Romance, Mortality, and Cyborgs

Luna was tired. Exhausted would be overstating it, but it was getting close. She poured over all the recent nightmare files and complaints from the last few days, trying to avoid the poison in her mind that she had failed her ponies while she trotted in the castle hallways.

These nightmares... It was an assault on the dream realm bigger than any she had seen. And yet she felt nothing whenever she walked in there, trying to sooth ponies in their slumber. So many cried help, but there was nothing actively malicious in the dream realm.

At least, nothing she could sense as malicious.

What made the case even more strange was it was almost the same nightmare for all ponies. The land or memories they stood on first starting losing colors, before bits and pieces would crumble into dust. Soon, pony constructs within dreams would have bits of themselves turning into dust, and crying out in pain for the pony dreaming to see.

This dust, then, would swirl and fall up into the sky, where light and practically the sun in the dreams coalesced into a spiral and sucked up the bits of pony and object turning into dust.

If it was a void, a spiral of darkness, at least Luna would know it was some dark magic at work. But through the differences of nightmares, one thought remained the same, and struck at her core family.

The sun was the problem.

Some ponies see the sun as an object in itself, but Luna knew many ponies would connect the sun to her sister, Celestia. And if they began fearing the sun...

This was an issue that was quickly snowballing into a much more dangerous problem personally for the Two Sisters. Thus, Luna was on her own to find her sister among the palace and summon her for a meeting.

Though she had a guard relay her summons, the Night Princess herself walked with urgency in the day throughout the castle of Canterlot, hoping to run into Celestia in one of her scheduled meetings.

Luna knew Celestia was hiding something from her. The constant meetings of scientists and scholars had been upped to a significant degree, and there was a major secrecy between them. Whether or not whatever her sister was hiding was related to the nightmares that are planting seeds of doubt against Celestia, however, remained to be seen by Luna.

As Luna turned a corner to unlock a door, a sudden and strange feeling washed over her. She held the door in her magical grasp, wondering what the feeling was and where it came from. It was a sense of foreboding, the 6th sense ponies can have where they feel a slight change to their environment that was not supposed to be there. It was a like a vision of the future, but instead of seeing it it felt like more of an increased gravity in the present.

Luna opened the door, daring herself to confront whatever gave her this feeling. She was not expecting who was on the other side, however.

"Oh! Excuse me, princess."

Both Luna and the stranger in front of her stopped just in time before they could bump into each other. Taking an instinctual step back, Luna looked to see a pony slightly taller than even her, with a light blue coat and a white mane that did not seem discolored from age. The mane was styled in a different fashion than Luna had usually seen, with a curtained look that had small sidebangs drape under the ears and a short pony tail to tie up the back.

What surprised Luna most, however, was his wings. Specifically, the part where he had a horn on his head with those wings.

"Excuse us, but," Luna began ask, confusion making her hesitate, "is that a unicorn's horn on your head and a pegasus's wings on your back?" No point in walking around the subject.

The stranger looked confused before realizing the issue. "Oh, I'm sorry, the horn is fake. See?" he pulled the horn off like a prop, showing the small adhesive sticker underneath the horn and rubbing the spot where it was stuck on. "Fake as can be. The wings are real though." He spread out his wings, which were quite massive compared to normal pegasi, but seemed fitting to the larger stallion.

"Oh, thank the stars," Luna said, calming down from the initial fright. "We were afraid we had a long-lost brother suddenly in our midst for a moment."

The stranger grinned, mildly chuckling, but Luna felt them as deep laughs. "Naw, I was a single child, don't remember any brothers or sisters in my family. Though my friends do say I look like some prince on the run."

Luna took a second look, and believed she would say the same. The stranger stood tall and strong, yet as a pegasus he had a lithe and athletic look that didn't pack mounds of muscles as an earth pony would. His smile, while seeming infectious and genuine, had a bit of a rogue style to it, as if the stranger was a wanderer, but as a choice. His mane style certainly didn't help, being messy in a few parts that emphasized the rogue charm. She could also see a few scars along his barrel, emphasizing the wanderer charm.

Quite the stranger, this pony is.

"Well, you do seem to be one of a kind. What is your name, my little pony?" Luna asked, ignoring how he wasn't exactly 'little' compared to herself.

"Name's Kaznudo, at your service," Kaz replied, kneeling quick before the princess as tradition. This gave Luna a glance at his back, which showed the potential his wings held.

Good gracious was this stranger a strong pegasus.

"Well, good morning to you then, Kaznudo. We must admit, your friends are not wrong about you seeming like a vagabond royal, what with your size rivaling mine and my sister's. May we ask why you are roaming about the castle, and why you are using a fake horn?"

"You can just call me Kaz, princess. The size thing is apparently from my family's history of a long gone earth pony lineage. And I'm looking for my son, he seems to have disappeared somewhere during our game of 'save the princess'. The princess being me, of course."

For the briefest and slightest moment of time, Luna's heart sank at hearing the stranger had a son, before she nodded at the explanation. "I see. Well, we have not seen any foal running about on the palace grounds just yet. Are you and his mother sure he is inside the castle?"

Kaz sucked air through his teeth, flinching slightly. "The boy's mother is... Not around, I'm afraid. I'm actually a single father, really."

Luna did not know why, nor did she pay much attention to her heart rising just a bit and slightly beating faster. "Oh. I am sorry to assume. Well, we can try asking a nearby guard and see if they can track down the colt, if you would like."

"I'd appreciate it, your majesty. The little tyke looks like a mini me, except with a more grayish mane than mine, with green eyes instead of blue like mine."

Luna looked at his eyes closely for a moment, and noted that he indeed did have ultramarine blue eyes.

A quite lovely color.

"It is no issue. In the meantime, we can have you wait in the castle gardens until the guard has found your son."

Kaz bowed down again. "Thank you, princess. I'll be waiting there. If you do find him, let me know."

"We shall. Until then," Luna nodded, passing by Kaz (and taking a chance to look at the back side of him, goodness those flanks) to find a guard to start relaying the message. She hoped she herself would find Kaz's son so she could bring him back to the pony in the gardens at night.

To say goodbye, that is. Not to go see him during the night in the gardens and to try and catch him alone. To just be the two of them. Alone.

Oh, what was she kidding. Rogueish looks, cared for his child, a body that matched a free spirited and exciting life? Attractive would be an understatement. Luna couldn't help but blush slightly at the little fantasy of her meeting the stranger at night in the gardens.

Turning the corner, she spotted two guards patrolling the entrance to a meeting room, and began to form her words in her head to command them.

And then, in the middle of the hallway, she stopped. A sudden feeling of guilt washed her over, and Luna was left confused as to why. She started to remember that there was a reason, before she met the stranger, that she was walking through the halls of the castle with a sense of urgency. She combed her mind over trying desperately to remember, but no matter what, it just eluded her.

Luna shook her head. By the stars, why was she overreacting like this over something she just couldn't remember? If it was forgotten easily enough like that, it must not have been important, she reasoned.

She looked back at the guards and began walking to them again, determined to finish her request to Kaz before taking a rest for the day.