signs of life, but found none.

Rolling from my side on the bed to my hooves on the floor, I magically pulled a black and red house coat around myself in silence as I stepped as quietly as I could to the door.

Pulling it open I was quite pleased with my decision to dress as a cold wind rushed in and extinguished the candles in the room, as well as tossing a number of papers and documents about. Climbing the few stairs to the main deck, I had the chance to look at and examine the skeleton crew in their various jobs. I couldn't even begin to imagine what all went into running a vessel like this. Let alone an experimental vessel like this.

“Good morning, Lord Eclissi.” a deck talon nodded in greeting as he tugged on a rope which ascended into the darkness above.

“Any idea what time it is?” I requested calmly as the ship beneath me groaned.

“Just after midnight, your highness. We'll be coming up to Equestrian borders by mid afternoon.” the deck talon replied before disappearing with his rope to go do something else.

“Really? But we should still be a days travel away…” I mumbled to myself. “Just how long did I sleep?”

“Approximately a day and a half, my King.” Georgia reported dutifully behind me. “I expect your getting hungry, yes? I have the messhall staff preparing you breakfast as we speak.”

“Awesome. Should give me enough time for a quick flight around the skies then.” I grinned and spread my wings. “Do join me.”

“Would be my honour.” Georgia bowed and spread her own wings. The two of us took off at a light run, her talons and paws clicking at the wood beneath us as my hooves audibly cracked against the same surface.

Soon our wings caught the air and we were carried upwards off the ship, accelerating ahead of it for a ways before we turned tail in a slow arc and sweet past the ports idea of the ship and its engine keeping it aloft.

Being up this high, the moon was in full view with the primary of the cloud cover shimmering silver beneath us. All around us, lighter puffs of condensation called clouds drifted on the light air currents which equally carried us.

The crisp night air rippled our furs and feathers and tore through my mane and tail, as though threatening to tear them off if I flew any faster.

I suddenly snapped my wings to my side and dropped my nose down, letting my weight accelerate me to terminal velocity before I spread wide and pulled up as hard as I could, using my new momentum to bring me back up again near to where Georgia descended to meet me.

“So? Is the flight everything you hoped it is?” Georgia inquired, shouting over the sound of the wind as we slowed down in order to be able to speak and be heard.

“Definitely. It’s quite beautiful up here at this time, isn’t it?” I grinned, my eyes roaming over the silver lined clouds with the bright white moon watching over all. “Moon’s so big I swear I can almost make out the Lunar Castle.” I joked casually. Georgia chuckled to herself and scanned the skies above us, her eyes roaming over the billions of stars above us.

“What is it like up there? To look down on this planet?” Georgia wondered with a sigh as we mostly glided on whatever updrafts existed up this high and at this time.

“Lonely.” I looked back through my memory and that was the only word I could think of to describe being on the moon; even when mom was there, it was still very lonely. “Lonely and boring. There’s only so much you can do in a barren environment, only so many books you can stand rereading repeatedly before you start to quote them verbatim.”

“But, wouldn’t it be amazing to see this planet from so far away? As far as I know, you and your mother are the only two creatures who’ve ever seen what this planet actually looks like! You can finally answer questions that scientists and philosophers have been asking about the planet for so long!” Georgia insisted, looking at me with wonder.

“Like what?” I looked boredly at the griffon servant as we turned another wide arc back towards the faint lights of the ship.

“Is the planet flat like everypony seems to think? Is Princess Celestia’s and Luna’s magic regarding moving the sun and moon actually necessary? Are there other planets out there or are we the only one? Is there other life out there or are we alone?” Georgia hammered me with questions and I began to realise that the two of us didn’t share a slave/master relationship as we did a relationship of friendship.

“Okay, the planet is round. I’m fairly certain that if the celestial bodies were set up properly, and this is the basis for my plans after I defeat my mother and aunt and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, that the princesses magics can be made useless. I have reason to believe that we’re not the only planet in this system, going off of tracking star movements in the sky. I have no idea if we’re the only form of life in our galaxy, but I choose to believe that there are others out there. If there isn’t then that’s a lot of empty sky.” I replied, trying to remember the specific questions asked of me.

“Could you paint or draw what the planet actually looks like then?” Georgia tilted her head at me as we came in for a guided landing on the ship, small candles lit along the deck as a runway.

“I can’t, no. My mother has had some experiences with painting so she’d be the one to ask.” I shrugged back and shook my body to loosen up some of the fur that had gotten tangled during flight.

I aimed back towards my cabin and for breakfast, following my nose in the process. Smelled like scrambled eggs mixed with some other stuff. Nosing into the cabin I was pleased to find that my nose was correct and that in addition was grilled peppers, green onions and cheese mixed into the eggs.

“Good morning, your highness.” the head server bowed to my entrance before pulling the chair from the table back and poured some hot water into one of my favourite teas. “All your favourites.” The server swept a talon over the spread, showing off the remainder of the table; my favourite fresh fruits and berries mixed into a fruit salad next to a light caesar salad -so I had a strange sense of what kind of food should be eaten for breakfast, sue me- next to the steeping tea with a large bowl of the scrambled egg mixture on top of an empty plate.

“Awesome.” I grinned and took a seat eagerly. “Have you made anything for Georgia?” I inquired, noticing a distinct lack of anything for the griffon guardian set out.

“Uhm, no… sire. I was unaware that your slave would be eating with you.” the server remarked uneasily, switching gazes between a relatively shocked Georgia and a concerned me.

“Yeah, don’t worry about that. I just only now decided she’d eat with me. Have her made something good, something as good as you’d make me.” I demanded and placed a silver tray cover over my own breakfast. “I’ll wait till she has a table.”

“Oh… of… of course…” The server stammered before excusing himself from the room to follow through on my orders.

“Uhm..” Georgia looked at me in concern. “I appreciate the offer to eat with you, sire…”

“But?” I rested against the hoof rests of the chair I was in, occasionally checking the tea.

“But i’m wondering where this newfound concern for my well-being is coming from.” Georgia admitted, pulling up a griffon sized chair across the table from me. “I have to admit, it’s a bit concerning…”

“Uhm, sire?” the server poked his beak back into the room. “If I may speak?”

“You’re seriously going to ask me a stupid question like that? You’re already speaking.” I smirked as the server’s flustering behaviour. “Go ahead, what is it?”

“Uhm, we don’t actually have… anything of good quality for Georgia. We weren’t expecting to feed her like we feed you.” the server remarked, slightly warming up to this nicer version of me.

“Okay, then use whatever reserves we have left for the crew. Maybe throw it into some kind of stew?” I ordered thoughtfully.

“Yeah, about that… See, we only actually have just enough food to feed the entire crew until we land.” the griffon replied matter-of-factly.

“What about the other slaves? When did they last eat?”

“I think they ate the day we launched. They went hungry all yesterday and today was the day we were expected to feed them again.” Georgia replied for the server, turning back to me from her twisted position to pay the server hr attention. “It’s really alright, sire. I ate yesterday so i’ll be fine until we land.”

“No!” I barked, startling both griffons in the room with me. “I will not have me and mine go hungry! We will eat our fill until our bellies burst! Use whatever the slaves are going to eat and ration out the rest! Georgia will eat like a queen! Or like me, whichever comes first!” I demanded angrily. My own hunger was starting to act up, with the rumbling making my fur quiver. “And soon! We’re hungry!”

“Y-yes sire! As you command!” the server quickly responded and ducked out of the room. Within fifteen minutes he’d have a meat and vegetable stew set out before Georgia in one of the ornate bowls that I’d often eat from, by my request of course.

“My lord, I appreciate everything but I cannot willingly take part of this if my fellow brethren are going hungry.” Georgia insisted, refusing to pick up her utensils as I wolfed down my own plate and emptied the cups of tea that seemed to have been enchanted to be never ending.

“You can, and you will!” I insisted with a mouthful of egg. “I went to the trouble of having this prepared for you, so you’ll behave and you’ll eat it!” I ordered. The rumbling in my stomach seemed to agree with this thought even as I continued for fork down the rest of the eggs in the bowl. I dropped all my utensils and began searching for more, the hunger in my stomach as yet unsated.

“Something wrong, sire?” Georgia hesitantly inquired, her filled spoon halfway to her beak.

“Still hungry, need more food.” I mumbled, flipping over bowls in search of crumbs. “Server! Bring me another large bowl of the salad and put more into it!” I shouted to the door.

“Yes sire!” The server’s muffled voice replied quickly before the sound of claws and paws echoed through the door and disappeared.

So… Hungry…

“No kidding…” I mumbled back, working on the tea to try and sate myself for the time being. I was actually trembling at this point.

“What was that?” Georgia asked once she swallowed her mouthful of stew.

“Nothing, never mind!” I barked as my stomach let out a long rumble to protest my words. “Where is my food?” I demanded furiously.

So… Hungry! Must… Eat!

“It’s coming, sire. Please, calm down!” Georgia remarked with worry in her eyes.

“Do not presume you may tell me to calm down! I am fucking starving and you’re all trying to kill me with a lack of food!” I screamed, swiping my hoof over the table to clear everything, though I caught and recovered the tea to drain it down my throat. “Bring me bread, cheese! Anything! Everything!” I screamed, my magic now starting to get worked up as a small wind began to rustle papers around us.

Eat… Everything!

“Sire! Your foods here!” Georgia shouted through the growing storm as a large bowl typically used to mass feed the slaves appeared with a green salad within. The bowl was quickly seized by me and I dove in muzzle first.

Coming up for air and to blow a crouton out of a nostril, I dove back in with my eyes probably looking like a madpony. Or like Discord.

Eat. Eat. Eat! Eat… Fill!

“I’m eating, i’m eating!” I whispered back, munching on a mouthful of salad coasted in the caesar dressing.

Ugh, full… The voice remarked, finally letting me feel full to the point of almost being sick. I dropped the bowl once i’d licked it clean and sat back feeling overly stuffed.

“Sire, do you wish for more?” Georgia inquired, looking quite disturbed with me. I had to agree, I was not quite fond of myself at the moment either.

“No…” I burped, feeling like breakfast was aiming to make a return. “No, i’m good.” I hoped to whatever deities existed that I wasn’t lying. I was not looking forward to regurgitation. “I’ll just need a bit of peace. Leave me, both of you. Please.” I requested, waving both griffons off with a hoof. Georgia collected her own breakfast and nodded compliance as the server refilled my tea and left himself.

We talk? No eat?

“Yeah, we talk. We’re done eating.” I mumbled back in pain, though I almost knew where this new voice was coming from. Hopping down from my chair, I approached the ornate mahogany box which now contained the remaining inactive Sin Stones and flipped the cover open. Within the box, an orange stone slowly pulsed and I could only guess which sin it represented.

No dessert?

“No, no dessert. I couldn’t possibly eat another bite.” I replied, extracting the stone from the box and cradled it like I held an egg. “You must be Gluttony.”

Gluttony. I’m, Gluttony?

“You must be. You made me eat waaay more than i’d ever have been able to stuff into myself under normal circumstances. You’re always hungry, right?” I remarked, settling down on my bed with the stone in my grasp.

I’m… Hungry? Hungry, no, not hungry. Not Gluttony?

“No, you have to be Gluttony. You’re just full right now. Come on, this conversation is getting boring. Do you wish to be absorbed into me or not?” I demanded, quite unimpressed with how basic this Sin seemed to be.

Absorb? Absorb! Join Wrath! Must!

“Yes, yes, wrath’s in here too.” I rolled my eyes and began to work at letting Gluttony invade my body, it’s form seeming into my stomach; a fitting place, no? “Welcome to the party, Gluttony.”

Wrath! Hello!

Ugh, I forgot about you bastard. Leave me alone, you fatass!

Greed, hello!

Yes yes, hello brother. I agree with Wrath, you are the annoying one of us.

Don’t forget about Pride.

Oh right, that little brat…

Author's Note

So next chapter I'm aiming to have Eclissi finally return to Equestria. Will be full of reunions, there will be laughter, there will be tears, there'll be a Sin.

As ever, I do like to read comments and interact with readers. Especially readers who like the story, hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink.

Sins of the Writer

Greetings,

I figured I'd give a final offering of what the plans were, and a final farewell as I seriously doubt i'll ever actually finish anything, so... Here goes:

First off: lemme outline for you what the remaining chapters were going to be (This is going to be a direct copy/paste from my notes in google doc, so... yeah...):

-ship docks, big event given experimental engines. Eclissi reunites with mane 6, Vinyl and Tavi, ponies wondering about griffin staff and what happened to Eclissi.

-Luna and Celestia show up, Luna recognizes griffin's as slave tribe but stays quiet till later. Eclissi formally recognized as Equestrian royalty, Eclissi seems… uninterested in new title.

-later on Tavi, Georgia and Eclissi talk about what happened to him in detail in private, Eclissi more interested in Octavia’s flanks than the topic at hand. Begins to make passes at her, Octavia accepts and they spend the night in heat with Georgia taking up residence in a guest room.

-next morning? Same night? Tavi and Eclissi chat about how much more rough and beatial the sex was, slightly concerning to Tavi but Eclissi rejects notion of change. Tries for a couple more rounds but Tavi declines, Eclissi gets more forceful until Tavi refuses with violence and runs off. Eclissi activates and converses with Lust while Tavi talks with Georgia, Georgia makes up a story to cover Eclissi’s new behaviour, something about being stranded in an inhospitable jungle or some bullshit.

-Tavi calms down a bit, accepts this story as probable cause for mood swings but becomes weary of Eclissi.

-next day Eclissi moves Dark Eclipse members into Everfree Castle, gets final restoration projects underway. Luna shows up with inquires about griffin origins, talks with Eclissi about the slavery laws and all that as they explore the castle. Eclissi states that Georgia and other griffin's are not slaves and that they are free to come and go as they please but they all insist on serving Eclissi. Luna speaks with Gerald and a couple others and accepts this.

-Eclissi, having assimilated Lust, apologizes to Octavia about his behaviour before the three of them, Eclissi, Tavi and Georgia, head into town to introduce Georgia to the mane 6 and to get reacquainted with them and Starlight Glimmer.

-Eclissi noticeably doesn't like Starlight but keeps quiet about it for sake of being gone respectable.

After this, Eclissi would continue to accumulate more and more of the Sins, his behaviour changing each time he does. Original plan was for Eclissi to ultimately achieve gaining all his Sins before the Element Bearers could react, and Eclissi would get his ultimate revenge by banishing the Royalty to their respective celestial body, and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony would be banished to the stars, turning into new constellations. Tavi and friends would notice this as Eclissi in his nightmare form starts taking over the country, Georgia even siding with the good guys, and the six "side characters" would end up temporarily taking up the Elements themselves, banishing Eclissi to the stars himself, then bringing the Mane six and royalty back soon after.

Final chapter would be a short one, where the dragon female (who's name I can't remember rn,) from the last chapter would be escaping to the furthest sides of the planet, carrying a Kirin child that Eclissi bore to her. Would've left it either with that, or set it in a way that it could've done a second story.

So: That's that. Those were the plans, the ideas and the theories. Thank you for staying with the story while it lived, and thank you for the support I had at the time.

Sincerely,

Soren Mercer

Sins of the Mother

Five years and some months ago

“So, you’re going to go back down there after a thousand years of being banished here…” I began asking for clarification over a meal of conjured up fruits and vegetables. “And cast the single country of Equestria into eternal darkness?”

“Ugh, yes! We’ve been over this for the last thirteen years!” Nightmare Moon scoffed before inserting a forkful of some kind of salad into her mouth. The leaves were supposed to be green like the planet in the horizon but here on the moon, my birthplace, the leaves had grown grey and tasteless. Apparently.

“But wouldn’t that just cook the other side of the planet? We’ve already established that the planet is round. If you never raise the sun for your home country, that means it’d just remain on the other side where they’d never have any night time whatsoever.” I added pointedly, though my argument fell on deaf ears since she and I had already gone through this conversation before.

“I’m aware of that, you fool!” Nightmare Moon hissed, glaring at me over her fork. “I care nothing for those idiots outside of my borders!”

“Oh good, I thought your plan was confusing but this clears things right up!” I rolled my eyes and scarfed down the rest of my dinner before she told me what I knew was coming.

“That is absolutely no way to speak to your mother!” Nightmare Moon began. I didn’t even give her anything more than a bored sigh and picked up my plate to drop it into a sink. Apparently she’d been on the moon long enough that she’d been able to conjure up quite a few creature comforts for the duration of her thousand year banishment. Like an entire air-tight palace sitting nestled neatly between two large mountains.

“Yeah yeah, ‘go to your room’, I’m going.” I grumbled, quite sure I'd pissed off mom more than I already had with my snarky answer.

“I- Ooh!” Nightmare Moon groaned angrily and with a hoof stamp. “I never thought that my own offspring would behave so, so childishly before me!”

“Yeah, and I never thought my mother would be some young-ish princess throwing a temper tantrum which got her banished here!” I shouted back, ignoring the sound of mom throwing dishes around before magically fixing them. “No word of a lie, mother, but I'll be quite surprised if you actually manage to accomplish anything on that planet!”

“How dare you! I will have you know-” My mother was cut off by the sound of the door swinging shut behind me as I wandered the irrationally large halls of the irrationally large palace that only she and I were residents of.

“So seriously wish she’d just get sent back home already!” I whined, entering into the library to continue my magical studies. By order of Her Highness I was forced to study all manners of magic, both light and dark if I was to eventually serve as a potential heir to the dark throne should her plans actually work.

In truth, I only studied the magic to give myself something to do over the last nine years. As soon as my magic began to manifest alongside my wings, I was thrown into the library with a bunch of old, dusty books and told to study and perfect my magics.

Looking up at the calendar I'd manufactured by reading the stars, tales mom had told me about and other pertinent information, I estimated that there was still a few more days until Nightmare Moon was destined to return. Parallel, that’d also mean I'd get pulled along and actually experience pony contact for the first time in my lonely life.

I wonder what it’ll be like to actually set hoof on a technically alien planet… I wondered as I floated a magical tome at random to my desk. I wonder how I'd be received, being the son of Nightmare Moon…

Flipping to a page marked with a small leaf of paper, I let myself waft away in the ink and syntax of the words.

~~~

Five years and a few less days ago

“So, this is it, huh?” I asked as I packed my bags for the trip to the planet above us. Mom and I were stood on what was called the launch pad, watching the four stars that were gradually getting closer; their speed noticeably increasing as they drew near.

“Indeed it is, Eclissi. We will return to the planet surface and banish my wretched sister here for a thousand years. And so will begin the reign of Queen Nightmare Moon!” Mom declared eagerly, rearing back on her hooves with this declaration. “And son, of course.” she added once she’d calmed down and returned to the surface.

“Uh huh, provided of course you’re not instantly defeated by whatever technology they’d developed over the last millennium.” I replied, shaking my head slowly. “Hey, when we do get defeated, do you think the government would allow me to get a manecut?” I asked casually, a strand of my black mane draping down over my face in the process. “It’s getting kinda long…”

“Oh whatever. Cut it yourself, you lazy ass.” Nightmare Moon replied, just as pissed off as ever.

“Love you too, mom.” I flicked my mane back over my equally black shoulders, the fibres of my mane sitting just over the faint red of the ends of my fur.

“Hush, it is time!” Nightmare Moon grinned with full teeth as the stars assembled above us before beginning a counter-clockwise spin above our heads.

“What’s going on?” I demanded as my mother’s body began to be pulled up from the surface, though mine remained firmly rooted. “What’s happening!”

“I’ll be back for you, my son! Don’t worry!” Nightmare Moon unhelpfully shouted back as the spinning stars seemed to explode into a tunnel of light. The tunnel continued on for a ways before the space claimed the excess light and let the bridge remain otherwise invisible.

Then suddenly, I was alone.

Author's Note

Is just something I wanna try, see how it's received by people.

Something of the Something Else

Author's Note

Blame my brother for the title... It's all his fault.

Something of the Something Else

“Who brought them here?” I demanded, stampeding into the delivery room with carts of boxes still being unloaded. “Where are my stones?” I added, my glaring eyes reaching every face in the room one by one.

“Uhm…” A pony stammered, stepping forward with a box of unassuming and rather bland looking stones set into red velvet. “Here, sire.”

“Give them to me!” I demanded, tearing the box from the pony’s grasp with my magic before I summoned up my scythe and gave it a single flourish above my head. “Who helped you?”

“We- we did, sire.” A group of ponies replied, stepping forth from the crowd of terrified onlookers.

“Step forward!” I ordered. The ponies complied and stood side by side in low bows, their faces so low they could’ve licked the floors if I hadn’t had other plans for them. “I do believe I wanted to get them myself, did I not say that?”

“You- you did, s-sire.” The first pony replied, trembling as my scythe blade lowered to inches above his neck.

“Then why, why did you touch them and bring them here without me?” I was on the verge of foaming at the mouth I was so livid.

“Sire, we received word that another group wanted to get their hands on the stones before you. We moved them and brought them here to keep them in your control, I swear!” The pony reported, looking about ready to piss himself like a pony a little down the line already had.

“You mean to tell me that you didn’t believe I had the power to retrieve the stones myself, even from the grasp of some other group? You think me weak?” I screamed and swung the scythe, creating a dark red crescent moon as the blade cleanly severed the heads of the first and second ponies in one go.

“No, sire! We wished to save you the grievances of tracking them down again!” the third, now first in line, pony exclaimed; as though doing so would assure his life. He was wrong.

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you wished!” I seethed, bringing the blade down so that the edge cradled the stallion’s neck ever so gracefully. “I wanted to get those stones myself! You denied me my wish and for that, you will all compensate me!” I ordered and brought the scythe up just quickly enough to be able to cut through the flesh of the stallion, but slowly enough to make it last before his head toppled to the floor next to the new corpses.

“We will! We will do anything to compensate you! Please, show mercy and spare us!” The last three ponies, all mares, bawled as they rested on their stomachs, pleading for their lives.

I took a moment to consider their suggestion, my face contorting with the thoughts. This seemed to give the mares some glimmer of hope, at least until I had an idea.

“Fine. I will spare you.” I decided once I’d calmed down a bit. “But,” The mare’s thankful smiles suddenly went sour as their rays of hope withered and died. “You will only keep life if you can survive the trip back here.” I grinned and fired up my horn, teleporting the three mares to the top of the mountain on which the castle resided.

With it as late as it was, the mountain tops should be lethally cold without proper gear and it would take them at least three days to descend the mountain safely and get back here.

“Let this be a warning to the rest of you!” I shouted, flourishing the scythe behind my head to remove the blood that remained on the black steel. “Do not think! Do as you’re told or you will be removed!” I shouted, my voice echoing through the rather large warehouse of a room to reach all ears.

Turning from the room with the box of stones in my magical grasp, I stepped ahead of Georgia and exited the room with my rage somewhat quelled.

“So, what next my lord?” Georgia inquired as she followed after me. My response was cut off prematurely by the sound of hunger pangs rumbling in both our bellies.

“Apparently dinner.” I mumbled, redirecting my course towards the kitchen. I hadn’t even realised just how hungry I had become over the course of my frivolous activities with Vera and then all that fury just then. The draining power of hungry sapped just enough of my strength that my Nightmare form dissolved into a puff of smoke, leaving me as Eclissi and as small as I was before.

“Aww...” I groaned, looking over my less imposing self in disappointment. “Disappointments abound…”

“I don’t mind the change, my lord.” Georgia replied casually walking behind me as we both entered into the kitchen where a buffet had already been set up for everyone in the castle. Obviously they were all waiting for me to go first, so there were very hungry eyes anxiously awaiting the chance to eat.

“Yeah, I know. I was more disappointed in the fact that the size spell was also removed. I rather liked being that big.” I sighed and grabbed myself a plate, Georgia doing the same on the opposite side of the table from me; ensuring that she didn’t reach the end of the table before me.

“I personally think that your size as it is is rather adorable.” Georgia chuckled as I shot her a death glare.

“Adorable is not appropriate for ruling the world!” I protested angrily as I piled a caesar salad onto my plate with plenty of cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices and lots of cheese. Georgia dropped a slab of some kind of meat onto her plate; a staple for griffons and dragons alike so the kitchen was forced to serve such things up despite the vegetarian natures of the pony staff.

“I understand, sire. I apologise for antagonizing you. It was unbecoming of your servant.” Georgia bowed with a quick salute before continuing down the line after me.

With plate in grasp I moved to the head of the table to eat with Georgia standing nearby to eat as she stood. Meanwhile the rest of the staff all began to file down the line, piling their own plates with food of their own choosing and took up places down the impressively large table with three seats nearest me remaining empty for Camber, Vera and Gerald.

A drink of some kind appeared before me from the bartender before she scurried off back to her bar with a plate of her own food to eat while she served drinks.

~~~

“Good evening, your highness.” Gerald nodded a bow as both his hands were full with food and drink as he sat down next to Camber, Vera appearing a short while later with her own sustenance to take up her place opposite the griffon and near to me.

“Evening.” I replied once my mouth was empty of crunchy salad. “Vera.” I tipped my horn to the dragon as she sat down with what appeared to be a bit of difficulty. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, sire. Just sore, is all.” Vera smirked as she lowered her large body down to settle in at the table. “Thank you for your concern.”

“Alright then.” I shrugged and pushed my empty plate away from myself. Clearing everything that remained out of my mouth with a swig of my fourth ale, I addressed my staff directly. “Something we need to talk about.”

“Yes, sire?” Camber was the only one who had an empty mouth to respond as Gerald and Vera lent me their attention.

“Since your asshats brought me all the remaining stones, I have no further need to remain here in the mountains.” I replied, glaring at Camber in particular. “I plan to take the remaining stones back to Equestria to prepare for my ascension soon. I need you all to prepare your own staff for the move. We’ll be taking up residence in Everfree Castle so prepare accordingly.”

“But sire, as we’ve spoken about this before, it is illegal to own indentured servants in Equestria’s provinces.” Gerald pointed out with his fork, meat juices dripping from his cracked beak.

“I’m aware. And since we don’t want to raise any attention before we’re ready, we can’t have the entire legion filling up the Castle. Gerald and Camber, you will select ten of your best and most loyal servants to accompany us while the rest work at moving all our resources into Equestria under cover.” I replied, sitting back against the large chair in which I sat.

“What about me and mine?” Vera inquired with a swallow.

“Vera, I appreciate your service that you’ve given me this last week or so. I want you to stay behind with the rest of Camber’s staff to tear down the castle entirely once we’ve left. After that I will no longer require your services. You are free to do as you please.”

“I-” Vera began to object, but I held my hoof up to silence her. “Yes… my king.” she sighed, looking completely destroyed. “It has been a pleasure serving and servicing you.”

“Likewise.” I nodded as I stood from my seat with the entire room rising upon me doing so. “I want to head back to Equestria as soon as possible, so get me transport as soon as possible.”

“It will be done.” Gerald saluted with a fisted claw to his chest as Georgia and I exited the room.

~~~

Three Days Later

~~~

“Sire, everything is packed up and we’re ready to launch.” Georgia reported as she stepped into my cabin. I was sat at a desk, looking over the maps that indicated our trip that would take place over the next couple of days.

“Excellent, I’ll be up momentarily.” I replied, still looking over the maps as Georgia stepped back out of the room. The entire vessel gave a rather loud creaking and shifted sideways, making me a bit dizzy. “Ugh, if we were meant to fly on vehicles, we wouldn’t have been given wings.” I sighed and worked to steady my internal gyroscopes and regain my balance.

Hoping down from my seat, I set forth unsteadily towards the main deck and collapsed against the doorframe. With a deep breath I collected myself as best I could and pulled the door to the deck open and stepped out into the sunlight.

Climbing up the few steps, I was greeted with the crew and castle staff that Gerald and Camber had chosen to accompany me to Equestria with salutes and bows. Passing down between the rows of creatures, I hopped up onto the bow of the ship to address everyone on and off the ship.

“Creatures and members of Dark Eclipse!” I began, amplifying my voice with the “Royal Voice” as my mother had taught me. “Over the last week or so you have mostly obediently served me in my goals to take Equestria! Today, we set forth towards that goal! To those of us remaining behind, we who will go on will not forget your services or your sacrifices!” I looked directly at Vera and her dragons as they stood below on the launch pad. “You have your final orders and upon completing them, you will find yourselves free creatures! You will be free to do as you please, but I ask that you do not come to Equestria to interfere with the rest of us!”

I took a second to regain my breath and consider my next words, but I was otherwise out of them. “Thank you for your help!” I grinned and gave a wave. The creatures below either bowed or saluted as I stepped down from the bow to address the captain in the wheel house. “Fire up the engines and let's cast off!” I ordered, the crew and staff on board shouting and cheering in reply.

Below, the whine of enormous magic engines -complimentary of Vera’s magical team- rose to a crescendo and we slowly rose into the air. A set of canopy wings on the sides of the ship swung forwards, pushing the ship backwards away from it’s moorings before turning Eastward towards Equestria.

“I’m coming, Octavia.” I mumbled with a grin, my mane sweeping back as I watched our progression from the bow and I felt us gain speed.

~*~*~

“Achoo!” Octavia suddenly sneezed, pressing a hoof to her muzzle to try and cover her mouth. “Oh, excuse me.”

“No worries.” Twilight replied from behind her teacup. “You know, there are some eastern cultures who believe that you sneeze when someone important to you says your name.” she added with a smirk.

Octavia looked up from her book to Twilight and rolled her eyes. “If that was the case, then I’d start to think that no one who loves me ever says my name. I hardly ever sneeze.”

“Oh come on, i’m sure he’s thinking about you.” Twilight replied with concern, setting her own leather bound book and teacup down on the table between her and Octavia. The two mares had gradually grown accustomed to each other and had taken to reading in each other’s company every now and then.

“Then why hasn’t he tried to reach me? I check the seal page six times a day in case he left me a message, nothing! Nothing for the last week!” Octavia replied sorrowfully as she too set her own romance novel down.

“It could be he’s somewhere where there’s no magic so he’s not able to charge his black magic and contact you.” Twilight suggested helpfully and with a smile.

“But, doesn’t Equestria’s magic spread out over the entire country and its territories? How far away would he have to be to be unable to reach our magic?” Octavia remarked with a sigh, setting her muzzle down on her crossed hooves which rested on the table before her.

“That… Is true. Equestria’s magic does spread out for quite a ways. The possible places he could be beyond our borders… It’s immense.” Twilight replied, mentally examining a map of the world.

“If he’s even alive…” Octavia whimpered to herself. “He just up and disappears one night with no trace left to be found of him. He doesn’t call, he doesn’t write, he could be dead in some ditch!” Octavia added with fresh tears forming in her eyes. This wasn’t the first time her mind had begun to spiral into depressing thoughts like this.

“Tavia, I’m sure he’s-” Twilight began to protest, but Octavia cut her off frantically.

“What if he’s met another mare?” Octavia looked up at Twilight frantically. “What if he’s gotten involved with somepony else and has forgotten about me completely, aiming to stay with her for the rest of his life? What if they’ve had a kid already? Would he be forced to stay with her now? What if he’s married?”

“Octavia!” Twilight shouted, startling and pausing the grey mare’s ramblings. “It’s only been a week, give or take! I highly doubt he’s met somepony new and I highly doubt he’s married. Plus, it’s scientifically impossible for him to have a kid after so little time! A mare’s pregnancy lasts for eleven months, remember?”

“Ri- right, of course. Silly me, heh heh.” Octavia gave a half hearted laugh as she settled back down again. “Eclissi loves me and I have to believe that he’ll come back to me in good health.”

“Exactly. Eclissi will be back and he’ll be in good health and you’ll love each other unconditionally. Eventually you two will get married and start a life together. Maybe you’ll have foals of your own.” Twilight replied, visibly cheering Octavia up a bit. “Who knows, maybe Eclissi will be recognized as royalty by Luna and Celestia and you’ll end up a princess when you do marry him?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t that be something?” Octavia chuckled, her mind calm and already imagining her perfect life with Eclissi. “Thanks, Twilight, for calming me down again. I know how I can get.”

“Hey, I’ve dealt with Pinkie’s behaviour for the last five years. I think I could settle down a schizophrenic patient.” Twilight grinned, picking her tea up to take a sip and return to her book.

“So, how’s things going with Starlight Glimmer?” Octavia inquired, shifting topics entirely.

“She’s…” Twilight stared off into space as she attempted to find the proper words. “Trying.” Twilight decided with a sheepish grin. “She’s having troubles recovering her relationship with people in her old town and no one here seems to like talking to her here in Ponyville.”

“That’s a shame. She seems like such a nice mare.” Tavia replied with a sigh.

“Well, why don’t you meet her? Maybe you two have something you share in common?” Twilight suggested eagerly.

“As much as i’d love to, I have too much on my plate as it is already. With Vinyl’s concerts here in town and beyond, my own performances in Equestria and Eclissi’s disappearance always on the back of my mind… I don’t know if I could handle meeting somepony new.”

“That’s fine.” Twilight replied earnestly as she rolled around in her chair within the Friendship Castle library. “No pony said you had to go and meet her.”

“I know, but now I kind of feel a bit bad for rejecting her without even formally making her acquaintance.” Octavia admitted softly, uneasily. “Is she in town so I could at least introduce myself?”

“No…” Twilight replied, looking away. “She’s out in Canterlot trying to make amends with her foalhood friend. The one who caused her to… well… you remember the story.”

“Right, the time magic thing…” Octavia remarked with a heavy breath she hadn’t realised she’d held. With a sigh, “I wonder how Eclissi is doing.”

~~~

“You fucking dumbasses!” I screamed, slapping one of Gerald’s staff members with my magic. “How did you forget to bring a change of clothes for the trip! What the hell am I supposed to wear when we land?”

“I’m sorry sire, it was a mistake!” the griffon replied, wincing backwards even despite his larger size than me.

“No fucking shit!” I screamed back and retreated into my cabin once more.

~~~

“I’m sure he’s just fine.” Twilight replied helpfully, hopping down from her leather chair to place a hoof on Octavia’s shoulder comfortingly. “Who knows, maybe he’s made some friends while he’s away?”

“Maybe. I wonder who he would’ve met…” Octavia wondered, staring into space.

~~~

“And you, how did you not think to check for clothes while packing?” I threw a couple books at Georgia, the books bouncing off her wings as she tried to protect her vital body parts. “What in Tartarus were you thinking?” I demanded, pausing my throwing to let Georgia speak for herself.

“I wasn’t, sire. I sincerely apologize.” Georgia replied with her head bowed low. A book flew over and bounced off her head before landing on the floor on a random page.

“Fucking dammit, i’m surrounded by idiots!” I exclaimed, disappearing into the ensuite bathroom to soak in a shower. “Clean this up by the time I get out and find me something to wear when we land!”

~~~

“Maybe he found some friends in other creatures? Perhaps a griffon?” Octavia chuckled at the idea of Eclissi standing next to such a large creature as friends. “Oh, what about a dragon?” she grinned as the mental image of a huge, looming dragon appeared next to Eclissi’s tiny body.

“That would be very interesting to see.” Twilight agreed. “What if he learned new magics?”

“I dunno…” Octavia replied, scratching her mane with her hoof. “He seemed to know all the magics he needed when we met.”

“Maybe, but that doesn't mean he should stop learning new magics. You never know what may come up that a strange spell would help with.” Twilight remarked, returning to her seat to go back to reading. “Maybe he learned something to use in the bedroom.” Twilight grinned maliciously at Octavia, who’s grey face became reddened at the thought.

“Heh, no… I think we’re fine without magical intervention.” Octavia coughed nervously a couple times. “Still, it’d be great if he was back already.”

“I know, Tavi, I know.” Twilight sighed and the mares returned to their books.