The night air was cool and clear; the clouds summoned by 'Nightmare Moon' had parted, letting the light of the moon shine through again. The stars were brilliant up above; Ponyville was a smattering of streetlights and porchlights far below. It was a wonderful night for flying.

It left Nyx breathless.

She snuggled down between Celestia's shoulders, her warm fur beneath her, her astral mane smelling of sunshine and mornings all around her. It was, she admitted a little guiltily to herself, even nicer a feeling than when she curled up next to Twilight at bedtime.

"So tell me, Nyx," Celestia said as they soared between the clouds, "why were you swiping the tribute left for Nightmare Moon?"

Nyx frowned in puzzlement. "Um, because it was Nightmare Night candy?"

Celestia chuckled. "Right. 'You robbed the bank because that was where the money was.' I guess I deserve that answer. Let me rephrase the question: what on Equestria were you planning to do with all that candy?"

Nyx shrugged. "I was gonna give it back to all the foals."

Celestia looked back at her, eyebrow raised. "I would have thought you were going to simply claim it all as your own," she probed, amused. "You are... well, were... Nightmare Moon after all.... most foals your age would have taken that and run with it."

Nyx shifted uncomfortably. "I did sort've think of that at first," she confessed. "I was really mad."

"Then why not?"

"Because it wasn't my candy!" Nyx protested. "It was theirs! All the other foals. They were the ones getting cheated, not me--"

"Cheated?" Celestia dipped around a cloud.

Nyx waited till she leveled out again. "Well YEAH!" Nyx said. "It's horrible. They're scaring little kids and taking their candy away. What's rottener than that?"  A few weeks back, Twilight and Nyx had gone and seen a gangster movie. Nyx dropped her voice to a gravelly growl and did her best imitation of the villain, Broken Kneecaps; "hey youse kids, maybe you better cough up summa your candy, or my friend Nightmare Moon is gonna have herself a SNACK, capiche?"

Celestia laughed so hard she lost altitude. After she recovered her composure, she considered what Nyx had said. It would look that way to innocent eyes, she realized. Like a horrible schoolyard bully, extorting candy and money out of children by threatening to come get them in the dark. "You do understand, it's not done to be mean," she said. "It's only a game. Most foals know it's just a bit of scary fun."

"Did I look like I was having fun?" Nyx sulked, staring down at the scenery below. "And I wasn't the only one. I heard fillies crying, they were so scared." she looked at Celestia. " I scared lots of ponies when I was Nightmare Moon, and it was the worst. It was awful. I hated it."

"Why does everypony else think it's FUN to scare little kids?"

Celestia didn't have an answer for that one.

After a moment's thought, the Princess had another question. "If you hadn't been able to get the candy back to everypony it belonged to," she said, "What were you planning on doing? That was an awful lot of candy--- and an awful lot of ponies."

Nyx rubbed her head and thought it over. "I hadn't really thought about it," she admitted. "I suppose maybe I would've left it in little bags on everypony's doorsteps? Or.... I dunno." She was suddenly curious. "What were YOU going to do with it all?"

"How do you know I wasn't going to eat it all?" Celestia teased.

"Oh come on," Nyx said scornfully. " You'd've had a bellyache for WEEKS!"

"Is that experience talking?"

"That's the other reason I didn't just keep all the candy," Nyx admitted meekly. "I tried to eat a whole tray of candy apples all by myself once. Mom made them for a party and left them on the counter and I just couldn't stop..." she cringed at the memory. "I barfed all over the place...."

Celestia lost altitude again.

"You and Luna have a lot in common," Celestia said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. "Her first Nightmare Night, she did take all the candy back. We didn't have so many sweets back a thousand years ago, nor in so many kinds. I tried to warn her," she sighed, "But she sat up all day gobbling candy. Oh, she was so sick the next night.... The moon was green for three nights in a row." Nyx squealed with laughter. "The night after that, the Foals' Hospital in Canterlot received a VERY large, anonymous donation of candy for the colts and fillies. There were a lot of happy children that night." She sighed again. "Almost made it worth the tummyache."

"Is that what they do with the candy?" Nyx whispered, stricken. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know---"

"You hardly had reason to suspect," Celestia admitted. "If you think somepony is pulling a mean trick, you hardly expect them to be doing a good deed on the side."

Nyx paused. "You know, most of us would've given the candy anyway, if you told us the truth," she said. "I bet most ponies would have given more, even."

Celestia hmmmed. "Maybe my sister and I do need to talk about how Nightmare Night is conducted," she said.

"Oh, lots of Nightmare Night is fun!" Nyx said hastily. "Really! It's just--"

"Perhaps certain things have gone a bit too far?" Celestia suggested.

"Mmm, yeah." Nyx pricked up her ears. "It's an awful long flight to the Lunar Palace," she noted.

"Well, I have been circling a bit," Celestia said. "You seemed to be enjoying the flight. Are you?"

"Oh yes, it's wonderful up here," Nyx said, pointing her nose into the wind. "I hope I can fly this high when I grow up."

"I'm sure you will," Celestia said. She took a dip and a loop around another cloud, making Nyx squeal. "And there's the palace up ahead. I think we've dawdled enough, let's go in." She fell from the clouds in a dive that took the breath from Nyx's lungs, swooping for the window at the top of the highest tower at dizzying speeds--then pulling up and alighting on the balcony as light as a dove. Nyx felt something suddenly release her--- for the first time she realized that the Princess had been magically holding her on her back--- and she slid down the princess' wing to the balcony. She staggered to her hooves.

Celestia looked around, scanning the night sky, and frowned a bit. "What's wrong?" Nyx asked.

"Nothing you need to worry about," Celestia said. But it occurs to me to wonder what became of those two guards I assigned to you, the Princess thought to herself. Where are they? I'm going to be having words with them later.

Sundiver and Lightning Blitz lounged in their observation cloud. This time around they used a custom made cloud; the unicorns had gone over this one with every spell and charm and dingus in the arsenal. it was higher flying, automatically changed color to match the clouds around it or the sky above it, was self propelled and, at their insistence, was shielded against high speed projectiles... or at least as shielded as something could be that was made out of fog and unicorn hocus pocus. They'd spent Nightmare Night following the CMC at a safe distance... one they'd raised by a few dozen feet after they saw the prankster arsenal on board the CMC's hoof-made Time Machine.

Sundiver steering the cloud, Lightning Blitz's binoculars focused downward on the procession of foals. "She still with them?" Sundiver asked.

Blitz made a grunt of confirmation. "Just tagging along at the tail of the group. You'd think she'd stay closer to the lamps."

"Sure it's her?"

Blitz grunted again. "I can see her glow-bracelets and her hourglass from here," he said.

Sundiver ruminated over this briefly. "I still think we should swing back and check on those foals we saw head back for the statue," he said. "I'm worrying a little about them."

"Naah. Just a couple of foals going back to swipe some of that free loot everypony left behind. Colts do it all the time."

"What? Stealing the candy left for Nightmare Moon?" Sundiver said, astonished.

"What, you never did that in your hometown when you were a colt? Sneaking back to wherever everyone left the candy and swiping some of it? " Lightning Blitz snorted and shook his head. "Boy, you were an innocent, weren't you."

"Well it's just not right," Sundiver said crossly. "In my town they took the candy and gave it out to sick or disadvantaged foals who couldn't go out on Nightmare Night. Ain't right, letting some lil' stinkers swipe it."

"It ain't our job to babysit the trick or treat candy, Sundiver," Blitz said wearily. "Our job is to look after Twilight Sparkle's daughter Nyx, who is right down there," he pointed with a hoof. " And--- whoa, hello? Isn't that Spike's bird PeeWee buzzing the adults escorting the kids?" Sundiver joined Blitz at the edge of their cloud and looked down. Indeed, a small tennis-ball sized blob of light was zipping around and around one of the guards carrying the lamps. After a moment he handed the lantern off to his partner and trotted off back down the path, following the bobbing baby phoenix. "There, you see? Spike must've seen something was up back there and sent PeeWee to fetch someone. No worries."

Sundiver grunted and gave a shrug. "Fine, fine, we don't need to go back. Wasn't really being serious--- just felt like something needed sayin'...."

Down below, a little filly disguised as a Princess of Tomorrow watched the guard walk on by and sighed in relief. She'd heard Nyx whisper for someone to "cover for me" and had quietly obliged. Nopony seemed to be any the wiser since the switch-off. She didn't think it was likely that Scootaloo and Nyx were in any trouble,  but she felt a lot better knowing a grownup was going back to check up--- and she'd be really happy to lose this disguise when they got back.

She rolled the cane Twist had given her from one corner of her mouth to the other. Mmm, strawberry--- and with that extra special something only Twist's candies seemed to have. They really were her favorite kind.....