Every Night is a Night of Nightmares

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.