Once upon a time, there was a mare called Nightmare Moon. She was a tall blue alicorn, with cat-like eyes betraying her clever-mindedness and wit.
A crash rang out as Nightmare fell off of her bed like an idiot. "BUCK!"
Her entire form screamed grace and elegance. She always moved with an aura of power, determination, and authority.
The floor could be heard wheezing as she rolled along, akin to a beached whale trying to escape into the ocean. "Just keep rolling, rolling, rolling..."
Some called her terrifying. Some called her a savior. Some would even call her sexy.
Why are you looking at me like that? I have no opinion on it.
None. Nada. Zilch. Zero.
But regardless, Nightmare Moon is an incredibly intimidating figure.
*Thump!* "AGH!'
She instilled fear in all who would dare oppose her, and yet she filled with love and admiration the hearts of those who stood by her through thick and thing.
"MOONLIGHT! HELP ME! MY RUMP IS STUCK IN THE WALL!"
But, as amazing as the Mistress of the Night is, this is not her story. No, this is a tale about six mares who discovered-
Wait, this is her story?
Are...are you sure about that? 100% positive?
Uhhh..alrighty then...
Anyway, said Nightmare Moon was currently fuming as she had a magical surge (no, not that kind) while sleeping, and currently found herself in the unfortunate predicament of having her rear end firmly planted within the castle structure.
"MY RUMP IS STUCK IN THE WALL! SHUT UP, NARRATOR!"
Pff, if you want to be crass about it. Yes, her rump was "stuck in the wall", as she so elegantly put it.
But now for a little exposition. Of course, everyone loves exposition. I mean, I wasn't always a narrator, you know. Once upon a t-
"I won! And Celestia lost! End of story!"
One of the castle servants who most certainly did not get paid enough for this horsefeathers was currently attempting to carve Nightmare out of the wall she was being held hostage by. "Um, Princess, who are you speaking to?"
Nightmare huffed and puffed and blew her cheeks out in an ~~adorable~~ incredibly scary gesture. "Might as well be myself. No one here is competent anymore...*grumble grumble angry horse noises*
Assuming I can continue, considering how rude everyone here is...
Nightmare rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
Now then.
Nightmare Moon was correct. She had finally returned from her thousand year banishment (which was actually nine hundred ninety nine years and eleven months, but who's counting?), and bested Celestia in combat as she had before. The Elements of Harmony were still used, but didn't work this time.
Why? Because this Nightmare doesn't really live up to her name. She's actually a big softie.
*Growl*
It's true, though!
Ahem, so yes, she resisted the elements. She wasn't evil, on the contrary, because a thousand years gives you a lot of time to reflect on being a teenage brat, and coming to appreciate the world around you. Thus, Nightmare Moon no longer cared for eternal night, and settled for a 13 hour night and 11 hour day, because compromise should leave everyone unhappy.
But honestly, you don't care about any of this. You wanted comedy, not a well-crafted universe with deep underlying lore and-
"Get on with it!"
Ugh.
Once Nightmare was finally freed from the clutches of the tyrannical wall, she and her maid continued on to the main lobby of the castle.
Nightmare Moon and Celestia really weren't the biggest fans of each other despite Nightmare gaining some sense, so she ruled over Ponyville in the Castle of the Two Sisters, while Celly remained in Canterlot. Long-distance relationships folks. They always work without any issues!
This system actually worked surprisingly well, though. In fact, many ponies considered Nightmare Moon a better ruler than Celestia, which is certainly something to be proud of.
Probably results from Celestia sitting on her flank all day and doing nothing against threats while her Big Hero 6 take care of it, but you know. Semantics.
Locating the lobby in this absolute mess of numerous terrifying portals to Tartarus falsely known as "hallways", Nightmare Moon and her aide took a moment to take in the scale and beauty of this castle ~~purely for padding~~.
Nightmare *plopped* herself down in possibly the most uncomfortable seat in all of Equestria, which she had told her staff multiple times to adorn with some kind of cushioning so her back didn't end up perpendicular after sitting in it for half a day.
But she supposed it wouldn't be a leadership position without staff that filled only the absolute baseline. Hence the pillow currently sitting underneath her flank.
That did not help Nightmare's scowl. And you really do not want to see her scowl. Seriously, it gives her so many wrinkles th-
*INTIMIDATING HORSE NOISES*
Fine. I'm still right though.
Regardless of whether Nightmare is going to need some sort of aging cream- since magic clearly isn't helping -she decided to run through both a mental and physical checklist of what she needed, might need, wanted, might want, and a couple other things I can't think of names for.
Let's see, she had her armor- obviously, she's wearing it. And she's, well, a she. Only guys can forget what they're wearing and need to look down to check. Lunar javelin? Yep, it's implanted in the floor after some pie shop pony decided that the phrase "sales tax" was freeform. Emergency mane ethereal glistener? Right there. What, did you think that *wooshy woosh* stuff was natural?
All that was left was her Moonlight Keys. It should be right in-
Wait a minute. They weren't in her mane like they usually were.
Actually, she probably set them on the desk and forgot about them. To be fair, you can't really remember every single thing when you're running half of a country.
Nightmare Moon cleared her throat and motioned to her aide. "Moonlight, (yes, her aide and keys were both called the same thing. Don't think about it.) will you please head back to my room and check my desk? My keys should be there." Said aide nodded and began trotting off to the room of Nightmares. Err, Nightmare. Nightmare's room. Her bedroom.
While she waited for the maid to finish crossing the world and back, Nightmare contented herself with not being even remotely content. Her rump was sore from that monster that disguised itself as a wall, she was still half-dead from waking up with an off-putting sleep schedule, and now perhaps her most important piece of gear was not where it should always be. But absolutely, positively nothing could go wrong.
Nothing. There's no way it could be worse. Everything would go completely smoothly, with absolutely no complications.
Do you get the point, yet?
"Umm...Princess..." Moonlight called as she stepped back out into the lobby, noticeably looking dejected, and as Nightmare saw with growing annoyance, no set of keys. "There, um, weren't any keys on the desk. Or the bed. Or anywhere, actually."
Nightmare's eye twitched. "No."
The maid felt like she should've flinched. "Umm, Princess...?"
"They can't be missing. They can't. They were on my desk. They were right there. They...they..." Nightmare engaged in the all-popular activity of initiating a thousand-yard stare with her mortal enemy, the floor.
"I'm sure you can just replace them, right? They can't be that important." Oh, if the aide only knew what she just put into motion.
Nightmare heaved a couple times before essentially shattering Moonlight with something that could be called a "glare", but which would probably be underplaying it. "The keys are part of my set, Moonlight. Don't you know about the set?"
The maid shook her head in either blissful or terrible ignorance.
Nightmare proceeded to explain while still internally tearing apart Godzilla. "It's the set that every dark ruler needs. Ridiculous yet useless edgy armor, a dark and ominous thundercloud shooting lightning everywhere except your metal armor, a cackling evil laugh to make your throat sore, and the keys."
Moonlight, to her credit, didn't think of Nightmare Moon as crazy. If you can believe that. "I, uhh...I think I understand, mistress? But I'm still not clear what the keys are for."
Said mistress shook her head and tried to keep from turning the throne beneath her into an arts and crafts project. "That doesn't matter. What does is that we have absolutely no idea where they are, and we have no way of fi-"
A completely random and unmentioned guard sprinted into the room, looking like a cross between wild and relieved. "Princess, we found a conveniently map to where your keys are that was placed onto your desk where it definitely wasn't before!"
The maid looked a tad skeptical, as really anyone should've. "Are you sure that really leads to the keys? We have no idea who migh-"
As is becoming fairly common now, Nightmare Moon cut off Moonlight in a slightly rabid fashion. "Really?! Bring it over here!" she barked at the guard, who would now need a shower to clean off the saliva.
He (though technically they were a she turned into a he, but we don't judge here at Autism HQ) dashed over to Nightmare and almost violently launched it into her hooves. She caught the map both with wild flailing of her legs and frantic magic, both of which miraculously did not tear the map(?) apart. She opened it in a haste to find something that could be described as a map, if a child's drawing was a masterpiece. It contained only two vaguely drawn locations, Nightmare's castle and somewhere called "Eldritch Beach", which despite in reality being incredibly far away, was drawn about two inches away, with a crude drawing of generic keys hanging over it.
Nightmare rolled up the map and stuffed it back into her mane. "Huzzah! We hath discovered the location of the keys! We shall engage on a journey to recover thine keys and slay the cretin who dare toucheth them!"
Moonlight dragged a hoof over her face and allowed it to snap back into place. "Mistress, before we do something so rash, perhaps we-"
Not one to give up her "cutting off others" record, Nightmare continued. "Sally forth, Moonlight! The night shall be our guide on this quest!"
Moonlight sighed enough to produce condensation and pulled herself along her princess, who was currently performing a mix of dancing and running known as the "excited fangirl".
She was definitely not being paid enough for this.
------------------------------------------------insert arbitrary amount of time------------------------------------------------------
After a journey that would probably make for an excellent adventure story, aside from the fact that it was incredibly dull, Nightmare and her entourage of exactly one eager guard and one fuming maid arrived at a seemingly completely normal beach. A sign was in front of them with "Eldritch Beach" messily painted over it, with the title "The End of The World" crossed out underneath it.
The beach was fairly normal, aside from the clouds being black, the sand being full of termites, the water being replaced with acid, and Cthulhu chillaxing in a beach chair across from them.
Why was Cthulhu hanging around there? I dunno. Probably on vacation from his desk job. Plus the beach literally has the word "eldritch" attached to it, so you know.
Nightmare Moon decided to waltz on over to the elder god and ask him bluntly. "Sir, have you seen my keys anywhere around here?"
Cthulhu adjusted his aviators and Hawaiian shirt before turning his...head, toward her. He gurgled his tentacles in a manner that Nightmare somehow understood as speech. "I don't know wh- oh wait, you're that night lady, aren't ya?"
Nightmare nodded. "I'm the Princess of the Night, but I'm afraid I don't recognize you."
Cthulhu shrugged, as he really wasn't surprised by this. "Didn't think so. That's cool. I'm just chillin' out here."
He took a sip of his Fanta and looked back towards the corrosive ocean, then glanced back at her. "You asked about keys, right? Did you find my map?"
Nightmare immediately brightened, her eyes as shining as the...well, they were still dark, but you get it. "Yes! You drew that?" She then frowned and itched to unsheathe her javelin. "So you took them, then?"
Cthulhu, for his part, decided not to anger her. "I did, but I swear it was an accident, bro. Definitely not a prank. I mixed up yours and mine when I was snagging them out of my pocket dimension." He turned and reached over to the cooler that was suddenly there, grabbed the keys sitting on top of it, and tossed them over to her.
She neatly caught them in her magic and tucked the keys away in her mane. Nightmare then blushed slightly. "Apologies, sir. I was just a little...concerned about them. I tend to overreact."
The god shrugged and offered her a can of Fanta. "'s all cool, brah. Want a sip? That shiz is heavenly, and I'd know."
Nightmare smiled, took the can, and started heading off back to Equestria. "Much obliged."
Cthulhu waved them off, and arranged his tentacles into a smirk, then went back to chillaxing on the chair.
After a while, he decided to head back to his own dimension, and reached into his pocket hole for his own keys. Feeling around, he finally felt the metal and pulled them back out.
The keys were dark blue, and adorned with several tiny moons.
Cthulhu looked this over for a moment.
"Well, sh-"
The end.
Author's Note
Just wrote this to let you know I'm still alive.
Why exactly did Nightmare Moon and Cthubro both have keys?
I dunno.
Would you believe that I had like 50% of this planned? I like this much better than "She Wants The D", though I'm sure it won't be as viewed.
