Captain's Travels

Captain wandered down the halls of the massive Equestrian palace, he had been given free reign after the incident with Blueblood.

"Halt foul creature," shouted a squeaky voice from behind.

Turning around Captain saw the source. A small slate gray, bat-winged pegasus pony in an oversized midnight blue helm clutching a stick in his foreleg. Cautiously the bat pony approached, stick in mouth. Captain only stared, confused, as the child poked and prodded him with the stick.

"Who's a cute widdle guy," Captain cooed as he scratched under the pony's chin.

"Stop that," he shrieked. "I am an elite guard of the princess of the night, Princess Luna herself. I will be shown proper respect," he said poking the stick at Captain's face. "By order of the great Princess Luna, I am taking you into custody to meet with her royal highness."

"Fine, why not?" Conceded Captain, as he currently had nothing better to do.

"Wait you're not going to put up a fight or anyt-"

"Nightshade," barked a voice that made Capitan's hairs stand on end. "What have I told you about harassing the guests?"

"To, not to," 'Nightshade' mumbled.

"A thousand pardons sir, he's my son, and it's bring your child to work day," said the newcomer, also a bat-pony only larger and wearing armor. "Say you're sorry Nightshade."

"I'm sorry," mumbled Nightshade.

"I am Obsidian, sir and this is my son Nightshade. We're both very sorry for the disrespectful behavior, but my son has a point in that the Princess wishes to speak with you."

"Fine let's go meet this princess of yours."

With Obsidian leading the way, Captain in the middle, and Nightshade bringing up the rear, to make sure Captain didn't do anything funny, the trio made their way to the chambers of Princess Luna.

"The Princess has instructed us to remain outside while she has words with you. But be warned if you try anything against the Princess, your entrails will hit the ground long before the rest of you does," Obsidian warned.

"I'll keep that in mind Obsidian."

Before Captain now stood a pair of mammoth oaken doors inlaid with silver moons, and other intricate designs. With a turn of the knob, and a hard push, the doors creaked open. The room beyond was decorated with deep indigo tapestries that blocked out the sunlight. The illumination of the room was a platinum chandelier hanging high above the floor. In the far corner sat a large four poster bed with maroon curtains and golden ropes. Opposite the bed sat a large grandfather clock, slowly, quietly ticking away. In the center of the room was a small table a pot of tea, a pair of saucers, and an alicorn of deep blue with a mane that blew in unnatural wind, and sparkled as the stars of the night. An onyx crown and regalia decorated her form. Then she spoke.

"Good afternoon, 'Captain' is it. It is good for us to finally meet thee in person. Please have a seat we have taken the liberty of pouring thee a cup of tea."

"Princess Luna I take," Captain replied with an arched eyebrow. "You're the one who's been in my dreams all this time."

"Yes we have been intrigued by thy presence here, and wished to lend our assistance in returning home. As previously stated we know what it is like being away from home for too long."

"Yeah, I heard that you trapped on the moon or something for a millennium."

"That is only partly true. We were exiled to the moon after we lost a fight with Celestia, after we tried, and failed to overthrow our joined rule and plunge the land into eternal night."

"Sounds serious, what happened?" Captain asked as he took a sip of tea.

"We just told y-"

"It's never that simple," he said sagely, "what else happened?"

"It is a terrifying tale, we are not sure that thou can suffer it's retelling."

"Hey I watched 'Two girls one cup' without throwing up, my stomach is plenty strong."

"What is that thou speakst of."

"Trust me, you don't want to know."

"Why is it that thou art so insistent on hearing this ancient tale from me, and not some book?"

"Because time has a way of making fools of us all, and with enough time passing, even the most painful things can be laughed at. This seems like a big thing for you, and maybe you need to laugh at it."

"If thou art sure we shall begin."

It started over one thousand years ago, our heart had been consumed be jealousy and hatred. The common ponies had dubbed us, as the night mare of the moon, Nightmare Moon.

"Original," said Captain sarcastically.

Quite, but their fear of us grew as they associated us with all of the fear and violence that dwelled within the night. Their unfounded, undirected aggression was targeted to the ruler of the night, us. Eventually, their fear and ignorance turned to hatred and we were ostracized for commanding the night.

Such a strange thing, to be hated for doing your duty to the people. But we digress. Over the years, we kept trying to reconnect with the commoners, but they would have none of it, all we received was being shunned all the more. It seems like a lifetime ago that we pondered the insane idea of a coup d'etat.

"If you think about it, it's more like ten or twelve."

It feels even longer than that. But after several years of scheming, stockpiling, and recruitment we were finally able to oppose my sister. Celestia begged and pleaded with us to refrain from the most horrible of all things, war. By that time our heart was too tainted by hatred to be swayed by mere words, so war became inevitable.

One day we simply became sick of it all, and refused to lower the moon. Celestia pleaded with us one final time before raising the sun. The eclipse it caused lasted for days. Both of our armies faced one another, those who used to be brothers in arms now clashed blades under different banners. It is sad really, the senseless bloodshed, but our tears for those lost have already been shed.

"One or two more tears won't kill you."

Possibly, but now is not the time. Our armies were not the only ones who fought, Celestia and I also collided on the field of battle. We can still picture her armour perfectly, a suit of enchanted glimmering gold, crushed gems that made it harder than steel. We wore black steel inlaid with obsidian and daimond.

By the end of the first day, both suits were tarnished beyond recognition, bent, twisted, charred, dented. By the second day we were fighting naked as the day we were born. Our armies gave out long before we did, as there were innumerable casualties on either side. Where others would bleed and die, we only did the former. Our wounds healed before each others eyes, but those of our warriors did not. We remember that midway through a fight we had managed to kick her in the face with enough force to dislocate her jaw, she didn't stop, she only snapped her jaw bone back into place, and continued to fight...

"What?"

No witty remark?

"Oh I'm sorry you were waiting for one, well lets see. I guess you could say Celestia was, unhinged." *ba-dum tss*

"Nightshade where did you get that drum?" Barked Obsidian.

"Storage," replied Nightshade coolly.

Soon enough it was simply she and I, we remember that for one attack she called a flare down from the heavens, we were lucky to escape mostly intact.

"What happened?"

One of our wings was caught in the torrent of flame that struck the ground, reducing it to a blackened stump. I can still recall the smell of burning feathers, and charred flesh. Needless to say, we fell to the ground after that. Our wing then regrew, first the bone formed quickly, branching off to form the more delicate features, then sinew began to spew forth, anchoring muscle to bone. Blood then started to to pump into the half-grown wing, and began to drip unto the ground. That is when the pain started as the nerves grew back, finally hide reformed on top in patches, leaving naked flesh exposed to the air. When the wing was completed, feathers erupted, and we were ready to continue.

"So Celestia let you regrow an appendage midway through a fight?"

You must understand that the regrowth took a matter of seconds.

"Oh, please continue."

With a new wing we took to the skies, and intended to repay Celestia tenfold. Where Celestia deals with fire, we are able to command ice on a whim.

(She said as one of her hooves became translucent. Jamming it through her teacup, the steamy liquid within froze before Captain could tell what happened.)

Now just imagine what that would to one's internal organs.

"Yeouch."

Yeouch indeed. As we plunged our hoof deep into Celestia's chest we could feel her organs freeze and crack at the slightest touch. Rather than pull away immediately as with the teacup, our touch lingered for a full minute before pulling back out. The horrible sound of organs grinding, and falling into paste echoed throughout our mind for centuries, as did Celestia's cries of anguish.

She had recovered quickly enough, and was upon me once more. Fire burned in her eyes not just the fires of war, nor those of vengeance, no these were the eyes of excitement. She was enjoying these feelings, and so were we.

We batted around one another mid-air for a short while, each collision caused a great number of sparks to fly off of us, and the stink of ozone to fill the air the air. Soon however, the sparks ignited the rotting carcasses of the soldiers below, as well as any spare munitions they had had on hoof. So now we were two immortal titans battling above an inferno during an eclipse. As you can imagine the scene was legendary, but neither of us cared for the it at the time. Now was a time for action, pain, destruction. It had been far too long since the last great fight we shared, and we were making the most of it whether we knew it or not.

For a second my concentration lapsed, and Celestia gained the upper hoof. That one moment was all she needed to knock us to the ground, and impale us on a cluster of broken wooden beams. We can still recall that one spike was made of iron, we could tell this by the fact that it cauterized the wound instantly leaving behind the stench of burning flesh reeking in our nostrils.

The grin on her face said it all, this wasn't about punishment, or revenge, this was pure unadulterated enjoyment of the deepest levels. The seconds felt like days as Celestia slowly took a deep breath. There have been a hoofful of techniques that only Celestia knows and this was one of them, Dragon Fire. When she exhaled, for the briefest of moments we could see the flames growing in the back of her throat before a torrent of flame fell upon our countenance stripping away the flesh, leaving only charred bone in it's wake, Celestia had even robbed us of our sight as our eyes dissolved into nothingness. The world was dark for an instant before our vision reformed. By that time Celestia had backed away assured of her victory. That was her last mistake.

We too have our techniques designed to kill in the least equine manners possible, and we were going to show her a few. The first we showed her had been called "The Buffalo" by those unfortunate enough to have witnessed it. We had turned both of our forehooves into their ether like state, and rapidly jabbed at every inch of her body, just below the skin, but not far enough to reach the muscle. When our onslaught had finished, a swift buck to the back was all that was needed to crack the fragile shell she now wore. Before she had turned around, skin was flayed from muscle leaving it naked to the wind around us. There, in that instant, we were fascinated with the muscles, and organs that beat and undulated just beneath the skin. All were there laid bare for us to see, that is until Celestia started to writhe in agony, and her skin began to grow back.

Before she had a chance to recover we showed another one of our techniques, "Daimond Dust" we had turned one of our hooves into the mist, and jammed it straight into her snout, down to the base of her throat. We waited for her face to freeze completely before removing our hoof, and turned her muzzle to powder with a swift blow to the head.

Teeth. Teeth were what struck us the most, we had already grown numb to the blood, muscle, and sinew with the rest of the body. Here though, was a whole new genre of pain for Celestia to experience. Broken jagged teeth erupted from the former maw of the solar princess, now in its place was a bleeding stump, if that. The remains of a tongue flopped languidly down her face as steaming ichor dripped onto the ground. Sputtered breaths sprayed blood everywhere as Celestia failed to express the unimaginable pain she was feeling. We could see fat tears dripping down her cheeks as she covered her fresh wound with her fore hooves, trying vainly to make the pain go away.

As bone grew back into place, and flesh knit unto it, she began to speak. Her voice sounded distant, hollow, and cold now.

"You know Luna, I think I might actually feel bad about this next part," naked tendons pulled on raw tissue, contorting her face into a horrid toothy grin.

She rushed us, and her massive blows met our chest, knocking the wind out of us and breaking a few ribs in the process. We struggled and gasped for breath, with the first lungful we took we saw her horn flare, and a spark shoot into my mouth. We were a fool to belive that Celestia, in her blood drunk haze, would abstain from using a technique banned by Discord himself on the grounds that it was too horrifying to contemplate. A war crime punishable by death itself, and Celestia had used it.

The white hot spark that flew down our throat had ignited the oxygen in our lungs, causing an explosion that ripped out of our chest, and took most of our body with it. One of our eyes hung lazily from its socket, and we could see why it had been banned so long ago. Everything from just below the roof of our mouth to just above our small intestine had been blown out across the battle scarred wasteland, only our spinal column stayed intact... barely.

Even then we could feel the bone knitting together, and organs reform, but we were too numb from pain to notice any more. Celestia had gotten a hold of the Elements Of Harmony, placed them into a yoke, and now held them over us. The prismatic beam struck us, and before our body could recover we found ourselves alone with our thoughts for one thousand years.

"Well what dost thou belive?" Asked the princess.

"This one time I got a really bad splinter," this drew a light chuckle from the princess of the night.

"We suppose that it was too much to expect more than a sympathetic ear. But thank you, speaking of this has helped us a bit."

"That must have been horrifying."

"Indeed, the battled scarred the land for centuries."

"No, I meant the time spent on the moon. The soul crushing loneliness. That must have been unbearable."

"That too was an unfortunate outcome."

"But after all of that you still got a cool story, and a lovely scar no doubt."

"We would have relished the idea of a lasting testament to our stupidity and hubris, but it was not to be. This body of ours does not allow scarring to occur, all is healed before they can form. But that is enough from us I have no doubt that you have a trove of interesting tales to spin Captain."

"Indeed I do, just pick a scar, and I shall tell you its origin."

"We wish to know the parentage of the bite marks on thine arms."

"Alright. So the story starts with me laying on my bed at seven in the morning."

"And so as it turns out, there were a lot fewer naked black guys waiting for me to drop the soap in jail. Apparently I'm not that attractive plus there wasn't any soap to drop."

"Thou almost seems disappointed."

"Trust me I wasn't. But all the movies make it seem like there's always one big naked black guy waiting for you to bed over at any given time."

"Moo-vies?"

"Motion pictures. Uh, pictures that move, obviously, but they also contain sounds and special effects."

"Interesting we shall have to expedite the development of such technology in the future."

The large clock in the corner chimed seven times. For the first time, Captain noticed how late it had become. The pot of tea had run out long ago, and what little light that did manage to flitter inbetween the curtains had nearly died.

"Oh my," fussed the lunar princess, "it seems as though we have kept thou longer than intentioned. We apologize for taking up so much of thy time. We must now raise the moon, and begin our royal duties. Please forgive us but we must go."

"It's no problem. Thank you for the experience. I'll see you around," Captain said as he extended a hand. Slowly Luna extended her own hoof and slowly shook. With that Captain departed.

Captain had almost made it back to his room before a familiar squeaky voice shouted.

"Wait monster," Nightshade sputtered between breaths, "Princess Luna has instructed us to present this box to an unworthy peasant such as yourself."

"What is it?" question Captain.

"I don't know. She told me no peeping," Nightshade replied with a huff.

"Thanks Tiny I'll see you later."

Nightshade only coughed, and extended his hoof.

"I suppose you want a tip too. Alright," the man said as he pulled out his wallet, and pulled out a single, "don't spend it all at once," he said, placing the bill in the colt's hoof.

"What the hay am I supposed to do with this?" asked the disgruntled bat-pony.

"I'm a freaky alien from another dimension, what do you think you should do with that. There's only ten of those in existence. Sell it to a collector for all I care."

The colt only stomped off muttering curses under his breath. Stepping inside his room, Captain regarded the container with scrutiny. A deep scarlet box with a gold lace bow on top. Pulling on the bow he removed the top was greeted by a gold chain with a crescent moon charm resting on a folded leaf of parchment. Delicate cursive letters spelled a small paragraph.

Dear Captain we hope that this letter finds you well. Enclosed you will find a charm that should allow us to communicate during sleep provided that you are wearing it while sleeping. We apologize for Nightshade's brashness in advance. We hope to see you soon.

Captain put on the charm, kicked off his boots, and slumped into bed.