The cloud cover over Equestria finally broke just enough to allow the moon its first tentative glimpse of the overcast countryside far below.
Spears of moonlight ran across the fields outside Ponyville until they suddenly bumped into a pair of translucent turquoise orbs, making them stand out prominently amid the eerie silhouettes of the nocturnal landscape.
They had an unreal quality, vaguely reminiscent of vitrified enamel, but any hint they were inanimate was dispelled a moment later as they blinked in unison, but their focus remained unwavering, expectant.
Shortly, a smile appeared below the turquoise eyes as their owner caught sight of a polychromatic trail illuminated by the moon. In an instinctive reflex action to this unspoken cue, the sleek black alicorn sank slightly on her haunches before kicking off the ground and springing into the air, beating her wings with spontaneous delight.
Tonight, she was looking forward to something special, something that had required meticulous planning and the help of a lot of other ponies. Under Rainbow Dash's guidance, the weather team had ushered in cloud cover so nearly complete, that Princess Luna had needed to fly above it to decorate the night sky; indeed, that was where she was now, awaiting her challenger.
The filly knew where the Princess would be and beat her young wings impatiently against the still air, legs paddling furiously underneath her as if this would somehow help get to her rendezvous above the clouds a little more quickly.
“Hey, take it easy, Nyx” came a reassuring voice from beside her.
She whinnied instinctively in surprise, having been so totally focussed on climbing up to the cloud base that she had quite forgotten she was not alone, and turned her head quickly to see a familiar cyan mare in close formation just off to her right side. There was a slight stutter to her wingbeat, and her flailing legs stopped their comical paddling motion, as she quickly fought to regain her composure in an effort to look cool in the company of her flying tutor.
“I knew you were there” she fibbed, trying her best to appear nonchalant and cover the laboured breathing from her exertion.
“You been practicing your game?” asked Rainbow, overlooking the filly’s obvious embarrassment.
Nyx nodded her head excitedly, eager for the opportunity to show off her skills.
“Well, Princess Luna is ready; all I gotta do is finish setting it up for you” replied Rainbow, leading the excited filly up through a hole in the cloud.
In an instant, she broke through the blanket that separated Equestria’s overcast from the bejewelled skies above, and squinted against the unaccustomed brightness, struggling to take in the full beauty of the moon staring out unblinkingly over the ethereal landscape of soft white clouds. She was moving her head from side to side, drinking in the fabulous vista stretching out in all directions before her, when her eyes settled on an elevated cloud upon which sat, poised, a midnight blue pony with ears perked.
“My adversary approaches” the Princess of the Night announced in accentuated regal tones, reprising the manner of speech that had been expected of her in olde Canterlot over a thousand years before.
The voice carried authority, but the two ponies in her company knew there was no menace attached to its imposing tones, moreover an invitation for the young filly to indulge her love of acting and get into character commensurate with the challenge.
Luna had been especially taken with her portrayal of Nightmare Moon during the school play, and could see how much she enjoyed acting. However, she was also aware that Nyx had become a lot more self-conscious, given the hostile reaction she continued to face from those ponies who had yet to forgive her following her brief reign as Nightmare Moon. As a result, Luna welcomed opportunities to allow Nyx to step out of her inhibitions and immerse herself in another character to develop her self-confidence, and tonight was one of those times.
Once she recovered from being awestruck at the imposing sight of Princess Luna looking down at her from her personal cloud, a mischievous look swept across Nyx’s face, and she alighted on the vast expanse of clouds that had been carefully smoothed out before her to the texture of a bowling green.
She faced her Princess; an air of defiance etched unmistakeably across her body language as she slipped into play-acting her adversarial role.
“Thou shouldst be on thy guard” she replied, “We may have the body of a weak foal, but we carry the experience that portends thy downfall.”
The corners of Luna’s mouth curled upwards, unable to completely resist the startings of a grin that threatened to spread across her face at having received such a formally phrased challenge. Even though Rainbow had turned to focus on the young pretender, Luna could still just hear her utter an appreciative, “Great game face, Nyx!”
The Princess returned a sanguine stare towards her brazen young challenger over the forthcoming field of battle, and watched as she gave a few flaps of her obsidian wings to lift her onto a cloud elevated at the same level as her own. Following a final delicate flutter as she furled her wings, Nyx sat on her hind legs and adopted an attentive poise with the front of her body elevated on her forelegs, looking almost feline.
Luna turned to Rainbow Dash and with a wave of her forehoof, bade her proceed. In response, the cyan speedster punched down through the cloud and an instant later her distinctively colourful trail emerged close to the hole she had just made, and shot vertically upwards before diving down once more through the smoothed-out clouds stretching between them.
In no time at all, the beautifully smoothed cloud found itself with 32 holes punched through it in a regular rectangular pattern, looking uncannily similar to the cloud formation that Rarity had somehow managed to achieve during her brief unplanned period as weather manager for Ponyville. In the twelve holes nearest each of the competitors, Rainbow had placed a small cloud, those nearest Nyx being puffy and white, while those closest to Luna were little dark storm clouds.
Once the field of battle was prepared, the two opposing generals surveyed their troops and then bowed to each other in a dignified mark of respect.
“Your Majesty; your Ladyship” announced Rainbow in her familiar rasping tones, “I wanna see a good clean fight, OK? But don’t go too easy on the action, ‘cos I’d really love to do some cloud busting!”
“Pray, start” announced Luna, raising one eyebrow at her opponent, like a warning shot from a pistol.
“Well, Nyx” asked Rainbow eagerly, “What’s it going to be?”
“Front row, right” she replied, “Go forwards to the right.”
“On it” acknowledged Rainbow, shooting off to move the white cloud as directed, then flashing back over to Luna, hovering expectantly by her side to await the command for her countermove. The Princess issued her order for a reciprocal advance, and Rainbow shot her a smart salute before heading away to make it happen.
Nyx noted the attack coming towards her on her left flank, and stroked her chin with a forehoof before turning her head towards an eager Rainbow, but without moving her eyes from the scene in front of her.
“Move the second one across into its path …” she ordered, and a multicoloured blur darted over to move the innocent white cloud into harm’s way, before she even heard Nyx add, “… please.”
“Princess?” enquired Rainbow, once more by Luna’s side.
“Destroy the saucy knave that darest advance towards our kingdom!” she snarled with a flash in her eyes, hamming up her role as a vengeful tyrant with so much enthusiasm that it bordered on the comical.
In a heartbeat, the weather mare was on the field of play, carefully moving the dark cloud to its new space. Then she turned her attention to the doomed white cloud and lined herself up before delivering a killer kick that caused it to fragment and disperse as if never there.
“Sweet!” she squeed to herself, making no effort to conceal her enjoyment; this was fun!
After somewhere past forty or fifty moves apiece, nopony could remember exactly, the game was finely balanced. Nyx pushed forward her white clouds relentlessly at one moment while Luna retreated, regrouped and then counter-attacked, promptly reclaiming all the spaces on the board she had just lost.
The two players were well matched and playing to a very high standard, which was perhaps unsurprising given the practice Luna had amassed during a thousand years of isolation on the moon, and the fact that Nyx still retained some of her experience, if not all the bitter memories. Whilst it was true that the Princess had cut her younger opponent a little slack at the start of the game, that phase had long since passed and it had swiftly turned into a no holds barred scramble for supremacy.
As the game had developed, Nyx had found herself unable to retain her composure and was by now stood on her cloud, gesticulating her hoof animatedly at the puffy clouds representing her pieces on the enormous checkers board.
Forelegs braced, she shouted increasingly feverish orders at Rainbow, who continued to relish every minute overseeing the ebb and flow, and of course the regular destruction of the improvised playing pieces. Directly opposing her, Luna stood with regal aplomb, allowing herself little more than an occasional blinking of her teal eyes while she ran through the different gameplay options in her mind, as her young adversary became ever more animated.
The number of pieces had reduced to three each, and the marathon tussle looked set to continue indefinitely. But, too eager to isolate one of Luna’s pieces in the corner, Nyx left a gap between two of her own and the Princess capitalised, placing one of her own between them.
It was over and they all knew it.
Rainbow delivered a forceful kick to the little white cloud that had just been left compromised, leaving only two white clouds to match the three dark clouds remaining; the odds were too great to affect a recovery and Nyx became, at a stroke, much more sober.
Luna felt neither elation nor relief, but a sadness. She would have rather seen Nyx win, but was not going to throw the game in an obvious manner that would make the victory hollow; no, that would be disingenuous. The time was not far off when she would win by her own merit, and Luna would not deprive her of that precious moment, but when it came, it would be so much sweeter because it had been earned.
Nyx was cross with herself for having made such an elementary mistake. She had felt confident of her ability going into the game, and had played well, but knew she had nopony to blame but herself for the final outcome. Her shoulders sagged and she hung her head as she issued the last few commands that would see her pieces pinned up against the sides.
Rainbow sensed her sadness, but still carried out her duties with gusto, smashing the remaining two white clouds with deft kicks.
Nyx put the most magnanimous smile on her face that she could muster as her last pieces were destroyed, and then hoisted herself into the air to make the short journey to her victorious opponent.
“Good try, Nyx!” called Rainbow encouragingly as the defeated alicorn flapped by, “Best yet!”
Nyx heard the words, but somehow couldn’t quite turn to face the pegasus cheering her on. She had become aware of an unpleasant tickling sensation on the skin around her eyes, and didn’t want to risk turning her head in case the airflow caused a chance draught across her eyes that might give the impression she was crying. No, that wouldn’t do; she had worked hard to prove herself and shake off the tag of being a cry-baby that she had earned when a young filly, and certainly wasn’t going to give anypony reason to assume she was still like that now.
She landed gracefully below the personal cloud upon which sat the inscrutable Princess of the Night, and raised her head to look up and salute her victor.
“Thou hast bettered us this night” she acknowledged with the due formality she felt was fitting in the circumstances.
“We were given a good run by a worthy opponent” Luna replied, before changing to her more modern and less formal voice to continue, “Come, let us leave this behind and you can show me your flying skills.”
Immediately, Nyx’s smile broadened; if there was a skillset she liked to show off, it was her flying. Luna rose to her imposing full height before unfurling her graceful midnight blue wings and launching into the air.
“Well, come on then” she said happily, shooting a cheerful smile down at the jet black filly, who immediately forgot all about her recent defeat and scrambled into the air, her legs paddling enthusiastically while her wings fought to catch up.
“Rainbow Dash” called Luna, “Would you care to join us?”
“Would I?” she shot back enthusiastically, and gave a sturdy kick to one last cloud, which was the sole remnant of the game that had been played out high above the sleeping skies of Ponyville.
“Nyx” Luna invited, “Would you care to lead? We will try to keep up.”
“Go on” urged Rainbow, “Show the Princess what I’ve taught you.”
Nyx nodded feverishly and her legs paddled faster as she set off across the sky, wings beating frantically to build speed.
The moon continued to bathe a comforting silver glow over the top of the cloud cover, creating a backdrop for three flyers to play follow-my-leader through a series of aerobatics. The filly leading them across the sky giggled in innocent delight as she did her best to replicate the manoeuvres Rainbow Dash had been teaching her. Any residual bitterness Nyx felt about having lost the game of checkers had been completely dispelled within the first minute, as she focused hard on demonstrating her newly learned flying skills to an appreciative audience.
Rainbow Dash detected a few points of detail in her student’s aerobatics that fell slightly short of her own high standards; skidding slightly on some of the turns and occasionally overcorrecting her entry into follow-on manoeuvres. The perfectionist in her demanded she call out her student to correct her errors, but before she could, Luna caught her eye and raised a forehoof gently to her lips.
“Let her have this” she whispered, shooting a calming smile at the daredevil flyer, who relaxed her furrowed eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders, returning a gentle smile of acquiescence to her Princess.
While they still held eye contact, Luna added respectfully, “You really have taught her well.”
Before Rainbow could respond, Nyx pitched over into a steep dive and her two companions followed in a formation even tighter than their shadows cast on the clouds beneath them.
After a quarter hour had elapsed, Nyx’s youthful adrenaline had been all but exhausted and she began to flag. Luna pulled up alongside her with her gentle loping wingbeats, and the tiring filly looked over expectantly for approval.
“How was that, Princess?” she panted.
“From what I have seen, I believe we may have the makings of another Wonderbolt among us.”
Nyx’s chest swelled with pride and just as she prepared to set off on a further sequence of aerobatics, Luna interceded.
“Do you not think we should return now? We have all been working very hard to keep up with you and I still have dreamwalking duties to attend, let alone Rainbow Dash who needs to get to bed.”
Reluctantly, the exhausted filly conceded, and Luna led the way down through the clouds, Rainbow falling in alongside her happily tired student.
“Nice moves, kid” she said, flying languidly on her back as if reclined on a sun lounger.
For the second time that night, Nyx faltered in her flight, then quickly recovered and giggled.
“Rainbow Dash?” she asked earnestly, her face slipping into a more serious demeanour.
“What is it, Squirt?”
“Do you think the Princess is right?”
“What d’you mean?”
“Do you think I really could be a Wonderbolt one day?”
“One day – maybe” Rainbow turned the idea over in her mind, “If you do, then you’ll be the first alicorn in history. Reckon you’re up for it?”
“Oh yes please” she gabbled excitedly, her legs suddenly paddling furiously once more, “Then I’ll be as cool as you!”
“Maybe …” mused Rainbow with a wry smile, “There’s very few ponies as cool as me, and they’re all either Wonderbolts or Princesses. Oh, and my closest friends; they’re all pretty cool too.”
“Am I one of your closest friends?” she asked warily, her big eyes begging not to be disappointed.
“Of course you are, little buddy!” she beamed, “That’s why I like spending time with you!”
At that, the black filly did a barrel roll, right around Rainbow, giggling joyfully as they headed towards pinpricks of light starting to emerge from the gloom. Nyx knew these would be the lights left on for them in the windows of the Golden Oak library. Right now, her Mom would be up late waiting for her with a friendly nuzzle, eager to hear about her adventures before tucking her up and reading a story.
Although there had been times in the past when she had cursed her untimely creation from an uncompleted spell and then suddenly being catapulted straight into adulthood, she had never been happier than she was now, growing up with supportive friends and a loving Mom.
