Dropped into a new life

Chapters

Dropped
Where am I?
What happens to me now?
The orphanage
Maybe it's not so bad?
Settling in
My life as a prince starts.
Who are you?
Give it back!
Why are you following me?
Is this guard duty?
I don't like the looks of this.
...Ow?

Dropped

How long has it been? It feels like it’s been years since I was forced to become Princess Twilight Sparkle’s personal royal guard. The only reason why I’m even in this position is that Luna, the Princess of the Night, claims that I am her long lost son. And by putting me here she hopes that it would bring back 'my' memories. Well, that’s not going to happen. After all, I’m not him and he lived over a thousand years ago.

I don’t like the armor I have on. It looks like regular armor that the rest of the royal guards have, but it’s slightly different. For one it is a different color scheme. Instead of gold, it’s purple instead. While I don’t hate the design I do hate the weight of it. It feels so heavy it slows me down significantly. Plus the noise it makes alerts everypony to my presence.

But where did I get it? Well… I don’t remember. I don’t recall putting it on. The last thing I recall is standing in the throne room and then winding up next to Twilight. When I did ask I wasn’t given the whole story. Twilight said I was struggling a bit, so they had to hold me down, but then they had to call in half of Celestia’s guards. What happened next is a mystery

Ever since then its been nothing but training and standing. And when I’m not doing that, I’m standing right next to her, awkwardly. I don’t say anything at all.

Speaking of training. I’ve been receiving special training from Twilights brother, Shining Armor. His training was just like everything I expected. Brutal, just plain brutal. He had me running laps, wing push-ups, and even swimming laps, twenty times the regular amount a normal pegasus guard would do. Close combat training was a nightmare. Every time I was knocked to my feet he wouldn’t give me the chance to recover. So I ended up with small cuts and bruises all around my body. I healed in the end but the abuse was getting to me.

I look around and see that nothing has changed. Everything is still the same as it was 5 minutes ago. Twilight is still reading her book. What is it about? I don’t know.

These last few weeks have been interesting, to say the least. There haven’t been any major events involving her. Things have been relatively quiet or simple. The only time I was dragged out of Ponyville was because the map had called Twilight and Fluttershy. And being that I was Twilights guard meant that I had to go with her.

There was a feud between two families in an area filled with various animals. The families had forgotten what they were fighting about and were throwing vegetables and hay and whatnot. In the end, they got together.

Apparently it started with a disagreement about the animals. Or something, I don’t know, I got knocked out by a log.

Then there was something that had to do with Applejack’s friend, Rara, or something. Apparently, she’s also called Countess Coloratura. Anyway, there was a music festival happening and there was an issue with her manager. I spied on him for a bit and found out that he was one of 'those' managers.

So that issue was solved in the end. I didn't do much. In fact, it would have been dealt with even without me being there.

How much longer? My feet, er, hooves are killing me.

Twilight was rearranging her library… again. She does that even if there’s a single new addition to it. I’m starting to think she has no life outside her circle of friends.

I hear a loud belch coming from across the hallway followed by the smell of smoke. A little purple dragon by the name of Spike comes in holding a scroll. He brings it up to Twilight, who thanks him and takes it. Spike then nods and leaves again, probably to read his comics. Upon closer inspection, it has the royal seal on it.

Great… another one.

I’m betting 200 bits that it’s from Princess Luna. She’s been sending these letters asking if I had any of my memories returned. And the short answer has always been: no.

Twilight breaks the seal and unrolls the letter and reads. A small frown emerges and looks at me.

Knew it

I shake my head in response. She takes a deep sigh and begins to write a letter of her own to send back. These letters have been coming in almost every day around the same time. And every time it was the same response.

I know I should say something but the pay is good. I earn about 2000 bits a week. Its the only reason why I haven’t done so. Octavia drooled when I showed her my pay for my first week.

“Spike!” Twilight called for her assistant.

Spike came back in, a bit annoyed, probably because he was on a good part in his comic. He took the scrolled up letter and sent it away. He looked back at Twilight, waiting if there was something else she wanted him to do. When she said there wasn’t, he left.

We were left alone again. I looked over to a nonexisting clock. Only a few more hours and I would be done for the day.

I made my way back to my house, which was in the middle of being renovated. Those bits had to be used for something. Octavia suggested putting a second floor. What for? I don’t know entirely. She did want a room that would fit her musician’s life. The same goes for Vinyl.

I walk up to the door but stopped to check on my surroundings. I can never let my guard down when I’m out in the open. I quickly unlock the door and slip inside. I finally relax my muscles and let my body go limp.

“Hiya Silent!” A bubbly voice calls out.

I open an eye and saw a white pegasus filly looking at me. It was Lilly, who probably broke in again since Vinyl set up a barrier to block teleportation while inside the house. Yes, she had the ability to teleport. I did too as well. Apparently I was a member of a secret species of pegasus. They had higher magic levels than even unicorns, but due to not having any horns they couldn't use magic like them. At least not entirely. Teleportation was one of them. Oh and they had telepathy.

So, Lilly. How are things back at home?

“Same old same old. Except for the fact that many mares are taking it easy for now since… you know why.”

Don’t remind me.

I shudder at what she was referring to. The encounter with the village mares left me traumatized. But since then I haven’t had any encounters with Silver Dusk or Gray Mist. However, they aren’t the only ones who I’ve been looking out for. There is one other mare who is potentially carrying my child. That it, Spitfire.

Yes, that Spitfire, the captain of the wonderbolts. For reasons unknown to me, she grew an obsession over me. All we had was two encounters. One where we crashed into each other outside of Ponyville and the other when she smashed into me during a wonderbolts show, which resulted in us being admitted into the hospital.

“Anyway, I just came by to say hello. I’m going to hang out with the crusaders. Perhaps I’ll finally get my cutie mark.” With that, she jumped through an open window. Followed by the sound of glass breaking.

Has that been open this whole time?

I decide to let it slip this time and make my way to the kitchen, where I find Octavia and Vinyl waiting for me. Octavia was stirring what I believe is supper. I took a whiff and it smelled great.

“Oh! Silent, you’re home!” Octavia trots over to me. She plants her lips on mine. She breaks apart. “How was guard duty?” She asks.

‘Same… old... Same old.” I say.

I look over at Vinyl, who was working on a strange device. She was focusing so much of her attention on the device that she didn’t even notice me move from one side of her to the other. Getting a better look at the device it looked a muzzle mouth guard.

“DONE!” Vinyl shouted, startling me a bit. “Now to wait for Silent to come- GAH!” She screamed in surprise once she noticed me. “Dude, not cool.”

‘...Sorry?” I apologized.

"Whatever. Anyway, I got the voice box working.” She pushed the muzzle in front of me. I took a closer look at it. Apart from being the shape of a muzzle, it was also back with purple edges, there were wires exposed all around it, making it look like it wasn’t safe to use.

“Let's give it a go, shall we?” She placed it around my muzzle. It made a few beeps and let out a few small sparks. “Now move your mouth as if you were talking.”

“Okay, Vinyl- OH! Now, this sounds weird.” The voice I ‘spoke’ with sounded very robotic and reminded me of a certain theoretical physicist.

“Yeah! I knew it would work.” Vinyl began to celebrate her success.

“I’m fine with the voice, but I don’t like how it looks. It makes me feel… like a perv.”

“Oh come on Silent. Cut me some slack will ya?” Vinyl looked at me as if I was ungrateful. “It’s only a prototype so I’ll change it later down the line. So for now, deal with it.”

“Fine.”

I removed the device from my mouth and gave it back to Vinyl. She set it aside.

“Silent?” Octavia called my name. I turned to her and she looks as if she wanted to say something to me. She looked away and had a small blush running across her face.

“..yes?”

She opened her mouth to speak but had trouble saying it. I gave her a reassuring look and she calmed down a bit. “Silent, I went to the hospital for a check-up and…” She said the last part in a soft whisper.

I instinctively knew what she said, but I wanted to hear it out loud for myself. I placed a hoof up to her cheek. She smiled and took a deep breath.

“Silent, I’m pregnant.

Hi Pregnant, I’m Dad.

I wanted to say that, but it would ruin the moment. Instead, I pulled her in for a passionate kiss.

“Aw yeah!” Vinyl yelled from behind. “So, Tavi, am I gonna get to be the godmother?” She nudged Octavia while raising and lowering an eyebrow.

Octavia rolled her eyes. “Yes, Vinyl, you can be.” she chuckled while Vinyl gave off a victory screech. She looked at me. “Are you hoping for a colt or a filly?’ she asked.

...Yes.

But in all seriousness, I didn’t have a preference in gender for my foal. If the gender ratio is to go by then chances are that it would be a filly. Then again, it would be nice to have a colt in this uneven world. I looked back at Octavia, who was still waiting for my answer. I have a simple shrug.

“Oh?!” She sounded surprised. “Well now, most parents would hope for a colt in this situation, but if you don’t have a preference, then I guess that’s fine. After all, we’re not the only couple expecting.”

Octavia decided it was time to eat. So we all helped to set the table ready. Vinyl grabbed all the necessary items, like plates and cups, and I served everypony. Since Octavia was the one who made it she was allowed to relax and wait. When everything was set and done we all dug in.

Where are you, Twilight?

I was back in the castle awaiting Twilight to appear, but she was nowhere to be seen. I arrived a few minutes earlier, but even then I would still find Twilight awake. I looked throughout the castle but found nopony around. Was my eternal clock off?

Here I am standing in the middle of the hallway like an idiot. I’m currently wearing full armor, but this time I’m not wearing my scarf, so the collar is exposed. If she asks about it I’ll just say what I usually always say to her: nothing.

I made my way to Spikes room or tried to, this castle looks a lot bigger on the inside than it does on the outside. I probably spent about forty-five minutes looking for the room, but when I knocked there was no pony to answer.

Is she out somewhere? Oh, wait… she is!

I wanted to slap myself for forgetting that she was going to be giving some presentations somewhere. She had told me a few minutes after my shift ended yesterday. Oh well, she would probably be heading back now, so no point on heading out now.

I turned to make my way over to the front doors of the castle, but an idea popped into my head. I was alone in a jumbo maze. Teleporting would come in handy right about now. Then an itch of curiosity came. There were so many places in the castle that I haven’t been to. I mentally slap myself for even thinking that. I’m sure Twilight has a spell set up to prevent teleportation by intruders.

...I’m not an intruder.

I sigh in defeat. I tell myself that it’s only this once. I relax by breathing in and out a few times. Then the scene changes in front of me. I’m in Twilights study. There are books everywhere, some are neatly stacked, but others are opened with sticky-notes on the pages and on the floor. Now that I think about it, she leaves the castle like this all the time. The entire structure is her study.

The scene changes again and I find myself in a bedroom. It looks like a standard guest room in the castle so I teleport again. This time I’m in another room, but it’s a lot bigger and with an imperial style bed instead of a regular bed. There are a lot more books around this time. The entire floor is covered in them, ranging from history books to what I’m guessing are spellbooks.

Twilight... you need to pick up after yourself or get a maid.

The scene shifts again and I’m in the library. Slightly disappointed in myself for appearing in a room that I’ve been to before. But something is here that wasn’t here before. A purple framed mirror. It’s connected to various items with a book on the top. I squint my eyes for a bit as the mirror itself looks familiar. The memory hits me like a brick wall, it’s the same mirror I saw while I was testing my teleportation ability for the first time.

Okay one more and that’s it.

The world shifts and I find myself on the roots of a tree above the table-map. Disappointing. Thinking that there is nothing to see I then hear somepony giving an ominous chuckle. I look down to see a purple pony, but it’s not Twilight. This pony is a regular unicorn with a light purple coat and a darker shade of purple mane with a light blue stripe.

“Well when you say it like that, it does sound kind of silly.”

Before I can make myself be known to the unknown pony the doors open. Twilight and Spike are back. Spike is the first one to notice the unicorn.

“Or it's totally true!”

The unicorn smiles maliciously and leans forward on the table. “Welcome home, Twilight.” She says, giving me the impression that they’ve met before and not on good terms. She then pulls out an old looking scroll and casts a spell on it. It levitates above the table and sends down an energy bolt, which activates the map.

“What are you doing, Starlight?” Twilight demands.

“I’d tell you, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise.” She then crumples up the scroll and tosses it to Twilight. “Won’t be needing that anymore.” Then a portal appears, creating an air vortex. Twilight fires a spell but it simply deflected. Starlight then surrounds herself in her magic and levitates off the ground and into the portal.

I think I should do something. Well, here goes nothing.

I quickly teleport underneath the unsuspecting unicorn and grab her by the forelegs.

“What? Who are you?! Let go of me.” Starlight tries to kick me off her, but I hold on tight.

“Silent, what are you thinking? You don’t know what that portal will take both of you!” Twilight shouts.

We are immediately sucked into the portal. Starlight finally frees herself from my grip. She kicks me on the head, my helmet absorbs the impact, but it’s knocked off my head. It’s lost to the green-colored vortex we’re in.

“How bold of you. Silent, was it?” She looks at me in amusement. “Didn’t know Twilight had a guard on stand by.” She charges up her horn and fires it at me. “Let’s see how well you are without your fancy armor.”

The blast hits me and my entire armor is disintegrated. The only thing left on me is my shapeshifting collar. It can turn into a helmet that drains most magic from me and anypony who makes physical contact with me. I'm not sure if I should feel glad or not that it's gone. Using the helmet won't do me any good right now though. Unless I can get close enough to her.

Let’s see if I can teleport in here too.

My vision shifts from being in front of her to behind her. I give her a roundhouse kick to the head. She grabs her head and turns around. Her face has changed attitude.

“How did you do that?” She asks in confusion, there's also a bit of uncertainty in her voice.

I decide to do it again, but this time appear under her and give her an uppercut.

“*Herk* H-how?” She sends a couple of energy beams at me, only for me to easily dodge them by teleporting.

“I don’t have time for this.” I then feel paralyzed. “Let’s see how you handle being nothing but a foal!”

I feel like the weird vortex is getting a lot bigger, but then I realize I’m getting smaller. When it finally stops she grabs me and pulls me closer to her.

“Aw how cute. Not so tough now are we?” She then looks ahead. “Well my stop is almost here, but since we’re already heading back in time lets send you back even further, so far in fact that you won’t affect my plans!!!”

Wait. Time? We’re time traveling?

She throws me with such force that I can’t comprehend whats going on. I try to use my wings to slow down, but they do nothing. I can only hope where ever I land that it’s soft. My vision goes white, which is a nice change, but then I feel the hard ground. The pain is unusually great that I want to cry. I feel the dirt buried deep in my nostrils so that I need to breathe from my mouth.

I open my eyes. The world is blurry, but I can just make up the sun rising slowly. I try to get up, but the pain stops me from doing so. I feel myself starting to cry. Why do I want somepony to cradle me all of a sudden? I soon start to pass out from the pain.

The last thing I see is a dark blue figure walking towards me.

Where am I?

Where am I? Who am I? Something feels off.

The world around me feels hazy. The first thing I notice is that I’m surrounded by fuzzy figures, but that could be due to my vision. However, the figures feel familiar. Like somehow I know them. It’s at the tip of my tongue, but something else is colliding with it. It’s like a puzzle piece going into the right place but in the wrong puzzle.

My vision becomes clearer and I see that I’m in a hospital, but not just any hospital, a human one. The figures turn out to be humans too. I look down at myself and see that I’m human too, but my hands are all wrinkly.

Am I… an old man?

My hearing finally registers the sound of a heart rate monitor and it's hooked up to me. Along with IV tubes inserted into my veins. It hits me, I’m on my death bed. But why?

“Grandpa? Are you gonna get better?” A smaller human speaks to me. She looks to be about eight or nine years old.

Grandpa?

An older woman bends down to the child. “Grandpa just needs some rest okay, sweetie?”

“Listen to your mother, kiddo.” A raspy voice comes out of my mouth. The little girl is pulled away by her mother.

What the? I didn’t say that. Or at least not on purpose.

For some reason, I’m on my death bed and surrounded by what I can assume is my family. But I don’t recognize them, at least not completely. There's a sense of familiarity, but only a pinch of it.

Wait, I’ve already had a vision of dying. It was me being in an alleyway and getting stabbed by someone and then choking on something. It was completely different from this. Why do I have two different versions of my death?

I don’t get to think about it any further as the beeping of the monitor goes flat and my vision goes dark. And it’s not by being knocked out.

My eyes shoot open. I’m no longer in that hospital surrounded by humans. Instead, I’m in a completely different sort of room. And that’s not all, the bed I’m in has me in some wooden cage. Above me are… small figures hanging from an arc. Oh no. I’m in a crib.

Who puts a grown stallion in a crib? Either I’m dreaming or somepony has a strange fetish. I’m hoping for the former. I do not need another thing to deal with today if it is still the same day.

Wait. What was I dreaming about again?

I roll over with some difficulty. I get up and then realize the world is a lot bigger. The walls are stretched up high to reach and the ceiling, which is also large, and the windows look ginormous. I look down at myself to see that my entire body has shrunk. I try to get up, but my legs feel really wobbly and weak.

Okay, try not to panic. I can still teleport out of here.

I concentrate, but nothing happens. I’m still in the same spot. I try again but to no avail. My ability to teleport is gone. An uneasy filling overcomes me for a bit. But not to worry I remember that I still have one more means of escape. My wings began flapping, but there’s no lift. I turn back and see that they’re really small. My wingspan is far too short to get me any lift.

I then have a moment of realization. I didn’t shrink at all, I’ve been turned into a small foal. But how?

“Let’s see how you handle being nothing but a foal!”

Starlight did this to me. I thought she was referring to the size of one, not actually become one. Okay, okay. Let’s calm down. So, if memory serves, I was chasing Starlight through a weird portal and we were fighting in the vortex. Then she grabbed hold of me and that’s when she probably turned me into a foal. After which she tossed be further into the vortex. So, I’ve been turned into a small colt and have landed somewhere in the past.

The new question is how far back in the past and where. Hopefully not too far back.

Then I notice that my accursed collar is gone. I felt around my neck and notice that it’s no longer there. Did it fall off? When I was struck by Starlight, my armor was disintegrated, but my collar stayed intact. Now that I recall, it didn’t change size when I was being turned into a foal. So it probably fell off when I was spinning out of control in the vortex before making a painful landing.

So where is it now? Or when is it now? It probably ended up somewhere in the future. Since it most likely exited the vortex first. Should I be worried? Because who knows who could find it. But, for now, I should be glad it's gone. After all the main reason it exists in the first place was to impair my abilities. Still, the helmet form protected me from getting knocked out.

Oh no, I'm exposed to the dangers again. Perhaps I'll run into it. But when?

My train of thought is broken by an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. I recognize it as hunger, but the feeling is a lot more intense. It becomes more of a bother than it should be. Is it because I’m a baby? Before I realize it I’m crying. I can’t stop myself from doing so. Any attempt to hold my mouth shut makes me want to cry even louder.

Who would even come?

My question is answered when a unicorn in a maid uniform comes in. The maid has a dark blue coat and a golden mane and tail. She looks directly at me. There are noticeable dark bags under her eyes despite her being a dark color. She looks tired. But why?

“I was wondering if you would awaken at all.” She says.

She makes her way to me. She stops at the edge of my crib and looks down at me. She gives me a smile. I want to give her some form of acknowledgment, but I’m still crying. It doesn’t help that it is hard to keep my eyes open.

I feel a familiar sensation of being lifted up, but she's not using her hooves. Instead, she's using her horn to levitate me up and out of the crib. Being in the air suddenly feels frightening. There’s nothing to hold on to. I flail my stubby legs to catch onto something, but there’s nothing but air.

I then feel the warm embrace of the unicorn’s body. I feel more relaxed but I still feel hungry. But she doesn’t know that. She cradles me in hopes to calm me down. It just makes me cry harder.

“If you do not require comfort then what else do you want? Oh, wait! I am such a fool.”

I hear the sound of her horn and then soon I feel something make contact with my mouth. I keep my mouth shut, but the maid pushes down on it with a bit of more force. Finally, I give in and I instinctively begin sucking on it. I taste the warm liquid. I force more of it down my throat. I have no control over what I’m doing. It’s like my body has a mind of its own.

Eventually, my stomach feels full and I let go of it. I come back to my senses and I now have a clear look at the maid. Her mane is a bit of a mess as if she was under a lot of stress and her eyes didn’t help either.

“I was so worried about you. You would not wake up, so I thought of the worst until I heard your cries. The princess would have my head had I failed to nurse the child she entrusted me with.” She looks more relaxed now as she fixes her mane neatly. “Still, what sort of mother abandons her foal?”

In my case. One that doesn’t exist in this world.

Wait. Did she say a princess entrusted me with her? Was it Twilight? No, it couldn’t be, she doesn’t have any servants besides me. And this doesn’t look like her castle. The walls are made of stone as castles should be. And I remember that I’m somewhere in the past. So she’s either a foal too, or she’s not even born yet. That would bring me to two possible choices, Celestia or Luna.

Also. Why is she talking like that?

The last thing I saw before blacking out last time was the blurry image of a dark blue pony. So it might have been Luna. What was she doing here? I’m not that far in the past if Twilight is a foal. Luna was still banished to the moon at the time. Unless I’m somewhere in the past where she hasn’t been banished yet.

But that would make it more than a thousand years! How could I’ve been sent that far back? It didn’t feel like I traveled that far down the time vortex.

And… am I wearing a diaper? Oh, sweet Celestia how embarrassing. Does that mean I’m going to have to 'go' in this?

Before I could ask myself any more questions I start to feel drowsy. My eyelids start to become heavy. I fight to stay awake, but sleep wins over.

However, I see that the room starts to fill up with the sun’s morning light.

Its morning? How did I not notice it was dark out? How long was I out for?

I then see the blurry silhouette of a taller pony appear behind the maid. I think I know who it is. I soon fall onto a deep slumber.

“How has thou been?” The princess of the night asks the maid.

“I have seen better days your majesty.” The maid replied to her princess with the utmost respect. The maid was one of the very few ponies who truly appreciated what the princess of the night did. “If I may, what do I owe the pleasure to your presence?”

“I has't come to see the foal.” She said.

“Of course, however, the child has fallen asleep.”

“Pardon me?”

“Since bringing him here, he had not awakened all day but then awoke due to hunger at twilight. After some more care, he fell back asleep.” The maid explained throwing away a white smelly object.

“Curious.”

“Agreed.”

“Bring me the foal at which hour that gent awakens.”

“Of course, Princess”

Princess Luna looks at the now sleeping foal. She is uncertain about what to do with it. When she first saw it in the middle of the royal gardens in terrible condition. She was angered at first and wanted to punish those who committed the terrible crime. She would have them shaved clean and bath in boiling oil. If they survived that, then they would-.

“No, now is not the hour to think about that.” She mentally spoke to herself. “Sister wouldst just play it off as anoth'r immature rant.”

Then an idea came across her. Her sister saw her as immature, irresponsible. Apparently her role as the princess of the night, the one who shaped the night sky with beautiful stars and entered ponies dreams to rid them of nightmares, was not enough. Perhaps raising this foal as her own would prove how mature and responsible she was.

Yes, she could raise him and show him how wonderful her nights could be. He would show the rest of the land of Equestria all of her glory. After all, why couldn’t she? Her sister had adopted many children before. Each one spoke about the greatness of their adoptive mother to all the subjects even in their final moments of life.

With that, she left the small nursery in preparation to make one of her own in her chambers. But first, she would need some preparation.

Author's Note

I wanted this out earlier, but then servers shut down. Anyway, I hoped you all enjoyed it.

Also writing dialogue for Luna turned out a bit difficult than expected. At first, I just translate everything into Shakespearean, but then I found it a bit weird. So I changed it up.

What happens to me now?

What time is it? Am I late for work? Is the cake really a lie?

My thoughts are all over the place as I wake up. The only light I’m greeted to is not by the morning sun, but the light radiating off the chandelier on the ceiling. My half-awake brain is wondering why the sun isn’t out yet.

What happened? The last thing I remember is…

I sit up right, only to fall back down on my back. The action causes the small blanket on my bed to fly up into the air and fall on top of my face. I guess that I don’t have much strength as a foal. Taking that to account, it’s also safe to assume that I wasn’t dreaming about yesterday either. If it even was yesterday.

I sit back up, successfully this time, and take a look at my surrounding to confirm. It’s still the same nursery. The room still has the same grey stone walls. The curtains cover the window, blocking the view to the outside.

I don’t want to be here any longer, so I attempt to teleport again. Since I have no idea where I am, I decide to take little teleportation jumps. Closing my eyes and letting my thoughts focus on the path to the destination I wait for the familiar sensation of moving through space, but nothing happens.

Drat. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I liked it better when I was turned into a small colt. At least I could still fly then.

My ear twitched to the sound of the door opening. I quickly cover myself under the blanket. But the feeling of the air on my rear tells me that I didn't do a good job at doing that. I then pick up the sound of giggling. They grew closer and closer. The giggling is not made by a single individual, but by at least 4 others.

“Aw, look at him. He thinks he is hiding from us.” again the same sort of speech pattern. I peak from under the blanket and see six maids.

One is pink with a gold-colored mane. She has blue eyes with two long eyelashes on each eye. Her mane was curly. The second one is light green with a red mane. She has yellow eyes with small freckles across her face, and her mane had a headscarf holding it in place. The third one is dark blue with an ash-colored mane. Her eyes are red, sort of reminding me of Vinyl’s eyes, and her mane is completely straight, not a single curl. The fourth maid is pale yellow with a pink mane. Her eyes are blue like the first one, but a bit lighter. Her mane is tied up in a ball. The last two appear to be twins, they both are white with purple manes. They both have green eyes if it weren’t for the mane mirroring each other they would have been impossible to tell apart.

They are all unicorns dressed in the same uniform. They’re looking at me as if I’m some adorable kitten. Wait, I think that is the case.

"I believed the rumors to be false, but here the little one is.” The third maid spoke to the rest.

“So did I.” The first one said.

“We did not. We knew. We could sense an unfamiliar presence.” The twins spoke in sync.

“So who will have the honor of caring for this one? Miss. Star Bright had difficulty staying awake.” The second one asked.

They began to argue amongst themselves. One saying that they had more experience, but another argued that they were older and more responsible. The twins looked at the amusement of the others bickering.

“None of you four as far as I am able to see.” Another voice spoke behind all of them.

She was another unicorn, white coat, blue mane, and with green eyes, but her uniform was different from the others. This probably meant she was the head maid. What stood out the most was that she was a lot taller than the others, but still looked a tad shorter than Luna. She looked like she could be the mother of the twins. She had a stern face.

“I have been given orders by the princess to retrieve the foal.” She pushes the other maids, besides the twins, aside.

The maids pout in their disappointment. Even the twins shift their gaze to the ground. They all turn to leave. Leaving me and the head maid alone. When she sees the last one leave she quickly closes the door and locks it. She then turns her attention back to me. In an instant, her expression softens. It was like night and day. It really creeped me out.

“How are you, little one, faring?” Her tone changed into a motherly one. “You are quite fortunate that our princess found you. Of course, it would have been better if it was Celestia who found you.”

What’s wrong with Luna?

Even though she could not answer my question, I still waited for an answer. Now that I think about it I actually do that a lot.

“But enough of that, a princess is still a princess after all. Princess Luna wishes to see you. As strange as that may be, asking a mere foal to be presented to her, an order is an order.”

She lifts me out of the crib and places me in an old-looking stroller, but I guess it would be considered a modern stroller in this situation. We head out of the room and down a wide hallway.

Instantly the entire place looks very different compared to the castle at Canterlot in the present. The walls show more of their stone structure. The walls at present Canterlot are cleanly white. Then we pass by a guard, but this guard looks different. This guard’s armor is dark blue like the night sky, but something else seems off about him. Wait, is this even Canterlot?

We then enter what seems like the main hallway to the throne room. I then grow uneasy for some reason, I grow cold and shiver in response. I look all around at my surroundings, looking for a route to escape. I attempt to stand on all four, but flop over onto my face.

Okay, that didn’t work. Sitting back to my original position I accept the inevitable. I look up the windows and notice the light coming through them. The light is a light blue hue. Then my vision lines up with the window that I can see the moon.

Why is the moon up? Shouldn’t the sun be out instead?

We suddenly come to a stop. In front of us are stairs leading up to a second level. There are two guards of the same variant as the one before. They look at the head maid for a moment and then nod in approval. The stroller is lifted off the ground, just high enough so that I could be easily transported up the stairs.

We proceed up the stairs and at the top, there are a pair of thrones. Behind them are two different banners, one with the moon and the other with the sun, but only one of them is occupied.

There sits Luna, but her eyes are closed. As we get closer it becomes obvious to why she has them closed. It's not because she’s tired, no, it’s of disappointment and sadness. She also looks hurt, but not from physical pain. So, why then? Then we come to a halt a few feet away from the steps of the thrones. This breaks Luna from her trance.

“Your Majesty. I have brought the colt you had requested. Star Bright was not able to fulfill your request herself, so I came in her stead.” The head maid bows before Luna.

But Luna isn’t paying any attention to the head maid. Instead, she’s looking straight at me. I find it a bit creepy as she locks eyes with me. I want to look away from her as she might find out that I’m actually a grown stallion trapped in a foal’s body. But at the same time, I’m curious how different this Luna is from the one in the present.

As I look into her eyes and despite being almost 1000 years apart, their eyes are only shown to be a few years apart. I guess Luna didn’t age at all when she was banished. How is it that I can recall how Luna’s eyes look like? But I can’t remember the way back to my house without making 20 wrong turns.

“Princess?” The head maid speaks up, breaking both of our trances.

“Oh, Of course, Apologies. Thee may speak.” Luna said focusing her attention on the head maid.

“The colt. Is it not better if he is sent to an orphanage? You have no need to take the colt as your own just for finding him. I am sure he will grow up to have a normal commoner life.”

Wait. What? Do you just want to dump me at an orphanage?

I know what happens at an orphanage. I’ve seen movies, read novels about what happens in them. Even the news shows that bad stuff happens. Bullying from older kids, neglect from the staff, and songs popping up every five minutes. Oh! Would you look at that, I actually remembered something about my past. Too bad it doesn't help.

“Enough, I hath said I would care for the colt.” Luna interrupted the maid.

You said it! Wait… Did I just agree with you?

I was surprised at myself for even wanting to go with Luna. But if I go with her, I would surely be messing with the timeline. She would have two sons. But wait, if I look like him, Lunar Night, and I’m in the past.

Oh… Oh no.

“Of course, Princess. But we should inform your sister, Princess Celestia.”

“Nay,” Luna answered harshly. Causing the maid to flinch a bit.

“Might I ask why?” A new voice entered the conversation.

From the shadows appeared a white alicorn with a rainbow mane. How nopony noticed her impressed me.

“Sister…” Luna ‘greeted’ her sister.

“Luna, We know that this is thy court, but this is something I has't to concur with,” Celestia said to Luna.

“Why does it matter to thee? Thee did not need mine own consent for thou's.” Luna shot back.

While I did not understand what they were saying exactly, I could tell by the tone of their voice was that Luna was not happy with Celestia. Why does this world have to speak like a Shakespeare play? I’m pretty sure no one actually spoke like that in the past.

“Thou art too young.”

This made Luna raise her voice at her sister. “Thee adopted at mine own age!!!”

“T’s true, but I did not know what I was doing. Aristocracy grew too proud of his status.” She looked at me, before looking back at Luna. “I do not wish for thee to same the same mistake.”

“We shall not.”

"Please, Sister. Thee shall has't another chance."

"Nay. We wish for it now."

“ENOUGH!!!” Celestia yelled in a voice that almost half of Equestria could hear. She struck the floor with her front hooves with great force that it shook the castle.

All of a sudden I’m overcome with fear. I try to hold it back but my body gives in and before I know it I’m crying again. I can’t stop myself from crying. It’s just like it was when I was hungry. Despite having the mentality of a grown man, or stallion, the child in me will win.

“Behold what thee has done!” Luna barked at Celestia. Luna got off her throne started making her way towards me and for some reason I wanted her to. It was like I already acknowledged her as my mother.

But Celestia blocked her. Both sisters stared at each other. Luna opened her mouth to protest, but couldn’t say anything. She turned around and left the throne room. Celestia went after her but found herself held in place. A blue aura surrounded her hooves.

When they finally disappeared she stood there for a few more seconds before sighing. She looked back at me. I was still crying. My cry was the only sound in the entire room. She looked up above me to the head maid.

“Thou will take that foal back to the nursery. In the morning that colt shall be sent to the orphanage”, She ordered the maid.

I felt the crib turn around and head back to where I was before. Not only was I afraid, but I was also saddened too. For what reason, I have no idea. All I know is that I’ll be in the orphanage in the morning. That is if I’m awake in the morning.

When we make it back to the nursery, I’m placed back into the crib. The head maid makes no talk with me. She leaves as soon as I’m placed into the crib. The door closes behind her and I’m left in the dark. At this time I’ve calmed down.

Once more I try to teleport. But no matter how much I concentrate, my surroundings don’t change. I limp forward in defeat. I land with a soft thud. Closing my eyes I really hope that this is all some bucked up nightmare and I’ll wake up back home. With Octavia at my side and then Vinyl barging into the room with that speaker of her’s.

But that doesn’t happen as I wake up again. Still dark out. Then a familiar feeling in my stomach comes up again.

The castle hears my cries again.

In another part of the castle, Luna has locked herself in her chambers. She doesn’t let anypony in for any reason, not even her own guards or sister. They couldn’t anyway, she had placed a spell that prevented anypony from teleporting in.

Her sister was outside asking to be let in so that they could talk it out. But Luna did not want to comply.

“How can I not be ready?” Luna scoffs. “We shall prove it,” she told herself

Luna had thought about just taking the child by force, but then she would have bigger problems with Celestia. Perhaps even with the law. After all, she was not above the law. Such an act would stain not only her reputation but her sister's as well. She would not betray her sister. Not unless she had a reason to.

Then something caught her attention. The sound of the foal crying in the nursery. How much she wanted to just go to him, but her sister was still waiting outside her door.

She then shifted her gaze at the corner of her chambers. There, stood a crib, it had night theme to it. It had the moon and stars on it. The little figures hanging at the top were little night guards too, modeled after her actual guards.

“I shall not give up, Lunar”

'Lunar. Yes. That shall be his name.' Luna thought to herself

Author's Note

I hoped you've enjoyed this chapter. I had a little more free time this week so I got it done faster.

I'm going to try to make the next ones longer, but there's no guarantee.

The orphanage

What time is it?

I open my eyes and see the world around me is a bit hazy. I’m standing in the middle of what I think is a park. There are no playgrounds, but there are a few visible trash cans that you would see in a park. There is also a trail that most parks have. You know, the trail that goes all around the park. It feels strange being here for some reason. Part of me thinks I'm actually here, I can breathe in the crisp air around me, feel the gravel beneath my feet, but at the same time, another part tells me I'm not. I take a single step forward. When I do, it feels sluggish as if I’m walking underwater. Then my ears start ringing to the point that it becomes unbearable.

I try to cover my ears, but then the world suddenly shifts around me. I suddenly find that the ground is suddenly on its side. It takes me a while to understand but I realize that I’ve fallen down. I’m on the ground. What I find strange is that I didn’t feel the pain from the impact. I try to get up by pushing myself back up, but my body isn’t responding to my commands.

With no other choice, I stay down on the ground. I try calling for help, but no sound comes out. I can’t speak or move. I’m trapped in my own body. I can still hear the sound of my breath, indicating that I'm alive, so that's a good sign. The sky looks to be pitch black so I can assume that its late at night. I wonder if anyone is around. Would they even notice me?

So now I’m wondering. What am I doing in the middle of the park alone? How did I get here in the first place?

Faintly, I can hear the sound of a woman. She sounds familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it. Not that I could anyway. The woman’s voice grows louder. My head begins to turn to see behind me, but I’m not the one moving it. It’s doing it on its own. As my head turns I'm able to see the rest of my body. But it’s not my little foal body. It’s a human one again. I appear to be wearing a dark hoodie and blue jeans.

Strange.

My head keeps moving to locate the source of the voice and I’m greeted to the sight of a pool of red liquid.

Is that my…?

The world goes dark.

I jolt awake from my sleep. I sit up with better results than before. Sitting up got a little easier, but there was still the issue of strength. As a foal, you don’t have a lot of it. I’m starting to hate being a foal as every second goes by. Not only do I have to wear a diaper, but the idea that I also have to ‘go’ in it bothers.

After getting myself in a good sitting position I take a look at my surroundings. Right off the bat, I can see that I’ve definitely been moved someplace else. I’m no longer in the small nursery at the castle, but I’m in a bigger room, and my crib isn’t the only one in it. In fact, I think there are at least half a dozen others that I can see, but not all of them seem occupied.

Another thing I notice is that it’s dark. I look around to see if there is a window nearby. When I finally locate one I’m disappointed to see that the curtains are blocking the outside. Again. My crib is about a foot away from the window. Close enough that I can just see through the gap between the curtains.

Well, since everypony else is asleep, then I guess its night time. Again. Why am I waking up at night?

Then the sound of a door being opened is heard across the room from me. Light from the hallway bleeds into the room. A unicorn pony appears from it, levitating a candle. The pony looks to be a mare. I now notice that there are a lot of unicorns around here. She’s dressed in some sort of uniform. It isn’t a maid one, that for sure, so it must be some worker outfit. Perhaps she’s the caretaker for these foals.

She walks over to the other cribs. She quietly moves between them and leaning over to see their contents. She stops by a least five cribs. Giving me the impression that there are at least five other foals with me. Then she moves to the one right next to mine. As the candle moves over the crib, the light reveals the occupant. The foal is a small… pegasus?

There is something different about it. Apart from me not being able to tell what gender it is, what I can say is that this foal has a dark blue coat with a baby-blue colored mane and tail. But what strikes me the most is its wings. There doesn’t seem to be a single feather on them. Instead, they look like webbed feet. They almost look bat-like. A bat pony?

Then the caretaker moves over to me. She’s taken back as she flinches at the sight of me. She probably expected me to be asleep as the other foals here.

“I should be surprised to see you awake, but you have been asleep since you arrived. Well, no matter, I am sure that you will fall back asleep soon enough.” The caretaker says.

She heads back towards the door. She blows out the candle and quietly closes the door. I’m left alone in the dark again. Actually, scratch that, I’m the only one left awake. I don’t feel tired so I don’t think I’ll fall asleep anytime soon either.

I then hear the sound of something moving aside of me. I look over, but it’s so dark I can’t see a thing. The little bit of moonlight coming through the curtains from the outside isn't enough. The sound moves closer and closer. Then I hear the sound of somepony grunting, followed by something landing in the crib with me. Whatever or whoever it is, it’s shuffling closer to me until I can feel their breath on my small muzzle.

I squint my eyes in an attempt to get a closer look at my probable assailant. As my eyes try to absorb as much light into them I begin to make out a small shape. It's probably a small pony, a foal even. I think for a moment and realize that it’s probably the foal that was right next to my crib.

Then the small foal starts to sniff all around me. It tickles me so I giggle a bit because of it. Then I realize that they somehow made over from their crib to mine and were able to see me with no problem. My next thought is that something hurts.

“WWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH” I start to cry in pain.

Whoever this foal is, they just bit me in the neck. The pain causes me to cry and my crying causes the other foals to wake up too. I feel the foal letting go of me.

The door swings wide open as four unicorns in the same uniform as before come charging in. One by one they try to calm the rest down. As I’m lifted into the air via magical levitation, I see the bat pony foal is the only one asleep. They’re sleeping peacefully, but thanks to the light filling the room I can make out a small white fang barely sticking out under their lip.

They are a bat pony.

“Oh, what could have caused this?” One of the caretakers asked.

“Only Faust knows.” another replied.

“At least the bat filly is still miraculously asleep.”

She’s a girl? Great another mare to make me feel weak.

Having Silver Dusk and Gray MIst was already bad enough alone. Those mares ruin my life. What was I gonna do? I couldn’t run or hide from them. It was futile to do so, they were experienced hunters and warriors. Teleporting could only help so much as they could do it too.

Then there was Spitfire. She was able to take out half of the village of the Enders. How she found me was beyond me. That place was basically in the middle of the Everfree Forest, the place most sane ponies avoid. Then again, you shouldn’t underestimate the captain of the wonderbolts.

The only mares that didn’t make me feel weak were my mare friends, Octavia Melody, and Vinyl Scratch. They didn’t care that I appeared from nowhere, was mostly mute, or the fact I was some OP pegasus. They cared about me. And now I don’t even know if I’ll ever see them again.

I wonder what they’re up to?

“Com- little… time to… -ake up.” I hear a gentle voice say.

Who the buck wants me awake at this ungodly hour?

When I open my eyes I’m immediately blinded by the light. I try shielding my eyes with my tiny hooves but they don’t reach all around. Then I tried covering myself using my blanket, but when I tried to grab it, it was pulled away.

“That is enough. A young little colt should not sleep during the day. After all, it is Celestia’s sun that gives us life.” The same voice spoke.

I sluggishly accept my fate and try to look up. Even though my vision is burry and is blinded by the light from the sun, I can make out a mare’s face. She has a gentle smile.

When I try to move I feel something wet and slimy on my rear. It feels very uncomfortable. Even though my brain isn’t fully awake yet it doesn’t take a genius to guess what it is.

How embarrassing.

I know that it's natural that babies have no bowel or bladder control, but when you have the mentality of a grown man or stallion in my case, it gets a little embarrassing.

The Caretaker takes notice as she moves her head closer to me and smells. She chuckles it off and lifts me out of the crib with her magic.

Another unicorn? Why are there only unicorns around here?

She brings me over to a small table at the corner of the room. There she changes me into a fresh new one. When she is done she places me into a stroller. At this point, I’m still tired, so when she lets go of me I instantly go back to sleep.

I can't see anything but I do feel the movements of the stroller. I can feel that we’re going through a long hall and then make a left turn into another room. I can still somewhat hear so I can make out the sound of other foals playing, laughing, and crying.

We came to a sudden stop and it caused me to jolt awake, it was enough to make me cry. I was getting tired of how this body works. Having an adult mind does almost nothing to prevent me from acting like a baby.

The mare picks me up and cradles me calmly. This stops me from crying. After wiping my tears away she pulls me away from her and places me down on the floor. The floor is cushioned with soft padding. I’m guessing so that we foals don’t hurt ourselves when we fall down.

The entire area I’m in is littered with toys varying from wooden blocks to the jumbo puzzle pieces. The foals from last night are also here. Two of them are unicorns, with both of them being fillies, they’re trying to fit a triangle-shaped toy block into the same shaped hole. One is a pegasus filly who is playing with the blocks. The last two are earth ponies with one being a filly and the other a colt.

However, the bat pony who bit me isn’t here. Even if I wanted to meet her and give her a piece of my mind, I couldn’t. Because I was still feeling sleepy. I looked around to see if there was something I could use to cover myself with or at the very least sleep on. The floor is cushioned, but it’s not soft enough for me. I really miss my cloud.

The cloud that I claimed as mine one day. I was flying about above Ponyville, it was scheduled to be a bright sunny day and we were clearing the sky for it. I was placed on the 2nd team to move the existing clouds elsewhere. When I finished my section I was getting ready to head back to base and clock out for the day. That's when somepony called for assistance. My entire team went over to see the problem. The 3rd team was having trouble getting rid of one cloud. No matter how hard they kicked, or how much they stomped, the cloud would not disperse at least not permanently. It would form back up again within a matter of seconds.

Rainbow Dash wanted to perform a sonic rainboom to see if that would work, but that was quickly shot down due to us being too close to the ground. Fluffy Cloud suggested moving it somewhere else in the meantime. No pony knew where to put it. Then Open Skies said if anypony wanted to take it home, but no pony volunteered, they all gave various excuses. It was getting us nowhere, so without hesitating I took it upon myself to take home. No pony noticed it missing, so they thought it left on its own.

When I brought it to my house I placed it above our roof. At first, I wasn't too keen on keeping it, but one day when I was hiding from Twilight, I was running out of places to hide. That's when I hid in it and I learned how comfortable clouds could be. Or at the very least this cloud. Surprisingly Twilight didn't find me. That's when I decided it would stay. Apparently I needed a license to keep it. So I did that.

Also, I think it might be sentient. But that's a tale for another time.

I sluggishly move about the playground, dragging my body against the floor. I was surprised that my forelegs had enough strength to move me. I found a corner that has a stuffed dragon hidden in it. It’s big enough that I could sleep on its legs.

It’s no cloud, but it’s good enough.

As I got closer I heard one of the caretakers shouting. I turned my head to see what the commotion was about. One of the filly unicorns had gotten frustrated that she couldn’t get the wooden block to fit into the same hole apparently as she was bashing the thing against it. One of the caretakers was trying to calm her down.

The unicorn filly lifted the wooden block into the air with her magic and threw it down. It bounced right off and flew right towards me. My first thought was that there was no way I was going to move out of the way in time with my current state. My second thought was:

Oh, s***.

Luna was pacing around her room still furious with her sister. She had only left to raise the moon and to lower it, but nothing else.

“How? How? And why?” She thought to herself.

When she was denied custody of Lunar, yes, she had already named him, she wanted to blow half the castle up. She stopped herself from destroying the crib she had custom-built by the finest carpenters in Equestria. Disappointed that she may never see it used she had it hidden away in the far corner of her chambers under a dark blue blanket.

Another thing that bothered her was the fact that she couldn’t find him while dream scaping. He didn’t appear anywhere. She could find thousands of foals’ dreams but not his. No matter how hard she tried or how long she would fail every time.

She cursed to Tartus.

“Great Faust, why does thee deny me this wish?”

“Sister?” A muffled voice spoke through the door.

Luna glared at the door. How was it that Celestia could still speak through the sound barrier that Luna had set up? Luna had placed at least 4 barriers, so it was quiet as a mouse in her room. Perhaps it was Celestia’s superior magical abilities that did the trick.

“Sister, please.”

There was no way she was going to let her in or talk. She was fine with this after all. No one paid any real attention to her or her night. So why would she?

That was a nice rest. Oh… it’s night again. Wait a minute. Why does my head hurt?

I wake up with no idea of what happened. One moment I’m making my way towards a spot to sleep in, then the next I’m here. I’m back in the crib, and it’s night… again. But seeing as I tend to wake up without know what happened exactly, it’s safe to assume something knocked me out. I’ve almost forgotten how it felt.

I look around and see that I’m back in the room with the other foals. They’re all asleep of course, as I can hear their soft snoring. The only one in the room not snoring is me. The room is a little brighter as the curtain is slightly open this time, letting the moonlight in. The moonlight lights up my crib pretty well, so I can see what’s in front of me.

Then I get a chill run up my spine. I feel like something is watching me. I look left and right repeatedly, but see nopony. Perhaps I’m just a bit jumpy from getting rendered unconscious and my body is on high alert. Then I feel the crib shake as if somepony just jumped in with me.

I slowly turn to see a black figure approaching me. As it approaches the moonlight, it reveals itself to be the bat-filly. She has a baby-blue mane and a dark blue coat. Fitting for a creature of the night. But what strikes me the most is her eyes. Her eyes are two completely different colors.

Heterochromia, huh?

Her left eye is purple, almost like mine, and her right eye is yellow. Her pupils are sharp like a cat would be in the dark. Like the dark, well duh, it’s dark out. I mentally slap myself. She interrupts my thinking as she comes even closer. I back away in response.

Oh no, no, no. You’re not going to drink my blood again today...night.

Then I realize that she has no trouble walking on all four legs. I didn’t even hear her coming. Last time I could hear her struggling to get from her crib to mine. This time it was like she appeared from nowhere. Was it my blood that she drank last night that gave her strength? If it is then, she’s back for more.

She comes closer and closer until I can feel her breathing on me. She takes a wif of my scent. I close my eyes for the inevitable. But it doesn’t come. I feel something nuzzling against me. I open my eyes to see that she’s laying next to me.

Okay? What’s this about?”

I stay completely still in case she’s going to bite me again. Then I hear her softly snoring. I relax a bit. I’m now stuck like this until she decides to wake up. I stay there wondering what exactly just happened.

What were bat-ponies exactly? I’ve never heard of them until now. Were they rare? Or are they just only out at night as regular bats are? Then again some bats appear in the day, even though it’s rare to see them then. Looking at her she seems like an ordinary pony if you remove the bat features.

Last night she drank my blood and now she’s sleeping next to me. Was drinking my blood some sort of unspoken bond? Or was it that she now saw me as convenient food that she wants to keep for herself?

Sleep suddenly overcomes me. I look over to the window and see that a golden glow has taken the moonlight’s place, indicating that the sun is rising. It doesn’t seem like I was awake for long. I guess it’s because I’m a baby and babies don’t have a lot of energy to stay awake.

It looks like it's going to be a long while. At least she’s warm.

Author's Note

Hoped you've enjoyed this chapter. I'm going to try to keep these chapters at least 2500 words or longer. Because 1000-1800 words seem too short to me.

Maybe it's not so bad?

It feels like it was just yesterday when I was brought into the orphanage. It's actually been about two years since I was brought into this place and time. Well, my fears about growing up in an orphanage were put to rest, well most of them. All the caretakers really 'care' for each and every colt and filly. They make sure everypony has gotten at least three meals a day.

But one thing I feared about the orphanage was true. Every day it happens. Not always at the same time, but you can expect it at least once a day. At first, I thought it was a one-time thing, but no, there’s always a reason for it. Whether it be for motivating each other to help clean up or cheering somepony up. It even happens for the simplest thing, like picking up a blanket.

Singing.

The whole place turns into a music video. I would probably tolerate it if it was once a week or something, but every day some poor colt or filly and even caretaker burst into a song and drags eveypony within a two-mile radius with them. Sometimes they even sing the same song.

Not even being asleep during the day spares me. Whatever the song might be about, I'm dragged into it too. I’m lucky I can’t talk very well, so I’m spared from actual singing.

But enough about that. Life for the most part is okay. Like I said before, I’m asleep during the day. The caretakers found it strange at first, but then when they realize that the bat-filly also follows the same sleep schedule as me, so they set us up so that we would both would interact. They also hoped for us to become friends.

It would be fine, but the bat-filly always finds her way into my bed and cuddles up next to me and then disappears the next morning. She takes a quick sip of my blood and then pretends to be asleep when I cry. So that it seems like I’m just crying for food or that my diaper is dirty. Any puncture wound she makes with her fangs seems to heal itself almost immediately. So them finding out is nonexistent. Still don’t know if it’s my healing or that her spit heals wounds faster.

Also, I think my blood is affecting her quite a bit. She’s already walking on all four legs with no balancing issues and she can even fly around a bit. Something that I overheard the caretakers say doesn’t happen until they’re about 4 years old. I on the other hoof still have trouble walking on my own legs. I still stumble and fall. Even lifting my own head proves a challenge sometimes.

Apparently we don’t even receive names. At least not officially. We receive our names when we finally get adopted. The caretakers, in the meanwhile, call us by names associated with our physical features. For me apparently, it’s Purple Eyes. Not very creative. And the bat filly is Bat Wings. Again, not very creative.

So this is my life now. Waking up at night and sleeping during the day, and getting the life sucked out of me by a weird hybrid. Also, being a foal does not save me from getting rendered unconscious. Last week alone I was knocked out at least 4 times. I don’t even know how I haven’t acquired brain damage. The caretakers don’t even notice, so I take back what I said earlier about them.

I don’t want to know how this can get any worse.

“Quite. We must not wake him.”

“I have not made a peep.”

“Somepony has broken the wind.”

“Oh, too late.”

I’m slowly wakened by the commotion made by a group of ponies. I look up and see that it’s the caretakers, but there’s somepony else with them. It’s a stallion, well-groomed mane, he looks like he would be in a professional field.

I didn't want to deal with this right now, so I turn away from them and go back to sleep. But I was lifted into the air by my hind leg. I was upside-down as a result. The one who held me was the stallion. He grabbed me by his hoof. I sill don't understand how hooves grab things.

“Doctor, is this necessary?” One of the caretakers asked.

Doctor, huh? Do you happen to have a blue box or are you an actual one?

“Yes, it is. I do not understand why you have not brought him to me or any other doctor about his condition.” The doctor scowls at the mare. “If he were a bat-pony then I would understand, but he is a normal pegasus colt. He should not be asleep during the day for more than six hours anymore. He is at least two years old. He should have a normal sleep schedule as the rest of the foals.”

The mares are taken back and lower their heads in shame. It's true that babies' sleep schedules are very inconvenient, but I've been sleeping the same pattern since I've gotten here.

My sleep schedule is what ticks you off? I’ve been knocked out on a regular basis!!!

“I shall take him back to the hospital with me this instant to understand why.”

“Of course.” One of the caretakers says, still having her head down in shame.

I’m carried over to a stroller and placed in it. Seeing as I have no say in this, I make most of it it and fall back asleep. The sound of ‘Bat Wings’ crying wakes me momentarily. I almost feel guilty leaving her, but I’ll be back soon enough after the doctors can’t find anything explaining to what’s wrong with me.

“Try again please.”

“Doctor… this is the 6th time we have tried this.”

“I. Said. Again.”

I felt another spell take hold of me. I felt a tingle run across my spine. Then it disappeared as soon as it reached my cervical vertebrates. A frustrated groan exited the doctor’s mouth. The same stallion who brought me here was not having a good time. At first, he was full of confidence that he was going to find out the problem of being awake at night and asleep during the day. Then after doing some physical test he didn’t seem to find anything.

Let me go, let me go.

I tried to drag myself away but the stallion kept his grip on me. He checked my eyes, ears, and looked down my throat. The usual thing when you get your yearly check-up.

Ever since then its been nothing but tests left and right. I have no idea what kind of tests, but at this point I just want them to stop. At first, it was fine. A few spells here and there, but then the doctor kept asking for them to repeat the same spell over and over again. Not even bringing in what seemed the entire staff of doctors and nurses helped. It just brought more questions.

“It does not make sense.”

“Doctor, what is it?” One of the nurses asked. She was clearly tired and frustrated by casting the same spell over and over. The spell probably wasn’t meant for it to be cast so often.

“We must report this to Starswirl immediately. He will know what to do.”

“Doctor are you sure? Is it really that urgent?”

Who? Wait a minute I think I know who that is.

Starswirl… I think it’s that ancient mage Twilight keeps fangirling over. He’s around? I never thought I’d meet him. I thought he'd be more ancient. I guess not. Why’s everything that’s ever happened or existed keep being 1000 years ago? What’s next? I'll meet old Discord?

“Yes, it is. Oh Tartus, it is too late.” The doctor said looking out the window, seeing that the moon was out and the sky was dark.

The doctor picked me up and placed me into a stroller. He began to push me away from the table I was on. I kept being placed in either my crib or this stroller. It was getting annoying.

“For now, we wait until Celestia’s court is open for us to request an audience with Starswirl.” The doctor said.

“What is stopping us from going to the castle now?” One of the other doctors asked.

“It is currently night. The day court does not operate during the night, Tuning Fork.”

Most of the ponies who were in the room agreed to his logic. After all, most ponies are asleep. Only the essential workers are awake on standby, which included him and other doctors and nurses. But then one of the nurses called out.

“What about the night court that princess Luna holds? I believe that it is currently in session.”

The rest of the staff realized that she was correct. I sat there wanting to slap every pony except her for forgetting that they had two princesses. Thus two different courts. How do these ponies forget that there is another ruler to the monarch?

“Oh, right, of course. My apologies.” The doctor said almost convincingly. “However I am sure Princess Celestia will do better since Starswirll will be most awake at that hour.”

Most agreed with him. Seemed like every pony in the room was so hesitant to go see Luna. Why didn’t they want to? What was it that made them wary of her?

“But Doctor, you said yourself that it was urgent.” The nurse said.

The doctor was taken back to what she said. Another thing I’ve noticed is that the mares here seem to be a little more… dominate. Out of this entire room, most of the ponies here are female. I know there’s a ratio difference in the present between males and females, but what I’ve seen so far, is only one colt and three grown stallions. The colt is the one from the orphanage and the stallions being the few doctors.

“Oh alright, I suppose princess Luna may be able to help us.” He gave in and continued to push the stroller.

The nurse gave him a smug look behind his back. He didn’t see it but I did as I looked back.

Well, this looks familiar.

I saw the castle I was in when I first arrived. I never saw it from the outside, but the structure reminded me of ruins deep in the Everfree Forest. I saw it when I was escaping from Silver and Gray once. I wonder if they’re the same? But as far as I can see, we’re not near a forest. The castle is in an open field.

The doctor brought a small team with him. It consisted of himself, two other doctors, one male, and one female, and three more being nurses, all-female. I don’t know why he needed this many. Just one or two more would have been enough.

“It is very quiet tonight.” One of the nurses commented.

“Well, it is night. That’s what makes it perfect to sleep.” Another remarked.

“Quite, girls. We are almost here.” The female doctor, Purple Heart, said. Ahead of us was a bridge crossing a small river.

We reached the front doors of the castle. Even though the doors were already large, I still felt so tiny because of my small stature. In front of the doors were two guards clad in purple armor, standing on opposite sides of the doors. They’re wings resembling bat wings. When I looked closer, despite the darkness of the night, I could see their yellow cat-like eyes. They stood out without any light.

The group stopped before the guards. One of the night guards cautiously made his or her way over. The guard stopped in front of us and stared directly at me for a few moments before speaking.

“What is the reason for your visit?” The guard spoke with a feminine voice.

Oh, you’re a girl too. Great

“We come to seek an audience with the princess of the night, Luna. But if she is busy then we under-.”

“Come along.” The guard interrupted him. She then nodded to her partner, who in turn nodded back before flying over to an open window.

The doctor was left stunned. I guess he wasn’t expecting to get in so quickly, or at all. I guess he was hoping that they'd tell us to come back another night. The rest of the medical staff shared similar reactions. They muttered among themselves before stop to the sound of the doors opening.

Out stepped two familiar-looking twin maids. They greeted us and told us to follow her. There was a bit of hesitation as my stroller stuttered a bit. As we followed behind I began to notice that no pony was making a sound, besides the sound of their hooves clopping against the floor, not even a whisper. Were they nervous meeting Luna?

“How long will we have to wait until we can seek an audience. I am sure Princess Luna is busy with others.” The doctor spoke finally breaking the silence.

“There will be no wait. The night court is not as busy as the day court.” The twins spoke in unison. “The princess is expecting you after all.”

The twins speaking in sync made the group feel uneasy. I felt the same when I first met them. Even though it was only for a few moments before being taken away to see Luna.

“Oh! Er- ahem. So the guards notified her?” The doctor asked.

“No, we felt the little colt’s presence closing in.” They said.

Now I was uneasy. They acted similarly when I first met them, but I thought it was just an act. Do all unicorns have this ability? To sense another's presence?

We were passing the long hallway towards the stars. Everything looked the same. The blue flame on the torches isn’t hard to forget.

Once we made it up the stairs the twins stayed behind. They told us to go ahead. The group felt more uneasy as they huddled closer together. I’m glad that I’m in the stroller and not in the group.

Up ahead, everypony could see the lone figure sitting in one of the two thrones. Luna was clearly expecting us. She was looking directly at us, or more specifically, me. As we got closer I could feel her fix gaze upon me getting stronger, but it felt strange. It wasn’t hostile but welcoming.

We came to a stop. No pony, except me, moved an inch. I moved a little closer to the edge of the stroller so that I could have a better look at Luna. She still looked at me. I guess we stood there looking at each other for a while until Luna remember that there were others.

“I welcome thee to the night court. Tis’ now in session. What brings thou?” She spoke. Her voice was a little too loud.

This snapped the medical staff back to their senses. The doctor spoke up.

“We b-bring you an unusual colt, my p-princess.” His shaky voice was evidence that he was really nervous, or terrified.

“What is wrong with the colt?” She asks sounding insulted for some reason.

Due to her response, the doctor began to stutter a bit more. “W-well, his sleep s-schedule is not normal for some pony his a-age.” He began to explain. “At first, it is normal for a newborn to sleep long periods of time, and wake up at unconventional hours.” He then turned to me as an excuse to not meet her gaze. “However, this colt has been discovered to be awake during the night and asleep during the day.” He hesitantly turned back to Luna.

Luna muttered something to herself, but it was too sot and too far for me to here. She then focused her attention to the doctor.

“I doubt t's the only problem.” She said.

“Yes, well there's another problem we need assistance with. We also came for the aid of Starswirl.”

“Oh? Wherefore does thee need that our teacher?”

“The colt, when placed under various testing spells meant for unicorn foals, shows high magical energy that is found usually within a grown experienced unicorn.”

“What does thou mean?”

“It means if he was a unicorn it would not be much of a problem, in fact, he would be enrolled in Celestia’s school, but he is a pegasus. And also…” The doctor signaled to one of the nurses and I felt another tingle in my spine again. It quickly disappeared soon after it was cast.

“Spells, besides levitation, don’t last long on him. No matter how strong they are, they will eventually be repelled. He has an unnatural resistance to magic.”

Luna stared at the doctor and then back at me. I feel like she’s not paying much attention to the doctor’s explanations. She just kept her gaze on me most of the time. What is she planning?

“If left to any ordinary family, he may be a danger to anypony around him. Which is why we need Starswirl's advice as this is far beyond my capabilities.”

“So, what shall befall to the colt, if we bring our teacher?”

“Well, I thought that he should fall under the care of Starswirl, or perhaps even princess Celestia. Somepony powerful in magic and experienced.”

“OUR SISTER!? WHY DOES EVERYPONY PREFER OUR SISTER OVER US!?” Luna yelled, causing the castle to shake.

The group of medical ponies coward behind the stroller I was in. For whatever reason, I wasn’t frightened the slightest. When Celestia yelled the last time I was here, I cried immediately. Now Luna was doing the same, if not, louder than her sister.

There was a long silence between the group and Luna until the sound of giggling broke it. It was me who was giggling. I didn’t know why I was giggling, but I was. Before I knew it I was trying to reach for Luna. My short stubby forelegs reaching over the edge of the stroller.

NO, STOP IT! Why is my body moving on its own?

Luna reacted as if she was touched by my actions. A few tears escaped her eyes. The doctors and nurses, all puzzling to figure out the situations.

“It seems that the child has taken a liking to you, princess.” One of the nurses mustered the courage to speak.

Luna muttered something inaudible to the rest of us.

“Princess?” Another one spoke.

“I shall take the child under mine own care.” She said. She got up from her throne. “Thee hath said the colt needed to be placed under the care of somepony powerful in magic. Correct?”

“W-well yes. I s-suppose you are most correct.” The doctor said peering out from behind the stroller. He'd forgotten that he wanted to speak with Starswirl. After all, that's why we came here. Due to Luna's outburst, he and the rest of the group, wanted to leave as soon as possible.

“Then we art in agreement.” She began walking towards us, or I as the others moved further back with every step she took.

“Sister.” A voice called out to Luna.

The room suddenly got colder. We all looked over to the source of the voice. The medical staff instantly lighted up when they saw who it was. From the corner of the room was another alicorn. It was non-other than princess Celestia herself. I suddenly grew the urge to jump out of the stroller and run up to Luna.

“Trying again, sister Luna?” Celestia spoke.

Luna did not answer. She kept making her way towards me.

“Sister, you are not ready for-”

“SILENCE!” Luna yelled even louder than before.

The medical staff hid behind a banner, leaving me behind. Strangely enough, I was still not affected.

“I AM READY. THEE, SISTER, WANT TO HOLD US BACK!!!”

Luna suddenly got darker. Like her whole body was being covered in some black substance.

“Enough!” A new voice appeared.

This newcomer came from behind us. When we all looked back, we could see a grey tall unicorn with a long pointy horn with a great white beard and wizard hat and cape.

“Have my lessons to you both done nothing?”

“O-oh? Master Starswirl?” Celestia said surprised. The white alicorn looked like she wasn’t expecting to see him. I look over at the grey-bearded Unicorn. Was this the Starswirl that Twilight obsessed about so much?

“I bethought thee were with the other Pillers,” Celestia asked.

“Hm. I was.” He looked over to Luna. “Until I received a letter from your sister. And I say, I am very disappointed in you, Celestia.”

“P-pardon? What does thou mean?”

“You prevent your sister from having something you had trouble with decades ago. And how do you deal with it?” He asked her right in her face. “By not giving her a chance. Instead, you should be guiding her by avoiding what YOU did wrong.”

I got to say, Starswirl can turn the most powerful being in the world feel like a little filly that was caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar before dinner. So far, he’s living up to what I’ve heard. A powerful wise magic-user. I wonder if he can send me home?

“If you cannot do this, then how do you expect to become a teacher yourself? A master fails and learns from their own mistakes and then passes down that knowledge to their student.”

At this point, Celestia had her head down. Perhaps in shame or respect, who knows. Okay its definitely in shame as I can now see tears rolling down her face.

Starswirl lets out a long sigh. “I cannot believe both of you are still having petty fights at this age. The others might need me and I am here looking after two grown mares who still think they are fillies.”

“I still do not believe my sister ready.”

“CELESTIA!!!” The old unicorn roared, causing the castle to shake again. “Enough. Because of that, I will make this into a task. You will guide your sister through motherhood.” He then looked at me. “It does not look like she has much of a choice now.”

What are you talking about? How does she not have a-? OH WHAT THE-?

Everypony looked down at me and I found myself up against Luna’s leg. I somehow climbed down from the stroller, walked up to her, WITHOUT me noticing. I don’t even know how that’s possible.

“Sister, thee has mine consent.” The white alicorn said before leaving.

Starswril just nodded before his horn lid up and teleported to who knows where. Luna picked me up with her magic.

“Well if Starswril says so, then we have no objections. So THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME PRINCESS BYE.” The doctor said. In an instant, every last pony left.

Only Luna and I were left. The whole castle was seemingly left dead silent. Luna pressed me against her. I’m not going to lie, it felt really cozy and warm. She then brought both of us back to her throne. She sat down and placed me down in front of her so that I was leaning against her front legs.

“Servents of the night, cometh here!” Luna called out.

At first, nothing happened, only the echo of her voice left bouncing against the walls. Then all of a sudden, the sound of wings flapping could be heard, then multiple legs hitting the floor. Ahead of us was what seemed an entire cluster of guards and maids. All wearing the image of the crescent moon somewhere on their body.

Throughout the crowd, I noticed the first maid I meet when I first woke up. She was with the creepy twins.

All the guards varied in gender and eye color, but they all shared one thing in common. They were all bat pony hybrids. The maids were a mix of both regular ponies and bat ponies. Another small thing I noticed was that the servants of the night were mostly female. There was a noticeable amount of stallions, but the mares outnumbered them.

“Servents, ponies and bat ponies alike, rejoice. A new member of the night hast joined us,” I felt myself being lifted. “I present to thee all, my son, Lunar NIght, prince of the night!!!”

Instantly, the entire crowd of ponies and bat ponies bowed down. I felt like that one lion cub at the beginning of a certain movie. Then it hit me: ‘I’m Lunar’. And that means...

What have I gotten myself into?

Author's Note

Thank you for reading another chapter of Dropped into another life. I hope you've enjoyed it so far.

Settling in

I was not expecting this. I really wasn’t expecting to actually end up as Lunar Night. I thought he would be somepony else that just looked like me. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t know that he mysteriously disappeared. If I recall, Lunar disappeared somewhere where the edge of the Everfree Forest stands. Right now, the forest doesn’t exist. However, we are close to where it will be.

Not only do I have that to look forward to, but I also have an entire life as Lunar too. It’s going to be a long 20 plus years. I wish I paid more attention to Lunar’s, or my history. Twilight was digging up anything she could find about him. But most of his later history was lost or never recorded. Princess Luna tried to fill in the gaps but said that Lunar left for long periods of time and almost never spoke about them.

So all I know is that Lunar became the captain of the guard and left on long journeys.

I hope I don’t cause any paradoxes.

After all of the servants that served under Luna were dismissed, Luna and I were left alone. Luna had me in front of her. My back supported by her forelegs. After a moment of silence, she carried me with her magic and we made our way down from the throne. As there was nothing else to carry me in or at least nothing here she wanted to use she kept me in the air. The stroller was still there, but I guess she wasn’t willing to use that one.

“T’s time for us to wend to catch but a wink.” Luna, or now mom, said.

Catch but a wink?

We made our way down the hallway. There appeared to be a guard stationed at almost every corner we passed. Each one, standing perfectly still like a statue, not even to bow before their princess or the new prince, which is me. I guess they already gave their respects when Luna announced me as her son.

We kept passing door after door. They all looked the same, not one visible difference. I’m so getting lost once I’m able to be on my own. Then we reached a wide hallway and there were two lunar guards standing on opposite sides of two large doors. Luna didn’t even stop to say anything to them, the guards just simply moved out of the way as the doors opened.

We entered a dark room. There was barely any light in here. The only light coming in looked like it came from the moon. Remind me of my first night at the orphanage. But just then, the room was filled with a soft blue light. It wasn’t very bright, but it was enough to see where things were and not trip yourself over them.

I could see a dresser, a study, a bed, and-.

Oh, so that's what she meant by ‘catch but a wink’.

Is it almost morning? Doesn’t she have to lower the moon first? But then she passed the bed, so that means that she probably wasn’t going to bed just yet, just me. I am a little tired from the spells that the doctors and nurses kept casting. I do have a little kid’s body, of course, I’m going to get tired easily.

Luna stopped for a moment. From the corner of the room, she pulled a rocking chair. It had moons and stars carved into it. It was painted like the night sky.

Then from the corner of the room again she pulled a long piece of cloth. It wrapped itself around me, to the point that I couldn’t move my limbs more than a few inches. I guess that’s because the cloth has zome elasticity.

I think I’m too old for this.

I struggled around a bit to give her the hint that I didn’t like being in this. I felt it loosen around me.

“I thought not.” She sighed.

What?

She looked down at me and brought her head down and nuzzled me against my cheek.

“I should have taken thee earlier.” She whispered, “I did plan to take thee by force, but sister would have intervened.”

Wait you were planning to kidnap me?

The thought of Luna breaking into the orphanage frightened me. Her thunderous roars were enough to make the castle shake, but see her use her physical strength and magic? I haven’t seen present Luna use her magic around me. So who knows how destructive her power is.

Then a pain in my stomach causes me to cry a bit. I no longer cry like I used to. I have some control over how much I cry now, but its not enough to stop it completely. This body is still far from under my complete control.

“Dear mother! What is wrong mine own child?!” Luna had a look of panic. She was looking all around me to see what was causing me to cry.

I’m hungry.

She didn’t react because no pony can understand me anymore.

“Has mine child soiled himself?”

Hungry!

“Tired? Wait! Mother’s book on foals!”

She summoned an old-looking book and furiously started to flip through its pages. Her eyes darting left and right, up and down, desperately trying to find the answer in the pages. Could she even register the words with how fast she was scanning the book? When she finished ‘reading’ the book her face looked flustered.

“I-I h-has't prepared for t-this.” Luna stuttered.

She began to lower me. At first, I was confused as to why. She did know all she had to do was to feed me a bottle of milk, right? She kept lowering me down past her belly and closer to her crotch.

Wait. Wait. Wait. NO! NO! I’ve had enough time spent ‘down there’!

Then a knock at the door was heard. Through was a muffled voice of one of the maids.

“Princess? I have brought Fresh warm milk for the colt. Shall I leave it here?”

“Oh? OH! Please do.”

The sound of a tray gently being place on the ground and then followed by hooves moving away was heard. After a few moments, Luna lifted me back up. Her horn flared and brought in the tray.

The tray contained a single bottle of milk. Luna took the bottle off the tray and brought it up to me. She placed the little nibble at the tip of the bottle and pressed it down on my lips. I instinctively began sucking in its contents.

Oh, thank whatever deity is looking out for me.

I felt the warm liquid travel down my throat and into my belly. The bottle felt neverending. The more I drank, the more milk came out. Was I really that hungry? I was fed at some point at the hospital. I think? Oh, I don’t think I was.

“We hope we did not traumatize thee.” Luna apologized. “Thou art not of our blood, so thee could not have drunk from us.”

You were going to make me drink from there!? Is it too late to think over this adoption?

I looked up at her and saw that she was smiling. There was a welcoming feel to it. Then a single tear traveled down her cheek. Then another one.

“What is this emotion we feel?”

I looked at her as she was starting to cry. Why is she crying? There are a few reasons why somepony cries, but nothing comes to mind. I can’t do very much as I am. I feel the last of the milk drip down into my mouth. I push the bottle out of the way and start reaching towards her.

She has her eyes closed. Meaning that she can’t see me trying to reach her. If she can’t see me, then perhaps hearing me will work.

Okay, let’s try it. Breath in, shape lips, and…

“Ma-mah!”

Dang, I meant to say, Luna.

This grabs her attention. She had a shocked look on her face. Even more, tears left her eyes. Did I do something wrong? Did I make it worse? I don’t know I can’t read her mind.

“Forgive me these art not drops of sorrow, but of joy.” She summoned a handkerchief and wiped away her tears. “Thee has brought so much to us in so little time.”

She’s probably never felt joy like this before then. What was she like before this moment then? I look back up and see that she’s still wiping away. Doses it matters? I guess the important thing now is that I’m here.

“T's almost morning I shalt only be gone for a moment.” She placed down in the bed.

She teleported away. I was left alone, but it was clear to where she left to go do. The sky went from being purple to blue as the moon was set and the sun took its place. Luna reappeared again. She closed all the curtains that weren’t previously closed. She took her place next to me on the bed.

I snuggled next to her barrel. For some reason, it felt like the best place to be. It didn’t take long for me to fall into a deep slumber.

“Sweet dream, Lunar, mine child.”

“...And this is the library,” Luna said. If anypony didn’t notice the little colt in a baby carrier wrap, then they would have thought that she was talking to herself.

The next night, Luna is currently taking me on a tour around a castle. Again, there aren’t many ponies around as most are asleep. The only ones awake are the lunar guards and the few maids. The maids bowed down whenever we intercepted them, the only guards that did do any sign of respect were the ones patrolling. They’d step aside and salute, then they’d continue to patrolling their routs.

When we entered the library I was amazed by the immense amount of books that filled the shelves. The entire room looked endless. No matter where you looked, there were books. Up? Books. Down? Books. I bet this place would cause Twilight to get aroused.

I bet I could learn a lot by just being here. Well, first I need to learn to read. Yeah despite living in Equestria for almost a year I still can’t read well. I learned a few words here and there, but an entire book? No thanks. Luckily I had Octavia or Vinyl to read for me.

I tried to learn, but I felt embarrassed to be a grown stallion while most of my peers would be little fillies and colts. I couldn't find the time to learn on my own if I wanted to. If I wasn’t working, then it would be Silver and Grey chasing me and taking me back to their village. Then after that, it would be escaping and I would arrive home tired. But now that I’m a colt myself, I can now learn to read without anything holding me back.

“However, I do not believe thou are not interested in books.” She gave a light chuckle.

Wait! Let’s not jump into any conclusions! Aaannnd we’re gone.

“I did save the most wondrous lodging for last.”

So far I have been enjoying the tour. The castle turned out to be much bigger than it seemed. Each door hid something different. I can’t even count how many doors there are since they all look the same. Seriously, I swear we entered through the same door twice and both times the room was different.

So far I’ve seen the library, kitchen, throne room, barracks, courtyards, and even the baths. There were baths for different ponies of various positions. The maids and other servants, like the gardeners and messengers, had their own. The soldiers had their own, but the day and night guards had separate baths. There was one bathroom reserved for the guest that would stay here. Then there was a royal bath. When I saw that, my jaw was threatening to fall out. That room was covered in gold and other precious metals and stones.

The kitchen surprisingly bussy, however, the cooks all looked to be nocturnal bat ponies. There didn’t seem to be a single regular ponies among them. We stopped here and ate. The staff wasn’t intimated by Luna’s presence like I thought they would be. They treated her as if she was another pony. However, they were slightly tense by my presence. Probably because if I choked on something it would probably cause Luna to go into a frenzy. So they made sure my food safe for me to eat without a problem.

During all this time, Luna was the happiest that I’ve ever seen her. Even more than the Luna from my time. While she was happy with her sister and the other princesses, there seemed to be something missing. I could somewhat tell. It was preventing her from being truly happy. Speaking of her sister, Celestia, they don’t see eye to eye. I knew that there was some tension between them in the past, but I thought it was Luna being the main problem, seeing that no pony appreciated her nights.

Celestia was nothing like her counterpart in the future. From what I’ve seen, She’s more like the monster Nightmare Moon describes her to be. Yeah, I know about Nightmare Moon. Twilight would not shut up about her when Luna was brought up around me. From what I’ve seen, Celestia does not approve a majority of what Luna does. Adopting me included.

The adoption was weird. I expected some sort of paperwork to be done, but there was none of that. She just said she was going to be my mother and everypony besides Celestia accepted. I still wonder if there’s any other reason that she wanted to adopt me. Besides the simple desire of wanting a child to be a mother, there was no other purpose I could figure out.

She closes the doors to the Library and walks forward. We passed many doors, most of them turn out to be empty guest bedrooms. Each one fitted for a different race. Apparently we have minotaurs, griffins, and even dragons come into the castle for diplomatic reasons. We end up outside. We are on top of one of the castle walls. It doesn’t expand very far, it curves back. The wall surrounds a small courtyard.

But something tells me that this is not what she wanted me to see. Luna spreads her majestic wings and with a single strike of her wings, we are lifted into the air. I peered down, but Luna pulled my head in.

“Nay peaking mine own child.”

I felt like pouting, but I hold it back as best I can.

Then lands somewhere. It didn’t feel like we’ve gone too far, the time in the air was much too brief for us to have gone very far. In fact, I didn’t feel our descent back down either.

“Thee can behold now mine own son.”

I think she wants me to look now. Truth be told. I only understand about a fourth of what she says. I go off the tone of her voice. Hopefully modern speech comes soon. I do not want to speak like that.

When I look out, I’m left speechless. In front of me is the entirety of what seems the entirety of Equestria. First thing I notice the city just across the bridge. Most of the houses are vacant of any life. The only light polluting the air beside the moon are the street lamps at every corner. The city looks very dated compared to Canterlot from the present.

Then past that are the farms outside the city. I could make out the barn houses, but even they lacked any light. Above I could make out what looked like a giant cloud hovering several feet above. Cloudsdale, I never guessed I’d ever see it here and now. It too was void of any light or life.

Past all of it, I could make out a beautiful purple sky. The sky was illuminated by the moon and stars. I could make out various constellations that I could see back home when I was human. Like the… uh, or the...uh. Why can’t I remember any of the constellations? One of their names is on the tip of my tongue, but the closer I get to it, the harder it is to remember. Like trying to see a faded image in the dark.

Oh well, at the very least I can learn them here.

I enjoy the scenery longer. How come more ponies aren’t enjoying a night stroll? The lamps produce more than enough light that you wouldn’t need to worry about tripping over anything.

I feel a hoof grazing the back of my head. I look up to see Luna smiling down at me. It seems like she’s thrilled that I’m admiring this. I can see tears about to form. She hasn’t experienced this much happiness, has she? Or at the very least not in a long time.

Then a flash of light illuminates the area for a second. The smile Luna had quickly turned into a frown. She turns us around and we are greeted by the sight of Celestia.

“Good morning, sister.” Celestia greeted.

Luna said nothing. She gave a heaving sigh and turned back around. She spoke, but not to Celestia. “This is the last thing I did want to show thee, but our moment alone is ruined.” She spoke to me in a low voice.

A blue aura surrounded her horn and then the moon began to move down. I’ve never seen Luna or Celestia move their respected celestial bodies.

Wait. It’s morning already? How long was that tour?

It felt like we only visited a few places. Did I fall asleep at some point?

The moon is quickly replaced by the sun. All of a sudden the previous dead city below is brought to life. Ponies can be seen leaving their houses. Birds can be heard tweeting about. I look up to see that Luna’s expression has turned sour. Af if she’s thinking how everypony can enjoy and appreciate the day, but none take the moment to do the same to her night.

“Sister,” Celestia calls out, but Luna doesn’t respond.

The scene warps around us and it changes back to the room. Luna closes the curtains so that the room is darkened. She lays me down. I suddenly feel sleepy, so I comply. She lays down as well, I moved beside her barrel.

I already decided to stop trying to get back home to my time. The reason being was that I have the body of a little colt. I have no magic or at least none that I could control. The biggest one being that I’m Lunar Night, Princess Luna’s son. If I were to disappear all of a sudden, then I would probably cause a huge paradox, assuming I haven’t done so already.

Even if it didn't cause one, then Luna would probably go berserk and look all over for me. But again, I'm currently a little colt. I couldn't go very far even if I wanted to.

I close my eyes and let sleep take over me.

I just realized I haven’t been knocked out in a while. Heh.

Luna looked down at her child. Everything was going so well during their tour. She knew that Lunar wouldn’t recall most of what they went through, but many of the night staff recommended that he’d get at least familiar with his surroundings. Then when they viewed the night sky she felt overjoyed that her son was liking her night. Finally, before heading to bed she wanted to amaze her son with the moon, but of course, her sister had to intervene.

So that moment was ruined. She had no desire to speak to her sister. She knew Starsril would make them make up, but until then she wanted nothing to do with her. But no matter. She had many years in front of her to spend with Lunar.

Lunar let out the softest of snores. He had fallen asleep quite quickly. She had to admit that his sleeping schedule was strange, but it benefited her as she could show him the night.

“Lunar, mine own son I shall protect thee no matter what.” She swore.

Now that he was asleep, she wondered what he was dreaming. Actually she didn’t need to, she had the ability to dreamscape. She could enter his dream easily.

“Allow us to see what thou art dreaming about.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated. The world around her melted away. When she opened her eyes again she was surrounded by a few bubbles. She wasn’t surprised to see so few. After all, the majority of ponies were wake.

She walked around a bit, looking for her son’s dream. After a few seconds, she grew uneasy. There were no signs of Lunar dreaming. Usually, if she wanted she could locate a specific pony in a matter of seconds. No matter what she did Lunar’s dream couldn’t be found.

It wasn’t possible. Even the most recent newborn could conjure up a dream. A pony had to train extensively to avoid dreaming. Another one was if the individual had cast a spell to prevent her from entering.

She quickly left the dream realm. She took control of her physical body. Luna looked down at her son expecting him to be awake at the very least. But he was still very much asleep. He was snoring. If Luna hadn’t experienced her run into the dream realm she would have passed it off, but now she was very considered. Afraid even.

“Why?”

The only other reason she could think of was if he was remembering something. Many great unicorns trained themself to replace a dream with reliving a major moment in their life when they fell asleep. Only then could she not find their dream. But this is a colt of bearly a couple of years of life. What memories could he have that could impact him?

“This hurts… so much.”

I was stuck and I was having a hard time breathing. It was dark and whatever was holding me in place was crushing me. I feel like I should know where this is and what happening, but nothing clicks.

Then the entire place shakes and whatever is holing me presses down on me even more. It’s crushing me. My head finally registers whats happening. Something is crushing me and its a matter of time before it completely falls on top of me and kills me.

Then the place I’m in is illuminated by light. It's a nearby fire just a few feet away from me. Its light reveals a large slab of concrete pressing down on me. The only thing preventing me from flattening down like a sandwich is a broken metal I beam holding it up at an angle. But even that looks like it’s going to give out. One more shake like the one before and I’m done for.

Why am I dreaming about this stuff? And why is it when I wake up I forget? It only when Ii dream that I remember.

Then I hear the sound of footsteps closing in. My head turns to the source. I smile thinking I'm safe. I can’t hear him or her. Their mouth is moving, but no words come out.

“Please… help me.” I choke out.

“I will.” They respond.

The stranger, who I can’t their face see walks over to the beam. I’m confused as to why but then he kicks it. I try to call out to them, but all they needed was that one kick and the slab of concrete falls

All of a sudden I can’t breathe or move. The stranger walks up to me. They placed their hand over me. They say something as their mouth is moving but I don’t hear anything as the world goes dark again.

Why is this happening?

Author's Note

Sorry that it took a little while longer to get this chapter out, but I had an exam to study and get done. I've also gotten a few graveyard shifts at work, so when I get home I get home a bit tired.

I'll try to keep the uploads constant.

My life as a prince starts.

Why can’t I ever get comfortable?

I toss and turn in my bed. No matter what position I take, I just can’t get comfortable. Did I eat too many sweets? Ever since I’ve been able to eat on my own, I’ve taken every opportunity to eat whatever candy I could swipe.

Defeated, I sit up and look around the room. The curtains block out any light from the outside, but the light from the hallway bleeds into my room from under the door. The little light coming in is enough to make out my surroundings. Even though the lack of light obscures my vision, I can still recognize my things. Like my desk bookshelf, dresser, Tv, and…

TV? Those don’t exist. How can there be a TV here-? Oh, I see now.

I quickly come to realize that this isn’t my room. At least I think it isn’t. Almost every time I go to sleep, I have a nightmare of dying in some way. At first, it scarred me because whenever I woke up, I couldn’t remember the dream, but when I fell back asleep and entered a new one, I remembered everything.

At this point, it just became normal, so I just wait to die. I know it sounds dark of me, but again, I won’t remember this once I wake up.

Okay, let’s get this over with. How do I die this time, stabbed, crushed, or will I get hit by a bus again?

Nothing happens for a while, and I lay back down. Another thing about these dreams is that I have no control over my actions even though it feels like I do. In most of them, I’m human, but there are a few where I’m a simple creature, like a cat, or a whale. Then there are a few where I’m something strange, like being a talking pegasus strange. One time I was a goblin stealing gold or a weird squid that could turn into a human and back.

It seems like I finally got comfortable and start to fall asleep. At first, I think that I’ll just die in my sleep, but then I have a hard time breathing. It gets harder to get air into my lungs. A feeling, for the time being, familiar to me. It’s not the first time I’ve died like this. Of course, each situation was different.

J-just h-hurry up already.

The world goes dark, just as it always does.

...*Gasp!*

I shoot awake, almost falling off my bed. I quickly scramble for a journal hidden behind the nightstand. I open it up to the next clean page. The journal is almost halfway full, but it’s not the only journal around. There are at least two others like it.

Come on. Come on. Where’s a quill? Come on I need one while it’s still fresh!

When I finally locate a quill, I jot down everything I could recall.

Let’s see, room, dark,...and breath. And. and… Dammit. It’s gone.

I drop the quill back into the ink bottle in frustration. No matter how hard I try, I can’t retain the dream I had. I leave the journal open for a few more minutes to let it dry. There is ink that will dry up almost instantly, but I grabbed this set without anypony seeing.

Ever since I could walk on my own and had better control over my body, I kept a journal near my bed. Each page had an entry describing what I saw in the dream, but never how it ended. I could recall a few details, but within a few minutes of being awake, it would disappear completely.

In truth, I didn’t know how to read or write in equis very well, so I wrote in English. Mom, -er Luna, I mean, doesn’t trust me with ink because one time I tried to write and I ended up spilling it all over the carpet and all over myself too, which was harder to get off my fur because it was also black. So bath time was extra long.

Mom… huh.

I’ve been calling her that ever since I could speak, but it’s only to keep up appearances. Still, I find weird calling her ‘mom.’ I still see myself as a grown stallion, just trapped in a colt’s body. She’s done everything a mother would do. Not always in the best way, but she tried her best. She was very clingy at the start, but as I grew older, she laid off a bit. Not a whole lot, but at least I can go to the bathroom by myself.

One example is the time she tried showing me how to swim. She placed all these safety devices all over me. I looked like that weird tire mascot. To make it worse, we were at a public pool. I’m lucky that cameras haven’t been invented yet. However, that didn’t stop ponies from telling others orally. It eventually made it to the ears of Celestia, so she teased me much to the dismay of Luna.

Speaking of Celestia, our relationship as a family is… fair. We don’t interact very often, nor do we seek out each other. She does her own thing, and Luna and I do ours. Whenever we did meet, it was during the exchange between the night and day courts.

However, Luna’s relationship with her sister hadn’t gotten any better. I’ve heard of ponies holding grudges for years, but these two are immortal beings, this could last for centuries.

As I put the journal away back to its hiding place, my eye catches a pile of books sitting on my desk. I look at the books with dread. I’m at the age where I can learn. So, Luna had hired a tutor to teach me to read and write. I learned to read and write up to a point, but then the tutor dumped all these books one day and told me to do as much as I could.

At first, I assumed it would be just copying down different letters and words. But no, they were full chapter books with quizzes at the end of them. I would have been fine if they were easy books, but no, they were advanced stories. The questions asked what the color of a curtain symbolized. I gave up after that question; in fact, that WAS the first question.

I heard a knock at the door.

“Your highness? Have you completed your assignments?” A voice called out to me.

My ears folded back, and I realized who it was. The voice belonged to my tutor, Mr. Sorrow. He wasn’t the most enthusiastic pony around, but supposedly he was the best tutor. I looked back at the book and remembered that I had a week to complete them, and that week was up.

Oh crap.

I panicked. I desperately tried to come up with an excuse. But what would I tell him? 'Sorry Mr. Sorrow, but I didn’t like what you gave me, so I gave up on it'. Like that would ever work.

Then I look over to the window but instantly shot that idea down. There are guards stationed right out my window, so any chance of escaping out the window are non-existent. Then I hear the lock to my door click.

When did he get a key to my door? And why?

Without thinking, I stretch out my wings and hover above the door entrance. The purple stallion pokes his head into the room. He looks around for me but finds nothing.

“Your Highness?” Mr. Sorrow calls out.

He enters the room completely. He leaves the door wide open as he does. I’m surprised that he doesn’t here me furiously flapping my wings. As soon as he’s far enough in the room, I make a break for it. I land outside the doorway with a soft landing.

“Goodness!” I hear him shout.

Have I been caught?

Luckily no, he was looking over the incomplete book assignments placed on my desk. He was flipping through each page. His expression was becoming more disappointed with each flip. I dissected that it was time for me to go. I took off to someplace else in the castle.

I wonder about the castle’s hallways fairly quickly. Since it’s the middle of the night, the castle is relatively empty. The only ponies awake at this hour are Luna, the guards, a few maids and butlers, and I.

While the halls are mostly empty, there are guards stationed at every corner. These guys are the easiest to sneak past by. I simply fly up to the ceiling beams and walk right past them. It took me a while to figure this out.

However, patrolling guards are a bit more challenging to get by. They’re a lot more observant than the guards stationed at one spot. I got caught a few times before, but I learned to just blend into the shadows and having my coat dark helps tremendously.

As I’m turning another corner, I come across the sound of Mr. Sorrow calling out to me. He sounds tired and irritated. I take a peek around the corner and see that he has a couple of guards with him.

These guys again?

Yes, I recognized these sets of guards. Why, you ask? Its because this isn’t the first time I’ve run off from my duties. I found learning to write boring once I got the hang of having a quill in my mouth, but when we got into cursive writing, I was out of there. Luna had to send out these guards to find me. They were part of the search and locate team. They were annoyed that they were stuck looking for a bratty prince, but once I became harder and harder to find, they took it as a challenge.

I’ve been acting more like my physical age more than I’d like to admit. I know what I do is wrong, but the kid in me wants to have fun. I’ve pulled a fair share of pranks here and there. Nothing to write home about, but they have gotten me in trouble. Luna scowls me because Celestia told her to do so, but she pretends she came up with it on her own. Another example of me being more childlike is going to Luna when I get hurt as any child with their mother would when they get hurt. The child in me does see her as a mother.

The guards make their way closer to me. I look around to try to find a way out here. I’m nowhere near any windows or doors. I’m in the middle of one long hallway. The only sort of cover is the banners hanging from the walls. They could cover me, but then they would find it suspicious to see a significant bump poking out. But then I recognize the design of the banner.

I feel a smile form on my face as I realize where I am—the entrance to one of many secret passageways. Not many know about them, not even the guards, but since I’m a prince, Luna showed me a few of them. So without giving it a second thought, I leap towards the banner. When Luna was first showing me this specific entrance, I thought I was going to become a pancake due to how much force she used tossing me. So instead of hitting the wall, I went through it, so then the secret was revealed to me. The banner and a section of the wall were all an illusion.

Once in the tunnel, the hard part started: navigation. I know I haven’t been the best with finding my way around, but this place would give anypony a hard time to find their way around. The tunnels have no markings, and if they did, then they were covered in cobwebs.

Why don’t they have anypony come in and clean up? Wait, then it wouldn’t be a secret then.

I mentally slapped myself. I venture further down the tunnels, taking random turns. Then I found an exit. This one had a solid surface; fortunately, it open easily and quiet enough so that I could peek out to see where I was in the castle. What I saw made me wish I could write a message to my five-second younger self not to peek out this exit. I backed away from this exit and headed the opposite direction.

Okay, let’s hope the next one doesn’t lead to a couple’s room. I do not need to see the roles reversed again.

After ending up going through several exits, many of which leading to other ponies rooms. I finally found one that leads out to an open area. I found myself above the throne room. Below I could see Luna talking to somepony, which surprised me. The night court rarely had any cases brought to it.

I could see a unicorn stallion blabbering nonsense. After hearing for a few seconds, I could make out that he wanted more land without pay for it. He argued that he generated so much money; it wouldn’t make sense. I looked over to mom, who had a neutral face. But I knew that she was irritated at this ponies’ whining.

This guy’s an idiot. Must have been spoiled since birth.

Even though that not many ponies went to the night court, the few that did, thought that Luna was less experienced, so they would have an easier time attaining what they wanted.

They were ultimately wrong because Luna was just as intelligent as her sister. So they ended up getting the same results just as if they attended the day court.

Deciding that I had enough of this ponies’ nonsense, I turned to leave, but before I could, Luna caught my eye. She was looking right at me. The stallion was so into his speech didn’t notice that the princess wasn’t paying attention. I sheepishly waved at her, and she smiled at me. She pointed with her eyes to the secret tunnel behind me.

Time for me to go then.

I entered the tunnel and spent the next hour trying to find the way back. Once I found an exit that didn’t lead to a room, I made my way back to my room. If only I knew where I was. I looked for a window, once that gave me a view of the castle tower. From that, I could figure out more or less where I was.

Okay, how hard is it to find a window?

The halls seemed to stretch out for miles, and none of them lead to windows. The guards didn’t make the search easier either. Left, left, right, right, and even up, there was no end. Soon I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, a window to the outside. I ran up to it. I looked for the tower. It was the same one Luna brought me when I was still a small foal.

Okay, where is the balcony? There it is! Now, if it’d there, then my room should be… here?

I looked behind me and saw the door to my room. There was no mistaking this door. Somehow, in looking for a window, I ended up finding my way back to my room.

Huh. How convenient.

I opened the door. I looked around to see no pony here. Did Mr. Sorrow already leave? I closed the door behind me, and the moment I did, I heard a cough beside me. It was Mr. Sorrow, and he was not happy.

“Was your little stroll fulfilling?”

Buck.

“No… more.” I weakly croaked out.

I was in the dining room, waiting for tonight’s dinner. My mouth was sore after writing so much, so talking hurt. It’s a step up from what kept me from talking before, which I still have no idea. I was surprised that I could speak normally without a problem.

Once Mr. Sorrow caught me, he made me do every assignment in one sitting. The only breaks I had were to go to the bathroom, and they had a time limit. After I finished, I thought I was home free, but then he dropped the ball on me. It was another assignment. It wasn’t a paper assignment, but more of a task.

Celestia assigned this herself. She told Mr. Sorrow as she couldn’t deliver it herself. It seemed simple enough, but then Mr. Sorrow said if I failed this, then I could receive five times more homework than I had previously.

I thought since it wasn’t a paper assignment, it would be easy. But once Mr.Sorrow gave it to me, I froze stiff.

The assignment was to find a pony my age and befriend them.

“Lunar?” I heard Luna call me, “What troubles thee?”

Luna was sitting on the other side of this ridiculous long table. I usually sat right next to her, but when I entered the dining room, I sat in the nearest chair.

I raise my head to look up at her. “The assignment,” I say.

She lets out a soft sigh. She probably thought it was something serious. She gets up from her chair and makes her way over to me even though it takes a while.

“Do not fret mine child. I shall have a word with sister.”

I was taken back at this. Was Luna actually going to talk to Celestia after all this time just to get me out of a simple assignment? I felt like jumping for joy, but then something kept nagging me otherwise. As if I needed to this, or else something might go wrong. How? Beats me.

“No, I shall see through this,” I told her. I thanked her for her concern. Now she was taken back at this, but she quickly accepted it. I, however, mentally facepalmed as to why I did that. It was way out for crying out loud!

“Thou art growing fast,” she said, headed back to her chair.

You have no clue.

“Dinner is ready, your majesty’s.” The chief said as the waiters carried plates of food over to us. But I couldn’t focus on eating right now. Right now I’m thinking where I’m going to find a friend?

“Princess Luna!.” A guard came up to Luna. He bowed before speaking again. “The recruits have arrived.”

“Very well, general.”

“However, we have an unusual one.” The general spoke.

“Oh? What seems to be the problem?”

“One of the recruits is… well, just see with your own eyes. Once you are finished eating, of course.”

The general bowed one final time before leaving. Luna signaled me to eat as I have not touched my food. I looked down to see hay fries, a daisy sandwich, and some water.

These exist at this time, too, then?

After eating, Luna and I headed over to the training grounds where the fresh recruits were currently at. Luna decided it was a good idea to let me see who would be joining the ranks. I hope she’s not thinking of making me the captain of the guard just yet.

Once outside, we were greeted by a pair of guards waiting for us. Every time we step outside the castle walls, it is required for us to have at least one guard with us—the only exception being in the courtyard or the castle gardens. But even then, there would be a guard hidden somewhere. How may you ask? I could feel a pair of eyes watching me every time I set foot in those places.

The guards follow us carefully, one at the front and one at the back even though it’s dark out, our way is illumined by torches placed alongside the path. It doesn’t take that long to arrive at the grounds, where many bat ponies are busy training.

Are they all bat ponies then?

I thought I couldn’t see a regular pony among them because of how dark it was out here, but the entire grounds were clear as day with all the torches around.

“What does mine child think?” Luna asked.

“Astonishing,” I said, coming up with the biggest word I could come up with so as to prove my vocabulary was expanding. Some were jabbing their spears at dummies while others were sparing.

Before Luna could say anything else the sound of spears clashing caught our attention, we turned to see where the sound was coming from; almost every pony present had a spear with them, so it was hard to deduce. Luckily, a group was huddled around a circle cheering on, so it was safe to say it came from over there.

“What is all the commotion about?” Luna asks one of the guards.

“This is what I wanted to speak to you about, princess.” A voice spoke behind us.

It was the General from earlier. He walked up to mom before bowing down. He raised his head back again and looked over at the little group huddled. I was expecting to say something, but then one of the recruits who I assumed was fighting was flung over the crowd and was about to land right in front of me. Luna used her magic to push the recruit back before hitting the ground with a hard thud.

The group of recruits began to disperse, and it revealed who the other opponent was. Neither Luna nor I could prepare to see what we saw. The other pony was just a little filly. She was holding a spear too big for her, but it seemed she had no trouble welding it.

“Commn’ now. What the matter now ya’ pansies! Too scared to get ya’ arses owned by a filly?” The filly boosted.

“The filly you see here has abnormal strength for her size and age.”

However, that was not what surprised me. What did was the filly’s eyes. They looked very familiar, almost as I’ve seen them somewhere else before. But where?

I’ve seen her somewhere. I just know it.

Her eyes then lock onto mine. Her left eye is purple, and her right eye being on the opposite side of the color wheel, yellow. We stare at each other for a few moments. The bat filly eyes turn from curiosity to a glare.

“YOU!” She yells across from me.

She wings spread out, and with one push of her hind legs, she travels the distance within a second. Directly at me.

OH SH-!

Author's Note

I hoped you've enjoyed this chapter.

Who are you?

Ow… that really hurt.

I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head. At least that’s where I think it is. The entire world is a bit fussy and whenever I see the world fuzzy that means I’ve hit my head again.

The last thing I remember I was with Luna, following a general of her army and we were going to see one of the new recruits. Once we got there we were greeted by the sight of a small bat-filly around my age kicking the older recruits' asses. Then she turned to face me and something at the back of my head clicked but was interrupted by the same filly flying into me.

Then the last thing I saw was her eyes, one yellow, and the other one purple. Just like the ones staring down at me right now.

Staring down at me!?

Once I regained my senses I find myself on my back once again with the opposite sex on top of me. She’s stabbing daggers into me with her eyes. The rest of the ponies, including my mother, are shocked to see that somepony had the audacity to attack a member of the royal family, and being one of the guards made it worse.

I opened my mouth to speak, but I was cut off before a single sound can leave my lips.

“SO THIS IS WHERE YOU’VE BEEN!?” She yells. “OFF LIVIN’ YER WILDEST FANTASIES WHILE I’VE BEEN LIVIN’ OFF THE BUCKEN LAND!” She points to mom and back to herself.

What the buck are you talking about?

“NOTHIN TO SAY AT ALL!?” She slams her right hoof into the ground a few centimeters away from my head, the force causes the ground to somewhat crack around her hoof.

Have I met her before? I feel like I have, but I think the trauma to my head has caused me to forget. No, wait! I know…

“...Sheila?”

She took offense to that. She raised her hoof again and aimed for it to hit my face. Just as it was about to make contact, her hoof was surrounded by a blue aura. I turned my head over to see Luna. She was the one holding the hoof of the bat-filly.

“How dare thee…” Her voice turned cold and dark. “...hurt mine own child.”

Luna’s blue coat looked like it was turning black, her eyes were almost cat-like but that could be my imagination. It is dark outside after all.

“HE-!” The filly is cut off as she is flung away from me. She hits the castle wall headfirst with a heavy thud. Her body goes limp as she bounces off the wall and lands on the ground. She is then surrounded by a bunch of guards all pointing their spears at her. This does not phase her, and despite being flung and hitting a solid stone wall, she gets back up and dusts herself off.

“Hmph!” She rolls her eyes.

What was she made of if getting tossed like that did nothing to her? It almost made me feel envious of her durability. Basically, anything aiming for my head will have a 100 percent chance of knocking me out cold.

The general furiously marched his way to her. He began to shout whatever profanity he had in his vocabulary bank. I may have forgotten a few things thanks to earlier. But I’m making up for it by filling in whatever that stallion was spewing out his mouth.

“General! Not in front of mine child.” Luna said, clearly desiring me not to ever repeat those words.

‘O-oh of course! My sincerest apologies.” The general realizes his mistake.

I feel mom’s magic aura lift me off my back and onto my hooves. I try to dust myself off as best I can, but it seemed that I collected more dust than I appeared to have.

“Seems a bath is in order Lunar,” Luna said inspecting me for any further injuries.

I just had one!

She turns to leave. I don’t move, however. My eyes are fixed on the filly that just attacked me. She’s just like the other bat-ponies I’ve seen, the only major difference is that she’s a filly. There’s something else that’s bothering me. No, it's not the eyes, I've seen a few other ponies with heterochromia iridium.

Screw it, I’m going to ask her.

I made my way to her. Luna saw me making my ways towards her and asked what I was doing. I pointed my hoof at the filly and continued walking. The filly in question was still rolling her eyes and not paying any attention to the general. However, when I got close enough she took quick notice of me, and not long after her so did everypony else. The guards who had their spears pointed at her retracted them as they did not want to hurt me and receive Luna's wrath.

“Your Highness what is ever the-?” I raised my hoof, signaling him to zip it. I know this kind of behavior is inappropriate for a prince, but I was just attacked by a guard who is supposed to serve the monarch.

“I wish to speak to her,” I said.

“Of course…” The general backed away and I was left with the filly.

So, what your deal? What did I ever do to you?

She says nothing. She still looks like she’s waiting for me to say something. A few moments pass before I realize what I did. Or rather what I didn't do.

Right, forgot.

“First, who are you? Second, Why did you think... that was a good idea?”

“So… you DID forget.” She looked elsewhere. Her voice dropped sending a small chill down my spine.

“So we have met... before then?” I asked. She’s supposedly met me then, so then why can’t I remember her? Perhaps if I ask her where we’ve met, then I may be able to figure it out. “Tell me… were have we met?”

“We shared a bed.”

Despite my black coat, my face turned red at this. A few snickers were heard in the background. I asked her where we met not how we met. Another thing is that we’re still kids! I’m around five to six years old. She can’t be too far off either. But I better make sure.

“So did we just sleep or…?”

“Just slept! Nothing more! For crying out loud we were at the most two!” Now her face was red. “We grew up at that forsaken orphanage!”

Then everything clicked into place. She was the filly that bit me!

“YOU BIT... ME!” I yelled. Something I rarely ever do.

“THAT’S WHAT YOU REMEMBER ABOUT ME?!” She yelled back. She had a face of confusion and shock.

“IT... HURT!”

“STILL! THAT’S ALL YOU REMEMBER ABOUT ME?”

“No, I remember us playing at night because every pony else was asleep.” My voice resumed back to a normal volume.

“Yes!” She lowered her voice as well.

“Also ate! Hated broccoli.” I remember throwing away the broccoli whenever it was served.

“Yes! We would throw them away when no pony was looking.” I didn't want to waste food so I stuffed it into some sleeping ponies' mouth. It was weird how they made us eat in our beds instead of the cafeteria.

“And that’s it.” I finished.

Her face went blank. She said nothing after that. Her head dropped and immediately the temperature dropped drastically.

“...I waited for you… to come back.” Her voice gave me chills. “And that all you remember me by? Did I mean nothing to you?” She turned around and stared at me with a dead look. Her one visible eye was blank and lifeless while the other one was covered by her hair.

Why would she? I mean we were little children who could barely talk at all. I was fully aware of everything, but her? I thought she would forget everything. People don’t remember their time as babies unless they experienced something traumatic.

Then a bell was heard from afar. Every pony knew what that meant and began to pack their stuff and head off. The general yelled at the top of his lungs for every pony to bow before Luna and me before they left. The filly refused to look in my direction, which seemed hard to do since I was only a few steps away in front of Luna.

“Hey! What’s... your name?” I asked despite still being scared half to death.

“You don’t deserve to know.” She bluntly said.

She picked up her spear that was laying on the ground. She pressed down on it and it flipped up off the ground and landed on her back. Seeing a full-sized spear on a small filly looked ridiculous. She turned and gave me one last look before joining the others.

The grounds were left empty, only leaving me and Luna. I was standing there going over what just happened. I meet the bat-filly I grew up with for the first two years of my life since I got here shows up again, she charges into me, and gets angry that I forgot all about her.

“Lunar, mine child, what happened?”

“An old… friend happened.”

“Princess!” A messenger yelled from behind us.

A Green pegasus made their way over to us. I’ve seen this pony a few times before. They’re one of the few ponies who is allowed to go in and out of the castle as they please. As long they are on duty.

“Yes? What is it?”

“The royal blacksmith says the prince’s crown is ready.” The messenger told her.

“Excellent! Thou are dismissed.”

The messenger bowed before leaving. They yawned before taking off. I’m guessing that they’re heading home and getting into bed. It is pretty late at night, in fact, it looks like it will only be a few more hours before dawn.

Luna and I finally make our way inside the castle. I head towards my room ready to go to sleep. I don't know why mom keeps asking what I dream about. And I always give her the same answer: I don't remember. Why does she need to know? She can see every creature's dream after all. Can't she?

Why do I keep switching between mom and Luna?

"Lunar?"

"Yes, mother?" I looked up to meet her gaze.

"Do not forget your bath."

Buck!

Author's Note

Sorry for the long wait. A change in schedule at work. Anyway, I hope to release a chapter every two weeks and adding a few drawings here and there.

Give it back!

“GAH!” I fall off from my bed not knowing why I was screaming. I hit the floor with a soft thud as I was gripping onto my bedsheets to slow down my descent.

Instead of getting back up I just sat there. I tried to recall the dream the best I could so that I might write it down. However, lately, I haven't been able to recall anything, and it was starting to worry me. I wanted to ask mom to look into my dreams since she would always ask me what I dreamt about, but I always told her I had forgotten. Now I was asking her, but every time she tried she couldn't find my dream. She has centuries of experience entering other beings' dreams, but this has been a first since she first learned to do so.

I lay on the ground, listening to the ticking of the clock at the corner of my room. I look over to my desk and see all the stacks of paper containing homework assignments, and documents that I’m somehow now eligible to read and sign.

Being a prince sucks sometimes.

Finally getting up I make my way towards the desk. I pull up my chair, sit on it, and begin my grueling tasks. Most of my homework consisted of reading assignments and various books to read. So half of my time consisted of trips to the library. I found my royal duties surprisingly easy. I was put in charge of one area of the castle on the third floor. It was the living quarters of a few maids, like the ones I first met when I first arrived. I would approve or deny their requests, have a budget, and decide where it would be spent.

A few hours pass by and I hear a knock on the door. Seeing it as an excuse to get away from all this work I hop off the chair and make my way towards the door. I stop, however, before opening it. I look off to the side and see a crown sitting on a pedestal. The crown is silver with a single purple jewel stone in the middle.

The metal was forged by using dragon fire, why they didn’t just use regular fire I will never really understand. The royal blacksmith spends weeks working on it, taking little to no breaks. Or so I’m told. I’ve seen the blacksmith and from what I’ve seen, he was taking a few days worth of “breaks”. He’s more loyal to Celestia, so when he leard that he had to forge something for the other princess’s son, I don’t think he was too enthusiastic.

The jewel was mined deep in the mountains of the barren wastelands, home of the dragons. But I’m willing to bet they just took it off the least desirable headpiece and just placed it on.

To make it worse, It doesn’t even fit. When I put it on the first time it slipped down past my head. The only reason it didn’t go further down was that my muzzle stopped it. Mom told me that I would eventually grow into it.

Hesitantly, I pick it up and placed it on my head. I give myself a good look in the mirror. I have my ears balancing it. If I were to tilt my head too far in any direction, it would surely fall off.

Before answering the door I make sure I have a good poster in front of the mirror. I make my way over to the door.

Let’s see who it is.

I open the door and I’m greeted by a gray unicorn. The unicorn is well known around the kingdom. His blue cape is hard to miss and his horn would poke your eye out if you stood too close to him. If those weren’t obvious enough to tell you who it was, then his long white beard would definitely. If not, then were you just born yesterday?

“Hello, thy majesty. How art thee this fine night?” Starswirl spoke.

“Cannot complain,” I said because saying anything else would backfire on me somehow.

Lately, he’s been wanting to know my activities. At first, all if the red flags went off, but then I overheard a conversion one night between mom and Starswirl. He explained that I was giving off a magical aura that he would usually expect in unicorns. It wasn’t always there, but when it was it was very noticeable. Which is why he wanted to keep a close eye on me until he reached a conclusion.

“Surly thee've has notice something.”

“I have not.”

He stood there waiting for me to at least say something.

“Very well. How has't thy studies been?”

“Now THAT I could use less of.”

He chuckled at my answer. I guess he was expected THAT from me. No pony wants a large amount of homework. I think I can recall having tacks of paper once when I was human. I think I cried for a few hours.

“Very well. I shall leave thy studies then.” He said before stepping back and leaving.

Finally, he’s gone!

I felt like exploring the castle again. The little rebel in me is demanding I give the homework the bird and flock off. Even though I don't have fingers.

“Thy entire room is surrounded by guards. So nay escaping.”

Buck!

Dinner was nice

I had just finished eating and I had finished whatever homework or duties I needed to do, so I had the rest of the night to do whatever I wanted. Not that there was much to do anyway. Most ponies are asleep right now.

Guess I’ll just explore the castle for the billionth time again. And get lost for the billionth time too.

You think I’d discover something new every night at the rate I poke around. At first, I was finding all sorts of things left and right. They could range from boring old vases to weapons that looked like they’ve seen their fair share of battles. Now I was finding the same things.

I made my way down the hall, passing a few guards here and there.

“Evening your majesty.” A voice spoke to me then followed by the same voice, but coming from a different direction, “Yes, hello your majesty.”

I stopped to see who these voices belong to. To my left was a white unicorn with a purple mane and green eyes. And to my right was an identical unicorn to the previous one. They were both wearing the same uniform, making them almost impossible to tell apart. The only difference between them was their mane. Their mane was combed in opposite directions, one going to the left and the other to the right.

“Hidari, Rīt, it is a pleasure to… see you both.”

“No, the pleasure is all ours, young prince.” They both said in unison.

So damn creepy.

“Where are both of you... heading off?” I ask.

“We are on our way to eat.”

Oh, that’s right, once mom and I finished eating it’s the servants turn to eat. It’s always just us two. Sometimes I wish we could eat with every pony else so that we would feel less alone.

“Then I leave you two to do that. I have already eaten with Mother.”

“Then if you will excuse us, your young majesty.” They said together.

We went in opposite directions. I only made it a few feet before Rīt said something.

“Please pay attention to what lies ahead of you. You may know these halls, but you do not know their obstacles. Especially to what may be around the corner.”

Rīt continued to make her way to the dining area, but Hidari then said something of her own.

“You can know the outcome of a book by skipping to the end, but the ending is bland if you do not enjoy the build-up.”

They turned the corner, vanishing from sight and leaving me confused. I knew that they could be weird at times, it's not the first time they’ve given me an obscure message, but this made me uneasy for some reason.

I shake my head to get rid of the uneasiness.

There’s nothing to be freaked out about, Lun- I mean Silent. I’m even starting to forget who I am.

I wonder how long I can keep this up. Keep up this lie. I need to wait for the end. As soon as I somehow find myself at the edge of where the EverFree forest will be, I’ll be home free. Back to my old life, back with… with...and…

My thoughts are interrupted by bumping into something or some pony when I turned the corner. The impact caused me to fall on my rear. The sound of metal clashing with the floor echoed throughout the hall.

“Watch It!”

I stared up to see a bat-pony looking down at me. Their mismatched colored eyes were a dead giveaway to who it was.

Oh. It’s her. ...Great.

“Well well well, what do we have here?” The bat-filly said with a grin.

“Hello… uh?” I said.

“You are still not going to get it.” She said referring to her name.

“I figured,” I said with a small grunt getting up off the floor.

Maybe this is what she meant by, “...may be around the corner.” Wait. Why is she here?

“Why are you… here? Should you not be with the rest of... your group?”

Her face turned bitter. She looked away to avoid eye contact. Instead, she looked down at the ground and right at a shiny object. I quickly reached above my head and noticed that my crown was no longer there. I glanced down to see that it fell onto the marble floor.

“This yours?” The bat filly asked.

Before I could answer, she swiped it and placed it on her head.

“Look at me! I’m so important, I’m a prince! Pay attention to me.” She said mockingly. The crown was big for her too, so it slipped down, blocking her vision on her right eye.

“Haha. Give it back, please.” I extended my hoof for her to give the crown back to me.

She repositioned my crown back onto her head then placed a hoof on her chin to think. She then looked at me with a mischievous grin.

“Nah.” She then flew off down the hall.

Without needing to think I immediately chased after her. She was fast and every time I gain some distance she would dart to the left or right at every turn. I lost sight of her a few times, but her mockingly laugh pointed me in the right direction.

She flew without needing to rest her wings. I know us pegasus can go for long periods of time without needing to land, but she’s a small filly. How is she not tiring out? My short legs were becoming heavy and my breath was too. I felt like I was about to collapse any second.

She then took a left turn and when I followed we found ourselves in a small section of the royal gardens. The moon was out, reflecting its light down, illuminating the garden in a light blue hue.

I looked around to see where she was. This part of the garden didn’t have many places to hide unless you could fit yourself in the hedges or in the trees. See that those were my only options I began inspecting them.

I searched in the hedges that were shaped into various figures. Most of them were unicorn-shaped, or pegasus-shaped. When I looked into one of them I was attacked by a chipmunk that didn't appreciate the early wake-up call. The next one I checked was empty and so was the one after it. Then when I checked one that was shaped like a dragon I saw a batwing, thinking it was her I spread the branches apart, but was greeted by a guard staring intensively at an illustration. He quickly blushed and flew away.

That was weird, I'm not going to go any further into that. Now, where are you?

My left ear twitched when I heard the sound of giggling up in one of the trees. It was pretty loud for giggling. For a race that has sensitive ears, you would think that they’d be want everything to be quieter when they could.

One look at the tree and I could make out the filly hidden within the leaves of the tree. While it was dark out, her eyes stood out like a sore thumb. They looked like they were glowing.

Got you!

I jumped up expecting to tackle her off the tree, but I only made it a couple of feet before falling back down. I landed on my face and my misfortune caused the bat-filly to bust out laughing.

“What was that!? Gahahaha! *Gasp* That was pathetic!” She then moved higher up the tree. “How bout’ this? Better?” She was now poking more fun at me.

I tried again but failed as well. She laughed even harder. I was still out of breath and energy after trying to chase her down earlier. There was no way I was going to get her down.

I need a way to get up there.

“I’d be in another tree by the time you get up this one!”

Buck!

I paned my line of sight above the tree. If I could find a way to get up higher I could knock her down without her expecting me.

I found myself staring a little too hard. The filly was starting to find it a bit creepy as she had stopped laughing. Then I felt a cold sharp tingle on my back. Before I could question what that was about, my vision shifted from looking at the treetop to the clear night sky.

OH, what fu-!

I no longer felt the ground beneath my hooves. In its place was empty space. I began to fall down due to gravity. It didn’t last very long as I felt branches brushing and scratching against me as I fell down through a tree. I hit something else on the way down which slowed down my fall a bit.

I hit the ground, but I landed something soft for a change. Well except when I landed on Octavia when I first arrived in this pony land. I wonder what I landed on this time? As I look down my face went white.

Oh no.

I looked down to see a pissed off filly.

“Get off ya pervert!” She used both her legs to buck me off her. I hit the same tree that we just fell from.

Feeling a bit hazy, I stand back up with a wobble. So when they land on me it's fine, but when I do it I get called a pervert?

“How the hay did you do that?” The filly asked.

“Do… what?” I responded. My senses not fully restored from the impact of the tree.

“What do you mean!? You were standing there like a moron and then the next, poof, you’re gone! Then you knock me off the tree!” She said first pointing at where I was beneath the tree and then at the top.

Hold on. I just disappeared? Can- can I teleport again?

With the ability to teleport I can get around the castle a lot faster! No more at getting lost, especially in my own bathroom! I look at the filly, if I say that I can teleport, she might rat me out to some pony. What would Starswirl do to me if he found out? Would I get tested on? Dissected? What would mom think?

“I-uh… don’t know.” I lied.

She was about to say something else, but the ringing of a bell was heard. Her ears perked up. She looked back at me with a snarl.

“This isn’t over… your highness.” She flew into the sky. She quickly turned around and threw something at me. “And take this back!”

I saw my crown get tossed at me. I would have thanked her for finally giving it back, not that she won’t give it eventually. It was still a royal crown and mother would not take kindly to a thief stealing something she had given to her child personally. However, it was heading straight toward my face.

Again!?

My vision went black.

Author's Note

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It would have been out a week earlier, but work and Uni got in the way. Motivation to continue goes down a bit.

I used to get chapters out every two weeks, but now I might take 3-4 weeks. At the very least you're getting them. Right?

Oh well. Until next time.

Why are you following me?

Where am I now?

The area around me is hazy. Anything beyond five feet is distorted. I can see a few flickering light sources and I can feel a small amount of heat coming from them. So I can conclude that they’re torches or very large candles. From what I can see, I can make out the grass below my feet. My hooves to be exact. Four of them.

I exam the rest of my body to see that I’m back to my ‘original’ self. My grown-up pegasus body. Without the scarf or that accursed collar.

Am I …back?

Suddenly I get a chill run up my spine. This prompted me to look around at my surrounding. Black figures emerged from the shadows, their faces still concealed despite them being near a light source.

I could tell that they were all ponies, pegasi at that. They all stood there not saying or making any noise. Then one of the ponies’ eyes began to glow, more specifically their iris. Then another and another glowed as well, each set was a different color. It wasn’t until then I realized that I was surrounded.

Are you ready?

A voice appeared in my head followed by a different one asking the same question. Soon it felt like the entire world was talking to me. It was becoming unbearable to have these voices in my head.

Stop it!

The voices didn’t stop. They just became louder.

ARE YOU PREPAIRED?

I screamed at the top of my lungs for them to stop and they did stop, but it was only a brief silence. Then another voice spoke. My voice.

Yes.

What?

“WAKE UP!”

I jolt awake at the sound of somepony screaming. I tumble off my bed, dragging the covers with me. I hit my nightstand, causing my crown to get knocked over and fall onto the floor. I rub the back of my head to deal with the small amount of pain. I looked over to see who thought it was a good idea to wake me up so rudely.

“Sup’ Flightless.” The culprit said with a sneer.

Of course, it would be you.

For the last few days, she was tailing me around. It didn’t matter what time of the night it was. Whether it be during my studies, dinner, or even combat training. There was no point in hiding from her as she wouldn’t be too far away to sniff me out.

Why do I say “sniffing out”? Well, it’s because she DOES. I can hear her sniffing the air around her. It takes just a few whiffs and she has my location. I’ve tried masking my scent with much stronger odors, but somehow she can still single me out.

She’s been a pain in the plot.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

“Cuz’ I can, Flightless,” she said apathetically.

Another thing about her is the nickname she gave me. She’s refused to acknowledge me by my title unless she’s in front of some high ranking officer or official. The reason she calls me ‘Flightless’ is because I don’t fly at all. I think she assumes I can’t fly because I couldn’t reach her in the tree.

I then remembered that I had locked my door before going to sleep.

“How did you get in?”

“Cuz’ I can, Flightless,” she said repeating her previous answer.

Bucken stalker. Why haven’t I reported her already?

I head to my bathroom to freshen up for the night. Speaking of the bathroom, it took me six months from when I was given the room to know that I had one. I think mom found it strange that I was traveling across the castle just to take a bath in one bathroom. How was I supposed to know? Mom has been taking me to that specific bathroom ever since she adopted me.

I pulled up a stool so that I could reach the sink. There was a bowl with water in it. One of the drawbacks of being in the past was no running water, for now. It was mostly magic that allowed water to be pulled into the baths. The technique was around but it had not yet taken off.

I grabbed a toothbrush and began to brush my teeth. I used circular motions to brush my teeth, going around five times on each section. After I was done I then headed towards the tub for an early bath. There was no real reason, but with that bat-filly here, my privacy is nonexistent.

I filled that tub with warm water. Going back and forth with a single bucket. Usually, it would already be done for me, but since it's early, or rather late, I have to do it on my own. I could call one of the maids to do it, but that would take a while and I don’t feel like waiting or waking one of them up.

I get in the tub and let my body soak up the water. Even though I had just woken up, the warm water was making me feel very drowsy.

Don’t fall asleep now.

“Great… just what I need: for you to drown in your own tub.” A voice said.

I immediately turned my head to see who it was that said that. My eye met up with two mismatched colored eyes. I instinctively used my wings to cover myself even though I don’t wear any clothes. My first thoughts were━ how did she get in here? And why is she here? I thought I locked the door before I got here.

“W-why are... you here?!”

“Pff...Oh, pipe down! I’ve seen better.” She said looking down.

...What?

“That d-doesn’t answer... anything!”

“Cuz’ I can! There!”

Okay that’s it I’m out!

I jump out of the tub and march right out, not even bothering to dry myself. I push the door wide open and begin making my way to breakfast, where mom is surly at. One of the maids sees me still soaking wet and offers to dry me off with a towel. I gave off a harsher ‘no’ than I meant to because she seemed distraught after.

As I make my way over there, many of the guards and maids steer aside at the sight of me. I guess that’s because they’ve never seen me with an irritated look.

Every time I look back, she’s there and seems to get closer no matter how much I speed up. Eventually, we made it to the dining room and I see mom eating at her usual spot. It appeared that she was waiting for me as her food was sitting in front of her, untouched, and mine was too at the next seat over.

She spotted me as I entered the room. She smiled and was about to greet me, but then noticed that I was breathing heavy and still wet from my interrupted bath from earlier.

“Wherefore art thee out of breath and are wet, mine own son?” She asked.

“I has't... a problem, mother,” I said ignoring her question.

“Thee has't never hadst a problem before,” Luna said surprised.

I then pointed over at the filly who was standing only a couple of feet away from me. Luna looked over at her and then back at me with a confused expression.

“Is the problem with thy new bodyguard?” She said.

Bodyguard?

I was taken aback by her response. When was she assigned to be my bodyguard? I looked back to the bat-filly and saw that the expression on her face was the same as any other soldier on duty.

“What day didst... this occureth?” I asked.

“Four nights ago. I told thee didst I not?”

“No, mother.”

I was never told at all. She just started following me around out of nowhere Unless I was still drowsy from waking up one night.

“Wherefore wast the filly chosen?” I then asked.

Mom looked at me even more puzzled as if I should have known.

“Thee hadst referred to her as an old friend,” she said. She pointed at the filly. “Thy assignment required thee to maketh a friend. So I hath chosen her to be thy bodyguard and friend.”

Pretty sure you can't force friendships like that.

The filly’s right ear twitched at the word ‘friend’. When I looked back at her to see if she had changed express, she appeared as if nothing had happened at all. Turning my attention back to mom, I sighed and pressed no further with this issue. I took my seat next to her and began to eat.

The next night I was in my room reading a book for pleasure. I’m glad I could read now. It had taken me so long to be able to do so. I think I’m starting to understand why Twilight buried herself in books, there were so many interesting new things to learn from them. But when it came to the fundamentals of science and magic, my brain would shut down.

Am I becoming an egghead?

Many of the forms of entertainment that I enjoyed had yet to exist. Like the radio, for example, it wasn’t widely used by many, but it was around. Vinyl kept it around but never used it except once when she first bought it. I could go to an orchestra concert, but they only had one show late at night per month. Same with a play. So a book was all I had for now.

However, I was having trouble reading this night.

There was a knock on my door. I put the book down in annoyance, not because I was at a good part, but because I knew who it was and it was not the first time. I tried to ignore it, but they kept knocking.

“Yes?”

The door opened and the head of the filly, my bodyguard who I still don’t know the name of, popped out. She stared at me with a grin.

“Just checking in on your well-being, your majesty.” She said.

“Your checking in’s have been happening every three minutes for the last hour,” I told her irritated.

“Just doing my job.” She said in a monotone voice with a hoof up in a salute, but I could sense the sass behind it all.

She then closes the door and I try to resume reading, only for her to knock again. I threw the book across the room in frustration. I had been patient with her for the last hour. I stomped over to the door and waited for her to knock again.

Once she did I answered and when she poked her head in, I grabbed her by the armor and pulled her into my room. I threw her to the center of my room, but because of her reflexes, she was able to recover without much problem and just brushed it off like it was no big deal. She seemed surprised, not even slightly hurt, that I was able to lift and throw her.

“WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM!?” I yelled at her.

Now it was her turn to yell, “YOU KNOW WHY!” She then tackled me to the ground.

She was striking with full force as I grunted in pain. She kept jabbing her hooves at my exposed chest as I was on my back. I felt like if she kept this long enough I would end up with a few broken ribs. So I raised my hind legs just high enough to grab her mane, even though it was short, it was enough that I could grab it and pull down. This caught her off guard, and she fell on her back.

She then jumped back onto her hooves and stood up straight, ready to strike again. I, on the other hoof, was thinking that I may have bitten off more than I could chew. She was ready to go again and I was almost out of breath.

She flew up a couple of feet, but then swoop back down and rammed into me, she dragged me and we burst the door open as she used me almost as a battering ram. We broke through a window, ending up outside in the courtyard.

I kicked her face to free myself from her clutches.

“CALM DOWN! WE DO NOT HAVE TO DO THIS!” I yelled. She retaliates by yelling out profanities.

This is getting out of hand. Just what is her problem?

She's getting ready for another attack as she gives herself some distance. So I think to myself that it’s probably best to use that training Shining Armor gave me, or I can kiss my flank goodbye. When no pony was watching I would perform the various moves he'd teach me, but lately, I haven't been able to do so. So I might be a little rusty.

She uses her distance to gain speed. A direct hit would probably cause me to be incapacitated for life. As the filly gets closer I try to calculate as fast as possible for a counter. I take a deep breath and the whole world slows down. Just as she’s about to make contact, I move to the side at the last possible second and slam my left hind leg down on her.

She’s knocked to the ground below us. She hits the ground with a hard thud, but this time she struggles to get back up. I float down and land next to her.

“Have you finally calmed down?” I ask, looking down at her.

She glares at me but does nothing more than that. I felt my left ear twitch. I stood up in alert and could hear various guards making their way towards us from all directions. I look down at the filly.

Do I leave her or do I stay and say what happened?

I weigh my options, if I leave her here they’ll surely punisher her for leaving her post, but If I stay and say what happened she’ll get punished alongside me too. Then I thought of a third option.

I hope this works.

Placing my hoof on her back I closed my eyes and concentrated. I haven't tried to do this once since the incident with my crown. Hopefully, it wasn’t a one-time thing.

The sound of hooves hitting the ground got louder and louder as the guards drew closer, then suddenly they were gone. I opened my eyes to see that we were back in my room.

I sighed in relief that it had worked, but that feeling was soon replaced by a nauseous feeling. My insides felt like they were ready to burst out. I dashed towards the bathroom immediately.

When I was finished I stepped back in the room and saw that the filly had moved, she was standing on all four but seemed to have trouble staying up as she wobbled from side to side. She took notice of me entering the room again. We stared at each other, waiting for the other to speak first.

“Well? Aren’t you going to do anything?” the filly said harshly.

“Do what exactly?’ I asked innocently.

“How..how can you be so calm? After what I did?” Tears started to fall from her eyes.

I moved closer to her, still a bit wary. She didn’t do anything. I felt awkward as soon as I was right next to her not doing anything else.

What do I say now?

“Uh… You were blind to rage?”

“What?” She raised an eyebrow at me.

I let out a heavy sigh. “Look. I barely remember you and you got mad at me and I want to know why.”

“Why?” Did she just ask why I wanted to know why she was mad at me?

“What do you mean why?” I asked.

“No. Why did you forget?”

“... about?”

“...us.”

WAIT!? WHAT THE BUCK!?

US!? What does she mean by “us”? What the f**k happened during my time at the orphanage? Why did that happen? How? We were no more than two years old for Celestia’s sake. We shouldn’t be having thoughts about this now!

You know what? I may be getting ahead of myself. Maybe that’s not what she suggested all.

“What were we?” I asked hoping the response was friendship or something.

“You were my first.”

RED ALERT! CODE RED!

AH! What the hay? Now I’m really panicking this just went in a whole different direction.

Before I could say anything else my door was kicked open. Two female bat pony guards entered my room with weapons at the ready. They spotted me and the filly. Then two more guards entered and the four of them encircled us.

“Anything?” said one of them.

“Negative.” another answered.

A flash of blue light blinded us for a bit. I then felt myself being pulled by the chest. I made contact with something firm but fuzzy.

“Mine son! Are thou unharmed?”

I recognized who was speaking. Mom had my face planted on her chest. A feeling that I welcomed since I started sleeping alone. She asked me the same question again, but since my face was against her chest I couldn't speak. I pointed back and forth between my face and her chest.

“Oh! Forgive us, Lunar.”

She loosened her grip on me and I was able to free my face and breathe. I felt a wet drop hit me so I looked up and saw that she had tears running down.

“I am fine,” I said.

Mom placed me down and signaled me that she wanted me right next to her. One of her wings draped over me and then she shifted most of her attention to the guards.

“Report!” Her voice changed from a motherly tone to her authoritative Canterlot voice.

The four guards, three being mares and one stallion, lined up shoulder to shoulder.

“We have studied the window glass and deduced from how the glass shattered is that it was broken from the inside, your highness.” The stallion spoke.

“Any evidence of intrusion from elsewhere in the castle?” Mom asked.

“Negative, your highness.”

Then mom looked over at the filly. The filly has fixed her composure and is now straight as a spear.

“Resonance, speak please.” Mom directed at the filly. The filly’s right eye twitched at the name.

Resonance? That’s her name? Well, at least I don’t have to refer to her as “bat-filly” anymore.

“I was standing guard outside the prince’s room...” She began to say but then hesitated.

“Continue, guard. What caused the window to shatter?” Mom pressed.

I could tell the Resonance was hesitant to say. After all, this is the second time she got in a fight with a royal member. If she tells them that, then I don’t think she’ll get off lightly this time.

“Resonance! The princess is talking to you!” One of the mares said.

Now everypony was staring down at her. It was not looking good. Should I do something? It can’t be as bad as what they might do to her.

“I am to censure,” I spoke.

“Explain Lunar.” Now it was my turn as Mother spoke to me.

Okay, I can do this. Lying can’t be all that difficult. Can it?

Well, that worked… kind of.

“Keep up your highness.” A guard ahead of me said.

My lie sort of work. I told her that I broke the window after I got frustrated with a book I was reading, so I tossed it out and it hit Resonance then it bounced off her at broke the window. So my punishment for losing my temper is being on patrol for an entire week.

Being on patrol wasn’t the problem, but where I was sent is. I was assigned to be at the edge of the Everfree forest. I mean seriously, isn’t the place filled with dangerous creatures? Why would you send a kid? Why would you send the prince out? But then again the guard we were with was no ordinary guard.

The guard we were with was a female bat pony like most royal night guards. But by the look of her armor, it was more flashy, with gold accents around it. She carried a spear on her back, decorated in the same fashion as her armor. She was an elite.

“Come on! Can’t you go any faster, bookworm?” A voice said behind me.

Oh yeah. Her...

Resonance was sent out with me of course. She followed closely behind, but she was pushing me to go faster. I glared at her and she stuck her tongue out in response. The guard didn’t even care, to her, we were just kids. She was probably annoyed that she’d have to babysit us for the next week. She probably expected a more prioritized assignment for some pony of her rank.

“Come on you two. We are almost at the next outpost.”

“Yes ma’am.” We said in unison.

The next outpost was a small campsite with only three tents, two of them being small and the other being large in size. You could fit about 15 full-size ponies in it. It had a fence around it made out of logs that were about four inches wide in diameter and high as five feet. Rather high for a pony, but since all the guards had wings they would just hover above them.

“We will be stationed here until the next group arrives.”

Once we reached the outpost we were greeted by two other guards who were standing at the entrance to the outpost. They had faces of relife. The guard that was with us walked over to them, they exchanged a few words and the other two retreated into one of the tents. One of them gave me a dirty look but went unnoticed by every pony but me.

“You, filly, stand here.” The guard ordered Resonance. She complied.

The guard then took her place on the opposite side of the entrance to the camp. I just stood there like an idiot.

“What about me?” I asked.

“You shall join us when I call you. For now, rest in the large tent. It would be unsafe to have you for the entire shift.”

Oh? And being at the edge of the forest isn't already?

I turned around and headed into the tent. When I entered it I was greeted by two familiar maids. It was Hidari and Rīt, twin unicorn servants.

“Hello, your highness.” They said in unison.

“Hidari, Rīt, I did not expect you.”

They bowed their head when I spoke their name before telling me that they were here on mom’s orders. They said that they would follow us, more specifically me, until the week is up.

“We have also brought your books and assignments.”

The more they told me the brought made me feel that this wasn’t any ordinary punishment for breaking a window. So, my daily activities are mostly the same just outside the castle.

So mom just exiled me!?

Might as well continue reading my book, so I dug around my things looking for it. However, it became clear that it was not here. I asked Rīt where my book was.

“Your mother destroyed the book saying that it was the root of your problem.”

WHAT THE HAY!?

Author's Note

This took way too long. I had the chapter halfway done, but then I lost motivation for a while. Now it's done! Hurray?

Welp, time for me to continue writing. I'm not going to leave it on hiatus for 4 years like the previous one. Which reminds me that It's been more than a year since I resumed writing.

See you next time.

Is this guard duty?

“Get up on your feet!”

Someone is yelling at me. I have no idea where I am, but I do know that I am with someone else. I attempt to get a bear on my surroundings but something strikes me in the face. The object hits me, but I don’t feel anything. I know it struck me because my face jerks away.

“I said get up!” The voice yells at me again.

No matter how many times you say that it will not make me get up any faster.

I wish I could see whatever creature is yelling at me. They sound close, so I’m guessing that they’re the ones striking me with whatever weapon is preventing me from getting up.

Their next set of words are distorted. However, something deep inside me is telling me to feel insulted.

Suddenly I feel a hot sensation rising inside of me. I feel angry all of a sudden. Then my body starts to move on its own. My body gets up and starts to charge in the direction of the voice. I have a boost of confidence as I get closer.

No matter how often I experience these dreams, I never get used to the feeling of having my body move on its own or the emotions I can feel. These 'dreams' feel too real as if I've actually lived them.

The opponent that my body was charging at, dodges at the last second. The feeling of frustration runs across me.

There is a standstill. Neither of us moves an inch. In the silence, my vision was starting to get better. So now I could make out the outline of their body. They sure weren't a pony, but they’re not human either, or any creature I can recall.

Then a quick pain in my head interrupts my thoughts. My opponent’s expression turns horrified. My vision blacks out.

“Wake up!”

I’m woken up by somepony rudely shaking me. I look over to see that it’s Resonance, she finally looks like she’s calmed down from earlier.

“It’s time for you to join us.” She then lets go of me.

I get up from my bed and head outside. It’s still dark out, so the only light sources are the torches around the camp. I head towards the guard that had escorted us here. She’s standing entirely still almost like a statue, except for her ears. I see them slightly twitching. But then she suddenly turns to face me. Her sudden movement causes me to jump back a bit. I can hear Resonance trying to hold back her laugh.

“Did your highness have a pleasant nap?” She asked. There was no concern behind her question, instead, it sounded like she was obligated to ask to which I guess she was. I nodded in response. “Very well, you will replace Resnonace’s place.” She then pointed at the other side of the entrance.

There was nothing else to do for me besides doing homework, so I made my way over. Also, this was my punishment, so there was no getting past this. We stood there peering a the edge of the forest. No light could reveal what was behind the first line of trees.

Wait, shouldn’t I be wearing armor for this?

The guard took notice of this too. She scowled under her breath. She turned to Resonance.

“Where is his armor?”

Resonance groaned in frustration before leaving for the tent. When she came back out she was dragging something with her teeth. It was a metal box with mom’s cutie mark engraved into it. Once she was close enough, she tossed it with ease and it landed only centimeters from my hooves.

I looked up at the guard and she nodded at me. I unfastened the straps that kept it shut. I lifted the top and inside the box was a full set of armor. It wasn’t like the regular night guard armor, or even like the elite armor, the bat pony was wearing.

For starters, my armor looked like it would cover my entire body instead of just my chest. The leg pieces looked like they would cover not just my hooves but also at the joints. I think there’s a piece that would cover my flank.

Let’s try this sucker on then.

I lift the chest piece out of the box and slip it on. I expected it to fit like a shirt, but it rotated around my body like an unfastened saddle on a horse. Resonance chucked at this and the guard just rolled her eyes and helped me up on the rest. In the end, I was surprised at how light it was, despite being completely metal.

Resonance noticed this and suggested that it was simply magic, a spell that made it lighter but kept its toughness. The guard nodded at that, confirming her suspicions. She then mentioned that most armors were like this, but had to have the spell cast again at regular periods. MIne however seemed to be cast by a powerful unicorn.

Or alicorn.

After having my armor put on was over with, The guard then instructed me to resume standing in place.

“Um… miss? What do I call... you by?” I asked. All this time and I haven’t gotten her name yet.

She stood there for a while before speaking. “You may refer to me as Reverb.”

Of course, it is. Bat-ponies always need to have something relating to sound in their names.

“Very well, Reverb. How long will... we be standing here.” I asked.

“I will not be joining you, instead you will have Resonance alongside you.”

“Wait. What!?” Exclaimed Resonance.

“My orders were to watch over you until your shift. And now yours are to watch over the forest edge.” She said pointing at me. "And yours are to watch over him now." She then pointed at Resonance. She pulled a couple of crates from nowhere and laid on top of them to rest.

Both of us stood there speechless.

This is so boring.

Resonance and I were just staring at the trees. Eventually, there would be something shuffling within the trees or tall grass, but it would end up being a small nocturnal animal.

“Why do I have to get dragged into this?” Resonance complained.

Because it’s your job and you’re my bodyguard.

“And what’s up with her, Isn’t she supposed to be the most devoted to her duty out of all the guards?

She sees this job as babysitting. We are only five years old after all.

“Why do you get a cool-looking metal armor?” She stared at my armor, “All I have is this leather one.”

She turned her head to look at me. I brushed it off thinking she was just bored as well. A few minutes went by and she still kept her gaze on me.

“Hey!” She yelled at me. She was probably tired of me not saying anything back. “Why don’t you speak more? It’s boring to be the only one talking here.”

Even though I can talk perfectly without a problem, it’s a force of habit. Talking used to be a big problem. Every time I spoke, I felt a growing pain in my vocal cords with every word, so I had to stop at regular intervals.

“I just don’t… feel like it sometimes.” I finally said to her.

“Sometimes? SOMETIMES!? More like every bucken time! You hardly engage in any conversation.”

“I do join in. I just do not see... the point in most of them.”

“By Luna, you’re impossible.” She whispered but since it was dead quiet my ears were able to pick it up.

We said nothing more after that.

“Sister Luna, please calm down. Ev'rything shall be fine with little Lunar.” The solar princess urged her sister.

Celestia was trying her best to calm her sister down, currently, Luna was pacing back and forth between the throne room and her room. It had been this way the moment Lunar stepped foot outside the castle walls.

“I wast a fool to listen to thee, sister.” Luna snapped at Celestia.

It was Celestia who suggested send her child away for a week. All Luna suggested was getting rid of the book that caused Lunar’s outrage. She should probably remove similar books while she’s at it too.

“Tis is for his own good. Tis only seven days-, nights.” Celestia tried again to reassure her sister.

“What if he gets harmed! Breaks his legs, or worse: Dies!?”

This went on for a while longer.

What was that?

There was a sound of a branch snapping. It could have been a small animal whose weight had caused it to break up in the trees, but this sound came from down on the ground. As if something stepped on it.

“Hey,” I whispered to Resonance, but she ignored me.

When somepony deliberately ignores you it’s best to not press on as it’s what they want. So I turn back to the edge of the forest. I tried to figure out where the sound originated from. My attempt was futile as I had no hunting/tracking skills, so I just gave up.

Maybe it was just my imagination.

“What was it.” Resonance finally spoke, realizing that I wasn't going to fall for her little game.

“I heard a... snapping sound.”

“Probably just an animal.”

“But did YOU hear one crossing by?”

Since she was a bat hybrid it was obvious that her hearing would be as good or better. I don’t know if they’re former ponies or are born like that. Either way, they surpass any regular tracker.

Resonance took a moment to process what I had said, and once she did she took up her spear and took on a defensive stance. Before I could say anything I felt something pulling me by the neck. I was knocked to the ground and dragged closer to the forest edge.

“LUNAR!” Resonance screamed.

There was a rope lassoed around my neck. Following the rope, I saw where the other end led made my blood turn cold. It led into the forest and I could make out a pair of glowing yellow eyes in the shadows. I tried to get up, but whoever was pulling was not giving me the chance.

Why did no pony give me a weapon!?

If I had a spear or small knife I could probably cut myself loose, but no, apparently I wasn’t old enough or experienced enough to weald a real one. I have been training with a spear and sword for the last year, and a real one for the last three months!

And not being old enough was just being hypocritical. Resonance was around the same age as me how come she was allowed to hold one?

Wait. Why isn’t she using her’s!?

“Resonance! Cut me… free!” I yelled.

She pulled out her spear and charged past me. I thought she was being stupid but it looked like she was heading straight towards the culprit. She pointed the spear tip into the dark, while I couldn't make out anything besides the glowing eyes, it was clear that she could.

She thrust her spear, seaming to hit her target, but then she stumbled forward. She quickly fixed her posture and stood her guard. The tension between me and the assailant on the rope was gone. I quickly took it off and looked at where the eyes were. They were still there, looking at me.

Resonance was readying her spear again to strike. The eyes’ glow disappeared as if a candle had gone out. Resonance relaxed her posture but still held on to her spear, telling me that whoever was there standing here had left.

“What was… that?” I asked.

But then Resonance tensed up again. She pulled up closer to me. I looked around us and noticed that we were now deep into the forest. Whoever it was, they had succeeded in getting me into the forest, away from the camp.

However, that wasn’t all. I had suddenly gotten a chill up my spine. Two pairs of glowing green-yellow dots illuminated in the darkness and many more followed shortly. Before we knew it we were completely surrounded.

What are these things?

“Get behind me.” Resonance ordered.

“We are surrounded. It will not... matter where I... stand.”

“Tch.”

One pair made their way closer to us and once out of the darkness, we could make out its details. It was a woof, but it looked like it had bark for armor around its body. Others followed their leader. Each one is revealed to be the same as this one. However, the key difference was that their armor was in different places around their body.

What’s holding the plates in place?

One of them made the first strike, but Resonance countered and skewered it. She brought up her spear vertically, presenting it to the rest of its pack. I could hear it whimpering, it was still alive. The wolf struggled to get free. Resonance swung the spear and the wolf slipped off.

The wolf got up with a small limp, indicating that it was in pain. But then, bark began to spring from its wound, covering it up completely by both ends. It then walked up again, moving as if nothing had happened.

Now that I got a better look at the other wolfs their armor didn’t match up with one another. On one, its face was completely covered in bark, and another had its left leg covered. Every time they got seriously wounded, their injuries would be heald and replaced by wood.

Are these… timber wolves?

Is this how they were before? Ordinary wolves who somehow gained the ability to heal and grow back lost limbs with tree bark. How many times did these get injured to get to the point where they’re completely wood in the present? Or was it a slow process through generations?

Now the entire pack was closing in on us. There was no way we could make a break for it. The only way now was to go up.

Wait a minute.

“Resonance!”

“What!? I’m busy trying to save our necks!”

“We can fly.”

I can only assume that she was mentally bashing her head against a rock for not noticing due to her expression.

Moments later we were high above the tree line. We had gotten away from the wolves, but that didn’t mean we were out of danger yet. The reason being that we have no idea who had yanked me into the forest in the first place.

“Which way back... to outpost?” I asked.

Resonance looked around before spotting the campfire back at the outpost. She pointed over to it, it looked like it was a little ways off. I nodded in response and we began flying over.

“Did you see... who or what it was that... pulled me?” I asked.

“No, she hid behind her hood.”

“She?”

“The shape of the muzzle.”

“Oh.”

“Clever, very clever, this is what I hate about you hybrids.” A new voice rang.

What the-?

I felt a pinch on my neck before feeling drowsy and my vision going into a haze, and before I knew it I had lost consciousness.

I don't like the looks of this.

Ow. My head.

The world was spinning in two directions. I still felt that pinch on my neck. What was it that caused that?

Okay. Try to remember what happened.

The last thing I could recall was that Resonance and I had gotten away from the timberwolves and were heading back to camp before hearing a voice. Whoever it was, they were silent enough to sneak up on Resonance despite her supernatural hearing.

Wait a minute! Where is she!?

I shake my head, in hopes of setting my vision straight. Once it was manageable I tried to get up but found myself in a cell chained up like a dog. There was a metal collar around me and a thick chain connecting to the cell wall. My wings were bound by rope.

“How much was it?” A voice asked.

“A few millin’, these rich folk hava’ deep pockets an’ they go real deep. Espesh’ for things such as these.” Another answered.

I looked past the bars of my cell to see where the voices were coming from. Two scruffy-looking earth ponies were standing on opposite sides of a wooden crate. On the crate was a pile of gold-colored coins. The one on the left was bulky and short, while the other one was thin and tall.

Then one of them turned to face me.

“Well. Lookie who’s finally up. Had a nice nap?” The bulky one spoke getting the attention of the skinny pony.

I didn’t say anything to them. I backed myself against the cell wall, feeling the cold stone wall.

Wait a minute.

I looked at myself, the only thing on me was the metal collar attached to the wall and nothing more. The guards took notice.

“Yah missin’ somethin’?” The skinny one spoke.

“Or somepony, or maybe both?” The bulky one finished.

“We’ve sold that really nice armor ya had on ye’. Teh boss was really happy about that and gave us some of teh cake.” The bulky pony pointed at the pile of money.

I don’t think I’ll get to know your names, so I refer to the two of you as Bulky and Skinny.

“Yeah. It’s handy having an inside pony in the castle. She’s been there for years and no pony has suspected a thing.” Skinny said, not even caring that he’s spilling secrets. “And have you heard? She’s gained Celestia’s trust! Can you imagine all the juicy secrets she’s gathered.” he laughed.

“Wander’ what they will pay for the bat?” Bulky chuckled.

What?

“What ta’ see her before she’s sold ta teh highest bettor?” Bulker moved away from view.

“You’re going to hate this kid.” Skinny smiled.

The sound of wheels made their way closer. Bulky was grunting a bit, meaning whatever he was pushing was heavy even for him.

When Bulky brought what he was pushing into view I felt my blood go cold. It was a wooden table, reinforced with iron, and there at the center laid Resonance. It was angled that I could see her entire body. All four of her legs were chained to the corners of the table. I could make out the dried tears on her face.

“Don’t worry, kid. We’ve done nothing to her. We’re not allowed to spoil the goods. Boss would have our heads if we gave the clients used goods.” Skinny tried to reassure me.

“But er' crying in pain was equally pleasing,” Bulky said pointing at a device strapped around Resonance’s head. “This thing hurts, but for the freaks like er', it’s worse.”

The devices tied around her head with two instruments poking into her ear canals. There’s no doubt that they used this tortured device on her highly sensitive hearing. If I could only find out if it’s just them or there are more bandits like them around here. Then I could somehow take them out by teleporting out of my restraint and sneak up on them.

“You know what? Why don’t we giv’ teh lil’ prince teh same show?”

Wait! NO!

“Could you not, please?”

Before Bulky could activate the device a voice interrupted him. From the same entrance that Bulky came from earlier, a mare with a cloak walked in. She had the hood down, so I could make out her features. She had a gray coat with ruby eyes. Even though the rest of her body was concealed by the cloak I could tell she was a pegasus.

“If there’s anything more painful than hearing you two laughing at the thing’s suffering it’s hearing its high pitched screeches.” The mare said.

“What brings you down here anyway, pegasus?” Skinny questioned her.

It was clear that there was little to no trust between them. It might have been because the three different pony races haven't all gotten along yet. They were probably working together only for the profit they were promised, but something told me that the job was done. And thus they no longer had to tolerate each other.

“Well the Hybrid was not where she was last placed, and she’s my responsibility. So if I want my pay, I need her in my sights."

"Looked to me you were havin' a nice nap."

"I have enough trouble taking care of fillies as it is in my day job.” She snapped.

“Whateva’ your not the boss. Besides, we already got our share. Don’t care bout you.”

Bulky ignores the mare’s request and activates the device. Resonance’s bloodshot eyes open up and she suddenly starts to screech in pain.

Stop it!

Stop it!

My silent cries reach no ponies’ ears. I jerk at the stupid chain holding me in place. Come on teleport. Why can’t I teleport!? I focus on the spot I want to appear to, but it's not working. I’m still chained up. I thrust myself in hopes of getting free.

“Aw look at em’. He’s tryin’ to come to teh rescue.” Bulky taunts.

The mysterious mare is also caught by my ruckus. She gets closer to the cell and squints down at me.

“What you doing? Don’t try anything funny. The boss says to keep him unspoiled as well.” Skinny warned her. As if his tone was threatening.

“Thought you already got paid?” She said to them

“We get another cut from him as well.”

The mare said nothing.

“You mad?” Bulky chucked.

The mare took another look at me and this time a hint of realization flashed across her face. She looked over to the two crooks and then back at me. Her mouth took shape of a grin.

“What!?” Bulky said irritated.

“He looks like somepony I know that’s all.” She said.

I don’t know if I should be confused or concerned about her comment. Before anypony else could say or do anything else, the mare pulled out a purple stone. The stone looked to be some sort of crystal, the shade of the stone was on the darker side, but it also seemed to be radiating a lighter shade of purple. The mare tossed the stone over to me.

As the stone landed at my hooves I felt my body exerting pressure. I then felt my body temperature drop rapidly. It felt like a chill doing up my spine, but it didn’t go away. I thought I would drop dead due to my body having no heat, but I remained standing.

Another thing I noticed was that my anger that had been rising was now extinguished. This feeling was familiar. I know I’ve felt this before, but where? And when?

“Huh, you made him quiet down, thanks,” Skinny said.

“Don’t thank me. This is revenge for cutting me out of this deal.” The mare said.

“Wot?”

“You’ll see.” She said before disappearing before our eyes.

“How she do that? I thought only them unicorns could teleport?”

The stone in front of me was dimming and a few seconds later it was nothing more than an ordinary rock. I felt cold at the end.

I felt my body move on its own. Or at least it felt that it was because I ordered my legs to move, but at the same time it felt I wasn’t in complete control.

Then my vision shifted, but not by much. The only difference was that I was no longer looking at the two bandits from behind the bars of the cell.

AAGH!

I gasped for air as one would do from waking up from a horrible nightmare. I could feel my heart beating through my chest like it was trying to break out. I could feel my fur wet without touching as the soft breeze made me shiver slightly, sweat.

I wanted to ask what had happened but I knew it was pointless to ask as I was alone.

Or was I?

I quickly looked around me and noticed that I was back in the forest. I was quickly met with the sight of Resonance. I wanted to let out a sigh of relief, but I quickly noticed that she was shaking and it was not from the cold. I could see the fear in her eyes.

As soon as I moved a hoof to get closer she flinched and pointed her spear at me. I was taken back at the sudden gesture, but when I put my hoof down it landed on something that did not feel like the dirt ground or rocks.

That’s when I realized the broken pieces of timber wolves all-around me. It was various limbs scattered around, front legs, back legs, and even a single head. The eyes were still glowing, probably meaning that it was still alive, but still too weak to properly regenerate its body.

“What… happened?” I asked.

Me finally speaking was enough for Resonance to break out of her fear. As if it signaled her that I was no longer a threat to her. What was it that happened between when I was out of the cell and now?

“You did.”

Before I could even ask what she meant by that a bunch of royal night guards showed up swarming the scene.

“MY CHILD! LUNAR!” A voice echoed throughout the forest.

I suddenly was swept off my hooves into the air and into an embrace. I didn’t need to look up to see who it was.

“What hast hath happened to thee!?” mother’s voice called.

Before I could say anything I felt everything in my body shutting down.

Ah! There goes the adrenalin.

“Report.”

Princess Luna’s voice was harsh and cold. It had been that way for a few days now. Ever since recovering Lunar, he had fallen into a coma and had not reacted to any of the treatments. She had pressured the doctors to do everything and had not allowed them to do anything less.

The guard before her was, unfortunately, receiving her wrath as well.

“The bandits that have awoken are all saying the same thing. A small colt tossing them around like dolls.”

“And so have the other before them. This means nothing to me!” She hissed. Her eyes suddenly becoming cat-like for a moment.

The guard, feeling like he was about to wet himself, could not help but tremble in fear.

“I shall speaketh to those fools myself.” She stepped down from her throne and past the guard who dared not move.

She passed by a few night guards and maids where normally she would greet them, but this time she didn’t bat an eye. They could tell that something was troubling their princess. A few tried to ask in concern but Luna either ignored or did not register them.

Once at the door of the dungeon’s entrance the guard that was stationed there moved out of the way. He could read out Luna’s eye and they spelled something frightful. She made her way down a few more flights of steps until she reached the cell where they locked the bandits up. It was big enough for all of them, ten in total but only six of them were conscious.

Luna stood in front of the cell holding the bandits. Thanks to Resonance they were able to learn and find their hideout. She wanted Resonance to tell her what exactly happened but she froze at the question. The doctors said that she was still in shock and to let her rest. She respected the doctor’s wishes and let Resonance rest in a guest bedroom instead of the barracks.

“Leave us.” She told the guards standing by.

The two guards wanted to protest, but a single glare from the princess told them otherwise. They left rather quickly. They did not want to face her wrath.

“Awaken fools!” She hissed.

The bandits jolted awake as they were lifted off the stone floor. A blue aura surrounded their necks. Some were struggling to breathe.

She yanked one of them closer, pressing him against the bars.

“Thee shalt tell me what I desire, fool.”

“We’ve said all we knows.” He whimpered.

“Tell me all and I may spareth thy pathetic life.” She hissed at him.

She brought him up to eye level. The poor soul could no longer recognize the pony before him. The pony was replaced by a taller one with a black coat. Her features became sharpened everything from her wings, horn, and even her pupils, becoming like a cat or a snake.

“W-what do you want!?” he started to cry in fear.

“What hath happened to mine own child, Lunar!?”

The pony pointed and the two ponies in the corner.

“A-Ask t-them! They w-were the ones in charge of him.”

She immediately dropped the pony and brought the other two in his place. One was noticeably taller and thin while the other was the opposite, but instead of fat, he was pure muscle. However, they were still out of it. Their minds, only half awake. This would not stop her from getting answers.

Her horn flashed with a dark color and the two bandits’ eyes glowed teal.

“Speak.”

“The job was to… look after the colt,” Skinny spoke.

“But then teh temporary help... chucked a prudy rock... at em’.” Bulky continued.

“What significance does this bringeth me?”

“She vanished... before our eyes, like a unicorn, except she... was a pegasus. Once she was gone… the colt went crazy.”

“Then this mare is the causeth of mine own son’s illness. Who is this wench?”

“We did not care to learn... the pegasus' name... not then...so we do not know now.”

A dead end. She felt her anger boiling inside, ready to burst any second now. She needed to vent it out somehow. Seeing how she had them by the neck, a malicious thought raced through her mind.

She was about to give in before hearing the voice of one of the maids calling out.

“Your highness! Your highness. The prince has awakened!”

Hearing this news caused her to let go of the prisoners. They landed with a hard thud, but she did not care for their well-being. Her son was the only thing on her mind, nothing else mattered. She shrank back down to her former size and features.

She raced up the stairs and out the entrance. The guards at the entrance noticed that there was some black mist that was trailing off of the princess, but it quickly dissipated. They quickly dismissed it as a hallucination from being frighted earlier by her.

...Ow?

“P-PLEASE N-NO!” A voice cried out.

“We’re sorry! We didn’t mean no harm!” another cried.

There were many voices crying out for help, some were sobbing, and others were shrieking. I could hear them all around me. They then got louder but then stopped when they sounded like they were in front of me and the voices moved somewhere else.

I tried to see where I was but couldn’t make out anything because it was pitch black. In fact, I couldn’t even feel my own body. Tartarus, I couldn’t even smell anything. It felt as if I was suspended in the air as if a unicorn was levitating me in the air with magic. Except It didn’t feel like anything was tugging me. Usually, you could feel yourself being touched by their magic.

I heard an echo of a rock in a cave followed by a hard thud and then it was dead quiet. There was no noise for a few seconds before the voices resumed, but louder and with more fear in them.

I stood there in the darkness hoping that I would wake up soon. This was nothing like my dreams from before, more like nightmares to be more accurate, at least then I could see what was happening.

A voice shrieked in front of me, but something was different this time. The voice didn’t move anywhere but stopped abruptly. Then my hooves felt wet and I thought that I had stepped in a puddle of water. My first thought was that ‘Hey! I got my sense of touch back.’ My second thought was that this water was a lot more slippery when I felt my hoof grabbing something and struggled to maintain a grip on it.

The next sound I heard was of something snapping.

What am I doing? This nightmare isn’t making any sense.

“HE GOT MAKESHIFT!!!” Another voice was heard.

Then I felt myself flying through the air towards the voice. His blood-curdling scream, along with what I felt next was enough to tell me what my body was doing.

The next sense to return was my sight and not soon after that, I woke up.

I woke up and wanted to throw up immediately after remembering what happened in the cave. Part of me wanted to believe it was just a violent nightmare, but the other part knew it did happen.

Did I really do that? Am I even capable of doing that at this age?

Just then the door to the room burst open. At that moment I realized that I was back in my room. One look at the window I could see, besides the two guards flying outside next to my window, the night sky. Something was off about the sky. Usually, it looked so peaceful and beautiful that you could stare at it for hours until you dozed off to sleep, but now the stars and moon were gone. It was pitch black, the only light that could be seen was from the torches outside. Even then it barely helped.

“My prince, what is the matter? Why do you scream!?” A female guard spoke in alarm.

Guessing when I woke up I must have screamed, causing the guard outside my room to think I was in danger. Having loyal guards around is rather nice. I keep wondering why Twilight doesn’t have any guards around her castle beside me.

I told her that it was just a bad dream. She seemed to relax a bit, but then she must have remembered something as she stiffened back up. She excused herself and closed the door. I could make out her muffled voice through the door as she called somepony over to deliver a message to my mother.

Then soon after one of the maids came in. She was dark blue and had a straight ash-colored mane. It took me a while but I vividly recognized her. She was with the group of other maids that I met when I first got here. Actually, it was more like they met me seeing as I was still a foal.

“What are you doing my prince? You should not be up. You still have fresh injuries that the bandages are holding closed.” She said in a low scolding voice. The maid closely examined my body.

Looking down at myself with the limited light in the room I could make out the bandages around my legs and chest. I could barely feel them even though they looked to be wrapped around tightly. My wings were free to move around, guess that they sustained little to no damage from yesterday. Even though I feel wide awake I also feel tired in some way. It was a strange feeling that I could not explain.

“It seems that no wound was reopened.” She tucked me back into bed. “You must not move. It has been three days since your accident and your wounds have not healed.”

What?! Three days? You must be pulling my leg.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“You have sustained serious wounds when you were held, hostage. They have not healed at all and despite being three days and yet they have not been infected.”

Then with a sudden blast, the door was blown off its hinges and flew through the window, nearly missing one of the guards stationed outside. Mother was there looking frantic. Once she saw me she ran over to my bedside.

“Mine Child, art thou in pain?”

I tried to wave but the maid had me tucked in too tightly. Most of my body was trapped under the blankets, luckily I could get one of my wings out. I was able to make a thumbs-up gesture with my feathers. Both mares cocked their heads in confusion at it. So then I spoke and said I was fine and did not feel any pain.

Mother relaxed and was about to dismiss the maid when I asked how Resonance was fairing. The maid, with the permission of mother, told me she had recovered within a day and was out training almost non-stop. She only stopped to rest and eat, but that was far and few.

“Resonance, hast done h'r duty well, but she says otherwise.” Said Mother.

So she feels guilty and believes that she failed in protecting. So she’s trying to push herself to get better.

“What of the guard, mother?” I asked about the guard that was in charge of us.

Mother’s attitude quickly changed. The maid beside her had flinched. I could feel the air around us getting cold. I had almost regret asking.

“Captian Reverb shall be stripped of h'r rank f'r failing to do h'r duty.”

I was about to say something but the maid spoke first.

“Do not worry. Reverb will no longer hold the rank of captain, instead, she will be demoted and serve directly under somepony else.” She explained.

Even though I only knew Reverb for a few nights I was glad to know that she wasn’t going to be dishonorably discharged. I wonder who she’ll be reporting under from now on? I hope it’s somepony who isn’t going to constantly make fun of her for failing to protect the prince while a small filly could. Or would I?

Now the next thing on my mind was ‘what next?’ Would my punishment still resume, hopefully, something less extreme, or would I resume my studies and training as normal? I looked at mothing hoping she would answer my questions.

She knew now when I had a question. She had learned to read my face without needing to look closely like others.

“Not now, Lunar. Thou must rest. Thy wounds still need mending.” She said.

Her horn flashed for a quick moment and soon other ponies came in. One look at them told me that they were the medical staff. I was surprised at how advanced medicine was despite the era’s medieval feel. While the tools still seem ancient like big saws and scissors there were some modern practices, like cleaning the wound and washing hands, or hooves in this case.

“Not good. They are the same as before.” One of the ponies who unwrapped my bandages said.

I began to bleed as if the wounds were freshly cut. My wounds weren’t deep enough that my guts could fall out, but they were deep enough that if they got infected it would be game over for me. No fourth life for me.

Why fourth life, you ask? Well, life one was before being turned into a pony, second life was being a pony, and I decided being turned into a child once again counted as third life.

“While the wounds would not have been fully healed they should have been closed up at the least. Not only is something preventing prince Lunar natural healing but magic as well.” The doctor pony said again.

“What doth thee mean?” asked mother.

“Try to levitate your child if you would.” The doctor asked mother.

Mother was hesitant to comply but the doctor urged her saying it would make the situation more clear to her. Eventually, she agreed and her horn glowed blue and an aura surrounded me but nothing happened. She looked confused at first and then she looked like she was struggling to lift something. This went on for a while and she soon gave up with a sigh of defeat.

“I understand now. Magic currently has no effect on mine child. Even mine own alicorn magic.”

“This will require further and extensive studying.” the doctor added.

“Very well.”

The rest of the night was having the doctors poke at me for hours on end. Mom stayed with me for the majority of the time but she then had to excuse herself to perform her duties as princess of the night. She apologizes to me before leaving. I was fine with her leaving. I only wish I could also leave.

Out at the training grounds stood Resonance. She was surrounded by a squad made of seven opponents. Each one was aware of her unusual strength for somepony her age and stature. None of them dared to get any closer on their own. Both opposing sides had their reasons to be training with unfair conditions. For Resonance, it was to face multiple opponents at once, and the squad’s reason was to work on their coordination. Another handicap she had was that she carried no weapons while the others had their spears.

Four of them leaped forward from behind Resonance. She heard them almost immediately and dodged to her right and hopped back to get behind them. But that was their plan, to get her attention away from the ponies in front of her. The other three from the front took the chance and dashed towards her. She took notice of them too.

“This is tougher than I thought.”

She tried to find an opening but she discovered that she was surrounded by six of them in a circle.

“I could jump up and take them all by simultaneously.”

She could pull it off. She’s done it before multiple times in the past ever since she was a cadet. She jumped high so that she could go over one of them and take them out from behind. Then she would move on to the other one by one.

It was then that she noticed that one of the members of the squad was not in the circle, he had vanished from sight. She frantically darted her eyes around her field of vision. She cursed herself because they might have expected this move from her. Performing this maneuver repeatedly in front of all the soldiers has come and bitten her in the plot.

She then saw the missing pony coming from above her. He must have flown upwards when the ponies in front caught her attention. The sounds of the others combined with the bat-ponies natural ability to flap their wings in almost complete silence made it impossible to notice. But that didn’t stop her, she couldn’t let it.

She twisted herself so that she could dodge the spear pointed at her. Once she was past the tip she could kick her opponent in the face taking him out. However, it did not go her way as the pony above her didn’t jab the spear but swung it, hitting her on the side. She was knocked out of the air and landed hard on the ground.

While the spear tip was made of a soft material the handle was still wood and that would still hurt, especially since she still had a few bruises left. She hissed in pain but was more or less fine.

The two sides came together. The one who had struck her wanted to apologize if he caused an injury but she dismissed it and said it was fine.

“It’s better for me to make mistakes here than out there.” She said offering her hoof to each of them.

Her being taken and held hostage and not being able to defend herself or Lunar had humbled her significantly. Before, she was brash and thought she could take on anything that was thrown at her. After all, she was able to take on multiple opponents at once before.

When she shook the last hoof one of them was about to suggest getting something to eat when somepony spoke. They all looked over to see it was princess Luna. They all immediately knelt before their princess.

“Rise, Subjects.” Princess Luna commanded.

“What may we do for you princess?” The leader of the squad asked.

“I am here for the young Resonance.” She said.

Resonance picked herself up and Princess Luna had the squad was dismissed. They stood back up and went off to eat. Resonance was left kneeling for a while longer. Both the princess and Resonance waited until they were sure they had been left alone. only then was Resonance allowed to get up.

“How may I be of service, Princess?” Resonance asked. She had been in the presence of the princess before but that was with other ponies whenever Princess Luna and Prince Lunar happened to pass by and when she was guarding Lunar of course.

“I have questions for thee.”

“Of course, Princess.”

When she was first brought back to the castle she was left to the medical staff to mend her injuries. One of the Captians had questioned her about who the thieves were. She didn’t have an answer and said they were ambushed when they heard the sound of wolves past the tree line. The wolves caught the attention of the captain and pressed for more. Resonance was not asked about anything else.

“I understand thee was held hostage alongside mine child? Thee has't done thy duty well.”

“You humble me, Princess.” Her pride had risen at hearing the last part. “Yes, I was held hostage but was kept in another room.”

“Oh? So thee did not stay in the same cell?”

“No, at first I was confined to a strange device and was tortured for what felt like hours.” She recalled her ears hurting so much and she could not hear well after the fact. Her hearing was temporarily damaged from the device. “Then I was brought to another part of the cave where they were holding Prince Lunar. Probably to give him a show." Luna could see Resonance recalling the events hurt and angered her, so she quickly moved on to the next question.

“One of the pathetic thieves revealed that a pegasus threw a strange rock at mine child.” There was venom in her voice at even mentioning the worm that had held her son hostage. “Did thee see who this pony was?”

Resonance recalled the pony and that the pony was a mare who had been the one keeping an eye on her, but she did not know she was a pegasus. She also recognized her as the one who knocked them out in the middle of the forest. She did recall the mare eyeing Lunar and seeing her throw a glowing stone at Lunar’s hooves.

The expression on Luna’s face changed when Resonance described the next events. She could not believe that her child was capable of doing such horrible things. The only thing that calmed her down was that Resonance said that Lunar did not recognize what he was doing, he did not even react to his own name when it was called. There was also a strange glow in his eye indicating that he may have been bewitched.

“Follow us, Resonance.” Princess Luna commanded.

The next night I woke up with no trouble sleeping. I slept like a baby throughout the day. No one was there to wake me up and that was a good thing too. Last night I was being poked in every nook and cranny I had. When it had finally wrapped up it was close to noon by then.

I stretched my limbs about and hopped out of bed. I began my day as if nothing had ever happened. I brushed my teeth and jumped into the bath. After 20 minutes had passed I got out and dried myself.

When I stepped out of my bathroom I was met face to face with the doctor from the night before. He was about to scowl at me before he froze and took a closer look at me.

“My Prince! Your injuries!”

I looked down at myself and noticed I had removed my bandages before getting in the bath without a second thought. I could not feel the wounds and thus did not think of them while taking off the bandages.

I was completely healed up and looked as if I never sustained any injury. The doctor wanted to say something but kept stammering his words.

Oh…

Author's Note

A few days after I said it would be done, but better late than never. I hope you enjoyed reading up to now. Might time skip so that Lunar (Silent) can be physically older. Might be the next chapter or the one after that.