"If you can't forgo meat then you maybe should let the spell expire," I spoke through the closed toilet door to my friend, who was apparently vomiting his soul from his body. After he had suffered through a week of little more than vegetable soups and apples, having rejected flowers and hay, Julian had cooked himself some bacon about an hour ago. Apart from the fact that a pony’s digestive system was not primarily made to process meat, I could not imagine how it would have tasted to him. Nevertheless, he had gulped down the entire plate by himself. Now I could say that I had seen an equine vomit for sure.

“How do you *burp* manage?” I tried to breathe through my mouth, because with my more sensitive nose, the smell was even more disagreeable than the times I had found myself in similar situations as a human. “You ate meat, just like me.” Once more, I heard the sound of liquid hitting porcelain.

“That was a pure habit thing. Moreover, I am, in contrast to you, actually a pony. As I went on longer without eating meat, my body also wanted none of it.” It had been so long since I had even thought of looking at a piece of meat that I actually could not remember.

“I think that was…” I heard the click of the cabin door and saw his hoof by the gap as he closed it again. Once more, the same noise from the last quarter of an hour was to be heard. “Couldn’t you warn me?”

“If I had known that you’d loot the stockroom of the hospital and cooked a year’s worth of bacon, I would have. Even if you weren’t a pony, the electricity had been switched off for several months. Even as a human, you would have gotten food poisoning. Then it wouldn’t be just one orifice...” I was distracted by opening the door to the hall, where Dr. Henry Brown now stood. He had become the official representative of the survivors here, fairly chosen and accepted by all.

“How does it go for the patient?” I said nothing and let the noises speak for themselves. “That doesn’t sound good… Shouldn’t have a veterinarian… a doctor have a look?” This was only one of many smaller awkwardness the meeting of humans and ponies had caused. When we had moved the Celestia onto the roof of the hospital about half a week ago, after everything here had been prepared, they had provided our demanded provisions. The whole thing was done like a small ceremony, in front of the gathered humans, and it screamed from back to front how weird everything was. As we were ponies, they had assumed that we would eat the same as normal ponies did. While we had considered our two races to be at the same level of intelligence, they had handed over ten large bales of hay. They had then seemed frightened that they had insulted us somehow, and none of the two parties knew how to act. Pinkie Pie was the one who finally solved this impasse by simply being herself. After several minutes of embarrassed silence, she had disappeared into one of the bales before she reappeared with her mouth filled with hay, and held a single needle in the air with pride. We weren’t able to contain our laughter at that, and the humans had followed suit not long after.

“It boils down to him being something that simply can’t process meat, and his body is now trying to get rid of it. As soon as everything is out, he should be fine.” The flush of the toilet was to be heard.

“Nothing is fine! My neck hurts, my stomach is rebelling, and I can’t eat meat!” I didn’t do anything but roll my eyes.

“Then tell Luna that you don’t want to extend the spell anymore.” I looked over to Henry, who only sighed and left us alone once again in the hospital’s washroom area.

“Are you crazy? Do you know how cool it is to fly with your own wings?” I could well imagine that he had only touched the ground to eat or sleep for the past few days.

“You already know that we have to leave to go back to Equestria. Then it’ll run out sooner than later.” Again the door opened. This time, however, stepping out completely and with still some bits of fur hanging around his mouth, he went over to the sink.

“I know!” He turned the knob with a hoof and kept his head under the tap. “Therefore, I want to enjoy this as long as possible. I can even understand you a little why you have no problems with it. If your magic is in such a way like how I feel about flying, then I understand you very well.” The jet of water turned off, and I got a hoof up just in time to protect my face as he started to shake it off.

We had succeeded in integrating, with the help of some engineers and some magic, the water treatment plant of the thermal bath into the system of the hospital. In addition, we had installed a water retention system like the one in the Celestia, plus there was still the well in the garden. The garden was a small piece of vacant land in the middle of the medical centre to relax in, though mainly for the patients to walk around a little. To our luck, there hadn’t been a cellar, and we only had to work on the foundation.

“You already sound like Rainbow when it comes to flying around. I can’t understand the two of you.” Julian only grinned as we both walked back down the wide hall of the building.

“Hah, you were always the one ready to piss their pants when you stood on a ladder. Believe me, being up there with your own wings is something completely different than just being in an airplane. You’d have to feel it yourself to understand.” For a few seconds, I considered whether I should shake up his world a little. What friend would I be if I didn’t do it? A quick moment later, and my horn gave way for two wings at my sides.

“I could if I wanted to.” He looked at me in complete shock as we both halted our trek in the hallway.

“How the hell?” The shock now gave way to confusion.

“Like I said, my cutie mark shows my talent at transformation.” I had had to explain this to him and my brother several times as both did not have cutie marks. “A change of race is pretty indicative of this talent.” With the help of a little alicorn DNA of course, but I had decided not to tell anyone else about that. Armor felt that it was bad enough that now everyone knew that Luna was a princess. Twilight had accidentally let it slip in the briefing on the first day, and the word “princess” didn’t escape the Brits. Our surprise was therefore considerable as we had been greeted so formally after the landing, or at least Luna had been.

“I don’t understand why that’s so important. I know what I am good at.” The Crusaders had tried to make Julian, as well as Dirk, join their club. The grey pegasus beside me had excused himself from the fillies with some flimsy excuses and had taken off. My brother had less luck, as he was not able to do like Julian and escape with the winds. By his rather taciturn nature, it came as no surprise that he had not been able to offer up any excuse and was thus practically kidnapped by the five foals. As the area had been secured with the magical stones, nopony was actually worried about them, instead saving their concerns for their victims. Curious as they were, they didn’t shy away from trying to help one of the poor humans with their tasks. It often ended with us having to apologize for them after they had been brought back by an annoyed human.

“I know what you mean, but it is a big event in pony society. It indicates that you're on your way to becoming an adult and taken the path best suited for you, to know what job you can get and to fit into society. Ponies work for pleasure, since what you’re good at is usually what type of job you’d choose. It’s something humans, who work only to survive, wouldn’t really understand. I mean, yeah, there are those folks who get their dream jobs, but they were only a fraction. In Equestria, everybody knew what they were good at and lived with it.”

“And what do you have for a job with your talent?” A good question. My dream was never to be become a teacher or diplomat. In addition, those positions had little to do with my talent. Nevertheless, I was not unhappy with it.

“Because there are no computers in Equestria, I’ve made use of my mathematical knowledge. I teach in an elementary school. I think there I’ve remained a human. I don’t have to work with my talent to be happy. Moreover, I’ve always liked working with children.” I hadn’t realized how far we had walked, and we now stood in the cafeteria where Julian had swung the cooking spoon about an hour ago. The smell of the roasted bacon still lay in the air.

“Better than not having a job.” He probably meant the year when I had stayed at home between finishing university and getting my job “Well, I should clear up the kitchen. See you later.” I saw how he tried to ignore the smell of the bacon. That’s how you learn to hate a dish for life.

I had just covered half of the distance to my next goal when suddenly several children a bit smaller than me ran past me with a laugh on their lips.

“Thou can hide! Nevertheless, we shalt find thou!” a loud voice barked behind me, and Luna ran past me the next moment. On her back was a young girl with blond hair, laughing with joy. They seemed to have come from one of the waiting rooms. These had been converted into recreation rooms because they couldn’t really be used for anything else. Three of the walls were made of glass, and nobody would be able to really enjoy any sort of privacy. In the room were several toys like building blocks, large jigsaw puzzles, and Legos. In the second room, I saw Cadance, also surrounded by some children, but these seem to be tensely hanging onto the words coming from her lips as she read from a book that floated in front of her. The things were procured from the Toys'R'us, which was not far from here. Because, however, Twilight and I declined to go there, some soldiers had taken over this job.

“It’s a blessing to see the children so happy.” I had only noted the woman beside me when she spoke. I had grown accustomed to louder noises when being approached. I looked up to her. She was around thirty, wore old jeans and a thick red pullover. Her long brown hair was woven in a plait. “I can’t remember when last they had a chance to play. At night they lay awake, the noise those creatures made keeping them from sleeping. Then they sleep during the day.”

“Children should also not grow up like that.” She stretched a hand and patted my mane like a dog. Surprised, I looked at her.

“You ponies are somehow cute, I have to give you that.” She went into a squat to be able to look at me in my eyes. “I am Denise. It’s a pleasure to meet you properly… Blue Light, right?” We had been all introduced to the humans, and most of them accepted that we were here to help them when we showed them what we had changed at the hospital for the last few days.

“Correct… Ehm… Is that necessary?” I asked with my eyes looking upward. She followed my look and pulled back her hand quickly.

“Sorry. I had horses when I was younger, and it’s a habit I had. They always calmed down when I did it.” I only nodded.

“No problem, just makes me feel like I’m a child,” I confessed, which earned me a nod of understanding of my own.

“Sorry if I sound rude, but how old are you all again? If I had to go by the behavior of your friend a few days ago, I’d say you were teenagers. I don’t mean anything bad by that.” I wouldn’t take offense at that. After all, Pinkie Pie never really acted her age.

“Ponies age differently than humans. Our span of life is a little higher. In human years, I would be around twenty four.” I could tell that she didn’t expect that bit of information. “As for the others… How old Shining Armor, Night Hawk, or Shooting Star are, I don’t know.” However, I had also never asked. “The foals are between seven and ten human years. Pinkie Pie is the youngest and AJ the oldest one. So they all are between eighteen and twenty two.“ Whereas one birthday party was still pending this year.

“You all are a few years older than I thought. I mean, Princess Luna and Princess Cadance are a good bit bigger than you.” She indicated to the room at the pink alicorn. She noted the small gesture and waved briefly to us both.

“They both also belong to another race. Luna, for example, is more than three thousand years old.” Denise looked at me in shock for a few moments.

“You weren’t joking about the extended life span. Still, she’s rather well-maintained for her age.” We both could only grin at that. “Now I have to go get my daughter though. It’s time for her lessons.” With that, she rose again to her full size, so that I only reached to her up to the hip, and went to the room where Cadance was. She lifted one of the small girls in her arms, thanked the reader, and walked again out on the hall.

“Mummy, that was Cadance, Princess Cadance!” the small girl exclaimed and waved her hands about excitedly. “She will save us from the bad monsters. She also saved Canterlot.” I said nothing. It was uncertain whether we really had one more chance, and the last thing I wanted to do was to take away their hope. We represented that hope.

“Light! There you are.” I whirled around and saw Twilight coming up to me, the children in a line behind Luna. “We need to talk. There is new information.” I started to follow her before she could say anything more.

“What is with Cadance?” I asked as we took the staircase to go onto the first floor.

“My brother said that he is going to tell her later. She needs to avoid being stressed.” I only nodded. Cadance had been pregnant as long as AJ, and one only needed to take a good look at her to see that. Those who didn’t pay attention to her figure needed only to look at her plate. Pickles with mayonnaise were a clear language. We had half of the steps behind us as the next question occurred.

“What is going on? As far as I know, no meeting had been scheduled.” Every two or three days tasks had been distributed, and small squads were sent off to gather food. This didn’t affect us as much since we could simply get our food from the empty farm houses in the neighbourhood or simply pick from the empty fields. Often only Armor or Luna were present as our representative.

“You were not present last night. We have got the short wave transceiver running and made contact with two other stations.” Because the satellite dish on the roof was useless without transmitters, we had converted them into a transceiver with a long range. Yesterday we had started running them. “However, something seemed to have happened.” Twilight opened the door to the upper floor and we ran down the hall to the large conference room. The door was open and some others were already gathered. Among those were Henry, some other humans, Luna, and Armor. The momentary conversation was interrupted as we came in, and the humans took their seats in the luxurious leather chairs. Twilight, her brother, and I did so as well, only we hopped on them and plopped our rears on them. Luna was large enough to see above the table if she sat on the ground.

“As I just already explained…” began one of the humans who I identified as one of the engineers. He had also been a member of the British army. He looked different than Henry however, as he was substantially more athletic and maintained his military haircut. “We made contact with two groups of survivors last night. One group was from Spain and other here from Dusseldorf.” With that word, my ears perked up. It was the place my family had last been seen. “This morning before sunrise, contact with Manuel, the name of my correspondent, suddenly broke off. Since then, there have been no more responses, and the transmitter seems to be dead.”

“Either we have a raid by the Nightmare…” Everybody looked over to Armor. “The shades or another group of survivors attacked them because of the resources.” All around the table nodded except for Luna, who did not move a muscle.

“With Dusseldorf, we never had direct contact, only one SOS signal of American origin. Because it was interrupted, however, for one hour and then began again, somebody must have renewed the energy source.”

“Wasn’t that from the airplanes for the evacuation and whatnot the Yanks provided? Nevertheless, they worked together with the armed forces,” one of his two colleagues threw in. For me, my next aim was clearer than ever before. Dusseldorf was substantially closer than Munich, and the place of residence could be confirmed there, perhaps preventing a wild search.

“In this Spain… That was Nightmare,” Luna spoke suddenly, and all eyes lay on her.

“What do you mean, Princess?” Henry asked.

“We are sure that it was Nightmare. We were once one with this being, so we know how it thinks.” None of us ponies said anything, but the present humans made up for it.

“What do you mean ‘you were once one with that thing’?” asked the engineer, looking confused.

“We call these beings Nightmares. They move from world to world and feed on the souls of the inhabitants. Albion stood in their way once. However, thanks to our immortality, my sister and I had stood against them. It is impossible to consume an immortal soul.” They nodded even though they couldn’t entirely comprehend it.

“Princesses Luna and Celestia are the living Avatars of night and day. They are immortal and guard Albion and Equestria,” Twilight explained quickly, accompanied with a grateful nod by Luna.

“In our fight against them, one succeeded in diverting my defenses and tried to devour my soul. However, as I was immortal, we melded into a singular being. A great evil called Nightmare Moon was born and was exiled, finally, by our sister to the moon for one thousand years. After this time had passed, I was freed from this being by Twilight and her friends, and We thought We had rid it from ourselves. It was my nephew here who discovered it again.” She directed a hoof at me, and all humans stared at me. “Our sister probably had an idea and warned him about the possibility that the being still wandered through our country. In spite of the warning, the Nightmare also succeeding in taking him.”

“Hold on!” Henry threw in and held a finger in the air. “Your nephew? I thought Light had once been a human?”

“We will explain this later,” Luna said, looking a bit irritated. “However, Light had to prevent, at that time, the possibility that it could reach his soul, which would have led to his death. He viewed it as an opportunity to master control of the Nightmare and decided to hide the being inside of him. When he fought against another evil with Shining Armor and his troops, however, Nightmare finally took over his soul, and he died.” Once more, the looks of everyone landed on me.

“I was pulled into the Void, a place where the creators live,” I continued the tale. “There I met Albia, creator of Albion, and Celestia’s and Luna’s mother. She gave me this body and sent back me. My time has not come yet.” Everything sounded already like a fairy tale to me. I could only imagine how the others thought of it.

“I imagine you have a lot of questions, but suffice it to say, magic is the long and short of it,” I forestalled the doctor’s questions.

“The problem with Nightmare is that it does not have a conscience. It longs for revenge, death, and ruin, and it has the intelligence to do so, in contrast to others of its kind. At the moment, Light and myself are the objects upon whom it wishes to inflict sorrow and pain upon. It would be no surprise to destroy the source of hope to see us suffer.” Depressed expressions were exchanged.

“I think I have understood most of it,” Henry said after some seconds. “But what is it with you?” He indicated to me. “What are you now?”

“I am who I am. My soul is that of Timo, a human, but the body here was made for me by Albia, who modelled it directly after Celestia. She is my mother like Antje who had given birth to me originally.” One of the other engineers questioningly lifted a hand.

“What prompted this Albia to… to recreate you like this?” I sighed and took a breath.

“When I entered Equestria the first time, I had been told that there is no way back for me. I was devastated. The princess saw my despair and believed that all I needed was a family, so she took me in. This happened when I still had my old body. Albia thought it would be a nice present for both of us to… create me as her son.” I was getting sick of telling this story. “Celestia was also the one who gave me my new name of Blue Light.”

“If you both know this Nightmare, what should we do now?” I looked from Henry to Luna who thought the same as me.

“It’s main aim is to see us suffering, and because it knows everything about me, thanks to the fusion with Robin, it knows what I’m after: my family. Their last sighting was, according to my brother, in Dusseldorf.” With that, Armor hit a hoof on the table.

“Then our next aim is clear. As soon as the princess and the foals are again in Equestria tomorrow, we go in the direction of this Dusseldorf,” he said with certainty and finished the meeting.

Author's Notes:

Edited by JBL