Celestia just stared at me for a while without saying anything. "I have heard enough for now," she said coldly. "I have other affairs more important than you--"

I pretended to be hurt. "Awww. My self esteem is bruised."

"We will resume this later," she said ominously. She turned and left without looking back, her guards following. I was alone.

Later turned into hours. I hung there in my chains. Every two hours a guard would come in, let me down and walk me to a privy, let me do my business and then walk me back. Other than that, All I could do was hang there and watch the walls mildew.

I was counting the bricks in the wall across from me for the fourteenth time when things changed rather dramatically. One minute I'm hanging there contemplating things, all by my lonesome, the next there's a dark blue winged unicorn pony in my cell with me. Whoah. didn't even see the teleportation flash. My mind really must have been wandering.

Her horn glowed briefly and my manacles opened. I dropped to the cell floor, landing hard. After a moment waiting for my legs to get their strength back, I got to my feet and dusted myself off. "Okay," I said. "And who the heck are--"

Without a word she spun around and bucked me in the chest. I flew across the cell and smacked into the bars with a 'whang.' Just before her hooves connected I'd caught a glimpse of a crescent moon on her flank. "Let me guess," I grunted, lying on the cell floor, watching the ceiling wobble. "Princess Celestia's sister, Luna."

A silver-shoed hoof planted itself on my chest. I could feel my breastplate bending under it. "Still thy tongue, vermin," she hissed between her teeth. "I am here to be thy reckoning for the vicious cruelties thou hast done!"

"Gurk," I said.

Her hoof pressed down harder. The black metal breastplate creaked. Yeah, she was making it clear; she was strong enough to stomp a hole right through me. "My sister is too kind and soft for her own good," Luna went on. "She would parlay with thee, let thee prattle on. I have no such compunctions. Thou hast brought evil upon our ponies, and thou shalt answer us humbly and swiftly, and give us all the truth we ask--- or feel our wrath!"

I sized her up. And laughed in her face.  No, I was not that badass or brave or anything. I've always had this tendency to giggle like a loon when I'm scared or keyed up. It probably earned me a lot of beatdowns in school, but then again it stopped a few, too. It depended on whether it made the one delivering the beating madder or freaked them out.

It seemed that Luna was one of the kind that got freaked out. "Wh-what art thou laughing at?" she demanded, leaning back.

She let her weight up. I reached up and pushed her hoof aside. "You," I replied between giggles. I sat up and caught my breath while I fished for an answer.

You want to know something? I've only got one talent, one real talent that actually works. I have a talent for getting under people's skin; figuring out where they're sensitive and where they've got sore spots-- and digging my fingers in. I don't like that about myself at all. I'd learned the hard way that it's worthless for anything but getting my ass kicked. But this time, I wasn't about to hold back.

"Wow. So Celestia sent you in to play 'bad cop,' did she."

"Bad.. cop?" she said.

Oh yeah. She was the one who'd been stuck in the moon for a thousand years, right. Totally out of date. "It means she plays nice, then you get to come in and play all mean and hard... and do the dirty work for her. Like always." I threw in that last bit on a whim. I'd heard all about the Princesses and Nightmare Moon and all that, and I had a few hunches about just how the whole sisterhood thing was really playing out behind the scenes.

I'd guessed right. She snorted, ears laid back. "Watch thy tongue, creature," she said. "I care not for what thou art implying."

"And what am I implying?" I got to my feet and leaned against the wall, trying to look cool and casual, and wishing it would stop moving. "The truth? Things get nasty, she leaves, you come in to rough me up. Pardon me for trusting the evidence of my own eyes."

"Celestia," Luna said slowly, "Did not need to ASK me to put hoof, horn or wing to thee, wretch. I would have done the same on mine own."

"If she let you," I taunted.

She seemed to swell up with indignation and stalked toward me, glaring. "Thou shalt show respect, prisoner," she threatened, waving the tip of her horn in my face.

I held out my finger and pushed her horn aside before it poked me in my mask. "Celestia already did the horn-in-your-face thing," I said. "She did it better, too. Forget it. I don't speak to Celestia's underling."

She whacked me across the face with her hoof, sending me sprawling. I sat up woozily. She stood there shaking her hoof. She'd forgotten I still had my helmet on. "I AM NOPONY'S UNDERLING!" she thundered.

"Oh get over yourself," I said, hoping the voice changer hid the fear in my voice. I took a minute to try and straighten my battered helmet. "She rules the sun, the thing that keeps everything on the planet ALIVE. You rule the moon-- a fricking night light. You were so unimportant that she did your job and hers for a thousand years without help."

Wow. She heard that and just folded. I mean she fell apart like a wet graham cracker. She tried to stay all pompous and regal but her eyes went all wavery. Under all that bluster she was seriously insecure. Not surprising considering how her sister used her. "My sister and I share the throne," she said. "I rule with her..."

"Rule with her?" I laughed deliberately. "You can't even match her. You tried to stand up for yourself and she spanked your fanny and sent you to your room, and only let you back out when you promised to be a good little filly and obey her. The only reason you're a princess at all is with her permission. And she could take that away any time she wanted." I waved my hands around. "Look at this place. Hell, she built Canterlot while you were gone. It's ALL hers!  This is HER castle, HER kingdom, and it has been for a thousand years!  You're just the unemployed kid sister she lets sleep on the sofa--"

Then she went Emperor Palpatine on me. "SILENCE!" Moon-colored lightning lashed out from her horn and ran up and down my body. I screamed and jittered, falling to the floor and spazzing. I grabbed the bars of my cell and hung on while I screamed and thrashed.

It only lasted a second but holy CRAP that was long enough. She shut off the fireworks and backed off. She looked shocked at what she'd just done. I think she was more shocked at why.  "Whatsamatter, honey," I slurred. "Truth hurt?" I chuckled. "Oh hey, y'not c'mpletely useless, after all... she lets you do all the stuff that would make her look bad. She gets to be the pretty princess everyone loves... an'... an' you get to skulk around inna dark wi' your batponies, scarin' the naughty ponies straight for her.

"Thousan' years an nuthin's changed, hazzit?"

Eyes wide, she spun around and leaped , vanishing in a flash of dark blue light. I lay there on the cell floor, cackling like an idiot while the walls warped and rippled...

Then I woke up with a snort, still hanging from the ceiling by my manacles. Blegh. I drooled in my mask. I blinked my bleary eyes and looked around. Ohhh, so that's how it was, huh? Princess of the Night does the dream thing, right. She'd sensed me nodding off and had decided to slip into my dreams while my defenses were down.

I looked up at my manacles. The runes on them glowed faintly. They couldn't remove my amulet, but they could suppress my power this way. Probably the only reason Luna could slip into my mind like that....  I should have known they'd never take those things off me while I was a prisoner. That should have been my first sign I was dreaming. Well, that and the fact that Luna had been wearing a raspberry flan on her head instead of a crown. But, y'know, dreams.

About an hour later Celestia returned. She was not looking friendly. "What did you do to my sister?" She demanded, her nostrils flaring. "The moment she returned from speaking with you she bolted to her room-- she refuses to come out!" She stepped closer, teeth clenched. "What did you do to her, sorcerer?"

"Do to her?" I said. "I didn't do anything. She's the one who tried to fry me with lightning--"

Her horn sparked. Flames licked out towards me. "Do not trifle with me, Vulcan," she said, her voice dangerous.

"Nothing," I said. "I just reminded her what a loving relationship she has with you... So long as she does exactly as you say."

Celestia paused, pulled her horn back. "What happened in your dream??"

"Don't ask me, you're the one who sent her into my mind to torture me," I said bluntly. "Oh don't give me that look," I said when she looked surprised. " What do you think she gets up to when you send her out in the dark to do your dirty work?"

"Do my dirty work??" Celestia exclaimed.

"Oh come on. You keep her in the shadows, give her fanged bat ponies for her guard, make up a holiday all about how she eats foals--- she's been your boogie monster since day one. It's a good thing she's still terrified of you, at least. That'll keep her in line."  I paused. "It was easy to figure out her weak spot, just knowing your and her story. How she lost it because she was jealous of you. Because she was always in your shadow. Always outshined by you...always forgotten while everyone turned to you and loved you... "

"That has changed!"

I shrugged, sincerely disbelieving. "How?  All imprisoning her in the moon did was make things worse. You threw her in a dungeon for a thousand years, till nobody even remembered she existed, and told monster stories about her to little children. Now she's back, she's even further behind you than she was before, and because you're both freaking immortal, that's how it's going to stay, forever. And she knows it. And because you beat her when she rebelled against you, she knows she can never be free of you. That's just how it is."

I watched her roll that over in her mind.She had an expression of wounded disbelief on her face. "You barely met her, and you managed to cut her heart out. How does anyone learn how to be so cruel, so casually?" she said. There was almost a sound of wonder in her voice.

I felt myself sneer. "It's easy when you don't live with your head stuck in pony candyland."

"Anyway, weren't you wanting to hear the rest of my story?...."