Anon Y Mous, Hierarch of Halogaland

 

You went out the only way befitting a warrior of your Order - cutting a bloody trail among the forces of the enemy besieging the Castle. So great was your fury, so great was your valor, that the entire enemy line faltered, if only for a moment. And yet the time you bought with your charge was enough for your sisters-in-arms to shore up the breach in the walls, denying the enemy their prize.

By the Moon’s will, no heathen shall threaten your Empress so long as you draw breath – no blasphemous Solarite shall set foot in the throne room so long as your arm has the strength to lift your war hammer.

 

They shall sing song about you, Anon Y Mous, for you spent your entire life defying expectations – a stranger in a strange land, you rose from being a mere vagabond to become the ruthless executioner of your Empress, the only mare you ever respected.

Far from being anything like her weak sister, the Empress of the Night was a mare that commanded respect with her presence alone…a mare that you willingly followed down the path that led you here, laying on the Castle grounds, bleeding from a dozen mortal wounds, surrounded by the bodies of your liege’s enemies.

 

Turning your vision toward the Castle itself your heart knows despair, for where the Guard failed to breach the door, their damned Princess, the bitch herself, decided to intervene, shattering the door with naught but a thought.

 

As your vision slowly fades to dark, you begin to hear murmuring – a faint noise that rises in a crescendo, until it seems to drown out all other sounds. A blinding light accompanies the noise – a light akin to the sun itself piercing the clouds, if sunlight didn’t warm your skin but rather burned it to charcoal.

 

And then it finally hits you – the connection you felt with your Empress is brutally severed the instant the light washed over your broken form.

 

Pain has been your trusty companion for years, but this kind of pain…you thought you bid farewell to true loneliness when you bent the knee in front of Her Imperial Majesty. And yet, for the first time in years you are truly, utterly alone.

A movement attracts your attention – the bitch...Celestia, is emerging from the castle doors, looking battered, yet far more solemn and majestic than you remembered ever seeing her.

 

Not that it matters, for the moment you see her, your vision tinges of red.

 

It doesn’t matter that each movement brings agony, nor does it matter that your broken, battered armor is bombarded by enemy spells – you charge toward the monster that made it so that a decade spent serving was all for nothing.

 

You shall never forget her expression, morphing from grieving to serious, before finally turning to surprise, as she took notice of your charging form and tried to restrain you, just to find her magic failing her – Her Majesty revealed you a long time ago that a sufficiently focused will could, theoretically, nullify any magic directly targeted at it. Of course this has never happened as far as anypony knows, for everypony has their internal demons and doubts.

 

And yet...the looming specter of death brings your mind crystal clear clarity: if you are to die today, she will join you in whatever afterlife awaits you.

 

And so you strike the Princess of the Sun for the first, and last time.

 

As the spears of her Guards pierce you and your vision finally fades, you are treated to the vision of the form of the alicorn sent flying, mandible shattered by your hit.

 

You let go. The dark void greets you like an old friend, and so, you dream of other, better times.

 

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“Dad! Dad! What is that strange thing???”

 

Asks a little filly for the umptieth time, running from one exposition piece to the next.

 

The new exhibition at the Carterlot Royal Museum has been an amazing success among the city inhabitants, for the museum decided to honor the anniversary of the return of Princess Luna with an exhibition of ancient pieces taken from her ancestral home, the Castle of the Two Sisters.

 

The tired stallion walks toward the piece his daughter stopped in front of, observes the kaleidoscopic stone formation, and reads the plaque:

 

“Solidified magic: an exceedingly rare phenomenon that happens when multiple, dissonant magic energies come into contact with one another against the background of a magical void, thus causing magic itself to assume a form akin to solid stone. One of few pieces in existence, it was found in front of the Castle gates. Dated to the Banishment of Nightmare Moon. “

 

As the stallion finishes reading, he makes to turn toward his daughter, just to stop and turn back – he could swear that something shone in the “stone”…before his daughter drags him away to continue their visit, unknowingly saving her father’s life as a crack appears on the external surface of the exhibition piece.

 

A hand follows suit, a armored hand.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

You are familiar with pain.

 

It tinges one of the first memories you have – of your father hitting you with his belt for something you did wrong, while your mother cried in the corner – and embraces you like an old friend; and yet nothing could have prepared you for the sensations you are feeling now.

 

You are burning from the inside out due to magic corrosion.

 

You have seen it happen in the past – when a bonehead concentrated more magic in their horn than their body could contain, they’d come apart at the seams -, and to see it happen to you is ironic given your natural incapacity to generate magic of any sort; you’d laugh, were you not experiencing the effects first-hand.

 

“What happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object?” you asked your old teacher, bless her hearth, once

Your reply was a dirty look (another thing you got used back in the Army, thanks in no small part to you “deviating from the sacred equine form”), followed by a simple “They annihilate each other”.

 

Well that’s what’s happening to you right now.

 

Human beings are physically incapable of generating or containing magic – it has always been your suspicion that your species’ handicap derives from the lack of magic back on Earth, for its lack led to your species never evolving to counter (or manipulate it).

 

In other words, you are the closest thing one could find to a talking, breathing magical void – akin to a broken bowl in which water has to be constantly poured in order to maintain a certain level, lest it falls through the cracks of the bowl. This simple fact did not give you true resistance to magic, so much as a certain boost to your recovery from its effects – spells would wear off faster than normal when cast on you, and some would just fizzle out of existence, if they needed a certain “level” of magic to operate.

 

On the other hand, no beneficial spell would affect you for long either - no healing spell would truly heal you, for its energy, normally spent in the process of healing the body, would be syphoned away through the “cracks” of your body and spirit.

 

And yet, what would happen if too much magic energy was poured in said “broken bowl”, enough that it’d fill faster than the energy could leak out? And moreover, what would happen if some of the cracks through which magic could flow out would “clog up” (for a lack of a better term) due to the completely discordant energies currently running through your body (thanks to the barrage of different spells you had been subjected to in your last moments before waking up)?

 

Magical corrosion.

 

As you claw your way out of the magical cocoon surrounding your body, you let out a primal scream of pure agony and fall to the ground, hammer and sword clattering at your side.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

You are Windy Skies, museum guard – a relatively boring job, but a safe one: decent pay, good benefits, early retirement, the works.

 

Life is good.

 

Or at least, it was until a few moments ago when bloody screams erupted from the second floor of the Lunar exhibition…great, likely a stallion who fell down some stairs or slipped and hurt himself, being too busy with admiring himself in the mirror-like surface of some exhibition piece to look where he was going.

 

Well don’t worry m’lord (you cringe internally remembering how you were in college), for Windy is here to save you!

...or at least, that’s what you’d say if any of those a**holes would ever thank you for helping them when they come visit the museum – I mean ok, you are a guard and it’s your duty to help them if in need, but it wouldn’t hurt to receive a “thank you” from time to time!

 

Still...work call.

 

“At least the bloody screaming is gone” – you say under your breath, walking toward where you heard the scream coming from and turning the corner.

 

...You don’t know whether to scream and run to help, or to run away in horror, your (inexistent) marely reputation be damned, such is the sight that appears in front of your eyes as you turn the corner: the entire exhibition floor has been destroyed, pieces of ancient pottery thrown around without any care by what appears to be a figure standing in the center of the hall.

 

“Standing”...the figure appears to be barely standing, more like swaying in the wind, as if a single puff would push it over the edge.

And yet something about it seems familiar. You are no genius, but one does not work five years in a museum without learning something – its armor (for that’s what it is, now that you can observe it better in the light of day that enters from the large window) is pitch black, and yet its shape entices your curiosity, as if you had already seen it before, yet the piece of information escaped your reach.

 

Maybe it was the noise you made when you hit a pottery piece as you backtracked away from the figure, maybe it was the gasp you let out as you notice the sigil on the figure’s shield – the twin dark unicorns in front of the Moon, the sigil of Princess Luna alter ego, Nightmare Moon. Whatever it was, the figure turns to look at you for a split second before running toward the window and (much to your horror, for you know first-hand just how resistant enchanted glass is) breaking it with a swing of what appears to be his weapon – a war hammer.

 

You barely manage to yell “Stop!” as the figure jumps outside the window.

 

It takes you but 10 steps to reach the window, and yet…when you look outside, you see no trace of the being you just met, save a small bloodstain on the broken glass.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

You are Anon Y Mous, and you might have overreacted.

 

But honestly, who could blame you – you came about due to terrible pain, with a splitting headache and the taste of bile mixed with blood in your mouth. Your instincts took over, and with closed eyes you swung your war hammer in a circle around you before crouching down to avoid the inevitable retaliatory barrage from the enemy mages.

 

Except...the barrage never came.

 

It took you ten minutes to be able to calm down enough to open your eyes; ten interminable minutes during which you really thought you’d die – the pain of magic coursing through your flesh, unnaturally warping it is just as exquisite as you remember it, except this time it was ten, twenty, a hundred times worse anything you ever experienced before.

 

Natural resistance to magic or not, enhanced recovery from its effects or not, your body was…is coming apart at the seams.

 

And then, as you managed to gather your bearings and noticed that you were not in front of the Castle gates, but somewhere else (a place that curiously enough reminded you of your past life, back home on Earth), you heard a soft gasp.

 

It took you all of five seconds to process what was happening and to act, instincts taking over – you were in no condition to fight, and so after quickly seizing your opposition (a chubby mare in a uniform a size too large), you decided that the best thing to do for now was to retreat.

 

The next few steps were but a blur of actions, half-forgotten now thanks to the blood loss and the side-effects of the pills you took: a broken glass, a long fall, followed by running in the shadows as the sun was setting, and then finding a cave in the mountain the city (because it is a city you found yourself in, of that you are certain now) was built upon.

 

And then, for what seems the first time in forever, you fall asleep, the dark void of a dreamless sleep embracing you.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

You are Princess Luna, and for the first time in a millennia, you don’t know what’s happening to you

 

Lie however much you want to yourself, call your personal Nightmare a monster that took you over…the truth is much simpler – you knew exactly what you were doing, when you attempted to murder your only living relative.

 

And you spent a millennium trying to make peace with yourself, just to fail and to attempt to darken the sky once more for your own stupid, selfish wish to be gifted an undeserved love from your sister’s subjects. And yet…you don’t know what’s happening to you right now, for in all these years, you have never known a feeling so strong as what you are feeling right now – not even when you attempted to murder Celestia.

 

Anger runs through your veins, yes...but anger for what?

 

-----------------------------------------

 

Your dreams bring you to a familiar memory – the last day of your old life, and the first of your new one.

 

The bloody Bolsheviks had finally come to finish you all off – your commander, the “Black Baron” Pyotr Wrangel, had pushed you due

south with the intention of fortifying the Crimea and hold off the Anarchists and the Reds pouring from the Ukraine, when the damned beasts had decided to renew their southern push.

 

You saw friends die in the defense of Isthmus of Perekop; you fought with valor defending Sevastopol, buying time for your brothers-in-arms to sail toward Costantinople once it all went to hell.

 

Your mother and sisters begged you to join them in their escape toward other, friendly nations such as France, but you refused – your father did not raise his son a coward, and the damned red would pay for what they had done to your beloved Rodina.

Nor were you the only one thinking this way – of your battalion, almost a third decided to stay behind to continue fighting in the hills and steppes of the Crimean Peninsula.

 

...and you made them pay. You made them bleed from a thousand cuts as they chased you up and down the Crimean Mountains for a full two years.

 

It was on a crisp day of November that you finally met your end: your unit, at this point reduced to barely 5 men, had been cornered in a small valley near Simferopol. The enemy gave you all no quarter, nor did you ask for mercy – you all knew that this was the end.

And yet…you survived somehow.

 

A stray bullet hit you in the shoulder, and it pushed you down the small ledge you were standing on.

 

You prayed to the Almighty as you feel down; not for yourself, but for your family, your elderly mother…and your own motherland, destroyed by the beasts that hunted you down.

 

...except you never touched the jagged stones that formed the valley floor, for your fall was broken by large bushes.

 

The dream usually ends here, but this time it seems you are going further down memory lane, for a visage you thought you had forgotten comes back to life in your dreams – Starry Night, the mare who broke you down in order to rebuild you…the mare who ensured you’d survive what was to come.

 

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“Private Mous! What in Tartarus did I tell you about slowing down your squad?!”

 

Say what you want of the CO (another strange thing you had to familiarize yourself with once you ended up joining the Army was their nomenclature), but she was a fair mare. Unlike many others, she never belittled you for being a “stallion playing at war, while he ought to be brought back home to his mother”, nor did she ever besmirch you for not being a pony. No, she usually busted your ass because let’s face it…you were weaker than the average guardsmare.

 

Having survived for 2 years on little more than what your squad could scavenge, and before that years of nothing more than EMR, it was no big surprise that your body was primarily made up of lean muscles – when it came down to running for long periods of time you could even outlast your comrades, but you could never hope to compete with them in sheer speed.

 

Your reply is a mere grunt as you try to speed up, weighted down by the light armor you have to wear like your sisters-in-arms (another strange fact was that you hadn’t seen another man...another “stallion” in the entire battalion – or whatever passed for it in their strange, foreign nomenclature).

 

“I can’t hear you Private Mous! What did you say?” - Screamed the CO in your ear, comfortably kept afloat by her wings.

 

You tried to reply, you truly did, but the air simply refused to leave your lungs as you could only concentrate on putting a foot in front of the other, trying to not faint due to the fatigue.

 

It seems Starry Night had enough of your weak attempts to keep up, for she simply turned around and went back to her place at the head of the marching column, leaving you behind to eat the dust raised by your comrades as they marched forward.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

The dream breaks as you are awoken by the sound of thunder – lightning is splitting the sky outside as rain pours down from the heavens.

 

Your mind still half-asleep, your reflexes shot thanks to everything you have been through and the medicinal pills you took, all you can do before falling back asleep is to push your weary body deeper in the alcove you found refuge in.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

As you catch your breath and nurse your bruised arm, you get distracted by a stray thought – that all of this is nothing but a memory, and that you really shouldn’t be here.

 

Your reward for losing sight of your opponent is a brutal hit to the ribs, only partially deflected by the padded armor you are wearing for this training match.

 

You fall to the ground and spit some blood, as Starry Night raises a hoof to signal the end of the sparring bout – your loss, another one to add to the mounting pile, further evidence of your weakness.

 

...it is this thought that keeps you awake late at night day after day, training in the yard long after the rest of the unit has gone back to the barracks to rest. It is something akin to normalcy at this point – you train late in the evening, far longer than the other members of your unit, and then test yourself against them the next day, losing.

 

And yet, every day you notice some progress – you are slightly faster, stronger and more agile than the previous day.

 

Nor are you the only one that noticed these changes; long gone is the mockery on part of your squadmates, as it has been slowly replaced by a quiet acceptance of your presence at first, and then by comradery as the weeks became months and you refused to “give up” like they all expected you to do. While the brotherly…sisterly banter remained, it lost its edge as the mares in your unit began to accept the simple fact that the strange stallion that had joined them months before was here to stay.

 

You had kept your mouth shut regarding your origins, just as the recruiter told you to do – the letter given her by the War Office bureaucrats of this strange nation (after a thorough examination and interrogation on part of the Guard and their mages) explained your situation and your wish to make yourself useful (you always suspected they simply shunted you to the Army due to your background and the simple fact that you’d be too much of a bother to attempt to integrate in their culture).

 

The officer almost trashed said letter and sent you back “whence you came from” once she recognized your gender...almost.

Faithful to her instructions, she kept it for herself and simply gave you a set of “instructions”: don’t mention anything about your origins (“wherever you might have come from, monkey”), simply state that you are from somewhere in the south (“it says you ain’t a minotaur but a monkey. And monkeys live in the jungle no? Then you are a southerner”) and that you wish to help defend your new homeland, Equestria (“...I don’t know how things are done wherever in Tartarus you might have come from, but here honest mares fight to ydefend their homes, and the last thing they need is to risk their wellbeing to defend a splinter that couldn’t get married in time, so make sure to not be a bother, capisce?”).

 

Still...you wish she could see you now, you think with a smirk as you land a hit on your sparring partner, surprising everyone in the arena.

 

You lose that match, as well as the next one and the one after that, but each time is a closer thing, until the day came that you managed to defeat your opponent via sheer strength.

 

Given what came afterward, it couldn’t have come a day sooner.

 

The Proclamation, the moment when Her Imperial Majesty announced her intention to assume sole rule of Equestria, marked the beginning of the Lunar Reclamation (or the Lunar Heresy, as the damned Solarites called it).

 

You were sitting in the barracks when the announcement came that the Colonel leading your “Battalion” (their nomenclature be damned, the mare in charge of you all) had been stabbed by a subordinate, and all hell broke loose.

 

The War had begun.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

You are Princess Luna, and something is deeply wrong in the dreamscape.

 

It took you some time to notice the dark spots that had appeared in your mane (or at least what passed for it in the dreamscape, since it was more akin to your mental image of yourself than anything else), but as soon as you did, the visions began to flash in front of your eyes.

 

“Visions” might be the wrong term – flashes of memories would be more correct, of a time you wish you could bury and forget forever.

Memories of battles fought to conquer a throne that did not belong to you, of trying to force love from your subjects…of imposing terror in the ponies of Equestria in order to make them respect you when your attempt to make them love you failed.

Memories of a strange minotaur-like creature clad in a black armor, bringing the executioner blade down on the neck of your prisoners at your command.

 

Anon Y Mous was his name – one of the few memories that remained clear in the madness that enveloped you sometime during your forced imprisonment on the Moon, etched in your mind thanks to the connection you forced on the strange being before accepting it..him, in your personal service.

 

You sigh at the memory – one of the few good ones from your time as Nightmare Moon -, for many offered “to swear eternal loyalty to the Empress of the Night”, and yet few truly followed you out of conviction, rather than fear.

 

Anon was one of them.

 

Your meeting had been purely casual – during one of your visits to the front in order to lift the troop’s morale, you saw an officer yell at a wounded soldier that you assumed being a minotaur (this being an unusual sight, but not unique, for many mercenaries toured the world in search of employment).

 

You smiled at the sight, thinking how ridiculous the being looked, trying to exercise with half his body covered in bandages.

 

It was then that you had a flash of genius, and you moved close to the strangely deformed minotaur.

 

To bestow the “honor” of becoming part of your personal entourage upon the soldier was a simple thing, yet (in your mind) it could work wonders for your propaganda – the Empress rewarded valor wherever it came from, unlike her cowardly sister who preached equality among the tribes yet clearly favored the Unicorns.

 

The fact that the soldier turned out to be a grizzled stallion was just icing on the cake – in the end you were but a mare, and some eye candy in your entourage would not hurt.

 

The rest is history as the saying goes, and your attention is drawn toward a particular dream, a nightmare that seems eerily familiar…

 

-----------------------------------------

 

You are still Luna, and something is deeply wrong with this dream, whomever it belongs to.

 

Shadowy beings hurl themselves at other, similarly shaped shadows, as little balls made of lead fly in the air, shattering the shadows they hit. This lasts but a few moments, before the dream changes to reflect a lone shadow lifting his arm, before bringing it down on what appears to be a pony, dispelling it.

 

And yet, as the dream begins to break down, a strange sense of familiarity washes upon you as the shadowy being looks at you (you are sure that it was not looking through you, but directly at you) and kneels down before imaginary wind dispels its form.

 

You open your eyes as if burned due to the splitting headache, and for the first time in a millennia, for some reason, the words of the pledge you magically forced upon the members of your imperial entourage come to mind:

 

“Neither Time nor Space shall break our bond, for you have sworn yourself to me, and Time has no hold upon those I laid claim to…”

 

The thought bothers you, enough to make you get up and start walking toward the Royal Library – you wish to read in order to relax…or maybe to bring up some memories.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

You are Windy Skies, and you are so screwed.

 

That asshole of your boss said it was your fault that damage occurred to the exposition, even though it was clearly not your fault – how could you have prevented what happened??

 

Forget the fact that the magical circuits validated your version of the facts - that a being had somehow appeared in the exposition hall and damaged irreplaceable pieces, just to disappear after breaking a magically reinforced window -, that asshole had decided that someone had to act as scapegoat, that someone being you.

 

And so you find yourself walking down the road that leads back to your small, cramped cloud home outside Canterlot, as the rain that has poured on the city all day begins to let up.

 

Rent was way too high in the capital – forget outright buying a property -, and so you did what many other young pegasi did when they moved to the capital: you built yourself a house made of clouds outside the city limits. Cheap enough since its construction required only some time rather than money, and comfy enough that you could call it “home”.

 

The thought of home makes you sigh once more at just how everything went wrong today; the only saving grace of the day being that it was about to end.

 

Still, you had time to think on your way home (if nothing else to distract yourself from berating your stupidity in not taking an umbrella when the pegasi assigned to the meteo clearly said today it would rain..). If only…if only you could find that “thing” that actually caused the entire commotion, maybe you could save your job and your hide (which wasn’t a certain thing, if your boss decided to press charges and somehow managed to make you pay for the damages).

 

It is this kind of thought that you entertain as you leave the city and begin the trek up the mountain, until you notice something red on the ground, almost washed away by the water; much to your surprise, you spot some bloodstains on the road, leading off the beaten track.

 

...the trip took less than expected, and the bloodstains ended up leading you to a small hidden alcove.

 

Peeking inside, you notice a form laying on the back of the grotto – a shape resembling a minotaur, if the little you can see is anything to go by.

 

Bad day or not, you consider yourself a good mare – you pay your taxes on time, you try not to bother anyone, and to help others if they seem to be in need. This situation falls squarely in the last category, and so, ruminating on how your day just added yet another weight on your mind, you proceed to approach the minotaur, before gently poking her with your hoof.

 

...or at least, you attempt to.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

They say that muscle memory is hardier than simple memory. You’d tend to agree, since it took you but a moment, wounded and tired that you are, to catch the intruder – you are a light sleeper, for heavy sleepers did not survive in the Army.

 

A hand closed around its limb, you tackle it to the ground – unarmored and unarmed as you are right now (having removed your armor to apply some ointment before drifting off to sleep), the best thing you can do is to immobilize it.

 

As the cogs in your mind begin to turn and catch up with the situation, you notice that it’s a pegasi mare that you caught.

 

Maybe, just maybe, this situation could turn to your favor. You were always quite good at making ponies talk, after all...

 

...except this bloody pegasi doesn’t seem to make any sense.

 

You spent the last hour interrogating the poor mare (not that it took much to scare her into submission to tell the truth), and she is making no sense – she is saying that it’s the year 1002 AH (After Heresy), among other things.

 

Now, you were never the sharpest tool in the shed, and yet even you know that this is impossible, for if she is telling the truth (and she kept swearing she didn’t lie to you, even after you threatened her with your hammer), something has gone terribly wrong.

 

Not that you pretend to understand much of magic, but even you know that the ponies know less about it than they like to pretend they do – it’s one of the reasons why mixing “incompatible spells” was forbidden in the Army, for it could have led to collateral effects.

 

...maybe, just maybe, she could be telling the truth.

 

As your current situation begins to sink in, you begin to feel panic setting in, and so proceed to slap yourself in the face – the pain forces you to focus your thoughts, for panic is the last thing you need right now.

 

You put down the terrified civvie, and pass her your waterskin

 

“Drink” - you say, and she obeys.

 

You need some time to think.

 

You spend some minutes in silence, during which you take stock of your “prisoner” (a big word, for you doubt she could put up any fight..) – a young pegasi mare with a cutely shaped face, if a bit chubby.

 

For her part, the newly-named Windy Skies looks at you with curious eyes, clearly wishing to ask you a thousand questions, yet too fearful to speak up.

 

This won’t do – if what she said is the truth and you have somehow been catapulted to the “present”, you’ll need some friendly face to “introduce” you to this brave, new world.

 

You sigh, trying to release a bit of the tension you were holding in before speaking to the scared pony - “Speak. I can see the gears in your mind turning”

 

-----------------------------------------

 

You are Windy Skies, and you are dumbfounded.

 

This strange minotauress captured you and threatened you before asking questions so obvious (like “what year is it”) that it makes you think she might have bumped its head on a rock.

 

Still…she gave you some water to drink and didn’t hurt you, so she must be reasonable, right?

 

And she gave you permission to ask questions – so..better make this one count!

 

“..what’s your name?”

 

Celestia above kill me now.

 

The minotauress looks at you with a raised eyebrow, before emitting a noise that one could confuse for a laughter

 

“You said you work in a museum, and yet you don’t recognize me?”

 

You take a good, long look at her face.

 

…you really have no clue who is you might be talking to.

 

You shake your head and she lets out a sigh, before pointing to a shield that was hidden from sight until now (or more likely you were too busy trying to not piss yourself in fright to notice it...); a shield that you do recognize..

 

“It was you! You caused all that ruckus at the museum today!”

 

You say pointing your hoof in her direction, temporarily forgetting your situation – it’s all her fault that you lost your job (because let’s be real, you aren’t getting it back at this point..)!

 

You stomp closer as you speak, coming so close you almost bump your nose against hers, as if challenging her to prove you wrong. She doesn’t, and the only thing she does is to push you back with an armored hand (when did she put on her gloves?).

 

-------------------------------------------

 

By the Almighty, this pony seems to either have some mental issue (for she seems to not recognize the situation she is in), or is incredibly confident in herself.

 

Whatever the case, as she continues speaking it seems apparent that she holds some sort of grudge against you – apparently you broke some pieces when you woke up, thus causing her boss to lay the blame on her. While losing one’s job is sad state of affairs, you scoff internally – you have bigger problems at the moment, like the fact that you just realized Celestia is likely still in power, given that the dating system refers to the War as the “Lunar Heresy”.

 

You size up your captive, weighting your options: you could make her “disappear”, and that could in theory buy you enough time to get away…and yet, not only you feel a pang of remorse at the thought (for her only crime is having met you), but you also ask yourself how long you could last on your own. She might not recognize you, and likely many others won’t, but you don’t have any doubt that the bitch…”Her Majesty” (you press down an internal gag at calling Celestia the title you reserved for her sister in the past, but better get used to it you suppose), will be able to recognize you.

 

Moreover…look at the pitiful physical state of this “guard” – one can clearly see the muscle beneath the fat, but those look more like bulky muscles, rather than lean, as if she “bulked up” by exercising rather than live action.

 

…and suddenly everything clicks in your war-scarred mind: you are not at war anymore.

 

This mare’s attitude toward a bigger, physically overpowering foe, the lack of any serious military patrol in the streets of their capital (for that’s where you landed apparently – the “new” capital of Equestria), the fact that perfectly serviceable weapons were exposed in a museum (at least, from the little time you spent looking around there)…the simple fact that this mare has likely not seen battle in a long time, if ever.

 

The War is over. It has been over for a thousand years for Them.

 

This simple thought gives you pause as “something” clicks in your head and the skin around your Empress’ sigil begins to burn. A head-splitting headache comes onto you as a deluge of emotions floods over you.

 

Anger, confusion, regret…loneliness. A loneliness so absolute that it drowns out anything else.

 

You rub your temples, or at least try - the last thing your mind registers is your prisone…Windy Skies coming nearby, looking at you with what you guess pass for worry in her eyes.

 

The darkness embraces you, a darkness all too familiar.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

You are still Windy Skies, and the strange minotauress started rubbing the sides of her head – maybe to relieve pain of some sort?

While you are still upset at her for causing the ruckus at the museum, your natural instinct to help others cannot be denied, and so you move closer with the intent of trying to help – after all, this was the reason you joined the Guard in the first place: you wished to make a difference.

 

Maybe you failed in that regard (otherwise you wouldn’t be working as a museum guard, you think bitterly), but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference on a smaller scale, such as helping your..host?

 

“Whatever” you think, as you take her coat from the corner of the small cavern and unroll it on the ground.

 

Having done this, the rest is a foal’s play – you gently, but firmly, push her to the ground. After all, while you are no doctor, you did ace the first-aid course during your time in the Guard; this won’t qualify you to help with anything serious, but so long as all she’s suffering from is just some headache and a couple scratches (you did notice the slightly pained noises the minotauress did any time she had to stand up..), you guess you could help.

 

Surprisingly, she doesn’t seem to fight you – it is then that you notice she is passed out.

 

Fearing the worst, you quickly check her heartbeat, before moving on with your examination – you did study different species anatomy during the first-aid course, just in case.

 

It is ironic that you find use for your old training here, caring for someone that threatened you a few minutes ago; yet you don’t hold it against her for a simple reason, the same reason why you have been acting in a familiar way around her (as if everything is fine and you both are safe) in order to (try to) push her to let her guard down.

 

PTSD.

 

You might have never suffered from it – thank Celestia -, but it doesn’t take much to recognize some of the symptoms; after all, while the country has been at peace for as long as you can remember, there had been some soldiers that returned from long-term deployment in the Southern Provinces while you were serving.

 

You will never forget how destroyed some of those poor souls seemed, nor will you forget how guarded and “jerky” they seemed – almost a carbon copy of what you’ve seen so far in this strange minotauress.

 

Rest and contact with loved ones helped them heal in relatively little time thanks to the innate magic of the tribes, but you lack those things right now.

 

You sigh, before proceeding with a quick examination of your “patient” – analysis which sadly reveals little that would be medically useful, due in part to your lack of expertise, and in part to the lack of any medical instrument.

 

While you proceed with examining her body, you quickly find out two things about…”her”: that “she” is a “he” (much to your surprise), and that you have no idea what you’re dealing with, for your patient’s body is nothing like that of a normal minotaur, male or female – there are clearly similarities (two arms, two legs, etc), but so many differences that…you need help if you are to treat him properly.

As you remember you live nearby, a groan escapes your lips as you realize sh…he, won’t be able to join you in your cloudhome…and yet you feel somewhat relieved and strangely disappointed (you push down a shiver at the thought of sharing a bed with a colt..Celestia above, it has been too long).

 

Oh well, your neighbor owes you a favor, and he’ll be able to rest in a warm bed while you call…Celestia above, a doctor would be your first call, but your instincts tell you to also call someone from the Guard, ideally an old friend of yours, to sort this out.

It seems luck is on your side, for you know just someone that fits both roles.

 

You smile slightly at the strange turn this day has taken: you might have very well lost your old job, but honestly? Screw that old spinster of your boss – while you enjoyed your job overall, you hated every day you had to spend listening to her droning on about imaginary things you “did wrong” or “not up to this establishment’s standards”.

 

This smells like the beginning of something far more interesting.

 

It is with this thought that you make sure your patient is well-covered, before running out of the alcove and taking flight – you need to fetch a cart or something to transport him, as well as call in some favors.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

You are Princess Luna, and you feel a strange excitement you haven’t feel in a long time.

 

Your sister has been extremely welcoming since your return, considering your…past interactions, but you can’t really bring yourself to spend too much time with her – too many painful memories that are still too raw in your mind. And so you found yourself spending more and more time in the Royal Library, trying to catch up with just how far the world has come in your absence.

 

…it is scary sometimes, to think just how much you have missed out on during your exile, and…it hurts, to lack anyone to share this pain with.

 

Sure, Celestia is always there…but you could never bring yourself to share your pain and loneliness with your sister – you tried to murder her, stars above! How could a murderer saddle her victim with the emotional pain the attempted murder caused her?

 

…and that’s without mentioning the Lunar Court, your only “official duty”.

 

You let out a bitter laughter at the thought of the farce your once glorious court has been reduced to – a couple of absconded guards, a scrawny-looking secretary, and the oh-so-great Princess of the Night, sitting like a useless doll on her throne.

 

What is a ruler without those that she should rule over? Nothing, that’s what.

 

And that’s just what your “Court” is – a farce put up to make your sister happy and nothing more.

 

The ponies have grown used to Celestia’s rule over the paste millennium, and the sudden arrival of a strange, scary mare in Ponyville did nothing to change this in their minds: Celestia ruled, and that this strange mare that she decided to call “sister” decided to hold court meant nothing to them.

 

And who could blame them, when the first thing their “glorious ruler” did was proclaiming the wish to bring Eternal Night upon them?

 

Yes, yes, you did promise an eternal night during your revolt, but you never meant to truly snuff out the Sun (after all, while you could theoretically live off aether, your subjects would need to eat more solid stuff, and plants don’t grow without the Sun), so much as push (force) ponies to switch to a nocturnal lifestyle, while lengthening the duration of the night.

 

Not so this time – had you won against the Element Bearers, in your insanity you had truly meant to snuff out the Sun once and for all.

You shiver at the memory, sighing for the upteempth time.

 

Better not to spend too much time on such thoughts – after all, for the first time in a long while you feel something akin to excitement. You spent some hours in the Royal Library and found a book from the old days, before you…before you tried to lay claim to the entirety of Equestria.

 

Between you and Celestia, you were always the more magically inclined of the two, and it showed during the Revolt – your sister might have beaten you in sheer power, but she could never keep up with your magical finesse.

 

And so you decided to put to rest the nagging thought you had since last night.

 

You sit down in the center of your room and concentrate on the shape of a pentacle, visualizing its appearance as you feel the familiar warmth of magic surround you.

 

It’d normally take you some time to track down the origin of the intrusive thoughts you experienced since you visited that strangely warped dreamscape last night, yet this time the barrier between the physical world and the dreamscape gives way unexpectedly easily.

 

You let out a surprised noise once the spell begins to take root, for while magic acts faster the more elements of sympathy it has to work with, the sheer speed of the aetheric reaction happening in front of your eyes is something else.

 

You concentrate on the strange, shadowy beings (that somehow seemed all too familiar to you), and the spell forces a rendezvous in the dreamscape, obeying your instruction to “bring you to their source”.

 

The familiar tapestry made of stars shatters in a thousand pieces as you gracefully land on the hard ground of this new dream, and you take the time to look around – pitch-black darkness is all that greets you.

 

And yet…something is not right. At the last moment, old instincts awakens and you take a dive to the ground – just in time to avoid a direct blow to the face, a blow that you’re sure would have given you a severe concussion, had it connected in the real world.

 

It takes your body but a moment to instinctively put distance between you and your newly-conjured enemy; it takes even less for you to stop in midair as if struck by lightning, for as you gasp in surprise, you are witness to something you thought you would never see again after your exile.

 

The last Hierarch of the Moon, Anon Y Mous, emerges from the black darkness that surrounds you, as magnificent in his dark armor as you remember him, wielding a vicious-looking war hammer in his right hand and a shield with the Nightmare…no, your sigil etched upon it.

 

You are at a loss for words, and you can feel tears form at the edges of your eyes – why must even your dreams taunt you so?

 

…anger is all you feel as sadness becomes fuel for your emotions, emotions you have not allowed yourself to feel since the Elements forced yourself to return to your old form.

 

The darkness around you feels your emotions and twists into what resembles a semi-destroyed forest under a red moon. Not that you notice this, as anger takes over and you swear to destroy this…this shadow that mocks you by insulting the memory of one of the few people you’d have called a friend in the old days, had you allowed yourself to become close to any of those surrounding you.

 

And so you charge, plate armor magical appearing over your form as you prepare to tear apart the offending memory.

 

…not that the dark knight seem to care for whatever you might have felt anyway, for he accepts your challenge and charges you head on with a speed that belies belief given how heavily armored he is.

 

You two clash in the center of the clearing, and you give as good as you receive – you would never admit it in front of anyone, but if one were to take away your magic, you don’t know who would come out on top of a fight between you two, for you beat him in experience, but he beat you in sheer aggression and violence.

 

After all, you were incredibly picky in choosing members of your retinue.

 

And it shows – as you try to impale the shadow on your horn after kicking his shield in the opposite direction, you understand too late that it was but a feint in order to lure you in.

 

Pain is your reward as the war hammer hits you squarely on the helmet – had your head not been protected, and had this been real life, you might have very well been felled by that blow.

 

You put some distance between you and your enemy, but he’s relentless - as you are pushed backward and hear a war cry that no one has uttered a millennium, you are treated to a sight that you know was the last thing a thousand other mares saw – the Royal Executioner raises his hammer high, ready to strike you down.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

You are Anon Y Mous, and you don’t know whether this is a dream or if this is reality and the meeting with Windy Skies was the dream. Nor do you care, for in front of you is the leader of the Solarite unit you have been tracking for the past week.

 

The sight of your old friend, Starry Skies, fills you with bitterness and anger.

 

You pleaded her to see reason and join you as the squad went over to the Empress’ side, but she replied that she had sworn an oath to Equestria, and as far as she could see, your “Reconquest” was nothing more than a bloody revolt.

 

She bid you farewell as a friend, for the next time you met, it’d be as enemies and only one would return.

 

Fair enough.

 

“Ave Nox Aeterna!”

 

Yelling the war cry of your Order, you bring your hammer down on her head, with the intent of finishing this fight once and for all.

…or at least you try, just for her to quickly push herself back by flapping her wings, and then come charging at you – a foolish tactic, for you beat her in strength and size. And yet Starry surprises you as her bodyweight suddenly increases and she kicks your shield upward, in such a way that it almost hits your helmet.

 

It is only luck that saves you from being skewered by the long, light knifes tied to the sides of her wings (a common tactics to incapacity an opponent, if usually unable to kill them outright), luck and lightning-quick reflexes honed in a decade of war.

 

You let the rotation she imprinted on your left arm carry you in a semi-circle, bringing your other arm -armed with your war hammer- down and hitting her in the flank, sending her flying away.

 

The exchange happens with the speed that characterizes a melee fight between two experts, while carrying the ferociousness typical of many fights of this age of war, where ex-friends are put one against the other.

 

Your old instructor bides her time, carefully observing you, and you do the same.

 

You both have changed over the years – you have grown stronger, reaching the true prime of your life and becoming what once upon a time the Black Baron, Wrangel, would have called “a true warrior” (not that you’d share the same judgement, for you feel less like a man and more akin to a blunt weapon at this point), while your old mentor is well past her prime, but one would have to be blind to not see the sheer grace of her movements, grace that comes only from endless hours spent training.

 

The equilibrium is broken as you both charge toward one another…

 

…and your vision shatters as the cart carrying you takes a particularly abrupt turn, which pushes you back to the land of the living just in time to see the worried face of Windy Skies looking down at you

 

“You are awake! By Celestia, I was worried you would leave us for good you know?”

 

The pegasi speaks fast, before signaling to whomever is drawing the cart to stop and come back to check you out.

 

A small batpony enters your field of vision, and before falling asleep once more, you notice that she seems to have a helmet over her head, resembling the one of the late Lunarites.

 

You can’t make out whatever she is saying, for the darkness of a dreamless sleep claims you.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

The dreamscape shatters and you are ejected back to the real world, finding yourself back in the burnt remains of the pentagram you used as focus for your spell.

 

Nor that you’d care about the pitiful state of your rooms, for you realized something as your spell came undone – shadows of memories

do not speak, nor do they create dreamscapes, for they can only imitate memories.

Which means…he’s alive.

 

You don’t know what miracle allowed this, but the stallion..the man, who you chose to make part of your entourage a thousand years ago, is alive, somewhere out there.

 

And you will find him.

 

...as time passes, you almost wish death upon the poor book you are reading with just how frustrated you feel.

 

To track down a single being should have been one of the easiest things to do – everypony has a “personal magical signature”, so to speak, and it is a relatively simple task to track down the general location of a particular creature, if one has an idea of how their magical signature “felt” in the aether and the general area they would be located in.

 

Which brings us back to your problem with tracking down your wayward soldier: you had no idea where he could be, and the strange biology of his species made it so that any aetheric signal they could emit would be so dispersed as to be indistinguishable from the background aetheric noise emitted by all plants and/or living beings in the bloody world.

 

That is, unless you saturated him so much with magic that it would be physically impossible for him to disperse any more magic, which would sadly run against your purpose since it would likely lead to severe injury and/or death.

 

As you throw yet another book by the side, you look at the clock above the wall mirror, and for the first time you take notice of just how “late” it is – by your reckoning you spent the past 10 hours on your task, and it shows.

 

Stars above…the bags under your eyes would scare you any other day, but you fight back a yawn and decide to attempt a different strategy – it seems you cannot easily track down your quarry by using a spell that acts exclusively in the physical realm, so…why not dig deeper?

 

You and your…just what will the relationship between you and Anon Y Mous be, if…once, you find him?

 

The thought gives you pause, as it hits you that he’s never met the present “you”, but only the Nightmare.

 

He fought for the so-called “Empress of the Night”, and (judging by his war cry last night) might very well still keep to his old loyalties.

 

Would he even want to see you? Or would he consider you broken, like so many others do behind you back (if for different reasons)?

 

You shake your head and refuse to even entertain the thought, even though a small voice keeps whispering of the possibility in the back of your mind.

 

It takes but a few minutes to set up the pentacle, and even less to find the thread that connects you to his dreamscape – having visited it twice already, it’s easy to find your way back, and plus…an oath binds those that swear it, and a promise owns those who made it, creating a connection that goes deeper than mere words.

 

Whatever his reaction will be to your presence, the simple presence of the instinctual connection created by his oath of loyalty gives you comfort. Even then…you have no idea how things will play out and to be honest the tension is killing you.

 

By the Moon, the last time you felt this tense was in the few moments before your sister hugged you back at the Castle, after the Elements purged the Nightmare from your mind.

 

Except this time there will be no accepting sister on the other end of the dialogue that is about to happen, but one of the few beings who willingly followed you in your mad quest for power.

 

You send a quick message to your sister, informing her that you wish not to be disturbed for you are “conducting a review of your old spells repertoire” (an excuse as good as any other), and then simply cast the spell.

 

The physical world fades away as you enter the dreamscape, your form glittering with starlight as you soar through the endless aethereal space, moving deeper and deeper, in the regions where one could usually find the dreams of ponies having nightmares.

 

Except you are not looking for somepony, but someone.

 

The walls of the dream shatter, giving you free access.

 

This time there are no shadowy beings around you - the sight that welcomes you is that of a burning city, where beings similar to your quarry seem to be fighting using strange weapons that shoot metal balls out of their ends, while emitting loud noises.

 

You travelled extensively in your youth, and this city looks like nothing you have ever seen; this must be his homeland, of which you only heard fragments of stories and little more.

 

And then it hits you – the nightmare builds off pre-existing elements, and this must be based on a memory.

 

You close your eyes and focus on the bond that ties you two, and turn East. Before touching the ground, you get a brilliant idea – you waited a millennia to see a friendly face, why not wait a couple more minutes and observe what this memory is about?

 

As you touch ground you look around, before assuming the shape of what you guess is a foal of his species, taking inspiration from the one who is lying on the side of the road of this devasted memory.

 

And so, you turn to face your quarry.

 

Anon Y Mous.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

You are Anon Y Mous, officer of the White Army, and right now you don’t know whether to sigh in exasperation or say your prayers.

 

“Men of the 44th! The Reds are approaching the bridges, and you know what that means – if they capture them and advance in our rear, we’ll sit out the War in a POW camp or worse. As for me, I’d rather eat lead”

 

The men laugh at General Dragomirov’s jest, but it’s a hollow laughter, filled with the cold certainty that many of them won’t survive the day.

 

Kiev is lost.

 

First it was lost to the damn Huns and their Austrian bootlickers, then the German puppet state of Ukraine fought the Reds over it and couldn’t even defend their so-called “capital”…and now you, poor sods of the 44th Riflemen, have been given the unenviable task of defending this husk of a city against the 12th Army – an impossible task given they outnumber you 3-to-1 and much of the civilian population is on the Reds’ side.

 

You sigh for what could have been the 10th or 100th time, and go back to check your rifle.

 

“Feldwebel* Anon Y Mous”…what a mouthful. (*Imperial Army title akin to Sergeant)

 

A title you once wanted to fill, way back before the war, when things were good.

 

A title that nowadays brings nothing but the duty to lead more of your countrymen to their death in this slaughterhouse that is the Ukraine.

 

It is those grim thoughts that led you to sit down and take a break – the General will order an assault soon enough and any breath you can catch is for the best.

 

“..mister?”

 

You turn to the side and see a young girl looking at you with eyes filled with hope

 

“Go away kid, I got nothing to eat…actually wait, come here”

 

This poor child looks like an orphan. This war might have robbed you of much of your humanity, but you aren’t about to let a poor, starving orphan fall in the hands of the Reds – God only knows what they do with orphans; the dogs are likely to use them as slave labor, or put a bullet in their head to have one less mouth to feed.

 

And so you tell the kid to join you – you’ll bring her out of Kiev if nothing else.

 

The child comes toward you, clearly scared by your appearance – who could blame her? -, so you crouch down to look her in the eyes

 

“Who are you, child? Where are you parents?”

 

She looks unsure before pointing to the General – Dragomirov had the habit of calling the NCOs by name, so it is likely this kid heard him calling you with the others during

headcount.

 

You nod, inviting her to continue, which she does after a moment, as if unsure of what to say

 

“I..don’t know where my parents went. What’s happening, mister?”

 

You look at her sadly, before looking to the smoke rising from the opposing side of the Dnieper

 

“We are leaving the city, that’s what’s happening. We are evacuating South, and I suggest you join us child. I am sorry for your parents, but trust me…it’s better for you to think of yourself first with those wolves at the gate”

 

You point to the opposite side of the river to emphasize your point, and you see her following your finger.

 

The little child nods, and so you turn around to give the command to your men to prepare for a fighting withdrawal – a hard maneuver to accomplish in the best of cases, semi-impossible in the current situation.

 

You are overextended and understrength – it will be a miracle if you all make it out of Kiev alive and everybody knows it.

 

~ But after all, nothing ever goes right in a nightmare, does it? ~

 

You quickly turn and point your gun at chest height, looking around for whomever has spoken.

 

The child is gone.

 

As you look around, the city itself begins to melt in front of your eyes, and as panic sets in, you see your men melt as if made of clay, some still attempting to speak even as they dissolve.

 

You raise you weapon, just to find it gone as well, until only you are left standing in the darkness.

 

“…I never knew what you went through.”

 

A voice to your right; as you turn toward it, the darkness dissipates and is replaced with a simple room – a room that you recognize now that your memory is coming back and the nightmare disappears in the back of your mind: your old room at the Castle of the Two Sisters, during the final stages of the War.

 

And there stands the mare you fought and bled for – your Empress -, looking at you with sad eyes.

 

You fall to the ground almost instinctually, kneeling in front of Her Majesty, but don’t dare to speak – not so much because you don’t wish to, but mainly because you don’t trust your voice to be steady enough.

 

You felt the connection between you two being severed, and saw the light that shot for the Moon.

 

You felt Her die, for all intents and purposes, so this must be a dream.

 

And yet here she stands…even if you can immediately notice some changes in Her appearance – her coat is a lighter shade of blue, the stars in her mane shine less brightly, as if dimmed, and…physically, she is but a shadow of her former self.

 

Not that it matters to you, for you chose long ago to follow Princess Luna…Nightmare Moon, for her qualities as a leader, unlike many other who obeyed her out of fear.

 

...except there is no trace of that mare in the eyes of Princess Luna (so similar yet so different from those of the Empress) as she comes close and lifts your chin with her hoof.

 

“Anon Y Mous…Anon. Is..is it really you? Or is this just another sick dream conjured by my own guilt?”

 

You have no idea what she is talking about, and to say that your emotions are all over the place would be an understatement, so you do something that in hindsight you should have done a long time ago in the past.

 

Dream or not, you hug the mare with the desperate strength of someone who found their way back where they belong.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

You are Princess Luna, and any other time you wouldn’t let other see your weakness…

 

…except you truly don’t care what anypony else would think even if they saw you right now, as you return the hug your knight…your friend, gives you.

 

Because you honestly refuse to entertain any notion about what your old self might have thought about “fraternizing with your subordinates” – this stallion…no, this MAN, chose to follow you of his own free will and stayed by your side until the very end, even managing to wound ‘Tia if what she told you is true.

 

So the Nightmare can go back whence she came from, for your mind is racing a thousand miles per second, connecting a scent long forgotten to old memories, feeling, for the first time in a thousand year, at home.

 

...you don’t know for how long you hugged the human.

 

Time in a dream stretches and bends in accord with the dreamer’s will, and your hug could have lasted a minute or a century.

 

Not that it matters to you, because by the stars, it feels right to be held.

 

You spent your entire life feeling as if you were alone, condemned to be different from other ponies by the circumstances of your birth, and different from your sister, the only one who could have been your peer, due to your radically different personalities.

 

And yet life has the funny habit of often putting the solution to our problems right in front of our very eyes, yet we are just as often unable to see it.

 

In your case, the solution to a broken soul was to make her meet another soul just as broken, so that they may heal one another.

 

You always knew that the human was different from the other members of your retinue – he did not flinch when you raised your voice, nor was he afraid of correcting you, even if it meant risking your anger. At the time you simply chucked it up to his species’ strange customs, together with the uniqueness that a stallion enlisted in the Army.

 

Yet, the more you got to know the human, the more you came to value his capacity to make your problems “go away”, to the point of nominating him “Hierarch of the Moon”, an honor usually only reserved for thestral mares who distinguished themselves in your service.

 

And now you find yourself relying on him once more as he holds you in his arms.

 

You take a long sniff, enjoying the simple smell that comes off him – it might be an illusion created by the dream, but it feels like home to you, giving you a sense of familiarity that you have lacked since the return from your exile.

 

With the exception of your sister, the few ponies you ever considered close enough to be your friends are long gone; your ancestral home lies in ruin, a forgotten shell taken over by the forest; the very memory of your existence all but erased, until recently relegated to a bedtime story used to scare foals into obeying.

 

It’s all gone…except for the man that is currently holding you.

 

You open your eyes and take a good look: a face very different from that of a pony, yet not unpleasant to look at, crowned by a pair of eyes of a grey so deep that it reminds you of the snowstorms of the far North.

 

A pair of eyes that has been the last thing many a soldier has seen, and yet you see nothing but warmth and worry in those eyes.

Worry for you.

 

To have someone care for you is an emotion that warms the heart, and so you do the only thing that seems right in this situation, and nuzzle his cheek while hugging him tighter.

 

Inappropriate for a Princess? Totally. Do you care right now? Not one bit, you think with a smirk.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

You are Anon Y Mous, and right now you don’t know whether this is a dream or something else, but it doesn’t change the shock of seeing the Empress alive and well, if diminished.

 

After what might have been five minutes, you quietly release the mare from the hug and take a good look at her, even if you still keep your arms on her shoulders as if you expected her to dissolve like the nightmare you just left – her mane might be a lighter shade of blue than you remember, but the thing that hits you the most is just how different her eyes are.

 

The Empress was many things to many people – a tyrant, a visionary leader…but never weak.

 

Whenever she spoke, she did so with an aura of authority that pushed others to obey her; she had a fire in her eyes that made others terrified of defying her, but it also lent gravitas to her words – she was arrogant to a fault sometimes, yet her self-confidence made it so that many ponies (and you..) truly believed that a new world was just behind the hill.

 

She was a mare that even in her darkest moment would never give in to despair and that would have chosen death over dishonor.

 

There is no trace of that mare in the Princess’ eyes.

 

What you find is a mix of emotions that are easy to read, thanks to how expressive ponies’ faces are – worry, uncertainty, fear, longing, to name a few.

 

The realization hits you that you have never met this mare before – she is a total stranger to you.

 

And yet…now that she is close to you, you can feel the aethereal bond tying you two - certain proof of her identity.

 

This is truly the mare for which you decided to take on the Princess of the Sun, the moment you felt the connection binding you two being severed and presumed her dead. Even knowing you had no chance of surviving, you had truly meant to avenge her.

 

And now she is here, looking at you with an unsure expression, with a smile that is slowly disappearing as you remain silent.

 

“A..Anon?”

 

She asks meekly, before reaching toward you with a hoof.

 

You squash any doubt by simply wrapping your arms around her thin frame once more and speaking, not before resting your face against her mane made of starlight

 

“…I thought you died.”

 

You say nothing more, for there is nothing more to say.

 

You fall to your knees on the ground of the dreamscape, dragging the Princess down with you – she doesn’t put up any resistance as you two cling to each other like an island of familiarity in a world that seems so cold and alien.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

Time is a funny thing in dreams, and it stretched as demanded, yet even that curious phenomenon has its limits, and sooner or later the dream reached its natural conclusion.

 

Your sister, Celestia, finds you all but passed out in the middle of a burnt out pentacle, exhausted.

 

Maintaining a spell for an entire night is something completely out of reach for normal unicorns (exceptions like your sister’s old student aside), and it’s a tiring task even for you.

 

Still, it’s not the strangest thing she has seen you do over your long life.

 

“…you know what? I don’t even want to know what you were doing, just remember that you owe me one for raising your charge”

 

She says with a smirk, pointing outside the window with her hoof – the moon shines high in the sky.

 

Your royal reply is a pained groan worthy of a true Princess of Equestria, before letting out the tension by cracking your back. You let out a satisfied moan as your spine cracks, and notice your sister looking at your with a strange expression

 

“..what?”

 

She shakes her head before giving you a little, sheepish smile

 

“Nothing. It’s just…it has been so long since I’ve seen you relax even a little bit that it surprised me”

 

This gives you pause, for it strikes a chord within you – you don’t feel the usual tension and even feel like you can afford to let

down your usual “mask” around your sister.

 

By the stars, has it really been that long?

 

You shake your head in a vain effort to wake yourself up before giving your sister a small smile – it’s not much, but apparently is enough for her to relent and (after a quick winged hug) let you be.

 

Good, for you have much to do before you may rest.

 

From what your wayward knight told you, he was being carried up Canterlot Mountain (to think he’d be so close to you, yet you couldn’t feel his presence! It’s almost enough to make you let out a bitter laugh) by what appears to be a retired member of the Guard, a pegasi by the name of “Windy Skies”.

 

You have no recollection of such an individual, but it shouldn’t be too hard to track her down in the physical world – after all, only a very small number of ponies lived up the mountain, outside the city proper.

 

A quick spell to refresh your tired body, and you open the window that looks down on the city – the beautiful capital city that your sister built.

 

And it is truly beautiful. You love how the moonlight shines off the roof of the buildings; and yet the view, which on any other night would have drawn your attention, cannot hold you – you extend your wings, and jump in the void.

 

To fly has always been one of your favorite activities, for nothing can compare to the sheer feeling of freedom that it gives you.

 

The air currents hold you afloat, and a simple tug to the thread connecting you to Anon gives you a faint sense of the direction – straight up North, up the Canterlot Mountain.

 

And so you rush.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

You are Windy Skies, and the strange being you carried up the mountain with the help of Star Dust was not a minotaur at all apparently, but what he (and it was a he all along apparently – another peculiarity that gave you pause since it was so strange to see a stallion “man” bearing weapons) defined as a “human being”.

 

Never heard of them, and apparently your friend hadn’t either.

 

Still, you took charge of his wellbeing by your own free choice, and so it was only right that you saw to it.

 

Your neighbor had not been happy to be woken up this late at night, but honestly? She owed you enough bits to put up with this and much more in your book.

 

It had been a simple matter to convince her to let the strange being rest on her sofa for a few hours after your best friend gave the human a quick check-up and assured your neighbor that you two would keep guard over him so that he may not “eat her” – the way he said it gave you the shivers at first (the nature of which you refuse to contemplate..), having seen his teeth, until you realized he was pulling your leg after he let out a loud laugh.

 

Your embarrassment wasn’t helped by Star noticing your shiver.

 

Bitch better make it up to you for embarrassing you in front of the first male you speak to that doesn’t run away from the “failed guardmare”

 

…sad thoughts, which you entertain as you look at the newly-named “Anon” try (and fail) to fight off the attempts of Star Dust to examine him to “satisfy her curiosity”.

 

The mare thinks she is being smooth by disguising her “attempts” as scientific curiosity, but you know the truth – with how few stallions there are to go around a mare cannot be too picky.

 

If a stallion is pleasant enough to look at and to be around, he’s already golden in way too many mares minds.

 

Whether this says more about what you think of other mares or the state of your society, you don’t know.

 

You are brought out of your thinking by your friend waving a hoof in front of your eyes

 

“…Equus to Windy…do you receive me?”

 

You swat at your friend with a hoof, but she quickly backs off before replying with a smirk

 

“You got to do better than that to catch me Windy…~ if that’s the game you want to play ~”

 

You blush deeply – you always envied her toned body, unlike you who had to work her ass off to get even a tenth of the gains she got after a single day of exercise, but your mom raised no carpet muncher” -, but her attempts to get a rise out of you finally succeed

 

“Celestia, I forgot how much you loved clit Star. Is that why you leave the barracks so rarely? Too many mares going around for you to get your head out of the gutter?”

 

You had never seen a thestral blush – but like they say, there is always a first time for everything.

 

Her reaction is easily foreseen – she charges at you, temporarily forgetting you two had an audience, audience which reminds you of his presence by coughing in his hand.

 

“…while every male loves to watch two lovely ladies get in a catfight, if you two are willing to, I would have…well, some questions”

 

This gives both you and Star pause, causing you two to blush in embarrassment.

 

Celestia above, kill me now.

 

The silence that follows is quite awkward, until the stallion…man, pats the sofa at his side

 

“Are you really comfortable standing? You know I was joking about “eating you all”, right? Humans are omnivores, and plus we don’t eat sentient beings”

 

..maybe there is still hope to savage your first impression, if he really thinks what bugged you was just his sense of humor.

 

Star looks at you for a second before smirking and moving to sit near the human, making sure to put extra sway in her hips as she does so.

 

Oh no you don’t.

 

This time it’s her turn to be surprised as you sit by his side – your wings giving you a boost in speed, enough to reach the sofa first, and forcing her to sit on the nearby recliner, much to her chagrin.

 

Luckily your antics seem to have gotten a laughter out of Anon, if his chuckling is anything to go by.

 

And so you three spend what seems a lot of time (but in reality is little more than half an hour) getting to know each other, beginning with some basic questions (“What are you? Where are you from?”), passing through some questions that make you wish you were as marely as your friend (“Are you on the market?”) and finishing with some questions that make you truly wonder where the human has lived until now (“Why are you two dressed in different armors?” for example).

 

He is a strange individual after all – his armor, while polished, clearly shows signs of battle; the parts of his arms that are exposed show different scars (another strange thing, given how careful stallions usually are with their appearance); his movements and questions betray a martial upbringing.

 

Now, you are not one of those “old fashioned” (another way to say stuck in another millennium) mares that thinks a stallions ought to be tied to the kitchen when not in the bedroom, maybe branded with his herd’s alpha cutie-mark, but the thought of a male bearing arms gives you pause.

 

While there are some stallions in the Guard, they are usually relegated to support roles – be it because of the importance put on their survival (given the lopsided gender ratio..), or their general dislike for the military lifestyle, you admit that he is the first male you have seen behaving in a way that is semi-familiar to you.

 

…something that honestly makes this male already stand out to you, for good or bad, given that you already have something in common.

 

Things might move quickly in your mind, but when for each stallion there are at least 3 mares, one can never be too quick to claim a spot in a herd.

 

The conversation is pleasant enough, the man regaling you two with tales of far away places that he claims to have visited in his youth (another thing that bugs you is that you can’t truly gauge how old he is, and it’s unpolite to ask a stallions age…), until you hear a loud, repeated knock on the door around 3 AM – just as you were about to call it a day, however pleasant the company of your friend and new acquaintance was.

 

A smile appears on Anon Y Mous face, wide enough to split his face in two, before he rushes toward the door to open it.

 

Nothing could have prepared you for what happens next, for you come face to face with the lesser-known Diarch of Equestria, Princess Luna, who is currently busy hugging the human so tightly that it almost looks like she is trying to squeeze the life out of him.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

He’s alive. He’s alive and he’s here.

 

These are the thoughts that cloud your mind as you hold your friend close.

 

You are Princess Luna, and even though you are somewhat cognizant of the fact that there are two other mares in the room, your entire attention is focused on the human, who is currently hugging you back with just as much strength.

 

“..I feared it might just have been a dream”

 

He whispers before tightening his hug – a clear display of affection that causes you to openly smile.

 

Stars above…it has been so long since anyone has shown you this much affection, this openly, that you don’t care about the fact the two mares in the room are looking at you with bewildered eyes.

 

And yet you take a quick look at them, taking stock of their appearance.

 

One is a relatively chubby mare whose fur color is a light cyan (clearly a member of the Guard by her golden armor), while the other…the other is a thestral, a member of your Lunar Guard.

 

This slightly surprises you given the very small size of the organization when compared with the regular Guard – after all, it has been properly re-established as an independent institution (and not just a subsidiary of the regular Guard) only after the thestrals came out en mass after your return -, but not enough to give you pause.

 

You lengthen the hug far longer than it would be socially acceptable (not that you’d care given you finally found some familiarity), before finally breaking it off, yet both you and Anon refuse to truly let go of each other, keeping a loose hold on the other’s shoulders.

 

He looks you up and down, before smiling and talking

 

“…you are smaller than I remember, your Majesty”

 

You scrunch your nose at this, given you clearly told him to simply call you by your name during the time you spent talking in the dream – you are more than familiar enough with each other to be able to be slightly informal with one another, especially when in private.

 

“Much has changed since the olden days..and yet you haven’t. How is that possible? You never told me”

 

He shakes his head with a sad smile, clearly denoting his ignorance in the matter.

 

You sigh – it bugs you how he simple “reappeared” out of the blue…and yet, the simple fact that he is here with you is what matters.

 

You never had many friends, and the majority of those who followed you in the far past did so due to deference for your mystical prowess. The situation was even worse during your revolt – almost nopony followed you out of personal loyalty; the vast majority of those who did fight for you did so out of either fear or ideological opposition to your sister’s rule.

 

Not so for Anon Y Mous.

 

The last Hierarch of the Moon had followed you out of a mix of personal loyalty and ideological reasons, and yet, in the end he was the only one that stood by you until the end, even attempting to avenge you after your defeat.

 

A show of loyalty that you will never forget, and one that you WILL repay in full, be it the last thing you do.

 

But for now, you have more pressing matters to attend to – namely, where he’ll sleep…and you as well, given you are barely standing, not having slept for what you reckon are almost 2 days.

 

It is then that one of the two mares (Windy Skies, if you had to go off his vague description of her), which had obviously been listening on your conversation, comes forward and kneels in front of you, indicating her wish to speak – wish that you grant with a simple nod of your head

 

“You Highness, it’s an honor. We found this being – Anon Y Mous, he said to be called, and wished to offer him first aid before reporting his presence first thing come the morning”

 

You nod in her direction, before moving your eyes to the thestral mare – her appearance seems slightly familiar, for you made it a point to personally oversee the training of the Lunar Guard at least once a month in order to not get too “rusty” – and she moves forward, standing at attention

 

“Private Star Dust, reporting for duty!”

 

You nod once more, before speaking

 

“Go to the barracks and organize for a squad to meet us here in 15 minutes sharply, private. I will suffer no further danger to come the way of my…friend”

 

At this you turn toward the human and give him a smile, before lightly nuzzling his cheek.

 

A public display of affection like, between un-herded ponies, would have been scandalous in the past, and it is now as well it seems if the slight stare the two guards give you is anything to go by.

 

…so what? You might be the lesser part of the Diarchy in the eyes of many ponies, but you are a Princess of Equestria, and if you wish to show you affection for someone, society will have to accept it.

 

You finally found some familiarity in this strange world, and Tartarus be damned you will not allow anything to endanger it.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

You are Anon Y Mous, Hierarch of the Moon…and you are finally home.