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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