Every Night is a Night of Nightmares

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Sometimes, life hurts
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Sometimes, life hurts

Every Night is a Night of Nightmares

by the parasprite

Chapter 2: Sometimes, life hurts

Proofreading credz go to Kaidan and Skeeter the Lurker.

This chapter was more like 14,000 words, but I don't want to get into the habit of posting massive chapters like that all the time, so I'm just going to post the other half in a couple of days. The other half is the sexy tiem erotic drama and angst part.

“Why do they hate me?” Twilight shuddered as she stumbled along beside the much larger mare.

She’d remained pressed up against Nightmare’s side since they came back into the castle proper, terrified of what might happen if she left the alicorn’s safety. The enormous black wing was still draped over her like a feathery shield against the hatred that had been directed at her. Everything else—the halls, the guards, the sack-masked goons—seemed to blur together, as her mind had tuned them out.

“You’ve done something terrible, Twilight. And when you do terrible things, the world punishes you,” replied Nightmare calmly. “But don’t be afraid... They won’t hurt you, so long as you have my protection.”

“B-but I s-still don’t unders-stand what it is I d-did...”

Nightmare slowed to a stop and turned to look at the unicorn under her wing. “...You will in time, Twilight. You’ve had a terribly traumatizing experience, and I think it would be best for you not to think about it for now. It’ll only cause you more pain if you think about it. That isn’t something you want, is it? You don’t like to hurt yourself, do you?”

“N-no,” Twilight said, fidgeting nervously. “I-I just w-want to understand why... Y-you said my brother was a murderer... you said I was a bad pony... I’m j-just very c-confused... I don’t understand any of this... I didn’t d-do anything wrong...”

“I’ll tell you when you’re ready to know,” Nightmare promised her. She began moving again, and Twilight nearly tripped over herself keeping up.

“But—”

“But nothing. You are safe, and you are alive; be grateful for those things.”

Cringing, Twilight nodded and affixed her eyes to the floor for the rest of the walk, keeping her questions to herself.

They halted briefly in front of the doors to Princess Celestia’s—No, Twilight thought, Nightmare Moon’s—throne room, which opened without a word from the night goddess herself. Nightmare, regal as ever, trotted inside, with the disheveled lavender mare blundering along in her wake. Twilight still hid behind Nightmare’s wing, not wanting to face the malevolent stares of the gargoyles.

Two ponies wearing sacks for masks were waiting for them on either side of the throne. One was clearly Trixie, as evidenced by the powder-blue tail and the magic wand cutie mark. The other was an ivory unicorn mare with a bright pink mane and tail and three blue stars on each flank. The latter wore a uniform that reminded Twilight of Shining Armor’s, except that it was black and had a far more utilitarian aura. It was made of some shiny black material she had never seen before, but which looked organic and smelled bad even from where she was standing.*

“Unfortunately, I have important things to attend to,” said Nightmare. “As the ruler of Equestria, I am very busy and you have already wasted quite a bit of valuable time... You will, however, join me for dinner this evening. We shall speak then.”

“O-okay,” Twilight agreed, swallowing nervously. “W-what time?”

“When I am through holding court, I shall summon you.”

Nightmare glanced at the two masked unicorn mares. “These are Trixabelle—who you’ve met, of course... and and Twinkleshine, who I believe you’ve also met. They will take you to your new quarters in my royal apartments.”

Twilight’s eyes widened a little. She did indeed recognize the second name, and now the three blue stars on the uniformed mare’s ivory flank. It was jarring and strange to see somepony she knew at all—much less somepony she sat next to every day in class—working for Princess Celestia’s sworn enemy. Twinkleshine was staring at the wall to Twilight’s right, horn glowing faintly, as Twilight was reasonably certain it had been since she came into the throne room.

“Take her up to the Lunar chambers,” Nightmare said to the two. “Give her a decently sized room. Make sure she’s reasonably comfortable for the time being.”

Turning back to Twilight, the black alicorn said, “I expect you to be appropriately grateful toward me for this kindness, and to treat it as a gift and a treasure, not a chance to carry out a half-baked rebellion that will accomplish nothing but your own death.”

Feeling oddly like a schoolfilly being lectured by a teacher, Twilight just nodded dumbly. She was thankful that Nightmare Moon hadn’t had her killed; it showed that there was some good in the alicorn after all, however deeply buried. Maybe, if she stayed, she could help Nightmare understand why Princess Celestia needed to come back—Did Twilight want Princess Celestia back? She didn’t even know anymore—and to let go of the anger and jealousy that made her act this way.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I believe you’re a bit lacking in your enthusiasm, little nopony.”

Twilight sighed a weary sigh inside. “Thank you... Your Majesty.”

“And what are you thankful for?”

“Sparing me... from being k-killed... Your Majesty...” Twilight said in a tiny voice. Seeing that Nightmare was not yet satisfied, she stammered out, “A-and for... pardoning me... after my... my most heinous t-transgressions... against yourself... and the ponies of Equestria...?”

She wasn’t even sure where she was headed when she began speaking, or where she ended up when she finished, but it put an unpleasantly wide smile on Nightmare Moon’s face. It was the kind of smile a spider would wear while inviting a fly to come sit in its web.

“Very good, Twilight... Now, go to your room and wash up,” she said. “You’re filthy and revolting to look at, and I can stand the disgusting stench of your body no longer.”

Cringing and looking away in shame, Twilight nodded. “Yes... Your Majesty...”

“Go.”

Twilight turned the rest of her body awkwardly and allowed herself to be guided out of the throne room by the other two unicorns. Both of the others also remained silent, simply marching along beside her. Eyes fixed on the floor, Twilight didn’t look up until the carpet had ended and the gigantic doors were swinging shut behind them. They stopped here, ignored by the bat-pony guards.

“Twinkleshine?” asked Twilight softly, finally looking up at the other unicorn. She could now see the pins on her uniform: most had no meaning to her, but she recognized one as Nightmare’s cutie mark, and another as a pair of crossed crescent moons. “Why a-are y-you here...?”

“I’m part of the Saddle Assembly** now,” Twinkleshine replied. She still wasn’t looking at Twilight, and her horn still had a weak light glowing at the end of it. “Please hold still. We’re going to blindfold you.”

“Why d-do you have to b-blindfold me? I know the c-castle like the back of my hoof...”

“It’s what we’re supposed to do. I have a job now, Twilight. I have to do my job. I’m a responsible pony now. I need to be responsible now.”

A strip of cloth slipped over Twilight’s face, blocking her vision. She slumped miserably and allowed either Twinkleshine or Trixie—she didn’t know which—to tie it behind her mane without further protest. Then she felt a pleasant vibrating sensation across several points on her body, which she guessed was one of them casting a healing spell to fix the damage done by the crowd outside.

“...not in school anymore,” murmured Twinkleshine, speaking as though she were continuing some unspoken thought from within her own mind. “Not playing games or anything... Doesn’t matter whose party anypony goes to anymore... not anymore. Just matters which ponies you cared about first. They follow you anywhere. They could get hurt... sometimes they get hurt by you. Sometimes life hurts.”

Twilight shied away from her former classmate’s rambling as much as she could, disturbed by it. This wasn’t the Twinkleshine she remembered—the Twinkleshine who wanted to do nothing but talk about colts and paint spirals on her horn with her friends; the empty-headed Twinkleshine who probably didn’t even know how to spell ‘responsibility’. This Twinkleshine was distant and nervous, but also paradoxically sounded more focused than Twilight had ever heard her.

The abrupt replacement of the vibrations with a somewhat familiar constriction around her neck signaled both the end of the healing spell and that one of the pair had leashed her with the spell from earlier. The lavender mare was tugged very hard to her left. She stumbled and almost fell at first, not expecting them to walk so quickly.

“...life hurts a lot, Twilight,” Twinkleshine finished.

“W-what are you t-talking about? What’s th-the matter w-with you, Twinkleshine?” whispered the lavender mare. She bumped into a wall and was violently jerked away from it.

“Nothing’s the matter with me. It’s you.”

“M-me?” Twilight stumbled over the first step of a staircase and was nearly dragged up it by Trixie. “What’s that m-mean?”

“It’s all you... always was. I know what you and Celestia did, Twilight. Everypony does. I know what you did. Were we not good enough for you? Is that why you never talked to us? We just wanted to be friends with you. Were we that far beneath you?”

“N-no, I just—I didn’t ha—I didn’t—I didn’t have t—”

Twilight was abruptly shoved face-first against something solid. She thought it was a wall until it gave way, and then realized it was actually a set of doors that one or both of the other unicorns had used her to push open. Her hooves were clomping irregularly against muffling dust now—she must have been in some old part of the castle that hadn’t been properly cleaned in years. Already, her allergies were starting to bother her: she sneezed, and would have wiped at her nose if she could have taken a moment.

They eventually halted after some time in this dusty region. Twilight heard keys clinking together, then one going into a lock and turning, and finally a door creaking open. She was led through the opening by Trixie, at which point the dusty floor became ordinary, unblemished wood and her hooves clopped normally again. The blindfold was untied and levitated away, letting light flood into Twilight’s world again. She blinked rapidly, adjusting to it, and then looked around.

The room they had entered was much smaller than the one Twilight had slept in as Princess Celestia’s personal student. There was only room for a bed, a chest of drawers, a table beside the bed, and a little shelf. One door led out into the hall—the one they had come through—and another, to the right, led to what she assumed was a bathroom, although it was closed. Each era’s additions to the castle had its own unique architectural style. This room, unfortunately—and probably the entire wing—was one that Twilight had never been in before, as she recognized neither the room itself nor the designs. It was a simple place; like a servant’s quarters, though a bit bigger; made from wood and filled with equally simple furniture.

Trixie was by the bed, looking inside a cloth bag on it, while Twinkleshine was sitting on her haunches near the door. Twinkleshine had removed her mask at some point during their journey, giving Twilight a much better look at her eyes—and revealing the cause of her vacant, unfocused gaze, which was still not aimed at anything. Her eyes, shot with reddish markings which gave them a rather disgusting appearance, clearly couldn’t see anything at all. It wasn’t hard to deduce that the still present glow from her horn was an imaging spell to magically scan her surroundings, since she could no longer see.

“Sh-she blinded you?” said Twilight, horrified. She glanced at the ever-silent Trixie, remembering the older unicorn’s writing spell and how she had said she knew firsthoof that it wasn’t a good idea to lie to Nightmare Moon.

“I gave up my sight,” Twinkleshine replied. In contrast to Twilight, she sounded calm and peaceful. “I gave it to Moondancer when she lost hers.”

“What? Why? How—”

“I gave it to her because she needed it. Friends do that kind of thing for one another, Twilight. She lost so much more than I did... I had to give her something! I know you remember the school’s ranking charts, because you cared whether you were better than everypony else at everything—”

“I-I-I d-didn’t—” Twilight backed up as Twinkleshine, staring eerily through her head with her unseeing eyes, approached her.

“—so maybe you remember I was always better at biologically based magic than most ponies who weren’t you. I can cast echolocation magic in my sleep now, and it wasn’t hard to learn. But poor Moondancer lost her horn to those awful rockets... lost half her beautiful coat... She was on fire, and it wouldn’t go out no matter what we cast on her! She was screaming for us to help her... it was so bright that it blinded her and she couldn’t see, and she was trying to find... water... and I couldn’t help her...

“She’s my friend... my friend...” the ivory unicorn said. Up close, Twilight could see the tears on her face. “We grew up together... We were going to go to... to... to Prance together and see the Neighffel tower, and get married to brothers so we could be sisters-in-law, and do amazing things together... And that’s why I gave her my sight. I gave her my sight so she could see Prance when we go there. Because Moondancer and I are friends. And friends do anything for each other... just to see each other smile again.”

Twinkleshine began backing away from Twilight; toward the door.

“...and that’s also why you should be afraid right now, Twilight,” she concluded, her tone growing very dark. “Because you don’t have any friends. You were too busy, or too arrogant, or too stupid to make any when you had the chance... chance after chance... and now you’re all alone. I... I’ll probably see you around—But I doubt we’ll ever be friends.”

She turned and opened the door smoothly, then slipped out, with only four parting words: “Have a nice night.”

Moments later, Trixie followed her. Trixie also stopped and turned to face Twilight, but didn’t write anything. All she did was regard the lavender unicorn with a pair of eyes which, despite the face they were set in being hidden, radiated a mixture of contempt, condescension, and superiority.

Then she, too, was gone, leaving the still filthy Twilight to stare at the locked door in shock.

After some time, Twilight found the presence of mind to think to distract herself from her own thoughts. It wasn’t something she was used to doing, but she wasn’t used to being dangled over rioting crowds and being lectured by mares she’d considered empty-headed ditzes, either. She quickly found a distraction in the form of the bag Trixie had been examining on the bed.

The bag, it turned out, contained a box with toiletry items—Twilight wondered vaguely if Nightmare had access to something similar to Spike’s dragonfire to have things sent places so fast, as they hadn’t stopped on the way up, but didn’t give it too much thought. There was also a plastic package with a note pinned to the front. Taking the note in her hooves, Twilight moved her eyes back and forth over it. It read:

I expect you to dress appropriately when you come to dinner. You will wear these, regardless of what you think of them, or there will be consequences.

-N

Confused, the unicorn opened the package on her teeth and slid its contents out onto the bed. What she found made her blush faintly: a black, lacy, gaudy saddle; the kind used to accentuate certain features; a pair of forehoof socks of the same colour, and a pair of fishnet stockings for the hind legs. It certainly wasn’t the sort of clothing one would ever call ‘appropriate’ for anything cultured at all. She put the clothing down, repulsed, and carefully slid the box of hygiene things onto her back so she could carry it into the bathroom.

She put the box on the floor next to the tub, then shut the door and removed her horseshoes, one by one; stacking them neatly near it. Then she headed for the toilet, because she’d had to pee rather badly for some time. Before she actually sat down, she sat and stared at the toilet for a while, remembering those horrible images that had been shown to her in Nightmare’s throne room and shuddering, suddenly paranoid that there was somepony watching her through a secret hole in the wall or with a magical camera.

She ended up spending a few minutes searching the bathroom for just those kinds of things: hidden peepholes, cameras, and even hollow spots in the walls where ponies might be able to hide and listen to her. Only when she was satisfied that she was completely alone did she sit down and relieve herself—and even then, she hunched forward as much as possible and crossed her forelegs over her front to hide the activity, worried against all reason that she was being watched.

There was a mirror in the bathroom, and in it Twilight got a good look at her appearance for the first time in weeks. Both her mane and tail were indeed filthy and matted, shining with grease and full of dirt, the hairs stuck together in stringy clumps in some places and sticking out at random in others. Her bloodshot eyes had huge bags under them, and her cheeks were caked with dirt except where her tears had created streaks. The rest of her body was no better; half-healed cuts and bruises marked where she’d been beaten by the bat-pony golems.

Carefully, the unicorn searched through the box until she found some soaps and shampoos. The soaps made her feel safe when she inhaled their scents; they smelled like warmth, and life, and happiness, and joy. They all had a recurring scent that was strangely familiar to her, but she couldn’t place exactly where it was she’d smelled it before.

The bathtub had a pegasus cloud up top that was connected to a dial on the wall—the best of both pegasus and unicorn technology, it seemed. After carefully laying out a white towel to avoid getting the floor wet, Twilight turned on the water and stepped in to let the heavenly hot water wash the filth from her body. After weeks without washing herself, the feeling was easily one of the best she’d ever known.

Cleaning the grime off her horn with unicorn soap was embarrassingly enjoyable—unicorn horns were extremely sensitive, so by the time she was done scrubbing it with her hooves, there was a distinct and rather powerful tingling sensation atop her head that she was usually careful to avoid. There was also the fact that because she was an extremely powerful unicorn, hers was more sensitive than most. She gave her horn a few excess rubs with her hooves before coming to her senses and moving on to her mane and tail.

The shampoo Nightmare had instructed her to use was very strong and very sweet-smelling, and it had something in it that reminded her of bananas, for some reason. Twilight was sure she’d smelled it before, but she didn’t know where. In any case, rubbing it into her scalp was so enjoyable that she actually let out a small sigh of delight. There were actually several things in the box whose purposes Twilight didn’t know, but she was able to find conditioner as well. Twilight got herself a brush and began to scrub the dirt and filth off her body, groaning in appreciation as she did.

She was not a particularly attractive unicorn, even after all the dirt was scrubbed away. The weeks in the dungeon hadn’t really done much for her body—she was actually small-framed, physically, but taking every course her school offered had left her little time to maintain a trim figure like most of her peers. Twilight wasn’t fat, by any means (she didn’t want to embarrass Princess Celestia by being unsightly), but she could have stood to lose a few pounds. Her belly was just a tiny bit more padded than the average unicorn’s; hardly noticeable to anypony but her, but still noticeable if one looked closely nonetheless. Twilight could only see her ribs if she sucked her stomach—she knew this because she had experimented with it in front of the mirror before.

Worst of all were her thighs, which were actually not too much bigger than most ponies’, but which felt huge to her. Like all mares, she had two nipples in about the same colour as her coat just below her stomach, and below these in turn was a small patch of softer lavender hair covering the outer lips of her vagina. Twilight spent a little too much time washing here as well, to her shame. She wasn’t a very sexual pony; not like some of her classmates; but she had just as many pleasure receptors in her marehood as any pony else.

Finally turning off the shower, she allowed herself to soak in the bath for a minute or two before getting out. When she passed by the mirror now, Twilight was a sopping pile of wet mane, coat, and tail with a horn poking out of the top. Since she’d scrubbed herself raw in the relatively short time she’d been in the shower, she no longer had any of the filth from before covering her, and finally felt clean again.

Twilight wrapped white towels around her mane and tail—ones for that specific purpose, of course—and torso, and trotted over to the box to get the toothbrush. For some reason, picking it up and looking at it made her feel like she had been bucked right in the stomach. It was a foal’s toothbrush; the kind made for unicorns too young to hold their brushes with magic; the kind that stuck to your hoof; the kind she hadn’t had to use since she was seven years old. The toothbrush had all kinds of silly designs of suns and smiley faces all over it, too—just like hers had when she was that age.

That she had to do things like an earth pony now was bad enough, but Nightmare had probably deliberately told whoever selected it to get her a foal’s brush because it was embarrassing and would make her feel insignificant. Still, it was a toothbrush, and Twilight’s mouth tasted disgusting after weeks of neglect—she wasn’t about to be picky over what kind of brush it was, in the end. She ran water on it, then opened the tube of toothpaste (which also had foalish, silly pictures all over it) and squeezed some of the mint-scented blue-white paste onto it.

At first, she was so preoccupied with ridding herself of the disgusting residue stuck to the inside of her mouth that she practically assaulted her teeth with the brush, not paying any attention to how it felt. Once she’d gone through several rounds of cleaning off the toothbrush and putting more toothpaste on it, though, she slowed down a bit to simply enjoy the feeling of being able to brush her teeth at all; something she was certain her filly self would have been horrified at the thought of. The gentle feeling of the bristles rubbing on her teeth was another marvelous feeling Twilight had taken for granted until her time away in the dungeon.

Soon, she had quite a lot of foam dribbling down her chin, so obsessively engrossed in cleaning her neglected teeth that she didn’t even bother to avoid making a mess. Only after several minutes did the unicorn finally notice the coating of foam on her face when she happened to glance in the mirror. Embarrassed, Twilight wiped some of the white stuff away and flicked it off her hoof into the sink. Then she leaned over and spat a large, gooey glob of used toothpaste into the sink; the result of her excessive application of the stuff in the beginning. Turning on the tap, the unicorn turned her head a bit and let a small stream of water drizzle into her mouth, so she could rinse it out and spit again a few more times.

She clipped her hooves and trimmed her fetlocks over the toilet. The scissors were the kind whose ends were blunted to prevent injury; the kind she’d used to cut construction paper in magic kindergarten—quietly, in the back of the room, with nopony looking at her if she could help it. Even the hoof clippers were made for earth ponies, not unicorns, although Twilight was aware that this was a necessity given the fact that she had a limiter.

Of all the things Nightmare had given her, it seemed she had randomly decided to provide an adult earth pony’s clippers instead of a unicorn foal’s. Twilight wondered if it was because there weren’t any available, or because she just wanted to insert some kind of irregularity into the pattern. Either way, the irrationality of it bugged her from the time she picked them up until the moment she put them down again.

Last of all, Twilight held up a silver horn file, blushing slightly as she looked over it. It was also one of the hoof-sticking ones for unicorn foals, and consequently it was a bit smaller than a normal file. Being given particular item was doubly embarrassing because of the extra insinuation it carried about her horn size—for many unicorns, especially Canterlot unicorns, the size of one’s horn was a very important issue indeed.

The lavender unicorn rubbed the last fog off the mirror over the sink and looked closely at her recently cleaned horn. The tip had grown out further than it should have been, and was starting to twist almost imperceptibly to obstruct the little groove where the spells came out of her horn, which would have prevented her from using magic even if she didn’t have the ring on.

Twilight ran the file gently over her horn, cringing as she did so—it was like learning to file it for the first time all over again, and with a file that was too small for her. She tried to distract herself from the discomfort by looking around the room, and eventually settled on reading the back of the plastic packaging the horn file had come in. It had a list of tips for fillies and colts about horn care in painfully bright marshmallow letters.

-ALWAYS remember to file your horn at least once a week!

-BE CAREFUL with your horn! Filing can be fun, but don’t over-do it!

-ALWAYS remember to get your parents’ permi

The rest of it was unreadable, as the package had crumpled up, but Twilight guessed it was probably something about asking before using magic, since using magic with an overgrown horn was dangerous.

At last, she looked down at the horn shavings in the sink, and turned on the tap to wash them away. Her horn was terribly sore, but she’d managed to reduce it to a crude approximation of its normal length and shape with the miniaturized file. The (likely inflamed) root within throbbed painfully each time her heart beat.

She removed the towel from her mane, which was now half-dry, and reached for the manebrush. To her utter annoyance, this, unlike everything else, was completely ordinary and did not stick to her hooves.

Irritated and frustrated by the inconsistency, Twilight struggled to pick the brush up in her two forehooves, and then she struggled even more to run it through her mane without dropping it. The awkward angle at which she had to turn her forelegs quickly became tiresome to maintain, so she had to take breaks every few strokes.

Her tail was much easier, as it was in a more reachable position, and as a result received more attention once she got to it. Brushing or simply smoothing out her tail was often a comforting activity to Twilight. Now, in particular, she put an excessive amount of time into it, sitting on the floor with her eyes closed and simply enjoying the sensation of the brush running through the hairs.

By the time Twilight actually came out of the bathroom, she was almost completely dried, though her hooves left damp prints behind her as she trotted. She stared at the saddle and hosiery on the bed, frowning, trying to decide what to do about it. They were certainly inappropriate for a mare with any modicum of self-respect to wear; that much was clear.

Had she been given a completely voluntary choice, the unicorn would have thrown them in the trash, where they belonged. But the note was right beside it; the underlined word consequences sticking out twice as visibly as all the others before it. Twilight shuddered as she wondered what, exactly, those consequences might be. Her imagination then began to run wild, until she put a stop to it, realizing that if she was going to stay alive, she was going to have to sacrifice her own dignity a bit.

She flipped the saddle over her back. It was quite heavy for such a lacy, decorative thing, but somehow it fit her perfectly, as if Nightmare had known her saddle size—which couldn’t have even been possible, as Twilight had never even been fitted for one. The surcingle*** was made of the same kind of material that Twinkleshine’s uniform had been made from: shiny, black, and unusually organic in feel, almost like hardened skin. It made her shiver a little from combined discomfort and the thrill of wearing something so risque. In another situation, such a thing would have made Twilight horny. Here and now, though, it just felt gaudy and indecent.

Because she didn’t have any magic, Twilight had to use her hooves to fasten around her middle, and this took quite some time and effort as she had hardly done anything dexterous with them since she was a foal and was even less coordinated here than she was when filing her horn and brushing her mane.

The foreleg socks were actually quite comfortable. They were made of a very soft material—Twilight hadn’t the faintest idea what, as she was practically fashion-blind—and went up to her elbows. Inside, there was elastic or something else stretchy, so they fit perfectly except for a short length at the top where it was just cloth and was a little too large. Twilight tried running her sock-clad hooves over her chest, and found she actually rather liked the sensation.

Last, she put on the stockings, which were the part of the outfit she liked the least. Never in a million years would Twilight have even thought about wearing anything like them of her own accord; except, maybe, on a very special night in the bedroom with her special somepony. They were fishnet stockings, which she’d seen once in a while on the legs of particularly unsavory-looking mares in Canterlot. Putting them on made Twilight feel filthy in a way that, under the circumstances, she didn’t like at all.

Her inability to use magic drew out the process of fastening the garters to an obscene length of time. After nearly ten minutes of trying to learn to use her hooves for something other than walking again, Twilight finally got them on. It made her feel a sense of triumph, which was quickly and brutally crushed when she connected it to the fact that she was rejoicing over having successfully dressed herself up like a streetwalker.

The unicorn went back into the bathroom to use the mirror again. She stepped back and leaned against the wall, sitting up to get as complete a look at her body as she could. The saddle and socks made actually didn’t look too bad on her, and it almost made her feel sexy. The contrast between the solid black on her upper body and the mesh pattern of the fishnets on her hind legs and plot, however, ruined that completely by making her look skimpy and half-naked; like she was missing some covering that should have been there on her lower body. Twilight felt exposed in these clothes, even though she was wearing more than she normally did—it seemed as if her tail had already been pulled up despite it being between her legs at the moment.

This was exactly kind of outfit her mother would have called a ‘skank suit’.

The unicorn backed out of the bathroom again and curled up on the bed. She was tired, and hungry, and felt ill, but didn’t know what to do about it. Escape was only just beginning to enter her mind again: she’d all but given up on getting out of the dungeon without help after so long in her cell, and it was taking some time for the hope of freedom to catch up to her again.

Twilight’s thoughts dwelt instead on everything that had happened—she was still avoiding thinking about the horror of the crowd outside the castle; of how they’d hurt her and how they’d condemned her when she’d done nothing. It intruded; assaulted her mind with the memories. Before she knew it, she was hugging her pillow and crying silently.

Make some friends, Twilight.

If Princess Celestia had just listened to her, Nightmare Moon wouldn’t have been able to take over so easily. She probably would have been stopped before she could even leave Ponyville, and everything would have stayed normal. As much as she hated the idea that the Princess was spying on her, Twilight soon realized that she was far angrier at her for having allowed everything to change so much. It was foalish and immature, but she would rather have continued on; oblivious, never knowing about any of Princess Celestia’s plans; than to cope with the pain of having it all revealed to her by the queen of a world she neither understood nor seemed to fit into.

Everything was different. It was like she’d walked into her cell and come out into an entirely different universe—one where ponies were evil on the inside instead of good. That Twinkleshine was working for Nightmare Moon still shocked her, as did the fact that the seemingly brainless party-instead-of-study unicorn was lecturing her about friendship and responsibility... Twinkleshine had clearly lost her mind, giving up her eyesight just so Moondancer could see Prance. It seemed like everypony, no matter how insane or unintelligent, was in the loop—except for her, and that was something she wasn’t used to at all. It bothered her greatly.

She was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she didn’t notice the midnight-blue mist seeping under the door until it had flooded one side of the room and materialized into a likeness of Nightmare Moon’s face. When she saw the ethereal Nightmare gazing at her with its empty phantasmic eyes, Twilight started with a little scream.

“Good evening, Twilight,” said Nightmare curtly.

A long silence went by before Twilight realized that it wasn’t just a prerecorded message, and that it was waiting for her to respond.

“Good evening, Y-Your Majesty,” she recited.

“Come, Twilight... it’s time for dinner."

“O-okay... I mean, yes, Your Majesty.”

Nightmare’s eyes swept over Twilight’s body, and the latter mare felt like she was being x-rayed. Unconsciously, her tail moved to cover her flank, causing Nightmare to frown a little. “The room is four doors to your right and on the opposite side of the hall. I shall unlock your door for you. Don’t squander the good fortune you’ve come by thus far by making a pointless attempt to escape—All the other doors in my chambers are locked, and only I can open them if I want them to stay shut... which, at the moment, I do.”

The lock clicked open again, even as Twilight said, wearily, “Yes... Your Majesty... I won't try to get away,” and the door swung open on its own. The midnight mist dissolved and retreated through the opening, leaving Twilight to venture out into the hall on her own.

The corridor outside was cold and dark, lit only by a few torches on the walls. Twilight ventured a guess that the cold was due to the sun’s weakened state, and that the dark was simply because Nightmare wanted the hallway to look as eerie as possible. She hadn’t actually noticed the general drop in temperature until that point, having assumed that the rooms she was in were just colder than average, but it seemed that Equestria was starting to become quite cool because of the lost sunlight.

She trotted nervously down the large, wide hall, counting doors. There was nopony else with her in the wing except for Nightmare, which in itself was slightly disturbing; Twilight was so used to the castle being full of life and bustling with activity that to see even an unfamiliar part of it without those things felt unnatural.

Four rooms down was a set of ornate double doors, mostly in shadow and outlined in black. They swung open on their own when she turned to face them. Gulping anxiously, Twilight stepped through into the near-blackness within.

That wasn't so difficult, was it?

Every Night is a Night of Nightmares

by the parasprite

Chapter 3: That wasn’t so difficult, was it?

With a creaking sound, the doors shut behind Twilight, sealing her inside the nearly blacked-out chamber. Now that the light from the hallway was gone, she could just how dark it really was inside Nightmare’s private dining room: the majority of the space was completely devoid of light, with only small spots in the on the walls lit by glowing white orbs the size of ordinary lightbulbs, suspended in midair and giving off faint light that seemed like captured moonlight. Twilight could only just barely make out the dark-coloured furniture between the columns where the lights were, which seemed more for decoration than anything; a couple of small sofas and a few little tables with various wilting flowers she didn’t know the names of.

In the center, directly beneath a single white ball of moonlight, there sat a tiny two-pony table. It made the whole scene look strangely desolate and far too empty. A pair of reptilian blue eyes and a ghostly smile glowed in the half-darkness on the far side of the table.

“Good evening, Twilight,” said Nightmare again, voice echoing a little in the stillness. Yet again, a lengthy silence went by before Twilight realized she was expected to respond to this.

“Good evening... Your Majesty,” she repeated hesitantly. Nightmare seemed pleased with her answer, to her relief.

“Come.” The alicorn held out a forehoof and motioned toward herself. “Sit down and talk with me. We have much to talk about, after all.”

Twilight shuffled out of the shadows and into the pool of soft, pale light cast by the miniature moon hovering over Nightmare’s table. She felt Nightmare watching her intently, and also as though she were being watched by the darkness as well—and perhaps even that they were one and the same. It was a kind of predatory gaze that made her very uncomfortable, especially with the way she was dressed.

The table itself was very small and there were only two chairs pulled up to it; one on either side. One was a magnificent throne-like seat upon which Nightmare sat, looking as twistedly regal as she had in Princess Celestia’s court, while the other—Twilight’s—was a small wooden chair that turned out to be very uncomfortable when Twilight sat on it. The table itself was small enough that what she guessed was Nightmare’s dinner—she couldn’t really tell in the darkness whether it was food or not, and she didn’t want to assume with the alicorn—was in the middle, between them instead of in front of the alicorn herself: a large plate full of exotic-looking food that smelled strongly of spices and something similar to copper. A wine bottle and two glasses sat beside this.

“Don’t be shy,” said Nightmare. “Are you satisfied with your new accommodations?”

“Oh... um, yes,” Twilight replied, nodding several times. “It’s a very nice room. Thank you very much for allowing me to stay there—Your Majesty. I-if you don’t mind me asking, what part of the castle are we in?”

“The Lunar wing,” she said. She made a sharp upward motion with her hoof, startling Twilight, and ordered, “Sit up straight—I won’t have my guest slouching like some common piece of livestock—you aren’t descended from livestock, I should hope.”

“N-no, Your Majesty.” The unicorn straightened her back, feeling like a foal being chastised for inappropriate behavior in a classroom. To her dismay, Nightmare wasn’t even finished picking apart her posture and behavior yet.

“Did nopony ever teach you proper manners, or are you simply trying to insult me by being as rude as you possibly can? Take your hooves off the table and put them in your lap where they belong.”

“Y-yes, Your Majesty,” said Twilight, hastily sliding her hooves off the table where they’d been resting, and crossing them tightly in her lap.

“Keep them there until I tell you otherwise,” Nightmare ordered.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

With this, Nightmare turned to the plate between them. She seemed to be inspecting the food closely and suspiciously, and Twilight wondered if she was checking to make certain it hadn’t been poisoned. At last, Nightmare apparently concluded that there was nothing amiss about her dinner, and picked up her knife and fork with her magic and cut herself a piece of the meal. It was something strange that Twilight had never seen before: a collection of strange fruits garnishing a slab of something wrapped in leaves that looked like they were taken from some kind of jungle; all of which reeked of herbs, spices, and that odd coppery smell.

Though it was odd and unfamiliar, she was only just beginning to realize how hungry she was after weeks of such a poor diet in the dungeons, and she found her mouth watering nonetheless. However, her uncertainty as to whether it was even hers to eat led Twilight to keep her hooves firmly crossed in her lap; just as she’d been told, not wanting to do anything that might irritate her captor and sort-of savior.

A blue glow surrounded the wine bottle between them, and its glass cap slowly unscrewed and floated away. Another instance of Nightmare’s magic picked up one of the two glasses that were beside it, and the bottle tipped to pour its contents out. Twilight watched the glass slowly fill up with crimson liquid. Nightmare had a small sip from it while the other filled up and floated over to rest on the table in front of Twilight. Twilight didn’t touch it—she was only nineteen, which meant she wasn’t legally old enough to drink yet.

“You recognized me on the night of my return,” said Nightmare conversationally, as she drank more from her own glass. “You knew of the Mare in the Moon.”

Twilight nodded carefully. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“How did you know? Nopony else knew my name. I’m curious what sort of records escaped Celestia’s apparent attempt to purge my very existence from history.”

She felt her insides tighten up, as she was unsure how Nightmare would react to finding out that she’d been reduced to nothing more than a foal’s bogeymare in her absence. Slowly, the unicorn mumbled, “There was, um... a book... a f-f-foal’s... s-storybook... I-I read it the day before I left for Ponyville... the day before the Summer Sun Celebration, that is...”

Nightmare’s reaction, it turned out, was an amused snort. She cut herself another piece of the fruit and chewed on it, apparently deep in thought, for some time before swallowing.

“...I expect she intended you to have some hoof in my defeat... though I can’t fathom what, exactly, it might have been. More than likely, she planted the book for you to read,” the alicorn finally decided, raising her glass to her lips again. “Unless, of course, you make a habit of reading foal’s stories in your spare time...?”

“N-no, Your Majesty,” said Twilight, reddening slightly and slouching down to hide herself a little. She was immediately forced to sit up straight again, while Nightmare laughed a little.

“I’m told you like to read.”

“Yes, Your Majesty... I do...”

“I was a rather... bookish... mare as well when I was your age, you know. My interest, however, was in the pre-Equestrian classics; the great epics of ages past—the Discordian tragedies in particular, and their themes of terrible destruction blossoming from the innocent seeds of harmony twisted beyond recognition.”

“I-I see...”

They lapsed into silence for some time, with Twilight unsure how to speak to Nightmare without risking her wrath, and unsure if she even wanted to.

“You must be so very hungry after such a long time without real food,” the dark alicorn mused, frowning at Twilight as she sipped at her wine. “Are you hungry, Twilight?”

“A li—a little,” Twilight admitted hesitantly.

Nightmare held up a forkful of the green-wrapped fruit with her magic and offered it to Twilight. “It’s a rather common fruit in Griffonia; I’ve had it wrapped with mint and coca leaves... Would you like to try some? You’ve been a very good little unicorn so far, and you deserve a reward.”

“I-I’m not... s-sure...” Once again, Twilight sniffed. She wasn’t sure if she would be punished for refusing the food. “It smells funny... like smoke... and... something metallic...”

“It’s been cooked,” replied Nightmare. To Twilight’s relief, she didn’t sound angry. “This particular fruit needs to be cooked before it’s eaten in order to experience the full range of flavors. The juice is sometimes said to smell and taste a bit like copper...”

“I... I see...” said Twilight, feeling a little confused. She hadn’t expected Nightmare Moon to be a connoisseur when it came to food.

She stared uncertainly at the other plate. She had never been big on exotic cuisine at all, and generally preferred hay fries and rice patties from a fast food joint over the expensive dinners she had to eat when she went out with her parents or when she had to functions with Princess Celestia. As long as she made sure to get a proper range of nutrition in her diet overall along with the admittedly addictive, unhealthy fast food, she didn’t particularly care about the ‘culturedness’ of what she ate all that much.

On the other hoof, she hadn’t had anything substantially healthy to eat in a couple of weeks straight now, and now that she was cleaned up and no longer in her stinking, claustrophobic cell, the hunger she’d suppressed for so long was starting to show. It was enough to make her feel a little bit more adventurous than usual. Why not try something new?

“Mm... Well...” she waffled, trying to buy herself some more time. “...O-okay... J-just a little, please?”

The smile Nightmare gave her seemed much more a leer than anything else. She cut off a small portion of the coca-and-mint-wrapped fruit, speared it on her fork, and levitated it into the air. “Close your eyes and open your mouth.”

Sighing inside and wishing she would just be allowed to eat like a normal pony, the unicorn waited with her eyes shut and her mouth wide open. The floating fork jabbed into her mouth rather suddenly, startling her, but she followed Nightmare’s next instruction and held the fruit with her front teeth while the fork slid out again.

As soon as it was fully in her mouth, Twilight realized how strange it tasted. There were no words for it—she’d never had anything like it. The overpowering flavor of the mint leaves was what dominated her taste buds, but she also detected some other odd things: namely, that it was incredibly salty and very tender, and seemed like it was made up of thousands of tiny strings.

“Well?” Nightmare inquired, looking at her sideways, after she’d finished chewing her food and swallowed it.

“I... I don’t really know,” admitted Twilight. She felt a slightly ashamed of herself, for some reason. “I’ve never tasted anything like that before.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know, for such an exceptional student. Perhaps Celestia was tampering with your grades. In any case, it’s an acquired taste. Open your mouth again, Twilight.”

Twilight, who felt rather proud of herself for having not risen to Nightmare’s bait about her grades, complied with this, and received another piece of Nightmare’s dinner. She chewed it more slowly this time, as the texture bothered her a bit less now and she was less apprehensive about it. It was still strange and she didn’t really like it very much at all, but her stomach demanded food, and this was better than nothing at all.

She suddenly caught the wine’s extremely strong, sickeningly bittersweet smell up-close, since Nightmare had levitated the glass that had been in front of her up until it bumped against her lips. Twilight kept her mouth firmly shut as it pressed against them again.

“Drink your wine, Twilight,” said Nightmare in an almost motherly tone.

“I, ah, can’t... “I’m only nineteen,” the unicorn protested meekly, ears pinning back.

This seemed to annoy Nightmare greatly. Her neutral expression quickly morphed into a scowl, and her eyes narrowed. “Open your mouth. It’s rude to refuse a drink offered by your host.”

“I really don’t mean to be r-rude, but I can’t h-have—I can’t have any of th-that—” Twilight mumbled as she turned her head repeatedly to avoid the increasingly insistent glass. “R-really, I can’t have any—I-I’m sorry—I’m still two years under the legal drinking age—”

“Open,” Nightmare repeated, cutting her off.

“But i-it’s ille—”

“Open your mouth.”

Twilight’s mouth was then forced open by the alicorn’s magic, allowing Nightmare to put the glass up to her lips again and pour some of the wine in. The stuff in it reminded her of the two or three sips of red wine her parents had allowed her on very special occasions, but the taste was so overwhelmingly strong and bitter that it triggered her gag reflex, causing her to choke and splutter. She would have spat it right back out if Nightmare hadn’t magically clamped her mouth shut.

“Swallow,” said the alicorn when the glass moved away.

Twilight attempted to protest with what amounted to nothing more than muffled whimpers, but Nightmare merely repeated the command more slowly and clearly, and covered her nose with magic as well, completely cutting off her air. The lavender mare began to panic, but she couldn’t even put her hooves up to her mouth because they were still stuck to her thighs. She tried to get up out of her seat, only to be stuck to it by Nightmare.

Quickly realizing it was futile to try to fight the moon goddess at that point, Twilight gave in and forced the foul, bitter substance down her throat and willed herself not to throw it back up again. The alcohol burned slightly, though it was more the taste than anything that made her so sick to her stomach. Once she’d slumped down, sending a pleading look at Nightmare as she began to feel dizzy from the lack of oxygen, the magic covering her mouth and nose dissipated and she was able to suck in a long, desperate breath.

“Did you really have to make that so difficult, Twilight?” Nightmare asked, still with a bit of an edge to her tone. “I gave you a gift to enjoy, and you will enjoy it. Drink the rest.”

Against her will, Twilight found her magic-covered hooves moving upward, and the glass was pressed between them. She stared down into the rippling red liquid in it, inhaling the stench of what she had deduced sometime between the haze of her strangulation panic and Nightmare’s most recent command was probably thousand-year-old wine.

Ears splayed back, she glanced back up at Nightmare and wished briefly that she could throw the drink in the alicorn’s face. But, knowing she would never have the backbone to do something so brave and so stupid, she ended up—voluntarily—putting the glass to her lips and trying to sip as little of the alcohol as she could at a time. It still burned, and it was still just as bitter and disgusting as before, and now she didn’t even have anything to distract herself from the painful silence that filled the room while she drank and Nightmare ate. Twilight ended up focusing on Nightmare herself; her eyes were drawn to her mouth whenever she thought Nightmare wasn’t looking. Nightmare’s teeth really did look like knives—big, razor-sharp knives for eating fillies alive on Nightmare Night. They were so mesmerizing—how did they stay so silvery-white even when she was eating?—that Twilight didn’t even notice she’d finished her glass of wine until she tipped it up and nothing entered her mouth.

“There; you see?” Nightmare said, more softly than before. “That wasn’t such a difficult task, was it?”

“S-speak for y-yourself…” coughed Twilight. Her throat still burned.

“I speak for both of us.”

To the unicorn’s dismay, Nightmare simply refilled the glass. She took it without protest this time, acknowledging—reluctantly—that it was a better idea to simply go along with Nightmare’s demands than to fight her. So far, she’d found that Nightmare was entirely accurate when she said they had the same result either way. Nightmare didn’t force her to drink it all at once this time, so Twilight was able to just hold it between her hooves for a little while, and let the first glass take effect and and numb the experience of downing the likely equally nauseating second. She made sure to drink from time to time, but it was much easier now that she wasn’t being compelled to do it all in a tiny window of time. Before she knew it, she’d downed the entire glass of already.

There was a soft clink of glass touching glass, and then Twilight’s forehooves rose on their own and yet another glass of wine was pressed into their awkwardly cupped grip. She tried to put it down. “I-I think I’ve had enough...”

"You've had enough when I say you have. Drink.”

The alcohol at least numbed some of Twilight’s terror over being trapped in the same room as the alicorn. It eased the malaise she’d been feeling for weeks, and it made her feel good for the first time in that long as well. Finally giving in to her admittedly disinhibited urge to obey and intoxicate herself further, she tipped the glass up on her own and drank quite deeply from it, forcing herself to keep drinking even though she still gagged on the wine’s bitter taste. When she put down the glass and started to raise her hoof to wipe her mouth, both forehooves were almost immediately pinned back down against her thighs by yet more of Nightmare’s magic, which was now swirling about in the corners of the room like a barely-visible, translucent typhoon.

Silently, Nightmare ate and watched her, occasionally feeding her a piece or two of her meal. Twilight was beginning to warm up to the taste of whatever it was Nightmare was feeding her. It wasn’t terrible, she thought as she chewed a piece of it; just very alien to her. Was this what they had eaten in Nightmare’s time? Twilight had never read anything about the dietary habits of ponies a thousand years ago, so she couldn’t tell.

“You’ve put me in a very difficult position, Twilight,” said Nightmare after a while. She sounded much calmer now, her conversational tone having returned in spite of the clearly non-conversational turn they were about to take.

“H-how do you mean?”

“You saw how my little ponies reacted when I dangled you in front of them like a worm on a hook. They want your head. Merely allowing you to live means I must make significant sacrifices to my political reputation. Unlike Celestia, I am less interested in hiding Equestria’s problems from the public than in eradicating them entirely. I wish to build a better world, not to rule over a corrupt empire of dirt. Your continued survival will set this goal back quite far. Do you understand what I am giving up for your sake?”

When she didn’t receive a prompt reply, she tapped the floor loudly with her silver-clad hind hoof, prompting the startled unicorn to answer.

“Y-yeah... I mean, no... I-I don’t know...” Twilight mumbled, looking at the table.

“To accomplish the goals I have in mind—the modernization of Equestria; the spread of an idea called Industry; the end of corruption and inequality—I must have the support of all my subjects. When they learn that I have shown you mercy despite your crimes, some of them may believe that I am simply another Celestia, favoring the nobility and the old crowd. Thus, I will lose the support of a hooffull of my little ponies—and everypony is priceless to me.”

The look Nightmare gave Twilight was both condescending and disapproving, like the librarian at the Canterlot Library had once looked at her when she cried over returning a book late. It made Twilight want to sink into the floor and disappear just to get away from it. “Do you see now what you’ve done, Twilight? You’ve made my life all the more difficult, and you’ve set back the coming of the age of enlightenment that much farther with your selfish impositions. Do you understand now?”

Twilight nodded mindlessly, too detached from the situation to form coherent words. “I’m... sorry...? I can’t think... It’s like my head’s full’a cumulonimbus clouds...”

“How in Equestria did you ever keep up with the curriculum at school?” Nightmare sneered at her. “It’s not enough to say you’re sorry. Nor is it enough to thank me. I have saved your life, and given you freedom, and here I sit, sharing my hospitality with you... and yet you have given me only a half-hearted thank-you for these selfless actions.”

“But... I don’t—”

“You don’t think I’ve done anything for you that’s worth paying back? Is that it?” The sneer grew ever more contemptuous. “Well then, why don’t I just drop you right back down there, if you think my grace is so unimportant? It would save me a lot of trouble.”

“No, no, no, no, wait, wait!” The unicorn shrank back, terrified. “No, don’t... don’t... please... I appreciate it... really... Th-thank you...”

“For what, Twilight?” Nightmare purred, smiling her cruel, knife-toothed smile again.

“Thank you for saving me...”

“Yet again... you fail to show me the proper respect,” said Nightmare warningly, tapping her hoof against the edge of the table.

“Th-thank y-you for s-saving me, Y-Your Majesty,” Twilight amended.

“Better. Say it again.”

“Thank you for saving me, Your Majesty.”

“Again. Use different words this time.”

Twilight took a steadying breath and tried to think through the foam gumming up her brain. “...I’m very, very grateful to you for sparing my life, Your Majesty.”

Twilight was beginning to feel very giddy and confused, so when the glass found its way up to her mouth again—this time by way of Nightmare’s magic—the unicorn leaned forward, eyes half-closed, and parted her lips to drink from it without hesitation. To her surprise, the wine bottle floated over to greet her when she was finished, its glass top missing.

“Open,” said Nightmare.

Twilight, familiar with the routine by that point, opened her mouth. The opening pressed against her lips, and when it tipped upward, she had to tilt her head back and swallow repeatedly to avoid choking on the wine, as it didn’t stop when her mouth was full. It made a little pfump sound when it popped out of her mouth, leaving her to pant sharply, a line of red dribbling down her chin.

By then, her head was spinning wildly and she was having trouble focusing, and she was experiencing a strange feeling of melancholy mixed with dumb amusement. She felt stupid, something that was very alien to her but not entirely unwelcome, for some reason—it was nice to have the dull veil of idiocy between herself and what she knew Celestia had done to her. A noticeable flush had spread across her cheeks. The whole world seemed to be spinning around faster than she could keep up with it, and her trains of thought were constantly interrupted before they could get going.

The glass returned, and Twilight drank from it again. It was a little too much of a drink, on this occasion: she choked and accidentally coughed some of the wine back into the glass as she tried to force too much down her throat at once. Indifferent, Nightmare just pushed her back against the chair’s hard wooden back and tipped the glass further up so that it emptied completely. The gagging, spluttering unicorn ended up spitting wine all over herself and belching loudly, having accidentally swallowed a lot of air as well. Nightmare sent her a disgusted look, and Twilight coughed in response, red running down her front in little rivers.

“I’m beginning to wonder what to do with you, Twilight.”

“What d’ya mean?” slurred Twilight as she tried unsuccessfully to free her pinned hoof to clean herself off.

Nightmare refilled her own wine glass and drank from it before replying. “As I said, I can’t just keep you around the castle, forever. If you want to stay here, you’re going to have to do something to make yourself useful to me. Did you think that I would simply give you food for no reason? Did you believe I would just allow you to walk about my castle as though you owned the place, the way Celestia did? My servants do so because they work for what they get here, not because they are entitled to it. You do nothing. You are nothing more than a dead weight to all of us.”

“Unfortunately, you’ve demonstrated that you can’t be trusted with magic,” Nightmare told her in an unapologetic tone. “You were, after all, originally arrested for treason, and though I have pardoned you, I am not foolish enough to trust you. You have knowledge, but your professors from your school tell me that you know little that can’t already be found in a book, and that you lack the initiative to deviate from whatever precise instructions you’re given. You are an encyclopedia and nothing more.”

Twilight’s mouth hung open in disbelief. Had her instructors really said those things about her? Was that really what they thought of her—that she was a mindless encyclopedia? She had always thought it was good to stick to instructions, and the more one learned from books, the better off one was. It had never occurred to her—and still didn’t—that not learning and not following the directions could be bad. For perhaps the first time in her life, she truly felt stupid. She didn’t understand anything that was going on around her—Twilight Sparkle was a pony of magical formulas and science and logic, and the one thing that frustrated her more than anything was when things were consistently illogical; even more so when they were inconsistently illogical.

“Do you have any other talents?” inquired Nightmare lazily, as though she already expected the answer to be no. “Any at all?”

“I... I know how to r... to... to...”

She was going to say that she knew how to raise dragons, but stopped herself before she could commit to the statement. Bringing Spike into her new life was one of the worst things she could possibly have done. If she could help it, Twilight was going to keep her only friend out of it.

“...No,” she finally said, slumping down and hanging her head in misery. “No, I don’t have any other talents...”

Twilight could tell Nightmare was suspicious of her answer just from the way she was looking at her. But the alicorn didn’t actually object to it; she only leered disconcertingly for some time. A very long silence passed; Twilight spent most of this looking at the table. For a moment, her eyes flicked up, and then they returned to the table again as soon as Nightmare’s slitted reptilian ones met them.

“Then you really are nothing more than a useless little a unicorn who thought she could grow wings.”

Twilight turned her eyes downward. “I d-didn’t wanna be an alicorn or anythin’... I mean, it woulda’ been nishe... but I kinda like being a unicorn, too...”

“I think you did,” Nightmare commented, swirling her drink around thoughtfully.

“I r-really din’n’t...”

“I think,” the alicorn repeated, “that you did. And that you still do.”

“I-I don’t—I swear I don’t—I don’t w-want to be an alicorn—I like being a unicorn,” said Twilight, her voice squeaking in fear. “I promish...”

“You want,” said Nightmare in an icy voice, and she suddenly seemed impossibly tall and terrifying, “to be an alicorn.”

“I-I-I d-d-didn’t...” the unicorn insisted. “I didn’t... D-didn’t w-wanna hurt a-a-anyp-pony...”

“You want to be an alicorn—just like Celestia. You wanted to be just like Celestia, and you’re going to admit it. You want to be an alicorn like Celestia. You wanted your wings and your legs—even if it cost other ponies their lives. Say it."

“I w-w-want to be an alicorn...” Twilight trembled before her, but she couldn’t run away or curl up because she was still stuck to the chair. “I wa-wanted t-to b-b-be jusht—jusht—jusht like Cshheleshtia... I wa-wanted m-my wi-ingsh... a-and my legsh... e-even if i-it cosht other ponieshh... their liv—livessh...”

“Was that so hard?” the dark mare inquired in a dangerously soft voice. “Was the thought of telling the truth so abhorrent to you that you had to fight me over it, Twilight? I gave you freedom from Celestia’s lies; I gave you freedom from the consequences of your own wrongdoings; I gave you sanctuary and food and drink; and you still fight me at every turn—Are you so arrogant as to think a pardon and a meal from a goddess are cheap? That I give such things to anypony who passes through my court?”

“No... no... I’m shorry... Dun‘urt me...”

“Get off the chair, Twilight—you won’t be using anything of mine with an attitude like that. Get off!”

Clumsily, Twilight slid down off her chair, hooves finally freed from Nightmare’s magical grasp. The floor seemed to quake and vibrate wildly under her feet; she swayed from side to side, trying to keep her balance. The alcohol had made her coordination so poor she had to sit back on her haunches before she fell over, and even then it was difficult to stay upright. Nightmare too, had left her throne-like seat in a burst of midnight-blue plasma, reforming in the shadows about a meter or so behind and to the right of the chair, where she sat on her haunches and glared at Twilight.

“You want to stay here, you useless little nopony?” asked Nightmare. “Then you get down on the floor and crawl to me so you can beg for my forgiveness.”

“It’sh dirty down theresh,” the unicorn protested in a tiny voice.

“You’ll be right where you belong, then.”

Nightmare’s magic began pressing down on Twilight’s head and back, quickly forcing her down onto her belly. Prompted repeatedly by the tugging on her mane and tail, Twilight gave in again and slowly crawled across the cold stone floor toward Nightmare, letting the insistent magical tendrils guide her. She halted just in front of the dark goddess.

“What do we say when we apologize, Twilight?” Nightmare prompted her coldly.

Half in shadow and two or three times as tall as Twilight, with those dragon-like eyes and gleaming black and silver regalia, Nightmare Moon looked both regal and absolutely terrifying up close. Her magic filled the room, both midnight-blue and black, and red and other vile colours Twilight had never even seen before and didn’t know the names of. Nightmare seemed more than a pony, with her apparently limitless magic whirling around the room in such a manner; she seemed like a force of the elements: Fire, Electricity, Water, Nightmare Moon, Earth...

And Twilight Sparkle cowered before this force in her saddle and fishnet stockings, so drunk she could hardly stand, and struggled to remember what to say when you apologized to somepony.

“I’m showry, Yuh Majushty...” she whimpered. The words were mutilated by the fact that her face was being pressed so hard against the floor. “Pwhreash canh I ged uhp? I feehl real shick...”

Nightmare spread her wings and used the tip of one to caress Twilight’s other cheek. “No, you may not get up yet.”

“Pwheash... Youhrh Majgeshtey... canh I ged uhp?” the younger mare amended.

“You haven’t even given me a real apology yet, and you’re already making demands of me again,” Nightmare said. “What are you apologizing for, Twilight?”

“I-I shaid I didun’h wanna be a’ alicorhh! Pwheash wemme geddup!”

Nightmare placed one metal-shoed forehoof on Twilight’s head and pressed down with just enough weight to make the unicorn whimper with discomfort.

“I could kill you right now, if I wanted to. All I would have to do... is lean on your head until your skull cracked. Or, perhaps, I could snap your neck, or suffocate you, or just reach into your brain and turn it off... I can do whatever I want to you, Twilight. And you can’t stop me.”

Twilight struggled with all her might to get up; to get away; but her body and limbs were pinned firmly to the floor by Nightmare’s magic. Even if she had been able to free herself, the hoof pressing on her head was getting heavier and heavier as Nightmare slowly shifted more weight onto it. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks as she began to cry again, babbling senseless, half-formed pleas for mercy that were all but unintelligible because of her panic and drunkenness, and also because they were interrupted by sobs.

“I took you into my home as a guest, and you did all you could to spite me,” Nightmare said. “You treated me as if you were better than me. You are not my better, Twilight Sparkle. You will never, ever be my better. You have no right to request sanctuary in my home, then lie to me and reject my hospitality. Who do you think you are?”

“J-jusht Twiwigh...”

“And what is Twilight Sparkle?”

“A-a unicown...? Ohpleaseno—” Twilight’s speech abruptly descended back into babbling gibberish as Nightmare leaned even harder on her skull with her metal shoe.

“She’s the little unicorn who thinks she’s better than an alicorn," Nightmare whispered into her ear. “Say what you are, Twilight. I want to know you understand.”

“I-I-I’m—I’mm’a li-liddle unic-c-cor-rn—I-I thingk-ksh I’m-m—I’m b-b-b-better—th-than an a-alic-corn—” choked Twilight. “Pleash—dun’t hurd me—”

“And are you sorry for thinking you’re better than me, Twilight? Are you sorry for not doing what I told you to do?”

“Yesh, yesh, yesh—very shorry!” the unicorn sobbed.

“You had better be,” said Nightmare, moving away from her ear. “And you had better not do it again, you insincere little cunt. My patience is far from infinite. If you step out of line again, you’ll be stepping out the front gates into the streets not long after. Do I make myself clear?”

“Y-y-yeahh,” whispered Twilight, hiccupping slightly as Nightmare lifted her hoof away again, relieving the pressure.

The magic holding her down finally released its hold on her, allowing her to relax and lift her cheek of the stone it had been stuck to for some time. Almost instantly, she was pulled upright by her mane in a dizzying flurry of black, blue, and white. Twilight stumbled back a few steps, trying to regain her sense of direction as the world spun around and around in a dizzying cyclone, but was immediately shoved forward again to where she had been before. So rapid were the changes that she very nearly threw up.

“What do we say when somepony does something we want?” prompted Nightmare in a patronizing voice while Twilight gagged and held her stomach.

“Th-thank you...” the lavender mare choked. “Your M-Majeshty...”

“Very good,” said Nightmare, and she clopped her front hooves together several times in a highly condescending manner. The sound was faintly metallic. “I get the feeling nopony’s ever told you no before, have they? It would explain why you’re so entitled. I don’t know what Celestia taught you, but in the real world, when you’re told to do something by your better, you do it. Am I your better, Twilight?”

Twilight bobbed her head up and down mutely.

“Do you really believe that, or are you just agreeing with me because you think it’ll satisfy me?”

“I-I—I do—I believe it—I do—” the trembling unicorn stammered, but Nightmare cut her off before she could say anything more.

“You’ve a strange way of showing it,” she commented. She then held out one of her silver-and-black-clad hooves. “In the real world, we judge by actions, not words. Remove my shoe.”

Twilight hastily placed her hooves on the sides of the shoe—it was hard because her coordination was shot—and then used her tongue flip open the tiny locks in the back that kept it on Nightmare’s hoof. She took the shoe in her mouth and slid it off, tasting metal, salt, and what was probably dust or dirt from the hallways outside. Gagging, she set the shoe down on the floor as quickly as she could, though she was careful not to actually drop it, lest she risk incurring Nightmare’s wrath. She was prompted to remove the other shoe when she was done, and just repeated the same process, putting the second one next to its companion.

Nightmare and presented her naked, pitch-black hooves to Twilight again as the latter mare tried to clean the metallic taste off her tongue with one of the socks. It was bigger than Twilight’s own, though not by too much: Nightmare had a much taller body than the average pony, but she was also more slender in her frame.

“Show me that you know I’m your better,” Nightmare ordered. “Kiss my hooves.”

Twilight drew back a little, repulsed by the very idea. She couldn’t even imagine what kind of germs would be on another pony’s hooves; it was enough to make her stomach churn. Nightmare seemed to pick up on her discomfort immediately, her gaze growing ever darker. Twilight’s mouth formed silent shapes for a while, and she made some half-coherent noises, but nothing meaningful came out, until she finally hung her head in defeat. Ears pinned back, she leaned forward slowly and peered at the outstretched pair of hooves, blinking blearily in a mostly fruitless attempt to resolve her blurry vision. They looked well-maintained, at least; Nightmare was a goddess, after all. Closing her eyes, she puckered her lips and placed as quick and light of a kiss as she could on the wall of the right one, then on the left, before moving back and wiping her mouth repeatedly with her foreleg.

“Kiss them again,” said Nightmare sharply, making her jump and suck in a startled gasp. “This time, at least pretend you actually want to touch me.”

Nodding dumbly, Twilight leaned over again to kiss Nightmare’s outstretched hooves once again. She tried to appear somewhat enthusiastic about it this time; trailing a series of tiny kisses from the far side of one to the other, even daring to put her own hooves on Nightmare’s and turn hers up to kiss the undersides a few times.

“Clean them.”

“Clean’em...?” Twilight repeated, not understanding. Her eyelids were starting to droop a little—she was very tired and wanted to go to bed.

“Use your mouth to clean my hooves. Use your tongue.”

Not really caring what she was doing anymore as long as it got her out of the dining room and into a bed, the unicorn stuck out her tongue and gave the sole of Nightmare’s right hoof a tiny experimental lick. The taste was like sand with a lot of salt in it—it wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it didn’t make her vomit, either. Slowly, and trying to make as little actual contact as possible, Twilight lapped at the sole until it was shiny with her saliva. Then she moved on to the frog, wiggling her tongue around inside each of the grooves until each one was free of whatever filth had gotten into the shoe during the day.

She had to pause a moment after this; in part because she needed to wipe her tongue on her foreleg to get the disgusting dirt taste off it, and in part because her mouth had gone dry from using all her spit. Fortunately, the wine bottle made a reappearance just then: Twilight found it was suddenly between her hooves, where before it hadn’t been. She nearly drained its remaining contents in one go, slopping almost half of the wine down her front in the process. Afterward, everywhere she licked on Nightmare’s hoof smelled faintly of wine.

Once she’d cleaned the entire hoof wall—and her mouth was dry and tasted like hoof and dirt once again—Twilight went to work on the left hoof. A new bottle of wine came to her rescue when she ran out of drool, at which point Twilight decided she really liked wine a lot. How much of the bottle she drained, she couldn’t tell anymore, nor was she sober enough to care. She felt really good—really, really good; except for how she felt like she was going to throw up if she didn’t lie down soon.

Nightmare withdrew one hoof after some time, and used it to hold Twilight’s head still. “Put your mouth on my hoof and keep it there when you aren’t speaking.”

Twilight leaned forward yet again and suckled aimlessly on the now very clean rim of Nightmare’s hoof, waiting for the dark mare to speak again.

“I have been obscenely generous and forgiving towards you,” said the alicorn after a while. “I offer you chance after chance to stay with me as a guest of honor, and yet you keep throwing them away like you think they’ll never stop coming. You are an entitled, spoiled brat who isn’t good for anything useful. If you can’t find the decency to behave as a guest, then you will reside here as a servant. The fact that you have to actually work for what you get is not my fault, so don’t blame me. I do not extend such opportunities to most ponies, Twilight, so do not take it for granted—this is your last chance. Do you understand?”

Without taking Nightmare’s hoof out of her mouth, Twilight nodded.

“For clarification: that was a yes or no question, and in the future, if it is a yes or no question, you will answer with a yes or a no. In this situation, if you say yes, you stay alive. If you say no, you’ll be dead before I raise the sun in the morning.”

“Yesh... I-I acshept—Pleaush dun’t thwhow m-me out... Dun’t let me—dun’t let me d-die...”

“You see, Twilight? That wasn’t so difficult to say, was it?” Nightmare said. When Twilight failed to respond promptly, she repeated, “Was it?”

“Nuh,” said Twilight in a tiny voice. “Nuh... id washn’t...”

“If you’re good, then you may be rewarded from time to time. Perhaps eventually I will give you back your magic if you prove to me that you really can be trusted. If you’re bad, then you will be punished severely; I won’t tolerate much before I throw you back out onto the streets, filly. I have no need for a servant, so keep in mind that it is I who am going out of my way for you.

“You, Twilight Sparkle, are a servant of Her Royal Majesty Nightmare Moon,” said Nightmare. “Say it.”

“I-I... Twi... Twilight Shp...arkle... am a shervant... o-of Her Royal... Majeshty... N-Nightmare Moon...” Twilight mumbled.

“Again.”

“I’m Twilight Shparkul... I am a shehervant... of her Royal Majeshty, Nightmare Moon...? Did I shay dat right? I’un’t remember... Shoulda shtudied firsht... Ish there gonna be a tesht on thish? I f’get...”

Nightmare let Twilight go—she’d been holding the unicorn steady with magic for some time by that point—and Twilight promptly lost her balance and keeled over. Shortly thereafter, Twilight’s stomach finally overwhelmed her, and she rolled over and vomited onto the floor, then rolled back onto her back. She was far too trashed to care about modesty anymore, so she just lay there with her legs splayed and her lavender snatch lewdly on display.

“At least,” Nightmare commented with a mocking snort, “you’ve found your proper place.”

Twilight just groaned in reply.

“I had intended to give you a reward for your good behavior tonight, because I assumed you would have enough basic equine decency not to insult the mare who saved your life at every possible opportunity. Naturally, you’ve disappointed me, so I don’t think you deserve it. Do you think you deserve a reward for the way you’ve acted, Twilight?”

“Iunno,” said Twilight blearily. “Do’Uh?”

“No, you don’t—but I’m going to give it to you anyway, because I am an extremely generous mare. Get up.”

The best Twilight could do in following this order was to sit up, which made her stomach churn violently. She looked up at Nightmare, blinking stupidly and trying to remember where she even was. It was something to do with a castle, wasn’t it? Or stockings...? The unicorn was distracted from her drunken musings when she suddenly felt Nightmare’s magic wrap around the base of her horn under where the limiter ring was attached. Then she felt the ring slide off, finally returning the full range of feeling to her horn.

It was like having her horn rapidly fill up with warm water: the sudden burst of pent-up magic overflowed through the tip and poured out in a river of white sparks. Twilight shuddered and moaned—it was a very pleasurable sensation, even with her horn as sore as it was. Her legs flexed involuntarily as all her muscles momentarily twitched; the hooves on her hind legs clicking together lightly, until the feeling passed and she relaxed again.

As the dull golden ring disintegrated into dust, a shinier one made of silver materialized out of nowhere between the two mares. It was flat on one side, and on the other it had a series of jagged, ridged edges like a tiny crown. A much smaller ring hung off the rim. Nightmare slid the ring over Twilight’s horn—flat side first—pressed it against the base of her skull, and turned it so that the smaller ring was to the front. The little ridges pressed inward, squeezing the unicorn’s horn, until Twilight whimpered in distress. More sparks dribbled out of the notch in the tip as she got used to the strange sensation; the result of more of her nerve endings being stimulated.

The warmth did not go away this time. Once the initial discomfort from the ridges pressing on her horn’s base faded, Twilight could feel everything she was meant to feel without the limiter on.

“Isn’t that better, Twilight?” said Nightmare as she levitated her shoes back onto her hooves.

Twilight shrugged, still flexing her hind legs a little. Her eyes were closed. “Gueshh sho...? Mm... I likesh it... Mmhm... Feelsh nishe...”

“Perhaps, if you’re very good in the future, I will unblock your horn and let you use your magic again—but I doubt that will happen, after the way you’ve acted. Get up—it’s time for you to go to bed, and I’ve grown sick of your obnoxious presence.”

“Bed shounsh nishe,” agreed Twilight with a sleepy yawn. “Whish way’zit?”

A small, thin tendril of midnight magic looped itself through the tiny ring on Twilight’s new limiter and tugged on it. Twilight groaned in protest, but soon staggered to her hooves, hoping to discontinue the abuse. Nightmare led her out into the dusty hallway with the little horn leash, jerking it sharply every time Twilight wandered off-course, and down to the room she’d been locked in earlier.

“You’re going to sleep in this room from now on,” she informed Twilight as the lavender unicorn—freed from the leash, but covered in spilled wine and some vomit, eyes hardly open, and so drunk she could barely remember her own name—staggered in after her.

“Thanksh,” slurred Twilight. She made it halfway across the room before she lost her balance and fell onto her side. “Oopsh...”

“Before I leave,” said the alicorn, turning her head slightly. “what did you think of dinner?”

“Oh... it wash okay...” Twilight replied. She started clumsily trying to remove her clothes, having little success because of her drunken miscoordination. Nightmare watched her with cruel amusement that would have been quite evident had Twilight been more aware of her surroundings. “Wash weird... nevuh haddit before...”

A vicious rictus of a smile blossomed across Nightmare’s face, growing to hideously wide proportions within mere seconds. “It was steak. I’ll be sure to remember you like it in the future.”

“’Kay. Soundzsh gud...”

“Good night, Twilight. Sweet dreams.”

“Niiight,” the oblivious unicorn called after her, then resumed trying to line up her blurry, uncooperative forehooves with the clip on one of her garters, while the door shut and the lock clicked.

Let's try this again

Every Night is a Night of Nightmares

by the parasprite

Chapter 4: Let's try this again

The morning after her dinner with Nightmare Moon was a spectacularly miserable one for Twilight.

She woke up on her back in the middle of her room, shivering and aching all over. There was a pounding pain behind her eyes that she likened to having a stake hammered in through the socket. It was so intense that, despite the darkness about the room, Twilight squeezed her eyes shut again immediately after opening them.

Something nearby smelled awful. It reminded her of the time when, as a filly, she had had the flu and vomited into her trash can, and then hidden the evidence of her illness for over a day because she was afraid of having to stay home from school if anypony found out. Though the bitter-sweet odor of vomit was coming from somewhere very close, Twilight didn't have the willpower to turn and see just how close she was to it.

The question of how she'd ended up in a puddle of vomit with no memory of the night before flittered through her mind briefly, as she was scrubbing some of the dried vomit off her chest, but it was promptly forgotten in the unfocused haze that occupied her mind.

Twilight lay there with her eyes closed until the combined smell and nausea became entirely unbearable. Only then did she try opening her eyes and sitting up again. Doing this made her feel so sick she almost lay back down—but fortunately, she discovered that what she'd been lying in was actually a puddle of partially coagulated vomit before she could lie back down in it again.

With a revolted exclamation, Twilight lurched away from the stain and felt around in the dark for something she could use to clean herself. Finding nothing, she stumbled into the bathroom and switched on the light. Now able to see her reflection in the mirror, she was disgusted to find that there was also vomit on her chin, chest, belly, and one of her forelegs.

"Ugh," she mumbled, and turned away.

She took one of the towels from the towel rack, pushed up the toilet seat, and collapsed onto it so she could relieve herself while she cleaned the filth off. The room was spinning so badly that she had to lean back and put half the towel over her face to keep the cruel light away, lest she throw up again.

This, however, only lasted a short while, because she ended up leaning forward again not long after, and the towel fell away onto her left back hoof. With her mouth slack and her eyes glazed, Twilight stared dumbly at the towel for a while. Then, with an equally mindless gaze, she turned her head a little and focused on the rim of the toilet bowl between her legs, as though it were something novel and scientifically fascinating. Finally, she looked to her other side, at the fishnet stocking that was still halfway on her right hind leg. It also had some vomit on it.

Twilight blinked a few times, then picked up the towel so she could continue to clean herself off. She stopped this again when she realized that there was a shower not far away, and the shower had warm water. She dropped the towel carelessly and made her way over to the shower without even taking off the errant fishnet stocking.

Standing limply under the showerhead like a zombie, she turned the tap with her hooves, and was promptly doused in freezing water. Instantly, Twilight screeched in protest and tried to backpedal away from the unpleasant sensation, which led to her slipping and falling painfully on her rear. After the water turned warm, she made a halfhearted attempt to scrub the caked vomit off herself. It took over half an hour for her to actually do this, and by then, she'd started to wake up a little.

Most of the previous night proved to be a fuzzy mess of vague ideas and images when Twilight finally got around to thinking about what had happened. She remembered eating and drinking with Nightmare Moon, and she was at least coherent enough to make an educated guess that since half her memories of the event involved her drinking wine, she'd probably gotten herself drunk and was now severely hung-over.

Other memories were somewhat less clear. She had a disturbing feeling that she might have done something very bizarre that involved her mouth and hooves, but there was too much of it lost in the haze to actually figure out what had happened for sure. So long as she hadn't been raped—and there were no signs that she had, as far as she could tell—she didn't feel it was worth pursuing at the moment, not with her negligable level of energy.

Everything would be fine once her headache went away, Twilight decided—it was always fine once those little aches and pains were cured. Life would go on, and everything would work out the way it always had. But it did nag at her for quite some time anyway.

While she was wrapping a towel around her mane, Twilight saw that there was no longer any vomit on her when she saw her reflection; she just looked pale, tired, and ill, which she supposed was marginally better than how she'd looked before. She shambled back into the bedroom, avoiding the place where she'd initially vomited, and crawled into the bed.

She didn't know how long she slept for, but it was definitely a long time. Several times, Twilight woke up, only to find that her head was still pounding and she still felt awful. Typically, she would go back to sleep soon after waking up, although a few times she woke up and spent a while staring idly at the ceiling while she tried to doze off again.

It was during one of these moments that Twilight's door banged open, and a masked mare came in. This mare stomped around the room a bit to get her attention, and as she did, Twilight recognized her as Lulamoon, one of Nightmare Moon's cronies who'd taken her up from the dungeon the other day.

"Rise and shine, filly," Lulamoon croaked out loud, startling Twilight.

"You can talk!" exclaimed Twilight.

Lulamoon's expression turned quite sour, and she glared at Twilight. "Of course I can talk! Did you believe The Great and Powerful Trixie was incapable of communication, you foolish little dreg of a unicorn?"

Something was very wrong with her voice. It sounded scratchy and filtered, for one thing; and for another, Twilight noticed it was not coming from her mouth. Instead, Lulamoon wore a chain around her neck with a glowing golden glass ball about the size of an acorn attached to it, and it was from here that her voice seemed to be issuing.

"What kind of magic is that? I've never heard of anything like it—is it arcane? Does it have your real voice in it or does it generate a new one for you?"

"Shut up," Lulamoon snapped. "Trixie was rewarded with this trinket for performing a great service to Her Majesty. She is Her Majesty's most trusted lieutenant in all but the words themselves, after all, so She healed Trixie's wounds. Arcane magic, hah! The All-Powerful Nightmare Moon can do things that Celestia could never dream of!"

Twilight nodded hastily, unsure how else to respond.

"Yes..." Lulamoon looked around, rubbed the part of the sack that was covering her jaw, and then added, "Not that insignificant cockroaches like yourself should be concerned with how the gods move. You have things to do."

She jabbed her hoof at Twilight.

"Get up now, or Trixie will drag you out of bed herself. You have places to be, Spa—" She faltered for a moment, and Twilight had a feeling she was struggling to recall Twilight's name without having to admit she didn't know something. "...Sparkler. You have places to be, and—"

"Sparkle, actually... Twilight Sparkle...?" Twilight ended in a tone that was almost a question, not wanting to make Lulamoon feel like she'd been insulted by someone claiming to be smarter than her. It would probably have led to bad things.

Trixie waved a hoof uncaringly. "Whatever. Don't interrupt Trixie! Get out of bed."

With a sigh, Twilight pushed the covers aside and got out of her bed. It was cold again, so she started shivering as she stood in front of the sneering—she couldn't see the expression, but she could certainly feel it—Trixie Lulamoon.

“Her Majesty commands that you present yourself before her in exactly half an hour,” said Lulamoon. “She also commands you to actually wash yourself, because you were filthy last time you met with her. If you aren’t clean, she’s going to have your coat shaved off, so I would recommend doing a good job.”

Twilight spent the next twenty minutes or so scrubbing every inch of her body raw in the bath, despite having already taken a shower the first time she woke up. By the time she was finished, she felt like she’d been put through a wringer, and had to rub lotion on herself to ensure that her skin didn’t dry out under her coat.

When she came out, she found Lulamoon still sitting by the door.

"Put the towels away," Lulamoon said to Twilight in a bored tone.

The magicless mulberry unicorn sat down on her rear and clumsily unwrapped the towel that was around her mane with her hooves. She cringed, wishing she’d spent more time letting it dry, as some droplets of water fell onto the floor. Then she removed the other towels and carried them into the bathroom.

"Very good!" Lulamoon applauded her condescendingly when she returned. "Now touch your nose."

Twilight suddenly wished it had been Blinkie who had been sent to deal with her. Even with the enhanced strength earth pony magic would have given her, Twilight decided it was a near certainty that she would be able to overtake the filly on her own; perhaps tie her up with her bedsheets while she made her escape—but Trixie was an adult, had magic and a nasty sense of humor, and was clearly unbalanced.

"Tonight," Lulamoon told her, "Her Majesty wishes for you to join her in her personal chambers. Why she would want to be around somepony as insipid and boring as you, I don't quite understand, but it isn't Trixie's place to question why."

The casual cruelty with which Lulamoon spoke, as well as the grin she wore on her face, made Twilight cringe a bit, but she said nothing since she didn’t want to annoy the other mare. Lulamoon tossed something at Twilight, who automatically reached up and caught it in her hooves. Opening it, she found a brand-new, and much cleaner, version of the outfit she'd worn to dinner with Nightmare Moon the other night.

"Put that on."

Twilight hastily slipped the socks and stockings on. Unlike the other outfit, which had had fishnets, this one was all solid cloth. There was a pattern of silvery-white starbursts against the black, giving the impression that she was wearing pieces of the night sky on her legs. A similar pattern was splashed across the leather saddle.

There was, in this package, also what appeared to be a leather corset; something which Twilight had only rarely seen. She held it up and sniffed it, taking in the faint smell of what was essentially dead skin. It made her wrinkle her nose in disgust as she put it back down.

But, not wanting to set Lulamoon off, she put it on anyway and attempted to lace it up. Doing so without magic was practically impossible, though, and Twilight soon became frustrated by the uselessness of her large, clumsy hooves. Eventually, after so much struggling, Lulamoon took pity on her and used her own magic to lace up the corset. She tightened it to an almost painful degree, her eyes sparkling maliciously as Twilight coughed and struggled to adapt to the change.

One more item had been included in this particular set of clothing as well. It was a choker made of some sort of back material, with a large diamond set in the center. Twilight stared at it, shocked, for a moment, before putting it on—she could hardly believe that she would be trusted with something so valuable.

"Get moving, you wretched creature. We have things to do."

Lulamoon kicked Twilight sharply in the side. Twilight stumbled into the doorframe and fell, but was immediately dragged back to her hooves by Lulamoon before she could even catch her breath.

The room Lulamoon brought Twilight to seemed to be very high up in the castle, perhaps in a tower or something of that nature, given the number of stairs they had to climb to get to it. Even before she saw the door, Twilight could hear music coming from it: eerie, melancholy strains from an instrument she knew enough to recognize as a violin.

She actually felt a sense of vertigo when Lulamoon opened the door and pushed her in. The floor was all but invisible, and it seemed like she was walking--stumbling, rather--through empty space itself. At the same time, it was like entering a planetarium in that the floor, walls, and ceiling were all detailed, glowing three-dimensional models of the heavens, surrounded by empty blackness. They all seemed to be made of glass; glass that was frosted with condensation, as it was hardly more than bitter cold in the room.

Nightmare Moon herself herself sat in the only indication of a floor in the entire room: a painted, archaic map of the solar system, with a semicircular shaft of light like the crescent moon at its center. She was wearing her cloak and regalia again, looking in the low light like some kind of bizarre fanged druid. Orbiting her head was a half-consumed glass of wine. Even as Twilight was brought in, Nightmare seemed enraptured with the music than interested in her guest. That music, as it turned out, was coming from a violin that Nightmare held aloft in a gout of blue magic.

Twilight didn't have that much time to stand and gawk at the sight, because Lulamoon shoved past her after only a moment and announced, "Your Majesty, Trixie brings Twilight Sparkle, as ordered."

"Thank you, Lulamoon. Leave her here and go about your duties," said Nightmare softly, continuing to play as she spoke without pausing or faltering in the slightest.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Lulamoon vanished into the darkness. Twilight heard the door open and shut, and she was left alone with Nightmare Moon, who still didn't even spare her a glance or a word for what felt like hours. Time ticked by, and Twilight felt herself growing more and more anxious in Nightmare's presence.

“Good evening, Twilight,” Nightmare finally said.

“Good evening, Y-Your Majesty...” whispered Twilight.

"Sit down," the alicorn invited her, gesturing vaguely at the room with one of her enormous black wings, and then waving that same wing at a more specific place not far from where she herself sat. "Make yourself comfortable. Around that area, I think, would be best."

"Yes... Your Majesty." Twilight sat down where Nightmare had indicated, though she took care to sit as far away from Nightmare as she could manage without actually looking like she was trying not to sit near her. For good measure, she added, "Thank you for the invitation to s-spend time with you, Your Majesty."

"You're quite welcome."

Nightmare was silent for a while more, focusing on the violin. Then she said, "There was an assassination attempt today. A very foolish pony attempted to destroy me by detonating a homemade bomb."

"Oh, that's awful. I'm glad nopony was hurt," said Twilight, whose eyes had grown a bit wider after hearing this.

There was a snort. "Two heroic stallions sacrificed their lives to keep their goddess from harm. Hardly 'nopony'."

"Oh... oh, I'm so sorry."

"You didn't know them; you weren't there; why are you sorry?" Nightmare said. "Don't tell me things that aren't true, Twilight. It aggravates me. I'm in no mood to deal with the nobles and their petty absurdities, which is why I've elected to deal with you instead. You are, at least, significantlysimpler."

The sneering way in which she spat out the wordsimpler left no doubt as to whether it was meant as a compliment or an insult. Twilight realized she was expected to say something after being stared at intensely for a while, so she mumbled, "Thank you, Your Majesty", even though she knew it wasn't something she ought to be thanking Nightmare for.

"Our last encounter," declared the alicorn, "was a bit of a disgrace on your part. Let's talk about that: do you feel you've done something disgraceful to me, Twilight Sparkle?"

Twilight remained silent. She didn't think there was an actual right way to answer this that would spare her the growing wrath of the alicorn, so she chose to interpret Nightmare's words as a statement, and not a question. Arguing with her would do nothing.

Finally, she found a valid middle ground and mumbled, "I don't really remember what happened the other night."

"You drank quite a bit of my wine and acted both foolish and blasphemous," said Nightmare. She swirled her glass of wine around thoughtfully. "You said words about me—to me—that nopony with a sense of decency or respect would ever dare to speak."

"Oh..." Twilight's cheeks flushed. "I... didn't... I didn't realize that..."

Nightmare turned up her glass and finished what was in it. "What do you have to say for yourself, Twilight?"

"That—that I'm very, very sorry, Your Majesty," said Twilight, so fast she almost mixed the words up. Her brain seemed to be playing a bit loose with language all of a sudden, probably because of her nerves. "And that I'll never do anything of the sort again as long as I live."

"Good," the alicorn hummed over the violin.

There was a long stretch of time during which there was only the sound of Nightmare's violin in the room. Besides this, there was an occasional murmur of appreciation from the alicorn herself, but for the most part, there was nothing. Twilight allowed herself to get lost in the music, to a degree. She was powerless to escape, she rationalized, so why not enjoy the sonata while she could?

Twilight's musical education had only covered the basics, as music was not a science and therefore wasn't a very important topic, but she was reasonably certain the piece Nightmare was playing was based on a tritone formation. Having been more interested in the history of music than the actual music itself, Twilight happened to know that the tritone was often associated with Discord, and other figures of corruption and evil.

"I have realized, upon reflection, that I may have been a bit harsh on you for your transgressions our first night together," Nightmare spoke up suddenly. "Clearly, I came in with my expectations far too high, believing that you were educated in the ways of the nobility and that you were a pony of class. You aren’t, are you, Twilight?”

Twilight shook her head. “N-no... Your Majesty... I, I wouldn't consider myself a... 'pony of class'.”

“Ah... you’re common street trash, then?”

“N-no...”

“Then what are you?” asked Nightmare. She seemed legitimately curious as to the answer.

Fidgeting, Twilight replied, "Just a pony... Your Majesty..."

"Just another pony."

"Yes... Your Majesty. I... I'm not a very interesting pony. I'm nothing special."

There was something so dark growing in Nightmare's eyes; something that, by the time Twilight was told to stop for the last time, was practically bleeding through her eyeballs. And the more primitive parts of Twilight's brain were deathly afraid of it—she wanted to be anywhere else but in the room with that slimy reptilian thing's gaze.

"Is that so."

It took some time for Twilight to realize that this was actually meant as a question to be answered, and it was only because of the way Nightmare was looking at her that she did, in fact, realize this at all. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Ah. I see. Are you saying I'm wrong to spend my time talking to you? Do you not appreciate the attention I've been heaping upon you, little not-very-interesting nopony?" Nightmare inquired.

"It's not that!" Twilight blurted out, blushing a little bit. "It's very flattering that you think I'm worth talking to, it really is... I'm just a... another unicorn, though. Nothing very special."

"Nothing special?"

Twilight nodded again. "Yes, Your Majesty. I'm very sorry, but that's just the way I feel about myself."

"You certainly didn't feel that way the other night," said Nightmare. She swirled her glass of wine around thoughtfully. "At any rate, I was under the impression that you were better educated in the way of manners and customs than you seem to be. It doesn’t matter now, as you belong entirely to me and I can do whatever I want with you, but I do apologize for being so presumptuous."

“Thank... you... Your Majesty...” Twilight wondered how one pony could sound so self-important and yet so sincere at the same time.

"Let's try this again, shall we?"

A second glass of wine suddenly made its appearance in front of Twilight, held in Nightmare's midnight-blue grasp. The unicorn observed it with distrust for some time, until it moved forward and bumped against her lips. She turned her head away to avoid it, but it followed her movements. It was, Twilight noted, somewhat fascinating that Nightmare could manipulate so many objects at once without losing control of any of them.

"I don't think it's a good idea for me to drink," she said to Nightmare. "Last time, um, it made me do stupid things... a-as you're well aware, Your Majesty... I, uh, don't think it would be good if I repeated my mistakes of the pas—"

"Drink it," said Nightmare warningly, "or I'll force it down your throat and neither of us will be happy in the end."

Twilight experienced a rather unusually vivid flashback to something similar happening during the last time she'd met with Nightmare. In light of this evidence, she decided to take the path of least resistance and parted her lips.

“Tonight, we’re going to get to know each other,” Nightmare went on airily. "Tell me about yourself, Twilight."

"M-me?" Twilight babbled when the glass had moved back. "Why would I do that? Oh, I'm so sorry, Your Majesty. Ah, why, Your Majesty? I mean... uh..."

"Well, naturally... I want to learn more about who you are as a pony," the alicorn explained, and surprisingly she didn't mock or punish Twilight for misspeaking. "Tell me, Twilight. Tell me your hopes. Tell me your dreams. Tell me what you hold dear in life."

"But why would you want to know about me, Your Majesty?"

"Because I do," she said.

Twilight blinked several times, feeling more than a little confused, but eventually said, "Well... I, um, like to read."

"You like to read?"

Twilight nodded silently.

"What do you gain from reading, Twilight?"

She fidgeted some more. "I-I don't know. I just like it..."

"You like to read," said the alicorn again, sounding disappointed. "And what else do you like to do?"

Twilight avoided answering for as long as she could, then finally shrugged helplessly. "I-I like to learn... There's not really much else to say, Your Majesty. I-I appreciate your interest in me, but I'm really just not a very interesting pony..."

"Open wide, Twilight."

Twilight opened her mouth responsively, and soon she had a mouthful of yet more bitter wine. It burned so badly that she had to spit some of it back into the glass, but that was poured right back into her mouth as soon as she had swallowed what was still there. She found the wine glass waiting for her again—a sign, she decided, that Nightmare was probably not that angry at her. Not yet, anyway.

"Tell me, now, what do you like to read?" asked Nightmare, though her voice now carried a distinct note of disinterest. "What books do you fancy? Philosophy... mathematics... fiction, perhaps...?"

"Well, uh, yes, Your Majesty. I like... I like to read a lot of nonfiction—I like to read scientific books, mostly, but, uh, I've read the great works, too—you know. I... I try to educate myself as well as I can."

"Is that so. And tell me, Twilight," she commanded, "What did you intend to do with your life before Celestia took you under her wing?"

"Well, um... actually, I would like to be a librarian, Your Majesty..." Twilight said, brightening up a little at the thought. "It was one of my top career choices on career day. To be surrounded by such knowledge, and to pass it on to later generations... it's just so appealing to me."

"The accumulation of knowledge appeals to you?"

"I suppose you could say that, Your Majesty."

There was a pause while Nightmare appeared to consider this. Even the music took on a slightly pensive tone for a second, as though reflecting its creator's mood.

“Do you know why knowledge exists, Twilight?”

Twilight swallowed and tapped her hooves together, trying to come up with a truthful, appropriate response to the question. “Knowledge exists… to be learned by our generation and shared with the generations that come after us, so that what we discover is never—”

Nightmare interrupted her. “Sentimentalist propaganda aside, why does it exist?"

"I'm... not sure what you mean, Your Majesty."

"Knowledge exists to be used," said Nightmare. "To serve a purpose to which it is deemed relevant.”

“That’s not true! That's not true, Your Majesty,” Twilight protested. “Well, i-it is true, to a degree, but knowledge isn’tcompletely utilitarian by any means! There’s also joy to be found in the actual act of learning itsel—”

“And that is precisely why you’re useless, Twilight Sparkle. You find no joy in the application of knowledge; only the acquisition. Service brings you no pleasure. You would be content to sit and read in that little library in Ponyville, or in the great Canterlot Library, as true Equestrians fought and died for the betterment of Equestria; for your own sake and safety.”

It was almost a welcome distraction to Twilight when she noticed that the wine glass was nearby, and she picked it up on her own for the first time, balancing it between her two hooves. With Nightmare silent for the moment and Twilight afraid to say anything on her own for fear of angering the goddess, all there was to do was gulp down mouthfuls of the disgusting red wine and avoid looking at the other mare.

"Don't you have anything to say, Twilight?" asked Nightmare.

"I think you're wrong. I think you have a very negative way of looking at things," mumbled Twilight. "Learning shouldn't just happen when it benefits the state."

“Would you like to learn something now, little nopony? Would you like to know the way of the world? I’ll tell you now. The way of the world is power. Some have it, and some don’t; those who have it, by their very nature, rule the powerless. And because power is the way of the world, any means necessary to attain it are the appropriate means. The power of one can become the power of many, and that in turn becomes the power of a nation; of an empire.”

The dark mare circled around Twilight predatorily as she continued.

"I am in charge of Equestria and you aren't, and there's a reason for that. You're a parasite. A leech. Had I not given you a chance to do something remotely useful to others, you would have spent your entire life as a lazy, good-for-nothing pseudointellectual, poisoning the minds of true Equestrians with whatever revolutionary trash you come up with."

She reached out suddenly with her magic and seized Twilight by the front hooves, lifting the unicorn up slightly as her foreleg was turned.

"These hooves," she said, "have never worked a single day of labor. Have they, Twilight?"

"I've—n-no, but—"

"And yet you believe yourself a hard worker; that you contribute anything at all to others by reading books and passing meaningless tests, do you?"

Tears started to form in Twilight's eyes. "I-I'm not useless... I'm not..."

"You are," said the great alicorn cruelly. "You cheated yourself out of your only skill—that of using magic—by conspiring against me. I would have been happy to take you on as a student, but you wanted your place as Celestia's whore more than you wanted a place as a productive member of society."

"I'm n-not a whore..." Twilight shook her head.

She looked around, desperate for something to counter Nightmare's argument with, and her eyes eventually fell upon the violin that, despite all of the alicorn's animation and involvement in the discussion, had continued to play the entire time.

"Is music also worthless if it doesn't benefit the state, Your Majesty?" she asked, half-expecting to be struck for questioning what Nightmare was doing with her time.

"Of course not," Nightmare said without hesitation. "Music is an entirely different concept from that of learning. But, like all things, it's only worth hearing if it touches something inside the listener."

A pause.

"Does my music touch you, Twilight?”

Twilight nodded apprehensively. “Uhuh. Yes, Your Majesty. Very, um, beautiful.”

She couldn't deny that it did elicit some feeling from within her; a feeling of nostalgia, perhaps, a pining for a world that had long since rusted away, perhaps before she'd ever been born. At at any rate, it was very emotional music, if also dark and infused by a hint of perversity.

“I wrote it... many years ago. Before I was banished," said Nightmare.

This genuinely surprised Twilight. Nightmare was one of the last ponies she expected to have anything like musical talent. Still, it fit, when she thought about it.

"It's very nice, Your Majesty," she managed.

Nightmare nodded faintly in agreement. "There was a dance that went with it, as well. It was often performed in my court many years ago. I don't think anypony would remember it now, though."

More silence, except for the violin. The notes kept descending, one by one, then sliding back up with an eerie buzzing sound.

"Do you dance, Twilight?" asked Nightmare, and Twilight had the distinct impression that this question was more significant than the words that had come before it.

"I... I don't really know how to dance, Your Majesty. I'm very sorry."

The neutral expression on Nightmare's face slowly split apart into a toothy smile that was one part endearing and one part malicious, as though the alicorn were unsure of what she actually felt at the moment.

"That's too bad," the alicorn said after a while. "I must admit, I would enjoy watching you dance to this. You would look quite pretty doing so."

When Twilight raised her glass to her lips, she found it empty. Fortunately, a tendril of midnight-blue magic took her glass from her and refilled it, and Twilight—as absurd as it was—nodded a thank-you to it. Even more absurdly, it nodded back, before disappearing again and leaving her to drink.

"Why don't I teach you to dance," said Nightmare. "Surely, that would be attractive to anypony, wouldn't it? The chance to dance before a goddess."

Twilight blushed, suddenly envisioning herself being taught ballet by a tutu-clad Nightmare Moon. She wanted to say that she'd pass on the offer—but she didn't. There was a much larger part of her that was afraid of what might happen if she didn't accept, and there was also another small but still significant part that genuinely wanted to know whether the offer had been serious or if it was just a trap to make Twilight humiliate herself.

"Twilight, answer me."

"H-hold on," Twilight muttered, holding one hoof up to her head.

There was a slight flush in her face, ears, and horn now. She certainly felt better than she had when she came in, and Nightmare Moon seemed a bit less intimidating after several glasses of wine. Twilight knew she was a little drunk by then—in fact, she drank deeply from the wine glass again after realizing this—and so she couldn't actually find anything wrong with accepting Nightmare's offer; at least, nothing that couldn't be corrected when she was sober again.

"Twilight."

"Alright," blurted Twilight, hiccuping slightly. "I-I mean, yes, Your Majesty."

Smiling toothily, Nightmare said, "You see? That wasn't so difficult, was it?"

Twilight shook her head, a slow, stupid smile growing on her own face as well. "No, Your Majesty."

"Good. You see? We can get along if you just accept the things I give you, Twilight; there's no need to act like a spoiled brat all the time." Nightmare gestured whimsically at her. "Get up, little nopony."

Twilight slurped down the rest of her wine and then stood up on all four hooves. Her body was shivering, and mist left her mouth and nostrils every time she breathed out, but the alcohol made her feel warm and happy inside. Nightmare looked her over with a dual air of both amusement and a bit of disdain.

"All the way up," she said to Twilight. "Get up on your hind hooves. All the way up, girl."

After trying several times to rear up and stay there, Twilight discovered that she had certainly did not possess the same level of skill as the skill of dancer ponies who walked upright. She looked to Nightmare, who gazed back with a distinct sneer on her face. A gout of blue magic grabbed the unicorn by the forehooves and mane, and pulled her upright so that she was balanced precariously on her hind hooves only. She teetered a bit when the magic let go of her hooves.

Standing like that was a rather inappropriate thing for a pony to do—not only did it bring to mind images of mindless bipedal animals, but it was also just obscene in general. It was, as she understood it, the kind of thing one did in private to show off to a mate before engaging in sexual activities. Moreover, Nightmare seemed to be sizing her up in a way that Twilight didn't like, her eyes roving over the unicorn's body with a gaze that pierced decency itself.

"Take a step to your left," ordered Nightmare.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Twilight moved to the left, swaying dangerously as she did. But she managed to stay upright in the end, and for that she felt a small sense of accomplishment.

"Step back."

Again, Twilight did as she was told.

"Step forward."

She stepped forward and overbalanced, falling onto her face with a sharpthud. As she struggled to get back up on her own, Twilight heard Nightmare laugh softly.

"Get up, Twilight. Are you too clumsy to stay on two hooves for a short time?"

"No, Your Majesty," mumbled Twilight.

She made a heroic and eventually successful effort to return to the standing position she'd been forced into earlier. It wasn't quite as hard as she'd expected it would be to walk on her hind hooves; at least, once she got the hang of it. But that wasn't saying much, as she'd expected it to be very difficult indeed. After only a few steps, Twilight was teetering from side to side, ready to topple over onto the floor again.

"Stop."

Twilight stopped moving. Here, Nightmare simply watched her in silence again.

"Dance now," said Nightmare. "Dance for me."

"I don't know any dance movements, Your Majesty."

Nightmare laughed. It was a slightly softer laugh than her usual one. "Dance anyway, little nopony."

And Twilight tried to dance. She tried to sway her hips and move her feet the way some of the ponies at school would do for the colts when none of the staff were looking—because surely, this would also please Nightmare, her drunken mind reasoned. But she had neither the training nor the skill required to dance well, and furthermore she wasn't very sober; so it didn't take long—only a few jerky motions poorly mimicking what she remembered seeing—for her to tumble over, reeling, onto the floor.

"Ow," she said as she lay facedown on the floor, and after this she giggled in drunken embarrassment. "I think... I think I might need shome help, Your Majesty. I can't stand very good... very well... right now..."

"In the grand courts of ancient times," said Nightmare, "dancers who couldn't perform as instructed were executed before the nobles to compensate for their inability to entertain. The next dancer would then perform with the added risk of slipping in the blood that coated the floor."

Twilight swallowed hard, hoping that this was not Nightmare's intention. But there was already a line of magic winding around her thigh, up her stomach, and eventually around her neck, as if to strangle her.

"Don't kill me, Your Majesty," she begged of Nightmare. "I-it's just a dance..."

The magic tendril caressed Twilight's cheek gently.

"Twilight..."

"Y-yes, Your Majesty?"

"I was only teasing," said Nightmare.

Twilight's face flushed. "Oh."

"You ought to learn to trust others, especially when they've already proven themselves to be more true to their word than you are to your own."

A long pause followed, during which Twilight watched and felt the magical feeler crawl across her body until she relaxed a bit, deciding that if Nightmare were going to strangle her to death, it would already have happened.

"What do you say, Twilight?"

"I'm sorry for not trusting you, Your Majesty," Twilight replied in a low voice.

"Very good," Nightmare said.

Her magic wrapped around Twilight's throat a second time and caressed it, prompting Twilight to turn her head upward to get more of the pleasant sensation, and then downward again when she realized what she was doing. But it moved yet further up after this; it touched her ear, tickling it gently and causing it to flick a couple of times on its own.

Then Twilight felt the strangest sensation she'd ever felt in her entire life: that of a cold, slimysomething slowly pushing its way into her ear, and then into her brain. She started hyperventilating, terrified; batting at the thing with her hoof while also trying not to look at it. No matter how much she squirmed, though, it continued to violate her without stopping, until it had infused her brain with its essence.

It wasn't just digging around aimlessly in her head, either: it was injecting things into Twilight's thoughts. Memories, ideas, sights, sounds, and feelings were flooding into her intoxicated mind at such a rapid pace that she couldn't quite keep up with sorting them out. The room spun around her, and the dizziness that came with the sudden overload of information grew exponentially with each passing moment.

As abruptly as it had entered her, and before she could even fully process what was happening, the magic tendril withdrew again, leaving a void of confusion behind it. Twilight staggered to her hooves, still batting her hoof reflexively near her ear, but in her disoriented state she couldn't even sit up without a wave of nausea passing over her. She lay on her back with her mane spilling out around her like a violet-striped halo, fighting the sudden churning in her stomach.

"W-what... what just happened...?" she eventually whimpered, once the nausea had ebbed away enough for her to speak without worrying that she might vomit all over herself.

"I told you," said Nightmare calmly, "that I would teach you to dance."

"What?"

"Get up, Twilight. Get up and dance, as I have taught you."

Twilight gagged again as a fresh wave of nausea washed over her. She barely managed to stammer out, "I f-feel, I feel sick... M-may I please, p-please go back to m-my room, Your Maj—"

"That is not the correct way to respond to such a command," Nightmare told her in a bizarrely even tone, as though she were a schoolteacher with endless patience. "When I tell you to get up, you get up. Do you understand me?"

Twilight nodded mutely, rubbing her tear-smeared cheek against the floor, but she still made no move to get back to her hooves.

"Get upnow," said Nightmare, "or a brief bout of queasiness will be the very least of your worries, girl."

Though a splitting headache was creeping up on her already disoriented mind, Twilight finally obeyed the order, rising sluggishly to her hooves and swaying as she stood before Nightmare's imposing form. It took her an eternity to even come to the realization that, aside from the predictable effects of her nausea and the wine she'd consumed hampering her ability to balance, she no longer had to devote every process in her brain to staying upright.

Standing on her hind hooves suddenly felt just shy of natural; like she'd done it so many times that it was no different from walking like a pony anymore. Intrigued enough by the abrupt change to lose sight of her situation for a second, she tried stepping forward and back, and then spun around on one hoof like a ballet dancer, more out of curiosity than anything. It wasn't just standing that was easy now, Twilight discovered, but even walking and balancing on the tips of her hooves seemed ingrained now.

A horrid screeching noise brought her flighty attention back to the real world. Nightmare had deliberately drawn the violin's bow across the strings in such a way that it produced the awful sound, while at the same time boring into Twilight's head with her cold eyes.

"Will you stand there like an imbecile for the remainder of tonight," Nightmare inquired softly, tilting her head just a bit, "or will you dance, as I have repeatedly commanded of you?"

"I don't know how to dance," pleaded Twilight. "I really don't know how to... to..."

But shedid.

The knowledge was pouring into the forefront of her brain as if from a secret aqueduct she'd never known existed. All the movements, all the positions, the training, even the muscle memory, seemed to materialize inside Twilight's mind; a complete understanding of something she had no real memory of ever learning.

"I... I'll dance, Your Majesty," she said. A moment later, as she was backing up, she added, "...sorry for the misunderstanding."

The music started again, and with it, Twilight began to move; to sway expertly as the sound of the violin bit into her aching head like a whirling sawblade. It started with moving her hips, not her hooves, and in fact at first it was much less hoofwork than it was bodywork—but this soon bloomed into a more complex series of actions that seemed something like a sexualized ballet routine.

The dance itself was as sensual as it was beautiful, uncovering an eroticized element to the music that Twilight had not noticed before. It was dark, it was sexual, it was inviting, and at the same time it was also tempestuous and animalistic, filling her with a vast, incomprehensible desire that she absolutely had to express some way or other. While as intriciate as any classical performance, each movement also served to show Twilight herself off—it was going by so fast, and it was suddenly so ingrained within Twilight's mind, that she couldn't stop herself from performing even when it was clear that she was transgressing far beyond her personal boundries of what was modest.

And yet, though she was hardly aware of what she was doing, it was at the same time not the work of an outsider at all. Twilight knew she was no puppet—everything she did was coming from inside her, albeit from a place she didn't know existed. The steps were ones that had been practiced into strings, into chains, to the point where each and every step she took seemed like a continuation of what came before it; a smooth, flawless performance that could only have been delivered by a seasoned professional. But it was not predetermined, either; there was room for Twilight to put together just how she'd carry out particular parts of the dance, how she'd combine them to please Nightmare Moon; as though she'd been learning the theory since she was a small filly.

Nightmare watched her, seemingly enraptured by and approving of her performance as Twilight swayed and spun in time to the music. Soon, Twilight had moved closer to her—but her steps were always moderated by a silent command within the routine which was emphasized to a particular degree: that she was not to get within three steps of Nightmare. Absurd, but Twilight didn't dare question the feeling for fear that she would provoke a response that she'd regret.

It finally sank in, after what seemed like far too great a time wondering what the cause of her sudden knowledge of dancing was, that Nightmare had literally injected the routine into her brain. That she had not realized this before was somewhat embarrassing to Twilight, given the obviousness of it.

The idea that Nightmare had the power to alter her thoughts was both terrifying and intimately fascinating to Twilight's scientific mind. She'd never heard of such a spell—although, admittedly, she knew Princess Celestia had banned large subfields of mind magics centuries earlier, so it was quite possible that it had simply been removed from public circulation and was only remembered by a creature as old and knowledgeable as Nightmare Moon.

She spun deftly on one hoof, mane and tail swirling around her like violet-striped streamers. A hesistant smile crept onto her face as she realized that she was, to a degree, enjoying what she was doing—ignoring, or reveling in, that each step was drawing her further into the insanity of Nightmare's music. Although it was lewd and demeaning to be reduced to an object of entertainment, she couldn't deny that the intense dance was also... fun, in a way that she had never associated with books and would certainly never have pursued on her own.

Twilight's body was already exhausted, as the most exercise she'd gotten regularly in the past was walking between classes, but she pushed herself to continue. Even before it ended, she could feel the music building up to its climax, growing stronger and more frantic. And all the while, Nightmare was paying little attention to it, choosing to watch Twilight with a piercing gaze.

The music collapsed suddenly, dropping from its maddening intensity to a single wavering note. With it, Twilight threw herself down before Nightmare in a bow so low her nose brushed the cold floor, and there she remained. Nightmare herself continued to play, resurrecting the music as a series of repetitive, slow, hollow notes. The alicorn kept bending or doing something similar to the strings to give the sounds a screechy, ghostly quality, as though she were recalling surveying the dead ruins of something she'd destroyed.

Then this, too, dropped off, and there was silence. Twilight, still caught up in the mania despite being prostrate on the floor now, did not dare look up.

"A moving and passionate performance," said Nightmare at last.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Twilight mumbled. She reached around to push her mane, which was now sticky with sweat, out of her eyes, but still didn't raise her head.

"Did you enjoy performing for me, little nopony?"

"Y-yes, Your Majesty," she replied. "I enjoyed it very much."

It was actually not entirely a lie. Twilight had quite enjoyed dancing; it exhilarated her in a way that reading books just never had. Perhaps it was the adrenaline, or the thrill of being able to do something that other ponies considered beautiful, but at any rate, it had been... fun.

One of those midnight-blue tendrils slid over into her ear again, and Twilight cringed as it entered her brain and began draining away the knowledge that had been given to her. Part of her was rather sad to have it taken away again, in addition to her general discomfort with having her mind invaded for a second time. Maybe when things went back to normal, she thought as the tendril withdrew from her thoughts again, she would find somepony to give her real dancing lessons.

"Get up and come over here, Twilight." Nightmare gestured at herself with her hoof.

Twilight stood up, still feeling a bit dizzy, and hesitantly approached the alicorn.

"It was a custom in these ancient societies for the lord of the house to give the best dancer a kiss; a reward, of sorts, for pleasing the audience. And as I am God, you should appreciate my gifts, no matter what they are. Come closer."

She continued to beckon Twilight forward until the unicorn was right in front of her. Then, she leaned down and kissed Twilight on the lips.

It was different than what Twilight had imagined it would be, when she did imagine kissing colts; different from what she'd seen happen secretly in the schoolyard. There was little tenderness or hesitance— Nightmare was forceful and agressive, mashing their lips together hungrily. Her lips were warm and wet and soft in a way that made Twilight's stomach churn, so smug and invasive even on their own. And when Nightmare started to grope her flank lewdly, Twilight was unable to stand the violation of her personal space any longer, and jerked away.

The next few seconds were a blur of noise, motion, pain, and an inarticulate scream from the unicorn. She suddenly found herself on her back a good distance from where she had just been standing, holding both hooves to her face and tasting blood in her mouth. The fact that she'd just been struck, whether with magic or with hooves, or both, took some time to sink in.

It had been so sudden that she didn't even know how many times she'd been hit; only that the entire left side of her face hurt like it'd been smashed with a hammer. Twilight didn't even know what to do, or how to deal with it—Never before had anypony actually hit her, unless accidentally running into her in the school hallway counted.

"I'm sorry!" she sobbed, holding her hoof up in a feeble attempt to protect herself as Nightmare approached her with a look of frightening calm. Something was loose inside her mouth; something small. When she spat out the blood, which ended up covering her mouth and chin because she hadn't turned her head first, a broken tooth came out with it.

"Am I not good enough for you?" The alicorn stood over Twilight, looking down upon her. "Is a kiss from a goddess beneath your golden hooves, little princess? Is it?"

Shaking her head wildly, Twilight replied with something that was mostly incoherent because of her hysteria. To her credit, she managed to tack "Your Majesty" onto the end of it. "No, no, I swear, no—I'm so sorry, Your Majesty. Please, please, please don't... h-hit me again..."

She then ducked her head, narrowly avoiding being hit in the face by Nightmare's violin. The instrument shattered into several pieces on the floor instead.

"We went over this the other night, but perhaps you were too busy guzzling my wine, pig that you are, to pay attention." Nightmare's voice was cool and inequine, sounding more like a pair of shears than a mare's voice. "I am a goddess, and I have deemed you, some filthy little mud pony with a horn, worthy of my attention. You are getting what most ponies would kill to obtain, and you're getting it free of charge. Are you really so arrogant as to think you have the right to refuse something I give you?"

Instead of saying she just didn't want it, and that it would be better to give it to somepony who did, Twilight wisely kept her thoughts to herself and shook her head. "No, Your Majesty."

"Then why did you?"

"I-I was, I was—I was d-discomfited by your aggression," said Twilight truthfully. "It wasn't something I was expecting. I was expecting gentleness. I'm so sorry, Your Majesty. Please..."

This appeared to placate Nightmare to a degree. She said, "I see. And if I kiss you again, what are you going to do, regardless of whether it fits your very specific criteria or not?"

"Accept it and b-be grateful for the gift you've generously given to me," the unicorn replied immediately.

"Very good," Nightmare said. "Twilight, you keep refusing the things I offer you—often things that will make you happier. Since you end up getting them anyway, what, in fact, is the point of resisting me?"

Down on the floor, Twilight shrugged. It was less a rebellious motion than a defeated, shameful one. "Iunno, Your Majesty..."

"Then what do you think you should do about it?"

"Stop fighting," mumbled Twilight.

"Why?"

"Because it just gets me in trouble, Your Majesty."

Nightmare nodded her head condescendingly. "Good job, Twilight! Perhaps all the time you spent reading things that have no relevance to the real world instead of learning how normal ponies interact with each other didn't completely destroy your common sense after all." And she gestured to herself again. "Come here. I'll give you one last chance, and if you don't appreciate it, I'll beat you bloody.Come!"

Twilight fearfully approached Nightmare, who soon grew impatient and dragged her the last couple of steps with a leash made of magic. This time, she forced Twilight to stand on her hind hooves again instead of leaning over herself, although she used magic to keep the unicorn from falling. Then her lips were on Twilight's again in an even more aggressive kiss than the first one, and her hooves were sliding up and down Twilight's sides.

Trembling, Twilight allowed Nightmare to kiss her and grope her, too afraid now to protest the violations. It really wasn't any much worse than the previous time; not until something started pushing its way into her mouth. At first, she wasn't sure what the distinctly forked thing was, but then she came to realize that it was the alicorn's tongue that was violating her.

It slid over her teeth, then wound around Twilight's own tongue and paralyzed it, and then it was exploring the inside of her mouth like a snake tasting the air in front of it for the scent of something delicious. Twilight gagged when it slipped into her throat, but she was still too frightened to do anything but cry.

She could even feel it going further and further down, until, in an utterly surreal moment, she was able to lift her hoof and feel the end of Nightmare's tongue when she touched the small bulge in her throat. And when Nightmare moved away, her impossibly long serpent's tongue was still inside Twilight's mouth. It slid out slowly, taking its time, until it finally went back where it came from, and Twilight was able to sink down and sob.

"Don't ever refuse me again," Nightmare whispered into her ear, speaking thes sound with a venomous sibilant hiss. "I've put up with your narcissism, but my patience has run out. The next time you behave like a bratty child in front of me, you'll get hurt very badly. Do I make myself clear?"

Twilight bobbed her head up and down, hiccuping slightly as she did. "Yes, Your Majesty, y-yes... very clear..."

"Excellent."

Twilight shuddered as Nightmare took a moment to run her hoof down Twilight's cheek—a gesture that was far more disturbing for its tenderness than its condescension—and then the alicorn pressed another, much softer, kiss to her lips, prompting her to flinch. It only lasted for a split second before Nightmare drew back again, and gave Twilight a shove away from herself.

"I did rather enjoy our time together, your pathetic whinging aside. I think we shall meet again later this week."

There was an expectant pause, and then Twilight mumbled, "Yes, Your Majesty... I-I-I look forward t-to it..." even though she was sure the dread was plainly visible on her face.

"Go now." Nightmare's magic gave Twilight another prod in the direction of the room's exit. "There will be a golem waiting at the door to take you back to your room. I shall, as before, send one of my servants to retrieve you when I have an opportunity to spend time with you."

"Yes, Your Majesty..." Twilight bowed slightly as she backed up toward the door, not willing to risk turning her back on Nightmare. "Good—Good night, Your Majesty. I greatly enjoyed being in your p-presence tonight..."

She was pushing the door open when she heard Nightmare murmur, "Good night, Twilight."

This system does not exist to serve you

Every Night is a Night of Nightmares

by the parasprite

Chapter 1: This system does not exist to serve you

Sweet Dreams

Sweet dreams are made of this

Who am I to disagree?

Travel the world and the seven seas

Everybody’s looking for something

Some of them want to use you

Some of them want to get used by you

Some of them want to abuse you

Some of them want to be abused

Twilight Sparkle glared at the morsel of bread that had been placed in front of her. It was clearly stale; so much that she figured she'd probably break one or more of her teeth if she bit down on it with too much force. This and a plate of some kind of gruel-like stew were her meal for the day. There was something blue on the side of the bread that might or might not have been mold.

This would be unhealthy even if it hadn’t gone bad, she thought. A meal like this can’t possibly contain even half the nutrients required to maintain a pony’s physical body.

She didn’t say any of that out loud, though, because she knew the jailor who’d brought her food was probably still hanging around in the corridor outside with his fellow guards. They liked to taunt Twilight sometimes; to come to her door and mock her; and she didn’t feel like inviting their unpleasant comments tonight. Or today, or whatever the proper time was—there was no window in Twilight’s cell, so she’d lost track of the number of days she’d been imprisoned. It had to have been at least several weeks.

The little enclosure in which she sat was about the size of a standard closet, and stank of old bones and rancid water. Twilight was sure it hadn’t been used since the griffon wars, so she avoided touching anything that looked organic if she could help it. The unicorn herself was unwashed, smelled of filth, and looked more like a homeless street pony than Princess Celestia’s personal student now. Her mane, which had begun to grow out a lot longer than she liked, was matted and tangled and greasy, and she’d probably eventually have to cut large portions of it away because of all the knots. Her time was almost completely split between sleeping and… sleeping, as there was little else to do.

With a despondent sigh, she recalled the events that had led her to this point.

As the personal student of Princess Celestia, she had been sent to a small town called Ponyville to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration by her mentor. This coincided with Twilight’s discovery of a prophecy foretelling the return of ‘The Mare in the Moon’, otherwise known as Nightmare Moon; an insane alicorn bent on making the night last forever. When it was time for Princess Celestia to raise the sun in front of the whole town, the pony who appeared on the balcony was not the Princess but Nightmare. She’d declared herself the new ruler of Equestria and then vanished into the continuing night.

Twilight had set off into the Everfree Forest that bordered Ponyville to find the Elements of Harmony; ancient magical artifacts used to defeat Nightmare the first time around. She was accompanied (to her mild annoyance) by several Ponyvillians: Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity. Together, they had made their way through the Everfree, which was surprisingly lacking in dangerous beasts and obstacles for a place that (according to Dash) nopony had ever come out of alive.

Getting to the old castle where the Elements were allegedly contained was a matter of walking for several hours and having the two pegasi fly them over a river and a chasm, nothing more. It was all so terribly ironic: Twilight had expected to have to search for a long time to find the Elements of Harmony, or to fight her way past legions of monsters to get to them. In the end, it wasn’t finding or getting to them that was the problem, but the fact that they were nothing more than lifeless ornaments made of stone. Nightmare Moon had been quite real, but the knowledge of whatever had defeated her, if it wasn’t Princess Celestia herself, had apparently been lost to time. Since the stones were too heavy to lift, even with magic, Twilight and her companions had left them behind. They were probably useless anyway, she thought; probably just some decoration left over from ages past. The six mares had wasted their time on a pointless quest.

The unicorn had planned to have Spike contact Shining Armor when she returned to Ponyville (and now she was berating herself for not having done so earlier). Perhaps, she had thought, they could have found some other way of stopping Nightmare. But that hadn’t worked out, as they’d simply walked right into an army of strange, chimeric ponies with leathery wings who wore armor bearing Nightmare’s cutie mark, oblivious to the danger until it was too late. Twilight still didn’t know what they were, where they came from, or why they seemed so inequine. Talking to one was like talking to a mindless puppet.

Before she knew it, Twilight was pinned to the ground by several of these ponies, and a gold ring had been fitted over her horn to keep her from using magic. It was the last time she saw the others, as she (and, presumably, they) had been blindfolded and gagged, then dragged away to who-knew-where. Her best guess was that Nightmare had commandeered Canterlot Castle for her own use.

That first night, they had beaten her and asked her questions: Who she was, how she had known about Nightmare Moon, where she had gone and why, what she knew about the Royal Guard, she knew about the alicorns. Twilight didn’t know how long she’d lasted, having been in too much distress for her brain to record a normal sense of time with her memories of the event. She’d never been so much as kicked before and didn’t have any idea how else to deal with abuse like that, besides to comply with her torturers’ demands. So she told them whatever they wanted to know: She was Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia. She had read about Nightmare Moon in a foal’s storybook once. She wanted to retrieve the Elements of Harmony, but couldn’t because they weren’t real. Her brother was captain of the Royal Guard. Princess Cadance used to foalsit her.

And they seemed to just discard her after that, locking her away in her cell and leaving her to rot. She hadn’t been out of her cell since that night, and nopony had come except on rare occasions when they gave her food and water, and made fun of her. Sometimes there were noises outside in the hallway, and sometimes there were rumbling sounds up above, but for the most part there was just solitude. So far, she had heard nothing about her family, Spike, or the other ponies she was arrested with, or indeed anything at all about what was going on outside her little world. Granted, there wasn’t much chance for her to overhear information in her lonely cell, but it seemed unfair of her captors to keep her so in the dark. Any bit of information to relieve her worry would have been a blessing.

The unicorn picked up the chunk of stale bread and made an effort to break off a piece from the end that wasn’t covered with mold. It was so dried-out that it hardly tasted like anything at all when she tried chewing it up. Sighing, she put it down and looked at the pasty substance on her plate, not trusting that it was even safe to eat at all. But she had nothing else, and she didn’t want to starve to death. She moved the plate a bit closer so she could sniff it. The smell was absolutely nauseating, but she forced herself to take a bite from the mashed-up mound of whatever it was and chew it slowly.

The door suddenly opened and slammed against the wall behind it just as Twilight swallowed, causing her to choke on her food even as she whipped her head to the right to see who had entered. At first, she expected the usual bat-winged, empty-eyed visitors, but the pony who came in was most certainly not one of those. This one was a dull blue earth pony with a rather thin and frail-looking frame who was, for some reason, wearing a dirty cloth sack with eyeholes and a mouth cut out of it over her head like a mask. A razor-straight greyish-blue mane flowed out from the bottom of the bag and down her back.

“Up,” said the earth pony sharply. She made an accompanying ‘come here’ gesture with her hoof as she spoke. “Come on. Hmm, lazy. Lulamoon. Get her up.”

A powder-blue magical aura snaked around through the doorway and picked up the still coughing lavender mare. By the time Twilight balanced herself, it had dropped her heavily and carelessly onto her hooves and switched to holding her around the neck like a leash. Twilight was jerked through the doorway by this magic leash until she was in the hall, facing the other unicorn, who was the same colour as her aura. She had a magic wand for a cutie mark, and also wore a scarecrow-like mask with a hole in the top for her horn to protrude out of.

“You are coming with us,” the blue earth pony ordered, marching past Twilight.

“W-what’s going on?” Twilight croaked. Lulamoon’s magic was a little too tight around her throat for comfort. “Where are y-you taking me?”

“Court. You do the crime, you must do the time. You confessed to the crime. Now you’re going to do the time. Your name has also come up in another investigation, you naughty filly. Her Majesty has deemed your case worthy of her interest, mmhm.”

Twilight had no choice but to follow the earth pony and her silent unicorn friend once the latter started moving, tugging the powder-blue leash along after her. They led her down a couple of dark, dirty hallways lined with doors like the one she’d been imprisoned behind, until they reached a door which led to a room with a table and some chairs in it. This one was actually lit by a lamp hanging from the ceiling.

“That’s your chair.” The earth pony waved at the whole room, not bothering to specify which chair she was actually speaking of.

Lulamoon shoved Twilight into the chair on the far side of the room from the door, then twisted her forelegs around the back of the chair and bound them there with magic. The captive unicorn was in no state to resist such treatment after her imprisonment.

Sitting down across from Twilight with her back to the door, the earth pony casually produced a folder full of papers from within her own tail, set it down on the table, opened it, and began leafing through the contents. Twilight gaped openly at this, bewildered. Some unicorns hid things in their manes with magic, and some pegasi put things between their feathers, but the folder had materialized from a space it could not possibly have fit inside.

“H-how did you do that?” she asked.

“Family secret.” The mare didn’t even look up as she said this, and when she was finished, she extracted a fountain pen from her tail as well. She began writing on one of the pages in the folder.

“But—but that completely defies reality in about a dozen different ways!” Twilight protested. “Earth ponies don’t have the magic needed to create pocket dimensions! And besides, pocket dimensions don’t work like—”

“Shut up.”

The next few moments passed in silence while the earth pony wrote things and Twilight bit her lip, not wanting to trigger a repeat of her first night as a captive. When the dull blue mare finally spoke again, it was without pausing in her writing or looking up at Twilight.

“Twilight Sparkle, yes?”

“Y-yes,” said Twilight.

“Mm. Sparkle. Very naughty. You’ve been accused of treason.”

Twilight started badly. All remaining thoughts of pocket dimensions were chased from her mind by those words. “T-treason? Why?”

“You’re Celestia’s student. Been in on her plans. Not looking good for you, hmm.”

“What plans are you talking about, exactly?” demanded Twilight.

“Not a good position to take. Not good at all. Better to tell the truth about the alicorns. Mmhm. Truth is truth.”

“I am telling the truth,” Twilight insisted. “I don’t know what plans you’re talking about. I think there’s been a huge misunderstanding here, and if you’d just explain what you mean, I’m certain I could clear it up.”

“Mmhmm.”

Words suddenly appeared just inches in front of Twilight’s face, written in Lulamoon’s powder-blue magic. The bound unicorn was too startled to read them at first, but then took them in, line by line:

‘BLINKIE IS RIGHT.

THE GREAT AND POWERFUL

TRIXIE KNOWS FIRST HOOF

THAT IT IS NEVER A GOOD

IDEA TO LIE TO THE ALL

MIGHTY NIGHTMARE MOON.’

“‘Almighty’ and ‘firsthoof’ are both single words,” Twilight said with a scowl, unable to contain her irritation at Lulamoon’s poor Equestrian. Lulamoon’s response to this was to tighten the bindings around Twilight’s limbs until they dug painfully into her flesh and the latter unicorn’s eyes brimmed with tears.

“You and five ponies were arrested while plotting to overthrow Her Majesty,” said Blinkie without looking up. “Correct, yes?”

“I d-don’t—I-I already told the guards—”

“Correct, yes?” the earth pony repeated in the exact same tone of voice.

“I was trying to defend Equestria! We all were!”

“Mmhm. They all said that when I spoke to them, too.”

The heavy silence that followed left no doubt in Twilight’s mind that Blinkie and her cohorts had probably charged the other five mares with the same ‘crimes’. Treason was not punishable by torture or death in Equestria, but Twilight knew it had historically been so in many less advanced civilizations...

“A-are they… okay?” she asked. “They w-weren’t hurt… were they?”

“Don’t know. Jailbreak about, hmm, a week ago. Led by somepony… Shining Armor.”

For the first time in two weeks, Twilight smiled. Knowing that Shining and the ponies she’d accidentally dragged into this mess (well, they’d made her drag them into it, but that wasn’t the point) were safe was the best news she could have gotten besides hearing that the sun had risen.

“Skipped your cell. Don’t know why,” Blinkie added blandly, violently deflating Twilight’s little bubble of relief.

“W-what?”

“The attackers skipped your cell. Didn’t open the door to let you out. Hm. Maybe he didn’t know you were there. Knew where all the others were, though. Hmm, what a mystery.”

Obviously, Shining hadn’t known she was there—her BBBFF wouldn’t ever leave her to rot like that. Twilight wondered if Nightmare Moon had had her removed from the record for some reason, maybe hoping to prevent her from being saved... although the point of that seemed a little lost, knowing what was about to happen to her.

‘MAYBE’, Trixie wrote, ‘HE HEARD ABOUT WHAT SHE DID WITH CELESTIA. MAYBE HE DIDN’T WANT TO ASSOCIATE WITH HER ANYMORE.’

“Would explain it.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight demanded, frustrated.

“This,” the earth pony finally said, putting her pen down and glancing up at her. “Your name has turned up repeatedly in the investigation of Celestia’s pseudo-alicorn program. You are charged with high treason against both Equestria and the equine race, attempted genocide, conspiracy to commit crimes against equinity, and—”

“What?” Twilight cried. “What are you t-talking about? Pseudo-alicorns? G-genocide?”

“—conspiracy to commit crimes against the laws of magic and nature. The public wants you dead. You will be led upstairs to stand trial before Her Majesty in five minutes.”

Just like that, Blinkie went back to writing.

“B-but I’m not… I didn’t… I never—” Twilight kept trying to piece together what Blinkie was talking about, and couldn’t. Neither as a truth nor a blatant lie did it make sense; there was simply too much missing. “I-I don’t unders-stand a-any of this!”

“Of course you don’t,” Blinkie cut in primly, still not looking up. “You never will.”

“W-what do you mean…?”

“You’re a rich brat who has been cushioned from suffering all your life. You do not know pain, and you do not know fear. Mmhm. This is real life, Sparkle. You’re ill-prepared.”

She finally made eye contact with Twilight, who could see the condescending smile even behind the mask. It just made the unicorn feel even more degraded and confused; she was being talked down to by a pony who not only sounded younger than her, but was wearing a cloth bag over her head and looked like a scarecrow.

“When Her Majesty speaks to you, I would advise you to remember something,” said the filly, closing up her folder and sliding it back into her mask. Twilight didn’t ask about it this time. “This system does not exist to serve you. You are not special anymore. You are a nopony. Just like the rest of us.”

Twilight felt completely silly listening to Blinkie, who couldn’t have been older than fourteen or fifteen, but there was something about the steel-blue pony’s cold, detached demeanor that either scared or baffled her into doing so. It was like interacting with a clockwork machine: Nightmare gave it orders, and it carried them out to the letter, without deviation or emotion.

Rather like the new system itself, she soon discovered.

Blinkie had not been far off at all.

Though she insisted that she already knew the general layout of Canterlot Castle, Twilight was blindfolded on the way up from the dungeons. Trixie Lulamoon was an unpleasant guide, constantly jerking the magic leash and making her stumble. It was a relief when they finally reached the huge doors of what had once been Princess Celestia’s throne room—until the blindfold was removed.

The castle, which had been bright and inviting in its aura the last time Twilight was in it, had changed. It seemed far more jagged and eerie now, as if Nightmare Moon’s essence had pervaded it and opened it to the frightening wonder of the night sky. The guards in front of the doors were the same ugly bat-ponies that had attacked the library the night of her return.

“Blinkatanya Pie. Trixabelle Lulamoon. Twilight Sparkle. Criminal proceedings. Ten fifty-five PM,” Blinkie, succinct as ever, said to the guard whom Twilight assumed was in charge.

“We shall now search the prisoner,” replied the guard. His voice was low and almost without emotion, except for a just a hint of aggression. “Stand aside.”

“Mmhm. Do as you will. But no violations. Her Majesty was clear on that.”

Twilight spent the next thirty seconds being poked, prodded, and otherwise invaded by a pair of guards, who even felt through her tangled, filthy mane to check whether she was hiding a weapon in it. Finding nothing, they nodded at the two sackheads, and Twilight was pulled up against the wall with Blinkie and Trixie to wait for their turn.

They didn’t have to wait long. With a rusty creak that Twilight suspected hadn’t been there in Celestia’s time—though, having never actually attended court with Celestia, she’d rarely been in the throne room, and so couldn’t be entirely sure—one of the huge double doors swung open just enough to allow a quintet of black-and-yellow-clad flyers to file through. Three were pegasi, one was some kind of insectoid, and one was a massive, vicious-looking griffon. All were wearing hoods and masks.

“…might have fled to Cloudsdale,” the leader, a dark-maned stallion, was saying quietly. “He wouldn’t expect us to search there. We all know the golems aren’t very intelligent, and the Shadowbolts haven’t much of a presence in that city…”

“Dickheads can’t walk on clouds,” said the griffon. Twilight wrinkled her nose at the blatant tribalism.

“Dashh nogh truhe,” exclaimed one of the mares, who was halfway through biting into an apple when she spoke. She swallowed thickly and added, “Dad used to use a spell to walk on clouds when he visited me at flight camp.”

They passed right by Twilight, not noticing—or not acknowledging—the shadowed unicorn or her captors, and continued on down the hall.

“Good thing he got out of the last encounter with his horn, then, right?” the rearmost pegasus, a mare barely out of fillyhood with a gamboge mane, cackled. “Gilda’s still got his freakin’ eyeball, though.”

“I heard griffs fry them like eggs,” said the one with the apple. “Is it true, G?”

“I’ll get a hot plate and show you how we do it,” the griffon promised. “I’ll show you what else we do once we get ahold of the rest of him, too.”

Their laughter echoed through the hall as they disappeared down it, leaving an appalled Twilight to wonder just what had happened in the time she’d been locked in the dungeon. She’d never imagined ponies could be so blasé about things like murder and cannibalism. A terrible thought suddenly occurred to her: what if they decided to murder her? What if the penalty for treason really was now death, and Nightmare Moon had brought her up to make an example of her?

Twilight felt Trixie tug on the leash, and panicked. “No, no, I don’t want to go in there! I don’t want to die!”

She tried to run; tried to resist the other unicorn’s pull; but the leash seemed to have its own force of gravity, and only moved in the direction Trixie wanted it to. Twilight pushed at the ring around her horn, but that still wouldn’t budge, either. As a desperate, last ditch attempt to save herself, she started trying to snap her own horn off, hoping the spot below the ring would still be long enough to channel some magic.

A sudden sting on her cheek brought the unicorn back to reality, even as her hooves were wrenched away from her horn and bound behind her back. The masked face of Blinkatanya Pie looked down at her.

“Pull yourself together,” said Blinkie flatly.

Still shaking, Twilight took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “I-I’m sorry… I’m… I just… don’t want to die…”

“It is unlikely,” the earth pony replied. “You are not a likely candidate for public execution. You are simply too pathetic, and therefore subject to too much sympathy from bleeding-hearts and other such types.”

With a sharp jerk, the lavender mare was levitated off her hooves by Trixie and carried after the two masked ponies through the doors.

The royal court was, at its heart, the same as it had been before: a massive room large enough to hold the nobles and their delegates on either side of a red carpet leading up to the throne. But the room was nearly empty now, save for the bat-winged guards who lurked in the shadows, barely visible. Huge, frightening statues of gargoyles had taken up posts along the walls; some of these seemed to move their eyes and leer at Twilight when they thought she wasn’t looking. All was lit by soft moonlight, as though the moon were shining directly above.

At the end of the red carpet, upon Princess Celestia’s massive throne, sat Nightmare Moon. The alicorn was even taller than Celestia, Twilight realized with appropriate awe. Instead of her battle armor, she now wore gleaming black-and-silver regalia, much like Celestia’s had been, and a black cloak draped across one side of her body. With her matted mane and filthy coat, Twilight suddenly felt like an insect before what seemed to be a living incarnation of absolute power.

But, remembering the raving mare who’d first appeared upon the balcony in Ponyville, the unicorn knew it was merely an illusion; a façade of competence put on by an insane mare who wanted to plunge the world into eternal night because of a disagreement with her sister. Nightmare Moon was nothing like Princess Celestia—she wasn’t worthy of respect or admiration, and certainly not worthy of groveling. If she was going to go, Twilight decided, she would hold her head up and go with the dignity Princess Celestia had taught her to carry herself with.

With a soft thump, she was deposited on the small circle before the throne where ponies had once stood and received kindness from Princess Celestia. Twilight could feel the slitted blue pupils boring into the top of her head as she got up, trembling all over, but she steeled herself and gazed back defiantly into them.

A long silence passed as the two of them stared at each other, unblinking, until Twilight finally reached the limit of her ability to withstand the reptilian gaze and had to look away. Nightmare smiled, showing a set of teeth that were pointed instead of flattened. A predator’s teeth, made for tearing and ripping flesh.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she said. She spoke softly and calmly, though her voice echoed in the silent chamber nonetheless. “You are the filly who challenged me in Ponyville on the night I returned from my exile, are you not?”

“Yes,” replied Twilight, looking back up at her.

“You are my sister’s student, are you not?”

“Yes, I am.” She held her head high and smiled without thinking, still proud of herself after so many years. “And as her student, I feel it is my duty to tell you that she’s going to raise the sun any moment now, and you’re going to be banished back to the moon.”

“It’s quite presumptuous of you to address me as an equal,” Nightmare commented lightly. “One would almost think, from the way you act, that you didn’t respect my crown as much as I suspect you venerate Celestia’s. Do you simply see me as a lesser ruler, or did my sister fail to teach you the proper protocol for interacting with your betters?”

“You aren’t the rightful ruler of Equestria,” the unicorn told her, “so I cannot bring myself to recognize your crown without feeling as if I’m lying. And Princess Celestia taught me never to lie.”

“Well-played, little filly… but what makes her any more the rightful ruler of this land than I?”

“She didn’t try to plunge Equestria into eternal night.”

Nightmare showed Twilight another disconcertingly toothy smile. “Sometimes extreme measures are necessary to accomplish extreme goals, Twilight. You can’t believe Celestia always talked down ponies who challenged her… divinity.”

The alicorn coughed slightly; a surprisingly equine gesture, although it seemed more a means of preventing Twilight from speaking than anything else.

“How old are you, Twilight? How long has Celestia been teaching you?”

The unicorn fidgeted nervously under her unrelenting gaze, but managed to maintain her confident posture. “I’m nineteen years old.”

“And how long has she been teaching you?”

“I became her student when I was eight.”

“Did my sister teach you powerful magic, Twilight?” asked Nightmare, leaning forward with a sick little smile on her face. “Did she teach you how she made the sun? How the heavens work, and how the earth was formed?”

“Sh-she d-didn’t teach me those things… But she taught me a lot of amazing magic… Well, it was m-more how to control my magic, and then I learned all the spells on my own…” Twilight almost smiled wistfully before remembering where she was. The memories had, at the very least, helped to strengthen her resolve.

“Charming,” said Nightmare, sounding mildly amused. She sat back again, the smile dropping off her face. “Twilight Amanda Sparkle… you have been charged with high treason against the Republic of Equestria; conspiring with the great criminal Celestia to oppress and murder innocent ponies; conspiring to commit crimes against nature, magic, and the very foundations of equinity. Do tell me… how dost thou plead?”

“I can neither plead nor defend myself if I don’t even know what supposed crimes I’m being tried for!” protested Twilight. “If you can’t explain them to me, then I have no choice but to conclude that—that they’re just made-up charges!”

“I believe you know what you did, Twilight... and even if you didn’t, I have no real obligation to explain it to you. The world does not revolve around you, little unicorn.”

This system does not exist to serve you. Blinkie’s words echoed in Twilight’s head.

“There’s no such place as the Republic of Equestria,” she declared. “I cannot enter a plea for a crime against an entity which does not legally exist. This ‘world’ is illegitimate, unfair, and—”

“Do not try my patience, child—that was a clever act in the beginning, but it’s beginning to grow old. You have committed acts heinous enough to shock an entire nation, and yet you stand before me, the pony whose task it is to decide your fate, and mock me… I should throw you outside and let the mass of ponies demanding your prompt execution have their way with you. It wouldn’t be quick or pretty, believe you me.”

By the time she was finished, Twilight had backed up several steps and lost quite a bit of her confident posture.

“You should be thankful to have a trial at all,” Nightmare continued. “As I said, the commonponies wanted nothing more than to skin you alive for your betrayal! It was only by my grace that you were allowed this chance, so I would suggest you appreciate that grace as best you can, rather than taking cheap shots at me whenever possible.”

Her voice echoed off the walls, and eventually died away into nothing. Twilight didn’t trust herself to speak; she wanted desperately to point out that Nightmare had also probably been the one to strip ponies of the right to due process in the first place, but didn’t want to further anger the dark goddess.

“They don’t want me dead,” she said, stunned. “Why would anypony want me d-d… You’re lying.”

The alicorn’s face remained impassive and completely indifferent. “Do you really want to find out if I’m lying? Because I’m beginning to think it would save me the trouble of dealing with your backtalk if you did.”

Once upon a time, Twilight would have called her on it. She would have said yes, because she knew ponies wouldn’t do such absurd things as demand each other’s murder. But once upon a time, Twilight had never been beaten within an inch of her life before, or heard four pegasi and a griffon talking about eating a stallion’s eyeball. She had never been starved in an underground cell or seen the whole world she’d grown up in transformed into a sick perversion of what it had been.

“N-no…” the unicorn finally squeaked out. “No… I don’t.”

Nightmare replied in the very opposite tone: deliberate, cold, and sharp. “Then. How. Do. You. Plead?”

“…Not guilty…? B-because I d-don’t even kno—”

“Not guilty, then,” the alicorn announced to the mostly empty chamber. “Tell me, Twilight Sparkle, what do you know of alicorns?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Alicorns represent a divine union of the three pony tribes: the horn of a unicorn, the wings of a pegasus, and the strength of an earth pony. They’re immortal and eternal. Each alicorn rules a particular attribute of our world. Princess Celestia is the oldest and wisest alicorn, because she controls the life-giving sun.”

“And why does Princess Celestia rule Equestria?”

“Because she’s the oldest and wisest alicorn,” Twilight repeated.

“And if another alicorn is born?” inquired Nightmare, leering nastily. Twilight had a feeling she was being led into a trap, but couldn’t see it, hard as she tried. “Would they rule alongside her?”

“...of course...”

“Then why,” the dark goddess asked, “do you not recognize my rule? I am an alicorn. I rule the night. I am the sister of Celestia, who fled when she found that I had learned of her plan. Or did she teach you to recognize only her as the supreme being of the universe?”

“You all keep talking about a plan! What plan? I don’t know of any plan!” shouted Twilight, frustrated. Nightmare’s leer transformed into a look of delight upon hearing these words.

“You really don’t know... She really never told you, did she?”

“Know what?”

“Why, your destiny, little filly... the one Celestia planned and architected for you.” Nightmare let out a little chuckle. “Oh, this is rich...”

She suddenly dissolved into a thick, starry midnight-blue mist that poured down the steps of the throne to reform beside Twilight, who was grabbed and spun around so she was facing toward the door with Nightmare. “My golems were ordered to search her chambers and interrogate those who worked closely with her… and they disc—”

“Th-those ponies with bat wings… they’re golems?” the unicorn blurted out. “Inanimate matter made sentient? That’s—”

“Do not interrupt me,” said Nightmare. Although her voice was soft, there was an underlying note of menace within it that made Twilight shudder and shrink back in fear. She was immediately dragged right back over again, forced to sit beside the cloaked alicorn.

“While investigating the Princess’s staff,” the dark mare continued, “my golems found numerous references to a previously unknown book written by Starswirl the Bearded, which was hidden from me by my sister for the purposes of an unknown project involving the selection of a unicorn to be transformed into an alicorn. A replacement sister for her after losing me, you see. Can you imagine such a betrayal… to find out that my sister considers me not only unlovable but replaceable?”

“I… I’m s…You can’t be… She wouldn’t do that,” Twilight said at last. “She wouldn’t. Princess Celestia is the kindest pony I’ve ever met!”

“Those words have been spoken of many terrible tyrants throughout history, Twilight. In my anger, I had my newly recruited Shadowbolts arrest those involved and interrogate them… and they found things that disgusted me. Celestia already believed she was a goddess, I think, and that she had the right to decide the fate of Equestria… to create more alicorns… to create a master race of alicorns to rule over the lesser ponies.”

“What?” said Twilight. “What are you ta-alking a-about?”

“You, Twilight… she made you her student because she wanted you to help her breed this master race. Princess Sparkle… the Alicorn of Friendship. That was to be your title in the New Order.”

Make some friends, Twilight. Like Blinkie’s statement, the words echoed again and again in her head, bouncing off the inside of her skull and only getting louder every time.

“She had you watched, you must understand, ever since you became her student,” continued Nightmare softly, sitting beside Twilight, who wondered for a moment how she could even stand the smell of a pony who hadn’t been washed in so long. “My golems found logs and diaries… my Shadowbolts extracted information… my loyal servants found magic… proving that she had every possible moment of your life recorded in the finest detail possible to judge with a microscope.”

“E-ev… every… moment…?”

Nightmare nodded, her face stretching into a horrible smile. “Yes, my little pony, I am afraid so… If you wish to see the most invasive violations for yourself, I will show you them.”

“Sh-she… b-b-but… no… I-I…” Twilight whimpered. “Everything?”

“Everything,” repeated Nightmare cruelly. As she spoke these words, her horn lit up, and her eyes glowed white.

The world of Nightmare’s dark palace vanished around Twilight, and the unicorn was drawn into a completely different one—an overload of little flashes of memories of her.

There she was at age eight, doing her secret hoofshake with Cadance; there she was again at age eight, urinating into the toilet on what looked to be the same day, if the grass stains on her hooves were any indication. There she was at twelve, wearing her school uniform and doing her homework; and again, also probably on the same day, washing her marehood in the bathtub a little more vigorously than she normally would have—it was the first and last time she ever experimented with masturbation. At fifteen, making a few cuts on the inside of her foreleg because she saw all the other fillies doing it—she’d never figured out how Celestia had knew about that, as she’d healed them immediately, ashamed of herself. At eighteen, borrowing one of Moondancer’s saddles and wearing it in front of the mirror, and hearing her own thoughts about how she wished she was prettier and more desirable. From thirteen onward; reading saucy novels in the library and imagining herself in place of the damsel in distress; now hearing her own voice thinking thoughts that were no longer hers alone.

“Oh, dear Faust!” she screamed, horrified, as she finally jerked out of the vision. “Get out, get out, get out—Get out of my head!”

She looked to Nightmare with wide eyes, silently pleading for some indication that the things she had just seen were false; that they were a lie; that they had been ripped from her head and replayed before her; but she saw only the wide, twisted grin of a vindicated sadist looking back at her. Sitting down, the unicorn put her hooves over her mouth and began to hyperventilate, rocking back and forth a little on her rear as she did. One of Nightmare’s huge wings brushed softly against her cheek.

“Poor Twilight Sparkle,” murmured the dark alicorn. “All alone... lied to by her friends, her family, and her loving mentor...”

“That’s not true and you know it!” Twilight snarled, shoving the wing away. “That was a lie; it was all a lie, you’re lying, you got those from my head—Stay out of my head!”

“Oh, Twilight, I don’t need to look into your head to see everything. Celestia compiled the most intimate moments of your life into neat little programs for me. I wonder if she would ever have told you, had you become an alicorn in the end.”

“I like being a unicorn! I like being me! I don’t want to be an alicorn! I would never—”

“Would she have given you a choice?” Nightmare raised her eyebrows.

“Of course she would! She always gives ponies a choice!”

Nightmare laughed softly, as though playing a game she was thoroughly enjoying. “Like the choice she gave you, before monitoring your every move? Oh, Twilight... Those who spoke of you did so as though you were some kind of genius, and yet now I’m finding myself severely disappointed. You seem... quite subpar. I imagine you must have been a very poor student.”

Unwilling to listen to any more of Nightmare’s taunts, Twilight pushed her ears down with her hooves and curled up into a ball on the cold floor. Even through this, she could hear the alicorn’s laughter, and the awful words directed at her.

“The most terrible thing about it is how many of her own subjects she would have murdered to accomplish your transformation. I have heard and read of her plans—to unleash the demons of Tartarus upon Equestria to test you. To release the insane, all-powerful god chimera that she and I took the throne from ten thousand years ago, merely to see if the friendship she had arranged from just days after you came to her attention could be broken...”

“Shut up,” Twilight repeated miserably.

“Ah, and the changelings... fascinating creatures. They feed on love, and in my time made up the bulk of the employees of the world’s oldest profession. Show them love, and they will show you devotion beyond measure. And my sister intended to wipe them out, merely for the sake of testing you once again. She wanted to destroy an entire race just for you, Twilight. Just for you! Genocide, little filly, in your name.

“...You seem so insistent that Celestia always gives ponies choices. Therefore, I can only conclude that you were involved in her conspiracy by choice; that you chose to take part in her plan to deceive the three tribes of Equestria and murder millions... and so, Twilight Sparkle, I find you guilty on all charges and sentence you to be released from my castle.”

“To be... what?” Twilight was so stunned by Nightmare’s bizarre verdict that she almost forgot to be upset for a moment. She looked up at the alicorn. “R-released?”

“Why, yes,” said Nightmare innocently. “Twilight, didn’t I tell you... the ponies of Equestria want you back so very badly. You denied the truth of it earlier, believing that nopony would want to harm you... because, I am sure, you are just so likable.”

Twilight felt her gorge rising, realizing what Nightmare meant. “You’re bluffing...”

“There’s no need to bluff a threat I intend to carry out,” Nightmare told her. “Come, Twilight. Let us begin the march to the scaffold.”

She got up, and her midnight-blue magic surrounded Twilight’s hooves at the same time. The unicorn found herself stumbling along beside Nightmare like a demented puppet, completely unable to control the movements of her own legs.

“They don’t really want me dead,” whispered Twilight as they passed through the two gigantic main doors. “They don’t have any reason to! Why would they believe anything you say?”

There was a small balcony on the lower part of the castle where Princess Celestia sometimes made speeches to gathered crowds in the city’s street below. These speeches had usually accompanied small events that didn’t merit the use of a full-sized parade ground, though Twilight had occasionally been allowed to come out there with her when the Princess simply wanted to say good morning to her subjects. Now Nightmare Moon brushed her wing across Twilight’s mane before making the unicorn puppet-walk through the doorway onto this same balcony.

“They will believe me, my little nopony,” Nightmare crooned, “because I am the great savior of Equestria.”

The sun, now an unnaturally dull red-orange in colour, hung in the sky over them all in a position that indicated it was around four in the afternoon. It bathed the world in an eerie glow that didn’t seem quite right; it was far too dim, far too weak. An aura of confinement rolled off it, like it was being held there by force, though Twilight couldn’t tell what, exactly, made it seem that way.

But if the sun was in the sky, and it was no longer night, then where was Princess Celestia? Why was Nightmare Moon still able to hold power over the land? Twilight turned her head to glance at Nightmare, eyes wide and confused. The black alicorn was completely unperturbed by the sight, gazing upon it as though it were something to be proud of—a great accomplishment; a feat of ages.

It wasn’t Celestia’s sun hanging in the sky, Twilight realized, but Nightmare Moon’s.

“But—I-I thought—you—I thought you—wanted e-eternal night—” the smaller mare stammered, unable to comprehend this sudden change in Nightmare Moon’s behavior. “You said—at the Summer—you said—that the night—”

“—will last forever,” finished Nightmare. She gestured grandly at the terrible sun, which increasingly reminded Twilight of orange juice mixed with horse blood. “And last forever it shall! Behold: eternal night!”

“But it’s not—that’s not night—”

The dark mare smiled a horrible, noxious smile and leaned close to Twilight’s ear to whisper, “...I am the night, Twilight Sparkle. And I shall last forever.”

“This is impossible... o-only Celes—Princess Celestia can raise the sun...” But Twilight couldn’t keep her eyes off the bleeding, hurting sun.

“I raised the sun,” explained Nightmare triumphantly. “Without me, this world would be dying, and the ponies of Equestria know it. They know that when Celestia’s terrible plan was discovered, she refused to raise the sun. Perhaps she intended to kill all but the alicorns, or perhaps she simply lost her mind. I do not know. But when this world was all but lost, I, Nightmare Moon, took the sun in my magic and raised it myself!”

“That’s not true—Princess Celestia is—she—she’s the most—powerful—and the w-wisest—j-just—shut up—” After wiping her eyes, Twilight pushed her ears down against her head again. “Just shut up... I won’t listen to any more of th-this... I w-won’t...”

“Then we have nothing more to talk about.”

Nightmare reared up and slammed one forehoof onto the stone ledge with such force that it produced an earsplitting crack and a shower of sparks. She remained there, levered up in such a way that she looked like some kind of great statue or monument. Twilight, who had screamed in terror when the explosion happened right next to her head, cowered pathetically beside her, afraid of being hit by more sparks if her other hoof came down.

“My little ponies!” the alicorn boomed. Twilight was almost blown away by the sheer floor-shaking volume of Nightmare’s greeting. She had no doubt everypony from Canterlot to Stalliongrad had probably heard it. “I present to you: the sister of the traitorous murderer Shining Armor; the student and accomplice of the lying maniac Celestia; the unicorn who was to decide who your friends would be and who your enemies would be, and for whom countless innocents would die! My little ponies, I present to you: Twilight Sparkle!”

Her magical grip wrapped around Twilight again and dragged the flailing, helpless unicorn into the air, to dangle her several meters over the curious ponies gathered around the town square. Quite a few of them had come out to see what was going on, it seemed. That; or Nightmare’s Royal Canterlot Voice was just so commanding that they were drawn to it by some subtle magic within. When they saw Twilight, their expressions changed to ones of hatred.

“Killer!” somepony shouted.

Another added an equally cruel, “You and Celestia can burn in the sun together!”

“W-what?” stammered Twilight, horrified. Something hit her hard in the side of the head. She caught a glimpse of a rock of reasonable size, still trailing wisps of a sickly green aura, falling away beneath her. “No! No, she’s lying! Princess Celestia would never—”

“Save it! We know the truth!”

“Come down here, you coward! Get what’s coming to you!”

Tears started to fall from Twilight’s eyes, and when she tried to wipe them away, somepony or other pinned her hooves behind her back with a flash of green magic. Another rock smashed into her stomach, making her vomit onto the ponies below.

“Agent of Discord!” screamed a mare.

“Why do you all hate me?” Twilight sobbed. “What did I do?”

“She wonders what she did,” Nightmare’s Royal Canterlot Voice thundered over the roar of the mob. “She wonders, and yet she will not look for the truth! For you, Twilight Sparkle; for your ascension, Celestia would have opened the gates of Tartarus; freed the father of hatred and lies; and thrown us into war with an innocent race—all to prepare your coming!”

Yet another rock hit Twilight. This time, it hit her in the horn, and she cried out in pain. This was absolutely barbaric. What had happened to Equestria? How could it had become so monstrous a place in such a short time?

“This system,” called a vaguely familiar voice from a rooftop not far from where Twilight was hanging, “does not exist to serve you.”

Twilight turned her head and looked at the source, which turned out to be a dusty blue earth pony—easily recognizable as Blinkie Pie even with, or because of, the mask—sitting with her hind legs dangling off the edge of the roof.Though her face was not visible because of the scarecrow-like bag over her head, Twilight had a feeling she was smiling unpleasantly behind it.

“Mm, you’re a pony non grata,” Blinkie said as a second well-aimed rock connected with Twilight’s horn and the unicorn screamed. “Best lose the attitude. Her Majesty might not feel like holding you much longer. Hmm. Not good to fall in, no.”

“B-but this i-isn’t r-r-right...” bawled Twilight. “It’s all wro-ong...”

“Life is what it is. You’re ill-prepared, yes you are. Best lose the attitude fast, mmhm.”

Somepony levitated an egg into Twilight’s face. By the time she’d shook the stuff out of her eyes so she could see again, Blinkie had simply vanished into thin air, leaving Twilight completely, utterly alone with the crowd.

There wasn’t a single friendly face there; all were twisted into visages of hatred and scorn. So many green eyes full of hatred. They really did want her dead. Nightmare really had convinced them that Princess Celestia was going to do all those terrible things. It didn’t matter whether she really was going to those things do them. The world believed it. And now they all wanted her dead because of it; wanted to bash her head in with rocks and snap her horn and tear her insides out.

A braver pony might have stood up for what was right. A braver mare would have allowed herself to be martyred in the name of Celestia. A braver pony would have paid the ultimate price for her belief in the sun goddess’s innocence. But Twilight was not that a brave mare, and she knew it. She was a coward who wept in terror, fearful of the inequine death that awaited her below. And when she began to slowly descend toward the mob of angry faces, she just couldn’t keep clinging to the knowledge that it was a worthy sacrifice for Celestia, who might or might not have spied on her all her life and plotted to kill millions to mutate her into a chimera.

“Alright!” she finally screeched. “Alright, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, you were right! Th-they want—they want to kill me! Y-you made your p-point!”

“I’m not making a point, Twilight Sparkle.” Nightmare’s cool, unconcerned voice echoed down from the balcony. “I’m doing as I said I would; letting you free into the streets of Canterlot.”

“But they’ll kill me! You can’t let them d-do that! It’s wrong!”

“I give my ponies what they want,” the alicorn crooned.

“Well, I want to live!” Twilight cried. “I-I don’t want to die!”

Her eyes widened in horror as a broken bottle whizzed by, its jagged edges shining in the red sun’s rays.

“Beg,” said Nightmare. Her voice came in soft and close, as though she were speaking right into Twilight’s ear. “Beg for your life, little nopony.”

Twilight stopped moving down. She was just out of reach of the crowd, looking down upon them with her hooves bound behind her back. Now she was close enough that they were throwing all kinds of things at her: bottles, rocks, sticks, nails, rotting food, even a brick that (mercifully) missed her.

Watching the spot where the brick had fallen, she started, “I... I humbly beg y—”

The brick-thrower from made an encore appearance just then, hitting her in the side of the head hard enough to make a bap sound. She screamed, now completely disoriented and feeling airsick, and her brain feeling like it was vibrating the way a struck gong would have done. Any sense of dignity she’d hoped to cling to was lost at that moment.

“Please spare me!” she finally sobbed. “Please! Please, please, I’m sorry! Oh, please—”

“Are you, now,” inquired Nightmare.

“Yes! I don’t w-w-want to die! Please spare me!”

Nightmare didn’t stop lowering her, although there was a noticeable purr in her voice she next spoke. “...I think you’re missing two words. Have you still no respect for my crown?”

“Wha-at-t—I-I mean—I’m s-sorry... Your H-Highness... P-please d-d-don’t let th-them kill m-me! P-please s-s-spare me... Your Majesty...”

A bottle smashed against her horn, and then Nightmare started to slowly levitate her back up, to the crowd’s apparent dismay. None of their other projectiles managed to find their marks, though several came close. The green magic holding her hooves captive lost its range just before she got to the balcony.

“I pardon you,” said Nightmare coolly, dropping Twilight onto the balcony.

The battered unicorn’s trembling legs almost gave out beneath her. A huge wing gathered her up and herded her against the seated Nightmare’s side, pressing her close against her warm coat. Twilight clung tightly to her, wide-eyed and still shaking after her terrifying ordeal, and continued to cry softly; much more so than her frantic sobs down below, now that she was no longer in immediate danger. With the alicorn’s huge, muscular leg on one side and her massive wing on the other, she felt almost like she had when she’d been a filly and Princess Celestia had comforted her after she’d had a bad dream.

Nightmare smelled like the night, somehow; Twilight had no idea what the night sky smelled like until then, but she knew instinctively that that was it. Some part of her wondered just how she’d ended up crying in the wings of the Mare in the Moon, but another part cared little for anything but the comfort they afforded. As for Nightmare herself, she sat with her cloak waving slightly in the wind, looking silently out over the darkening city of Canterlot for what seemed like hours.

“Come,” she eventually said. “We’re going inside.”

And she shooed Twilight back into the castle, even as the last of the mob dissipated, and its insectoid instigators released their captives from their hold. A few bottles and rocks with traces of changeling and unicorn magic on them were all that remained beneath the balcony, in the end.