“Would you have truly allowed me to possess you in exchange for her life?” Opening my eyes I find myself lying in the same position I fell asleep in, but on the moon once again. Nightmare is loafing next to me staring straight ahead towards the planet.

“Of course. I had enough mana that you could’ve teleported her and yourself back to Canterlot, easily. I would’ve been prepared to never regain myself, but I also had hope that if it came to pass… you wouldn’t let me down.”

“I’ve always admired your resolve, but in this instance, why?”

“Because, I actually think you do intend to be a better pony. My gut tells me that’ll you’ll be freed from this prison much earlier than you think, and once I explained my reasoning I believed you would release the possession.” I truly think she would’ve returned my body afterwards. Why ruin the fragile olive branch that’s beginning to form, that could result in permanent freedom, for a temporary freedom in another body that isn’t truly hers?

“Surely you’re not that naive? If I was able to cultivate your strange power and combine it with my mastery over mana there’s nothing on that planet that could stop me.”

“That might be true, but why continue with these hypotheticals when you’ve already proved me right?” She finally looks at me and arches an eyebrow in confusion. “You helped me access the power inside the moon didn’t you? I reached out with my mana and channeled as much as I could muster, but you’re the one that actually connected my mana to the moon. I originally thought it was luck that I managed to pull that spell out of my ass, but the more I think about it… it had to be you. There’s no way I could accidentally consume my mana and access the well of power in this rock. I also realized that I wasn’t even thinking of the moon when I reached out with my mana, I was thinking of the link between us to indirectly reach the moon, but would that really have worked?”

Nightmare turns her head back towards the planet and closes her eyes with a quiet chuckle. “It would not have, your theory is correct.” There’s a brief silence but I hold back a response as I sense that she still has something to say. “Do you actually think they’d free me from this hell early?”

“I do. Luna thinks you should have a second chance and she even managed to convince Celestia to seek out the opinions from the elements of harmony before she makes a final decision.”

A sudden new voice to my left jump scares the hell out of me as I roll away in surprise. “I wouldn’t really say I convinced her, all I did was mention the idea and after some consideration on her own she elected to listen to me.”

“Holy shit Luna you startled me… how long have you been here?”

“Since the beginning. Once I realized I had fallen asleep I waited for your dream to appear.” Her eyes shift up as she looks behind me. After a brief stare down Luna dips her head down, “You truly have my thanks, for saving him.”

Nightmare rolls her eyes, “Please, as if I’d just let my only chance at an early freedom die to a mere Ursa Major. If anything I should be scolding you for recklessly draining so much of your mana when you know you’re in a dangerous region.”

“That is true, but that’s not actually why I’m here. I need to know the truth, Nightmare, the question I dared not to ask while my sister was with me. Do you think both of us truly deserve a second chance? I only voted to give you a second chance because I was being given one, but do either of us really deserve it?”

“Yes. The combination of your resentment with my corruption created a negative feedback loop that spiraled us into madness. I had no awareness of what I was doing by influencing you, in my original form I had no thoughts, no feelings, I don’t even remember what my existence was before you. In the same vein you had completely lost yourself with no control of your own body after the corruption reached a certain point. It’s comparable to somepony blaming a mindless virus for infecting a victim while also blaming the victim for unknowingly catching an illness. I’m sure there could be an argument made that would justify blaming either of us, but we have both suffered through 1,000 years on this barren rock! I would rather die than suffer through another millennium of…. This!” She makes a sweeping motion with one of her forehooves pointing all around herself. By the end of her explanation she’s clearly upset and frustrated.

Luna does nothing but stare at the alicorn in shock, and my face probably looks the same. If they were the same consciousness back then, then doesn’t that mean they spent the entire 1,000 years up here alone.

Insight.

19 + 10 = 29.

“I’ll free you.”

“What?” Both of the alicorns loudly ask as they both look at me.

“I can’t do it now, but in a year or two I’ll have the capability. You’ve convinced me, I don’t know why Harmony sent you back up here when it separated the two of you, but I think it’s a mistake. Surely you agree with me Luna?”

“If everything is truly as she says then yes, I agree. My memories are hazy, but it felt like I was in control of myself. I don’t know if I believe her.”

“Your memories are hazy, that's evidence enough in my opinion. The fact that you aren’t 100% certain you were in your right mind says everything we need to know. You would know if you were in complete control. Now, if you two will excuse me I’d like to enjoy the rest of my sleep.”

I wake up to find one of Luna’s wings has spread open and given me a partial blanket. Said alicorn is still laying her head on my chest while hovering a book in front of her. “Comfortable?”

Laughing loudly I watch the book fall out of the air as Luna startles and goes stiff with a yelp. “That’s for startling me in the dream! Now we’re even.”

The pony flips over and squints her eyes at me with a pout. “You understand of course that this means war, yes?”

“Yeah yeah whatever you say. You ready to head into the mountains tonight?”

“My body only has a few dull aches here and there so we should be able to proceed at our usual pace. I do intend to have breakfast before we depart, though.”

“Oh for sure. I don’t want to skip breakfast either, I was curious about your condition and misworded my question.”

Around half an hour later Luna teleports the empty plates back to the palance and both stand up with a stretch. While I’m taking down the tent Luna gives me some good news. “Your suppression never wavered last night and it’s even still going right now. You’ve improved considerably.”

Unfortunately in the same way someone can make you start manually breathing, her pointing it out has caused me to start consciously paying attention to it again. I must’ve gone on autopilot at some point when I was going over my spells with her. I’m still able to maintain it but it’s taking a portion of my focus now. That does remind me of something though, “Hey Luna remember in Ponyville when I asked if you could unsuppress your presence and you mentioned not wanting to do it in the middle of town? Can you demonstrate it now?”

“Ah right, I’m glad you reminded me. Now that my mana is completely replenished I don’t mind.”

Suddenly all the noises of the forest go silent and strong winds start to whip through the area. My eyes widen in surprise when the moon and all the stars in the sky disappear and it’s like darkness is surrounding me.

Wisdom Saving Throw.

13 + 6 = 19.
On pure instinct I take a step backwards, but it feels like I’m being watched from every angle, I can’t escape.

You are Frightened.

All my hairs stand up and it’s like something is screaming at me to give up, it’s over. In an instant everything returns to normal, and I release a shaky breath. The difference between that and mine is quite large, but that’s to be expected. The more interesting thing is that mine caused me to look in a certain direction and to instinctively move from 1 object in particular, but hers felt like I was surrounded by 100 Luna’s with nowhere to go. I wonder if that specific difference is due to the mana disparity or if that’s just her unique flair for her presence.

“That was unpleasant. It felt like I was at the end of a long pursuit in pitch black darkness and that resistance would be pointless. I was being pressured from every direction.”

She gives me an apologetic look, “That is quite similar to how it’s been described to me in the past. I will give you credit, though, you fared much better than most. I’ve had several creatures just hyperventilate until they pass out. If you ever find yourself facing a presence that has you frozen you can try to do the opposite of suppression. Flare your mana up and it should alleviate some of the pressure.”

“Does flaring up your mana work the other way around as well? That sounds like it should make my own presence more potent.”

“Not quite, from my experience it just adds killing intent. You mentioned that you felt like resistance was meaningless, but you didn’t feel like you were going to die, that your death was imminent.”

“Got it. That makes sense I suppose.”

It’s been a few hours and now we’ve gone far enough west that snow is starting to fall. All this snow combined with the fact that it’s the middle of the night has my teeth chattering while we walk along. Somehow though, none of this is the worst thing going on right now. “We’re being watched, Ignis.”

“I know, but I can’t figure out where it is or if it's more than one.” We’ve been followed for around 15 minutes and this deep seated dread is starting to settle in. Whatever is following us is close now. “Disable Passive Perception.” I need to actively roll here, my passive 16 isn’t cutting it.

Perception.

20 + 6 = 26.

Right as I turn around to look behind me I notice something also comes to a stop 30 or so feet away from us. I know something is there but with it not moving it’s incredibly hard to see it, it must be blending in with the snow. I stop walking and squint and that’s when I see it. There are small hairs sticking out of the “snow” that seem to draw several straight lines. As soon as I notice it I see 8 eyes snap open and watch in horror as 3 giant spiders stand up to their full height.

Wisdom Saving Throw (Disadvantage.)

10 and 16. 10 + 6 = 16.

You are frightened.

“AHHHHH! SPIDERS! LUNA IT’S SPIDERS! FIREBALL!” These giant spiders are actually quite similar in size to the giant spiders in faerun, but due to a run in with said giant spider at an early age has left me utterly terrified of the bugs. I throw my palm in the air and as the small flame starts to form and spin in my hand I project a Strengthen rune in front of the fire.

Luna turns as her eyes widen when she hears me scream, but they widen even more when she hears the last thing I said. “Wait, Ignis! DON’T!”

But it’s too late, on pure instinct I surge mana out of my palm while at the same time I unleash the fireball. Luna yells out a loud no as the Fireball combines with the mana as it passes through the Strengthen rune and expands. Half an instant later I’m blown backwards and Luna launches herself into the air as a massive 40ft radius ball of fire explodes outwards when it comes in contact with the spider closest to us.

With a massive dump of adrenaline still running through my veins I scramble to my feet, and start to wonder why we aren’t rolling for initiative? As soon as the explosion dissipates into several small fires all over the ground and on the tree’s closest to the spiders I see why. All 3 spiders are limp and charred, completely toasted.

+600 XP: 93,600/100,000.

Oh. That was way overkill.

“What in Harmony’s name is wrong with you, IGNIS!” Luna yells at me from the sky. My face heats up in embarrassment, looking up I can tell from her face she’s stunned in disbelief at what she just witnessed. “You’re going to burn down the entire forest over a few spiders?!”

On the brightside I’m no longer feeling cold, but the downside is that this is by far the most embarrassed I’ve ever been in front of her. So much so that I can’t even look at her anymore, I just look at the ground with a sheepish look. Quietly muttering out my justification, “I told you I’m scared of spiders…”

I hear snow crunch next to me as Luna lands next to me and sighs. “Who would’ve guessed this would be the one time you act like a typical stallion.” She ignites her horn and a steady torrent of water erupts from the tip of her horn as she starts to do damage control on the fire. Luckily all the trees are damp and covered in snow so it shouldn’t be too dangerous.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting them to be so big and I panicked.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I just wasn’t expecting your reaction to be so visceral. Good news though we’re about to start climbing the first mountain so the tree’s and bushes should thin out. Giving any would be stalkers less coverage to hide.”

“Ugh so you mean it’s going to get even colder?! I did not pack the correct clothes for this trip.”

“You’re wearing the only clothes you own, Ignis.”

“Exactly! I fucked up Luna! Whenever we set up camp I’ll be okay but I have no way of keeping warm while we walk. Please tell me you have something?”

She rolls her eyes and her already activated horn glows a bit brighter as I feel the cold dissipate replaced by a slight warmth. “Ohhh yeah that’s perfect.” I give her a hug around her neck, “Thank you Lulu~”

She still looks annoyed but there is a slight blush from the unexpected hug combined with her nickname. “Don’t thank me yet, this is a good training opportunity.” I pull away and she displays 2 runes in the air. “This is the first two runes of the spell, figure out what the last two runes should be and cast it yourself. You have 2 hours until my spell wears off and you’ll be cold until you can figure it out.”

Oh for fucks sake. Wait, can I just roll for this? It’s….very loosely arcana? Fuck it let’s try.

Arcana Check.

9 + 13 = 22.

These first two runes don’t appear to have any particular reason why they are together, but if I use this for the third rune it’ll mean “regulate” and temperature is considered one of the fundamental runes so that one is easy. This should work?

I wave my hand in the air and project the 4 runes then stack them into a pile and place the top of the pile on the palm of my hand. Putting my palm against my chest I push mana out of my palm and through the runes into my chest, and nothing happens. Oh cause the spell is already on me. “Luna, can you end the spell? I’m pretty sure I got it figured out but I can’t test the spell because it’s already applied to me.”

“Are you sure? I highly doubt you’ve figured it out when I barely covered any of the combinations with you. I know I didn’t cover the one you’ll need for the spell.” She’s not wrong she didn’t cover it, but while she was teaching me she had her book open to two pages that did nothing but cover common combinations. I don’t have the keen mind feat but 20 Intelligence still goes pretty hard, I remember basically everything from those two pages. It was on the right page, 7th row.

“Yeah I’m pretty sure.”

“Alright, but I’m not reapplying it if you’re wrong.”

The dim light from her horn fades and within a second I feel the cold start to seep into my bones. A few seconds later I redo the steps I did previously and send the spell into my chest. I feel the familiar warmness wrap around me like a blanket and offer a smug smirk to Luna. She actually looks a bit disturbed. “Did you memorize the combination for “regulate” from the few seconds I had the page open in the book?”

“Yep. I had to recall the image, but I remembered it.”

“Hm, well, good job I suppose.”

“How do I make it last longer than 2 hours?”

“Oh yours is only going to last for 10 minutes. You just need to use a “Strengthen” rune. One will increase it to 2 hours and another one will increase it to a day.” It’s actually ridiculous how hard spells scale with the Strengthen rune.

Once the spell ran out I used a strengthen rune and reapplied the spell for two hours and soon enough we’d reached the peak of the first mountain. From here the fog is so dense that we can’t even see the peak for the next mountain, but that’s alright. We’re going to set up camp here and I’ll show Luna my new spell. Putting my arm through the Mizzium I pull out a crystal bead and perform the one minute casting time to cast Leomund’s Tiny Hut.

Arcana (Mizzium DC: 16.)

11 + 13 = 24.

Luna watches with a bit of childlike wonder as a transparent dome expands from the bead and passes through us. Within seconds the inside of the dome feels comfortable and the ground under us is completely dry and free of snow. “From the outside of the dome it’s an opaque white color so that it blends in with the snow. From inside it’s transparent and I can dim down the light inside or even make it completely dark. The spell is configured so that any creature or object that was inside the dome as it originally expanded and was established are the only things that can pass through the barrier. No other creature or object can enter inside here even if they detect us. Oh and spells cannot go through the barrier either, both ways, so don’t cast something or it’ll probably bounce around and nail one of us.”

“This is incredible. Something like this with equestrian magic would require the caster to actively channel the spell for the entire duration. Why haven’t you been using this the entire time?!”

“It takes a 3rd level spell slot and to be honest I kind of forgot it exists. I only remembered it because I started thinking of a spell that could alleviate our climate problem.”

After 30 or so minutes of idle chatter Luna ignites her horn and attempts to teleport in our dinner, but we both look up at the dome when we hear two plates shatter against the barrier and our food slides down the outside of the barrier. After the initial shock we both burst out laughing and realize we have to eat the food outside since it’s not an object that was configured to be allowed in the dome.

Somehow we end up laying down in the same position as yesterday, but as I’m falling asleep I just think about today and smile. Looking at Luna with her eyes closed I smile and think to myself. For once we actually just had a pretty normal night…I might be in trouble.

Author's Note

I think this chapter might be the closest I've come to a real slice of life/comedy chapter that I'm HAPPY with. Some of the actions and things said might seem a tad OOC compared to previous behavior, but just remember that you usually get a little more silly with your friends as you get more comfortable with them. :)

Also holy shit this is chapter 54! I didn't even realize we'd passed chapter 50! Honestly I'm so happy I've been able to keep consistently writing for this story. I was afraid I'd burn out like I did the first time last year, but all the positive comments and all the ideas for scenes I want to write have really kept me motivated, so thanks homies <3.

Thanks for reading!