Author's Notes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dp0jtoWJPgKQ-KjYG7PH8A4fKWgC5IvDUioZVL8u0bk/edit

I was filling water bottles from a serene river in my second week in the forest when I found something unexpected: A giant water dragon thing.

I handled that exactly as one would expect a knight of Equestria to: I freaked and tried to run away. I mean, what are the chances of getting a friendly dragon twice in a row? His hand shot out and grabbed me before I made it three paces.

“And what are you, cute little ape thing?” the dragon asked with a bit of a lisp. Oh god it’s gay and thinks I’m cute. “I say, with a little bit of work, we might just make you presentable!”

“Uh… Hello,” I said. He jerked back; I don’t think he was expecting me to be able to talk. “I don’t… I don’t suppose you could put me down?”

“A cute winged ape thing that talks!” he gleefully said. “Oh, this is just wonderful! Tell me, what do you think of my mustache?” The way he pronounced mustache… I wanted to punch him.

I looked at it. Half of it was orange and straight and half of it was purple and curly. I looked back up to his large eyes. “It looks a bit mismatched,” I commented. “Hell, that half looks like Rarity’s tail. Now, I don’t suppo—”

“You know Mistress Rarity?” I flinched when he called her mistress. “Oh, she’s such a dear! This is her tail! Or rather, it was. She helped me out of a fashion emergency a few years ago, and I’ve been wanting to repay her ever since!” God, his accent was so flamboyant!

“That’s nice. I don’t suppose you could set me down? Or at least loosen your grip?” One of my arms was trapped and I couldn’t get to any of my main weapons. I’m surprised he hadn’t broken my crossbow.

“Set you down? But you tried to run before! How do I know you won’t dart away again? It’s so… lonely… out here.” The way he said that sent shivers down my spine. That isn’t… that isn’t even possible. Surely he wouldn’t try.

“What would you do if a giant popped up out of nowhere and scared you?” I asked. “I thought you were about to attack!”

“And why would I do that? You’re much too cute to attack!”

“I don’t know, I figured you might have been hungry.”

That was the wrong thing to say, after I thought about it. He licked his lips and loosened his grip, looking me up and down. His eyes settled in a place I wasn’t comfortable with. “It has been a while since I had a snack…” he mused.

I gulped. “I’m uh… I’m already in a committed relationship,” I said.

“It’s just you and me and the forest,” he said with a small sigh. “No one else has to know…”

“She’s a unicorn that can see through my eyes. She’s probably watching right now, actually.”

“She?” he said, surprised. After a moment he sighed. “The good looking ones are always taken… Still, I don’t suppose you would mind keeping me company for a while? This forest gets so dull.”

“You could move. There’s plenty of water in the world.”

“Oh, I know, but the water in this forest makes my scales shine so!” He twirled in the light, scales reflecting light all over the place. He was obviously fishing for compliments.

I didn’t say anything.

After a moment, one of his eyes twitched and he went back to talk, “Besides, most of the races in this world don’t appreciate my absolute beauty!”

“That’s… interesting,” I said warily. “But I really must be going. I have somewhere I need to get and I’m already running late. I just stopped by the river to fill up my water bottles.” I lifted my wings, ready to take off.

His grip tightened around me again. “Leaving so soon?” he asked, his voice dipping a bit in what I have come to recognize as a sign of insanity in this world.

“I suppose I could stay… for a little while,” I said, my hand struggling to reach one of the knives trapped under his hand. I looked up in the sky. Few hours until dark. Luna always watches, even if Celestia doesn’t.

His voice returned to normal as he said, “Excellent!” He proceeded to talk my head off about fashion, hair, and scales for hours. He also mentioned my feathers a few times, which gave me horrifying flashbacks of Kat. Every time he reached down to gently stroke one of my wings, I flinched, and he did it a lot. Apparently it’s relatively common knowledge how sensitive pegasus wings are. Never once did he loosen his grip, though I asked several times. Each time he brought the topic close to how cute he thought I would look wearing so and so, I casually mentioned my unicorn girlfriend.

As soon as the sun started going down, I started muttering, “Help me Luna,” over and over, just low enough that I was hoping the dragon couldn’t hear me. The way he was constantly talking, I’m surprised he could hear anything at all.

I wasn’t paying attention to him at all so I was surprised when I felt his grip tighten suddenly. “I know!” he said, much louder. “Let’s play dress-up!”

Oh fuck no. My hand finally pulled the dagger from the sheath and I slashed his fingers with it. He dropped me with a yelp and I fell into the river, my body too numb to fly or move. Before the river carried me away, I disappeared.

And landed, wet, cold, and miserable, in the royal palace. In front of a startled griffin envoy and Princess Luna. I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t move my body after being held in his tight grip for so long; I had barely been able to pull the dagger out.

“S-s-s-sorry f-f-for drop-p-ping in,” I muttered, shivering.

“What is the meaning of this?” the lead griffin demanded. “Why is your armed knight here?”

I let my dagger fall from my fingers. Luna saw the state I was in and called one of her guards up. “Remove him,” she demanded, pointing to me. “Take him to the infirmary. Put a guard up. He is not to leave.”

The guard bowed. Luna used magic to lift me to his back. My dagger flew to her throne. That’s when I closed my eyes, letting the guard carry me along. I heard Luna give some manner of apology before we were out of the room.

When the doors swung shut behind us, I managed to say, “Just set me down wherever; I’ll leave when I can move again.”

“Sorry, sir. Princess Luna’s orders supersede yours. You’re going to the infirmary, where you are not to leave,” the guard answered. Fuck.

We went the rest of the way in silence. Thankfully, it wasn’t that long of a walk; this guard’s armor was digging into my stomach, now that some feeling was starting to return.

He took me to a familiar room with a segmented bed. “Can you move yet, sir?” he asked.

I gently slid off his back and barely held myself up. “I think I’m… good,” I said. I stretched my wings and arms out a bit, feeling circulation painfully returning to parts of my body. “Yeah, I’m good. I won’t leave, so you don’t need to worry about a guard.” He looked at me like I was an idiot and walked out. I knew if I looked outside, there would be a guard.

I started taking my wet clothes off. I used a towel I found in one of the drawers to dry me and all of my blades off. All that done, I slid into bed, waiting for Luna to let me leave. My clothes were dried and back on me by the time she sent for me.

“Come on, Sir Navarone,” the royal guard said, stepping in. “Princess Luna wishes to see you.”

I stood and stretched a bit. “Where is she?” I asked. “I’ll save you a bit of time.”

“She’s in her room. But she asked that you be led there, so you don’t think to wander away. Sorry sir, but we have to follow her orders.”

“I understand. Lead the way.”

He led me right to her door and knocked on it. It opened quickly. When Luna saw us standing outside, she said, “Come on in, Nav. Thank you, Sunshine. You may return to your post.”

“Wait, Sunshine?” I asked. “A night guard named Sunshine?”

He blushed lightly. “Sunshine Smiles, sir.” He saluted and left.

I entered Luna’s room, shaking my head slightly. I turned to shut the door.

And when I turned back, I found myself staring down my own dagger. “I had a lot of appeasing to do for you, Nav,” Luna said in a somewhat angry voice.

“My apologies,” I answered, holding my hands in a placating gesture. “I was trying to get your attention for nearly an hour. I finally had no choice left. That damn water dragon was trying to get me naked for lewd purposes.”

She smiled at that. “Isn’t that what I do? And a few of your… friends?”

“Yes, but it’s a lot more enjoyable when one of you are doing it. He would kill me trying anything.”

She rolled her eyes. “Either way, I feel like you owe me for this.”

“Uh… Okay. Do you mind lowering the dagger?”

“Sit, Navarone,” she said, the dagger jerking toward a couch. I slowly walked over to it, the dagger following me. I sat stiffly. She used magic to pull a couch close to the one I was in and she sat. The dagger didn’t move.

“So what’s with the dagger, Luna?” I finally asked. “You know I’ll do anything you ask as long as I find it reasonable, and I think we both know you won’t ask me to do anything too unreasonable.”

She glared at me and the knife came closer. I tried to lean back, only to find that I couldn’t move. “It seems to me that you aren’t able to do much unless it’s forced,” she said, anger entering her voice. “And you certainly aren’t willing to tell me much unless you have no choice. So I’m not going to give you one.”

Oh shit, she remembered the talk she wanted. This didn’t make it into the… well, regular journals, so I’ll repeat it here: Luna was pissed at me because of intimacy issues stemming from being raped too many times. The irony of this was lost on her.

Here’s a basic rundown of the night this all occurred in: She turned into Nightmare Moon. Things got rough. She told me to stop her if she went too far. I tried but she didn’t listen. I stopped trying. She got mad. We got interrupted before we could discuss it. I assumed she had forgotten. Apparently she hadn’t.

“And you’re willing to kill me?” I asked. The knife moved closer. “Name your subject then, and let us talk.”

“I think you know what I want to discuss, Navarone,” she said.

“Okay… So what’s up with a night guard named Sunshine Smiles? That’s just ridiculous!”

She looked at me blankly.

I sighed. “I have issues, Luna. I have been abused way too many times. You went way too far that night and when I mentioned that I wasn’t comfortable, you ignored it. So I didn’t bother after that because if you ignored me the first time, why would you listen the second? I have found that resisting in the face of a more powerful adversary just means pain before you are defeated. So I just took the defeat with the hope that it wouldn’t go on for long.”

She looked like she was about to cry. Maybe it was the matter-of-fact way I said it. Maybe it was the fact that she knew she hurt me. Maybe it was the idea that I’ve learned to give up so easily. Who knows?

The knife dropped to the floor. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?” she whispered.

I knew what the right answer to that was. I was supposed to say Of course not. I pulled her into a hug and whispered, “Yes, I am.” She tried to pull back, but I didn’t let her go. “I didn’t want to say any of this, but you asked me. You told me to tell you if you hurt me. I did. You kept going. And the entire time you were terrifying me.” She was crying, still trying to pull away from me. “I’m not going to let you go, Luna,” I said. “If you want to make any kind of relationship between us work, we’re going to have to be honest.”

She was silent for a while. Eventually, she whispered, “And… you’re just willing to… forgive me? Just like that?”

“I’ve forgiven others for worse. I accepted your deal knowing that I might be asked to do things I wouldn’t enjoy. That doesn’t make what you did right, but I agreed to do whatever you said.”

“And would you, again?” she asked, a twinge of hope entering her voice.

“Not without laying down rules. And not without teaching you more. Now that you know what you know about me, I have less to worry about, but still. Every time you opened your mouth, you scared me more and more, which is not the point of bedroom talk. We can go over all of that later, though.”

She gently pushed me back, using only enough force to make sure I didn’t have a choice in letting go or not. “So you believe… honesty would be best?” she quietly asked, looking me in the eyes.

“Well… Maybe not best. There are some things you probably don’t want to know…”

She shook her head. “You can’t have it both ways, Nav,” she said. “I want to know. What happened to you? Truly, what drove you to be so… submissive?”

Oh boy, here we go… Seeing no other option, I told her about my luck with women in the past. Or at least, I told her about the bad luck. No names were mentioned, because I could totally see Luna going psycho-bitch and hurting them.

“...This explains much,” she said when I finished. “Why would you ever let them do that to you?”

“To protect Spike, in one case. And because I didn’t want to risk offending the naga clan, in the other. I’m good, but not good enough to beat that many snake-fish people.”

“Admirable reasons… What are the names of those that mistreated you so? Revenge will be swift and simple.”

Called it. “It’s not worth causing an incident over, Luna,” I answered. “One of the tenets of how I tried to live my life back on Earth was to turn the other cheek. Forgive and forget.” One I never actually followed, but she doesn’t need to know that. If I get revenge, it will be on my own. “And either way, I will not have someone fight my battles for me.”

“In stealing from you, they stole from me as well,” she said. “By ruining your mind in such a way, they have prevented us from enjoying many things together. Is revenge not mine to take as well?”

Well when you put it that way… it makes you sound kinda crazy. “Just drop it, Luna.”

She sighed and nodded. “Very well, Nav. It seems we both need to work on our bedroom manners. There are things I apparently need to work on just as there are things you need to work on.”

“Yeah…”

Her horn lit up and we teleported to her room. “Let’s get started on it then, shall we?”

The rest of those seven years are going to go by too quickly…