“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!