The Stars Answer to Her Call

The night of the 1000th summer sun celebration.

Nightmare Moon walked through the ruins of her ancient home, lost in thoughts of the past. When she had been banished, she had thought her hatred to be undying, inextinguishable as she waited for an opportunity to exact her revenge. But as the years turned to decades, and the decades to centuries, the fires of her anger had dimmed to smoldering coals of bitterness and defeat. After over nine hundred years on the moon, Nightmare Moon had had a hard time feeling anything but apathy for her situation.

It was then that the bars to her prison had finally fallen, and she had been thrown back to Equestria. Seeing Celestia standing over her in her new throne room had briefly reignited her anger. She had enjoyed irony as she banished her with a spell modeled after the very chains she had been held by for so long

As Nightmare Moon spoke to the terrified citizens of Ponyville though, her apathy began to once again drown out her anger. Why should she care about these ponies? None of them hated her like those in her own time, none of them had hurt her mother. Only a single purple unicorn, clearly an academic, had even heard anything but foal’s tales of her. Feeling empty she had retreated to her one-time home, the castle Everfree, unintentionally waking the echoes of magic and nightmares that had had been unleashed when she had been defeated so long ago.

Entering the remains of what had once been the largest city in Equestria she looked upon the abandoned ruins. Old memories, ghosts of ponies and other creatures long dead played through her mind as she trotted along the narrow forest paths that were once bustling streets. As she entered the castle she passed through the gates her nightmares had torn off their hinges as they exited the castle. Wandering through the decaying halls of the old castle, she tried to rekindle the rage she had felt when her mother had been killed, but all she could feel was sorrow.

If she took her revenge on ponies who were so far removed from the ones who had wronged her that they didn’t even recall Luna’s name, would she be any better than those ponies of old? Hurting those who had done no wrong and tearing down the innocent? Returning to where it all went wrong she looked around the throne room, she gazed upon its cracked walls, shattered windows, and missing roof. She sighed tiredly.

Nightmare Moon wandered the halls aimlessly, finding herself in what used to be Luna’s personal chambers. She found that, other than the effects of time, it was exactly as it had been the day she had been banished. As sorrow overwhelmed her Nightmare Moon broke down and wept.

After she had cried herself out she simply lay there, unable to muster the will to move. It wasn’t until she heard voices and the clatter of hooves echoing down the corridors that she finally stirred from her place on Luna's ancient, dusty bed.

Who could that be? Nopony lives within a dozen miles of this place. She thought, heading toward the source of the noise. She followed the noises, eventually finding six mares wandering around in the throne room. The group consisted of two ponies of each race.

The pegasi were a study in opposites, the rainbow-maned blue pegasus, with her prismatic lightning-bolt for a cutie mark, she looked confident, strong, and brash. The yellow pegasus with three pink butterflies for a cutie mark, on the other hoof, looked about ready to faint. She trembling as she hid behind her pink mane, seemingly trying to will herself into invisibility.

The unicorns both seemed far out of their element. The first looked like one of the stuck-up nobles that always plagued any feudalistic society. With her perfectly groomed purple mane and white coat, triple-diamond cutie mark, and upturned nose, Nightmare Moon disliked her instantly. Nightmare Moon blinked, surprised to see she was also missing most of her tail. The lavender unicorn was the one who had identified her at the festival and was clearly a bookworm. She bore a six-pointed star cutie mark. Neither seemed particularly physically fit, and were clearly suffering from their long hike in the woods.

The earth ponies also seemed to be very different from one another. The orange one was, in a word, solid. Her three-apple cutie mark identified her as a farmer, and she seemed the dependable type. She had a powerful physique that spoke of long days on the farm, and a Stetson sat on top of her straw-blond mane. The other was simply pink. She seemed unable to stay still as she looked around curiously, literally bouncing, making boinging noises as she pronked along. She froze mid-bounce when Nightmare Moon had entered the room.

The ponies peered around the room spun to face Nightmare Moon and gasped as they saw her, the pink one actually saying the word ‘gasp’. Nightmare Moon stood up. “What are you doing here?” She demanded, amplifying her voice with her magic.

Each of the mares, with the exception of the purple unicorn -Twilight, I think that’s what the others called her- took a step back. “Were here to stop you Nightmare Moon!” she proclaimed.

Nightmare Moon laughed. These mares were either stupid or suicidal to think they can do anything more than anger her."Really?” she asked, grinning menacingly, displaying her sharp fangs. “And how do you plan on doing that?”

“We will stop you with the power of the Elements of Harmony! All we need a spark of magic.” Twilight declared, lifting the stone orbs lying at her feet and pouring her magical energy into the orbs.

“Too late.” Nightmare moon mocked, overpowering the unicorn’s magic easily and crushing the orbs to dust. Cheap replicas, ha! I can’t believe she thought they were the actual elements. “Now what is your plan?” she said, looming over the mares.

“You think you can destroy The Elements of Harmony just like that?” Twilight announced confidently. “Well, you're wrong, because the spirits of The Elements of Harmony are right here.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure they’re scattered all over the room.” She snarked as Twilight launched into a speech about how each of the other ponies embodied one of the elements. Nightmare Moon simply waited with a patronizing frown on her face as she waited for her to finish, amused by this unicorn's seeming inability to realize she was outmatched. But then the Elements began appearing on the mares' necks.

What the hay is happening here!? She thought, unable to bring up a more coherent thought due to the sheer unexpectedness of the events that were occurring. That's not how the Elements work!

When Twilight finished her speech each of the other mares sported an element, in the form of a necklace that matched their cutie marks. One was missing though, only five of the elements were present, Magic was still absent. “You still don't have the last Element! The spark didn't work!” Nightmare said.

“But it did! A different kind of spark.” Twilight said, turning to her companions. “I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I cared about you. The spark ignited inside me when I realized that you all... are my friends! You see, Nightmare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the... the spark, that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth element: the element of... magic!” Twilight smiled as the Element of magic, a crown with her starburst cutie mark on it, came into existence resting on her head, and the power of the Elements of Harmony was unleashed.

The rainbow light washed over Nightmare Moon, but, unlike last time, they didn’t burn. This time the bearers had focused the elements in a totally different way, each unique to them.

Twilight wanted Celestia back, defeating Nightmare Moon was secondary to the return of her mentor and second mother.

Applejack only wanted for her family to be okay, to return to find them safe and sound.

Rarity wanted to be able to return to her shop and hug her little sister.

Rainbow Dash wanted to protect her friends, and maybe rough up Nightmare Moon a bit.

It was Pinkie and Fluttershy that made the real difference though.

Even though Nightmare Moon’s black fur had hidden them well, Pinkie had noticed the tear stains on her cheeks, and a weight she knew far too well from her younger years on the rock farm. Pinkie just wanted to lift that weight, to show Nightmare Moon that the world wasn’t as bad as she thought it was, to give her a reason to smile again.

Fluttershy also saw Nightmare’s sadness, how she was like a wounded animal, lashing out at the world around her. As the Element’s power enveloped Nightmare Moon, Fluttershy wished to comfort her, to help the damaged alicorn like she helped her animal friends, to heal her of whatever it was that had hurt her so badly.

And the Elements, now wielded by a full six bearers, each exponentially increasing their power, complied.

As the Elements finished their work the sun rose through the broken windows of the castle.

“Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student. I knew you could do it.” Celestia said, walking gracefully out from within the shining light of the sun, beaming at the six mares.

“I’d like to apologize for manipulating you into this situation, even if it turned out well.” Celestia said “I needed you to find the Elements. The ponies, not the artifacts as you suspected, but if I had told you to do it, you would have seen it as a test. You would have been so focused on the goal that you never would have formed the bonds of friendship necessary to use their power to power the Elements help Luna, my sister.”

The Elements reeled back as they saw a blue alicorn with a bright starry mane laying where Nightmare Moon had once stood, slowly rising to her hooves. They were further confused as she tried to rise, only to fall again as a small black blur impacted her side. “MOM! I’m so glad you’re okay, I thought you had died! I thought I’d never see you again!” The blur, now identifiable as a small pitch-black alicorn filly bawled into Luna’s chest.

“Tis alright Little Moon I have returned and I will never be leaving you again.” Luna said, tears streaming down her face.

As they held each other and cried Celestia finally recovered from her shock enough to speak. “Mother? Luna? When? How!?” She sputtered. The eyes of the other six mares were bouncing back and forth between Celestia and the other two alicorns, watching with curiosity and bewilderment. Twilight, in particular, seemed caught between laughing at Celestia's reaction and mortification at her teacher’s loss of composure.

“Oh!” Pinkie exclaimed “Was she a puppet you made to have someone to talk to but you weren’t satisfied with the puppet just being a puppet so you wished on a star for and the puppet came to life and called you she called you mom and you took care of her and the puppet wanted to be a real filly and went on an adventure and learned to true meaning of happiness and magically became real and you became a family but were tragically separated and just now found each other again?” Pinkie asked.

Luna and Moonbeam giggled at Pinkie’s rapid-fire speculations. “No that is not what happened.” She replied, smiling. “A few years before my banishment a spirit taking the form of a young alicorn filly named Moonbeam appeared in my bedroom mirror. The filly did not know from whence she had come, and lacked anyone to care for her. She asked to stay with me, and I agreed.” Luna explained. “The elements seem to have had the unforeseen effect of giving her a body, for she had solely been visible to me before today.”

“And now we’re a real family!” Moonbeam exclaimed, still clinging to Luna. “Ooh, can I call Celestia ‘auntie Tia’?”

“Of course you can, my Little Moon” Luna replied. “I think ‘auntie Tia’ may have a few questions for us first though.”

Celestia visibly pushed aside her confusion, sending Luna a look that said she would indeed have more questions for her as soon as they were alone, and she moved to stand by her sister’s side.

“Ooh! This calls for a PARTY!” Pinkie shouted gleefully. “We’re going to need a welcome back party for Luna, a birthday party for Moonbeam, a ‘new princess’ party, it’ll be the hugest party ever! We’ll have moon cakes, and moon pies, and little cupcakes shaped like crowns –” Pinkie was cut off by Celestia.

“No.” She said simply. “That won’t be necessary.”

“What dost thou mean by that sister? Will I not be returning with you?” She asked, afraid that her sister was rejecting her.

Celestia’s gaze softened. “No, I meant we won’t be returning to Canterlot. I’m retiring.” She replied.

“WHAT?!” The Elements shouted, shocked by the revelation.

"I refuse to put Luna back into the same situation that caused this mess in the first place. I've been princess for almost seven hundred years, I think it's about time for me to retire."

The room was silent. “Does this mean I won’t be your student anymore?” Twilight asked, sniffing.

“Of course not.” Celestia replied, moving to Twilight’s side to comfort the lavender unicorn. “You will always be my most faithful student, I just won’t be your princess anymore. If you ever need me, spike can send a letter.”

“But who will be the Princess?” Rarity asked, “We can’t just leave the throne empty, someone is going to have to take your place.”

“I’m glad you asked” Celestia smiled, “I knew this day would come so I have prepared a successor. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza will be taking the throne once I officially abdicate.”

“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza? Who the hay is that?” Rainbow dash asked.

“Twilight here knows her better by Cadence. If I remember correctly she was Twilight’s foalsitter when she was little.”

“Cadence is going to be in charge?! That’s amazing! Don't worry guys, Cadence is going to be the best princess ever!” Twilight exclaimed, then turned sheepish. "Present company excluded of course."

“Yes, Twilight," Celestia said, chuckling at the display "Cadence is going to be in charge, and I'm sure she’ll be great. She has your brother for a captain of the guard after all.” She said, smiling. And we’ll have a prince too soon enough. If Shining hasn’t proposed to Cadence by the end of the year, I’ll eat my crown. Celestia thought privately.