Like waves rhythmically crashing against the shore, or the steady natural tempo of a heart beating inside one's chest, did pain assail Aon's head as she awoke. She looked up to find blindingly bright white lights pouring into her eyes. As she attempted to raise a hoof to stop the light something stopped her. Then she felt a gentle tugging at her forehead, and a blinding flash filled the room. Everything went black again.

~^~^~^~

Twilight sat impatiently in her chair. She had woken up two hours prior and hadn't left the bedside of the mare who had inflicted such self harm to save her. The knowledge that had the shard been driven a millimetre deeper or a millimetre more shallow would have meant death or failure to connect to the ley lines in the mare weighed heavily on her.

To make things worse, she was the one that had missed the tracking spell on the ring! The tunnels had been found because of her mistake, and Rainbow's life, given to buy Scootaloo enough time to fly to Fluttershy, now meant that the same death weighed on her shoulders. Finally there was the news of Applejack and her brother....

Laying a head gently on Aon's breast, Twilight began to cry, wishing only for her new friend to awaken unharmed.

~^~^~^~

She loves you, you know that? She won't admit to it mind you, to you, herself, or anyone else. After her parents...her mother, Celestia, and now her brother too... She fears losing you, she fears for everypony she loves. Applejack is gone, as are Rainbow Dash and Rarity. As if to rub salt in her wounds, many others she has called friend have died. I know not how you feel for her though, but I plead with you to be good to her, as she will soon need you more than she ever has before. Please take care of her...if not because you care, but at least because she cares for you.

~^~^~^~

Fluttering her eyes, Aon became acutely aware of a soft pressure on her chest. Looking down, the mare realized she was in a hospital bed with Twilight snoring lightly while a bit of drool dampened the sheets that covered her lightly shining fur. A soft, serene, smile graced Aon's lips as she leaned forward and pressed them gently to the lavender mare's forehead before blowing playfully on her ear.

"Wake up Twilight...wake up, your drooling haha."

All Aon managed to achieve was Twilight shifting slightly and twitching her ear. Feeling a little more playful, especially after the last time they were 'asleep' together, Aon licked a hoof and rubbed it on the inside of her ear.

"WAAAH! Wawasat!" the now awake mare yelped loudly shooting her head left and right to look for the perpetrator. Her eyes then fell on the giggling mare she'd been napping on. What was that for?"

Aon just put on a playful smirk and stuck her tongue out.
"You wouldn't wake up. I wanted breakfast. Um, if you didn't mind that is...sorry, that was really forward of me..."

Twilight just giggled lightly.
"Well I'm up now, so I might as well lead you off to breakfast. Come on."
With a lighting of her horn Twilight pulled the covers from her friends form and helped her up. As they neared the door Twilight gave the handle a gesture.
"Care to test your magic?"

'Magic, what magi-oh yeah!'
Grinning a manic grin, Aon reached up to her forehead and rubbed a hoof lightly over the edges of the shard of enchanted mirror she'd driven into her skull.
"How long ago was it? I've been asleep."

Twilight faltered slightly at this.
"Four weeks. The doctors didn't know what to do with you when you first showed up. They attempted to remove the shard, but there was a large magical outburst. They had to replace the shard as precisely as possible, and even when they did, they said that you...tha..." Twilight trailed off as she squeezed her eyes tight, a couple tears leaking out onto her cheeks. "They said you were going to die..."

At this point the voice from before flashed through Aon's mind reminding her of Twilight’s suffering for the past four weeks. As Twilight slowly devolved into sobs Aon wrapped her tight in her arms as the lavender mare wept. And it hurt. It hurt Aon to know that Twilight was so pained. They didn't know how long they sat there, nor how long they cried, but they knew they were not alone.

~^~^~^~

“So uh, this is Spike....er, hi Spike” Aon squeaked. She had never seen the dragon before, but seeing a massive green and purple drake for the first time certainly gave Spike an imposing visage. The dragon let out a deep rumbling laugh as he reached down and rubbed a claw tip gently against Twilight's nuzzling cheek.

"I've missed you mom, and I'm happy to see you're still okay. I'm sorry about the girls...I...I've been...Sweetie Belle is okay, and so are Applebloom and Scootaloo, they've got each other. As for you..." the large drake trailed off as he turned to regard Aon carefully. The mare took a instinctive step back as Spike moved a claw to lift her chin, moving her head to the left, then to the right. "..You saved my mother, and for that I am bound by my Dragon's Code to ensure that should you ever need anything, I will owe you. On another note, I am glad that you are safe, I have heard you are quite the mare from a very reliable source."

Both Twilight and Aon ducked their heads, the former about to voice a joking protest when a message appeared before her. Twilight read it quickly before her eyes steeled.
"Aon, I know you trust me, and I trust you the most out of everypony here right now, outside of Spike. That being said, if you're up for it, I need to run on an extremely hush hush mission. Nightmare Moon is transporting an extremely important prisoner, and I'm going to go get her. I was ho[ing you would come with."

With a bob of her platinum mane Aon nodded, following after Twilight.

~^~^~^~

Twilight and Aon prepared themselves, ensuring every trap was ready and set and that they were properly hidden. Once that was ensured Twilight turned to Aon.

"Are you positive you want to do this. We will have to kill ponies."

Aon sat silent for a moment staring down at her hooves before looking up with fierce determination.
"I'll not sit idly around while you risk your life. If this pony needs saved then we're saving her. Besides...I can't leave you...I...this is probably a terrible time to bring this up, but I think I might be in love with you..."

Twilight's jaw dropped, but as soon as it clacked back into place the tell tale sounds of a carriage reached their ears.

"They're coming!"

Both Twilight and Aon's eyes narrowed in focus as the caravan drew near. They held their breaths in unison as they waited for the tell tale whistling of the first trap. And there it was, followed by agonized screams. With purpose the two mares stepped out from their hiding spot and began their assault.

Twilight immediately put up a shield to protect from incoming spells while tell tale purple flames began to lick at Aon's hooves again. Moving forward steadily Aon and Twilight killed any approaching guards simply before moving to the door of the prison carriage. Being the first to reach it, Aon wrenched the door open but immediately froze as an alicorn with midnight blue fur stepped out.

Paralysed with fear Aon could do nothing as the alicorn stepped forward.

~^~^~^~

Twilight was still crying out against the goods of the worlds as she desperately attempted to cradle the hard, scaled head of what had been her son. Aon could do little other than hold her tight as memories of what had happened flashed through her mind.

"Ni...Nigh....Night M..Mi...Mistress Moon! Please, I am sorry!" Aon yelped as she dropped into the 'consorts bow', meant for easy of access to the consorts privates.

The midnight blue alicorn just looked distastefully at the mare's position as Twilight came up behind Aon and lifted her into a standing position.

"Aon, you need not fear her. This is Princess Luna, the one true princess of the night. Luna, allow me to introduce you to Aon, a dear friend of mine. Luna, Aon may fear you, for she was Nightmare's consort for a time an-"

"And will be again!" Nightmare bellowed from the sky as she descended towards the trio. As she came down further she powered up a spell and fired it, but before anypony could so much as blink a jet of emerald green fire consumed the spell. Turning, Nightmare just barely managed to dodge being snapped up in Spike's strong jaws.

The drake just spun about and eyed up the monster before him.
"Nightmare Moon...you're shorter than I expected...about as ugly though."

The Queen snorted in anger.
"Spike Pendragon, I should have known you would have caused me problems eventually. So, is it true what they say about the dragon race...that they can alter their body to accommodate anything. I might have to try it."

Spike just gave a smirk.
"Sorry, but I have this rule against anything that holds sadistic pleasure in harming my friends or family, besides, I still owe you for what you did to my mother."
With that said the dragon threw himself forward breathing jets of emerald flames as he went.

Nightmare teleported behind Spike immediately firing a powerful blast into the drakes left hind leg, completely severing it and cauterizing the wound with immense magical heat. Roaring in agony Spike returned with his own blast of immolating flames scorching the fur off of Nightmare's right flank causing her to shriek in agony.

The two continued to fight for what seemed like hours more, but eventually Spike's own size played against him as Nightmare took advantage of it as one giant target. Bleeding from a thousand wounds and missing half of his tail, his left hind leg and a good portion of the scales on his stomach having been seared off the brave young drake finally succumbed to his wounds and fell from the sky.

Nightmare Moon fled.

"We will find her Twilight, and we will destroy her." Aon assured as she sat with Twilight, her own tears spilling forth.

Elsewhere that night Sweetie Belle was found to have hung herself, adding two fillies to the list of ponies who wished for Nightmare's destruction.

Author's Note

No, I am not killing off characters for the fuck of it, just saying that now. In fact I have a whole story arc planned for this, I just have to piss a few ponies off before I can get to arc two.

First arc is obviously killing Nightmare Moon, the second will be Equestria picking up the pieces in the aftermath of Nightmare's reign and will rely on what happens in this story.

On a side note, I feel terrible for all this.