The Unwanted One

I walked across the room again, turned around, reared up and, finally, jumped, helping myself with my wings. Nothing hurts or bothers me, and there are no unpleasant feelings. “Thank you!” I said to Celestia that was watching my moves, smiling. Today she examined me and finally said that I was completely fine. I don’t know how long it would have taken me to heal without her help, but thanks to that my recovery lasted only for four days! It was unusual to walk on four limbs, but thankfully I wasn’t wrong about my reflexes and they really helped me. I made another lap around the room and approached Princess. “Want to take a stroll?” She asked. “I wouldn’t mind.” I nodded. “I hope it won’t be necessary to defend myself from the guards that are going to try and save you from the monster’s captivity, hmm?” I smiled. Tia looked confused for a second, it seemed like she didn’t think how she was going to tell everyone about me, focusing only on secrecy for now. I didn’t even hear any hoofsteps last four days except for hers, and she always came alone. As if nobody even visits this corridor, not even the servants! “Why would we need to see the guards?” Princess found an answer and looked into the window. “The garden is under our windows.” Her face showed mischievous expression, as if she was about to do something fun and eccentric. She moved the curtains with telekinesis. Then she climbed the windowsill and told me: “Waiting you at the bottom!” And jumped. Feeling completely lost, I watched as the colorful tail disappeared. What the hell was that? I looked out of the window. My god, it’s the fourth floor! Celestia playfully winked at the bottom, visually pleased by her pampering. What should I do now? I can’t fly! I’m going to slam into the ground like a sack and get in the bed again, healing more fractures. I looked down again and gulped. Tia didn’t pay attention to me anymore, looking at some kind of bug crawling on a flower. Trying not to look down, I started climbing the windowsill. It’s thin like a stick! I had to put my haunches as close to my front legs as possible. Trying not to slide back into the room, I swayed, almost falling outside, but managed to stabilize myself with my wings. My blood froze, my throat got sore. A light breeze of wind touching my wet back made me shiver, “It’s like jumping with a parachute… except I don’t have one!” I nervously smiled. “Nightmare! What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” Heck, I almost fell again, being scared by suddenness of this question. “No!” I answered honestly. “I couldn’t fly on the Moon! I just don’t remember how to do it!” “Oh…” Tia drooped for some reason, but then shaking her head, raised her head again. “Jump, I will catch you!” It’s still scary! But I have to! I’d have to start learning how to fly eventually, so why shouldn’t I start now? Especially with Celestia keeping me safe. I suppressed my will to look down. I know how this effect works. It’s like cold water: the longer you touch it with your leg, hesitating — the colder it feels, so you feel less confident. I made a deep breath. Three! Two! One! I push myself out of the window and spread my wings. Wind slams my face, taking my breath away for a moment. Open the eyes! I said open!!! Oh, God! The ground’s coming! Fast! I make a few flaps faster than I can think about it, stabilizing my flight and slowing the descent. I didn’t have enough time to celebrate, because I caught a tree branch with my wings and lose my very unstable equilibrium, so a glide turns into a fall. The world turns before my eyes, the wing burns. I have enough time only to close my eyes and fold all my limbs, bracing for impact, as I crash into some kind of bush, breaking twigs with a loud crack and… get stuck in place, like a fly in a jelly. “Nightmare! Are you okay?” Celestia’s voice sounds concerned, almost frightened. Why does she unironically care about me? I will never understand her. I open my eyes and look around. Turns out I was hovering above ground. By the way, my both hind legs fold fine… I stretch my limbs and Tia carefully puts me on grass. “I am, princess. But my pride took a hit.” I answer the question. Well, first time for everything, I guess. And thank god Celestia caught me. “Can I?..” She points at my wing. I nod. A familiar tickling sensation rolls across my body. “Open your wing.” I quietly do as I told. Doesn’t feel like something serious. Slight discomfort. “Everything is fine.” princess said, proving my theory. Well, it could be worse. “Thank you.” I smile. “Let’s go?” Tia suggested after a few seconds of silence. She returns to her usual, friendly face, but for some reason it still seems like her mood worsened. “Come on, I am fine. After all, I still should have remembered how to fly sooner or later, so it was a matter of time when I had to jump out of the window.” I chuckled, but the Princess went even gloomier. Um… I thought she was worrying about her jump, thinking that she forced me to do so too and this almost ended poorly, but it seems like something worries her. “Celestia?” I looked at the gloomy princess. “Everything is fine.” She unconvincingly smiled. Well, okay. I won’t push her, she knows what she is doing. If she doesn’t want to tell, then fine. We’ll walk in silence.

…

Her garden is amazing! The roads are marked only by stones on their sides, there is no pavement, so you can enjoy pleasant and soft touch of grass on your legs. Carefully trimmed bushes, trees that are giving a nice shade, bewitchingly great compositions made of flowers and clean air, filled by its smells. I breathe deeper, closing my eyes with pleasure. This is nice… Submerged in pleasant feelings, I noticed that we came to the other part of the garden only when my hooves started to loudly clang on paving stones that suddenly appeared under my hooves. It looks more like a park rather than garden now, cobbled roads, lamps, benches, the noise of a fountain can be heard somewhere nearby. A statue of some pegasus stands In the niche between the bushes: he proudly stands with his wings open. What a natural, great sculpture. Sculptor even managed to make his fluttering mane. Impressive, really. I catch up with Tia, she is so busy with her thoughts that she didn’t even notice that I have stopped, walking past me, I kind of like her silence less and less by every second… I stopped directly in her path. “Sorry…” confusedly said alicorn, stumbling into me. That’s bad. “You don’t look like yourself. What happened?” I stare into her eyes. “Nothing. Everything is fine, really. I just… need to think.” Celestia forced a smile. She does really look a little better than before, but this still doesn’t look “fine” “You don’t trust me? Well, I can understand why…” Why did I even think that she would be frank with me. And it’s still not very pleasant to think about it. “The trust doesn’t matter! Just…” We come around the corner, and my sight stumbles on an unusual statue of some grotesque creature, which looks as if it was stitched from different body parts… From different body parts. I suddenly remembered one of Nightmare’s creations back on the Moon. I involuntarily step back, almost slipping on a rock, I shake my head trying to get rid of intrusive vision. No! Fuck that! I don’t want to remember! “… with you?! Nightmare!” I regain my senses from Tia’s scared voice, she looked frightened. I cover my eyes and slowly breathe, calming myself. I didn’t expect such a move from my brain. This damned chaos spirit managed to cause the associations that make me scared to go deep into my memories, the ones about the time I’ve spent on the Moon, especially the last one or two hundred years. “Let’s go away from here.” I propose to the Princess, and turn back, not waiting for her response. “What happened?” Celestia demandingly asked, catching up to me. “Happy memories of living on the Moon.” “After… When you were left alone?” Princess clarifies with sadness in her voice. “I talked to Luna two days ago, and…” She falls silent, struggling to find words, I am walking on the paved road next to Tia, listening to the sound of our hoof stomps. All the good mood that I had this morning vanished. Exile isn’t the topic that I can calmly talk about. Things that happened to Nightmare are scorched into my brain with red-hot steel. And searing pain will remain for a long time, while an ugly scar will be eternal. “What happened to you… there?” Quietly asked Princess, as if talking to herself. After a brief pause, I decided to answer. “Let me tell you this… If you get bored and decide to get rid of me, then kill me as cruel as you want, burn me alive if you will. Even this will be way more merciful than the exile back to the Moon.” I genuinely believe that. I would really choose anything over exile. And this makes me scared. “Why?!” Celestia barely managed to ask. A fleeting look at her is enough to understand that my words shocked her. “Because a terrible ending is better than terror without an end, princess.” I conclude this talk. My mood gets even worse. Honestly, I want to send this white horse far away, and seclude myself with a bottle or two of really hard spirit, just to get wasted and forget about this dialogue next morning. “I am sorry, Nightmare. I shouldn’t have… A thousand years is unfair and cruel to you and Luna…” She bitterly spoke. She asks me for forgiveness?! I stop in my tracks, silently looking at the drooping Princess, trying to understand what is happening and how I should react. And this exile really torments her. Especially after her sister told her what she did. She cares about what I feel. She cares about what she did to me in the past. Why?! What does she have to do with me anyway? Who am I to her? Damned ponies, what the hell is on your mind?! “But did you have a choice? Don’t the Elements decide how to affect someone on their own? Did anyone wanted for me to return with Luna? Still, the Elements of Harmony gave me my own body, and now I am here.” “I never thought about it this way…” Slightly cheered up, Princess replies thoughtfully. “Weirdly enough, I am not mad at you, although… It didn’t cost you anything to get rid of me back there, in the castle. No pony — no problem, you know… No one would have said anything. Instead, you are taking risks by delivering me back into the palace, actually healing and helping me… I still don’t understand why are you doing this, to be honest.” “Thanks for the kind words.” Celestia smiled with relief. “You’re welcome.” I smiled back. “It’s not hard if it’s for you. If you are kind to me, then I will reply with kindness. Plus, it’s the blue nonentity that we both know, who’s to blame for my bad condition,” I conclude. “Nightmare… I understand your feelings, but Luna is my sister after all.” Tia reprimands me. “Sorry.” I say indifferently, causing a sigh from Princess. Celestia gives me a reproachful look and continues the walk towards the garden. I join her. For some time, we both walk in silence, each thinking about own things. Celestia finally doesn’t look gloomy and withdrawn: white alicorn looks around, squints at the Sun, sometimes smiles to her own things. I don’t know if I told her the truth about the Elements, but my hypothesis is logical, and I am really not mad at her. It’s weird of course. Personally, there is no reason for me to be mad at Luna too, but I am literally furious thinking about her. How much of me is there in me, really? It’s useless to deny that Nightmare’s memory changed me, but how much? And why did it happen so seamlessly? Actually, should I worry about this? We all inevitably change as the time passes due to certain conditions. It was just a little faster in my case and that’s it. I am worried about the future. I am healed, there is no point of holding me in the castle… Anyway, why should I guess? Nothing would happen if I ask. “Princess?” “Yes?” Tia surfaced from her thoughts. “What should I do next? Now when I am healed and feeling relatively fine?” I demandingly looked in Celestia’s eyes. “It’s a hard question.” She sighed. “You see… Your appearance together with Luna is something incredible. I expected Elements returning me my sister, but I never thought that this may be the result.” “It was a surprise, I bet.” I smiled, but Tia didn’t share my enthusiasm. “As you can understand, I was preparing for Luna’s return.” she continued. “The official version of things that had happened a thousand years back goes as follows: Luna sacrificed herself to forever imprison the evil spirit that attacked Equestria — you — on the Moon.” Uh huh… And now this “evil spirit”, that turned out to be intelligent and negotiable, walks on the ground with Luna. And you somehow have to explain its existence. Great. “I am really sorry that this happened.” Tia looked at me guiltily. “But who could’ve supposed that would happen?” “I understand…” What can I say? Looks like I am going to see a lot of panicking ponies from now on, running away from me and screaming “Don’t kill me, I have children!” and so on… “And as you can understand, it’s really hard to think of any options because of that. First, I wanted to invite you to stay here for some time more, but… Sorry, I am afraid that soon I won’t be able to pay you enough attention — my short vacation is ending soon. You could have kept adjusting to the new atmosphere without my participation, with Luna for example, but knowing your relationship…” Princess sighed. “And your servants, guards, aristocracy and others won’t be enthusiastic to meet and help me.” I finished Celestia’s phrase. “Sadly, it is true.” She agreed. “Of course, I won’t leave this situation “as it is”, but it will take a lot of time to change it. So, there is only one option left for you, which is heading over to my personal student in Ponyville. She will help you get used to the changed world, and this is going to be an important friendship lesson for her.” “Changed world”, huh? You can’t even imagine how correct you are, Celly…. And of course, you are going to be silent about the fact that your student and her friends can pet me with their rainbow. I can understand her approach: keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer. More so, I can’t really object. The situation in the mentioned town is known to me from canon, and I can’t say so about the rest of Equestria, and especially to everything else abroad. Also, there is one yellow pegasus that saved my life, according to the information that I’ve got. And it seems like I am in debt. “Okay, I am fine with that.” I said, after thinking this idea through. “What are my targets and goals in Ponyville, and what resources can I have?” Celestia slowly turned to me with a puzzled and lost look. I kept my face straight. “What targets and goals, Nightmare?!” Celestia came to her senses. “Settle in, find out about all the achievements that magic and technology have had in the past centuries, find friends… Just live as all do! You are free in your decisions, I am just trying to help you get the most out of your unusual circumstances, more so, I am the reason why you have all these problems. You can leave Ponyville if you are sure you can manage everything by yourself. About the money… I can provide you with a decent starting sum, plus I can give you monthly payments.” Yeah, of course she’s going to leave me without any supervision. Go wherever you want, uh huh… Our purple librarian is likely to get instructed to report about every step I make. If I would go anywhere else, they would find out where, go find me and politely suggest returning to Ponyville. What else? The news about the money is good… But the idea of getting paid for nothing, honestly, doesn’t feel nice to me. But on the other side, it is necessary at least at first, before I can think of anything I can do and where I can earn money. And about “live as others do”… I feel completely lost, and it’s really uncomfortable. Anyway, we’ll see how it goes. For now, I really have to learn how to use magic, fly and familiarize myself with a dozen of everyday problems… “So be it.” I nodded to Princess. “I am glad that you agreed.” She smiled. “I am going to send a letter to my student today. I’m also going to order to prepare a chariot for you tomorrow morning. Is it fine by you?” “As you wish.” So, tomorrow. There are no reasons for me to extend my stay in the palace. While talking, we turned away from the park’s pavement to the grass road, slowly going back to the clearing where we started this walk. A good mood started to return in this chill atmosphere. Sun warmed my back, grass gently caressed my legs, the air was filled with the flower aroma. It feels great… And I felt easier too. Finally, there is some certainty about what is going to happen to me next. I managed to get along with Tia, even though I don’t understand why. And if my words about the Elements helped her to calm down, then it’s perfect. She did a lot for me in the last few days. She even gave me a small magic lesson yesterday, after my examination. An hour doesn’t seem like much, but I really wanted to figure it out, and Tia turned out to be a great teacher, so by the end of her lesson I stopped messing up my telekinesis, and I also learned a couple of simple things… Then the Princess left me and I got to reading. Well, foreshadowing… Having read Tia’s note for me during my first awakening in the palace, I didn’t even consider that this note was written in ancient Equestrian. And reading books using its modern variant turned out to be a problem. Some of the letters are missing, some of them are pronounced differently, the words changed, unknown terms… I struggled, but continued reading understanding one word after two. What else could I do? Of course, my first book was “Magic basics. Volume one. Twelfth edition”, but it wasn’t surprising that I only understood prepositions, my knowledge of the language was clearly lacking for this book. From the “simpler” books there was a compilation of old fairy tales, except not the kid’s variant, but some kind of study with commentaries to the stories and their analysis. Even skipping all the scientific words, it still was really hard to digest this text. So, this was one of the reasons why didn’t object against Ponyville and contact with the lavender librarian, who can help me better than her? If she wants to, though… Submerged in my thoughts I didn’t notice that we returned to the clearing. “Uh… What next?” I asked Tia, looking at the opened window of my room, about fifteen meters above ground. Tia looked at the window, then turned to me and promisingly smiled.