I was wondering how long it’d take for me to come back here. Honestly I meant to come back way earlier but I guess it’s okay now since she brought me here on her own. “Child of Zarra.” I make eye contact with the ancient elf inside the Moonblade and she motions for me to approach her. Once I do she continues, “You nearly shattered my soul, child. What possessed you to channel that much magic into my blade?”

“Rage. Desperation. Instinct. I guess you could say it was a combination of those three. Moonblade, before we continue can you tell me your name? You’ve neglected to do it in any of our prior meetings.” Glancing around I’m amazed to see how full of life this place looks right now compared to how it looked when Luna and I visited a week or so ago.

“Is that all you have to say?” She ignores my question and I realize instantly I’m being an asshole. I think I can play this off though.

“Well I was hoping to get your name first so it could be properly done, but if you insist. I am sorry, if I had known that was going to happen I would not have done it. It’s too late for that now, though, but I hope you can at least sympathize with the emotions I was dealing with in that moment.” Her glare finally softens, but it’s still not a smile.

“Galadra. It’s only because your motivation was pure and just that I’m even having this conversation with you. If I was your father I’d be scolding you for failing to control your emotions and allowing your full Summer Eladrin traits to come ablaze. Luckily for you The Dark Maiden has no such teachings. I truly must ask you to never do whatever it is you did that nearly shattered me, ever again. I’m not sure I can survive it a second time.”

“Trust me I didn’t plan on it. Galadra, huh? No family name? You mentioned you’ve been around since before the first sundering, but surely there’s more to your story, no? How did you end up in this blade?”

“I had a family name, once. Before I could even give myself a proper name I was banished from my House. I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now based on my golden hair and pale complexion, but I was a Sun Elf. Ironic isn’t it? I was taken in by a wandering group of dark elves and ended up finding my new home in Miyeritar, and chose to omit a family name at my coming of age naming ceremony. From there I lived in a temple dedicated to Her Grace and became a devout cleric. In your modern terms I ended up becoming something similar to a Chosen. I lived for several thousand years since that power seemed to make me ageless, but ended up suffering a mortal wound at the start of the Crown Wars. In my final words I asked Her Grace if there was any way I could continue serving her and she granted me this.”

When she finishes her final statement she holds out her hands and gestures to this entire realm. “So you became this Moonblade and were wielded by the mightiest clerics in your Order to continue on your fight after your death? That’s…quite noble. All of that as a sun elf, that really is ironic. There were only 6 wielders of you before myself, though and the Crown Wars were long long ago. How is it that there were only 6 wielders in 14,000 years?”

“Well, as you know from your teachings in your own temple, we were not victorious.” Galadra’s face looks quite pained. “The Dark Disaster struck and eventually Miyeritar fell, with most of its citizens becoming aberrations known as Sharns. I was buried in the ruins and forgotten for eons, but one day the city was reconstructed and became known as Rhymanthiin. That’s when I was reclaimed by the Order and put back into loyal service.”

Suddenly she pulls me into a hug and quietly says, “Now I’m once again the blade for Her Chosen. Child of Zarra, I know you are still young and you are burdened with hardship, but please for Her sake…you must cool your head, clear your mind of that which plagues you, and temper your recklessness. As far as I can tell you will most likely be the final person to wield me, so make it count.”

The first thing I see upon waking up is a pair of cyan eyes staring into my own. “Oh good, I was just about to wake you. Night Court is in 45 minutes, so if you want to bathe and grab whatever food they have left in the dining hall you have some time.”

“Is the other one still behind me?” I whisper to Luna and try to glance behind myself without moving my head, which is impossible.

“The other one is about to smack you.” I hear a very deadpan Nightmare behind me.

“Luna, I think she can hear us. What do we do? I can go gather the elements.” Luna just rolls her eyes at me and gently pushes me away with a forehoof so she can roll over and get out of bed.

“I’m glad to see you appear to have slept well. I was worried when I saw you were asleep that you’d be plagued with those unpleasant images again. Also, don’t worry about today's report to Tia on Nightmares activities. Cadence’s knight gave her a summary at dinner, but Tia wanted me to give you a warning to not miss any further reports.”

After a quick shower and some snacks, Nightmare, Luna, and I are in the throne room for Night Court. Nightmare lounges on the petitioner side of the room and I take up my normal position at the bottom of the stairs that lead to the throne. “I hear you’re going to be seeing a therapist in the morning, did you want me to accompany you?” There’s no petitioners as usual so Luna decides to ask me about the therapy. Who snitched?

“Is that allowed? I thought you had to do that kind of stuff alone, unless it’s couples therapy.” She seems mildly confused at the mention of couples therapy, guessing they either don’t have that or she hasn’t been introduced to the concept yet. “Nevermind that, the answer is no. I appreciate the support, but if I’m being entirely honest I doubt I’ll be confident enough to talk about all of my issues if you’re in the room.”

The confusion turns into a look of slight annoyance. “Do you not trust me enough to know of the problems that ail you?”

“It’s not that…I just don’t want your image of me to change. If that makes sense? I’d be too worried about appearing weak or causing you to think less of me and then you take away some of my responsibilities.”

“Exactly so you don’t trust me to be above such trivial things? Why would I-”

“Luna.” Nightmare actually interrupts her. “Why didn’t we talk to Celestia and tell her of our pains and woes?”

“.....That’s not the same.” Luna pauses for another few seconds. “No, you’re right. Nopony wants to burden the ones closest to them. I understand.”

I just look between the two of them absolutely befuddled. “I’m confused if the two of you fed off of each other's negative emotions then why are you able to balance each other out like this?”

“All I had known was negative emotions at that time. How could I have been a balancing force when I was a cloud of hate?” You know she’s making a lot of sense right now.

“That makes sense. Honestly you’re surprisingly chill since our first meeting on the moon. I didn’t expect you to mellow out so quickly.”

“I’m just happy enough to be free.”

The small talk continued for the rest of night court and afterwards Luna went on patrol in the dream realm while Nightmare gave me some more magic lessons. Eventually though it was morning. After eating breakfast with the alicorns Luna took Nightmare and Force escorted me to the medical wing and brought me into a small but cozy office featuring a lone unicorn stallion with a plain brown coat and black hair.

“Ignis this is Dr. Sentiment, doctor this is Knight I was speaking with you about last week.” Force gestures to the stallion and steps aside so I can enter the room.

The stallion rises and offers me a forehoof. “Ah yes, the Knight who appeared out of nowhere and has already been mentioned in the papers more than most nobles. Knight Force here was telling me you’ve had some traumatic flashes and night terrors, is that right?”

I fist bump his forehoof and then give Force a side eye. Why the fuck she talking about that? I hadn’t decided what I even wanted to share with this guy. “Yeah, something like that. How does this work?” He gestures towards the couch across from his desk so I lay down on it and hang my feet over the opposite armrest.

“Well this is completely voluntary, you’re only here because you want to be here. Some patients just come in here and have stress free conversations where I try to point out lessons from their daily interactions that they can apply to the issues in their file. Other patients just tell me what’s troubling them and I’m just here to listen. If they or you have any questions about if something is normal or how they’re supposed to handle something then I’ll talk through that. Whatever makes you most comfortable.” As he’s talking he pulls out a folder that has my name on it and the file is actually a bit thicker than I thought it’d be.

Force walks further in and closes the door before I give her a questioning look, raising an eyebrow. “What?” She asks me.

“You gotta go, Force. I even told Luna not to be here.” I remember how Luna worded it and use that same phrasing. “I don’t want to be a burden to any of you, but this guy gets paid to do it. So, let him do his job and skedaddle outta here.” I flutter my hands toward her as if I’m shooing her out of the room.

“Sorry, Knight if the patient doesn’t want you here then I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.” She frowns but leaves without a word.

The door closes and we sit in silence for at least 5 minutes before I speak up. “If you’re trying to use silence to make me uncomfortable so I just start talking to fill the void then I should probably just warn you to use a different tactic.”

“Good guess, but no. Like I said, you're the one that came to my office, so if you want to sit here in silence for 90 minutes then be my guest. You wouldn’t be the first, in fact I had one mare that sat through four 90 minute sessions before finally feeling comfortable enough to open up.” He does actually write something down while he’s talking though. What could he have notated?

A few more minutes pass but this time I’m actually thinking about what I even want to talk about. “I guess I should start with the most recent issue?”

“And what would that be?”

“I mean it’s what you mentioned when Force introduced us. I’ve been having nightmares about changelings and yesterday I ended up having something like the nightmare, but it was while I was still awake.”

“Okay and in your night terrors what exactly is happening?”

“I’m in a swamp of some kind and out the mud and murky water changelings will try grab me and pull me under. I fly up to escape and they just rise up as well, ascending higher and higher by forming a mountain of corpses. Eventually they get me and pull me down and I wake up.”

“And do you hear anything when this is happening?”

“No. They’re mouths are moving but the entire dream is dead silent. I’m sure they’re all…” I trail off before I can finish the thought.

“Hm? What was that? What are they all saying?”

“I think they’re cursing me. Some of them are trying to pull me under because I killed them directly and others because it’s my fault they died.”

He writes in silence for a few seconds. “Who are these changelings?”

“Some of them are the jet black changelings that belong to the rogue Queen Chrysalis. Those I slaughtered with reckless abandon. The others are the drones that served under Queen Aurora…they died because I couldn’t stop the rogue Queen and some of them I even watched them be executed and just watched.” My throat feels dry, and it’s hard to swallow.

“Ah so this is from the events that happened at the global summit. Why did you kill the rogue drones?”

“What do you mean why? They tried to paralyze me and keep me in a pod as an indefinite food source. They were killing and kidnapping my fellow guards. They…..” I pause as I realize the main reason, the one that actually kicked me into overdrive and made me not even think as I cut through them. He looks up and gives me an expectant look as if he’s silently telling me to continue. “They took Luna.”

He writes a few more lines down. “Do you feel guilty about what you did to those changelings? Regret?”

“No?” He tilts his head at me and I realize I answered him as if I was asking a question. “Yes? I don’t know! That’s not why we were there. I was prepared to have conflict with the dragons, but out of nowhere I’m slicing through these weak creatures and blowing them up with fireballs…They were just following orders, they’re a literal hive mind. At the same time though, I had to do it.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it was kill or be killed. I didn’t even have time to consider options or think of peaceful resolutions. Was I supposed to just fucking roll over and live in a pod? Let all the ponies I came with die?”

“You did what you had to do Ignis. It was what needed to be done. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.” I feel a wet trail of water run down my face. The doctor notices it and probably notices my confused look. “What the fuck is happening right now? Where is all of this even coming from? I’ve deliberately made sure to just not even think about anything that happened in that colosseum…. Is that why they decided to haunt me in my dreams?”

He frowns as if I said something wrong and after making some more notes he replies. “More than likely, yes. You can’t repress things like that forever, Ignis. One way or another your body will force you to process it. Let’s come back to the rogue changelings later. For now can you explain why the death of the other changelings is your fault?”

I don’t wanna be here anymore. This is stupid. I go to stand up when I remember the scared look on Force’s face, and the concern from Luna. Finally I remember Galadra from the Moonblade. For Her sake, clear your mind of that which plagues you.

This is gunna be a long morning.

Author's Note

Woah unexpected Moonblade lore drop woahhhh

Also I can confirm I hated writing therapy just as much as I thought I would. Nope nope don't like doing that, feels cringey. But hey if the commenters say it's good then we'll continue it into next chapter if they admit defeat and say "you were right, this is bad" then I the rest of the session is getting off screened lmao.

Thanks for reading! <3