Nyx's Hearts and Hooves Day: A New Heart's New Joy

“EEK! EEK!” A loud cry of a phoenix named Peewee echoed through the Golden Oak Library, waking all those on the top floor of the strange tree building: a library and a kitchen on the bottom floor, with a small bedroom with a desk, bed quills and parchment, and about everything you’d expect from an at-home student. Spike, a small purple baby dragon with tiny green scales, woke up just long enough to give the baby fire bird a terrifying glare to be quiet, immediately returning to some ice cream or Rarity related dream. Nyx, however, welcomed the shrieks, jumping out of her small basket-like bed with a large smile on her face and ran over to the baby bird’s cage, which sat atop a small drawer.

“Thank you, Peewee! This was super awesome of you!” Nyx quietly screamed, opening the drawer underneath his cage to get some of his favorite seeds. Normally, Spike only fed Peewee these seeds if he was good or if it was a special day. Nyx reasoned today couldn’t be any more special. It was her first holiday ever since coming to Ponyville, Hearts and Hooves Day! After feeding her little helper his bribe, the black-coated alicorn filly ran down the stairs to the main floor, the library. The library had a relatively small collection of fairy tales, biographies, history books, and anything else you’d expect to find in a library. There were a few bookshelves that reached the ceiling, with ladders for those that didn’t have the convenience of magic to get the books they needed. Behind the stairs Nyx had just rushed down was a kitchen, normally hidden with a disguise spell to simply look like an empty wall, but the spell is usually relaxed at night. Nyx took no time to slow down before rushing into the place, wanting to get some food in her stomach, suddenly shocked to find her adopted mom, Twilight Sparkle,  standing in the middle of the kitchen with a few small candles lit, magically holding over a stove and flipping what smelled like eggs in a pan. At the eating table just behind her was a medium-sized metal covered pot, steam emitting from it barely visible in the candle light.

“Mom?” Nyx exclaimed, her glowing cat-like turquoise eyes stretching into a confused face, “What are YOU doing up so early?”

“I had a feeling you’d be up a bit early today.” Twilight explained, keeping most of her concentration on the eggs she was currently cooking. “I remember the first holiday I celebrated when I came to Ponyville, Winter Wrap-Up, I was so excited to get started I couldn’t sleep. So, I had gotten up, gathered all my things, and headed out the door bright and early. Albeit it was a little too early” Twilight softly chuckled. Twilight then turned off the flame of the stove, released the pan, and magically reached for the cabinet and silverware for bowls plates and forks, a faint purple aura upon her horn and the dishes as they floated down to the table, setting what appeared to be themselves neatly.

“Anyway,” Twilight continued, “I figured you would also want to be up early for your first holiday in Ponyville, so I decided I would also get up and get you some food started.”

Nyx blushed at predictability, but soon ran over to the table to see what was in the pot, as well as for the eggs. After getting a light blast of steam in the face, Nyx saw that the pot contained her favorite dish in the wide wide world of Equestria, celery soup!

“Oh, wow, Mommy!” Nyx squealed happily, “How’d you know I wanted celery soup?”

“I didn’t,” Twilight explained, “I just really wanted soup as well.”

“yeah right mom,” Nyx exclaimed, rolling her eyes, “You know how much I love celery soup. How could this have possibly been a geuss?”

“I mean it. I really didn’t know! I guess we just have the same blood.”

This light joke by Twilight wasn’t as metaphorical as it seemed. Despite being adopted, Nyx was still sharing Twilight’s blood, though not in any normal way:

One year ago, Twilight had been ponynapped and taken to the Everfree forest by a cult who called themselves the “Children of Nightmare”, led by a former student of Princess Celestia, Spell Nexus. They were in the process of trying to reincarnate one of the greatest villains to ever face Equestria, Nightmare Moon, and needed a small amount of blood from the Element of Magic to complete the ritual. Princess Celestia and the royal guard were able to arrive in time to keep the spell from being finished, but they didn’t exactly stop the ritual.

The next day, in search of her lost saddle bag nearby where the ritual had occurred in the Everfree forest, Twilight heard a noise coming from a small thorn bush nearby. Curiosity getting the best of her, Twilight went over to see what it was, finding a small filly alicorn in the bush, around the same age it looked, as Apple Bloom. It had a purple mane, a night-dark coat, and, what stood out most to Twilight was its turquoise eyes, the same eyes as Nightmare Moon. Despite her nagging conscience telling her to report to Celestia of this potentially dangerous pony, Twilight took it home, keeping it hidden from even Spike until later that night, and tending to any wounds it had received from the thorn bush.

Over time, Twilight became very friendly with this new little one, caring for her, teaching her- something the filly especially loved- and even naming her; Nyx. Soon, Twilight introduced Nyx to Rarity, and, after convincing her that she was of no harm, asked her to make her a special vest for the filly to hide her wings so she wouldn’t be seen as abnormal when she was enrolled at the school. In addition to the vest, Twilight gave Nyx a pair of enchanted glasses which would camouflage her eyes.

After introducing Nyx to all her friends, Twilight let her go unsupervised by her personally for the first time to go to school. After just a short day of school, Nyx had already made friends with Apple Bloom, and later even joined the Cutie Mark Crusaders (somehow, despite being the reincarnation of somepony who had a cutie mark, she was “born” a blank flank.) Soon, Twilight even took on the responsibility of being Nyx’s mother. She even had Nyx meet Celestia, saying she was her half-cousin staying with her for an uncertain amount of time.

Despite all she did however, Nyx had great raw magic, even greater than Twilight’s, one could say, which would lead to Celestia’s hearing of it in Canterlot. When the regal alicorn went to see Twilight once again, Twilight burst forth the entire truth. After hearing her story, Celestia said she was going to take Nyx away to see if any of the evil thoughts of Nightmare Moon remained in her heart, saying the head master of the school for gifted unicorns- and at the time unknown traitor- Spell Nexus had a way to see into the heart of a pony and their true intentions, promising if she had none, Nyx would be back by morning. Despite Twilight’s protest, Celestia took away her pupil’s “daughter” with great guilt, and brought her to Spell Nexus. As his final treachery, he had Celestia power the “heart-reading” spell, only to find out when it was too late it was to complete the restoration.

After being fully reincarnated in to her dark mare form, Nightmare Moon worked quickly, ordering the cult that followed her to raise the castle they had built for her underground to be raised to the surface. She also quickly took down Princess Celestia and Luna, banishing each to their heavenly orb, and bringing forth the Night Eternal, later even imprisoning her own “mother”. Soon, though, guilt built into her, and then a realization that perhaps she could become her own mare. She stopped the Night Eternal, and went back to how everything was originally done.

In fear that Nightmare Moon would not stay the ruler he wanted, Spell Nexus hatched a plan to harden her soft heart. He gave Twilight, who still lived in the castle dungeon, a “blessing” in which a small black cloud entered the body, and the one that it entered became under the will of Nightmare Moon. With control over Twilight, Nexus instructed her to attempt and fail to kill Nightmare Moon, Hoping a betrayal by her own mother would darken Nightmare Moon’s heart. However, after learning of this, Nightmare Moon was able to remove the “blessing” from Twilight, Spell Nexus, and the entire cult, releasing them and giving power back to the minor princes and princesses of Equestria.

After this surrender of power, Nightmare Moon spent her days in self-declared exile, taking time only to eat or raise or lower the sun and the moon. This changed, however, when she was told by a friend of Twilight’s, Zecora, of an impending attack on Ponyville by many creatures that lurked within the Everfree forest. With the help of old friends, if you would call them that, she was able to save all the ponies of Ponyville, getting them up to her castle for safety. However, during the struggle, Nightmare Moon was severely injured. With the help of Twilight, doctors of Ponyville were able to get her better, and Twilight was able to eventually convince her to free Luna and Celestia from their astronomical prisons. After much convincing by citizens of Ponyville to give “Nyx” an easy punishment in light of recent events, Luna decided on a rather unique judgment.

She took away much of Nyx’s powers, the one’s that had belonged to her when she was Nightmare Moon, leaving only what Nyx had received in her time, even returning her to her filly form. After taking back her powers, Luna was transformed into what could only be described as a shadow version of Celestia. When this was completed, Twilight was officially given the role of being Nyx’s mother by the princesses. After returning home to the library, Nyx discovered she had finally earned her cutie mark: a dark blue knight’s shield, symbolizing her desire to protect those that she loves.

Twilight shook her head in order to snap her thoughts out of last year and into the present. What’s there to worry about? She thought. Nyx is completely harmless now. Her magic is still recovering from being taken from Luna’s spell. It takes her so much effort just to put up the smallest shield. Right now the only thing she can magically pick up is a single piece of paper or a quill, and not even both at the same time. Twilight quietly laughed to herself about the current irony, but not quietly enough for Nyx not to pick it up.

“What’s funny, Mom?” Nyx asked.

“Hmm? Oh, nothing really. So, are you excited? Did you remember to write everypony in your class a card?” She mused while sitting down at the table, sitting down at the table while using a ladle to magically pour soup into their bowls, and lifted the pan to slide two eggs onto their plates, leaving two on a plate on the other side of the table.

“Uh-huh!” Nyx responded excitedly. “I wrote one for Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Twist, Snips, Snails, Pipsqueak…” quickly rattling off all her classmates, except for a key two.

“Hmmm… I didn’t here Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon’s name in that list. Did you write them a card?” Twilight questioned.

“Aww, Mommy? Do I have to? THEM?” Nyx complained. She had hated those two spoiled fillies ever since their first “prank” on her that sent her into the Everfree forest.

“Trust me, Nyx. I am no fan of those ponies either. But we need to get them to at least not hate you; otherwise they’ll never leave you alone.” Twilight explained.

“But…”

“No buts,” she interrupted. “We’ve got to get you off their bad side, and I think this is the easiest way to do so. After all, everypony loves getting a card on Hearts and Hooves Day.”

“Do YOU ever get a card on Hearts and Hooves Day?” Nyx asked, a large smile of excitement bursting onto her face.

“Well, no, not really. I just don’t have a special somepony at the moment.” She replied, now starting to regret bringing up the topic.

“WHAT! WHY NOT?!” Nyx exclaimed, her jaw suddenly dropping like she was watching Fluttershy make a dragon cry.

“Well, it’s complicated,” she explained, feeling embarrassed by the fact, and now it was practically written on her face her regret for bringing this up. Nyx began to ponder this, her chin down on her hoof and eyes scrunched, until a light popped on over her head. However, this was mainly because Spike had just come from upstairs and turned on the lamp.

“Morning, you two” Spike said sleepily, his eyes just partially open from not enough sleep. He went and sat down to the table to eat his now cold eggs.

“Morning, Spike” the two ponies replied, their greetings somehow filled with more energy despite less sleep. Right after her reply, Nyx return to what she thought of as Twilight’s dilemma, until a metaphorical light bulb came on over her head, and a bright smile once again appeared on her face.

“I know! Maybe you can ask Big Macintosh to be your special somepony. Apple Bloom said he wasn’t seeing anypony now and…”

“Whoa-ho-ho, No” Twilight interrupted mid-sentence, a scared face suddenly popping on. “Look, Big Mac is nice and all, but he isn’t really my type.”

“Oh, I see.” Nyx sadly replied, her ears and head drooping down sadly at the sudden rejection of her idea.

“Besides,” Twilight continued, now trying to cheer up her daughter, “I’m already related to my old foalsitter because of my brother. If I were to say, marry Big Mac, Applejack and Apple Bloom would suddenly become my sisters. Can you imagine how weird that would be?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess” Nyx’s head slowly started to lift up, coming kind of to an understanding.

“And, if you were to think about it,” Spike said with a sneer, “If that were to happen, Apple Bloom would become Nyx’s aunt!”

“Hmm, you’re right Spike, I didn’t even think of that, maybe I should go and see Big M…”

“You don’t have to see Big Mac! Forget what I said! You’re fine just as you are now!” Nyx quickly exclaimed, her face quickly twisting into one of outright panic.

There was a short moment of silence before all three of them began bursting into laughter. A laughter that only subsided at the sounding of an old grandfather clock.

“Oh no! I’ve gotta get my stuff ready for school!” Nyx exclaimed, gobbling down her eggs and slurping her soup to nothing and running quickly back upstairs to grab her saddlebag. After going through the contents of it, she ran down stairs to her own personal checklist, however instead of its usual content, it had a special list for Hearts and Hooves Day. Once she finished her check-off, she began to run out the door, to in a hurry to close the door.

“Be sure you write those cards for Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.” She yelled to her daughter from just inside the doorway.

“I’ll write them when I get to school, Mommy!” Nyx exclaimed slightly annoyed, her voice fading with distance.

Twilight gave a little sigh of relief to the possibility of finally removing those two from Nyx’s list of bullies, and went onto thinking about Nyx’s most recent response. If there was one thing that had changed about Nyx since she was Nightmare Moon, it was her development of an attitude.

“So,” Spike said, snapping Twilight back to reality once more, “Why does Nyx need to write a card for THOSE two prissy ponies?”

Twilight’s eyes suddenly widened with fear, pupils dilating to the smallest they could go. She got on the ground, a pleading look on her face, “Oh please, Spike, in the name of Celestia, don’t make me go through that again!”