TIDAL POV

"Noire?" I managed to shake Noire from his trance before the blade got any closer. However, we were both left with silence, save from the snores coming from the dragons in their own sleeping quarters. I couldn't do anything to this corrupted Noire, nor did I want to, even though with me in a simple, white tank top and uniform pants, leaving me completely vulnerable. Noire seemed to regain his sense and quickly got off me, throwing the Savageblade to the side. I remained in complete silence, trying to analyse the situation. Noire was a mess. HIs pitch black, right eye was replaced with a crimson red one and his hair seemed to float with a shadowy effect to it. "Are you okay?" I asked him sincerely. He avoided my gaze and investigated the crystalline wall behind me, noticing his corrupted state. He recoiled backwards in pure shock, clutching the sides of his head, and forcing back a grunt. It was just us and he was terrified. I had to help him.

"I can't be near you right now. He's starting to take over. Please don't follow me." He quickly teleported out of the castle. I followed him outside, but he was nowhere to be seen at the entrance. As I looked around for him, I heard a yell from above. I looked up and saw a bright red light. He sounded like a wounded beast lost in a forest, crying for help. I had no choice but answer. I thought back to our time in my dream/memory. "He saw past my bitchy behaviour and brought me back from my grief. Now, this was my time to help him," I thought to myself. I quickly tied my hair back into a ponytail and teleported up to the top of the crevasse. While it was exhausting to teleport such a long distance, I succeeded "Faust, and he teleported me halfway across a continent." At the surface, I could see Noire huddled in a ball, whispering to himself. I took a step towards him, but he immediately noticed me and stood up.

"What are you doing here? I told you not to follow me," he asked in a panic.

"I am technically your superior now that somepony's taken your place as captain, so I don't follow your orders, rookie. Now tell me, what's wrong?" I asked. Noire was silent, refusing to say a word. He tried to take a step back, but I summoned a water whip to grab him arm, binding him to me "I wasn't asking. I can't afford one of my allies to be suffering alone."

Noire was silent, contemplating whether he should let me in. The longing part of him that begged for help gave in and his form seemed to dissipate slightly "I'm going through a lot of things. I don't think I- AAAGH!" Before he could finish, he began clutching his head in pain. I dissipated the whip and went to help him, but he summoned the Savageblade and swatted me away. I barely managed to dodge the blade, cutting my white tank top. Noire let go of his head revealing both his eyes to be red with black sclera. Something told me I wasn't talking to Noire anymore. He quickly charged at me, preparing another attack but I summoned a water sword to block him. We became locked in a bitter struggle with whatever I was fighting trying to break through my defence. I backed away before my sword could break but the deranged Noire thrust his sword forward, making it extend and cut my cheek, just under my left eye. It retracted and jutted forward once more, managing to cut the side of my leg.

"Noire! I know you're still resisting! Don't lose to whatever you're going through like I did!" 'Noire' responded by throwing the blade at me. I dodged but with a flick of his wrist, he was controlling the sword's flight. He aimed it right at my chest, but I did not take my attention from him. I took a risk and charged at 'Noire' and tackled him off the cliff.

"DO yOu THInk tHis CAN Stop ME?" His distorted voice carried another voice within it but fear had no place in this confrontation. I knew that within this monster, Noire was still struggling for dominance. He threw the blade into the air and it stopped in mid-air "fInAL DEcodE: MUraS-" I headbutted Noire in the face before he could finish, leaving him unconscious. That got rid of one problem but there was still the ground which was growing closer with every passing second. Before we hit the ground, I created a magic bubble around us to shield the impact. With a crash, we both hit the ground and darkness consumed my vision.

When I woke up, the first thing I saw was a field of stars shining on a pitch-black canvas. They didn't feel natural or real, like they were painted on but with what had transpired, I wasn't entirely focused on blurry stars. I got up but winced as I felt the aftermath of my little stunt. It turned out that I couldn't shield us from the full impact. I found Noire still unconscious, but he was not on a rampage, so this was good enough. However, he woke up with a start, getting up almost immediately. He looked around frantically before feeling the force of our impact himself. He clutched the front in head and lazily fell back to the rocky ground, joining me as we panted, groaned and clutched our wounds for what felt like hours before we were, once again, silent, watching the static sky.

"I failed my trial." I turned my head to face Noire's, who was still looking at the sky with little interest "Faust wanted to test how I handle controlling my power under emotional stress but I lost control once I saw her,"

"Her?" I asked.

"My mom. If I can even call her that. Ever since I was born, she was either spiteful, high, or drunk. In her mind, my existence was just a burden on her and her marriage. She pulled a gun on me and my dad took three gunshots for me."

"By the Goddess..." I muttered. I had never heard of mothers even hurting their children, let alone trying to kill them "That's horrible. Why would she do such a thing?" I asked incredulously.

"Like I said, in her twisted mind, I was a leach feeding off her money and food. The pregnancy left her with post-natal depression and before anyone could get her the help she needed; she was already too far gone. She took drugs to alleviate the stress and drank after the fights with dad. However, she played quite the good wife when around others. The only thing I can reluctantly commend her for, really. Dad did tell of how my mom was before birth. Apparently, she was beautiful, kind and loving, singing me lullabies every night when I was kicking and neither of them could sleep. Even said my name was sort of her final gift to me, naming me after her favourite kind of movies and with the weather being a rainy day, it was the perfect name for me. You could say that was when my real mother died..." he let out a hefty sigh, like a weight had lifted from his chest. I was left heartbroken for this man. I thought that Noire was the type of kid that was well put together, albeit a bit awkward (and how could you not when in another world) but now I found some clarity to the situation. Noire had just fallen apart on me. With tears rolling down his face, betraying his stoic expression.

"Why didn't you tell any of us?"

"Because I didn't want to be pitied. After my dad died and my mom was sent to the slammer for life, I had to take care of everything myself. Food, clothes, education. Everything. I think I even began to believe what her words at some point." I couldn't feel anything in my left leg so I crawled my way over to Noire and hugged him tight. He returned the hug tightly and we remained that way, hugging on the rocky floor like reunited lovers for a while. I was more comfortable with this arrangement than I would like to admit, growing red in the cheeks but with my position, Noire could see how nervous I really was. Afterwards, he lifted me up into a sitting position so he could see the damage he had done "I hurt you..."

"I'm fine, rookie. That manic state of yours wasn't too much for me to handle," I said, regaining my composure.

"Your face..." He caressed the cut on my cheek. I held his hand with my own, locking us together.

"I'm a tough mare, Noire. I wasn't made a general on accident," I dismissed his worry with a wave, however, I was internally panicking "Oh sweet Faust, Is this my chance?"

"A beautiful one too."

"...What?"

NOIRE POV

"Why did you say that?!" I asked myself as my face burned hotter than the sun and turned away from the beautiful mare in front of me. Even though I had roughed her up minutes beforehand, my eyes couldn't help but wander. trekking up her thighs, held tight by her uniform pants. Her white tank top hugged her slim but muscular body and large breasts "How in Tartarus haven't I noticed this before?. Then there was her face. Even with the cut, her features were still beautiful. "Seriously why did I say that?" I thought "Am I really thinking of Tidal like that? Does she even think of me, a rookie, like that?"

"Well... I think you're pretty handsome for a rookie. I bet you have a line of mares trying to make a herd with you," she said jokingly.

"You know, Celestia and Luna have teased me about being their boyfriend but apart from that, not much else. Wait? What do you mean 'herd'?!" I said, whipping my head back to her.

"Since mare outnumber stallions by almost three to one, a stallion can have herd of three to five mares. Herds with anything more than that have tended to cause more harm than good. I think there was even a coup once or twice. Of course, they both failed." Tidal paused for a moment, looking like she was pondering about something. She gripped my hand tighter as she prepared herself "Noire? Can I test something on you?" I looked to her in confusion but ultimately, I nodded in agreement. Nothing could make this night worse.

What happened next can only be considered magical. She filled the distance between our lips in a single second, keeping me wrapped around her arms. I was in shock a first but before I could act, she pushed me away just as fast as she pulled me in. It was now her turn to get embarrassed as her cheeks burned up "I'm sorry, I just wanted to know if this feeling was really what I thought it was. You can understand that being a general has left no time for love and all that jazz... Noire?"

I was muted by the passive yet so aggressive confession of love. I could do nothing but reflect on everything that had happened. Not just that night but ever since our first meeting. It was true that I had found some respect for Tidal, even though her first impression being a bit... bitchy. I noticed the similarities: Our losses, our diligence, initial lack of social skills, and the bitter truth that we suffered in silence for a long time. After my visit into her head, we had become friendly and in retrospect, I should have noticed every moment her hips swayed a little more than necessary, or when she called me 'rookie' in a slightly flirtatious manner. This anxiety was both suffocating and exhilarating " this. Suffocating and exhilarating. Yeah, I think this is what love feels like."

"What are you- mmph!" Without warning, I gave her a kiss of my own. Tidal quickly returned the kiss and parted my lips to play with my tongue. We were already taking in every part of our bodies, without overstepping any boundaries, of course. Tidal groped my butt while I undid her ponytail and ran my fingers through her thick, blue locks. While I felt guilty for what felt like cheating on Cadance, I couldn't hold back my emotions anymore. They were rushing to the surface faster than I could push them back down. I almost went as far as to touch her breasts, but a remnant of my sense opted against it. We weren't official yet and I didn't want to scare her. Our tongues resumed their struggle, with Tidal's forcefulness bowing under my experience. We parted lips, leaving a trail of saliva between us "Wow... talk about a great first kiss," she uttered between pants.

"Yeah.... Wow..." I repeated "Wait, first kiss! That- I- was her first kiss?!"

Tidal laid her head on my chest and gave out one final sigh "So, now that I finally got it through your thick skull that I like you, I guess this is better opportunity than any. Can I be a part of your little herd?" she asked. I laid back down on the ground with Tidal joining me, using my chest as a pillow.

"As far as I'm concerned, yes. However, there is the issue of getting Cadance to agree to it. I'm assuming that if you joined, she would be a head mare or something, right?" Tidal nodded "Yeah, then I will have to sort out our little squabble when we get back. So, for now, we're going to have to keep this under wraps. That shouldn't be too hard unless you want more than a make-out session?" I teased the poor unicorn. She blushed and lightly hit my chest.

"Shut up, rookie. As for that 'squabble' thing, I don't know all that much but all I have to say is you better because I don't think I could give this up for anything on Equus," she patted my chest and yawned "But also... you could have just asked for help from the generals. We have to do this... all the time,"

"I didn't want to burden you and the others. Plus, I wanted to prove that I could be useful,"

Tidal giggled a bit at that "Your useful enough without you trying to play politician. We don't need you handling diplomacy: we just need you to protect Equestria from your crazy, psycho spirit clone. Don't overcomplicate it... Noire..." Like that she was fast asleep and wasn't far behind. My eyes grew weary and the chalk stars seemed to fade from sight.

"Wow, you're... actually calling me by my name now. I guess I have no choice now. Okay, Tidal. I'll... just stick to protecting you lot from psycho me... I'll keep you safe..."

"Congratulations. You didn't pass fully but you made progress and you gained new love to strengthen your power. This will do for now..."

When the morning came, I woke up to find myself back on the crystal floor instead of a rock and dirt and Tidal was safely tucked away in her sleeping bag. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that her wounds from our small bout were non-existent. That led me to one conclusion: during my trial, I accidentally entered our shared dream space. This was good as this meant that no-one would know of our little make out, as long as we kept it professional. I crawled out of my bag and made my way over to Tidal "Hey, beautiful, wake up," I whispered, rousing her from sleep. She got up with a yawn and paused, noticing where we were.

"Was that all- Did we- but it was-"

"Great~" I finished for her.

"Yeah~" She pecked me on the cheek and got out of her sleeping bag "Now, shoo. We need to get dressed and actually get started on our mission, finding Grim," she ushered me away, to which I obliged, walking away and covering my eyes as I knew my horny mind would try something "Oh yeah, you should probably hide that before you wake the others~" I looked down to find a bulge in my pants. I magically equipped my armour as fast as possible and tucked Noire Jr into my belt. With that out of the way, I went around the living room area, waking up the rest of our party. Once we were all awake and dressed, we discussed our next course of action.

"Now that we've got our dragonlord, the next step would be to have her agree to an alliance between ponies and dragons. Seeing as the new one is a lot more agreeable than that scalehead, Torch, that should be easy. The hard part would be to pinpoint where Grim's trail ends specifically. Noire, you should be our best bet when it comes to finding him but..."

I knew where she was going "Yeah, the whole 'sharing our memories' goes both ways. Forcefully trying to get a location out of him may cause him to know exactly what we're doing and can strike before we can even get to him. We should save that until we know we have no other options."

"Maybe Ignia knows where they are. We could ask her she knows where he is or at least how to find him." Twilight proposed. It was the only other option we had: If she did know something, we could maintain our location hidden from Grim. Right on cue, Ignia entered the living room area with Torch and Ember.

"So, what's with all the chatter?" Ember asked.

Twilight was the first to pipe up "We were going to ask if Ignia or any of you would know about Grim's location right now since his trail does lead here in the Dragonlands. There is also the matter of improving relations between ponies and dragons." It looked like Torch wanted to say something but Ignia stood on the giant's toe, keeping his mouth firmly kept shut.

Ignia shook her head "I'm sorry, dearie, but I have no idea where he is. Us dragons aren't that magically entuned so sensing other magic like you can,"

"However, we should be able to improve relationships a bit. Even though dragons are wanderers at heart and are quite scattered. I should be able to call them over and tell them any violent acts against other species will not be tolerated as long as I'm dragonlord," Ember said proudly, lifting our spirits a bit.

"Well, that leaves us with only forcing the connection to get his location," I concluded. That was the last thing I wanted to do: with the risk of losing control and the chance Grim will learn of our presence, this could have really put us on the back burner. Easily slipping into my manic state again was a feeling I didn't want a repeat of. These were reason enough to not do it but a soft look from Tidal, telling me we had no choice, overruled any other argument my mind could conjure up "...I'll do it, but once we're a distance away from the castle. We can't drag Ember and her family into our mess," With that, we packed the rest of our stuff and Ignia ordered Torch to fly us out of the chasm.

CADANCE POV

Life in the castle since Noire left had been nothing but a slog. Paperwork was not an exception. The pile of business proposals, renovations, proposals to increase tax (those were particularly prevalent amongst nobles) had led to my evening being comprised of reading a paragraph of a sheet and burning any of the nonsensical ones. This cycled continued until I reached the halfway point, where I found the proposal of turning the abandoned orphanage into a school. I instantly perked up at the thought of getting something productive done. I instantly wrote a letter of approval and laid my head against the mahogany table. "Goddess, I'm only halfway through and this is the first useful thing I've done since I sat down." I groaned in exhaustion "I'd rather be in bed, dreaming of mountains of cotton candy and chocolate. I'd rather be soaking up rays in the Bahaymas," I tilted my head to the side, facing the window leading into the bright night sky "I'd rather be in bed with Noire right now."

Some may ask me why I was arguing with Noire one day only to miss him terribly the next. To those ponies, I would remind them the saying 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.' Every moment that passed, I was thinking of Noire and what he was finally going to say to me. I imagined of several scenarios; one where he's the one apologising, one where I'm apologising, one where we make love passionately. I couldn't wait for him to return but there was still the part of me that was royally pissed at him for leaving me alone when that was exactly what happened to me and Shining. Of course, I didn't expect him to get seduced by the being I hate most in the world, but it still hurt to see the cycle repeat itself. I leaned back in my chair and sighed, confused, tired and about to call it a night when Sugilite abruptly entered the study, panting heavily, with a sun shaped scroll in his hand "Princess Cadance, you might want to read this." He handed me the scroll and I read the scroll with bated breath and sweaty palms. It was until I read one sentence that I dropped the scroll and bolted out of the study, with Sugilite following me.

"Aunt Luna's missing?!"

Author's Note

(I almost forgot to write an author's notes!)
With Princess Luna missing, Tirek on the loose and Noire's party drawing ever closer to Grim, no-one is going to expect this coming confrontation. The Tidal and Noire thing was something I wanted to happen for the longest time and just couldn't get around to writing it until now (I hope I nailed it this time!) but don't think anything more than what you saw here is going to be happening soon, I've got plot to do.

Stay dizzy. Wuzzy out.