A chill breeze crept across the darkened town of Ponyville, rustling the numerous paper cutouts of giant bats, ghouls, and other theoretically mythical monsters of Nightmare Night. All across the town, ponies dressed in outlandish costumes pranced and played through the starlit night with games, laughter, and far too much candy. It was a time of joy, celebrating the return of Equestria's missing princess as Luna passed among her subjects both young and old with an unaccustomed smile on her face.

Above the small town, the mood was much more somber. A few low-lying clouds were scattered around, including one being used by Rainbow Dash for nefarious purposes, if the occasional rumble of thunder and screams of young ponies was any indication. One cloud in particular bulked larger than the rest, as it held Princess Luna's chariot and the two guards who had driven it from Canterlot. Both of the bat-winged Night Guards peered off into the darkness with their golden eyes alert and attentive in their observation, except one had his gaze turned to Ponyville and the ponies in the general vicinity of Princess Luna as was his duty, while the other…

Sergeant Sunshine was peering intently away from Ponyville, into a small nearby clearing dominated by a statue of Nightmare Moon. It was not as odd to have a symbol of the legendary monster as one might think, because nearly every small town in Equestria had a statue much like it.

Mostly, the stone limbs and wings of the ancient night terror were overgrown with vines and weeds except for one night a year when the citizens of the town would prepare for the Nightmare Night celebration by cleaning the statue up. But not too clean. Oh, no. Nightmare Moon was best experienced by the frightened little colts and fillies of the town with a few curious vines still draped across her flank and their leaves waving silently in the chill breeze, or perhaps a dry spiderweb spun between armored legs. Ponyville had cast aside the ageless tradition this evening in order to make their statue of Nightmare Moon nearly pristine, and even after Princess Luna had tucked it behind some bushes in order to scare the bejeebers out of the Ponyville youth in a disguise, it still seemed to lurk in the moonlit shadows where she had returned it onto the original platform.

"Give it up, Sunshine." The guard who was watching Princess Luna laugh at the apple bobbing tank shifted positions uncomfortably on the cloud, unwilling to look at his fellow guard. "You have to admit it. She's been dead for years. You can't keep doing this to yourself."

The other guard did not respond, but simply stared harder into the small clearing around the lonely statue, decorated only with a sizable pile of candy heaped in front of it. In an hour or two, somebody from the town would visit the statue and pick up the 'tribute' to Nightmare Moon so that it could be redistributed to small ponies who had been unable to participate in the festivities, but for now, the sugary pile just sat there like a lump.

Or bait.

"I'm not giving up, sir," said the second guard. "You read the report. Something or somepony got into Ponyville's candy pile last year. They’re out there somewhere. Alive."

The two guards remained facing in their respective directions for a long time as the laughter and merriment of the small town drifted up to their sensitive ears. The first guard flinched at the sound of a broken branch and cast a brief look of his own into the nearby dark woods, then shook his head and returned to his duty of protective observation over the Lunar Princess below.

"It was probably a raccoon, Sunshine. You know that. It's been eight years. Eight years, and nopony has seen hide nor hair of either of them. The Everfree is a deadly place. Spark Gap can't—"

"She ran away from me, Breezy. She was so terrified of me that she ran into the deadliest place in Equestria rather than…" Sunshine remained quiet for a time while studying the empty clearing below. "I only wanted to help."

"Don't keep blaming yourself. Nopony saw it coming," said Light Breeze. "Her family was caught just as flat-hooved as the rest of us when she ran away."

"I tried too hard to get her to give up our foal for adoption," said Sunshine, still looking down into the clearing with such intent that he did not notice he was bunching little clumps of cloud in his forehooves. "I knew she was a little…" He trailed off with a sigh.

"Stressed," said Light Breeze, obviously suppressing a much more appropriate description of a young mare who would flee into a dangerous forest with a young foal.

"Crazy," said Sunshine, flicking his wings nervously. "I pushed her over the edge. She's still out there. I can feel it inside. I'm not going to give up on her again."

Instead of being drawn into Sunny's depressed musing, Light Breeze tried to concentrate on watching Princess Luna as she appropriated a small cloud to sneak around the Nightmare Night festival. She would pop up next to a pony one minute and exchange a few words, then vanish away into the night, only to surprise a small filly or colt into squeals of delighted laughter moments later. It was such a delightful change from the timid alicorn of just a few months ago that Breezy could not resist a small smile, despite his Royal Guard training. The party had already gone on a long time, and from the growing departure of small foals, yawning and complaining about not being tired, it would probably not last much longer.

It was a high honor to be selected as Princess Luna's drivers for this evening, and all of the little fillies and colts at the Stratus clan home tonight would be eager to hear about it. Even though the little ones had all gone out into the Canterlot night to procure their own candy supplies, they would be eager to see what tidbits 'Uncle Breezy' had brought back from his trip before being tucked into bed for a good day's sleep. Luna had promised to set a few pieces of candy aside for his family, and that additional proximity to their favorite princess would probably see several of the little nocturne foals tucking the candy away as a special keepsake instead of gobbling it down like the rest of their sugared hoard.

It was such an amusing thought that he almost missed his partner tensing up to the point where he could have been mistaken for a wooden pony, complete with rigid bat-wings and eyes narrowed into thin slits. Something in the clearing below moved, a small motion that anypony except one of their kind would have missed in the darkness and gloom.

"Raccoon?" whispered Breezy.

"Shh!" hissed Sunshine.

The two guards both watched as a very small creature flitted from shadow to shadow in the nearby clearing, ever so carefully approaching the pile of candy in front of the Nightmare Moon statue in a sinuous motion that was most definitely not a raccoon. As it ran out of cover, it paused almost within reaching distance of the sugary pile, seemingly hesitant to cross the last unshadowed stretch of ground.

"Oh," whispered Light Breeze, not sure if he was disappointed or relieved. "It's just one of the Ponyville kids, nabbing some extra candy…" The words dried up in his throat as the small greyish creature emerged out into the moonlight with its bat-like wings spread in preparation for a rapid escape, just in case.

"There's no nocturne in Ponyville," whispered Sunshine, just as rigid as if he had been turned to stone. "That's Emerald Dreams."

"Your daughter?" whispered Breezy. "That's impossible. That's… Where's Sparky?"

Light Breeze looked around the clearing for the lime sherbert coloring of Spark Gap's coat to no avail. He had only seen the mother once when she had been bigger than a barrel, with an acid tongue and vicious snap to her words as if she wished to draw and quarter all males for her pregnant predicament. The foal had been a nocturne, and although the Stratus clan had offered to take it in and raise it within the family, Spark Gap had reacted rather badly to the offer. Nocturne mares were bad enough when provoked, but crazy unicorns brought 'Domestic violence' to new highs.

Part of him had a little sympathy for the monsters of the Everfree Forest when Spark Gap had fled Canterlot and vanished into the green expanse, but the respectable portion of him had been properly sympathetic and respectful of Sunshine's grief. He had thought the tiny foal Sparky had taken with her was lost forever, but the little nocturne filly down in the clearing gorging herself on leftover candy could quite possibly be her…

Still, the mother was nowhere to be seen, and that bothered Light Breeze far more than the sight of the little filly, who seemed to be horribly disheveled and dirty even at this range. The way she was stuffing candy into her mouth and then spitting out the chewed paper was nearly feral, with darting glances cast around at any and every place a predator could hide in the clearing, and even a frequent scanning of the sky for airborne threats. She did not seem to realize the cloud could hold any predators, which seemed odd until he thought about the strange rules of magic within the Everfree Forest. There, a pegasus would be unable to use their magic to alter the weather or lurk within a cloud, which only reinforced the possibility that the little filly was actually Sunshine's lost daughter.

"I'm going to go talk to her," whispered Sunshine.

"Stay here," hissed Light Breeze. "We're supposed to be guarding the princess! If that really is your daughter, your wife is probably somewhere close by, probably in town. We can come back tomorrow—"

The little grey filly in the clearing looked up with a startled twitch of her head, staring right at the two Royal Guards.

Then she bolted towards the woods, with Sunshine plummeting off the cloud in hot pursuit, calling out, "Wait! Come back!"

"Hedgeballs!" snapped Light Breeze, his wings partially unfurled as his partner vanished into the woods as fast as he could flap. Close range obstacle avoidance was not Breezy's special talent, and the ability to control winds within a very precise range would be nearly useless if he were to pursue as well. The sounds of two batponies flying away into the woods died out almost immediately, swallowed up by the inky darkness and thick trees as if both of them had been consumed and turned into shadows themselves by the cursed magic of that place.

"Idiot, idiot, idiot!" Breezy kicked a chunk of cloud into vapor and stared out into the dark woods. Sergeant Sunshine was too smart of a pony to be busted down in rank as far as he was going to get slammed for this stunt, even if he was chasing after his long-lost daughter. It had been a long and difficult road for both of them to get assigned as Princess Luna's personal drivers for this important task. Even if Spark Gap and Emerald Dreams had been standing down in the clearing with a sign stating 'Come Back Sunny - All Is Forgiven' in huge letters, there was no way he should have broken off his sworn duty of protecting Princess Luna. Or protecting others from her.

It had only been a few months since Nightmare Moon had been defeated, and most of the guard still had faint feelings of doubt about Princess Luna being fully cleansed. Several of them had even voiced the opinion that a second exposure to the Elements of Harmony would only be reasonable, just in case there were any lingering bits of darkness needing to be purged. It might possibly explain her short bursts of anger at seemingly trivial things, or the way she would come lurking out of the shadows to scare the kumquats out of any guard she thought was not paying enough attention to—

"Lieutenant Light Breeze," said a soft voice just behind Breezy's right ear. "Explain."

Several hours later, a much more bedraggled Royal Guard came slowly flapping out of the forest. Burrs and curled leaves tangled in his short tail, with more than a few spiderwebs floating almost delicately from his helmet's dented crown. A few long, silvery scratches adorned the enchanted surface of his dark armor, with one vambrace completely missing from a forehoof, and a second one caked in a slowly congealing mauve goo that glowed softly in the moonlight. He fluttered up to the cloud almost silently and landed directly to the side of his friend, talking and gesturing with one badly-scratched membranous wing even before his hooves touched the cloud.

"It was her, Breezy. I got so close just once and she looked back at me before ducking behind some vines. She's got the same green eyes as Spark Gap. There can't be more than one in a hundred of our kind with green eyes. Sparky has to be out there somewhere too! There's no way she could have grown up on her own, Breezy. No way. She knew that forest like the back of her hoof, and she was so fast! I almost had her twice, but she got away. Just twisted in mid-flight like the best flier I've ever seen, ducking and weaving. She's Wonderbolt material, for sure. This means Sparky has to be living around here somewhere! She could have even been in the crowd tonight! I'm so close, so very, very close. I just need…"

The faint but distinct sound of the Princess of the Night clearing her throat cut through the darkness, making Sunshine flinch at the realization that the cloud now had an occupancy of three ponies, one of whom was seated in her chariot with an expression of divine impatience.

"Drivers. I am prepared to return to Canterlot now. Let us be off."

With a flutter of undersized wings, Dee zipped through the hole in the side of the hollow tree, made three circuits around the vast hollow inside, and flapped into a zoom climb shooting upwards past several other collections of The Folk, who had just settled in for a morning of rest inside Home. Huge moths fully her size and half-eaten fruits of all kinds were collected in their squirming and writhing niches as mothers pulled children off their backs and tried to make them not fight with their siblings over the night's repast. The other Folk hissed their greetings as Dee flew by in an ascending spiral, almost too excited to squeak back greetings of her own.

"Mama! Mama!" she squeaked, tumbling to a landing on the thin shelf of dry wood her family called home, crowded in among several other of The Folk who could tolerate Dee's deformities.

"Dee!" exclaimed Mama, extending her broad, warm wings to wrap up her only child. "I was so worried. It's almost time for the Burning to begin."

Dee made a disparaging noise, muffled to near inaudibility by her mother's warm wings. She tunneled upwards along Mama's soft hairy chest until she could poke her strange blunt face out and rub it against Mama's damp nose. "It's not that bad, Mama. I've seen the Skyfire before, and I didn't burn all up. The other creatures, they play in the Burning all the time, and they don't burn up either."

Mama's warm fang-filled smile vanished as she sniffed her daughter's face. She was the only one of The Folk who would smile for Dee. None of the other children would even try, no matter how much Dee begged and pleaded with them. They would call her names and pelt her with overripe fruit until Mama would fly over and beat them with her broad wings and snap at them with her sharp fangs. Those long fangs now brushed through Dee's tangled mane as Mama looked for ticks and fleas in an obvious attempt not to talk, but after a little grooming, she managed a quiet, "You didn't go there, did you?"

"Yes, Mama," said Dee, trying to wriggle back down into her mother's embrace.

"I told you not to go, my child. They're terrible monsters, and they'll gobble you up." Mama licked Dee's head and began to work her way down the neck, her long fangs tickling against her daughter's strange thin hide.

"I know, Mama," whined Dee, dropping her voice almost too low for her mother to hear. "There were all kinds of new monsters in the city tonight, different than last season. They must have eaten all of the other monsters up and moved in. But the big stone monster was still there. The monsters give it all kinds of tasty food so it won't eat them up."

Dee shuddered, even wrapped up in her mother's warm embrace. "I saw it move this season, Mama. It spoke really, really loud, and I could almost understand it. It made lightning hit the big monsters and bellowed at the little monsters. I thought it was angry, but when I came back, it had turned to stone again." She trembled harder, although she forced one deformed hand up through her mother's embrace to display a single waxy piece of the delicious food.

"You risked being eaten by the big monster for another piece of fruit?" Mama nosed the crinkling lump of sweetness, eventually unwrapping it with her agile fingers and sniffing it. Sharp teeth nipped it up and chewed for a long time, with many facial expressions and exploratory prods of her pointed tongue until the last of the sticky fruit had been dealt with. "It is different than last season’s fruit. The rind is still tasteless and bland, though."

"I had more," admitted Dee. "A monster chased me, and I dropped them to get away." She writhed in her mother's embrace until the additional words escaped. "It looked like me."

"Obviously a changeling," declared Mama. "They make themselves look like other creatures, but if you catch them and crack their shells open, they're good eating."

“Are you sure, Mama? It… knew my name.” Dee held out her rigid deformed hand and placed it against her mother's long webbed fingers. "It looked just like me, except for the eyes and a shell around its face and chest. I r-remember a monster when I was very small. Before you brought me to The Folk. I remember the way it shouted. It shouted just like the monster tonight. A-a-and I remember there was another monster then. Warm and smelling like you, Mama."

Mama sat for a long time, her black eyes blinking frequently as she looked away from her little child. Dee knew her own green eyes were different from the rest of The Folk, as well as her malformed hands and feet, and her odd face. She had always known her mother would love her no matter how strange and out of place she seemed, but there was something different about Mama this morning. Dee tunneled into the warm chest hair and brushed the side of Mama's face with her odd rigid hand, so wishing she had long, thin fingers like the rest of The Folk so she could fit in with them. There were times when she felt so alone, even inside Home with hundreds of other Folk and the warmth of Mama enfolding her. During those times, she would sit on a dry branch outside of Home and stare up at the moon, gazing at the dark patterns on the surface that stirred something deep in her chest.

Even that was gone to her now. One night when the moon had stayed up far too long, the patterns of darkness vanished, and something in Dee's heart twinged with a sensation she had never felt before. It made her itch with curiosity and want to fly there to see what had happened, but she dared not, for the moon was the home of the dreaded Owls. The mere thought of their silent wings and unblinking gaze made Dee hold Mama even tighter, only relaxing again at the reassuring touch of her fingers running through the long and tangled hair on the back of Dee's neck.

"Don't you worry, child. It's time to sleep now, while the Burning covers the forest and the monsters of light come out to eat. When we wake, I will show you something I've been keeping from you for many seasons. It is some distance away, and very dangerous, so you will need your rest. Sleep well, my little one. Do not worry. I will protect you."

"Sleep well, Mama," said Dee, shifting in position as large warm wings enfolded her tightly. "I'm so glad I have you."

"And I'm glad to have you too," said Mama, giving her only child an additional lick across the head to settle down a ruffled clump of her long hair.

It was difficult to sleep upright instead of clinging to the ceiling of their little niche in the giant hollow tree, but Mama had gotten used to it over the last eight seasons. While the rest of The Folk faded into a somewhat noisy slumber, she remained awake for a while with her ears upright, listening intently for the sounds of danger. The Folk had argued strenuously when she had brought Dee back with her, with many of them considering the odd little creature to simply be a snack being kept around for later. Many times over the years, she had nearly lost Dee to the dangers of the forest, but now her daughter was more agile and outgoing than even the most courageous Folk. If the strange hard coverings Dee had instead of hands and feet were not enough, the strange markings she had acquired on her rear during last season only emphasised how different the little batling was from the rest of The Folk.

The warm puffs of breath from Dee ruffled her chest hair, making Mama practice that odd 'smile' she had learned from the little one. It made a blazing warmth fill her body from clawed feet to her wide ears, a fire of determination and happiness at being a part of such a special little batling's life, and nothing was going to separate them.

Nothing.