Loving Darkness

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7

Chapter 1

I stared at the typewriter.

There was a crisp sheet of paper loaded, and my hooves were poised to type the next page in the story. But they weren't typing.

I wasn't typing.

"This is useless. I can't focus on my writing when I—I want somepony really special to share it with." I looked down at my hooves where they rested on the typewriter and cursed out loud, "Drat."

As the days went by since our return to Equestria, this had become worse and worse. I stared at the page for another five minutes before my hooves started to move. Words flowed, and my mind sank into the past once again as I began the next section of the story.

It might have been getting harder to start writing, but once the process began it was rarely easy to stop. By the time I managed to jerk my hooves from the typewriter and not immediately go in for more, it was evening and my stomach made me aware I'd missed a meal.

I got up from my writing desk and stretched. A thousand years stuck in some kind of shadow demon in limbo meant that I was still a young pony. Even the Pillars—my friends—were older than me.

For a meal I made a sandwich and carried it out onto my patio to enjoy. As soon as I opened the door that led outside, I could smell the crisp air of Canterlot. It was the kind of air that cleared out more than just your lungs.

The sounds of Equestria's capital met my ears. Wings flapping. Crowds of ponies moving, talking, living… All it did was reinforce how alone I was. It was worse than being in the quiet room typing.

But I needed this. I'm a pony, despite the monster I'd been, and that meant I needed friends and community.

I had friends. Everywhere I went I was recognized, and there were six special ponies who accepted me—the Pillars. Thinking of them lightened the weight upon my heart.

Eating my sandwich slowly, I barely gave the food any thought at all.

The fluttering of wings at close quarter yanked my mind back to the here and now, and I turned. There she was. "Hi, Derpy." To look at her, Derpy Hooves was the least likely pony to be a lover of literature, but she definitely was.

Since the day she'd crashed into my front door while delivering a package (what had been a rejected manuscript), I'd found a critic to match my vision.

"Hi Mr. Stygian! I saw you sitting out here and thought I'd drop by." Of course she did. I'd been flattered when she'd said she read everything I wrote, but when she began to ask questions and—with gained familiarity—apply criticism, I knew I'd found the kind of pony you rarely meet. As Somnambula would say, she was the mirror of my cutie mark. She fit my mind like a matched glove.

"You want the new chapter?" My question got a happy nod. "Please be gentle on this one, Derpy, I had to rewrite it several times to get the right feeling. Sometimes the words just don't come out right, or I mess up the pacing, or—"

"It's all right, Mr. Stygian, all your writing is great!" said the mare who seemed to take a real delight in picking my real-life-accounts-made-stories into pieces and pointing out my failings as a writer. But in my heart of hearts I knew that she did this because she loved my writing as much as I did.

"Your red pen doesn't think so." I gave her a lopsided smile to take the edge off my words and headed back inside.

The chapter of my manuscript lay there, bound together with string so the publisher could easily unbind it again. Not long ago I'd learned a new spell from another friend—I aimed my horn at the pages and cast the new spell.

My magic wasn't strong but for when dealing with one particular thing: paper.

The spell drew power from inside me and, with my particular bent, was more than up to the task of producing an exact duplicate of the pages. Levitating the copy up, I turned and walked back out onto the patio. "Here you go."

The change in the mare's expression was sudden—the same as always. Her ears perked up and practically leaned forward, her tail flicked and raised a little, and Derpy's eyes both came to rest on the paper (the latter effect lasted only four seconds before one eye drifted off again.

Derpy reached out and took the manuscript from my magic and did a little trot in place. "Thank you so much, Mr. Stygian! I'll have it back as quick as I can!"

She flapped her wings and shot into the sky, only to return a moment later. "S-Sorry! I forgot to say goodbye!"

I smiled at her raw enthusiasm. "Goodbye, Derpy Hooves."

It should have been a quick goodbye, but she rushed forward and put her forelegs and wings around my neck, squeezed me into a tight hug, and kissed my cheek.

I froze up, and she must have felt it because she quickly let go.

"S-Sorry, Mr. Stygian. I just got so excited and wanted to thank you for—"

"It—It's okay, Derpy, really." What spooked me the most about the hug was it felt good, and I wouldn't have frozen up if— "It's not you, it's me."

"Is it still alright if I read the chapter?"

It had felt so good—amazingly good—but it wasn't real, and the next step… There wouldn't be a next step. "Of course it is, Derpy. You're my favorite reader."

Derpy Hooves' emotions were mercurial in all ways possible. She'd gone from excitement to worry and right back to excitement again, but I could see in her eyes (her cute, splayed eyes) that she recognized something as not being right. "Thank you, Mr. Stygian." She fluffed out her wings and sprang into the air again.

Grabbing the remaining half of my sandwich, I threw it off my patio—and off the edge of Canterlot. Turning, I stomped back inside as well as someone as scrawny as me could, closed the door behind me, and shouted angrily.

The wards around my house that kept the noise of Canterlot from intruding upon my own little world also kept my shouting and screaming inside. I turned on my typewriter and summoned as much magic as I could to smash it—but stopped just before doing so.

The poor machine didn't deserve this. I didn't care that I could easily replace it, it was a thing and one of my things. I almost fell sideways as a bout of self-incrimination came over me. I tumbled to the floor and didn't bother getting back up.

It was easy to just close my eyes.

My dreams were always like this. I was half stuck in the Pony of Shadows—I wanted to be free—and despite how much Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, all their friends and all the Pillars tried, I fell back into the monster I'd created and fell into the void.

But wait, it didn't happen all at once.

Of course my subconscious wanted to drag out this agony into an hours—days—long struggle. But I knew I was doomed. I was always doomed.

Instead of falling into the Pony of Shadows with their rainbow beams attached, I shook free of them and let myself go. I just couldn't even care anymore without—

Something lashed itself around my hoof and really pulled. This was all wrong. Everything was wrong. I deserved this!

"Are you just about done? I know that nightmare isn't holding you in there, Stygian." Princess Luna's voice was clear and sharp.

"Just let me have this. It's all I have left." The words weren't true, I knew they weren't true, but it was all I could think of right then that might make Luna go away. "Leave me alone."

"It is not often, Stygian, that I feel summoned to a particular dream. Normally I have to hunt nightmares."

Luna pulled with the strength that I imagined it took to move the moon each night.

I had no hope of holding on.

Slumping out of the black chest of the Pony of Shadows, I flopped onto the ground of the chamber in Hollow Shades. "Why? I like this nightmare! It reminds me of better days."

Luna looked at me without pity or judgment. "You're trying to make me mad enough to leave, aren't you?" She sat still and kept her wings folded at her side.

Well, I was an adult. I didn't have to tell her. I closed my mouth and sat down. I could out-wait her. There was nothing in the laws that said I had to tell her—I know, I could remember Celestia and Luna making those laws.

A new melancholy hit as I realized there'd been a thousand years to change those laws. It wasn't that I didn't have enough time to do everything I wanted. I had far too much time.

Time stretched out. Seconds, minutes, hours, days…

"Even if I was a monster, I liked it back then."

I looked up at Luna to see that she was still sitting as implacably as ever. She didn't say a word.

"Well?" I asked. "Aren't you going to say something like you need more friends or look to the future or even but you're so successful?" I gave her another day to reply, but she didn't. "Why are you even bothering?"

"Because I preferred those days too." Her words shocked me more because there was feeling in them than because she spoke at all. "We didn't know each other very well, Stygian, but I knew of you. I didn't realize what was happening."

"Nopony did! Nopony does even now! I just—" My brain finally caught up with what Luna had said and stopped spewing diatribe at her. "You too?"

"Everypony wants to be friends with a princess, but do you know how hard it is to find a friend who actually shares interests with you? When I was a filly it was easier, simpler. I could just be a happy little filly and not worry about adult context and why a particular person might want to curry favor with a royal." By the end of her passionate little tirade Luna was speaking through clenched teeth.

"My friends didn't realize what I was doing to keep them together and what I even did in the first place to get them together. I was underappreciated and working my flanks off, but they got me. I was kinda part of their team, and we were friends." My own anger was exhausted in the struggle against the Pony of Shadows. I barely managed a sigh. "But despite all that they split apart. They know all my tricks, anyway. I'm still busy—with my writing—but now I don't have any friends at all."

"You have Derpy."

My head shot up in shock. "How do you know about her?"

"Being princess means I get reports. You're not exactly an unimportant pony, and when a mare visits your home regularly, ponies take notice."

The words hurt. They highlighted the problem rather than relieved it. "Yeah. Right. A friend who likes taking my writing—"

"Forget your writing for a moment. She could wait and buy your books when they're out. Why do you think she comes and spends time with you, Stygian?"

I clenched my teeth. "Can we change the subject?"

"Of course, though we will come back to that. What was it like?" Luna lay down on the ground and looked at me curiously.

"What was what like?"

"Being part of that?"

The Pony of Shadows, shaped to be about the same size as Princess Luna, walked up and sat down beside me. This was just a dream construct and not the real thing, of course.

"Only if you tell me what it was like being Nightmare Moon."

Princess Luna's face hardened a little. She seemed to lock up in the same way I locked up when thinking about the Pony of Shadows.

"Not so easy, is it?" I asked.

Princess Luna dipped her head in acknowledgment of my question. She sat quietly for some time, though there was something about her that made it feel like she was thinking of her answer rather than simply not answering.

"Power. Lots of power. The power to do anything I wanted just because I wanted it. But I still have that power." Princess Luna manifested a dark entity that I'd seen in books, and heard described—Nightmare Moon. The dread mare lay down calmly at Luna's side as I had the Pony of Shadows at my own. "It made me feel the power so much more because what Nightmare Moon truly was, was the ability to not care about using power."

It made sense. Alicorns possessed vast power, enough to move objects in the sky, but they rarely used such might in their day-to-day lives in Equestria.

I'd read so many books on Princess Twilight's fight against Nightmare Moon that I could almost picture it in my mind.

"That's why Princess Celestia wouldn't fight you." It wasn't a question, but she nodded her answer regardless. "To fight you, Princess Celestia would have had to take those same steps to disregard the effects of her magic upon the world."

"She wouldn't do that, though I have seen what at least one pony pictures such would be. She called them Daybreaker—an apt term." Princess Luna studied the Pony of Shadows closely. "Your turn."

"Pony of Shadows was more emotional. The feeling that my friends took me for granted built up, but I ignored it. It grew into a ball of hatred and anger that—" Remembering it terrified me. Remembering it felt like opening the wound all over to find it still ridden with pus. "When they turned on me, I snapped. All that anger and hatred rolled out of me and engulfed me."

I'd never told anypony about how I felt about this, or how it had happened. Despite this, telling her felt right.

"It was a manifestation of resentment and anger. I guess without me to fuel it, the Pony of Shadows will slowly dissipate in Limbo." I made a realization there, though. "But you can't shunt away Nightmare Moon, can you?"

Luna smiled the grimmest smile I'd ever seen on a pony—and given the ponies I'd been around, that was saying something. "You speak truly. It takes much to push a pony to these things, and it is for that reason I am thankful to have Twilight Sparkle and her friends."

Both our expressions colored with smiles at the same time. Her name—Princess Twilight Sparkle—was a beacon, it seemed, that chased away the darkness in both of us.

"She released me—as the Pony of Shadows—by accident," I said.

"Do you really believe in accidents that big?" Princess Luna's horn glowed to reveal another scene I'd heard much about. "When Tempest Shadow invaded, one pony accidentally got between Twilight Sparkle and the end of Equestria."

The scene played out between us. Tempest's kick that spun the spherical shard directly toward Princess Twilight. The chunk of an ancient artifact instead connected with a pony who'd stumbled directly in line to take the hit.

"You think that was an accident?" Princess Luna asked.

Things wound backwards a little, then played again. The gray-furred mare with wall eyes had one fixed on Twilight while the other—the other tracked Tempest Shadow. It took a moment longer before I realized who that mare was. "Derpy?"

"That's correct. A young mare who cares about everything and everypony in her life enough to—" Princess Luna gestured at the scene again.

"You know what I said to her?"

Princess Luna nodded, and the scene of Derpy sacrificing herself to protect Princess Twilight Sparkle faded to reveal the same Derpy sitting on a cloud looking sad. Her mouth was moving but I couldn't hear anything.

"What's she saying?" I asked.

"She's trying to work out what she did wrong. One of her friends got angry because she did what she thought was a nice thing." Princess Luna wasn't looking at the pony on the cloud.

"I overreacted after having a bad day, and I took it out on her. I need to apologize!"

Luna's horn glowed, then brighter and brighter, until I couldn't look at it anymore.

"Mr. Stygian?" Derpy's voice sounded surprised. "How did you get in my dream?"

How indeed. I sat down on the comfortable cloud and opened my eyes again. Derpy no longer looked like she was crying, but I could see smears of moisture at the corners of each eye. "I think Princess Luna listened to my pleas."

"Your pleas? Mr. Stygian, what's wrong?"

"It wasn't your fault today, Derpy. I was—I'm not having a great time lately, and I took it out on you when I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

"Aww. Mr. Stygian, you should have said." Her tone made it sound like she was going to hug me, but she sat still on her side of the cloud. "But it was my fault, too. I should have asked before I kissed you."

"It's not that I don't like you, Derpy, but it's just as a friend. I don't—"

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want." Derpy spread her wings and walked to the edge of the cloud. "Want to fly for a bit?"

Memories of my time as the Pony of Shadows rushed into the fore, though I managed to shove them back with all my might. "But I don't have wi—" A pair of gray wings sprouted from my back. Literally sprouted like little trees. My memories of the Pony of Shadows reminded me how they were supposed to work—I flapped them.

"Come on!" When Derpy jumped off the cloud, I fell through it.

I spread my wings and flew.

When I woke up, I felt more relaxed than I had in over a thousand years. I still had that core of loneliness, but it wasn't eating me up. Despite my relaxation, however, my back was twisted into a pretzel from where I'd fallen asleep.

The whole day seemed brighter than it should have been. I practically pranced around the house before settling down at my typewriter. Words just flowed. I wrote and wrote. Lunch came and I got up, ate, then sat back down to write some more. Dinner came and I put it off for two hours before I stopped.

My fridge was basically empty, so I chose instead to head out and eat somewhere nice. I walked to my front door and opened it to see Princess Luna standing there, framed by the darkness of the night.

"S-Sorry!" I had no idea why I was apologizing—it seemed right.

"I just wanted to check you were alright after last night. How is this dream going?" Princess Luna just stood in the doorway and looked around.

"Dream? I'm asleep? I just got up from writing a bit late and—" I closed my mouth and thought about it. "I didn't get up. I passed out at my desk writing."

Princess Luna smiled just a little wider. "I could wake you up if you want?"

"I probably should. If I stay asleep and wake up without eating, I'll have a cranky day."

No sooner had I spoken than a blue hoof lifted up and approached my face. "Boop," its owner said, and the hoof poked my nose.

I jerked awake and peeled my face from my typewriter. My back hurt a little still from last night's sleep, and now this was the last straw. I turned in my seat and was looking at Princess Luna standing beside my desk.

Getting shocked was for ponies who haven't tried to destroy the world. "Hello, Princess Luna."

"I was going to make you something to eat, but then I remembered how terrible I am at cooking. Then I resolved to make you a sandwich before you woke up, but I discovered the state of your refrigeration cooler." Her eyes narrowed now and a determined look spread over her face. "You are coming out to get food, now."

There was something about the way she spoke that made me think that if I didn't go willingly, she'd just use her magic to carry me. "Coming!"

I fussed to get my mane straight and remove the drool from the fur of my cheek, then met Princess Luna outside. When I fell in beside her, Princess Luna didn't say a word—we just walked together.

Words didn't need saying between us. The normal tension I felt at a pony looking at me and seeing the monster that was Pony of Shadows wasn't there. Princess Luna knew what being a monster was like, and she didn't expect me to suddenly become one.

Seemingly exactly when my belly gurgled, Luna turned to her right. It wasn't a restaurant for fine dining, or even somewhere to grab something healthy. "Pony Joe's?" I asked.

"There are several things I have learned from my sister since my return, and an appreciation for this establishment is one of them." She opened the door with her magic and strode inside.

I followed, of course. There was a big stallion standing behind a counter. He looked like he expected us.

"Your Highness. What can I make for you?" he asked.

"Joe, I'll take two specials, please." Princess Luna gestured back to me with a hoof. "I brought a friend tonight."

Introduced, I walked up beside Princess Luna. The stallion had a fairly common color combination—brown hair upon an amber coat, but a big pink pastry of some kind on his flank. He had a ready smile for me as much as for Princess Luna. "Evening, Joe."

"Mr. Stygian, if my eyes don't deceive me. Still reading through that last one you put out." Joe's horn lit up, and he began doing a dozen things at once. This was more than just regular telekinesis, this was his cutie mark at work.

It still amazed me how I had fans everywhere. It seemed like for every two ponies I met, one of them had read something of mine. "Next one's almost written."

Joe's ears perked forward about as much as pony ears were capable of. "You don't say? I need to finish this one quick, then."

There was an edge of that worry, that he would bring up my past, but everyone had that effect on me. "Don't go too quickly, I still need to do my second draft and take it to the publisher."

A pair of round sandwiches were placed on trays for us, followed shortly by some kind of just-fried round shape that matched the first in size. The last thing to land on each of our trays was something I knew about—a milkshake.

It suddenly occurred to me that I would need to pay for at least mine (were there laws these days about buying a princess a meal?), so I reached to where my little saddle bags with my coin pounch should be—should be.

"Forget your bits, Mr. Stygian?" Joe asked. "How about you bring me the money tomorrow and sign this?"

My latest published book—a bookmark nestled about a third of the way into it—floated across the counter followed by a pen. Since it didn't actually cost me anything to get out of the predicament, I collected both with my own magic. "How should I make it out?"

"Just to Joe, sir."

Joe, thanks for a wonderful meal when this pony really needed one.
—Stygian

"How do you know the meal will be wonderful?" Joe asked as he took his book and pen back.

"Somepony said that their sister enjoys this very thing, and I'm told I should trust both of them."

Joe smiled knowingly and bobbed his head to show he understood what I was saying. "Maybe I should put a sign up?"

I could well appreciate the big guy's humor, and the big guy himself. How could I fault someone for reading my own books, recognizing me on sight, and looking almost as solid as Rockhoof? A shiver ran through me as I remembered my friends.

Nearly every pony I got to know shared traits with my old friends—modern Equestria seemed larger than life because of it.

"Maybe you should." I tried to sound as chipper as any reply to such small talk should be. Picking up my tray with my magic I turned and carried it over to where Princess Luna already sat.

I remembered her as one of the young fillies Star Swirl had taken on as his students. Nopony knew how important Celestia and Luna would be at the time, but I like to think destiny had a plan in place for when the sun and moon stopped.

It was only weeks after they began doing the work that had wasted away dozens of ponies that I'd tracked down the sirens to a particular village.

Everything was back to being great for that one day. I managed to shove the Pony of Shadows deep into my nightmares until—until they'd revealed how little they thought of me.

"You look like you just smelled something horrible," Princess Luna said.

I opened my eyes—not able to remember when I'd closed them—and looked at Luna. "I was reminded of the day the good old days ended."

"For me that was when I convinced myself that my sister was behind every problem in my life. That wasn't a good day for me." Luna lifted up the fried loop she'd gotten and bit into it with every indication of gastronomical delight.

Levitating my own torus of fried delight (apparently), I brought it closer and took a bite. Sweet and bready, the treat lived up to the propaganda I'd been given. I got halfway through mine before I had to say something. "I talked myself into believing I was better than everypony."

"Yes. I was the best pony—the right pony. Of course I was right. Being right meant nothing was my fault." Princess Luna chewed on another mouthful of fried delight. "That began a thousand years of believing it was true so much that all I could think of was showing others how right I was."

"We were more wrong than ever," I said.

Luna nodded. "But there's an advantage to realizing that."

Done with the fried treat I moved on to my sandwich. "Oh?"

"The good new days." She took a long sip of her milkshake.

"I haven't reached that part yet," I said. "I just feel so lonely. Even the friends I've made since being enlightened don't come around to see me—or I drive them away."

Princess Luna sucked her milkshake all the way to the bottom and spent another two minutes noisily attempting to suck up the last bits of milk from the bottom. It was as good a way as any to end the conversation.

"Do you know the most absurd bit?" she asked.

I thought I'd killed the conversation, but Luna seemed too stubborn to let it go—I shook my head.

"There is a holiday in honor of my thousand years of idiocy. While I raged and screamed in impotent fury on the moon, everypony here made up a holiday centered around giving me candy to stop me coming back."

I had to quickly gulp back my mouthful. "They what?"

"Nightmare Night. It's next week. All the fillies and colts go around and collect candy, then they have to leave some of it out so that the evil Nightmare Moon would eat it instead of them." As she spoke, Luna became more animated and smiled more. "It has become tradition that I go to Ponyville for that."

She seemed about to say something more. I didn't dare speak for fear of cutting her off.

"Would you like to come with me this year? Perhaps it is time they find out that the Pony of Shadows likes sweets," Luna said.

The offer was absurd, and insane, and I couldn't say anything but, "Yes. But maybe keep the Pony of Shadows thing for another time?"

My heart felt light as a feather. The loneliness seemed to retract from my being like a curtain, revealing something wonderful underneath. I had something to look forward to. I tried my milkshake and almost gasped at how sweet it was. There was no way this amount of sugar could be legal.

Before I realized it I'd gotten to the bottom of the drink, and I was sorely tempted to do exactly what Luna did with hers, but I refrained. "I need to adjust my estimation of the food here."

Author's Note

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Lab

Chapter 2

For seven days I slept like a foal. I paid back Pony Joe for the meal, and found myself having dinner there again twice more when I didn't want to be alone. That was the difference now—I didn't want to be alone.

I jumped out of bed after a sleep filled with dreams that I'd already forgotten. I was almost set a half-day of writing when there was a knock on the door. When I walked over and opened the door, I saw Princess Luna with the biggest smile on her face yet. "Princess Luna?"

"Stygian! Come on! We need to get ready!" Luna practically danced from hoof to hoof in excitement.

"I've only just finished breakfast," I said. "I thought Nightmare Night was, you know, at night."

"It is, but we need to prepare. I can't just go as myself, the fillies and colts expect Nightmare Moon!" Luna spun around and pranced down the path. She stopped when she reached the cobbled street and looked back at me. "Well? Come on, Stygian!"

It was hard enough saying no to her at the best of times, but right now I had not a hoof to stand on. I'd agreed, and had spent all week anticipating tonight—I couldn't back out of spending the whole day in preparation. Striding forward, I pulled the door closed behind me and met Luna at the end of the path. "What are we doing first?"

"Manes, tails, and coats. I could use magic to look like Nightmare Moon, but where's the fun in that? Besides, you need a lot of work done if you're going to be my dark lieutenant." Luna pranced like the happiest pony in Equestria.

Swept up in her wake, I couldn't help but see the world a little brighter—which was ironic given that Luna took me to a salon where they dyed my mane and tail jet-black, and my fur cobalt blue. That took all morning.

For lunch, we went to Pony Joe's and had a bagel and a 'shake. I was so busy eating that I barely noticed Luna looking at me over her drink with a curious expression. Gulping down some of the strangest (yet still delicious) sandwich I'd ever had. "Something wrong?"

"Just admiring you."

I was uniquely glad I'd not taken another bite or Luna would have been wearing it. "Admiring me?!"

"Every year I convince some poor Royal Guards to go through the same thing. Have them dress up in armor enchanted to make them look suitably dark and melodramatic. It's all in good fun, but while they certainly look handsome, you present a different take." Luna sipped at her drink. "A very thoughtful commander. A leader. I read your books, and that sounds exactly like what you did."

Avoiding the topic of her admiration, I focused in on one thing. "You read my books? Which ones?"

"All of them. It was interesting seeing events Star Swirl taught us about from a different perspective. I had no idea how much planning and calculation you could do to defeat those kinds of monsters."

"Well, how did you and Cel—Princess Celestia do it?" I asked.

In answer, Luna fluffed the wings at her side and rolled her eyes upward.

"Right. Alicorn power." I took refuge in drinking my 'shake.

"It wasn't exactly easy, even when we had the Elements of Harmony, some of the monsters we fought were almost too much for us. If we'd had an ounce of the planning you undertook, we'd have had things a lot easier." Luna popped the last of her bagel in her mouth and chewed it up. "That might have been part of the strife that clouded my vision. It sometimes felt like we should have been handling things easier, but I thought it was because Celestia wasn't pulling her weight.

"That's why I said I was admiring you. You're not all brawn and no brains like some of us."

"You're hardly no brains. You're the only pony that gets me," I said. "If I told anypony else the things I've told you, they'd call the Guard to lock me up."

"That doesn't make me smart, just a good listener." Princess Luna went about assaulting the bottom of her milkshake with her straw again, loudly blocking any reply I could have made. When she judged her royal duty to devour every last drop of dairy products in the glass complete, she jumped to her hooves. "Are you ready to get our costumes on?"

"Costumes? You never said anything about costumes!" I wasn't actually panicking over attending a party in costume. I was just almost hyperventilating over how good the milkshake was. Yup.

"Come on. You're going to love this." Princess Luna started prancing for the door, and despite all my willpower I didn't have the heart to tell her I wasn't going to do this.

Standing up, I put the last of the bagel in my mouth and gave chase.

The Royal Guard armory was an amazing sight. Gleaming suits of armor made for huge stallions lined the walls within, spears beside each suit, and one mare that looked bigger than Rockhoof swinging a hammer with her hoof while weaving magic with her horn.

Strike after strike of her hammer met the cherry-red metal on the anvil before her, and with each strike she pounded magical enchantments into the piece of armor. Apparently, the needs of her work came before the needs of royalty, so it wasn't until the huge mare was done with the breastplate and put it back in the furnace that she finally turned to us. "Princess Luna. I have your piece made. This is the colt you'll have wear it?" Her voice was the same as everything else about her—she apparently didn't have an inside voice.

Princess Luna made the cutest little excited whinny I'd heard in my life. "Steel Horn, please meet Stygian, he is—"

"Stygian. The Stygian?" Steel Horn rushed forward and thrust her giant hoof toward me. "I've read everything you've written! This is soooo amazing! Oh! Do you think you could sign my books for me?"

Steel Horn moved with all the casual grace of a mountain, and all the finesse of the sea. She was a pony built on a scale the likes of which Rockhoof was a perfect example, only she'd taken that and decided she needed to be bigger, or so it seemed. That she was also apparently another of my number one fans shouldn't have surprised me, but it nonetheless did. When she got hold of my hoof—that I'd foolishly raised to meet hers—she nearly ripped my foreleg out at the shoulder.

"Sh-sure!" There was nothing else I could say to an eager fan. How many ponies had read my books?! "Do you have a pen?"

Five books signed later and Steel Horn lifted out the armor she'd made. It was so much smaller than the rest of the gear that I wasn't surprised she'd called me a colt. She lifted it with her forelegs and sat it over her anvil. "This has all the same enchantments I put on the other bat pony pieces. It should fit you like a glove, Mr. Stygian."

Looking at it, it seemed to be way heavier than anything I could lift. "H-How heavy is it?"

"Like this? No heavier than any well crafted armor, but when you have it on it'll be light as a feather, just like Princess Luna asked." Steel looked between me and Luna as if to check that was what had been requested. "Would you like some help with getting it on?"

I gulped at the idea, but I wasn't so stupid as to try to put it on myself and prove I knew nothing of armor. Maybe if I had a few days to research it, and ask Flash Magnus for some demonstrations, I could have handled it, but not off the cuff. "Y-Yes please."

"Okay. Here it comes." When Steel Horn lifted the heavy armor (at least it was heavy to me) onto my back, I had nearly two seconds of panic when I felt the weight of it. Then, as the enchantments on the armor activated, it became as light as if I were wearing just a coat. Steel used her magic to fasten buckles and cinch straps around me—it should have felt uncomfortable for somepony not used to it, but it was no worse than regular clothing.

When I looked at Luna, I saw her looking at me approvingly. "How does it look?"

"See for yourself." Luna used her magic to float a mirror closer and held it up for me.

My jaw must have hit the ground. The bat-winged unicorn in the mirror looked—well, he looked incredible. My coloration suited the armor perfectly, the purple-black motif highlighted by the spread wings made it impossible to look away. "How do the wings work?"

"You can't fly with them, but they'll respond to your emotions, and you can manipulate them with a little focus," Steel Horn said. "Now, Princess, your usual piece has been upgraded for this year."

Luna almost dropped the mirror—almost because I caught it. She actually pranced in place she was so excited. "Normally I only have the helmet of Nightmare Moon, but we came up with a full set of light armor for her tonight!"

There was something just a little perverse about enjoying the dark side of your nature so much. Nightmare Moon, from what I'd read and heard, had almost succeeded in taking over Equestria and plunging the world into eternal night.

The armor that Steel fetched was bigger than mine, but Luna was a bigger mare than I was. She floated it over and stood beside Princess Luna. "Begging Your Highness' pardon, but I'll show you how to put this on."

Turning to look at me, Luna's eyes looked bright with excitement. "I never got to wear armor before. The helmet I dreamed up for Nightmare Moon all those years ago was nothing but a way to keep my mane somewhat under control. This—" She stopped as Steel set the armor on her back. "… Is heavy!"

"Give it a moment. Fold your wings through—There you go. Now give me a moment to cinch it up." Steel busied herself fastening the enchanted armor to Luna, but it wasn't exactly Luna anymore. Black leaked into her fur and spread over her body. Her eyes stretched into a more elongated shape, and her eyes themselves pinched down into slits.

Luna's horn grew out nearly twice its length, and her cutie mark changed from black and white on blue to purple and white on black. "How do I look?" But her voice was still 100% Luna.

"This is Nightmare Moon?" I asked.

"Close. Very close. She was a little taller, too." ~~Luna~~ Nightmare Moon stretched her wings and shifted on her hooves. "The armor is wonderful. Thank you, Steel Horn."

"You still need your helmet. Here you go, Your Highness." Steel didn't try to fit the helmet herself, instead passing it to Luna (I had to think of her as Luna, she was still Luna).

When she put the helmet on, it pushed Luna's mane back from her face and made her horn even more pronounced. She was magnificent! She was scary. "Now, how is that?"

When Luna turned to me, I gulped and tried to remember the imposing bat unicorn I'd seen in the mirror. "You look perfect, Your Highness. Shall we bring terror to the night together?" I had no idea where the words had come from—possibly the same creative place my books did. As the curve of Luna's mouth turned up into a big smile, I knew I'd gotten my role somewhat correct.

"First I need to show Tia!"

In what was apparently a regular occurrence (if the Royal Guards' chuckles were anything to go by), Princess Luna led the charge back to the main palace and through to the throne room. When she found out that Princess Celestia was between supplicants, Luna seemed to take on a maniacal aspect.

Spreading her huge black wings, Princess Luna stood every bit as tall and malevolent as I'd expect Nightmare Moon to have looked. "General! Announce me!" After a moment of everypony looking confused, Luna nudged me with a wingtip. "That's you, Stygian."

"What?" I asked. "Wait, you want me to—"

"Go in and act all evil. Make a pile of stuff up about me." Luna struck a pose that was less about malevolence and more about looking awesome. "And don't worry, she's expecting me."

That swung things an entirely different way. With Princess Celestia expecting something silly like this, it meant I had a duty to uphold a level of quality in my performance. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but okay. Send me in!"

The Royal Guards, trying not to giggle, opened a side door to the throne room and practically shoved me through it. What was I doing? I'd clearly gone crazy, but as long as I had a role to play, I could avoid the quiet and shy Stygian and be somepony else. Or was it somebatty else?

There'd been some talking going on in the throne room. Princess Celestia was talking with one of her guards when she saw me enter. One white eyebrow rose almost invisibly as I stomped forward, trying to at least pretend I was carrying the hefty armor with a strong back. "Princess Celestia!"

Her raised eyebrow lowered, and a smile hit her lips. All the tension ran out of me at the look—she knew what was coming.

"It is my terrible joy to present the Princess of Perilous Powers, the Demon of the Dark, the Shadow Within Every Heart—Nightmare Moon!" As I shouted her name, I stomped my hoof hard on the marble floor three times. On the third, the doors behind me opened (I only knew because of the rush of air). I bowed my head and shuffled to the side as Luna strode past me.

"So, Nightmare Moon, you've returned to Equestria?" Princess Celestia sounded every bit the concerned and worried ruler, but she was grinning like a fool. "Your new battledress is impressive."

Luna managed to look stern for nearly ten seconds, then she broke into a smile too. "Steel Horn did such a great job! How does it look? I don't even need to use magic to look like this!"

"That looks impressive. We were wondering who Princess Luna would dress up this year since Princess Celestia kept her usual suspects on duty in the throne room." One of the Royal Guard was talking to me like I was one too. It was confusing mostly because they were normally stoic and quiet.

"H-Hi. My name's Stygian." Truth, an orange earth pony had taught me, was vitally important to keeping oneself grounded. I thrust a hoof out to the other stallion.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were talking behind us, raving about the armor and the magical effect.

"Wait, I thought you were—" The Royal Guard shoved out his hoof and shook mine. "Well met regardless. I thought you looked a little short for the Guard, but then Steel can work literal magic with her armor."

"Did he say his name was Stygian? The Stygian?!" A dark gray pegasus Royal Guard practically shoved his companion out of the way bodily. "I've read all your books, sir!"

"Wait, this is the author of that book you gave me? It's amazing!" the first Guard said.

It was starting to become surreal how many ponies I ran into who had read my books. I'd been to book signings, of course, but those are advertised—fans go out of their way to attend them. "Do you have anything I can sign?"

I'd never seen a pony get so excited just from a few words. Well, that's a lie. When I told Pinkie Pie my birthday, that was the most excited I'd seen a pony get from a few words, but this was about me.

The two Guards ushered me over to the door I'd come in, and sure enough there was a copy of one of my books sitting on a bench there. The poor book looked half destroyed. It was dog-eared and the back cover had fallen off at some point. Nonetheless, a quill and ink was provided.

To the ponies of the Royal Guard, thank you for your service in defense of what Equestria holds dear. —Stygian.

I put a little extra flourish into things, and made it look as special as I could. The best part about the situation, however, was having a bunch of really hot stallions bunched around me. If nothing else, this silliness was worth it just for the wonderful dreams this moment would give me.

"General!" Luna's voice was raised loud enough that they probably heard it in Ponyville.

"I'll come back tomorrow, okay? Bring more books," I said and trotted after the source of my good fortune. "Dread Ruler of the Night, how may I serve thee?"

Luna paused for a moment and watched me bow my head. When I stood upright again, she gestured to the double doors. "Come! We have subdued the ruler of this land, now we must go and devour all the fillies and colts in Ponyville!"

"By devour, you mean tickle them until they give us candy?" I asked as deadpan as I could.

I tried to ignore the giggling coming from the throne above and behind me, and more coming from the Royal Guards.

"Yes!" Luna gestured with renewed vigor and a bigger grin. "For candy!"

By the time we got outside there was a pair of pegasi, hooked up to a black chariot, already wearing the same style of armor as I was in. Their wings looked to be bat wings, but I had a feeling they'd be able to use theirs.

"Mount up, my general. We ride for Ponyville!" Princess Luna jumped onto the chariot and raised one steel-shod hoof in the air. What else could I do but join her?

By the time we reached Ponyville it was late afternoon. Below us I could see decorations and colorful ponies everywhere enjoying the beginnings of a holiday based around one of the greatest villains Equestria has ever known. It was silly, but I think Luna had the right idea that the best way to deal with it was to be silly too.

A streak of purple and rainbow shot into the sky, and angry clouds seemed to pour in out of nowhere. We descended into the crackling cloud bank while the purple-clad Rainbow Dash drew even with us. I looked at her—resplendent in her costume. It was a decorated with lightning and skulls, and featured a very dark black-on-purple coloring that had gold highlights. "Ready for your awesome entrance?"

I expected Luna to nod or say something. Instead, she let loose a scream not unlike a windigo's, and Rainbow Dash shot through the clouds and curved. It should have been a sonic rainboom, but something Rainbow had done caused it to be an explosion of mist that settled all over Ponyville like a blanket. Then it occurred to me that we could see Ponyville—there was now a hole in the clouds we shot through.

"… doom arrives! Our ruler of the night, Nightmare Moon!" was all I heard of what I was sure was a big speech from Rainbow Dash. We practically crashed into the ground behind her, though the two pegasi pulling the chariot reared up in their tack and hoofed at the air.

"Behold! I, Nightmare Moon, have returned!" Luna jumped off the back of the chariot and stalked around the town square. Fillies and colts squealed and ran around in circles before stopping before her.

"P-P-Please take some candy!" one little colt said as he held up the little pail he'd obviously collected his candy in.

Luna reached a hoof into the pirate-dressed foal's candy and pulled out a bonbon. Standing tall and proud, she unwrapped the candy and ceremoniously put it in her mouth. Everypony was quiet, not a foal nor adult moved. At last Luna finished the treat and cleared her throat. "This candy was acceptable! Happy Nightmare Night everypony!"

The cheer in reply to Luna's announcement would have drowned out her loudest shout. There was a sense of release among the ponies, like this had been the signal that the fun was really starting.

"But wait!" I was wrong—Luna definitely could be loud enough to be heard over the crowd. "Nightmare Moon does not ride alone this night! I have brought my general to ensure I am not tricked by a carefully planted—delicious—candy. Make haste, for his anger is legendary when he is not fed well!"

I had neither hope nor warning. At least a dozen foals rushed up to me and held out their precious candy. Not wanting to pick the same colt as Luna, I reached out to a yellow filly who looked to be one of the older foals of the group.

Plucking out what looked like a sour apple chew, my mouth started watering in anticipation. Candy hadn't changed too much in a thousand years, it seemed. It was delicious! "Hrmm. I don't know. Maybe I'll have to try all the candy to make sure this one is okay?"

Terrified squeals came from all the foals until I stretched my (fake) wings out impressively. All went quiet again.

"No. No, this is perfect!" My announcement got the same reply as Luna's.

While I'd had everypony's attention, however, Luna used her magic to produce a large bag. Decorated with bats and spiders, the bag looked ominous, but now they noticed it all the foals were focused on Luna. "Ponies of the night, rejoice!"

All the foals started bouncing in place in excitement. I leaned down to them and said, "If you get in line, I think Nightmare Moon has something for each of you." They moved faster than lightning.

It wasn't hard to tell that Luna was having the time of her life. Each foal left with their pail overflowing with candy, and even one or two mares slipped into the line.

I don't know what I expected from a holiday called Nightmare Night, but this joyous occasion wasn't it. Ponies had set up games all over the place, and there was a zebra leading a group of foals around. As Nightmare Moon's General I kept at Luna's side for the whole night and the best bit was it didn't matter if I was disjointed from the modern Equestria—it helped me fit in better.

But foals couldn't stay up all night, and even adult ponies got tired and went to bed. I'd been so charged with energy that I didn't realize the evening was at an end until Luna steered us back to the chariot.

"Ready to go, Your Highness?" The two pegasi of the Royal Guard seemed to have been waiting, though I was sure I'd seen them among the crowd at various points in the night.

Luna nodded. "Yes please. Back to Canterlot."

We didn't speak on the way back, but it was a companionable silence. A silence that didn't need filling. When we landed back in Canterlot, both of us looked at each other for just a moment and—at the same time—asked, "Would you like to—?" Then, "Doughnuts?"

"Oh no!" Pony Joe said as we walked into his shop. "I am beset by the darkest of creatures! Whatever will I do?"

"Hi, Joe. Can we get two of our usuals?" I asked.

Joe was already in action, but he kept looking my way. "That's a fine costume, Mr. Stygian. Have a good Nightmare Night?"

"It was my first ever, also my best ever." The high I was on from the evening hadn't abated. When Joe passed over the two trays, I picked them up with my magic and walked over to where Luna had already found a seat. "This has been a great night. I guess I needed it. Thank you."

"You're very welcome, Stygian. Nightmare Night is special to me in one important way—I use it to make a mockery of Nightmare Moon. The image of her that ponies have in their hearts now makes it impossible to use as a weapon against them." Luna lifted up her sandwich and took a bite out of it.

I thought about that, of depowering our monsters, and I liked it a lot. When I finished my doughnut, I decided something. "Next year I'll go as the Pony of Shadows. Do you think Steel Horn could manage some armor to make me look like that?"

"Probably. She does wonderful enchantments, but we'd need to give her some time." Luna started slurping on her 'shake. Just the sight of a big-bad evil monster slurping a strawberry milkshake made me want to giggle more. "Ahh. But that's next year. What are we going to do in the meantime?"

The question caught me off-guard. What would Luna enjoy doing? "Err, I don't—I mean, I'm not sure what you'd like."

"That's why I asked you. Pick something you enjoy." Luna sipped some more of her drink.

Something I enjoy? My mind raced—writing wasn't going to cut it. "W-What about chess? Are there other games now?" To my absolute shock Luna's face brightened immediately. "Yes?"

"We'll need to visit a game shop, but I was talking to Spike—that's Twilight's dragon friend—about a board game he plays." Luna leaned down on the table and her magic flared to life to form little figures. "They play with these tiny models, and there's all kinds of rules, and we'll need to find out all about them!" By the time she was done, Luna was practically shouting. "This will be perfect!"

"So, uh, next week?" I asked.

"First thing!" Slurping up the rest of her drink, Luna looked thoughtful for a moment. "No, we should spend the first day of the week buying all the things so we know what to do, then we'll play the following day."

Well, I think I found my answer. "That sounds fun. These games are strategy games?"

Luna could only nod at this point thanks to the oversize bite she took of her doughnut. Deciding that I might as well eat mine too, I maintained a little control and ate mine more delicately.

We were both quiet while we ate the food that (once I'd learned its name) was what Joe was famous for. Luna jumped to her hooves. I was slower in getting up, but once I was standing, I was surprised when Luna kissed my cheek.

The kiss was more than just a friend, it was a maybe more type of kiss. It shocked me not only in that it happened, but that it wasn't bad. It didn't cause a negative reaction like every other mare who'd ever done that.

"It's a date then. And don't forget to bring the armor back and talk to Steel Horn about next year's costume." Luna pranced to the door and left me standing in complete surprise.

I was still standing there when Joe came over to collect our dishes from the table. "It's good to see Princess Luna so happy," was all he said before retreating back to the counter.

She had been happy. Very happy. I took a slow breath and was able to move again. I walked over to Joe to pay, but he waved my bits away. Leaving them on the counter anyway, I walked slowly home again.

The fact that kept circling my head was how wrong this should feel. Romance was a hard topic for me at the best of times, but Luna is a mare. Mares don't (usually) do anything for me—quite the opposite. I took a deep breath and picked up my pace.

I like stallions. Memories of Joe's solid form, the two pegasi that flew us to Ponyville and back, and the complete feast for my eyes that was the Royal Guard all made me perk up, but now thinking of Luna that way sorta-kinda-maybe did the same, but not.

Yawning as I slipped in my front door, I started walking to my bathroom, but after yawning on the way there I can't honestly remember if I made it.

Author's Note

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Lab

Chapter 3

My dream was typical. There was the Pony of Shadows, and here I was about to be consumed by—No! Instead of me, it was Luna that the Pony of Shadows had grabbed in its tentacles. It was pulling her toward it, and she looked at me and screamed for help.

"I'll help!" But it was just me. How could I help?

Remembering how Princess Twilight and Starlight Glimmer had done it, I used my magic to grab Luna and pull her toward me. The Pony of Shadows' grip was every bit as tight and its strength every bit as overwhelming as it had been in real life, and I was no princess.

"Please help me!"

This was stupid. My mind knew it was a dream, but the power of dreams was such that I couldn't stop following its script. I pulled and tugged on Luna, but the best I managed was to fight the Pony of Shadows (somehow) to a standstill.

Back and forth we fought, but neither of us could win. I started to cry as my magic began to fail me. Then things got strange.

Luna began to glow with a shimmering silver-blue light, then all of a sudden she was free of the Pony of Shadows and—thanks to my magic grip pulling at her—flying through the air toward me. I couldn't stop her, we were about to crash together and, to my shock, it was our lips that met.

My eyes fluttered closed, but in the manner of dreams I knew what was going on around me. Luna didn't pull back, rather we both remained in place—kissing. The kiss was—It was a good kiss! I wanted more of it. I got more of it.

When finally things seemed to wind down, both of us drew apart carefully and I opened my eyes to see a Luna who looked just as confused as I felt. Confused, and smiling.

"This is a dream," I said.

"It is, Stygian, but dreams are my domain, and when I find somepony doing battle with their worst demon, it is my duty to intercede." Luna reached a hoof up to her lips. "Taking my own form in your dream might have been a mistake—but I don't regret it."

Facts crashed together. My unconscious mind was never the best at reason, but even it managed to put this Luna together with Princess Luna, and added her ability to invest herself in dreams… I shook my head.

"No?" Luna asked.

"I don't know. I thought we were just having fun, but I never thought—It didn't feel like a date. You're a princess!" I waved a hoof in Luna's direction. "And I'm just—"

"You're not just anything, Stygian." Luna tilted her head slightly as she looked at me. "I thought it was a splendid date. What was wrong about it?"

"I like stallions!" I shouted the words as loud as I could into the dream…

… And jerked awake on the floor of my bathroom. Blinking in surprise, I shook my head to clear the cobwebs of the dream. "This is mad. I'm mad." I was also wearing armor still.

Squirming and writhing, I blindly tried to remove the armor, only to find the buckles and straps too much for my hooves alone to deal with. Letting out a groan of defeat, I rolled to my belly and stood up. The armor moved with me and felt as weightless as a shirt.

I walked into my bedroom and looked at my bed. In the past week it had given me such relief from the horrid life I'd been living before it. The ~~day~~ date with Luna had been all I could think of. Okay, it was still all I could think of, but for a different reason.

Luna was nice. She was awesome to be around, and I enjoyed being with her. I liked the kiss.

That was the problem—something had changed.

Struggling with the straps again, I noticed movement in the mirror across the room and froze. From the corner of my eye I saw a midnight sky of mane flow to one side. "Luna, I—"

"Stygian, you don't have to explain. This was my fault for pushing without asking questions. Would you like some help with that armor?" Luna's voice didn't sound sure or solid—she sounded like somepony with a lot to think about. Yay, we'd formed a club.

"Th-Thanks. I can't seem to—" I cut short when Luna used her magic to unfasten the armor piece by piece. "It just kinda snuck up on me. I didn't mean for—"

Luna lifted off the leg-guards first. "For it to be a date? Or for there to be more? Or for the kiss?"

"Yeah," I said. "All of that."

Neither of us spoke until she was halfway through removing the main part of the armor. I couldn't keep the words in anymore and whispered, "It was nice, though."

Pausing for just a moment, Luna continued to remove the armor and hefted it (since it was now as heavy as it should be) off me and to the side with a loud thunk. "Hop on the bed, Stygian."

I froze. Nothing I could do would make my brain or body work right. "I'm not—I mean, we haven't—Should—"

"Relax. I'll help you sleep. Nothing more." Luna, when I looked at her, was the picture of innocence. She looked completely truthful to the point I could start breathing properly again.

I trusted Luna not to do anything more, but did I trust myself? That was the problem I had, I'd kissed her already, what would I do if I let her—Don't overthink it, Stygian. She's a princess, she's been through the same things you have. She'll stop if you ask her.

Walking over to my bed, I climbed up and lay down. "Now wh—" Sleep fell around me like a blanket. Or maybe that was a blanket. Either way, I was dropped into a dream that had me sitting at a table with a large pile of cakes and snacks, a pair of milkshakes, and room for one more.

A heartbeat later he appeared. Big, strong—a stallion in every line and angle—and Luna colored. "Uh?"

"Like it?" Luna asked.

I liked it. Oh gosh did I go in for big, dark, and handsome sitting across from me. He vibrated with masculine strength that had me sitting at the edge of my chair. "You're amazing."

"I meant the cakes, Stygian, but I'll take a compliment when I get it." His voice was deeper than Luna's normally was—deeper and with more support. I could have drowned in the rich tone of his voice, but it was Luna's face I was beguiled by. "You have noticed the cakes, haven't you?"

"Why are you—?" I shook my head to clear all the wrong things I wanted to ask out of it. Finally, I was left with just one question. "Why?"

"Because we needed to talk. Talking, I realized, would be easier when you could look me in the eyes." Luna's smile got a little wider. "Though I hadn't expected this much of your focus."

"You made yourself look like the hottest stallion in Equestria, and you thought I wouldn't notice?" I could start to get my head down from the clouds, after all, this was an illusion. It was still Luna. "But it's working. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not so great at confrontation."

I sighed and leaned further back in the chair. "That's part of what was so good about being the Pony of Shadows, I was confrontation."

Luna's horn glowed with power and he floated a doughnut down from the pile that looked suspiciously like the kind Joe sold at his store. I was entranced as he opened his mouth and took a neat bite of the doughnut. "There was a lot of good things about not caring."

"Yeah," I said, "But it was lonely."

In the intervening silence I grabbed my own doughnut and started nibbling at it. By the time I got what would be considered a normal bite down, I had more questions. "So I'm asleep?"

"You are."

His voice was like warm caramel—I wanted to hear more of it slide down into my ears. "And you? Don't you normally have to use magic to do this? That means you're awake."

Luna took his time and sipped at his milkshake. "If you were on the other side of Equestria, I'd have to use magic. If you were on the other side of the city dreaming something huge and foreboding, I might be able to reach you." He took another sip. "But you're laying beside me in bed. Your dreams are mine with but a thought."

There was something special about all this, and it was all about what Luna wasn't doing—he wasn't making this awkward. I ate two more doughnuts before I felt ready to talk more. "We don't get fat from eating dream doughnuts, do we?"

Grabbing a piece of chocolate cake, Luna winked at me. "Not unless you want to. Dreams are flexible, as you can see." His voice continued to do a number on my mental faculties. Watching him devour the dark delight made me shiver.

"I think I just want to sleep," I said.

I'd so far managed to not say something stupid or potentially harmful to my life, and I wanted it to stay like that. The safest place for me now was deep, dreamless sleep.

"Very well. Come on." Luna stood from his seat and the cake, table, and milkshakes were gone. Beside us was a huge bed that looked almost as inviting as Luna did. "It's just a dream, and I'd rather not have to come back and deal with any more Pony of Shadows problems—though the first time was nice."

As I walked toward the bed, I realized Luna fully intended to lay down on it with me. My heart jumped into my throat as I climbed up on the bed and stretched out. I was about to roll to my back and get cozy when the weight of Luna settling onto the bed behind me gave me pause.

Not only did his weight on the bed back up the fact that he was a big stallion, but I felt his foreleg reach for my shoulder. "Luna?" I asked.

"I'll protect you from your nightmares, if you protect me from mine."

His words seemed profound. I hadn't realized the flipside of this was that Luna needed someone to fill the void in his—err, her life. Without thinking about it further, I shimmied and let him pull me back against him.

Luna was a big stallion, and I fit comfortably against his belly and barrel. He was warm, and when his wing stretched over me I was warm too. Sleep became easier.

As sleep receded from my mind, I knew exactly who it was that was warm and pressed to my back. This wasn't a dream, however, it was really Princess Luna laying with me in bed. It was comfortable.

I could have shoved my way free and put on a scene, but I just didn't have the energy to. Besides, getting up now would wake her, and if there was one thing I was sure of it was that Princess Luna needed her sleep.

A few blinks later and sleep called me back into its embrace. The moment my eyes were closed, Luna was there. He—she—was a he again.

"It's morning?" Luna asked. "Well, of course it's morning, but how far? Has sister raised the sun yet? I left a note for her to take care of putting my moon away, but I wasn't sure if she'd seen it."

"The sun's up. I was only awake for a few minutes. You're not usually awake at this hour?" I was at a loss as to what we could do. The bed was comfortable, but there was only so much we could do together without knowing each other a lot better than we knew each other.

"I am normally going to bed at this hour. The night and dreams are my responsibilities, but for one night a year my duty is to the ponies during their waking hours. Now the question is, what shall I do for the rest of the day?" Luna sounded playful and perhaps a little silly.

Rolling over, I turned so that I was facing him. The twinkle in Luna's eyes were almost certainly some kind of mind control—they had to be. I felt a smile spread across my face. "Well, the first thing we need to do is build a pillow fort."

I'm not sure I expect it to start raining pillows and blankets, but with so much building material around now a fort was inevitable.

Sharing a laugh of pure joy together, we started using our magic to assemble a fortress around the big bed. We'd gotten the third floor built onto the fortress when the manic energy seemed to run out. Quite how we had a three-story pillow fort, I don't know. "Do you want me to tell you a bit about—back then?"

"I'd like that very much, Stygian." Luna found himself a comfortable couch and climbed up onto it while I settled on one facing it. Outside the fortress, gale-force winds started to blow, though they had no effect on our pillow fort.

I pulled an extra large blanket around my shoulders so that I only had my neck and head poking out of it. "Then let me tell you about the sirens…"

The story of us chasing down the sirens, finally locating them as they fed for the showdown, and the big fight dragged on. I'm not sure how many hours we sat together, huddled under blankets that kept the chill away, but when I finished—describing the bait-and-switch that saw the sirens sent to another dimension—Luna produced a large golden hourglass from somewhere inside his blanket.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Almost time to raise the moon. I'd better wake up." As he spoke, Luna stood up and spread his wings. There was something completely magical about alicorns even when they weren't doing magic. Luna looked amazing—he was royalty.

The dream fell apart along with the pillow fort. Like streamers and ticker tape falling to the ground, the continuity that we'd built up over the day expired and I woke in the bed with Luna's wing still over me. We'd slept the entirety of the day away together and it felt wonderful.

"Good evening!" Luna's voice was brimming with excitement. She practically jumped from my bed and pranced through my house. "Come. We're having breakfast in the castle. You'll thank me once you've seen it."

Was there a way to politely tell a princess you just wanted to settle down and think about things? I opened my mouth to try, but when I drew a blank on what to say I just closed my mouth again. "O-Okay!"

The walk to the castle was somewhat calming and gave me time to think. This had turned into the oddest relationship I could have ever dreamed of. I liked Luna and I enjoyed our time together, but snuggling and playing with her as a big stallion had been the most satisfying thing since—since ever.

He was everything I'd ever wanted to be with. When his strong legs pulled me close—Just thinking about that gave me all kinds of warm tingly feelings that weren't appropriate for being out in public.

Around and around in circles. My mind chased the idea through loops of But she's and Then he until I couldn't tell what was going on anymore. I hadn't even noticed when we walked into the castle grounds, but I was aware of going indoors and dragged myself back to reality.

We were walking into the main doors of the throne room, and nopony was moving to stop us. I was a little sad that it took me a few seconds to figure out that of course nopony would stop us—I'm walking beside Princess Luna.

On the throne, Princess Celestia sat looking as regal and cheerful. Her expression turned brighter as we approached. "Sister! I was worried you wouldn't make it in time to raise the moon." She lifted from the throne and—with her wings out—glided down from the dais to meet Luna and hug her.

Luna showed every indication of enjoying a moment with her sister. "I ask but one day and night a year, I trust it was not too burdensome?"

"You're smiling, Luna."

I'd managed to be completely out of the conversation right up until Princess Celestia turned to look at me.

"And I find a stallion at your side. Coincidence?" Celestia's smile was about as cagey and insinuating as you could get.

"Sister," Luna said, "Stygian is a friend, and deserves a little more honor than to simply be a stallion beside a princess. Or should I talk about—"

"Well put!" Princess Celestia was quick to cut in before Luna could mention any names, but I had to assume there was something Luna knew that Princess Celestia wished Luna didn't. "Shall we perform Dusk?"

When Luna nodded, Princess Celestia led the way toward one of the rear doors in the throne room. She reached it first because Luna had stopped and turned to look at me. "Stygian?" Princess Celestia asked. "Are you coming?"

I had seen the sun and moon rise and fall many times, but never had I accompanied Princess Celestia and Luna while they did it. Stumbling forward a little, I walked quickly to catch up to Luna and walked with her through the door, down a hall, and out onto a landing that overlooked—nothing and everything.

As I walked onto the little platform, I realized I was on the furthest part of Canterlot from the mountain. Below was empty air and before me was Equestria. The steady breeze caught at my fur and seemed determined to pull me off the edge of the rail-less platform. This wasn't a place made for unicorns.

Luna looked back at me and gave me such a warm smile for such a chilling location. "You can wait at the door if you wish, Stygian, but neither of us will let you fall."

All of Equestria relied on the princesses for light and life as well as governance. "It's fine," I said and stepped forward to stand beside Luna—my left forehoof practically touching the edge of the platform.

A beautiful blue wing stretched out and hooked around me, and without meaning to I leaned against Luna's side.

From beside me—but further than Luna—a rush of magic like a thunderstorm but way bigger began. Princess Celestia's golden light became bright enough that even without looking her way, I could see it shining even on the trees and land far below. I shivered at how small it made me feel to witness that power, and how immense it made Princess Celestia seem.

It took Star Swirl and a team of unicorns (who almost burned themselves out in the process) to do what Princess Celestia was doing on her own. It was utterly humbling.

"Your turn," Princess Celestia said.

Before I'd had Luna as a buffer between me and Princess Celestia's power. This time I was literally touching Luna, and felt when she sent her own hurricane of power skyward, gripped the moon, and wrested it firmly into the night sky.

She was like a flame in the night. A torch I could stand near and be warm. I only realized it when Luna was done, but I had pressed a little tighter to her side.

We stood there together for I don't know how long. It was cozy and warm at Luna's side, and the world looked wonderful under the silver glow of her moon.

"You could have stood between us." Luna's voice, when it came at last, was deep and questioning. She turned her head to look at me, and for just a moment I thought she was coming in for a kiss.

"Then your sister's magic would have distracted me." I tilted my head and nuzzled at her shoulder. The body of an alicorn shared a lot of traits with that of a stallion—firm musculature and larger-than-normal size were two I could definitely live with. "I wanted to see and feel your magic."

"Really?"

I nodded.

There was a moment when I thought she would kiss me (part of me even wanted her to, if only to see if I wouldn't freak out over it), but instead she made a cute rising inflection and turned so that I was moved closer to the door behind us.

The balcony was just about the scariest thing in Canterlot for a unicorn, but with Luna I felt completely safe. Leading the way, Luna looked like she was practically strutting through the hall. Had I had this effect on her? Joe had said it was good to see her happy—was this Luna happy?

Walking behind her, I followed Luna back into the throne room that was now devoid of Princess Celestia. For a heartbeat I had a panic, but then Luna spread her wings and flapped up to land on her throne. The room seemed fuller. Luna's presence spread and it was like a magical force emanating from her flowed outward to take a firm hold on Equestria.

A mare came bustling in from the door behind me. She had a cutie mark of two long baguettes crossed on her flank, and she strode into the throne room like she owned it. "You 'Ighness! What would you wish for sup—breakfast?" Her Prench accent was thick but understandable. An earth pony, her mane and tail were dark in color and combed to within an inch of their lives, and her coat was a muted orange—though her eyes would likely be called enchanting by somepony who hadn't just had long conversations with Luna.

"Two for breakfast today, Pomme Frites. Stygian is joining me for breakfast." Luna seemed louder and more sure of herself on the throne. She looked down at me and winked. "I'll have my usual, but I'm not sure what he'll have. Stygian?"

"Oh, uh…" I fumbled for an answer. "What's on?"

Pomme raised one immaculate eyebrow at me. "Anything."

That was just about the scariest menu I'd ever heard. If I asked for it, she'd have it prepared for breakfast. I was just about to tell her I'll have what Luna's having, when a memory hit me.

"When I was a colt, my—my mother made us warm bread each day, and the ends were reserved for breakfast. A dollop of cream spread over the flame-toasted ends was the base for a thick and rich apple and blackberry jam that was the best thing I'd ever eaten."

I hadn't realized I'd spoken until Pomm Frites said, "This I can manage. Coffee?"

Her voice shook me from the past. "Y-Yes, please. That would be wonderful." She looked immensely happy about something, and her walk wasn't the firm one she'd come in with—she pranced.

"You gave her a challenge! Did you see her excitement?!" Luna sounded like she was having a great time. "I knew this was a good idea, but seeing Pomme's face when you told her you want the best food you'd ever eaten from your childhood was amazing!"

"I didn't even realize I was saying it. I'd be happy with some jam on toast." I walked around to the bottom of the dais—where ponies would be if they were entering from the main doors—and looked up at Luna. "So, uh, what do you do all night?"

"First I cast my magic out—I already did that bit—and then I can relax a little until the first pony nightmare happens. Since my return, there have been many such each night, but the number of them is decreasing." Staring at me for a moment, Luna eventually gestured at the space between the thrones. "Please, Stygian, I don't wish to talk like this. Come up here."

The two Royal Guard at the foot of the dais didn't so much as twitch as I stepped up to and past them. Climbing the stairs, I eventually made my way to stand between the two thrones. What surprised me was there was a small table, some writing materials, and a small stack of books there.

"That's where my sister has her scribe sit while she's taking supplicants. It's a rather boring position, I'm afraid, but it affords quite some time to talk and—in Raven's case—read a book or two. You might recognize her latest." Luna used her magic to edge one of the books a little out of the stack. Of course it was one of my books.

I used my own magic to lift the book out completely and sit it on the little lectern that seemed built for the task. "Okay, but why am I—"

"A nightmare!" With a flash of cobalt magic, Luna seemed to freeze in place and her eyes fluttered closed.

Watching her features shift from determination, to anger, and then calm was curious to behold. While I watched her fight whatever nasty had invaded somepony's dreams, I used a quill to sign the book, blotted it dry, then put it back in its position.

I didn't have too much time to wait before Luna yawned and stretched her wings. "That was a thorny one. The plunder vines left quite a mark on the minds of Equestria."

Relief flooded me at hearing Luna was safe and back to herself. "Plunder vines? Those were the black plants that came from the Everfree Forest?"

"Indeed. They took over most of Ponyville, and spread—somehow—almost clear across Equestria. We found out that it was Discord who planted them, though that was done well before he learned the lessons of friendship." Luna kept glancing down and to the side. I wasn't sure what she was doing until the rear door opened once more to reveal Pomme and a trolley she was pushing. "Ah! Breakfast!"

Lifting from the throne, Luna began walking down the stairs while I struggled to catch up—the steps had been made for the gait of a much larger pony. A stray thought hit me, and I was fighting not to giggle as I reached the bottom.

"Your usual, Your Highness, and Mr. Stygian's requested breakfast." Pomme Frites seemed to almost buzz with energy. She tapped her trolley and it jumped and stretched into a huge table that almost stretched the full width of the throne room. A pair of seats appeared, and I realized that this was somehow normal here.

Before one seat sat a stray with a metal dome over it with a large cup already filled with coffee. Before the other was no less than seven trays. Feeling somewhat at a loss, I stepped forward and sat on the chair.

"Toasted fresh bread—only the butt of the loaf—with rich butter and slathered in apple and blackberry jam. A cup of double-roasted espresso, just how you like it." Pomme looked even more excited now, but there was something that had my interest.

"How do you know how I like my coffee?" I asked.

Pomme Frites' smile grew a little wider, but she didn't answer.

Levitating up one of the slices of toast, I lifted it to just before my nose and my mind seemed to seize up. Just the smell of the bread, the sweet scent of the fruit-filled jam, and the rich undertone of the butter took me back to my foalhood.

Closing my eyes for fear I'd cry, I took a bite of the toast.

The bread wasn't exactly how I remembered it—Mom made her bread with more whole grains—and the jam wasn't as tart as I could recall, but the toasted breakfast still coaxed tears from my eyes for how good it was and how close to my earliest memories it had come.

"That he's taking another bite and still crying means you got things very right, Pomme, as always." Luna was looking at me with a smile on her lips that grew when her own breakfast was revealed—pancakes and syrup.

Trying to curtail my emotions was impossible. The wonderful breakfast just made me warm and happy all over, and infinitely more amenable to eating breakfast beside a princess in the royal throne room.

"About last night—" Luna's words galvanized my attention to her, "—if you want to stop, if you're not enjoying that aspect of our friendship, I'll understand." Her tone was as heavy as I'd ever heard it, and I couldn't help remembering how easy it had been to relax with her when she was a stallion.

Searching your heart wasn't easy, but I did it anyway because Luna was worth it. I liked her, probably a lot, but could it be more than friends? The biggest two arguments were me having another bad reaction and it doing more than ruining our mood and it actually working out and—and going to places I couldn't even dream of.

"Can you—Will you understand if I need a moment here and there to—to get used to things progressing?" I asked.

"I promise that if you need time alone, I'll give it, and if you need time with a particular type of pony, I'll give it. However, I will make one little demand in return." Luna looked at me with a more serious expression than any I'd witnessed her display before.

What she was about to ask seemed momentous. I braced myself both mentally and physically. "What's that?"

Luna opened her mouth in what felt like slow motion. "You must always talk with me, tell me when you aren't having fun, and don't hold back your feelings for fear of hurting me. If you can agree to that, Stygian, I can agree to let things move at your pace."

Honesty was a tough thing. I'd been honest—mostly—in my books, and had taken very little artistic license with anything. But my books were public matters. Being honest with Luna would mean being honest about the Stygian nopony ever really knows. Maybe not even me.

"I don't know if I can. I—I've always been so private, but I can try." I looked up at Luna (and I definitely had to look up at her), and put on as brave a face as I could, which was probably a tiny bit above absolute terror.

"Then we will both try our best, but let's not give up before we even started," Luna said. "Now, would you like to stay here for the night or go home and work on your book?"

"Did you need some help with anything?" I could see her question for the request it was, and I wasn't above offering some help if it was needed.

Luna gulped down a mouthful of pancake. "I'd hoped you would ask. Celestia has her own scribe for taking down notes and writing letters, I'd wondered if you could do the same for me?"

The ~~day~~ night had been most interesting. At various intervals Luna had to enter her dream world to save somepony, but most of the time she spent seeing petitioners that were referred on from the Canterlot Courthouse, and in one case she was asked by a very tired looking farmer if she could come and negotiate with some bats in his orchard.

I packed up the writing materials and stretched in my position at Luna's side. "Is that it?" I asked.

"Celestia will be along soon, and I will rescind my moon and she can raise her sun for the day." Luna let out a satisfied sigh. "I have never known a night to go so easily. Thank you, Stygian."

Standing up, Luna waited for me to join her in walking down the dais stairs.

As we reached the bottom the main doors opened and Princess Celestia stepped into the room. She looked magnificent, so long as you didn't notice that she was literally still waking up. Hiding most of her face behind her mane, her horn was aglow with magic that held a large mug of coffee. "Good morning Luna, Stygian. Quiet night?"

"For nightmares only. You wouldn't believe the strange case we had of somepony who had all their cakes stolen. Judge Just Heart, for some reason, sent them up here with a bill." Luna was lying, there hadn't been any such case. I wondered what she was about when Princess Celestia broke the trailing silence with a huge laugh.

"Luna, it's so good to have you back." The two hugged, and whatever morning weariness I'd seen in Princess Celestia was gone by the time it was over.

Luna turned with Princess Celestia toward the special hallway that led to the kitchen and their platform from which they raised and lowered the sun and moon. "It's good to be back. How in Equestria did you manage this for so many years without me?"

Princess Celestia just held up her mug of coffee, but broke into laughter a moment after it. "But truthfully, I was in the process of establishing a successor, as you—" she paused because Luna had stopped to look back at me, "—know. Stygian, would you care to join us to set the moon and raise the sun?"

Go back to the scariest and most amazing place in all Canterlot? I jumped forward and walked at Luna's side. "Do you think I can bring my manuscript tomorrow night?"

"Oh come on!" Luna stretched her closest wing over my back and pulled me a little closer to her side. I shivered at the gesture, but not because it was unwelcome. "It wasn't that boring, surely?"

"That farmer spent over half an hour describing how bats were eating his pears." Without even thinking about it, I leaned up and nuzzled against Luna's neck. The motion had felt so right that I didn't even realize what I'd done until after I'd done it. Fortunately, we were in the final hallway leading to the platform of doom, and with Luna between myself and Princess Celestia, there was nopony to have seen it.

Luna snorted, but as she did she tilted her head so she could look back at me from one eye. "The trick, Stygian, is to tell them there's a dream emergency. Then I just find somepony with a truly delightful dream and spend a little time to leave—"

"And then he started talking to me about it!" I said.

Giggling too much to respond, Princess Celestia used her magic to open the way out to the landing. None of us looked down—though I was the only one not looking up.

Fear should have clutched me, but Luna's wing left no room for it to wrap around my heart.

In a show of magic that was exactly opposite to what I'd witnessed at dusk, Luna drew the moon down and below the horizon before Princess Celestia's magic thrust the sun up to begin a new day. The amount of power each expended was phenomenal—literally impossible for a regular unicorn to even fathom.

We all walked wordlessly back to the throne room, and as we watched Princess Celestia ascend to her throne, I felt a tension in the air build. When she sat down, the tension was gone—the throne of Equestria was occupied once more. The very seat of power filled.

"You two compliment each other well. Will you be working with my sister from now on, Stygian?" Princess Celestia asked, and thanks to her position on a throne there was extra weight behind the words.

My throat seemed to go instantly dry and I had no idea what to say. Fumbling for the words that would describe how I felt for Luna to her sister, I finally caught onto our a little pledge from earlier. "W-We're taking it as it comes, Your Highness."

Princess Celestia's smile might as well have been the sun itself. She looked into my eyes with her one visible eye, and gave a slight nod. "Then go and rest, your night's work is done and it's time for myself to take the mantle. Where's Gretchen? I think I'll have something different for breakfast today."

It was as clear a dismissal as I realized we'd get. I turned once more to walk beside Luna and we beat a retreat from the throne room and the responsibility it represented. Mares, I'd seen, could often take up a prancing gait that left them looking ten times more feminine than normal, but the way Luna strode—with purpose and surety—was completely different.

I did my best to keep up even as we left the castle and started heading in a direction I could have guessed. "Doughnuts?" I asked.

"Mmhmm! I don't know about you, Stygian, but I need something to remind me that I'm alive in a wonderful age of peace and prosperity, and there's nothing better to do that than to eat a doughnut."

When our meal was done, when we were back at my house and Luna was making herself comfortable in my bed, I had a little ping of nerves. She was a mare now, even if the moment I closed my eyes that would change. "Luna?" I asked as I stepped into my bedroom.

"What's the matter, Stygian?" How she could tell something was the matter I would, naturally, ascribe to alicorn superpowers—because I surely wasn't that readable.

"You're a mare and this is a bed. I know it's silly bu—"

Luna turned her head to gaze fixedly into my eyes. "It's not silly, Stygian, It's how you feel. Would it be easier if I used an illusion, or perhaps sent you to sleep there and lifted you over with my magic?"

I chuckled at that, perhaps a sign of my nerves, or perhaps not. Taking one step after another, I approached my bed and climbed onto it. "I said I'd be honest, and that was honest. Honesty will not stop me from doing what I want with myself."

The moment her wing touched me, I knew she'd used magic to pull me to sleep. I woke on the bed in the dream world with a wing stretched over my side and the warm breath of Luna's on the back of my neck. He was big against my back, his barrel solid, and when one foreleg reached to my shoulder and rolled me over, I kissed his warm lips.

He was firm, soft—both at the same time in all the right ways. His tongue explored my mouth, and when I pushed back, I was able to explore his. Luna made things tighten all over me, but none as much as between my legs.

It would have been so easy to surrender to the desire and give ourselves to the moment, but when the kiss broke, Luna just spread his wing over my shoulder and pulled us belly-to-belly.

The night could have gone much further, but Luna kissed me once more and smiled. "We both need our rest—true rest, Stygian."

"I'd really like to go further, but I can see the truth in your words." To show my acceptance, I snuggled closer to Luna so that our bodies touched from our shoulders to our balls. The latter part of that description swam in my head as Luna let the dream fade to normal sleep.

Author's Note

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Lab

Chapter 4

Crazy as it seemed, during the following week I managed to write more high-quality pages for my manuscript than I had when I sat at home and did it alone. Luna often pulled her I have an emergency! trick, and while the petitioner talked, I would zone out and write.

The oddest thing was the Royal Guards. They'd worked hard, apparently, to be regarded as furniture, but nothing escaped their gaze in the throne room. Once, when a petitioner had ranted a little more than usual during a cooling off time, two big stallions marched up on each flank of the pony and ordered them to calm down.

Dragged back to reality from my writing mode, I heard one of the guards repeat what the pony had said before they escorted him out.

What use is a princess that's never here?

"It makes us just as angry, sir." The words startled me. I'd never heard the guards speak so openly in the throne room before. A unicorn, the pure white stallion looked up at me with a determined expression. "We'll try to do a better job of keeping out the riffraff."

"No." I don't think any of us knew how long Luna had been awake for. "We are here for all ponies, not just the nice ones. Please instead inform all petitioners that I may be required from time to time and to be patient."

"We do already, Your Highness."

Luna sighed in a way that made me want to lean over and hug her, but that wouldn't be right in the throne room. Instead, I reached a hoof over to just touch her shoulder.

"Stygian?" Luna asked.

The words the pony'd spoken earlier still stung my sensibility, but I knew what she wanted to hear—the right thing. "Perhaps invite them back?"

"Please ask our guest if he'd like to return." Luna looked across to me and smiled. "Thank you, Stygian."

I'm not sure what was more exciting about my time with Luna, knowing that I could tell her anything and she'd weigh up the words on their merit, or that she would sincerely ponder everything I said. Even when she sat on the throne of Equestria, I could speak to her and it was Luna who spoke back.

It was morning, and Celestia had just raised her sun. Luna, of course, had lowered her moon in turn, but now she was sitting with me in Joe's as we munched on our dinner together. Half a salad sandwich floated in my magic while I took nibbles from it and read through my notes of the evening.

"Faster," Luna said.

I lifted my head from my correcting work and looked at her inquisitively. "Pardon?"

"You, me—us. I want things to move a little faster, if it's alright with you." Her face was unreadable, even after over a month of time spent with her for most of my ~~days~~ nights, I couldn't read Luna's face when she didn't want me to. It was like a shutter was up, and it was a deliberate one.

Swallowing my mouthful and turning my full attention to Luna, I asked, "What do you mean?"

Leaning across the table, Luna kissed me on the cheek. "Us."

It took my brain nearly four full seconds to catch up with my blush. I squirmed in place and fumbled to pick up the sandwich I'd dropped to my plate. When I couldn't focus enough to use my magic, I gave up and turned my attention to the source of the ultimate distraction. "Us. I haven't been—That is, I didn't—Let me start over."

Centering my focus, I closed my eyes and hoped Luna wouldn't kiss me again—though a little part of me sincerely wished she would. "Us. We couldn't exactly spend more time together, so you mean doing more together depth wise?"

"Depth is one way of putting it. We're comfortable together, I want to add cozy to comfort." Luna, it could be said, was learning in the ways of verbal sparring. "So if you'd like, starting tonight, I'd like to snuggle a little more."

Tonight. "S-Snuggle? Dream-snuggle?"

"Dream-snuggle." Luna lifted her shake closer and took a long, slow drink from it. "As a stallion."

A shiver ran all the way from my neck down my back and to—embarrassingly—my shaft. Parts of me had wanted this for longer than Luna and I'd been together, but other parts still got a little confused about her being a mare. The parts were not the same parts.

"Slow. We go slow," I said.

"Of course. As slow as you want to go."

"No. For both of us. Luna, this will be a big step for you—I think. I mean, have you ever…?" I wanted to look her in the eyes, but it was hard. She was so——and I was—

Luna drew my attention back to her by sucking at her shake, draining it and continuing to suck noisily for a moment. "In dreams, at all, or as a stallion?" She pushed her empty glass to the side. "The answers are yes, yes, and no."

Gulping, I focused on Luna's eyes. "Th-Then we'll both be doing something new, and we both need to communicate."

"I love the way you say yes, Stygian."

The rest of my sandwich was gone in two bites, I stood up, and began walking for the door quickly—a little stiffly (in more ways than one, I was lucky it was so early).

"So eager." Luna stood up and followed.

My home wasn't a home anymore. I hadn't slept there in nearly three weeks, and hadn't visited in two. We walked back to the castle together, each silent, but I caught her stealing glances at me while I was stealing glances at her. Mutual theft, as it were.

She giggled first as we slipped through the hallways of Canterlot Castle. There weren't a lot of twists and turns, but as I chased and was chased by her, I began to giggle too. I hadn't realized how much I wanted this until right then—when the door to our bedroom was visible.

"You're prancing!" Luna said from beside me. Truth be told, I had no idea I was, but it felt like the right thing to do. "I like it."

That's when she pranced, but Luna didn't prance like a mare for her stallion—her body was all alicorn strength and solidness, so she pranced with power in each jolting stride. My mind couldn't help but impose the memory of the stallion I curled up with each night—in our dreams—over her body.

"Stygian, you're showing a little excitement there," Luna said.

There was nopony else around, and for the first time with Luna I felt completely relaxed. "That's because I am excited."

Entering our rooms, we both headed for the only place more sacred than our time together in bed—the bath.

Within our suite, the sun did not invade. It was dark—lit only by soft magical lighting that cast long, soft shadows onto every wall, and made it even easier to think of Luna as masculine. We took our bath as slowly as ever—though more anticipating of sleep—in the huge, built-in bath that being royalty afforded.

I used my hooves to gently wash down Luna's coat and wings, while she did the same for me (though her task was both swifter an easier). It took me a week of practice to work out the basics of washing wings, but I liked to think that the happy little sounds Luna made while I was doing it meant I had some natural skill.

Climbing out of the water, we both used magic to dry off for bed after our near-silent bath.

"Still eager." Luna's mouth was curved into a smile, but she wasn't looking at my face. In the dim light of our bedroom, I could imagine she was already the stallion of my dreams. "You'll have to forgive my naivete, but while I've encountered stallions dreaming before, I have never participated."

I strutted, feeling my shaft thud up against my belly in my excitement. "That's okay. It—It'll be easier in a dream, anyway." I slipped sideways onto the bed, turning so my belly was pointing to her side—my shaft on display for her.

Luna's eyes were focused right where I intended them. She walked as if hypnotized and climbed up on the bed too. As her gaze flowed along my body toward my head, I smiled and met her lips in a kiss.

The kiss continued as her spell took hold and pulled us both into sleep.

We were on the same bed, in the same room, and in the same position. Luna lay across form me, and just his presence made me moan into the kiss.

A dark wing curled around my shoulder and pulled me closer to Luna until an intimate part of mine met an intimate part of his. I shuddered at the feel of our shafts pressing together, and my hips gave a little jerk of excitement.

Luna broke the kiss and looked into my eyes. "You're bigger." The words sounded breathless, husky in a deeper voice that suited him absolutely perfectly. I hadn't realized I was larger in the dream, but he wasn't wrong. "So what comes first?"

"You." I kissed his chin, his neck, and began laying kisses down his throat as I shifted and squirmed down the bed. When I got to Luna's chest, he started squirming in place. I nuzzled through the soft hair there, finding all the places that made him squirm and shift.

"Why is—oh goodness—why is that so sensitive?"

"The dream takes from both our minds—our experiences. You taught me that. So because I know that a stallion's chest is sensitive and arousing, the dream knows." As if to demonstrate, I nuzzle him again and got another gasp of surprise. "See?"

Luna looked down his body at me. "There is much I need to learn about being a stallion. Are you to teach me?"

Poking my tongue out I nuzzled and licked a between his forelegs until he whinnied in shock. "That's a yes, Luna."

"Then teach me, Stygian. Show me what it means to be a stallion."

His words, so pure, made my body react with a firmer-still stance to my shaft. Shimmying down the bed caused me to rub against the soft covers as my mind imagined my length somewhere else soft. But before I could go far enough to use my shaft, I found a prize few gay stallions would ever ignore.

Luna's shaft was magnificent. It stood proud of his sheath, the head glittering in the air slightly thanks to a few oozing drops of arousal that had leaked free. I leaned down to it and kissed the tip, my tongue catching one of those drops.

Rich and musky fluid stained my palate, flooding my mind with images and thoughts of what I could do with him. Careful of my teeth and horn, I tilted my head and aligned my mouth with the length of him. "Are you ready for some more sensations?"

"Are you going to—to take it all?" He sounded so excited and breathless. I could feel Luna's chest heaving above me while his hips shifted in anticipation.

"Luna, I couldn't hope to take all of this in my mouth." I kissed his tip again. "But I can sure try."

Just running the flavor of his excitement around my mouth had been slightly intoxicating, but it was nothing compared to pushing my head down and taking his flared end between my lips and into my mouth.

Luna stiffened—well, the rest of him stiffened too—as I closed my lips around him and gave a gentle suck.

More. I pushed down him, then slid back, down a little further, then back—training my throat and his endurance. There was so much of him to take, but I had severely misjudged the capacity of my larger-than-normal self's mouth and throat. Luna's medial ring was my target, and each time I drew back from it Luna let out a whinny of excitement.

With the thick, bulging ring that was the beginning of his sheath just outside my lips, I angled my head a little more and pushed down. Despite the sinking knowledge that I wasn't going to get it in my mouth, I managed to kiss the ring as I dipped down so far he blocked my breathing through my nose.

Holding there, I focused my attention through one eye on his heavy balls. Azure magic—my magic—began to glow around the two orbs as I held my breath and massaged him.

Luna squirmed and shifted on his back, seeming so big and vital as I gently attended to his sensitive body. The sounds he made only encouraged me to hold as long as my breath could last. When I finally pulled my lips up his length, Luna made a sound of deep appreciation that came from low in his diaphragm.

I worked my way back to his tip before I bobbed my head back down again. Up and down. Again and again. The heady musk of his shaft was intoxicating, but it didn't keep me from focusing on my breathing and his pleasure.

With more stamina than I would have expected from somepony getting their first blowjob, Luna reached a hoof down and gripped my horn where it slid along his belly.

More than okay with letting him guide me, I trusted Luna as he began to use my horn as a handle to stroke my mouth up and down his shaft. For a moment I wondered if he knew how much I enjoyed a little struggle, but was quickly drawn to my task as Luna began to tense up.

I smiled around him. Ready to feel his body release in orgasm, I closed my eyes and thrummed my tongue under his shaft. The response was immediate.

Luna released my horn and arched his back. He shouted wordlessly, and I felt the first of his seed rush into my mouth. I already knew I wouldn't be able to take all he had to offer—in any way, shape, or form—but trying was where all the fun was.

Each explosion of fluid into my mouth hit like a hurricane. I could have spent a thousand words—easily—to describe how good it made me feel to give this much pleasure, but instead I was caught up in the moment trying to gulp down as much as I could. Even then, struggling for all I was worth, I gasped just once and it caused his issue to start leaking from my mouth.

"S-Stygian!" Luna's voice was deep and mellow. I was still wrapped around him, but my hope of getting all his seed was dashed in the puddle forming on his belly—matting into both our fur.

Sliding my mouth slowly up his shaft, sucking it clean, I drew one last rush of liquid before pulling free of him. With Luna's semen staining one of my cheeks, I angled my head to look up along his body at him.

"This dream feels so real. It's imbued with your memories and feelings," Luna said. "Is this how it is all the time?"

I shook my head—I couldn't lie to him. "No. Of course not." I licked slowly across his belly, cleaning his fur. "I'm way out of practice."

Snorting a laugh, the contraction of Luna's belly caused another shot of his seed to shoot out and paint my other cheek. The urge to lick him all over was warring with another, deeper need. Leaning back and sitting up so that I was positioned right below him, I gazed into Luna's eyes. "More?"

Luna's smile caused his lips to part. "More would be nice. What did you plan?"

"I thought my position would make that obvious." Masculine urges were taking full control of me. I struggled not to just grab him and claim his rear on the spot.

"What are you waiting for?" His tone wasn't mocking, it was eager.

Dream worlds had one advantage in that if I could imagine something, it would exist. Practice had honed this skill for me at least a little, so that when I needed it, there was some slick lube in a bottle beside me on the bed.

Using my magic I smeared myself with the lube, but more was needed. Forming my magic into a pair of fingers, I used them to smear Luna's tailhole with lube. When I slid the digits inside him, I watched his eyes widen a little.

Leaning forward and keeping eye-contact with Luna, I pressed the tip of my slick shaft to his rear and shifted my weight to bear down.

"Stygian!" Luna's voice wasn't sharp, alarmed, or shocked—it was pitched low, hungry, and eager. He arched his head back against the bed as I pushed deeper into him, but his head snapped forward again to lock eyes with me. "Don't you dare stop."

"Hadn't—" I pushed forward, getting halfway to my medial ring, "—planned to. Hold on, I need to stroke back a little to get a run up."

I drew backwards until only my flared tip was in him, used my magic to work more lube around my shaft, and pushed forward with more intensity than before.

Luna clenched down on me, squeezed me like he had my shaft in a vice, but the lube did its job and I only stopped when my belly pressed to his.

Holding there—hilted all the way in Luna's rump—I explored the feeling of having him around me as his muscles fluttered and rippled. He was massaging me, though I doubted it was intentional. "Hold on to something."

As I pulled back, Luna tilted his head up and let loose a neigh of excitement. My return thrust caused him to cry out in a piercing shout of joy. I knew this would feel at least a little uncomfortable, but to look at Luna as I started to repeat my thrust I wouldn't have guessed it.

He squirmed as I grabbed his back legs and used the leverage to steady my pace into firm thrusts that lifted Luna's rear off the bed with each driving shove.

I felt more alive here, in this dream, than I had since Twilight Sparkle had brought us back from Limbo. Not even within the Pony of Shadows at the height of that terrible power did I feel this vital and real.

But there was more—I needed more. Wrapping my magic around Luna's shaft, I pumped his sensitive member with each of my own strokes. He looked like I'd struck him with lightning. Braced on the bed, Luna looked deep into my eyes as we both approached—and reached—climax.

I lunged forward, slamming my body against his and grabbing his barrel. Pulling us tight together, I shivered and humped my way through the single greatest sexual experience of my life. And throughout the ultimate moment, Luna wrapped his forelegs around my withers and pulled me down too.

"You look very different when you're like that. Powerful." Luna's voice dripped with desire and hunger.

I shivered, my shaft still giving an occasional spurt in reply to our relative movement. "You look amazing like that. I've never been with anypony like you, Luna. It's amazing."

"I thought that was meant to hurt?" He ran his hoof up my mane to my head and played with my right ear. "Anal sex. Not that I've talked to many ponies about it, but—"

Leaning a little further, I kissed Luna to quieten his embarrassment. "But nothing. And I bet it was still uncomfortable, but pain is for brutes and those who don't have dream lube."

"You had lubricant in your day?" Luna asked.

"We did. Stallions have been lovers for quite some time, though things have improved a lot since those days." The other wonderful thing I was learning about dreams was my refractory period is apparently non-existent—I felt ready to go all over again. "Would you like a turn on top?"

"I think I'm good like this for now, and with you like this." To punctuate his words, Luna clenched down a little around me—just enough so that I knew exactly what he liked about this situation.

The bond between us had deepened from this sharing. I'd been scared of the moment, but Luna simply was the stallion of my dreams. We fell into a true sleep after snuggling in each other's embrace for a while.

I yawned and stretched, only to find my movements hampered by a wing that seemed content to keep me pinned beside Luna. Having not worked out the trick of untangling oneself from a wing yet, I gave up and assented to my fate.

"The sun's still up," Luna said. "We could sleep for a little longer."

"Last day was—I can't even think of words to describe it. Being with you feels so right." With the wing pinning me in place, I decided to nuzzle up under it and look for spots to make Luna squirm.

The squirming, sadly, didn't happen. Instead Luna squeezed with her wing and pulled me a bit tighter against her. And it was definitely her again now. "To tell you the truth, Stygian, I've always preferred being intimate in dreams. This just… cements things that way. For us."

We cleaned ourselves up in the bath, I helped dry Luna's wings while she took care of getting my short coat neat. We each did our own manes and tails before heading to the throne room.

The throne room was busy. There was a dozen ponies all talking over each other, and Princess Celestia standing (on the floor with them) smiling pleasantly while letting them talk. She noticed us and I saw a hint of relief color her features before her smiling mask was back in place. "Everypony, please." When Princess Celestia spoke, everypony went quiet, but I could see they were ready to continue the moment the royal interruption was over. "Day court is at an end. You will have to take an hour to regroup and review your arguments while my sister prepares to hold sway."

A look of terror passed over the petitioners. They looked to each other, realized they'd run too long with their bickering, and then turned to Princess Celestia. There was no way out for them—they'd face Luna's justice. "Of course, Your Highness."

I managed to hold my giggle until the throne room was emptied of supplicants and the doors closed. What surprised me was Luna joined in with my laughter. "Did you see their faces?"

"I did!" Luna pointed a wing in the direction of the doors. "Sister, I'll bet you a three-tier cake that they find some valid excuse to not attend upon my court."

Princess Celestia looked between us and her face lit up brighter than the midday sun (something I hadn't personally seen for over a week). "You both look… revitalized. Sleep well?"

Luna and I looked to each other at the same time, and we both stalled our laughter into a pair of grins. "You know we always sleep the day away together," Luna said. "What about you, sister-dear, will you take my bet?"

"Of course not, Luna." Princess Celestia's eye (she only ever let one be visible at a time) seemed to dance a little. I had the most startling realization that she knew. "I know they won't come to your court. You are known to suffer foolishness not one bit, though I have heard there are some of our loyal vassals that exclusively seek your reigning time for this very reason."

Which we already knew. It was hard to ignore the same faces that would come to us with business during the hours most ponies slept. I followed along beside Luna as she started walking for the hallway at the back of the throne room.

"I had begun to recognize some repeat customers as it were. Sensible ponies all of them," Luna said.

When we passed into the hallway, and there was nopony else around, Princess Celestia cleared her throat. "Will there be foals on the way?" Her tone was as serious as an earthquake.

Luna and I froze in place, looked at each other, and burst into laughter.

Of the two of us, Luna managed to compose herself first to answer. "Sister, you can leave worrying about foals up to Stygian and I. How does your suit to find a stallion go?"

"Well—I mean—That's just—" Princess Celestia stumbled through her words. "Luna! That's beside the point!"

Her reply was so unjust I couldn't help myself. "Speaking on my own behalf, that is exactly the point. I saw the way that your new guard captain looks at you. You should ask him out." I feared I'd gone too far, but Luna's unflagging grin told me otherwise.

Besides, who was Celestia to poke her snout into our private lives but get her back up about us doing the same to her?

It took a fraction of a second for me to realize what I'd thought and how I'd thought it. For the first time ever I'd thought of Princess Celestia as just Celestia—just a pony. It seemed wrong, fundamentally, to consider her a pony. She'd lived over a thousand years and governed Equestria through some of the worst treats it'd encountered.

"You're right," Princess Celestia said. "Was he really looking at me?"

My mental processes went back and scrubbed princess from how I'd thought of her for the last few words. This wasn't Princess Celestia speaking—this was Celestia. "When you weren't looking, he was. He couldn't take his eyes off you."

It was hard to explain the difference in Celestia, but I'm a writer so that never stopped me before. She perked up. She stood a little straighter, and her eye kept trailing back toward the throne room.

"How about you ask him when we get back?" Luna asked. "Start out with something simple, sister. I happen to know a wonderful doughnut shop you could try."

Celestia giggled. Actually giggled. "That would be a good place to take him. Alright. I'll do it!" She and Luna strode out through the doors and onto the balcony.

It was impossible to avoid feeling a little fear at being so far up without a hint of a guardrail, but standing close by Luna's side helped me keep from showing it. The glow of Celestia's horn was lost at first in the light of her sun, but it was a stark reminder of what circles I trotted in these days that she seemed so calm and relaxed about moving an object that had almost killed groups of unicorns in the past.

Then Luna—as Celestia's golden glow ceased—burned with her cool blue magic that splashed out and over me. A shiver of excitement went through me as Luna lifted her moon into the night sky. I couldn't help but think of the moon and sun as belonging to them—after all, they controlled them. Possession was a large chunk of the law when it came to belongings.

"You're shivering, Stygian." Luna's words came from so close I almost jumped to the side. Thankfully her wing reached over me and pinned me to her warm body.

My voice almost failed me as I attempted to put my thoughts in order. "I'm not cold, or really that scared of the heights anymore. You're amazing, Luna."

That she was bigger than me—at least in real life—offset the awkwardness of being intimate with a mare. Our shared dreams made that intimacy a lot more acceptable, and even enjoyable. When she kissed me on the cheek, I tilted my head to accept the touch.

"You're quite amazing yourself. The awkward wreck you used to—" Luna cut herself short.

I rolled my eyes. "Luna, you've earned the right to be critical. I was an awkward wreck. I was lonely, pent-up, and had no idea how to fix what was wrong." It was a lot to admit, but who else could I admit that to but the pony I'd let into my life?

Luna let out a huff. "Well, in that case I'll admit my failings too."

"Nightmare Moon?" I asked.

"I'll see you both inside," Celestia said as she turned on the tiny balcony and started to head inside. "Or maybe not. It depends if he says yes."

We both paused to watch Celestia prance inside. When the doors closed we fell to a giggle again.

"No, Stygian, not Nightmare Moon. My sister, and my friend—Twilight Sparkle—cured me of that little tantrum. Nightmare Moon wasn't a failing, it was a symptom of what truly is." Luna stepped to the side a little to give me room. "I was lonely too. When nopony so much as acknowledges you exist, it's hard to enjoy your duty. Now, ponies know what I do, and there's even a celebration of how safe I've made the night, but I was still lonely.

"I had nopony to stand with me in the night, nopony to lay with me in the day, and nopony to tell all these things to. Twilight Sparkle doesn't understand this loneliness. The only pony who had any inkling of what I felt was my sister, and I couldn't turn to her like this."

She turned to me alright. She turned and put her hoof under my chin, tilted my snout up to her, and kissed me. This was not the kind of kiss that foals should see. I leaned up into her touch and she shoved forward and down just as firmly. One of her wings curled around the side of my face and I lifted a forehoof to rub her chest.

Snorting, Luna laughed with her lips still touching mine. "I remember what that would feel like as a stallion."

"Good, I hope?" My eyes were fixed on hers, I couldn't have broken my attention away if I'd tried.

"Your touch inspired an echo of that feeling. Yes, it's very good." The hunger in Luna's words made a shiver of excitement travel up and down my spine. Never before in my life had a mare stirred me like this—but Luna was hardly just a mare.

I drew circles on her chest with my hoof and felt her lean into it. Finding male erogenous zones on Luna was a delight I'd have to investigate more, but later. "We need some breakfast before court."

"Really? You don't want to stay out here a little longer and make-out?" The way Luna said it made me want it, and I think she knew that. "But you're right. Besides, we could take our time with breakfast and play a little more."

Going as far as we had gone during the dream, I felt—I felt more relaxed being affectionate with Luna. There was ice broken, perhaps even a tableau we had surpassed, that made it easier to relax and be intimate with her as well as him.

It took another kiss before I managed to persuade her that going inside and getting back to our duties was more important than nuzzles.

Well, nothing was more important to me than Luna's nuzzles, but I wasn't the only pony that needed her attention. We turned together and headed back inside. We spared anypony from seeing more of our affection by focusing on our food and talking about the complete and utter lack of a senior Royal Guard in the room.

There were more than a few smiles among the Guardponies that were present. When the princesses were happy, everypony was happy.

"Who do we have first?" Luna asked, and thus our night started.

Author's Note

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Lab

Chapter 5

The amount of supplicants specifically attending night court were growing, to the point where Luna and I would have a busy evening. Lunch was taken at midnight, and by the time six A.M. rolled around I was feeling much more accomplished than usual.

My book hadn't gained quite as many pages as I'd normally write during a night, but we weren't quite done yet. When Celestia marched into the throne room, she felt again like Princess Celestia, though she had a big smile on her lips.

"Night court is adjourned!" The Royal Guard were serious about their jobs and the great doors were opened and the last few petitioners ushered outside before they closed again.

"Somepony looks like they're having a good morning. Is the coffee better today?" Luna stood up off the throne and there was that sense of vacancy, of all Equestria—for a moment—being rudderless. It wasn't of course, but that didn't stop how it felt.

Princess Celestia yawned and took a sip of her coffee. "Mmm. You know, I think it is. Stygian, you were right, you know." She met us at the base of the dais as we turned and headed for the hallway leading to the balcony.

As always, the setting of the moon and the raising of the sun was an event that impacted the very nature of the world. Neither princess spoke until the deed was done and we all turned to go back inside. At the last moment, Luna turned to look at me.

"How about a fly, Stygian?" Luna asked.

I was stunned for a second. I looked off the edge of the platform—at the ground so far below—and gulped. "W-W-What?"

"Princess Twilight taught me the spell. Here." Without any further warning, Luna's horn lit up and her magic encompassed me.

Begrudging Luna her using magic on me was not something I'd ever do. I tried to relax as whatever her spell was took hold and—I realized what she'd done. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw two bat wings sprouted from just behind my shoulders.

"Normally they're meant to be butterfly wings, but I don't think they'd have suited you. It only lasts a few hours, but until then…" Luna held out a hoof to me and turned to face the edge of Canterlot.

I knew what taking her hoof would mean. She would guide me off the ledge and out into the empty sky. "How do they work?"

"That's part of the magic. You'll know once you're in the air. If things don't work, Stygian, I'll not let you come to—" Luna's voice stopped as I jumped from the edge.

The air felt strange rushing past me. All the fear a creature of the ground should have bubbled inside me, but there was something else. When I reached for that not-fear, my wings snapped out and it was like getting thumped in the chest.

My wings pulled me upward. I could still feel myself losing altitude, but it was much slower now, and just a thought later I flapped my wings—or they flapped on their own—and I was rising. Rising. Rising.

"See?" Luna asked.

My head snapped around to look at her, and I couldn't help but laugh. This was craziness. The magic she'd used was intense enough that the average unicorn wouldn't be able to manage it, and even a talented one would struggle. She'd burned alicorn power just to fly with me. "I can see. This feels strange. I don't think I can control them fully, but just thinking what I want to do gets it done."

"Perhaps, with practice, you could gain more control." With just a flap of one wing Luna spun upside down—over my head—and was on the other side of me again flying level. "The sky's the limit, Stygian."

"That is so cliché." I pointed with a hoof toward Canterlot—which had somehow ended up both below and far off to the side. "What say I take you somewhere for dinner?"

"Where would be open for dinner at this hour?" Laughing, Luna started to bank back toward Canterlot. I kept up with her (again, thinking of what way I wanted to go) and descended with her toward Pony Joe's.

"Well, a certain alicorn I know of and her friend."

"Stygian, you are more than just a friend." The way she said that word made me shiver, and almost put on a display for anypony looking up—a new hazard I'd never thought of before, for stallions who fly. Our hooves hit the ground together, and along with Luna's wings, my own folded up and tucked in an oddly backwards-then-forwards way. "I hope you like them. I didn't want to leave you with the boring butterfly ones. I've seen ponies with those—all class and no flap."

I loved the way she spoke. A lot of ponies could say a lot without meaning a single thing, but with Luna every word seemed important. Or maybe it was just me? "Flap is important?"

"Flap is almost everything. Flying isn't about graceful and delicate floating, it's about soaring through the skies and bending the very air itself to your whims. You can't take control of your flying if you're a delicate flower on borrowed wings." Luna stretched one of her wings out. "Which is why I need to teach you this spell."

"So then they would be my wings?" I used my magic to open the door and gestured for Luna to precede me.

"Exactly!" Luna pranced inside and again I felt my belly tighten a little at the size of ~~him~~ her. Even as a mare, Luna was a big pony. I had to wonder if other stallions found that intimidating. Not me. I liked having somepony big to snuggle. "Are you coming, Stygian?"

I shook my head to free it of my fanciful musings and walked into the shop. "Just thinking about things."

"Things, or ponies?" Luna looked back at me over her shoulder and I knew exactly where she was taking the conversation.

Rather than let her completely lead, I decided to cut in. "Definitely ponies, though one in particular." Walking to her side, I made sure my shoulder and flank touched hers as we waited for Joe to be done with another pony.

"Was he pretty?"

Her question was right. It wasn't right in the strictly physical sense, of course, but in my heart I knew it was the truth and I loved her so much that she got that. "He's gorgeous. But what I couldn't get out of my head was how some ponies would find him intimidating."

"Oh?" Luna shifted a little and I felt her wing creep over my back.

"But I find his size comforting. It's nice to know there's somepony solid to stand beside." Focusing on those strange wings on my back, I willed the digits of one to extend enough that it got under Luna's wing—and tickled her.

Both Luna's wings shot out and up, and the sound of her laughter warmed part of me I didn't even know was cold. "Stygian!" She froze as she (and I) realized that Joe was waiting to take our order.

We both snapped our wings down and tried not to look like we were engaged in silly things—which resulted in my cheeks feeling hot with what I assumed was a mirror of the blush I could see adorning Luna's face.

"Your usual?" Joe had the hint of a smile on his face.

Luna opened her mouth, but I wanted to do something different. "Surprise us," I said. "Something exciting!"

"You know, I've got just the thing. I hope you're both hungry." Joe winked to us and then turned back to start work on whatever it was we were going to get.

"Why'd you do that? We had a comfortable rut there." Luna followed me as I practically strutted my way over to a table.

When I turned and took my seat, I noticed she'd been looking at me the whole way. Okay, some things would still take some getting used to. "Ruts are what got us both in trouble before. We let our minds be contracted down to a single path. You gave—well, will give—me wings, Luna. We both have wings—let's fly out of our ruts forever."

Luna sat down opposite me and reached a hoof across the table. When I reached out and touched hers, she let out a soft noise that made my back hooves curl up a little.

Her eyes were amazing, and it was so easy to just keep focused on them. She looked back, and there wasn't a hint of worry or confusion in her gaze. I could have been staring at her for hours and I probably wouldn't have noticed.

Pony Joe cleared his throat. "Excuse me, your meal is served." He floated a single huge plate with a silver cover to the middle of the table and lifted the top.

The doughnut was about twice as big as any other I'd seen. It was chocolate glazed and covered in sprinkles. In the middle was a huge ice-cream sundae that towered above the fried treat. The sundae was topped with a ring of bananas (likewise dipped in chocolate) and enough sprinkles to feed half the city.

It wasn't just amazing—it was art.

"That looks wonderful, Joe, but what is Stygian having?"

The panicked look on Joe's face, more than what Luna'd said, made me crack up laughing. There was no gentle transition of a giggle, to a guffaw, to a loud laugh—I went all the way right away.

Luna had to interrupt Joe's stammering. "Please. It was a joke. I didn't mean to imply that—I could never eat all that alone."

I stopped laughing to reassure Joe it was fine, and together Luna and I did manage to eat all of the giant doughnut and all the ice-cream. With full bellies we walked back to the castle, saying very little but meaning everything.

With weeks together we barely needed to speak, not when we were both anticipating sleep. Sleep was us time. It was when we could sit together for hours and share our hearts, it was when we connected physically, and it was when we could spend even more time just reveling in the closeness of somepony else.

We washed each other in silence, dried off, and with only a few giggles climbed into bed. My last thought before her cobalt magic coiled around me was that she'd left the wings on me.

Lips were pressed to mine. I woke up from the real world into the dream to find the stallion of my dreams already kissing me. Being amenable to the intimacy, I pushed back and felt my arousal stir.

It took barely a flick of my mind to add wings to my form—bat wings. Here, in the dream, I was the same size as Luna. I'm not sure if that was her doing, mine, or both of us, but it just was. Feeling my oats now, I pushed into the kiss more firmly and shoved at her lips with my tongue.

Luna's reply was to joust with me, our tongues fighting until they slipped by each other. Her tongue worked into my mouth as mine hers, and the kiss only seemed to deepen as we found even ground in intimacy.

I broke away first. It had less to do with submission and more to do with wanting more than lips could provide. It felt like my blood was on fire, my heart beating fast, and I could no sooner hold back my ardor than I could an ocean. "Turn around, my prince."

Magic flickered in Luna's eyes, and for a minute I thought he might challenge my request. His smile, however, reached all the way from his mouth to his eyes. "For any other stallion, you know what my answer would be?" He stood still for only a moment more before turning. "There's none I would rather have behind me, Stygian."

Advancing on him, I didn't wait for Luna to flag his tail aside for me—I shoved my snout around and under his dock and grew almost painfully hard at the musky odor of him. It was a perfect blend of the soap Luna and I bathed in and pure Luna. There was only one place the scent would be stronger, and I fully intended to see to that when I was done with his rump.

The yelp he made when I circled my tongue around his anus was music to my ears. The second lap still inspired his muscles to jump, as did the forth and fifth. There was nothing else for it. Pressing my lips to his plump ponut, I pressed forward with my tongue just like our kiss moments ago, only now the muscle fighting me wasn't his tongue.

It took some squirming on both our parts to get my tongue past his first sphincter. I was licking firmly at the next one—my lips now wide apart and pressed around his anus—when Luna jumped forward a little.

"Stygian, if you don't get on my back I'm going to kick you," Luna said while holding back a giggle.

"Maybe I'd like a bit of a challenge?" I asked, and waited for Luna to turn his head and look back at me before I reared up.

Neither of us was small, and that meant I had to push myself high on his back to line up and, with a buck of my hips, sank into his depths. "Luna!"

"Stygian!"

The work I'd done on his sphincters paid off. I was halfway into him before he could catch a breath. There was an amazing feeling of connection as every movement and motion Luna made translated through his body and into mine. When he shifted, I felt it. When he gasped at my too-fast thrusting, I felt that too—not that I slowed.

We were neither of us fragile in this dream world. I arched my neck and leaned forward, then bucked hard with my hips. The feel of Luna's hips against my back legs was everything I wanted then. I was as far into him as I could get, and it was amazing. "Are you ready?"

"He asks, already balls-deep."

"Was that a yes?"

Luna's answer was to squeeze all the strong muscles of her anus down. It earned a low whine from my throat, but my body had had enough.

I pulled back against those tight muscles and then thrust forward. The movements lit a new fire of desire within me, and instinct took over from reason. Our bodies crashed together, and each time they did I sheathed myself within him.

The pleasure mixed well with my love for Luna, and I found myself chasing down that short track to release. I fought against it, though, not wanting to leave him too soon, so when I should have spent myself, and was clenching down to hold back, Luna's head turned around to look at me.

Hunger burned in his eyes, and it was my undoing. Looking deep into his gaze, I bucked as hard as I could and felt the glorious tightness that was my orgasm starting. My balls tightened—pulling against my shaft—and deep inside me my prostate adjusted to the coming task with body spasming clenches that had me finally screwing my eyes closed.

The sounds we made were not those of articulate or sapient ponies. We whinnied and grunted like beasts, rutting for but one thing—pleasure. The rush of my release hit me as the first blast of liquid heat shot down my shaft and into Luna. He ground himself back against me, his muscles milking my shaft as I happily sent every drop his way.

Panting, still feeling the rush of my climax in little aftershocks of release, I leaned a bit lower on Luna's back and nibbled at the base of his neck.

Luna was panting. "Stygian. What you do to me defies belief." He pawed at the ground under us. "But it's time for you to get off so I can claim my stallion properly."

More enticing words I'd never heard. I pulled back and landed on all fours again with a thud, only to have Luna spin around and advance on me.

Though our bodies slept, our spirits soared and frolicked. We shared each other again and again. Each night together felt like days of time spent enjoying the other. I got lost in his eyes so many times I'd lost count, and I think he did the same frequently enough that I had to believe he really saw something in me.

"Stygian?" Luna was laying on our huge bed in the dream world, snuggled against me with his back to my belly.

"Mmm, yes?"

He twitched his hips, which had the effect of stirring a groan from me—thanks to myself still being buried inside him. "Have you ever wondered who would win?"

"Twilight and her friends, thankfully." I gave a gentle hump against his rear and loved the happy sound that bubbled from his throat. "But against who?"

"I mean us—well, Nightmare Moon and the Pony of Shadows." Luna squeezed down on me. I'd like to say my gasp was entirely masculine, but the truth was I squeaked at his efforts. "Hypothetically. If Nightmare Moon had still been ruling Equestria when you were released, I mean."

Stretching out, I nibbled a little at Luna's ear before softly murmuring, "Well, I mean, there's a deeper question here. Would we be actually fighting, or would we be struggling for dominance?"

"Stygian, are you implying that we could be frenemies with benefits?"

"Isn't that what you're asking?" I drew myself back from her rump then pushed forward again. Neither of us spoke for a few moments, though we made plenty of noises.

"M-Maybe it is. Would you be comfortable with that?" Luna tilted her head to the side so I could see one of her eyes and she could see mine. "Here, of course."

I thought about it—really thought about it. The Pony of Shadows was something I'd let into myself because I thought I deserved it. I wouldn't be letting it in, just role-playing.

Well, role-playing was okay. It wasn't like I'd actually let it back in for real. I had too much to live for, too much going well, to sink that far again.

"There's a problem with that." I turned my snout from her ear to her mane. Nuzzling my way into the expansive hair, I found her crest underneath and gave it a nibble too.

"What's that? Oh, Nightmare Moon being a mare? I'm sure I can come up with something."

Nuzzling into Luna's mane was like diving into the night sky itself. Stars drifted by me and other things, more fantastic things, seemed forever just beyond reach. I inhaled the smell of him and almost lost track of the conversation. "Then who goes first? I'll show you mine if you show me yours?"

"You want me to turn into Nightmare Moon with you still inside me?" As he spoke, however, Luna changed. A shiver ran through me as he grew a little larger, though his rump seemed just as tight. While I glanced along his body, it changed from the beautiful blue to a midnight black. Even his mane changed, no longer the exciting expanse of space—now a chilly night sky where the stars themselves seem reluctant to appear.

"This is what she—you—looked like?" Inhaling again, I noted that the smell of Luna was slightly different. Was that my perception of him in the dream, or his? It was nice to be with him still, but I had promised. "You want to see the Pony of Shadows?"

He moved fast. Nightmare Moon slipped off of my and took to his hooves. Glaring at me from beside the bed, I was struck by his slit eyes and the tight helmet that hugged his head. "You'd better become the Pony of Shadows. There's no way a weakling little stallion like you could sate Nightmare Moon!"

"I don't need to." I hoped I was half as graceful as he was in sliding across to the opposite side of the bed—it was a dream, so I probably was. Okay, Stygian. You're not going to be the Pony of Shadows, but you are going to act like it. I turned my head to the right to see him standing there beside me. "Are you ready?"

"What are you asking me for? I'm just you, but better," the Pony of Shadows replied.

The oddest thing was how normal it sounded, never mind that it spoke with my voice. "That's debatable. You were me but a lot worse, now you get to be me but have fun." I turned and stepped closer.

Dark tendrils lashed out of the Pony of Shadows to wrap around my neck, horn, and one foreleg. It was like my worst nightmares, but there was something different. I was also the Pony of Shadows reaching out to myself to pull me in. Control—I was in control. My body turned and jumped forward as I yanked myself inside.

As my flesh touched the body of the Pony of Shadows, a bright flash stole my vision and I was once again a single entity. Power rushed through me. Everything I was became bigger and stronger and better and—

It was intoxicating.

Stretching out huge wings that resembled the bat pony ones Luna had gifted to me, I reared up and glared at Nightmare Moon. "Like it?"

It was Luna's voice that replied, "Like it? Stygian, that's amazing! You controlled this?!" He trotted around the bed and looked at me with those gorgeous slit eyes. He stretched a hoof up and stroked my chest. Luna knew exactly what he was doing—the touch drove a spike of pleasure through me that had the Pony of Shadows' body do the one thing it had never done before.

"And look at that. Is that all for me?" Luna asked.

I looked down and under myself and gasped. "Did I make it that big?"

"Maybe. Or maybe I like a challenge." Rubbing my chest some more, Luna leaned up to kiss the underside of my jaw. "You're much bigger like this."

That was true—I really was. I looked down at Luna—at Nightmare Moon's body—and he looked masculine and big, but I really did have to look down. "Nothing says insecurity about feeling you're smaller than your friends than becoming an evil abomination just to be taller than them."

Luna tossed his head and laughed. "I can sympathize. I just wanted to be as big as my big sister. You know, looking at you like this has ruined the game—at least for tonight. Why don't we just have some fun?"

"This was your idea. I—I think I can have fun like this. It will be interesting." I gave my wings a flap and looked at the form of Nightmare Moon some more. "You're too small."

"Not in a dream, I'm not." Luna turned his body, flashing me a fang-filled smile up at me as he flicked his tail. With him looking back over his shoulder at me, his midnight body bared, he let out a hiss of excitement.

The Pony of Shadows wasn't just a bigger-than-normal stallion, though. I had more than just a bit of extra height and a flashy pair of wings to show for the change. Stretching out a pair of tentacles, I grabbed Luna by his back legs and pulled him toward me.

"Stygian!" Luna's shout was far from disapproval. He looked back and his grin hadn't wavered one bit. "If I were to use my full powers, I would be out of this grip in a heartbeat."

Just like that we were playing roles. I chuckled and yanked him back a little more. "Really? You princes are all the same. You think you're so powerful because you run Equestria. You know what I did? I defeated the heroes who fought to give you Equestria."

One moment he was a nervous stallion looking back at me, the next moment the night exploded. Nightmare Moon's tail and mane grew huge and blotted out the dreamscape around us. He didn't so much rip free of my tentacles as evaporate from them. "You think you can best me? You're a shadow, but I'm the night itself!"

The swirling mass of his mane drew inward in a rush. Centering on my head, I felt the ice-cold touch of the infinite sky squeeze down and close around my head. Hard steel shoved between my lips and pulled to the corners of my mouth as he bridled me with raw power.

"So simple to overcome. So easy to control. I defeated all the beasts of the night that you and your friends could never dream of battling. You didn't defeat the sirens—you just shunted them to another realm. I took down dozens of their kin." Nightmare Moon's voice came from all around me, but then I felt his presence coalesce behind me. "Hold still, you brute, and let yourself be—"

I laughed as I let my form dissolve. Flowing out of the bridle, discarding the bit, I poured around Nightmare Moon and reformed behind him. "You think your tricks are new? Who do you think invented shadow magic? Who do you think came before Sombra?"

He tried to spin around to face me, but I flowed under him again and came up behind him once more.

"I became the dark thing Equestrians feared before they even were Equestrians. I was one of the primordial darknesses that even the Pillars couldn't defeat." As he spun to face me again, and I slipped under him, I wrapped a tendril of inky-black darkness around his rampant shaft.

"You—You won't get the better of me, Pony of Shadows!" Though he had the right words, Nightmare Moon lacked conviction.

I started teasing his shaft, stroking and caressing him. Though he pawed at the ground and grunted, Nightmare Moon didn't spin to face me this time. I had him. "I don't need to get the better of you, Nightmare Moon. I only need to control you long enough to claim you as mine."

As it turned out, taunting Nightmare Moon was probably not the best idea. He spun around, yanking himself from my grip, and grinned at me. "A young mare taught me a very valuable lesson." With a pop, Nightmare Moon disappeared, and I had a moment to wonder where he was when the weight of him landed on my back and I felt his shaft shove up under my tail.

I could have kept fighting, but this was a game. Luna's Nightmare Moon game was a little better than my Pony of Shadows. I moaned and trembled as he shoved into me. He felt far bigger than he had any right to be as he adjusted his stance and shoved deeper.

His grunting changed from something menacing to something wonderful. It was Luna who took me, not Nightmare Moon. Each body-rocking shove was pure bliss, but what surprised me more was how good it felt to be defeated as the Pony of Shadows. It had been a hard fight for Twilight and her friends, but Luna overwhelmed me with trickery. Trickery and a very good fucking.

My body might have been literally liquid darkness, but Luna seemed to make it solid around all the bits he needed it to be. I let out a needy whine when a tendril of his mane stretched below me and wrapped around my own length. He proved himself every bit as dexterous with his mane as I was with my tentacles, and as he rocked hard against me, he stroked and brought me closer to my end.

When it all felt like it was getting too much, I felt his forelegs tighten around my sides and squeeze tightly—a prelude to the rush of heat inside me. We both roared out our love, and with a few short strokes of his magic Luna had me blasting blackness onto the dreamscape under us.

He closed his wings around my throat and breast and pulled me back more firmly. I was still bigger than him, but Luna seemed content to handle me as he saw fit. "Stygian, I-I'm sorry. I believe I got a little carried away."

I turned my head to look at him and snorted. "You don't need to apologize, Luna. That was—It was liberating. I thought the Pony of Shadows was indestructible. I thought he couldn't be beaten. It seems the ponies of this age have taught you well."

"That's how Twilight defeated Nightmare Moon. She teleported behind me and—"

"Shoved her shaft into you?"

"No!" Luna sounded both outraged and on the verge of laughing. "Stygian!"

"Yes, My Prince?" I squeezed down around him inside of me while turning my head to see his reaction. Luna's eyes widened, but the resulting hard shove made me react more. I whinnied in satisfaction as he drove himself a little deeper. "Yes, oh yes."

I shuddered as he started pulling back. There was so much of him inside me it felt like I was nothing but an empty shell when he got all the way back to my entrance. Fighting, even in play? I'd happily lose every time for this connection with Luna.

"Twilight never did this. I can promise you, I'd have been rather surprised if she had." Luna shoved forward. He knew I wasn't fragile and he knew I wouldn't break, but he also knew something firm would make me howl.

Of course I howled. I was the pony of shadows being defeated again. My mouth hung open and my back arched to give him the perfect angle. He didn't stop there, of course, and the repeated friction and pounding completely overwhelmed me. I rocked back against him as he drove forward, then pulled back as he withdrew.

The dance as old as time. Our bodies met again and again with wet, lewd noises that filled what silence our moans, groans, and snorts didn't. We didn't just make love, we didn't just have sex, we rutted. It was amazing.

As the pressure built inside, I hoped I could reach orgasm with him. It was a dream, which made it implicitly more likely than in real life, but as he got closer—shaft flaring, urgency driving him to buck faster—I knew it wasn't going to be.

That was fine. I didn't need to convince myself that hearing Luna fuck me until he became ecstatic in sexual bliss was a fun thing. The moment—and Luna—came. He was so powerful like this. Luna was raw energy and masculinity that knew no bounds. He grabbed my body and pulled me back as he shoved forward to impale me upon him as surely as any could be.

It didn't matter in the least that I wasn't climaxing too. If anything, it was better that I got to witness and experience this with a clear head. It was an event much like when Luna raised the moon. I trembled because he trembled. I shivered because he shivered.

When Luna slumped onto my back—his seed hot and potent inside me—I didn't slump with him. In that moment I wished ponies could purr, because I wanted to purr. "Feeling better, little prince?"

"Little—?" I didn't let him get any further. Where Luna was upon me, inside me, all turned to so much inky darkness. He fell into my body and then through it, falling to his hooves under me.

"Yes. Little. Do you truly not know how big the Pony of Shadows is?" The form—the dream itself—allowed me all the powers of the Pony of Shadows, one of which was the ability to be as big or small as I wished.

Big, but not too big I couldn't fit in him. This might be a dream, but I think there were limits even here. I stood over Luna like a big stallion like Rockhoof would a mare—my belly was just above the line of Luna's back. "This is just the beginning."

Luna tried to squirm and struggle, but despite his efforts, I pinned his legs and wings down to the ground with thick black ropes of magic. When he shoved up against the restraints, I added one to his neck that slowly forced his forelegs to bend and his shoulders to lower.

"You'll never get the best of Nightmare Moon!" His horn lit up cobalt blue and I could feel power radiate around him.

"Pony, you haven't yet begun to learn the power of darkness." I let just a little light shimmer down my inky, curved horn—bathing it in a silver glow that stole the light from Luna's. "I wrote the book on evil, Nightmare Moon, you are my understudy, and I'll put an emphasis on under."

Taunting done, I leaned forward with my average-sized shaft (average for my size, massive for Luna's). The broad, flat tip pressed up against Luna's anus and smothered it in darkness. He was tiny compared to me, but not tiny enough to deny me entrance.

"Everything the darkness touches is mine!" Though I leaned forward against the pinned stallion's rear, I listened carefully for any hint he wanted this to stop. There was none.

Stretching and stretching, I felt like I was pressing myself against a balloon right up until the moment when his rear gave way and I sank into him. Letting him feel the huge girth of me, I leaned down and clamped my mouth over the back of his neck and pulled myself forward—deeper into him.

I wasn't even far into him, but I could hear Luna making weak panting noises. Letting go of his neck, I leaned my head down further so it was beside his—one huge white eye staring at Luna's stunned expression. "How is my little stallion doing?"

"Y-You—" Luna seemed to tremble, mostly because I leaned forward a little more. "You monster!" The way he said monster was how most lovers would speak their partner's name. He was being pushed hard in more ways than just what I was doing directly, but he was keeping up the game. "You cannot defeat the nigh—"

"I am the night!" My voice echoed with fury and dominance, and I pushed forward further and doubled the length of me inside him. I wasn't halfway in yet, and he already felt at his limit. "Is this all Nightmare Moon can offer me? A hole barely fit for sheathing my tip in?"

"Curse you, Pony of Shadows! You will never claim one hooflength more of me than I allo—"

I pushed another hooflength into him—one of his hooflengths. "You were saying, sweet prince? Your moon is beautiful in my night, but it is time to claim your full moon for the darkness."

Surely I was halfway by now. Luna's rear seemed far more forgiving of my size, so, with another small shove, I decided it was time to get this plundering started. Pulling back was a sweet delight. My flare dragged along his insides enough to make us both howl with pleasure.

"You—You wouldn't."

"I will." I shoved forward. With him pinned down, there was nowhere for him to go to and nowhere for my shaft to go either—except back into him. His dark flanks swallowed up my inky black shaft, and while I wanted to go slow, this was far too enjoyable.

Just as Luna had done, and stallions from time immemorial, I started to buck into him again and again. Each driving thrust pushed a little deeper, and it was almost a shock when my groin connected with his croup.

It was such a momentous event that I stilled for a bit. "All the way inside. How does it feel, little prince?"

All was silent except for the deep panting breaths Luna was taking. His mouth worked a few times before he managed to get a word out, "More." The feel of that word in my ears was heaven.

As much as I wanted to stay there, so much a part of him that I bet his belly was puffed up with my mass, I wanted to fill him with my dark seed more. I resumed. Pulling back and pounding in, I set a slow but forceful rhythm that brooked no more delays.

When my pleasure was almost at its peak, I leaned down to check on Luna again. My hips seemed on automatic while my head only rocked a little beside his. "Are you ready for the night to come?"

Luna's only visible eye rolled around to me and his face broke into a silly-huge grin. "Are you ever—ever going—to stop—the jokes?"

"Nev—" I didn't get any further. My body took over completely and short-circuited my brain as a roaring inferno of pleasure suddenly shot through my body before pouring back to my groin and where it joined to Luna's body. I tilted my head up and back and roared with all the force of the Pony of Shadows.

My essence shot into him as the full force of my climax hit. I screamed more and more through the facade of the Pony of Shadows, but unlike all the other times I'd been him, I was in control.

More. More and more. It seemed like this body had an unending supply of seed for Luna. Pony of Shadows was always the essence of the things I wanted, so why shouldn't the best orgasm of my life happen like this?

The vice-like grip my orgasm had on me loosened a little, and without fanfare I fell forward and down—landing atop Luna (still in his Nightmare Moon form).

All that came from either of us in what felt like forever was panting. I had never experienced something so powerful as what we'd just shared. Was it wrong to play games in the form of one of Equestria's primordial evils? One of Twilight's friends had taught me the best way to defeat the despair monsters brought was to laugh at them. This seemed more effective than laughing.

"St-Stygian? Can you unbind me?"

I stuck my huge snout into Luna's amazing mane and wuffed a deep breath to soak up his scent. "Maybe I want another rou—"

"Another round will happen, my sexy beast, but after we've talked about what just happened. Let go of me, Stygian." His words hit me—shook me loose of the dominant mindset I'd been in.

"Sorry." I released her and released the guise of the Pony of Shadows. I was once more just a stallion around his size on top of him.

Crawling forward and rolling to his back, Luna looked up at me with his own eyes—not those of Nightmare Moon. "Don't be sorry. That was the most intense day of my entire life. I just needed to be free so I could tell you about it properly." His forelegs reached up and over my shoulders, linked over my withers, and pulled me down. "And, despite how amazing it felt to have that much of you inside me, it was almost too much."

In real life I could never have managed a teleport, but this was a dream. The most advanced magics had always been beyond my reach, but never here. A deep POMF sound was the only evidence anything had happened—that and the fact we were back on the bed again. "Almost too much?"

"As in I felt like you were going to split me in half, but you didn't, and it was the most intense sex I've ever had. Everything came together and I—I couldn't fight you." The way Luna said it, that sounded like a good thing.

Luna shifted his hips, the movement reinforcing the fact that our bellies and shafts were pressed together. The action teased a moan from me and another smile from Luna.

"I like hearing you sing to me like that, Stygian. It makes me feel—just feel good. Not that it doesn't make me want to do the same." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "That was intense. Did you let me go first?"

"Yes and no. I struggled right up until the point you lined up with me. As soon as you were in place, I wanted nothing but to feel the power you embodied inside me." I rolled my hips slowly, rubbing our shafts together between us. All the seed I'd spilled in Luna made for a good lube to keep us from chafing.

"The way you took over. You had me pinned down and bound up before I even realized what you'd done. It made my heart beat lightning fast, and—" Luna arched his back and let out a happy moan. It was then I realized he hadn't climaxed from all the anal stretching. When I slowed down my frotting, he seemed able to get back to his right mind. "It was good to be tied up and restrained. But you know what made it all work for me?"

He looked up at me, and I could swear he saw something by the way his eyes searched mine.

"What?" I asked.

"Those horrid puns. They kept me centered, kept it being just a game. A really fun ga—" His eyes widened and a deep, full-throated moan spilled from Luna as he painted both our bellies with his seed.

The proof of his pleasure was warm and gooey, and I knew I wasn't far off myself. My movements didn't slow, but watching Luna's face contort through several different expressions of mindless bliss made me miss my beat a few times and get a little too excited.

Nuzzling my jaw, Luna started flexing his belly muscles—countering my thrusts with his own. "Are you almost done?"

Words failed me and all I could do was hump like an animal. The big grin on Luna's face wasn't mocking, but rather encouraging me to continue. The slick warmth of his own climax made us both so slippery that there was no friction—just the pressure of how hard shafts rubbing together.

I don't know why I was holding back. Maybe it was pride, or maybe I just wanted things to be a little more explosive. Screwing my face up as my end neared, I felt a kiss on the tip of my nose.

The surprise of the touch made my eyes spring open to find I was nose-to-nose with Luna. I stared into his eyes for several seconds before my body unceremoniously informed me of its intent to climax. My groin seemed to tension up, my balls clenching and my dock arched up sharply, then it felt like lava poured from my prostate.

With the pressure so intense my hips took on a life of their own, I bucked and humped like a mad stallion against Luna's belly. Jets of fire shot from me, spraying all over Luna's belly and chest. I clenched down tight and took control of my body as exquisite pleasure overtook me.

"You have the most adorable look on your face when you do that."

I glared down at him and tried to look serious—which was pretty hard when you were still coming through the tail-end of your climax. At last I just let out a loud groan and flopped to my belly atop him. The wet squelch as our bodies pressed together reminded me of the mess we'd made.

His wing reached up past my shoulder and stroked at my ears and down my neck. The mess was just the topping on the cake as far as I was concerned—there wasn't much that was going to make the moment better, which meant it was the perfect time to discuss our situation a little more.

"So," I said, "you were in control then?"

"You weren't?" Luna's magic flared as he spoke, banishing the bulk of the mess between us. "That was pretty intense, and I won't deny that the need for power was intoxicating."

"I was in control. The Pony of Shadows is a monster I made, Luna, but it's gone." Rolling to the side, I lay on my back as well and stared upward at the amazingly detailed night sky above us. "But I still remember what it was like, and I remember what I could do when I was Pony of Shadows, but it isn't me."

I caught sight of Luna's snout in my peripheral vision a moment before he kissed my cheek. Though I wasn't quite quick enough to turn my head and make it a kiss on the lips from the start, I eased my nose around so that we were kissing properly.

A dark wing stretched over me and pulled me a little closer to Luna. It would have been easy to slip into more lovemaking, but I was familiar enough with our dreams together to know the sensation of nighttime approaching.

Work. But for now I could relax with Luna and listen to his happy giggles and snorts as we made out.

Author's Note

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Lab

Chapter 6

The transition to wakefulness was sometimes hard to notice. We were not just in the same position as the dream, but our snouts were pressed together too. I poked my tongue out and licked from Luna's chin to the tip of her nose.

Pulling her head back, Luna giggled as she scrunched her snout in response to my attack. "That was uncalled for."

Rolling over and sliding off the bed, I walked over to the huge bathing area that took up half the room. I only got my first hoof into the water before Luna passed me and slid down into the water like a cragodile. "Show off," I said, and walked into the bath as well.

I had to admit, royalty really got the royal treatment. A bath this big and this luxuriant wasn't possible for everypony, but Luna was hardly everypony. She guarded dreams and helped run the country—with great responsibilities came great power. Power like having her own private pool-bath.

"Do you want to try that again, Stygian?"

The question caught me off-guard. I'd floated a brush over with my magic and was preparing to scrub my mane. "First I want to say how it made me feel." Getting the brush to work, I started on my mane and added some shampoo to help wash it. "Powerful. I felt—dominant. I was on top for the last bit, and I—I liked it."

Luna had waded back to the shallow water and started ruffling her wings in the water—fluffing out her feathers. "But you were in control?"

"That's what felt so good. Though, I did enjoy it when you had control. It was a lot of fun on both sides." Worry assailed me. "Was it fun for you?"

"It was good fun, though I swear I still feel a little sore from how big you were. It might be a dream, but it's our dream." Luna let out a happy sigh when I swapped over to brushing out her mane. "Mmm, I'd like you to be bigger, though."

The comment caused me pause. "Bigger?"

"Yes. Bigger. You won't be able to get in me, but that means we can do other things. That rubbing—"

"Frotting," I said.

"…frotting, was quite enjoyable. Perhaps I could do something like that for you as a much bigger stallion?"

My heart had sped up and I was breathing hard. She wanted bigger? She wanted to—to let me play like that more? I tried to get my brain and body on track again. "W-We could try that. I don't want to hurt you, Luna, you mean too much to me."

Luna stepped closer and kissed me on the cheek. "Like what just happened, I'll tell you if I want you to stop."

"If we keep kissing, we'll get distracted and your sister will have to send somepony to collect us." Of course, I kissed her cheek right back and continued on to nuzzle her jaw.

It took time to clean ourselves up, but it was time spent whispering soft and hungry words to each other while preparing for the night ahead.

We were just about to leave when Luna stopped me with a hoof. "You want to have the wings again?"

I thought about it. The wings were neat, and I certainly enjoyed flying with Luna, but what I knew about them was that Luna loved seeing them. "If Your Highness pleases?" I focused my gaze on her eyes and attempted my best I'm cool with this look.

"That's a yes?"

"Luna, I'll be honest. The wings are nice, but the only reason I like them is it means I can fly with you. Otherwise, I have no real opinion on them." Rolling my shoulders, I lifted one eyebrow. "But I certainly saw how you reacted to them. I liked how you reacted."

"So yes?"

She looked conflicted and confused. How had I had such an effect on a princess?! "Very yes."

Her consternation turned to a bright smile, and a cobalt glow surrounded her horn. Princess Luna's magic was potent. She could move the moon—causing wings to sprout from my shoulders wasn't a huge stretch for her.

New muscles stitched their way across my back, sides, and chest. I felt the new limbs push free and stretch out. I pulled them down long enough to get out the door and then extended my new wings to their full expanse.

When I looked back over my shoulder, it was just in time to see Luna picking her jaw up. She'd made these wings for me, but seeing the effect spreading them had on her made dealing with them worth it. "That's exactly what I mean."

"Huh?" Luna followed me out the door and closed it behind her. "What exactly do you mean?"

"That if you were a stallion, you'd be showing a lot more than a big grin. You really like wings that much?" I closed one and then the other to my side, trying to remember how to fold them so they would sit neat.

"I like wings."

That's when it hit me. "You liked Pony of Shadows' wings."

Luna's prancing walk faltered for a step and she blushed. "He's a mighty stallion, though he could definitely get my blood pumping more if he did some flaps with those monsters."

Without a word I spread my wings and gave them a weak flap. It wasn't enough to launch me into the air, but I heard Luna's breath catch in her throat. Wings are definitely her thing. Information to file away for later use.

Two members of the events council—Fleur Dis Lee and Fancy Pants—were leaving the main hall. They didn't notice me at first, but the moment Fleur's eyes caught me, I had her full attention.

"Princess Luna, I don't believe you've introduced us to your friend," Fleur said.

I cleared my throat. I actually liked the pair, since the majority of our dealings were through Luna's office and, as such, they were generally working for Luna at the time. "Miss Fleur Dis Lee, we have been introduced. Stygian, at your service." I bowed my head and neck in my best emulation of a courtly bow and swept one wing forward and around to shroud my breast.

Fleur's look of shock was plain to see. If she were a pegasus, I'd expect her wings would have shot up in surprise.

"My dear, Master Stygian has been Princess Luna's personal assistant now for some time, and—if the rumors swirling around Canterlot are correct—her consort. Given the proclivities of her sister regarding ponies sprouting wings and horns, I find it unsurprising." Fancy was a sharp pony, which is probably why he held the position he did. He hadn't gotten all the facts right, however. "Congratulations."

I looked from his bowed form to Luna, and finding Luna grinning happily, returned to looking at Fancy. He was a handsome stallion, but that he had Fleur always at his side meant he was strictly eye-candy. "Not as ground-shaking as all that, sorry. We're just—just practicing for next Nightmare Night."

"Oh." Fleur sounded so let down. "Do they work?"

Luna took a half step forward to head off not just the question but any further interactions. "Well enough that he can fly. You'll have to excuse us, I need to raise the moon."

"Of course, Your Highness." Bowing again, but stepping back this time, Fancy Pants nonetheless had a smile on his face. "You will come to our little anniversary next week?"

"Absolutely," I said. "We wouldn't miss it for the world. Do drop us an invite one evening."

Confusion crossed Fancy's face, but Fleur saved him by giving her best smile and nodding her head. "Absolutely. Come along, Fancy-darling, we have to prepare for an evening out in the city tomorrow. I have the perfect thing to wear."

Waiting for them to leave, Luna turned to me. "You accepted?"

"Of course. They're two of Canterlot's most important ponies. Besides, it will be a date, and a chance for us to tell everypony what's going on between us." I ruffled my wings a little and walked up to the main doors that led to the central castle and its throne room.

"But—But we can't!" Luna trotted to catch up to me. "Can we? What will ponies think?"

"That I am a lucky stallion."

"No more than I'm a lucky mare. You think it's a good time to reveal us?" Luna mustn't have realized how high she was lifting her hooves—practically prancing.

I felt like prancing too.

Dressing up for a ball was easy for a stallion. Steel Horn had outdone herself with armor that was not just light, but showed off my wings and horn as if Luna herself had said "Make him look like an alicorn."

So I stood there, wearing the armor I'd actually been training to wear, and watched as Rarity fussed over Luna for two whole hours. It had gotten predictable—Luna would finally be happy with how part of her outfit looked, and Rarity would change it completely.

What mattered, however, was that Rarity had all her focus on Luna. Since I was ready, I figured I could sneak out now.

I got nearly halfway to the door before Rarity's voice cut my plans to ribbons. "And where do you think you're going? I'm almost done with Princess Luna, and then I need to start on you."

Sirens? My own inner evil? Every other monster or beast I'd helped my friends fight would be preferable to this. For a brief moment I wondered if my magic might be up for a teleport spell. I'd certainly never teleported myself before, and there were some strange accidents that could happen if you did it wrong, but I was perfectly willing to give one a shot.

But Rarity was looking at me as if I were a canapé. She was a lot better with her magic than I was. Having been the close friend of both Princess Twilight Sparkle and Headmistress Starlight Glimmer, it wouldn't be a huge stretch to assume she'd picked up either being able to fly or teleport from one of them. "In fact, I believe we're done, Your Highness?"

"Yes!" Luna was too fast on the reply, but I couldn't blame her. In this one field, Rarity was the princess and Luna just a mare. Being dismissed, Luna practically ran for the door to escape.

The moment Luna was out of the room, Rarity walked right up to me. There was no way she was more imposing than Princess Celestia, but she sure seemed to be. "Now, Stygian, we need to work on your mane and tail."

"But Steel Ho—"

"Steel Horn is the most capable armorer in all Equestria, and her garments are second to none when it comes to the compromise between battlefield effectiveness and fashion, but it's you that needs a little work. Over here please." Rarity gestured to the spot where Luna had been for two hours.

My heart sank, but there was no way out of this. Besides, I wanted to look my best for Luna. The enchanted armor was light on my body as I walked over to the huge mirror and table scattered with Rarity's equipment. "So what are you going to do?"

"You need to make as much of a splash as Princess Luna, but not outshine her. Ponies are going to find themselves looking at you anyway—being at her side as you are—so you need to be the essence of what they'll expect." She went to work on my mane.

"Isn't this all a bit much?" I asked.

Rarity froze and all her implements settled back on the table beside her. Locking her eyes on me, Rarity took a deep breath and let out a disappointed sigh.

"Sorry I asked," I said.

When I finally made it out of that room, it was an hour later and my mane was carefully styled up into a style not all that unlike Commander Fizzlepop Berrytwist's. My tail had been worked differently—Rarity having braided the lot together and formed it into a short but wide mass that barely extended further than my dock. I also sported eyeshadow and mascara that made my normally impossible to see lashes stand out.

It was all too much for me, and I'd have washed it off in a heartbeat if:

I knew how.
I had amnesty from Rarity.

Combined, I was doing everything in my power to not think about how I looked. But as I stepped out of our bedroom, and Luna's eyes fell upon me, I truly did forget about the makeup. She looked impressed, sure, but there was a look of love and desire mixed that almost stole my breath.

"Stygian?" Luna sounded incredulous, as if she expected another stallion had walked out wearing the same equipment I'd gone in with.

And about that moment I realized the work Rarity had put into Luna's makeup. I'd barely noticed it earlier, what with my impending doom, but the eyeshadow made Luna's eyes practically glow, and I adored how full her lashes were.

I couldn't help myself. I strode forward and tilted my head up to her and—with her reciprocating—we kissed.

"Stop that this instant! If either of you ruin your makeup I'll—" Rarity froze for a moment as we both broke our kiss to face her. She suddenly looked as defeated as I'd been for the previous hour. She sighed. "Well, I guess without lipstick on either of you, kissing shouldn't be a problem."

It was strange how much I'd learned about ponies in my time working with Luna. For instance, I could tell that Rarity was completely drained mentally, and anything at all would set her off if we weren't careful. But, I also knew it would only take a tiny—humble—push and she'd be completely emotionally recharged.

"Thank you, Rarity," I said. "Without your help, we wouldn't look a fraction as good as we do."

Compliments, with somepony as invested with their craft as Rarity was, were powerful. Her eyes flickered and whatever weariness wrestling with the two of us for three hours had brought was gone in an instant. Her face brightened, her stance changed, and Rarity was once more Rarity. I could still see a little weariness in her, but now she had energy.

"Oh, no-no-no! Thank you both! It has been an honor to prepare you for your first big date. Why, when I heard that you'd both accepted an invite to one of Fancy's soirees, I was tripping all over myself to find the right colors to suit you." As Rarity spoke, her vitality only strengthened until I wasn't even sure I could see the weariness of her work in her.

"I for one quite enjoyed a little pampering," Luna said. "Perhaps we should meet up tomorrow at the Ponyville Spa to discuss the goings-on of tonight's event?"

If my thanks had been revitalizing to Rarity, Luna's request seemed to completely finish her off. I fully expected to have to catch her fainting away any moment.

"That would be an excellent idea. Perhaps you could bring your—ahem—special somepony too?" Rarity asked.

Hold up. Now I had to—

"It's a date," Luna said.

—go to Ponyville Spa tomorrow, apparently. Our nightly duties were already on hold for a few days to accommodate the party tonight. Princess Celestia hadn't so much as batted an eyelash when we told her. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Now Rarity's enthusiasm seemed to have spread to Luna, and as I realized I'd get to see Luna pampered utterly, I had to admit that I was looking forward to it too.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get ready for the party too," Rarity said.

"Please, use our room. There's no reason for you to go hunting for somewhere to get ready when all your things are already here." Luna gestured to the door to our bedroom with a hoof. The movement made me realize how much her dress shifted and moved with her. I still might not be completely enamored with the female form, but I could appreciate that Luna was on the strong and powerful end of the feminine scale.

Or she was at the effeminate end of the strong stallion scale. That was one I could appreciate more.

So we waited while Rarity did her own makeup and got dressed—something that was much faster than the ordeal either Luna or I put up with. When she left our room I almost recoiled. Rarity was always firmly entrenched in female beauty, but she was now far and away the most mare-y mare I'd ever seen. A flowing dress, sparkling shoes on her hooves, all the makeup a mare could wear, and her mane was spectacular.

Well, my libido was safe from Rarity, at least. She was so much a mare that she didn't even seem to rate on my personal hotness scale. Or maybe my hotness scale only consisted of Luna now?

"You waited for me?" Rarity held one of her shod forehooves to her breast. "Darlings, you shouldn't have!"

Together we made our way to the party. It was… unique. Everypony seemed to fawn over Luna as if she didn't attend parties often (and I was pretty sure she didn't). A lot of the ponies present were ones I'd seen at court, though this was a much more relaxed place to meet them.

I was sure we'd done a full loop of the room and met everypony when a chime started and slowly got louder until everypony had turned to see what was interrupting their important conversations.

"Thank you for your attention, everypony. I am delighted to welcome you all to another of my little parties, and while I'm sure you'll all continue to be enraptured by any speech I give"—Fancy Pants paused to let a short round of laughter rise and fade—"we have no less than three special guests here tonight.

"Our first guest is one I've invited countless times in the past years, but alas she's been far too busy running Equestria and protecting our dreams to surrender an evening to my silly little parties. This time, however, I employed a secret weapon the likes of which our attending princess could not contend.

"A stallion whose skill with a quill are simply unmatched, be it in a novel or in the positively scathing legal documents he presents to all and sundry who attempt to waste royal time. Please, come join me and share a few words Princess Luna and… prince… Stygian?"

I froze in place and couldn't so much as think until Luna's wing settled over my back—then I managed to start breathing again. Prince?! I wasn't a prince!

"Stygian, it was a joke. Come on, and try to not look flustered by his words," Luna's voice was soft and right by my ear. Given the applause in around us, I doubt anypony took it for anything but her whispering sweet nothings to me. "Where's my powerful stallion?"

The last words, spoken in a deeper tone—Nightmare Moon's tone—broke me from my stupor completely. I stepped forward at Luna's side as a path opened through the crowd. When we got all the way to where Fancy Pants and Fleur dis Lee were standing, I was almost under control again.

Luna turned first to face the crowd of faces. Somewhere during our walk her wing had slipped off me again, and so I had to turn myself around to match.

"Thank you, everypony. You're too kind. First I feel I must make a correction. Stygian isn't a prince until I marry him." Luna turned her head and winked to me, and the crowd seemed to explode with a cheer. "Though I will admit that he's already having a good influence upon my person."

When Luna made a greater show of looking at me, everypony's attention seemed to follow.

What would I say? This was—my own fault. Well played, Luna. "It's all true. I'm not a prince yet." This time I paused for laughter, and sure enough I got some. "It was purely a whim to attend tonight, but I'm glad we did. With such company as is present, and in the spirit of the days gone by I find myself remembering far too often, I wish to state before the assembled my intention to woo your princess." My mouth had turned traitor, or was on automatic—there had to be a lie I could tell myself for why I'd said what I said apart from love.

What I hadn't been prepared for was the stomping, cheering applause from the ponies present, or the way Luna used her magic to grab my chin and cheeks as she pulled my face toward her to kiss.

As our lips touched, it was like time stood still. I could still remember the days before she'd found me—or had I found her? Listless, searching, and unable to grasp what I was meant to do with myself.

In the past I'd helped my friends with tactics and ways to take down big bad monsters, then I'd doomed all of us to a horrid fate by becoming a big bad monster. Was this worth it? Could I ask my friends to forgive me trying to destroy everything because it brought me to this point?

And what of me? Gay to the bone and kissing Princess Luna before all the assembled nobility of Canterlot. Kissing her—and loving it. Who was I to say if I was even gay anymore. I like stallions, but I love Luna.

I love Luna.

Reaching my wings up and forward, I cradled her jaw on each side and deepened the kiss. Bat wings also had the added bonus of giving us a little privacy. I held her there as surely as her own lips held me, and we relaxed into the kiss for what I felt was becoming an extended period of time.

"Ahem! I think we might have to give Canterlot's newest couple a little time—they seem… busy." Fancy Pants' voice was warm and flowed like silk, distracting everypony and encouraging them to move on from their fascination.

Our lips broke only long enough for us to feel the other smiling, then we kissed again. This one was like a small shock after a big earthquake—brief and intense. But, we had to rejoin the party at some point.

"I love you, Luna," I said.

"Yes. I am well aware of that, Stygian. I hope you've realized one thing from all this."

Tilting my head a little, I raised an eyebrow.

"I love you too," Luna said.

I'd seen bright flashes of magic overtake ponies. I could remember each of the times Twilight had been forced to use it in my presence and had read books detailing further times when it had happened. I felt like that now. Everything in the universe felt right. "I want to kiss you again."

"Hmm. Will you be able to stop if we do that?"

I chuckled at her question. "Probably not."

"Better not risk it. Lower your wings and try to blush a little more—they'll expect it." Just as I started to lower my wings, however, she kissed me on the cheek. It was just the thing to make me blush, because I couldn't stop thinking of all the things I wanted to do now, but couldn't because of all the ponies present.

The party was easier to deal with after our announcement. Ponies would smile at us whenever they got close, and there was no expectation to hold up a conversation. All we had to do was look at each other and ponies would giggle and slink away.

Before I even knew what was happening, the party was winding down. Ponies split off in pairs and small groups (some claiming they had other parties to attend), though I was at a loss as to what to do with Luna. We weren't needed for our duties to the Court tonight.

"It was simply marvelous of you to choose our little soiree to make your announcement. The rumors had been growing, and I know several of my peers who'd cooked up reasons to be in your Court just to judge for themselves how much of an item you were." Fancy Pants had a way of looking and sounding like a noble fop, but actually holding a good conversation and revealing he was sharp as a tack.

Ruffling my wings, I stretched one up and over Luna's back. She was larger than me still, but I was content with my height. "It needed to be done. I'd noticed the odd cases we were getting—will this mean an end to them?"

Fleur didn't have wings, but the artful way she leaned against Fancy almost made me blush anew. "Of course not. They'll all want to see the royal couple up close now. They'll want to evaluate you both more than ever."

"Quite so," Fancy said before he pressed his muzzle to Fleur's cheek and kissed her. The kiss was brief, but the change it quickened in Fleur was amazing. She perked up and nuzzled into Fancy's mane without a shred of decorum.

"We should probably leave them to cleaning up," Luna said, and to my surprise she did a mirror of what Fleur had done. Feeling her muzzle trailing along my neck and through my mane would have caused me to have a major faux pa if it weren't for the armor bucked onto me. I hadn't realized it when I'd put it on, but there was a spot where my shaft just sort of slid into and didn't hang below my belly like a young stallion seeing his first love.

But I was still a stallion and Luna was definitely my love. "Mmm, yeah. Come on. I want to see what's still open."

The doughnut shop, sadly, was not open. We walked around Canterlot in the cool night air and exchanged kisses, giggles, and soft murmurs together. When we started hearing music, however, it got both of us interested.

Far out on the edge of Canterlot, shrouded by trees that were probably there to cut down on the noise, we found the nightclub that was the source of the music. Pushing our way in the front door wasn't hard since there was nopony guarding it. There was a dim hallway that led to another pair of double-doors.

I used my magic to push these inner doors open, and it was like being hit in the chest with raw sound (mostly because that's exactly what happened). The music thumped repetitively, and all the fancy lighting in the club drew my eyes toward the mare on a stage surrounded by speakers and music equipment.

The beat faded and a zipping noise poured from the speakers as the white unicorn on stage pointed her hoof at us while a bunch of lights seemed to trace a line to our hooves. "Looks like we've got somepony important here tonight! Come on, Princess Luna, come and say hello to your biggest fans!"

"Don't you dare make me go up there alone," Luna said aside to me, then started walking through the parting crowd of ponies.

As we neared the stage, the DJ's bespectacled eyes landed on me and the sound of a crash came from the speakers. "Whoa! Not often you see a legit bat pony, let alone one of the Pillars of Equestria! Come up here, too, Stygian!"

"Vinyl Scratch—" Luna said as she neared the stage.

"DJ Pon-3, when I'm working, Your Highness." She lifted her voice and almost swallowed a mic to shout, "Everypony put your hooves together for the princess of the night and her stallion of choice!"

The roar of hooves had nothing to do with the stacks of speakers we were standing beside. It sounded like there was thunder in the room with us.

"Hey hey! What does our princess and her… prince, want to hear? I don't normally do requests, but royalty are totally an exception," DJ Pon-3 said, only much louder than just her voice thanks to us standing right beside her speakers.

"Something we can dance fast to!" Luna's shout surprised me almost as much as the piercing look she gave me. For some reason I was suddenly grateful I was wearing armor—even if it was just ceremonial.

"Ohhhhh! You got it, our dark mistress of the night!" The last word from the DJ's mouth was drowned out by the first thud of the music starting back up. "Everypony make some noise and move your plots!"

The sound seemed to match the rhythm of my heart. With Luna bouncing around with me, I found the magic of song compelling me to dance with her. The tempo sped up and so did we.

We danced until the music stopped. I don't know the exact time, but if my new circadian rhythm was anything to go by, Luna and Celestia would be performing their morning ritual in less than an hour.

Luna, bedecked in glowing loops and with her feathers painted by glow-in-the-dark paint, was still bouncing to the beat she only heard in her head now. "Stygian! We should do this more!"

Her enthusiasm was as contagious now as it was when we'd started dancing. I found my hooves moving to the same rhythm as hers as we made our way to the exit. "Perhaps on weekends?"

"Hey! Your Highness! Stygian!" DJ Pon-3 shouted from across the room before she ran over to us. "That was a real blast! I really dig the getup, you know. It's almost like you went to some fancy party before coming to my digs. So what's up? I haven't seen you since… whoa, like the wedding."

"Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor's wedding? That could be correct. That was a lot of fun tonight. Do these parties normally run so early?" Luna stopped at the door to chat with the DJ. Now that the house lights were illuminating her, I could recognize the DJ as somepony I'd seen the few times I'd visited Ponyville.

"What? This? Nah. We normally shut up hours earlier, but it's not every night that a princess comes in to dance with us. Where you going now? Back to the palace?"

"Yes. Would you like to come and watch my sister and I do our thing?" I noticed how much Luna's language had changed since first meeting her. Had mine changed too?

Vinyl Scratch (I finally remembered her name from earlier in the night) levitated a bottle of water over and opened it. "Whoa! Thanks for the invite, but seeing the sun rise is literally against my code of ethics. Maybe one night you could show me how you raise the moon?" She took a long pull of the water.

Pull?

Yes, my language use was changing. Where did I even pick that one up?

Luna grinned wide. "Be at the palace before sunset tonight."

"I needed that. Right, I'll be there. Hey, what's the deal with you two, anyway?"

I cleared my throat, stepped closer to Luna, lifted myself as tall as I could and kissed her on the cheek. "That's what the deal is," I said.

"No way? You're dating? So this was a date? You came to my club for a date?!" Vinyl emptied the bottle of water over her head and let out a shout. "This is amazing!"

"He is pretty amazing." Luna kissed me back and I almost lost myself to the feelings from earlier. She broke the kiss before I could make it not stop, and grinned devilishly at me.

"You're something else yourself, but your sister will be expecting you soon," I said.

Luna let out a groan. "You're right. You're always right. Sorry, Vinyl, we must away. Duties and all that." As she turned back to the door, Luna paused for one more moment. "Sweet dreams," she said to Vinyl. Given the source, it was probably a promise.

I followed Luna out into the morning. There was no sun in the sky yet—of course—but the whole world seemed to tremble in anticipation of it. "We're cutting it fine," Luna said. "Come, my stallion, let's fly!"

My surprise made me take a few moments longer to get airborn than Luna did. The wings she'd given me were well-versed in flying on their own, but I'd started trying to get a feel for doing things on my own. Flapping hard, I shot into the sky and after Luna.

Flying at night was a strange kind of freedom. Before Luna had given me this gift, I would have been squinting into the gloom and been barely able to see the nose in front of my face. My eyes worked a little different now, however, and I could widen them somehow and see a lot more in the dim light.

We had to gain a lot of height to reach the same level as the castle, and even more to get over the low outer wall so we could swoop in to the front doors of the palace. Most ponies would at least be questioned as to why they were flying directly to the palace doors just before sunrise, but not Princess Luna.

Would I be stopped and questioned if I was alone? Probably. In all honesty, if I was flying directly to the palace, it would probably be to get help with something. Of all the ponies I could think of to get immediate help from, the larger-than-life Royal Guard were right up there. The two standing at the main doors didn't so much as twitch as we approached, though their eyes did flick to us just once before scanning the sky and grounds again.

It had been Luna's insistence that the Royal Guard's numbers be swelled with the addition of mares and stallions of all shapes and sizes. One of those on duty was Diving Stoop. She was a mare that stood almost as tall as Luna and was the biggest pegasi I'd ever seen. She had an off-brown coat and a cascade of yellow mane and tail that was bordering on platinum. Opposite her was Brave Hoof, an earth pony stallion that I'd personally seen restrain a unicorn who'd tried to insist he should remain talking during Court.

I would never want to test myself against either.

As we marched into the entry hall, a yawning mare gaped at us. "Y-Your Highness! Princess Celestia is awaiting you at the balcony."

"Am I late?" Luna asked, to which the mare could only tremble in reply. "You can tell me I'm late if I'm late."

I cleared my throat and smiled to the mare, who seemed to be a new scribe in the palace. "Am I late to see the sunrise?"

Realization and relief seemed to explode onto the mare's face. Her shaking stopped and she nodded her head rapidly. "Y-Y-Yes!"

We marched on and through the throne room. Luna chuckled as she used her magic to open the door to the balcony. "You have a way with ponies."

"I managed to keep the Pillars together long enough to realize they could all be friends. A mare who's awed at being in the presence of a princess struggling to point out said princess has a fault was easy to handle." I looked from Luna to the end of the hall and saw it open to reveal Princess Celestia standing to one side and looking out over the dark world below her.

Princess Celestia didn't turn as we approached. "Did you both have a good evening?"

"We certainly did. You waited." Luna stepped out on the balcony above the world and looked down. She didn't often look down—she smiled a little wider. "We announced ourselves as a couple."

Huge white wings seemed to engulf the entire world—not really, but Celestia's wingspan was more than enough to ensnare Luna and me. She squeezed us together until I wondered if we would be able to come apart ever again. "I'm so happy for you!"

"Sister?" Luna asked. Then a little louder, "Sister?!"

When Luna repeated herself a third time, Princess Celestia loosened her grip. "What's wrong?"

"I don't think Stygian was able to breathe. Are you alright, love?"

Luna's voice using that word for me revived every bit of strength that Celestia's constriction had stolen. Taking long, deep breaths, I arched my neck a little and looked up to Luna and kissed her cheek. "I am now, love." As my lips drew back, I noticed there was a rosy little touch of blush in Luna's cheek. The butterflies in my stomach seemed to like that more than her saying the word to me.

"Luna?" Celestia asked. This time it was Luna's (and my) turn to barely notice her. "Luna!"

Turning her head, Luna looked up at her sister. "Huh? Oh! The Moon!" That familiar rush of magic poured through her and thundered into the sky as Luna grasped the moon and eased it down.

Just like when she pulled me into her dream, I could feel the wash of her magic pouring over and through me. I would never know this level of power myself, but I delighted in feeling it from her. It was a raw energy that reminded me of the stallion Luna was in our dreams.

Celestia's power, on the other hoof, was bright and sharp. It wasn't a gentle shower pouring over me, but a glaring heat that burned away all shadows and bid the umbra to oblivion. It was its own delight, but it wasn't from the mare I loved.

As we turned, heedless of the deadly fall for any creature lacking flight, I spread my right wing over Luna's back and we led the way back into the tunnel.

Having wings was strange still, but not half as strange as my love life—and I'd managed to ride that wave so far. We reached the throne room and that poor scribe was waiting. She looked shocked at my wing over Luna's back, and I could see growing panic in her eyes.

"You're Princess Celestia's new scribe?" I asked.

She nodded mutely, then let out a little gasp (had she been holding her breath?) and replied, "Yes!" She coughed, then said, "Yes," much softer.

"If you need any help, ask Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, myself, or Raven Inkwell. Our job as scribes is to assist the princesses—just ask if you aren't sure about anything, and remember that you are here because you are the best at this." I was about to offer more advice, but the breakfast table was being set up.

"'Inner, Your Highness, Stygian, or 'ave you eaten already?" Pomme Frites' accent was on point today.

"Actually, Pomme Frites, would some hash and eggs be too much? We're up a little late, and the evening was…" Luna seemed to fish for a word before winking to me. "… energetic."

"I think I'll have that too, if you don't mind?" Princess Celestia asked.

"Non-non-non! I will have three plates ready soon!" Pomme Frites turned and pranced out of the room, leaving us time to sit down.

Pomme Frites had no horn but she could work literal magic in the kitchen. I knew what hash was, and how long it should take for her to prepare and cook it, yet she was walking back into the throne room in half that time.

We'd barely even gotten to blushing, and Celestia hadn't managed to grill us on the evening we'd had.

With our breakfasts in front of us, I noticed Celestia smiling a little wider. "So, what did the two of you get up to last night?"

I turned to look at Luna, and she looked at me. We both had big grins on our faces even as Luna replied, "Stuff." Then we started giggling.

"And where did this stuff take place? Are we really going to play this game?" Celestia asked.

Her questions were worth another giggle, but I decided to answer. "We attended a party and I announced my intent to court your sister there." With my magic I started scooping up the slightly oily breakfast. With the night we'd had, something heavy to fill our bellies was a must.

"I only know of one party last night—Fancy Pants and Fleur Dis Lee's ball." The only problem with eating breakfast with Princess Celestia was how bright her magic was. "I take it that's where you've been all night? Strange, though, I don't remember their balls running quite this late."

Up until her last sentences, she had us dead to rights. "Oh no. We only just got back from a nightclub party hosted by DJ-PON3, when she found out we were formerly an item, she extended her party until dawn."

"Or what should have been dawn," Luna said between mouthfuls. "Having me there may have made it hard to run until dawn, but I think her patrons were happier knowing they could get home before the sun came up. Thank you for waiting."

"Y-You announced your relationship at a night club?!" Celestia's fork clattered to her plate as she stared between us in what seemed like complete shock. "You—You're a princess! You have…" But her vehemence seemed to drain as we broke into a fit of giggles. "What?" Her tone was now that of a defeated mare.

"We attended Fancy and Fleur's party first. When it finished, we went to the club and danced until the early hours. It was a wonderful night. Did you know they proclaimed that I was their princess? It was hard to follow their logic, but the gist was they stay up most of the night anyway, like myself, and… Sister, you look ill. Maybe you should take light duties today?"

I decided to keep my mouth shut now, only opening it to put more food in. The food, of course, was excellent. Eating so well was one of the many perks of dating Luna.

"You're doing this to rib me, aren't you, Luna? It worked, but now I see that you had a good time and took your duties seriously. It's quite becoming of a princess to connect with the citizens of her nation. Perhaps you could take more such evenings off and perhaps attend more social events?" Once again calm, Celestia retrieved her fork and returned to her breakfast.

Luna, who had somehow managed to nearly finish her breakfast already, smiled at Celestia without revealing a thing. "You know, I might just do that. Perhaps once night a week. Saturday sounds good to me. What about you, love?"

It took the tiniest jolt of my magic to summon an official scroll and quill, animate the latter, and start taking notes. "That sounds good to me. I'll make sure to let Vinyl Scratch know." I didn't just write that down, of course. There seemed to be a dress code for the club, and while they hadn't said anything earlier, I was sure we'd have fit a little better if we'd adhered to it.

That, of course, I did while eating my breakfast. There wasn't many situations in which I could manipulate more than one thing at a time, but when paper was involved I could. "Anything else?" I asked.

"And you'll both have to attend more balls. You've given the nobility of Canterlot something new to talk about. Either you continue giving them little things to talk about or they'll get curious and come looking." Celestia yawned and stretched out her wings in a display as awkward as it would for any pony. Yet another reminder that the princesses are just that—ponies. "They're going to want to know about your wings."

"That's easy to explain," Luna said. "They're a hazard of his job."

"Or a perk," I said.

"You really like them?"

I nodded. "It's nice to share flying with you. You always look so—so alive and vibrant when you fly."

Luna leaned over and kissed my cheek briefly. "That's for keeping your eyes on me while flying." She kissed me again. "That's for trying it out in the first place, and—" She used her magic to turn my jaw so that her next kiss connected square on my lips.

I had to gulp down my mouthful of food quickly so I could give the kiss the attention it (and Luna) deserved. While I kissed, I watched as Luna's eyes slowly fluttered closed and let mine do the same. The touch, taste, and smell of the embrace all heightened—though it was mostly a reminder that we were eating the same breakfast.

When our lips finally broke, Luna let out a happy sigh and made my hooves curl a little in happiness. "—that was for wanting to be beside me."

"Where else would I ever want to be?" It was sappy and sweet, and I could remember reading it in a terrible love novel, but now I realized how those words were a big point in the book.

I wanted to grab her up and carry her off to our quarters. Looking at the food revealed we'd both eating a good share each. Well, it was time to do a little taking charge of my own. I wasn't strong when it came to magic, but I had a trick that let me do a lot more.

Feeling out with my magic, I found notes and papers and spoke to them. It was an aspect of my magic I didn't share with others, but paper spoke to me. It told me how important it was, and it also listened. I need the finest papers who aren't busy to help me care for a princess.

The paper answered me.

Blue magic boiled and fizzed off my horn as paper whirled through the palace toward the throne room. Blank pieces of paper, empty scrolls, and a small collection of doodles rushed in and around Luna and myself.

"W-What are you doing, Stygian?" Luna asked.

"Carrying you away."

The paper was gentle, as I wanted it to be, when it pressed to Luna's back, shoulders, and rump. It tilted her and lifted until she was on her back—floating in the air.

I turned to Celestia. "Excuse me, Your Highness, but I have to steal your sister away for a day of sleep. May I have your leave?"

"Hrmm." Celestia tapped her chin with a teaspoon she'd just used to stir some sugar into her tea. "On the one hoof you are foalnapping my sister, but you seem to have your paperwork in order."

"Puns, sister? Really?" Luna asked.

Seemingly ignoring her sister, Celestia lifted her tea up and took a sip. "I give you my full consent to steal Luna for the day."

Dipping my head low, I bowed to Celestia. "Thank you, Your Highness. I promise to return her in good condition." Straightening again, I turned toward Luna. She was blushing, looking a little sheepish, and above all a little vulnerable. My heart pounded a little quicker. "Make way! I'm foalnapping a princess!"

The guards all put their weapons aside and saluted as I floated Luna out of the throne room. Walking along with her beside me, I felt excited and proud of the fact that I was trusted again. Fresh out of Limbo as I'd been, nopony would have seen fit to leave me alone with a deck of cards. "I trust you're comfortable?"

"Stygian, what are you up to?" Mirth colored Luna's tone as we passed the guards and turned for the royal quarters. When I didn't immediately respond, she used her magic to twitch my ear.

"I thought it was clear. I'm foalnapping you for a day of relaxation and snuggles." I turned for the hallway that led to our quarters and nodded to the two Royal Guard who stood at the entrance to the long hallway. "Unless you'd like a day without snuggles?"

Luna turned her head to look down at me. "Snuggles are an acceptable excuse for foalnapping me from breakfast." She wiggled a little as we neared the door to our shared abode. "Will we sleep while we snuggle?"

I opened the door and carried her inside. A touch of my magic and the enchanted lighting came up to a soft luminosity that had me already relaxing for the day. "Did you have plans for something else? Maybe Her Royal Highness would like her lowly servant to give her a massage?"

When her eyes flashed with excitement, I knew I had a winner. Juggling her carefully toward the huge inbuilt bathing area that took up nearly a third of the room, I turned her over so she could set her hooves down on the tiling around the bath.

Removing my outfit was a little more work, but by the time I joined her beside the bath I was free of any clothing and ready to descend with her.

The papers I sent into a neat pile well away from the water.

"You're going to spoil me." Luna stepped slowly into the water, and I watched it cover her hooves, fetlocks, legs, and eventually ease over her back. It had stopped being strange to watch a mare with such intensity with the same I would give a stallion. Her body had feminine curves, sure, but she wasn't a weak mare by any stretch of the imagination.

"Yes. Wasn't I meant to?" Lighter things I could handle with my magic included brushes and shampoo bottles, but for a massage I wanted to be hooves on. Lathering up her mane with some shampoo, I had to rear up on her back—something that was a lot easier to do in the water—to start the massage.

Luna leaned into the attention, her body shifting slightly to let me move easier. "You are so much more comfortable with me now."

"Familiarity and knowing that it's you I love made it easier to accept you for who and what you are—even in reality. If there's one thing that's proven to me how crazily in love I am with you, it's that."

With a soft groan, Luna arched her neck for me to massage up. The suds from her mane were no problem, though her mane was always so expansive that it gave me a minor thrill to work on. "You're a big, strong mare. There's not a lot different between you and a big, strong stallion."

"Except a penis." She was right to the point and her point was right—that was something that was different. Turning her head, Luna looked at me. "You sacrifice much to be with me, Stygian."

"And you with me. Another stallion you satisfy you physically—"

"But not mentally. Of lovers I could take my pick, Stygian, but there's only one stallion I'm interested in and only one who can hold up a shred of a conversation and see things from my side." Luna's horn lit up and a moment later I felt a brush start working through my mane. "Besides, I can always masturbate."

"Perhaps, but I still look on you with wonder that you'd do all this for me—with me." I worked slowly down her neck to her wings and started to rub gently over the strong muscles there. "We must both be crazy."

"That's probably part of it. We've both been driven beyond our breaking points, Stygian, we both know what evil can coil around the hearts of ponies. I look at my sister's Royal Guard and I see brave ponies, but has a single one of them faced what we have?" Luna's voice had a touch of sadness to it.

"Well, Shining Armor faced his fair share of darkness, as did the Royal Guard when Cozy Glow stole most of the world's magic. Quite the harsh feeling, I'd gather, to have sworn your life to protect ponies then have that ability stolen." I focused down her left wing, rubbing the muscles I knew were there to relax them. "And again when all Equestria was falling apart. Remember how the tribes broke asunder, but the Royal Guard stood as one."

"You're right. Of course you're right. Sometimes it's hard to see that they're doing their job when they are always th—" Luna let out a low moan as I reached her wingtip.

The tiny muscles that worked her feathers tightened under my hoof, only to release again as I slowly worked on them. "You're flight muscles are tense. We both need to do more flying." I swapped sides, which required dismounting her, circling around behind, then coming up to her other wing.

"… right there. You're spoiling me."

"No more than you're spoiling me. Did you know I thought my life was all-but over? I was content to scribble down what words I could while my nightmares ate me up. I was a wretch." I nibbled along her wing as I worked, my teeth gentle along the softest feathers at the leading edge of her wing.

"You're just trying to get me to talk so you can"—Luna halted as I found the same spot on this wing—"so you can do that to me. I think I'm relaxed enough now."

"What if I wanted to continue?"

"Then I'm telling you as your lover to come to bed. You can work on my rump and tail there—and in the morning." She turned to steal my prize away and started walking up the steps and out of the bath. "Are you coming?"

I pouted at her until she climbed back into the bath and let me wash her tail. Only when she was fully primped did I start to climb out too.

"You look a lot better than you used to, you know?" Luna used her magic to waft us both with hot air to quickly dry us off. "I wonder if your time as the Pony of Shadows didn't sap some of your vitality."

Her expression showed not a hint of concern, but rather I realized she was looking at me like I was a bag of apples! It only then occurred to me that she really did want to get to bed and have some fun. Well, too bad, I like brushing your tail. "It wouldn't surprise me. That was a stressful time of my life." I dried off first, which gave me the opportunity to strut to the bed and ruffle my wings.

My wings.

Half the time I forgot they were there. A pegasus would be gesturing and using their wings to hold things. I tended to just fold them and leave them unless I needed to fly. That is, I did that unless I knew Luna was checking me out. Stretching out my left wing, I reached all the way across to touch the wall as I neared the bed. A casual glance back at Luna over my shoulder showed me somepony who'd forgotten how to dry herself—she was staring at me. "Almost done?" I asked.

Luna shook her head and stepped out of the drying area. "Yes. I believe I am now. Your wings are amazing."

"I've been working on them. You said the magic would take better the more I use them, well, I've been talking to the Royal Guard about what exercises I can do with just my wings." I shook both limbs in question before settling them back at my sides. "I still don't use them as much as a pegasus might, but I understand that will come with time."

"Mmm, you like them that much?" I hadn't been watching her and thus hadn't seen how quickly she'd moved to the bed. Luna pressed against my side and grabbed me with one of her wings before she nibbled on my neck.

Arching my neck a little to let her have free rein with my throat, I stretched my own wing over hers and used it to wrap from the top of her spine all the way over her and tucked the farthest two fingers under her belly. "I like flying, but I also like what I can do with them in other ways."

Luna clamped her teeth down over my windpipe, not crushing it, but making sure I knew she wanted to do something more. I held stock-still for her until she released her bite. "Sorry, I needed to—to do that."

Flashing her a smile, I let go of her body and flopped sideways onto the bed. "Have you forgotten I enjoy a little struggle?"

"No. I was counting on it." Luna tried to pounce onto me, but I'd seen her ruse and rolled away—that didn't stop her from reaching out with a wing to grab my shoulder and slide me across the bed and against her.

She was so big and so strong, but somehow I managed to forget that sometimes. She leaned against me and pinned my body against hers. When our lips touched, we both slipped into a dream.

Author's Note

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Lab

Chapter 7

The changes were subtle. Luna's body was still strong and bigger than mine, but now he had a certain something.

"You feel different in here." Luna's voice was a touch deeper. He curled a foreleg around me, worked his hoof between my forelegs, and pulled me tighter to him.

A soft sound left my throat and I reached a wing around his back and clung against him. "Oh? I was just thinking the same thing. You first."

"You're softer, but bigger. You're more wingy—using them I mean. More physical too." Tilting his head just right, Luna rested his head against mine so our horns gently touched and crossed. "Your physical responses are more certain here."

"Out—In the waking world you're female. I know it shouldn't matter, but I still feel reminders of that when we're intimate there. I wish I wasn't. I wish I could hold you tight, like now, and not have anything else matter."

He kissed the bridge of my nose and then licked the same spot. "It felt different to be more masculine at first, but now it's normal. It's right. You're what makes it right, Stygian. Being here with you, like this, brings more joy than I thought I'd ever feel." Another little kiss and another little lick. "Now it's your turn. What's different about me here, and if you just say that I have a penis, I'll get cross with you."

"You're firmer, bigger—What I like most about you here is your confidence."

"What?"

"Confidence. Even in bed you wouldn't be this forward. You're almost crushing me against you, Luna. Please don't stop doing that." When his grip tightened just a little, it pulled another little sigh of delight from me. "Moreso lately."

"Nightmare Moon."

I nuzzled his neck and nibbled along his throat. "Hrmm?"

"When the Elements saved me, they burned away more of me than I realized. I was a warrior, Stygian. I was Celestia's barbarian. I let my emotions drive me far more than I do now. I think that's why the Elements of Harmony burned away everything that made me Nightmare Moon. I thought it was permanent and had accepted that, but roleplaying as her woke my emotions." He moved smoothly. Luna rolled me onto my back, shoved me against the soft bed with his wings, and brushed his fangs across my throat. "You woke all my passions."

"You—" My voice froze in my throat as Luna's mouth opened at my neck and he brushed the points of his fangs along the soft underside of my jaw. I squirmed and wiggled under him, unable to hold still any part except my neck and head. "L-Luna?"

His breath was heavy and panting against my neck. "What?"

"I won't submit." As the words passed my lips, the visage of the Pony of Shadows flowed over me. No sooner had I become smoky darkness than Luna's teeth snapped closed where my neck had been. "I won't submit to anypony who can't make me."

Flowing off the bed, I reformed beside it into the winged and horned beast that was the Pony of Shadows. Okay, so I was winged and horned all the time now, but this was something special. Rolling my shoulders, I looked at where Luna, her fur bleeding over into midnight black, her cutie mark turning deep purple, looked back at me with eyes that narrowed to slits.

"I was just playing last time, little stallion." I took a step toward him, then another. Each motion saw my body grow and grow.

"Hold on, Stygian." Luna's voice was distinct from Nightmare Moon's only by the tone. He still sounded horny and excited, but there was a touch of urgency. "You can't hurt me here, but I will wake up sore if you get too rough."

It took a lot of self-control to keep from jumping on him anyway. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. "Tell me how you want me to continue?"

A soft ripple passed through the dream world. Luna was still Luna and I was still myself, but something was subtly different. "I think this will work."

"What did you do?"

"The world we're in now is different, Stygian. Different rules and different consequences. You've seen the little animations some ponies make with paper and film? This has as much consequence to us as those. The downside is things won't feel as real as they do normally." Luna locked eyes with me and took a step closer. "If you feel too much, it will shatter this magic and we will both wake up with headaches and I will be as sore as last time."

So focus on the not-real? This would be something I could do. I smiled at Luna, showing off my fangs to good effect. "Then if I do this right, it will strengthen this reality."

My form didn't just double—I grew to ten times what a pony should be. Luna, or Nightmare Moon as he was now, looked up at me with a shocked expression.

"I believe I've made a technical error." Nightmare Moon summoned his magic and tried to lash out at me with it, but knowing there wasn't any way to be hurt won this "fight" for me before he'd even started.

"No. You've made only good decisions. This. Is. Right." I planted one giant hoof in the middle of Nightmare Moon's back and forced his belly to the ground. "Now to make you my harem-stallion."

Luna's giggle almost broke the fantasy for a moment, but he cleared his throat and started to struggle. "Never! I will never submit to—to…" He was facing toward my belly and could no-doubt see what was coming his way. "S-So b-big…"

"That's right. Open your mouth and kiss it." My shaft was bigger than he was. In all about three times his length and thick enough around so that my urethra would match his throat for size. Okay, so I had a thing for this, but Luna wasn't exactly trying to tap out.

He'd been right. The sensation of him kissing the flare of my shaft was reduced, but that could also have something to do with how big I was. Then he took things up a notch and started nuzzling and rubbing his head against me, and I no longer cared how silly this dreamscape was.

My hips moved on their own and I shoved the huge shape so that it pressed against his cheek and then down along his spine before pulling back. I was leaking thick and gloopy black precum all over him and Luna seemed to revel in it.

Old traditions, from before my exile, held that a stallion would sometimes mark a mare as his with his scent on her back. Luna—in here—was no mare, but I think I'd try to bring something old back anew. "You're old enough to remember how a stallion would claim their prize?"

Pressing forward again, I made sure to rub my shaft over one side of Luna's back and then drag it back the other. I could feel my end approaching, but in this place that didn't need to be the final end of our fun. Rocking my hips and letting my mind run away with the situation, I felt my pleasure ramp up. "Open your mouth."

He did as I told him. Luna opened his mouth and pressed it to the opening of my black shaft. The sight of him under my belly was more than enough to push me over the edge.

My body shook, the dark form wanting to spear forward into the depths of my undersized mate. I held my loins in check and instead left him in the firing line of what was even now shooting down my shaft toward him.

"Wha—?" Luna's voice sounded shocked, but was quickly silenced by the torrent of dark seed that sprayed out onto him. He managed to get a few gulps down before it bulged out the corners of his mouth and he lost control of it.

Blast after blast hit him, painting his face, shoulders, back, and even his wings. If he weren't already black, it would have shown up better on his coat, but the smell was something else. Watching as Nightmare Moon's form became more and more drenched in the hot mess caused so much excitement that I seemed unlikely to stop.

Thinking quickly, I stomped around him, spraying more mess everywhere as I did, then pressed my hoof on his forequarters. Bracing my shaft against his rump, I pushed until I hefted it up.

"St-Stygian!" His cry wasn't one of pain or panic, but of shocked excitement. The seal wasn't perfect, but I'd pressed my tip over his rump close enough that I knew at least some of it was shooting inside him—despite the mess leaking down his legs.

His belly bulged and he seemed to flop in place and let me keep going. Only when he looked pregnant did I stop and push his rump down. The rest of my load went down and up his back, layered over itself until he was a dripping mess and I couldn't even see his purple cutie marks anymore.

Stepping away for a moment, I looked at my work as I circled my him.

"Are you satisfied?" His voice was all Luna. "Stygian, you better get down here and kiss me or I'm going to get cross."

Shrinking was harder than growing, but not by much. I just had to imagine myself a smaller and smaller Pony of Shadows until I was only a little larger than Nightmare Moon. Strutting up to him, I leaned down and ran my muzzle from his dock to his neck, licking up my mess and inhaling my musk that was all over him. Laying down in the mess beside Luna, I kissed his cheek. "I believe that's called getting carried away."

Reaching a cum-soaked wing up and over my back, Luna pulled himself snug against me and kissed me properly. I could taste myself in his mouth and on his lips as we sank into a relaxed kiss.

Neither of us seemed inclined to break apart yet, but Luna started pressing her tongue into my mouth repeatedly. I was wondering what he was doing, though it just seemed to be a thing he was into.

Not one to deny Luna anything, particularly after what we just got up to, I closed my lips on his tongue and even nibbled it a little. His groans (along with my own) were a good sign this was something we could both enjoy.

"You marked me just like you said you would." His words were punctuated by another little kiss. "I've heard that's out of fashion these days."

"But it wasn't from when I come from, or you?" I asked.

He shook his head. "It was going out of fashion in Canterlot even in my time, but remember what I said?"

I raised an eyebrow and made a rising note in my throat as I nuzzled his cheek.

"I'm a barbarian, Stygian. A warrior and somepony who, even in my time, looked back on the past with hot blood." Luna flashed his maw at me, showing the sharp fangs of Nightmare Moon. "I built this form as a way to get my revenge and look as fierce as my ancestors. I wanted to fight and beat down anything that challenged our new Equestria."

"And you let yourself be defeated by the Pony of Shadows?" I asked.

A low growl came up from Nightmare Moon's throat. "That only happened because I—" He squirmed a little in the mess we were both laying in. "I wanted this. I wanted to feel how powerful you were."

"Well, you felt it. Am I worthy?" I nuzzled his cheek and formed my tongue into a long piece of goop that trailed around and under his neck and jaw.

"You're a monster, just like me." Coming from anypony but Nightmare Moon, that might have been an insult. We were alphas so far as being those monsters went. We'd won—but for a plucky group of heroes almost sacrificing themselves to stop us. "You may have filled me up, but I promise you I can be your better in a fight."

"Want prove that?" With a wing I nudged his belly. "Looks like you're a little—" The bulge decreased and shrank down rapidly, though he was still covered in my scent. "Oh, shall we dance?"

"Dance? I like that. Yes, Pony of Shadows, we will dance." He pulled his wing back from me and stood up. His coat seemed mostly clean of my mess except for a big stripe down his back. "I think it's about time I mark my stallion, too."

The thought of him doing that to me hadn't crossed my mind, but now it made my legs a little weak just thinking about. I wanted to be his, as he was mine. Shoving aside the trembling in my knees and the butterflies in my belly. "If you think you can—I'd like to see you try."

He was fast. Nightmare Moon was moving before I'd fully realized what he was going to do, and I was dodging his wings and teeth in rapid succession. For all I wanted him to win, there was enough of the Pony of Shadows in me that I didn't want to let him win.

Again and again he slashed, kicked, and snapped his fangs at me. His ferocity was amazing and had me too excited to notice whatever it was he was really planning until it was too late—I knew he was trying to do something, but I was enjoying sparring with him too much to go looking.

"Got you." Dark blue and swirling magic shot out of the ground around me and coiled around my body. My first instinct was to flow out of it, but the grip spread out and encased my back-end before I could get so much get the thought together. Something about his magic kept me solid within it, leaving me no way out. "And, now, I'm going to have some fun."

I strained and struggled against his magic, but Nightmare Moon's power—particularly in a dream—was too much for me. Watching as he circled around behind me, I realized that from my belly backwards looked like I was cloaked in his power. Even my tail resembled his. "You'll never get away with this!"

"My little stallion, I already have." He lunged up and onto me, his chest shoving down into my back and his forelegs tightening around my girth. Ignoring my struggles, he shoved forward and I felt his length kiss the underside of my tail. "Will you hold still or will you struggle until I mark you as mine?"

"Never!" I tried to use my magic to pull free, but the moment I started to build power he shoved forward. The feel of him inside me shorted out my attempts at magic. I grunted and arched my back as he shoved deeper and deeper into me.

"There. The taming of wild stallions has always been among my talents." Every time I tried to move, he'd shove with his hips and remind me of his size. When I finally stilled, he jerked back and shoved into me again.

I wanted to shout at him and deny that he was taming me, but deep down inside I knew that was exactly what was happening. Each thrust weakened my resolve more to the point where his constant motion eroded my will to struggle completely and I started making soft whinnies of lust, but still he didn't stop.

All pretense was dropped as I started shoving myself back against him. The feeling of him atop me caused every partner I'd ever been with to pale by comparison—and not just because they were no longer alive.

"Are you ready to receive me?" He asked.

"R-Ready?" My mind struggled to come up with the words to use, which was odd given my professions. I turned my head to look at him from the corner of my eye, and beheld him—wings spread and tail arched high—not looking the slightest bit fatigued. He was amazing and magnificent. "Yessss…"

He stopped thrusting by dint of ramming himself all the way into me until I felt his thighs shoved against my rump. His fanged teeth clamped down on my crest and he pulled my head and neck back—forcing my body onto him. His growl echoed through my body as a hot rush of pressure forced its way into my rear and started spreading.

As the pressure increased and spread upward, I became more confused as to what he was doing until my brain finally made sense of things. Nothing here would hurt. What is normally impossible, is possible. Those thoughts hit me just as I coughed out a wad of Nightmare Moon's seed.

Leaning low over me, pressing his throat to the back of my neck, Nightmare Moon purred softly and nuzzled me, while I kept coughing and spitting out what he was firing into me. "I love you, Stygian. I never said I'd mark you outside."

I managed to laugh somehow, despite what he'd fed into me from behind. "'uve you t—" Shivering as he pulled out, I felt the flow stop and was able to gulp down what was in my mouth. "I love you too, Luna."

"I think we're even." He walked around me, releasing his magic, and kissed my cheek.

"Even? We're keeping score?" I nuzzled him back and tried to take a step. Only then did I realize how bloated I was with his cum. I shivered at the sensation and looked back again. Sure enough, my belly was puffed out and swollen. "Wow."

"You like it?" Luna nuzzled at my belly. "I like it. You're full of me."

"Mmm." I leaned up and nibbled on his neck. "It's probably the best thing to be full of. Could you imagine if I was full of myself?"

"Nope." His snout traced a line up my body to my neck and cheek again. Once more he was larger than me, something I enjoyed while cuddling far more than the other way around. "Would you like some more?"

"That depends on where you plan to put it." I nodded my head backward. "I don't think there's any room left."

Luna walked toward the bed and rolled onto his back. "Really? I'm sure you can find room for seconds."

Trying to ignore how full I was, and failing, I walked over to Luna and leaned down— "Wait," I said as the situation was just too much. "I need this a bit smaller if I'm going to crouch."

"Was I too much for you?"

"No, it's just—" A shudder passed from my dock to the spot between my ears. It was Luna's magic, of course, but it wasn't until I felt the weight ease that I realized he was giving me a reprieve. Then again, I knew what he wanted. "Thank you."

"You know how you can thank me?" He waved his hips side to side, which caused his erection to wave in the air.

I wasn't averse to thanking him like that, but I wanted to work up to it. Not everything should be done so fast. I pressed my nose to his dock first. Little licks against the tender flesh there made him squirm on his back. More licks actually made him groan. "What's the matter?"

"You. Always teasing me." He growled a little and threw back his head. "I love it so much!"

Sticking out my tongue, I ran a huge, slurpy lick all the way from his dock to his balls. The taste of my own seed on his anus and the musk from his perineum had me shivering in excitement. His balls were big, bulging a little in his scrotum. Nuzzling them carefully, I stared past them at the prize that awaited.

"Stygian?"

I had to pause my exploration of his balls to reply. "Yes?"

"When was the last time I said I love you?"

"Just then. Why?"

"I love you."

I giggled and pressed my nose between his balls, then rolled my snout forward so they were resting each side of my throat. "I bet I can make you love me more."

Given that I had my muzzle resting on his shaft, Luna looked a little distracted, but he eventually looked down at me. "That would be hard to—"

I started humming. Long, low tones that made my throat vibrate heavily. Luna's musky scent grew a little stronger as a dribble of pre flowed from his shaft in a little river—dribbling down onto his belly.

"Ffffu— Stygian!" His cry was music to my ears, so hearing him actually whinny aloud when I kept going made my night.

He squirmed and shifted as much as he could, but the weight of my upper body kept his hips pinned to the bed and my humming kept his mind from working out what I was up to until I had his shaft wrapped in my magic.

I started stroking him slowly—there was no need to rush. I kept my humming going, my eyes glazing over a little at the sight of my magic working up and down his rock-hard shaft.

But, I didn't want him shooting off from this—oh no. I wanted to be inside him while he came. Lifting my jaw from his shaft, I gave each of his balls a gentle nuzzle and a kiss before climbing up on the bed—my forehooves on each side of him and my magic still jacking him off.

"What are you—?" He barely got the three words out before I shoved into him. In magical dreams, where reality is abstracted twice, I didn't need to worry so much about lubrication. Doubly so since I'd been in him not long ago.

I looked down on him as he made all the happy sounds a stallion could when you were inside him and he was getting a good magic-job. I watched as he shook his head from side to side, but finally managed to lock eyes with me.

There wasn't much I enjoyed more than making love to him while we could keep eye contact. It was often hard to find positions for equine bodies that allowed it—and twice as hard when gay. But, with the position we had in this dream, I could stare into Luna's loving gaze while I buggered him for all I was worth.

Our sounds turned to grunts and guttural tones as we both worked toward a peak. While I could control the pace of both of us, I had no clue how close exactly he was. I was getting near the point of no return, but Luna looked to be still coasting.

Okay, I knew what got his motor running. Careful, I extended my magic down his length to gently cup his balls. When his eyes widened in surprise, I knew I had started to hit pay-dirt.

Luna grunted and started bucking his hips with each stroke of his shaft, my squeezing massage of his balls pushing his arousal along nicely now. Watching as he became more and more erratic, I realized I might have timed things just perfectly.

Who says dreams can't become reality?

He gripped down on my shaft with his muscles and squeezed me hard. Trying to pull back for another shove seemed like trying to do too much, so instead I shortened my stroke and ground as hard into him as I could.

When Luna's shaft swelled and his tip flared wider than ever, I felt myself on the verge of release. I squeezed Luna's shaft and gave his balls a little tug, only to be rewarded by more clenching and a jet of cum from his shaft.

Seeing him hit his peak, and feeling it too, sent me over the edge into my own. Heedless of the tight grip, I began bucking against him fast and hard as my own body started to unload.

The overwhelming urge to carry out my biological urges—even if we were in a dream—held my full attention for some time. I grabbed Luna, pulled him tight against me, and did nothing but pump him full of my seed.

When the moment finally passed, I collapsed forward and landed against Luna's belly with a soft splat. The heat of what lay between use was a testament to how well I'd done to bring him and myself at the same time. "You—" I didn't get out more than a word when the dream snapped around us.

Waking up with Luna was never a sad thing. I felt her forelegs around me, a wing too at the moment, and I clung to her in a similar manner. Her body wasn't unfamiliar anymore, but something did surprise me.

Our position was identical to how we'd been when in the dream. I was atop her, as I'd been atop him, and I was also within her. Her body squeezed at my hardness, and I felt like I'd just climaxed—as I had in the dream.

But I wasn't in Luna's rump. My shaft was gripped in the tight and velvety embrace of her vulva and vagina.

"Stygian? Are you okay?" Luna asked.

This was still Luna. This was the mare and stallion I loved. This wasn't what I would have wanted, but the act was done. "Y-Yeah. I'm going to have a bath." Please come with me.

I was a chicken. I couldn't say those words aloud. Thinking about anything but how our bodies were joined, I withdrew from her and practically galloped to the bath and sank into it. Closing my eyes, I tried to forget what had happened.

But I couldn't. A wing reached around me and, before anything else could happen, I rushed against her and hugged her with my forelegs. "I'm so sorry!"

She held me tight against her and made soft sounds as I shook. What I'd done was unconscionable and stupid beyond belief. I couldn't believe how well she was taking what I'd done. "It's alright, Stygian."

"It's not alright, not after what I just did to you."

"Stygian?" Her voice held confusion. With my face buried against her neck I couldn't see her expression. "Stygian? Look at me." When I lifted my face away from her neck and looked into her eyes, I saw infinite compassion and a little curiosity. "Why are you apologizing?"

"I—I just—" I clamped my teeth down and looked away, which only resulted in Luna putting her hoof under my chin and guiding me to look back at her. "While we were dreaming I had sex with you, Luna."

"Yes."

"What if you're pregnant? We weren't—I mean there wasn't any—any protection. We just—" She stopped my disjointed rambling by kissing me. It seemed crazy, like rewarding me for what I'd done, but I couldn't deny the effect her embrace had. I relaxed into the kiss and let her cradle me in her wings.

"You're partly right, Stygian. I hadn't counted on this. Waking up with you hard against me or in my rump, maybe, but there's something very important here I need to tell you." She nuzzled and kissed my cheek and up to my ear. "Having your foal would be wonderful."

It took several seconds for the words to make sense. I felt like I was going crazy. "M-My foal?"

"You see, Stygian, that's what happens when mares and stallions—" She paused. "You're not listening, are you?"

"You're not angry that I—that I put myself upon you like that? We haven't even talked about—about doing that kind of thing. I don't—" She stopped me with another kiss. Her kisses would stop being so effective the moment they were not the best kisses in the world. When I managed to get air again, I just let out a little whine.

"Stygian, we've been together now for months. Everypony in Canterlot knows we're together and Cadance is probably itching to plan our wedding. While I admit that pregnancy wasn't exactly something I'd planned for, it would be a delight to bring a new life into the world with you." A giggle and a kiss to my cheek helped calm me further. "Also, I won't say it wasn't nice to wake up to—though I understand you are not interested in me that way."

Stretching my wings up and from the water, I wrapped them around Luna and held tight to her. I was never going to be as big as she is in the real world, but I had taken to wearing the armor she found sexy on me, and while it was enchanted to be lighter, it was still more weight than normal. Where I'd been skin and bones before, now there was actual muscle there. "It wasn't—well, it wasn't terrible, but I'd still rather not. I love you, Luna, but it's not physical unless we're—"

"Unless I'm a stallion." She nuzzled me around the neck, turning her head sideways a little to not impale me on her horn. "If that was a problem for me, Stygian, I would have told you. Connecting as two ponies—mentally—is more important than physical things. Honestly speaking, I've not had a stallion that way in so long, it doesn't feel strange for our physical love to be entirely within the dream realm. It was a surprise to wake up like that, I'll admit, but not unpleasant."

"We never discussed—" A wet, blue hoof pressed to my snout. I waited for Luna to remove it. "This is a moment where the gay guy just doesn't get something, isn't it?"

"Stygian, if you think for a second that I don't appreciate how much you worry about hurting me, you have another thing coming. You're not just a gay guy, you're a wonderful stallion and somepony I want to spend a lot of time with." Luna uncurled her wings and gently drew from my grip as she floated off into the huge bath. "Now, how about we clean up before visiting my sister?"

"Do I really need to?" Luna asked.

"Yes," Celestia and I said at the same time.

"You do," I added alone.

Celestia put a wing over her sister's back and gave her a short squeeze before releasing her once more. "Luna, the reason why we have all this technology is to make things easier and safer. You're going to get checked up, and you will keep going so long as they think it required."

Luna looked at me imploringly.

"Oh no. Remember, I'm not qualified here. Your sister's word is final as far as modern things go." I had to stretch up to nuzzle Luna's cheek, but it was something I'd practiced a lot. "Even if we know the answer."

"So it's two to one." Celestia gestured to the main doors of the throne room. "And that means you're out-voted, Luna."

I offered her my hoof and used the imploring look I'd found to work best when Luna knew I was right about something. When she lifted her hoof and clopped it to mine, I knew we'd won. "Come on, we can fly there."

That was what cinched it. Luna's face broke into a smile and we walked together out into the early morning air—though not without a yawn each. When we had the room to, we each stretched our wings and lifted into the sky.

The warmth of Celestia's sun helped drive away the tiredness of a night of work and even had me start doing some tricks in the air—tricks that Luna countered with her own. All the while we flew, however, we got closer and closer to the medical district of Canterlot.

With one last quick inversion, I looped around Luna's larger form with a shout and then turned the stall that resulted into a dive to the ground. We landed side-by-side at the steps of Canterlot hospital. "They know we're coming," I said.

"You were that confident you could talk me into this?" Luna walked at my side to the front door and used her magic to push it open.

"Given I had a whole night of nagging planned, and they were happy to reschedule, yes." I stuck my tongue out at her as we neared the front desk. "A booking for Princess Luna," I said to the receptionist.

The mare behind the counter (white coat and pink mane) quickly flipped through a book. "Y-Yes! I mean, we have the appointment. It's for a—" There were times when a pony would just stop processing the world around them as their brains caught up on recent events. The receptionist's eyes widened to saucers and her pupils dilated so that they almost filled up all the space visible. "R-R-R-R—" She stopped again, closed her mouth, and held up a hoof. "N-Nurse Softhoof?"

An earth pony stallion wearing a nurse uniform walked out of a back room and behind the receptionist. "Hi there, I'm Nurse Softhoof. What do we have—" He looked to choke for a moment before coughing just once. "Right this way, Your Highness."

We left the receptionist behind and headed into the hospital proper. The building was gleaming with white walls and ceilings. The floors were a firm gray substance that I couldn't recognize.

"Do you know how far you are along?" the nurse asked.

"It can't be more than two and a half moons," Luna said, turning her head to wink at me.

Nurse Softhoof turned sideways at a doorway as if to herd us into the room. "And you're fine with mr…?"

"Stygian," Luna said.

The nurse's eyes flared a little in recognition. "Of course. We have to ask this: you're okay with Stygian being present?"

Luna, who was already walking into the room, seemed distracted. When she was inside, I tapped her shoulder with my right wing-claw. "Oh! Of course. He'd be—he is—the father."

Every time I heard that it surprised me. I was going to be a father. Okay, it surprised and excited me. We'd woken up in flagrante delicto many more times over almost three moons. Sometimes it was post coitus, but other times my body was not yet done. The last time the latter had happened, I'd even finished off. It had become normal. My body still had desires for a mare, and I couldn't say I blamed it.

Walking up beside Luna, I nuzzled her cheek and waited for the nurse to come in.

"Perfect. Okay, most of your details are already filled in on this form. If you'd like to lay on the bed there—on your back—we can get started." Nurse Softhoof wheeled over a device with a big, flat display on it.

I knew enough about modern technology to know roughly how the device worked. It used sound in the same way bats did to see what was inside a body and it would show it on the screen. Information like this wasn't all that common knowledge, but I'd written a book about a doctor, and because he knew, I needed to know.

While I'd been musing on the machinery, Luna had been trying to get herself turned over on the bed. As she squirmed and wiggled, I moved over and helped her. "Thank you," she said.

"It's the least I can do, love." With her at a much more accessible height, I took full advantage and kissed her cheek and jaw. "Would have been easier if I had some paper."

"I confess, I've never met a bat pony before. Are your kind rare?" The nurse was speaking as he worked his machine into position. The trolley it was on had one squeaky wheel that put up a lot of protest. He turned the machine on and smeared the gel onto the tool. "This will be a little cold, I'm sorry."

Luna shivered on the bed when the nurse applied the hand-piece just below her belly. "Very rare. So rare that you have the only one in the room with you." She turned and looked at me with a wink.

My eyes, however, were fixed on the image on the screen. The nurse, too, was looking at it. There was a tiny shape that became clearer still as he moved the wand to aim it. "You might want to revise that," the nurse said.

I could see, clear as day, that the tiny shape had a little pair of wings on its back—and the wings had tiny little finger bones on them.

"That's our little…" Luna trailed off, her tone one of wonder. She did well getting that much out—I couldn't manage a word.

"Little filly. A bat pony filly with—with a horn." As he spoke, the nurse sounded absolutely stunned. To be fair, I was and I hadn't even noticed the horn.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

Nurse Softhoof gestured at part of the screen. "That's her nearest wing with its tiny bones, and this is her head. It's hard to discern a horn at this age normally, but your little girl is—gifted."

The display became surrounded in cobalt magic as Luna picked it up and brought it into her own field of view. "That's—that's her. A little filly. Our little filly."

"You might want to put that back down. They can record and save the pictures for later, love." The fact that I worried Luna would drop the likely expensive piece of equipment was worrying enough, but the look of panic on the nurse's face was enough that I wanted to calm Luna.

"Yes. Yes, of course." Luna floated the screen back down to the cart and put it down gently. "I was just a little—" She stopped talking because, finally realizing what the actual problem was, I stepped out of the way and let Luna see the screen herself. "That's her heart beating?"

"It sure is. The ultrasound records every thirty seconds, there will be plenty of pictures to choose from." Nurse Softhoof drew the wand back from Luna's body and the image went dark.

"We're going to have a little filly, Stygian. She has a horn and wings." The importance of Luna's words didn't sink in until several seconds later. My own wings were simply an addition—I was a unicorn with wings. A little filly born with a horn and wings would mean—

"Alicorn…" we both said together.

Things were happening about ten times faster than they should have—or so it seemed. Luna's belly had made our relationship a done deal so far as the aristocracy of Canterlot were concerned. They couldn't have cared less that I wasn't royalty myself, they just had another princess growing large with the security of Equestria's future inside her.

I was just a pretty stallion who trotted at her side and didn't act crass. Okay, I was more than that, but right now I was a very specific type of stallion. A one-in-a-million, you might say.

"Why did you do this to me?!" Luna's horn was boiling with dark magic. If she really wanted to blast a hole in me, she could have and I don't know as anyone but Celestia (and myself) would have been terribly upset. She stomped toward me with her dark steel shoes sending up sparks from the stones until she was towering over me. "You! Made! Me! Fat!"

She was just glaring at me, all the fury of a thousand years of days and nights spent on the moon burning in her eyes. But I'd been trapped in my own private abyss for over a thousand years. I looked up into Luna's burning eyes, leaned closer and kissed her on the lips—just once and quickly. "You look beautiful."

The fury lasted nearly five heartbeats and then she closed her eyes and leaned down to kiss me again. This one lingered, giving me the chance to nuzzle and kiss her again and again until she giggled. "I'm sorry, Stygian, but I just—"

"Shh. I know. I talked with the nurses and with other mares. This is normal, and I won't let your fury get in the way of our love. Have you forgotten the first rule of being a writer?" I reached up with my left wing-thumb and rubbed behind her ear with it.

"Research. Lots of research. Half the time I wonder if you talk with petitioners just for information that you can use in your stories. I just—I feel huge, Stygian. I feel like a fat blob that can barely fit through doorways." The worst bit about her words was how much she sounded like she believed them.

Reaching my right wing up too now, I got her completely confuzzled with a two-ear rub. Her eyes closed for a moment as the attention stole her focus away from her thoughts. "Come on. Come over here." I started leading, and without even opening her eyes she was following me.

"Where?" Luna asked.

"Here. You're standing in a doorway." I kissed her nose. "Not your main doorway, but the cleaning closet." That I lived in quarters big enough to have their own cleaning supplies—in Canterlot Castle—was still something I marveled at every day. "You're not huge. You're not fat. You have a foal inside you who needs her space. She has big wings and a big horn to grow into."

A few seconds passed before I realized something—my ear-rubbing had put her to sleep on her hooves. Having learned my lessons, I reached out with my magic for the huge stack of paper in the bedroom and grabbed a pile of pages from the top. "As much as I'd like to wake you and continue telling you how amazing you are, you need your sleep."

The paper was always so gentle. I carefully supported her chest, barrel, and below her fat belly. No, I shouldn't even think that. Lifting Luna just an inch off the ground, I kept up the ear rubs all the way to our bed and set her down gently on it. At the last moment, as I climbed on myself, I had to break that contact.

"Stygian?" Luna's voice sounded wobbly and not a little bit like she was half-asleep.

"Hrmm?" I settled down beside her.

"No matter what I say, I still love you."

What could I say to that that wouldn't be cliché? "Yeah, I know. I love you too."

The throne room was covered in pamphlets, booklets, advertisements, and even letters from ponies. My power trembled in the presence of so much paper. "What did Cadance and Shining do?" I asked.

"They hired Twilight's friends from Ponyville to run everything. They even had Twilight herself organize it." The way Luna spoke made me think there was a story there. Her size hadn't gone down—quite the opposite—but she'd managed to keep her I'm Fat and It's All Your Fault arguments to only one a day.

The caterers, planners, reception hosts, and the ponies capable of a dozen other little jobs that were required for a wedding to go ahead (on the scale of a royal wedding, at least) jerked awake. They were so far out of their normal waking hours I could see some of them wobbling on their hooves. Fools—they needed to learn how to lock their knees.

"I don't suppose we could do that? Though, I would like to have Starlight Glimmer involved in the process. Despite all the books I've written, I still can't find the words to say how much she means to me." I leaned across and kissed Luna's cheek—something I was now officially not able to be reprimanded for in public. It wasn't easy, of course, and I had to rear up a little behind my little desk to do reach.

"Mmm." Luna leaned and turned her head slightly, drawing my lips around her cheek toward her own. Before the kiss became something that would leave us both distracted from the task at hoof, she broke apart. "A fiancee could get terribly jealous of such a statement—if she didn't have her own savior." Luna leaned close enough that her lips were brushing my left ear. "And know her future husband's tastes."

My tastes, at least for companionship, did not generally include mares, a fact that the press and rumor mills hadn't been privy to—nor did we intend them to ever be. "We share so much it's always a revelation to find something we haven't both done. Twilight and Starlight to work together and plan our wedding, then. That takes… the entire load off us. Right?"

"Ahem." Luna cleared her throat, immediately silencing the grumbling coming from the assembled. "This doesn't mean you won't be needed, just that you have other ponies to ask about it."

Their faces turned hopeful as they gathered up their paperwork and filed out of the throne room.

"We should have thought of this from the start. I'll talk to Twilight—Wait. We can just summon them." Luna started to charge her horn.

"Wait!" My shout, thankfully, stopped her. "You're not going to just teleport them here, now?"

"No, I was going to bring them into a common dream and ask them both." Luna lifted her hoof up and booped me on the nose, something I found cute despite how her horseshoes often were cold. "Would you like to join me?"

The Royal Guard, seeing that no further wedding staff were needed, closed the doors as Luna reached out a wing and curled it around me. Rather than just be pulled against the throne (which I knew wasn't comfortable), I climbed up with my own wings and perched on the arm. As her magic poured into me and pulled me into the dream world, I felt myself fall against her side—cradled against her.

Big as Luna is in the dream realm, I spread my wing around her and hugged her against me. What I didn't expect to see was a tiny filly cradled in her wing. "W-W-Wa-Who?"

"Our daughter. She didn't have her own form yet, but I helped with that. She's still trying to understand this dream. I've never seen a pre-birth foal in the dream world before." Her voice was full of wonder—it was like listening to a foal first reading a book they enjoy. "She's wonderful."

The tiny bundle of fuzz and leathery wings tilted her head and looked up at me. She couldn't talk, but her eyes were an amazing shade of purple so dark that I felt like I could fall into them.

"Is she—? How is this even possible?" I asked, unable to look away.

"Magic, Stygian. I stopped trying to make sense of these things when—" She paused almost mid-word when our foal kicked one of her legs. "I felt that. I'm in the dream world but I felt her kick inside me."

I squeezed myself against Luna and couldn't think of anywhere else I wanted to be right now. We must have spent hours just watching her trying out her limbs one at a time before I remembered why we'd come here. "Twilight and Starlight?"

"Yes. Of course. Sorry, I got a little distracted." Luna's eyes were still on our daughter who was now starting to kick around a little more. "If she's kicking around in me this much, I don't look forward to waking up." Luna's horn flared bright and I felt as two other dreams collided with the one we were in.

From one dream a sea of books came tumbling out along with a purple alicorn. From the other Starlight Glimmer was doing her best not to blush. Luna might be immune to ponies having self-satisfying dreams interrupted, but I wasn't.

"Princess Luna!" Twilight rushed toward us and bowed. "Is there a problem? Is the castle on fire? Did the Storm King pull himself back together? Did Cozy Glow get free?" With each question came more panicked hyperventilating from Twilight.

I summoned a paper bag, opened it, and held it out to Twilight.

Starlight watched Twilight breathing into the paper bag a few times, a knowing smile on her face as she waited for her mentor to be able to talk again. I didn't give her that chance.

Letting go of Luna, I flapped my wings and sailed over my love and landed before Starlight—and bowed. "It's good to see you again."

I didn't care that she blushed anew, she had saved me from the darkness within—she had never wavered even against her mentor and Star Swirl.

"Stygian, you don't have to be so"—Starlight twirled her hoof as if fishing for a word—"extreme. It is good to see you too. I heard there's going to be a royal wedding soon?"

Twilight, who had been sucking on the bag constantly, jerked it away. "Your wedding!" Thousands of scrolls accompanied by thousands of busy quills appeared out of nothingness and started working away. "I don't like to brag, but I have done this before."

"Which is why, Twilight Sparkle, we'd like you to help organize this one." Luna still looked and sounded on top of the world.

"Both of you, actually," I said. "You're both very special to each of us for the same reason."

Luna took my cue and gestured to Twilight and Starlight with her unoccupied wing. "You saved us. Without the two of you, we couldn't be having this wedding and…" She slowly revealed the filly cradled in the feathers of her other wing.

"You had your foal? Isn't it too soon?" Twilight stepped slowly toward Luna, Starlight at her side.

Back to looking at the filly in her wing, Luna's smile could have melted the heart of anyone, not the least of whom being me. "No. She is still safe and—growing. Our daughter decided, nonetheless, that she'd like to dream with us. I fear I may spoil her in all things from this point onward."

"Is that common?" Starlight sounded skeptical, and I couldn't blame her. Every other day Luna reminded me of how amazing she was. Bringing our yet-unborn daughter into the dream realm with us was only the latest.

"I've never seen her like before, in more ways than one." Luna, like any proud mother, adjusted our foal so that she would show off her wings. "I hadn't intended this facet of Stygian to carry over to her, but I think it suits her."

"A born bat pony?" Twilight sounded a mix of surprised and ready to coo at the filly. Our daughter was already claiming hearts. "She's so adorable."

"She has a horn, too." Starlight looked up at Luna and then to me, as if accusing us of something. "You're having a bat pony alicorn?" Rather than accusing, her voice was full of wonder.

I mean, she wasn't going to be the first born alicorn—Shining Armor and Cadance's daughter has that shadow over her head—but being a bat pony was unique enough already without the attention that comes with being the first, born alicorn.

"We need family to help us plan our wedding." I turned my attention to Luna for long enough that she nodded, then I turned back to our saviors. "Apart from Celestia, you two are the only family we have. Nopony has worked as hard as you both to save us from ourselves. If you don't—"

"We will!" Twilight froze after volunteering herself and Starlight, then looked at Starlight with a sheepish grin.

"Of course we will. Stygian, when I saved you from the Pony of Shadows, I was just doing what I thought my mentor would." Starlight winked at Twilight. "She taught me to always give a pony a chance."

"Have you picked a name for her?" Twilight asked.

Luna and I stared at each other in sudden panic. The disruption to both our thoughts broke the dream world apart and sent us into normal, relaxed sleep. It was somewhat different to our normal evening fun, but I don't think either of us felt the need to go further.

I stood with Princess Cadance standing at the top of the dais with Twilight and Starlight standing beside me. All three wore the most amazing dresses just as I was wearing a mix of field armor with a suit jacket over it—something I'd insisted on to show both the origins of our union and my fealty to her.

"Are you nervous?" Starlight asked.

Twilight snorted beside her. "He locked his legs so he wouldn't fall. I used to see Shiny do the same thing when he had to stand guard all night."

Music started and the light in the great hall dimmed—as did the sky outside. An eclipse might be hard for others to coordinate and plan a wedding for, but not for Luna and her sister. I—and everypony else in the hall—looked down the aisle and watched as Luna and Celestia opened the doors together.

All the panic drained out of me at the sight of her. She took up more space at the moment than Celestia, but the way Luna moved set my heart thumping and my mind on fire. There was nopony else within a thousand leagues while she walked toward me in a brilliant silver dress that sparkled in the moonlight.

When she drew up beside me, I managed to shove Celestia's firm glare into the periphery—she was only playing the role of father of the bride anyway. "Would it ruin things," I asked, "if I kissed her now?"

Celestia made a little grunt under her breath, but Cadance just smiled. "We are gathered here today to—" She didn't get further in her speech before Luna's horn started glowing bright. "What's wrong? Your foal?"

A moment later, when Luna's expression turned from pained to normal, she nodded. "Is there a faster version?"

Okay, so I wasn't really panicked before. I thought I was, but just now I discovered the scale of the panic-meter didn't just go to ten—it went to a hundred. "W-W-What?!"

"We are gathered here today to—blah blah blah. Luna, princess of Equestria, lady of the moon, mistress of the night—and other titles—do you take Sir Stygian of Canterlot to be your wedded husband?" Having sped up with almost every word spoken, Princess Cadance looked at Luna. "Was that your first contraction?"

Luna turned to look at me. "Yes and no. I thought I was just cramping. That was the first big one."

I completely missed whatever Princess Cadance asked, what with my eyes being lost in Luna's. When I heard a pony clear their throat, I looked around and spotted Princess Cadance subtly nodding. "Err, yes, I do."

"Then, with great delight as the princess of love I, Princess Cadance, decl—"

The piercing groan from Luna's throat cut through the pronouncement so sharply that I acted on instinct. My horn flared bright in the dim hall. I called, and paper answered. Law books, mostly, blew in through the door and bee-lined toward us.

"… declare you mare and stallion." The words came out in a rush that I barely noticed.

Somepony levitated a ring onto my horn while I picked Luna up in my paper hammock and looked to the two mares who'd saved us before. "Please. How do we get to the hospital fastest without teleporting?"

Twilight's wings shot out and she looked to hit peak panic, but Starlight's face hardened into the most determination I'd ever seen before. "Are you ready? Hold on to Princess Luna." Up until the moment she picked me up with her magic, I had no idea what she planned. My nod was all she needed to start disassembling the nearest stained-glass window.

The glass stacked itself up by the base of the window and we all floated toward the window on turquoise magic that felt like steel bands of power. It was almost as tight as Luna or Celestia's grip. I couldn't help but smile when I realized it was definitely stronger than the Pony of Shadows' grip.

"One express ride to the Canterlot Central Hospital. Hold on to—" Starlight said.

"Wait. I have to do one important thing." Luna's voice sounded rough at the edges, but held an implacable weight akin to the moon. "Stygian, we must kiss in the hall before these matters are done."

I didn't need any more convincing. Pulling her closer with the paper bed I had wrapped under her, I nuzzled and then kissed Luna—my wife. The next contraction hit her a moment after the best kiss of my life started, and I witnessed the strain in her face at close range. Her face looked how I imagined it should when she was moving the moon—but the truth was she never strained this hard when doing that. "Go. Let's move. Please?"

The ride to the hospital was smooth and fast. Starlight turned out to be the best choice after all. She set me down on my hooves at the front doors—which gave me the impetus to carry Luna inside and to the front desk. "My wife's in labor!"

Two loud POMF sounds, followed by shod hooves slamming the doors behind me open, was all the warning I had that Celestia and Twilight had teleported here while Cadance had apparently broken several laws of physics (and some for Canterlot airspace) to reach the hospital just behind us.

The nurses were faster than any of us. They had a trolley under her and were in the process of easing my magic grip before I realized what they were about. One, a mare with a red cross cornered by hearts seemed to take charge. She looked right at me. "You're the husband?" It seemed a moment—almost a whole two seconds—for her to realize there were four princesses in the room. Without so much as a flinch she nodded. "Come on then. I can't stop you all from coming to watch through the window—if she allows it—but only her husband gets to attend."

"That's me," I said as I gave chase.

Behind me I head Cadance's laughter. "By nearly two minutes, too. I'll wait out here for the three of them to be settled." Her voice got quieter and quieter as we headed down the hall.

"In here and keep away from her back-end. I know how to dodge hooves and she might want to talk to you—though in my experience it involves more yelling and accusations than normal talking." The nurse nodded to two unicorn nurses with her and they lifted Luna onto the bed. "Okay, timing her contractions, do we have her file yet?"

Her eyes were closed, I noticed. "Luna?" I leaned down and kissed her cheek, at which point her eyes slowly opened and she looked up at me. "There's my princess. Our little girl wants out, I think."

Luna's face was all serene for nearly five seconds. I watched softness and peace turn to a grimace as she squeezed her eyes closed. The muscles all over her body seemed to strain at the same time as the contraction took her.

I stretched my wing up and put it over her shoulder. When Luna's eyes snapped open again, I squeezed her with that wing and willed some of my own strength into her. It was folly. I couldn't send her strength, but I could be there for her.

The nurse, who'd been mumbling something under her breath, cleared her throat. "They're shortening and she's dilating. Princess Luna, you're doing well. Just keep going as you are and I'll tell you when to actually push."

The forlorn look Luna gave me brought tears to my eyes. I leaned forward and pressed my neck to hers as I squeezed her a little tighter with my wing. "You've got this, Luna. You know you do." I kept up the platitudes as Luna's contractions got shorter and shorter.

"Tell me you love me."

"I love you, Luna."

"Push! Push, Your Highness! Mr. Husband, get her to push!"

The nurse's words galvanized me to action. "Luna? Luna you need to push now."

"I do? Oh!" This time, when the tension took over her body, Luna pushed. I felt it where our bodies touched from our necks, my wing over her back, and even in the bed I was leaning on. She spread her wing and started to flap it wildly.

"Good! Good! And…" Whatever the nurse was going to say next was cut off by the loudest, highest-pitch screech I'd heard in my life. "Tying off the cord, cutting it, and let's get her on her mother."

Under my grip I felt Luna shift. "Where is she? Where is—?"

I shifted out of the way to let Luna look down her body at the little filly laying across one of her back legs—head tucked up against Luna's udder. Tiny bat wings were tucked to her back and her bump-like horn was obvious on her head, but her efforts at drinking had the filly's mouth busy and not screeching like a banshee.

"That's—That's her. That's our little girl. Stygian, look."

Curling my wing under her neck to support her to look down and under herself, I nuzzled against Luna's sweat-stained cheek. But no matter how snuggly I felt for Luna, I couldn't take my eyes off our daughter. "She's perfect."

"Night Life." As soon as Luna said her name, little Night Life's ears twitched. The fuzzy little tufts of fur on their tips were still a little damp, and when Luna repeated the name her whole head twitched. "Night Life, you're just—She's so—" With that, Luna slumped into the crook of my wing and I eased her down to the bed.

"I'm sorry we couldn't save her dress, but under the circumstances we had to cut it off." The nurse reached a hoof up and patted my shoulder. "I'll have them bring in another bed for you to lay on until we can move all of you somewhere else. Would you like help getting out of that armor?"

Our duties in court had been suspended for a little while, which meant Luna and I got to be a little lazy. During the night-time hours we played with Night Life, keeping her sharp mind stimulated, but during the day we took turns waking up to get her situated where she could feed before rejoining the dreamscape.

Thinking back, I wouldn't change a thing. All the uncertainty and complications that Luna caused me as she pulled me from the funk I'd mired myself in—well—I'd go through it all again a hundred times to reach this point.

I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Author's Note

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