Moonlight's POV

A snowstorm swirls around me, and there's no sign of Sombra. Oh Celestia, this is another nightmare, I bet. A few days of peace, and then it all starts to go wrong again.

I open a door out of the dream, but a wall of shadows blocks my path. I stifle a gasp as I'm sucked back into the nightmare and watch as a glowing green form resembling a mare circles me. I don't know who or what she is, but her appearance reminds me of Sombra's and my own Umbrum form.

"So, who are you, crazy demon from the back of my head that my unconscious mind managed to whip up?" I say casually.

A dark magic spell hits me and I feel extreme agony as black crystals climb up my legs and cover my wings. I try to use magic to get rid of them, but they won’t disappear no matter what I do. I'm hopelessly stuck, and something must be seriously wrong if I can’t use magic in my own dreams after being trained by some of the best Dreamwalkers in Equestria and the Crystal Empire. I’ve never seen this Umbrum before, either, so why am I dreaming about her?

"Thou shan't speak to Us like that, foolish mortal," the Umbrum says in a gravelly voice. I don't know why she's talking in Old Ponish or the so-called Royal We, though.

"Thou shalt free me, and I shall apologise to thee once I have thy name," I answer.

“Our name is Queen Rabia of the Umbrum. We ask thee, where is Radiant Hope?”

A brilliant white light shines somewhere to my right, and I hear the hoofsteps of a group of ponies. Four, five, six ponies in total. In my peripheral vision, I see six mares walking towards me, and I can tell just from their silhouettes who they are. The crown upon Twilight Sparkle's head gives it away, and I begin to panic.

"Who are these beasts?!" the Umbrum hisses.

Twilight growls, “There’s more of them. We’re going to need to use the Elements of Harmony to get rid of them all.”

I look in the direction of the Umbrum and see hundreds of others standing in battle lines behind her. Then there’s the sound of marching, and I look back in Twilight’s direction to see an army of Solar Guards approaching. A battle’s about to start, and I’m stuck in the middle of it, unable to move, unable to do anything.

“Sombra!” I yell into the abyss. My voice echoes for miles, but there is no reply.

I jolt awake, and find myself sitting at the dining table, several sets of eyes staring at me. I feel uneasy and nauseous. Something is very, very wrong.

“Moonlight?” Wish asks with concern. “Are you ok?”

It suddenly clicks in my head that there could only be one meaning for all of this. I scramble out of my seat and start telling everypony what needs to be done. “We need to secure the Crystal Empire, fortify the castle and reinforce all the protection spells. Sombra, how strong are the teleportation wards? Discord broke them, but could a unicorn or an alicorn do the same? Skywalker, Hanzal, Swift. If you tell the guards that I’ve asked them to protect the borders, they’ll listen to you. Cozy, I know you like messing about, but don’t get in the way. This is an emergency.”

“Moonlight,” Sombra says, and I stop.

“Moonlight, you fell asleep at the table, which is already quite unusual for you. Now you are yelling orders at all of us and talking about an emergency which none of us know anything about. I am the only one here able to read your mind, but even then the flow of information is so fast that I can’t understand a thing that you are going on about. Explain, my love.”

I glower at Hope, the realisation dawning on me that the innocent filly act is just that: an act to trick us into thinking we can trust her. “I’ll bet she knows half the story already.”

“What?” she asks.

“Tell everypony the truth.” I turn to Skywalker and the horde of ponies who turned up a few days ago. “And you. I’ll bet you all know everything that Hope doesn’t. What a shame both of your plans are going to fall apart.”

“Your Majesty, mind if I ask what in the gosh darn name of Tartarus you mean?” Skywalker questions, raising the eyebrow not covered by his eye patch.

“Fine, maybe I misjudged you. But if it’s not any of you, it could only be him, since he’s the only one here who really cares about Celestia.” I stare at Thunder - I mean, Swift Lightning.

“Ah ain’t seen that stare in yer eyes fer quite a while. Ah know it means trouble, but Ah don’t know what that trouble is. Ah swear on mah mother’s life.” He puts both front hooves in the air.

“Celestia dammit,” I mutter. “Fine, maybe nopony here has anything to do with the Celestia problem, but that’s only half of it. None of you would have met her. Sombra and I spend too much time together and I know he wouldn’t lie to me over something this serious. Cozy might do something like this, but she spends too much time in the castle. Wish wouldn’t lie to me about this either, but Hope? Little Radiant Hope? Naive like a child, but awfully intelligent. It seems Princess Amoré taught her to be a good liar as well.”

“Moonlight, that’s crossing a line,” Sombra tells me firmly.

“Really? Stepping up to defend your ex-girlfriend? She’s a spy and a traitor, Sombra.”

“And what is your evidence for that?”

I try to collect my thoughts. “I - I just had a - another vision. Like when I saw the cursed necklace in my dream before it arrived in the post. The necklace that almost stopped your heart.”

“And what did you see this time?”

“Two armies preparing to invade the Crystal Empire at once. Radiant Hope here has pretended to be nice for a few weeks, but now she’s gone and dropped us in it. And as well as her being a spy on behalf of an army of Umbrum and feeding them enough information so that they can invade, we’re also about to be attacked by a whole ton of Solar Guards and the Element Bearers who, I’ll remind you, have the power to kill both of us with a few words and stop any dark magic from bringing us back. I’ll say it again: secure the Crystal Empire, and fortify the castle.”

“Ohhhhhh,” Hope sighs. “I haven’t told them anything, but that might be the problem. They’re probably worried that I’ve gone missing or something.”

“Really?” I stare at her in disbelief. “You’re so stupid that you forgot to tell them that you were ok?”

“Oopsie,” she winces.

I facehoof. “I swear to Celestia, your parents should have named you Hopeless. Now, because of your utter stupidity, the Umbrum who mollycoddled you whilst Sombra wasn’t here is worried about her adopted little unicorn child and has sent an entire army to look for you. Well done!” I say sarcastically.

She gasps in pain as if I had slapped her, and tears well up in her eyes. “I- '' She breaks down in tears, and Swift of all ponies gets out of his seat and trots over to defend her. He says to me, “Ah think yeh’ve overdone it, miss.”

“Swift and I don’t see eye to eye on much, but I agree with him here,” Hanzal adds.

“Your Majesty…” Skywalker trails off.

“Golly, even I felt that,” Cozy remarks.

“That’s enough now,” Sombra tells me.

“Oh, I apologise for trying to look after our subjects, Sombra,” I say flatly, slamming a hoof down on the table. “Besides, why is nopony doing anything? We’re about to be invaded by two different armies at once, for Sunbutt’s sake!”

“Because you’re stressing out and you’re not treating us that nicely,” Wish replies. “Also, we don’t know exactly how these ‘visions’ work, but I’ve already recognised that the dreams aren’t exactly the same as what happens in real life. Last time, you had a dream about Celestia using the Elements of Harmony on Luna, and Celestia was wearing the necklace. She also used the necklace’s power on you. If the dream was exactly the same, she would’ve turned up wearing it. Instead, she disguised it as a wedding gift.”

“So you think the Elements of Harmony are going to turn up in a gift box?”

“That’s not what I meant. The Element Bearers will probably turn up, and we will probably have to speak to the Umbrum, but I don’t think we’ll have to deal with two armies at once.”

“And if I’m right?”

“We have an army and a lot of experienced magic users on our side, and we’ll be able to work through these problems together if that happens.. But can you please calm down? All Radiant Hope has to do is speak to the Umbrum, and then we only have one problem to deal with. And since she’s trying to help us out here, I think you should say sorry to her, alright?”

With great reluctance, I say, “Sorry, Hope.”

“It’s fine. You’re right, it was pretty stupid, but I was just enjoying being here with Sombra and Wishbone and Cozy Glow so much that I didn’t think about it.”

It hurts a little when she doesn’t say my name, but I bury my selfishness under the wave of other emotions washing over me.

“Could somepony please speak to Queen Chrysalis and inform her of the possibility of a diplomatic meeting with Queen Rabia of the Umbrum?” Sombra asks.

“I’ll go, Sombra,” Hope whispers.

“Ah’ll go too, if tha’s ok with everypony else.” Swift glances sideways at Skywalker and his friends.

“Just… Do what you must,” Skywalker responds.

Hope and Swift Lightning leave together, talking quietly to each other.

“Now, Your Majesty,” Skywalker continues. “I suggest we spread word of potential issues with the Elements of Harmony to the guards. I don’t know what your thoughts are, but… would it be best to have the guards focused on protecting the castle? The Element Bearers don’t seem like the type of ponies to attack civilians. If any Solar Guards turn up, I’m sure we will be able to deal with them.” Skywalker says.

His friends share a small laugh. I can only imagine how many fights they must have had with Solar Guards during their ten years of running from Celestia.

“That is an excellent idea,” Sombra answers. “If you could do that, please, it would give me a chance to talk to these three.” He glances from Wish to Cozy to me.

With a nod, Skywalker leaves his seat and walks away, accompanied by his group, towards the exit. When the door closes, I glance at Sombra. What is it?

“Moonlight, in future, please don’t do that,” he says after a pause.

“Do what?”

“As much as I care for you, Radiant Hope is my friend as well. If you could try to be nicer to her-”

“Hey, I apologised! And do you realise how much of a mess we could be in because of her?”

“I know, but she is still important to me.”

“Golly, those two are like a brother and a sister to me,” Cozy pipes up. “And I’m pretty sure both of them feel the same way, which means I’m allowed to stand up for them.”

Cozy’s words sink in slowly. “Fine, I’ll be nicer to her. And everypony else,” I add quickly at Wish’s look of disapproval. “But you don’t know what it’s like. All of a sudden I have these dreams that allow me to make a basic prediction of the future, and both of the times it’s happened it’s predicted a near-death experience. Nopony else here has this,” I sigh.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t help you,” Wish comforts me.

“I know.”

Sombra wordlessly trots over to me and I embrace him. We stand there like that for a few moments, not reading each other’s minds but knowing the other feels the same about the situation. We have to work together, and I have to talk to everypony about what’s going on in my head, since whatever’s wrong with me probably isn’t going to go away.

“My love, we are in this together,” Sombra whispers. “We shall keep no secrets, send no spies, bring no pain and tell no lies.”

“I know,” I repeat. I suddenly realise that this is about more than the strange prophetic dream, and about the idea of being a leader. “It’s just… We’ve now got a ton of extra ponies to look after. Sure, Chrysalis and Rutherford look after their respective kingdoms on their own pretty well, and I know Starlight would be in contact more often if she needed our help, but… With Thunder - no, Swift - always calling me the Daughter of the Night, Skywalker saying ‘Your Majesty,’ and all these ponies looking up to me and seeming so disappointed because I keep slipping up and I’m not the perfect queen they thought I was…” I walk back over to the table and hold my head in my hooves. “I don’t feel like the Queen of the Crystal Empire. I don’t feel like I should be in power at all.”

“Nonsense. You are the most amazing pony I could want to be the Crystal Empire’s queen.”

“But out of us two you’ve always been the better leader.”

“And why should that mean you are doing a terrible job?”

“I don’t know, I just feel like I haven’t been good enough for everypony, and you always seem like you have all the answers.”

“You have forgotten the way ponies used to think about me,” he says softly, stroking my mane. “You know as well as I do that they positively hated me. But you bridged the gap between the ponies of the Crystal Empire and I. You stood up to me on many occasions when you weren’t happy with the way I was doing something, and you made me change for the better. You have also stood up to Celestia, and although you are still fighting to prove to the ponies of Equestria that you are right, I can’t name many others who have done that successfully.” He lifts my chin up with his hoof and smiles down at me. “That, my love, is why I think you are the perfect pony to stand by my side as Queen of the Crystal Empire.”

I smile back. “Thanks. I love you too.”

“Gee, all the disgusting sappy romance stuff is back. I’m outta here!” Cozy cries, dashing out of the room. Cheeky little devil.

“Now, let’s not think about all of this any more. Hmm, what else should we talk about?”

“The list of things we should say to the Element Bearers to make them think we’ve lost it?” I ask hopefully.

Wish laughs, “I should have known.”

“If it makes you happy, my love, it is worth talking about. Should we try to be nice to them, or start insulting them from the beginning?”

“Try to be nice, and if that doesn’t work we can go back to being the tyrants they already think we are.”

“Agreed.”

We stand there in silence, and my thoughts wander to Starlight. She probably feels the same about leadership after the whole cutie mark issue. I should really speak to her again once all of this is over. Maybe it’s time for another trip outside the Crystal Empire.

Author's Note

What with the combination of my stupidity and a life crazier than those of most celebrities, I actually forgot to publish this on Sunday. But it's here now. I'll try to keep you all posted on what's happening in the life of Angel Midnight, but for now I'm thinking about the idea of making a group for anything to do with the Shadows and Stars series once I've got my WiFi back. Tell me what you think, and next time I'm on Fimfiction I'll look at my notifications.

~ Angel