The Unwanted One

When I woke up, I didn’t realize right away where I was: it was dark, as if my head was covered with a blanket. With a really big blanket, made out of feathers… Wait, it’s a wing! My wing… So, how do I control them? After a few minutes I finally managed to fold it, and instantly squinted due to extremely bright light attacking my eyes. Well, good morning, right? I looked around, still having a blurred vision from waking up. There was a small pile of books on a bedside table. I got up to look at the titles, and noticed that I was sleeping on a pillow. Wow, I thought no servant would risk to put it on the bed, trying not to wake me up… Well, thanks for that. To them and to Princess. Nothing else has changed in the room — same curtains, same pictures, same quiet ticking of the clock that shows early morning. Well, of course, I fell asleep before dawn… I felt pretty good. My flank almost stopped disturbing me, and my leg also didn’t hurt, at least while I didn’t move it. Their healthcare is pretty cool. Seems like they really can heal a broken leg in four days. Tia also mentioned some effect of energy overflow that I got back on the Moon. Judging by the fact that I still don’t feel hungry or thirsty, it still affects me. Should I stretch? I tossed and turned in the bed, stretched out, trying not to disturb my hurt leg, thoughtfully looked at the floor. Can I stand? Theoretically, three points of support was enough… I rolled on my belly, crawled to the edge of the bed and put my forelegs on the ground. That’s new. It feels as if you were standing on your hands, but also not… Now, diagonally… I lean on my healthy hind leg, while my hurt one was still on the bed. Trying to get up and shift my weight on front limbs. I stand. Feels weird: one might think that it would be uncomfortable to stand on four (well, three in this situation) bones, as a human on stretched legs and hands, but no, it feels okay. While trying to make a step forward, without disturbing the leg, the first thing I found out was the fact that standing isn’t walking: I almost fell, barely stopping from stepping with the hurt hoof. I was saved by my other reflex — the body flaps its wings, helping to shift the weight to the front and stay on the feet. The second fact is that laying on your folded hind legs is pretty comfortable, but holding them in this position while standing feels terrible, as if trying to bend your pinkie without ring finger. Carefully return to the bed. Well, bummer. You can stand on three legs, but not walk. At least if one of the hind ones is missing, remembering canon, holding something in the front limbs and using the remaining three to move is natural for ponies. My only option is staying in bed — I sighed. At least I didn’t fall, thanks to my reflexes. About them. And importantly, about my wings. I can spread them almost without any problems now. I always wondered, what wings did Nightmare have, membranous or feather ones? To my slight disappointment they turned out to be out of feathers, but with weird ones. Thick, long, unusual shape. They made an impression of a solid, leather-like wing from afar. Interesting. Fold, unfold, flap…I have spent almost half an hour playing with my new limbs, getting used to controlling them. Turned out it was important not to focus as hard as you can, but instead relax a little bit and think less, so your reflexes would take over. It’s my distant pipedream, you know? Buried by my terrible health. I could fly. Probably not right away, I still have to learn, but still. I looked at the clock, mindlessly tracking the second hand. Wings are but a fraction of what I have now… I am an alicorn now, mind you. How long do they live again? Nobody knows — not a single one of them had died yet of natural causes, and Princesses are well over a thousand years old… If they had lived on Earth, they’d have had an opportunity to personally meet prince Rurik… God, how long do I have to live now? Somehow, It felt wrong. Alicorns are powerful mages. A new, unexplored, incredible path of magic has opened before me. With an alien world around me, waiting to be discovered. With its unusual, strange rules and laws. A world of fresh air, vast forests and without a looming war that risks to be the last one in human history. No, I liked my world. Dynamic, fickle as a flame. Liked my work and people that followed me. But that history is over for me now, even if it’s a tough pill to swallow. There is no return now. Now I have to leave the past behind me, even if it’s hard, and move forward, to the unknown. Start from scratch. Look for friends, things to do, learn new stuff. And, maybe, I will like this world as my old one… There will be problems, of course… Well, I already have them. Gender… It’s complicated. At least Equestrian language doesn’t have grammatical genders for verbs. Other than that… No, I won’t make a tragedy out of that and, groping myself with hooves, cry: “Where?!”. You have to have the nerve to complain about this body. Not the most pleasant turn of actions, but it’s not the end of the world. I wasn’t planning on flirting with locals, and for them to flirt with me… Well, I’d love to look at that. But to be honest, I don’t know anything about this body… I’ll have to clarify some things about it, just to avoid any unpleasant surprises. Well, I will figure it out later. I think, with my current life span this problem will solve itself after about fifty years, when everything will bore me and I will get tempted to experiment… I shook my head, driving this thought away. I don’t want to think about this. That’s the physiological side of the question. From a social standpoint, if a popular fan theory is correct, it won’t change anything for me, meaning I still will be a “stronger” gender. “Have some teats, will you? Are you a mare or what?!” I chuckled a bit, thinking about this comparison. Well, even if it’s not true, then my race is out of the social standards anyway, alicorns don’t fit there due to incredibly low population and tremendous power. Plus, I have evil reputation, I don’t know whether it’s good for me or not. At least, I won’t be bothered unnecessarily, and I’m fine with that. But if everyone runs away from me, screaming with primordial fear, including vendors, it will be very annoying. Let’s say I need to buy some bread, and instead of “took-paid-left” I would have to get the panicking cashier from under the table. It depends on how I look in the eyes of the locals, I could either be a spooky villain or a complete monstrosity. So, we’ll talk and then I will decide whether or not I have to change my reputation. In conclusion: I have almost greenhouse conditions. Of course, I and Celestia haven’t decided anything yet, but her mood yesterday made me somewhat optimistic. I wonder, what will come next? Will she send me to Ponyville? But maybe she will leave me in the castle, to learn how to rule the proper way, while she’s still here. Etiquette, reports, Equestrian laws, royal things… I shivered. I don’t like the idea of that! No, it’s probably a good idea to learn everything that I’ve mentioned, because of my race I will likely need it, but I don’t want to do it every day. I rolled on my back, stretching my wings, and hanging my head off the bed: this is the only way I can lie on the bed now because of my horn… Wings are half of the package by the way. My horn also exists. There it is, long, spiral, always staying in my periphery. I should learn how to use it. Considering that without it you can’t even comfortably read… Damn. I don’t have any teachers other than this body’s previous owner. Which means I have to touch her memory again… I nervously bit my lip. I didn’t want to submerge myself into events that happened on the Moon. But I have to, either that or I will have to explain Tia why I can’t lift a teacup. Making up my mind, I sighed and rolled on my side and tried to calm down. I just had to focus on Nightmare’s memories and I immediately felt as if I was drowning in a swamp, making great efforts just not to submerge completely and not to lose myself…

…

After a couple hours, I was in a terrible mood, but I finally managed to “catch” the pieces that responded to Nightmare from my memories using her horn and recover myself. Now I need to try and replicate the sensations that I remembered and use the horn. And also, I learned that I not only can build castles from anything I found, but also skillfully destroy them. The list of spells used for destroying buildings made by Nightmare was extensive. She, abandoned by Luna, vented anger on the castle that they once built together. Remembering how the great towers crumbled to dust accompanied by a mad, hysterical laughter was painful and sad. Luna, you damn mule, what did you do? Why did you leave Nightmare Moon? Why? Do you understand, you blue ass, that you killed her? There is almost nothing left of her personality! I whimpered as I breathed through my teeth. Some kind of heavy and grim feeling settled in my chest. Nightmare’s perfect memory is, perhaps, the only thing that is left of her. She saved everything, even the tiniest of details, feelings, senses, words… And transferred them to me, if I ever needed it. My wish to remind Luna about what she had done was really strong, the only thing that was stopping me from reminding her immediately was my broken leg. I managed to calm down at least a little bit only after an hour. To distract myself I decided to start using the information that I gathered from my recollections. Despite all the theoretical knowledge about how to do it and my body’s reflexes, it still took me three hours just to feel my own magic source. During my attempts I growled, grinded my teeth, swore like a pirate, and almost cried — I felt that desperate. But when I finally managed to get a feel for the energy, the progress picked up really fast. It didn’t take any big effort to direct and structure the energy into something simple, telekinesis for example. The pillow got surrounded by turquoise aura… and flew into the wall, exploding into a cloud of feathers. Whoops… At least I didn’t take the book, as I first planned… But I didn’t think that I would destroy the pillow this fast. I continued to train my magic on pieces of pillowcase and feathers, also mentally scolding myself for not starting from feathers first. After one and a half hours my training was interrupted by a knock on the door. By that time, I finished putting feathers on the pillowcase, managing to do at least some kind of cleaning in the room. The door was silently opened by a golden aura, letting the Sun Princess in. “Good day, Princess Celestia,” I waved with my left hoof. Her response was a surprised look. Well, yes, I didn’t think about that: Nightmare Moon suddenly saying that the “day is good” is kind of ironic. “Hello, Nightmare,” Celestia nodded. “How do you feel?” “Better than yesterday. Trying to figure magic out… By the way, I am sorry, but… do you have another pillow?” I feel the red appearing on my cheeks. At least my fur is black… Celestia followed my look, shook her head, and inspected a small pile of feathers on pillowcase. “What’s wrong with your magic?” She asked with a hint of concern. “I tried to lift it, but it went flying into the wall,” I said. “I think a hundred-year long loneliness and Elements had some impact on my head. I even have some problems with coordination.” I tried to mimic Nightmare, even though I doubt it looked convincing. Such an explanation is going to be useful if somebody gets interested in changes that I made to my persona, even though barely anyone knew the original personally, and changes are going to be welcome… But I don’t want to test how they will react to someone else in Nightmare’s body… Better safe than sorry. I should make a legend about my flying and magic skills for the same reason. And if Celestia for some reason thinks that she has to help me, then I should ask for some lessons, I think it’ll do me nicely. Of course, it’s dangerous to tell her what my weaknesses are, but… Seriously if she wanted to end me, then she would have done so already. “Loneliness?” Celestia twisted her brow. “I thought you shared Luna’s body. You could talk, couldn’t you?” I didn’t consider that twist… Nevermind then. But I won’t tell her everything myself, she should ask Luna. Seems like she didn’t think it was necessary to tell her sister about this, so I’ll make her. Damn blue chicken… “So, Luna didn’t tell you anything?” I was “surprised”. “You should ask your dearest sister, what she told me when I had called her a friend for the first time and what she did after. Tell me what she said later. I am really eager to hear.” Even a simple reminder is enough to fly me into a rage. I closed my eyes, and made a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. I was shaking. If Luna would have come in here, I’d jump on her right away. This is not okay. Because the Night Princess didn’t do anything to me… But Nightmare’s perfect memory that I retained showed me every small detail. Each thought, each feeling, everything! She left me there, and I felt terrified as my personality crumbled, and I couldn’t do anything! I have reasons to hate her! “I will ask.” Celestia’s voice hardened. “No matter what happened between you two, I won’t let you hurt my sister, Nightmare.” “Then make sure we won’t run into each other. I won’t rely on my self-control.” It was hard to speak, I had to force myself to say everything calmly. “I hope it won’t fail you. I don’t want to use any extreme measures against you.” Celestia warned me. “Goodbye, Nightmare,” she bid farewell, and left without waiting for my response, closing the door tight. Well… So much for a conversation.