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The Stars of Nightmare Moon

by Mysterious Stranger

Chapter 2: Chapter 2: The shrine

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Night Mist tore down the tunnel as fast as his hooves would take him. Mercifully, torches on the walls provided enough light to avoid crashing, but there were so many twists and turns he knew retracing his path would be impossible. At that moment though, Night Mist was more concerned about losing his pursuers than where he was. He still didn't know how he had arrived in the cavern to begin with, so it didn't really matter how much more lost he got anyway.

No cries or demands were voiced from the ponies behind him, only the pounding of many hooves against the stone floor gave away their presence. As Night Mist rounded a corner he spotted a small crevice low to the ground. Without hesitation he dove inside it, scraping his underside painfully as he did so.

Night Mist shut his eyes and listened hard. The multitude of hooves became very loud as they rounded the corner and then gradually became fainter. The little black colt held his breath, straining to hear any more hooves. Just as his ears picked up the sound of something flapping, four dark green legs landed next to the crevice without any warning.

"If I had known I would be flying after someone, I wouldn't have agreed to be it for tag earlier," panted a young voice from slightly above the legs.

With a grunt, the dark green pegasus flopped onto the ground, and just like that he was suddenly face to face with Night Mist. The pegasus had a long white as snow mane and metallic gray eyes that stared at Night Mist in surprise. Night Mist, in turn, stared at the pegasus in alarm. For several seconds neither of them could speak.

"I've lived here my entire life, and I never knew this crevice was here," the pegasus said finally.

"Please don't tell them I'm here," Night Mist begged.

"Um, okay, sure. Wow. This is just... wow. Not just this crevice, but you... here, in it, and... I- I should probably go get an adult," the pegasus stammered.

"You just said you wouldn't!" protested Night Mist.

"I did?"

Night Mist nodded vigorously.

"Oh, okay then, I guess I won't. Um, can you come out?" requested the pegasus.

Night Mist hesitated. He was rather suspicious of the pegasus, but he didn't seem very threatening. In fact, he seemed to be about the same age as himself. Night Mist crawled out of the crevice and stood up again.

"So... um, Sun Binder wasn't it?" the pegasus said awkwardly.

"Night Mist," Night Mist corrected.

"But didn't your- oh right, I guess you wouldn't know your original name, unless whoever found you gave you the same name like in a freak coincidence or something, haha."

Night Mist said nothing, choosing instead to simply raise a single brow.

"Oh, um, I didn't introduce myself! I'm Eclipse," the pegasus said quickly as he held out a hoof.
Night Mist slowly hooked an ankle around Eclipse's and shook it.

"Can you tell me where I am?" Night Mist asked.

"In a tunnel," Eclipse said matter of factly.

"I meant where am I relative to where I was before I was brought here," Night Mist said dryly.

"Oh, well, in that case, I have no idea."

"Well, what do you know?" Night Mist tried as he risked a glance down the tunnel to make sure the other ponies weren't coming back.

"Well, I know that all the grown ups were talking about how they hoped the eclipse would give them enough power to retrieve you. The actual eclipse involving the sun and moon I mean, not me."

"I can't help but feel I'm missing some context here,” said Night Mist, slightly annoyed at how it clear it was that he had no idea what was going on.

"If we go find one of the older Stars I'm sure they could explain it better than I could," Eclipse hinted.

"Well, my real parents told me not to talk to strangers," Night Mist insisted.

"Oh, umm, I guess I could try to explain it," Eclipse said uncertainly. "It would be easier if I took you to the shrine though."

"A shrine?" Night Mist asked in befuddlement. "What for?"

"For Nightmare Moon," Eclipse said simply.

"Who?"

"You've never heard of Nightmare Moon?"

"No."

"The Mare in the Moon?" Eclipse tried.

"Well of course I've heard of the Mare in the Moon," Night Mist scoffed. "Everypony knows that myth."

"But you haven't heard of Nightmare Moon."

"Still no."

"Okay," Eclipse said uncertainly. "Well, Nightmare Moon and the Mare in the Moon are the same pony."

"And the reason for naming a mythical being and making her a shrine is what exactly?"

"See, this is what I was trying to avoid. It's really hard to explain. Can we just go to the shrine?"

"Lead the way."

Eclipse turned and started to walk down another tunnel. Night Mist followed him in silence as he thought. Truth be told, he hardly cared about myths or shrines, for he was far more concerned about getting home. Night Mist figured that the best course of action would be to find out as much about his new surroundings as possible. Then he could try to find Sharp Wing and Frazzle Spark and plot an escape.

"Here we are," Eclipse announced. "The shrine."

Night Mist glanced up in order to behold a massive set of wooden doors. A symbol was painted over them, a simple black sketch of a five pointed star inside of a circle. Night Mist recognized it as the same symbol Umbra wore as a medallion. Eclipse hooked a hoof through a metal ring on one of the doors and opened it. Night Mist walked inside and glanced around.

On the floor lay a large round red rug that had the same symbol on it that the door had. Arranged in a circle around the rug were lit candles. But what really caught Night Mist's attention was behind the rug. Standing on a stone pedestal was a scary yet elegant statue of a tall pony with both wings and a horn. The pony wore a helm, elaborate horseshoes, and had a very large mane and tail that seemed to seemed to defy gravity. She stood on her back legs with one fore leg pointing straight at the rug, and the other cocked back as if for a kick. Combined with the poor lighting from the candles, the entire thing looked very frightening.

"That is the freakiest statue I have ever seen," Night Mist pronounced in frightened awe.

"Really? I always thought she looked rather nice," quipped Eclipse.

"It looks like she's about about a snatch a pony up and eat him."

"No, no, you're looking at it wrong. She isn't picking something up, she's giving something away. See how her foreleg is pointed at the star symbol on the ground?"

"I'm starting to get the impression that that star symbol is significant to you ponies."

"It's more than just significant. It's the reason the Stars exist," Eclipse explained as he walked over to the rug and stood on it. "This symbol as a whole represents the Dark Storm, which is basically a giant magic thing that lets us summon or relocate ponies. It was given to us by Nightmare Moon almost a thousand years ago. The point at the top of the star represents Nightmare Moon, and the four other points of the star represents the four different parts of the Dark Storm. Each Star, us, can use one of the four parts on their own. Wind, lightning, cloud, and shadow."

"You're telling me that every, um, what did you call yourselves again?"

"Stars."

"You're telling me you think that every Star has a magic power?"

"Pretty much."

"That's stupid."

"What's stupid about it?" Eclipse asked, looking slightly hurt.

"All of it. Your belief that you have powers. Your reverence for an alicorn that doesn't even exist. The fact you apparently live in a cold, damp, cave. You and all the other so called Stars are nothing but a stupid cult!" Night Mist accused.

"That's not true! We know Nightmare Moon is real because she gave our ancestors the Dark Storm!" Eclipse protested.

"Unless you can shoot lightning out of your hooves, I remain doubtful."

Without even the slightest trace of fanfare, Eclipse causally raised a hoof and fired a surge of electrical energy at the cave wall. It took Night Mist a few minutes to find his voice.

"Well, that's... something," he mumbled, thinking he had been a little quick to decide Eclipse was harmless.

In response Eclipse simply shrugged. At that point Night Mist realized that he had a new problem. If all the Stars had abilities beyond normal ponies, escape would be very difficult, if not impossible.

"Okay, so Nightmare Moon is real, and you have magic powers," Night Mist conceded. "I'm a little fuzzy on the legend, but the gist of it is that the mare in the moon became jealous that nopony appreciated the night and refused to lower the moon, prompting Princess Celestia to banish her to the moon right?"

"Sounds about right," Eclipse confirmed.

"So what was the point of giving a bunch of ponies the Dark Storm then?"

"As a backup plan. Nightmare Moon told my, um, our ancestors that she suspected Princess Celestia would banish her to the moon. That's why she gave us the Dark Storm. So that when the time was right we would aid in her escape, allowing her to make night eternal."

"Eternal night? Why would you want to help her do that?!"

Just as Eclipse opened his mouth to answer the door to the shrine opened and Umbra entered the chamber.

"Oh," he said in mild surprise. "So this is where you ran off to. With some help I see," he added as he glared at Eclipse, who smiled weakly. Night Mist took a cautious step back, afraid of what the stallion might do to him.

"You really don't have anything to be afraid of. I'm not mad you ran off. It's an entirely natural reaction to learning so much all it once. If anything its my fault, I should have broken it to you gradually," Umbra assured him.

"I want to go home," Night Mist said, his voice cracking a little.

"I know you do," Umbra said sympathetically, "But your parents have waited so long for the chance to bring you here, and it would be cruel to send you back your adopted parents instead. Why don't you come with me and meet them?"

Night Mist heard how Umbra made it sound like an offer, but it was clear to him that he really had no choice. So he hung his head and obediently followed Umbra out the door.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: The truth Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours
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