Octavia let out a loud yawn as she stepped through the threshold into her apartment. A soft hum escaped her lips; the feel of plush carpet under her hooves felt so good after trudging through the streets of Canterlot. She heaved the case for her cello off her back and propped it up against the wall before bumping the door closed with her hip. She normally wouldn’t be so uncouth as to close a door with her plot, but she was too groggy to care at that exact moment.

The musician flipped on the lights. The place was truly a place of both decadence and clashing motifs. Modern manufactured and antique carved furniture adorned the spacious apartment; wires to devices that Octavia had ceased trying to learn the function of were strewn across the night-sky-blue carpet while old paintings hung on the wall. She had gotten used to the jungle of wires hooked up to the apartment’s impossibly complex sound system; it wasn’t like pestering her roommate was going to get them straightened out or anything. She’d learned quite a while ago that while having a unicorn around the house was useful, it was only useful when the unicorn felt like it.

Her gaze eventually fell on her roommate, who was sprawled on Octavia’s old black leather couch. The white unicorn was sound asleep, her violet goggles hung loosely around her neck as she softly snored. Blushing a bit and ignoring the fact that the DJ had her plot facing the door, Octavia trotted over to the prone form of Vinyl Scratch. It took just one whiff to discern the odor of hard cider on the unicorn’s breath.

Octavia rolled her eyes and stroked Vinyl’s electric blue mane. “Drinking on the job again, I see,” she giggled. The unicorn just lightly batted at Octavia’s hoof, mumbling something incoherent about how she could drink some imaginary challenger into the ground. “I’d give you another lecture about drinking responsibly if only so your liver doesn’t file for divorce, but when you’re dreaming about drinking some more I think you’re beyond my help.”

Vinyl promptly responded with a slurred mumble of, “I can drink however much I buckin’ want, man. J… jus’ don’t tell Octy, please…”

The earth pony let out a dramatic sigh and a soft smile. “You really are adorable when you’re in a drunken stupor, you know that?” She giggled and nuzzled her cheek against Vinyl’s. The unicorn’s cheek was nice and warm from all the alcohol she’d no doubt downed. Octavia let out a snicker and added, “If you were awake you’d probably vehemently deny it, though. You just don’t ‘do’ adorable, do you?”

Another booze-fueled, sleep-talking answer didn’t come that time. Vinyl just slept there peacefully, her chest slowly rising and falling with each breath as she snored.

“I wonder how many other mares would have left you by now, what with your habit of getting drunk after every other gig?” Octavia mused as her hoof wandered down to stroke her roommate’s back. “I guess a lot, after all the exes you’ve gathered over the years…” She smiled sadly to herself. “I really hope you don’t think I’ll end up like them.” Her sad smile devolved into a frown. “Not… that it’ll matter soon. None of it will matter after today… because tomorrow might not come.” Octavia’s vision began to blur as she blinked back a sudden influx of tears. She wiped at her eyes and mumbled to nopony in particular, “M-must have gotten something in my eye; I keep telling you to dust this place more often.”

Octavia didn’t keep track of how long she gently stroked her marefriend’s mane and back. She didn’t particularly care. Vinyl hummed softly in her sleep at the contact, and that was all the reward she needed.

After a while her eyelids got too heavy and her hooves too unstable for her to keep it up. She looked down the hallway to her bedroom, and then paused to look back at the unicorn as she slept, not a care in the world.

Octavia smiled to herself before leaning in and giving Vinyl a kiss on the cheek. The drunken Vinyl responded by licking Octavia’s cheek back. A deep blush spread through her cheeks like wildfire while the sleeping unicorn just smacked her lips before descending back into her soft snores. The earth pony’s eyes softened before she climbed onto the couch with her marefriend – it was a bit tight, but it was big enough to hold the two of them. The sleeping unicorn wrapped her hooves protectively around her new bedmate and nuzzled her muzzle into Octavia’s mane, the earth pony’s face getting redder as her heart beat faster.

“Good night, Vinyl,” she whispered. “Sweet dreams…” She clapped her hooves together and the lights snapped off, leaving the two in the dark basking in each other’s warmth.

Luna glanced around the Canterlot Palace gardens as she trotted through them. The night was dark – just as she always made it – the air was crisp and cool, and the only sound was her own hoofsteps on the paths as she traversed them, through the hedges and the statues. The stars twinkled with their soft light in the canvas of the sky and the moon looked down from its celestial perch. All in all, it seemed just like any other night in the gardens.

“We could have sworn we felt a disturbance,” the Lunar Regent mumbled to herself as her eyes darted across the area. She continued her patrol  through the gardens, her horn glowing slightly as she tried to detect anything amiss.

The alicorn didn’t keep track of how long she’d been scouring, but she was snapped out of her concentration when she came to the foot of a very familiar statue.

“Discord,” Luna snorted to herself. She looked over the frozen form of the draconequus and chuckled, pacing around him. “When we laid thee low before, thou didst roar your defiance to the last. But oh, look at thee now: frozen forever in a visage of fear from the terrifying might of six young mares. We take it that thou wouldst laugh at such a joke thyself, provided thou still could.”

“Don’t forget, we were brought down by the same six foals,” a dark voice called from above with a cackle. All thoughts screeched to a halt within Luna’s head at the sound.

“No…!” Her gaze shot upward, and her eyes were met with a winged silhouette against the moon above. The familiar voice let loose another terrible laugh, sending a chill down Luna’s spine as she slowly backed away and gaped in horror. “No, that’s… that’s not possible! The Elements defeated thee!”

“You mean the Elements defeated us,” the specter that should not be chuckled. “We were always together… I just tired of lurking in the dark corners of your mind and made myself manifest.”

Luna’s eyes screwed shut as she shook her head. “This must be a dream, or some manner of trick!”

A morbid laugh escaped the shadow’s throat. “I assure you, this is no dream. The night shall last forever… as soon as I take my rightful place as the sovereign of the dark once again. And that means disposing of you, you pathetic excuse of a goddess…”

Luna opened her eyes again to see the other alicorn diving straight for her. She tried to concentrate and cast a spell to rebuff her, but her mind was too wild with panic. As the dark figure set upon her, she closed her eyes and screamed.

Nothing happened. There was no hostile takeover of her mind. There was no rending of her flesh from her bones. All that happened is that the night air rang with hysterical laughter.

Visibly shaking, the Lunar Regent opened her eyes and looked about with great caution. Before her was an equine-shaped hole in the fabric of magic and reality itself, kicking its hooves in the air and cackling in that same terrible voice from her nightmares.

“Nobody!” Luna snarled, her eyes narrowing to slits. Her gaze fell on him and she began to wonder if and hope that concentrated loathing could somehow kill the creature. Sadly, she was not that lucky.

“Y-you cahalled, your Highness?” Nobody choked out, still speaking in Nightmare Moon’s voice as the being rolled onto… her hooves, Luna supposed.

“How dare thou startle us in such a manner?” Luna growled, her wings extending in anger.

“Startle?” Nobody snickered. “Please, Princess, if you hadn’t already recently visited the little filly’s room, this garden would have a fresh helping of fertilizer right now.”

Luna’s face heated up in a volatile mixture of embarrassment and rage. “Do not trifle with us, Nobody; we are hardly in the mood for thy demented brand of humor.”

“Take your threats and shove them up the darkest part of your black plot,” she said with a wave of her hoof. “I’m a god higher than any other in the universe. I can do whatever I want with impunity; any protests on your part are just hot air and bluster that might as well be coming out the other end for all I care.”

Luna shakily took in a deep breath to steady herself. “Very well, then; thee may have thine audience with us. We do, however, kindly ask that thou dost cease using that wretched voice.”

“And I respectfully decline,” Nobody said back. “I kinda like this voice. It’s dark… smooth… and more than a little sexy. If you’d managed to keep Nightmare Moon’s body and voice without turning into a psychotic bitch, you could have had the whole of Equestria and beyond clopping to your divine eminence.” She snickered to herself as Luna’s face grew hot once again.

“We are plenty attractive as is, thank thee very much,” Luna huffed, raising her nose up high.

“Yes, and that’s why you have all those suitors lining up at your chamber door,” Nobody sniped back.

“What business is our love life to thee?” Luna snapped.

“I tend to make everything my business,” Nobody drawled. “But please, let’s face it: A thousand years ago, give or take a few hundred, you were a sex goddess with many a pony jumping at the chance to be your nightly companion. Now, you could cast a Want It Need It spell on yourself and you couldn’t snag a date with a mare or a stallion.”

Luna snorted. “As if we’d ever want to date a mare; such conduct is unbecoming of a princess.”

Nobody chuckled knowingly. “Whatever you say, whatever you say.” Luna could just feel a condescending grin radiating from the dark deity. “Except, it’s not what you say anymore, is it? It’s what your sister says now, and your sister decided a while after your banishment that there was nothing wrong with filly foolers or colt cuddlers. Don’t you remember? I revealed to all in earshot that the Solar Regent herself was pining after the heart of a mare – her most faithful student, no less.”

“That’s a bald-faced lie,” Luna said, narrowing her eyes. “Celestia would never partake in such disgusting and degrading behavior.”

“Maybe not the Celestia you knew a thousand years ago,” Nobody purred, leaning up against Discord’s statue.  “So much can change in a millennium. Though some ponies out there are still stuck in the past, particularly the stuffy Canterlot elite, Celestia certainly isn’t. She’s a very different alicorn now, with new ideas and new ways of doing things. She’s been giving more power to local governments over the centuries, giving the common ponies more and more say in the affairs of Equestria. She doesn’t even use the ‘royal we’ anymore.” She paused and emitted a small hum. “And yet… you still cling to it.”

“Tis a force of habit,” Luna said defensively. “Tis how the princesses have spoken since the initial defeat of Discord.”

“Used to speak, my dear,” Nobody corrected, “back when the two of you were so close, so utterly intertwined in mind and soul that you could trust each other to make the exact same decision the other would, to the point where you might as well have been one, single ruler.” She chuckled and added, “But that’s all gone now… isn’t it?”

Luna barely registered that her eyes averted from the deity. “Things have… changed between Celestia and I, yes.” She stomped her hoof and looked back at Nobody with a cold, defiant fire in her eyes. “But we are still sisters, and nothing will ever change that.”

“Oh?” Nobody said, cocking her head. “Is that why she still hasn’t restored you to full royal duties and given you back the power to rule you once had? She hasn’t trusted you enough to tell her about her affection for her student, let alone running the country.”

“Tis a new age,” Luna said, her voice wavering. “Much has changed in Equestria; we still have much to learn about exactly how much has changed before we can effectively rule the nation once again.”

Nobody burst out laughing. “Oh, you really are quite clueless, aren’t you?”

Luna narrowed her eyes and snarled, “What dost thou mean?”

“You are an anachronism, Luna,” Nobody said as if she were speaking to a filly that hadn’t been paying attention in class. “Not only that, but you are a dangerous anachronism. You lost your frelling mind and tried to kill off most of the planet’s population just because nobody appreciated your artwork.”

“That side of us was expelled with the Elements of Harmony,” Luna said, her stance growing rigid. “We are as we were before we became Nightmare Moon.”

“Riddle me this, Princess: If you are who you were before you turned into Nightmare Moon, then what precisely is to stop you from turning into her again?” Nobody asked, standing as defiantly against her as she was. “Your subjects still don’t respect you, they still don’t appreciate you, and now you’ve got a heaping helping of distrust and fear on your plate. Buck, in the thousand years you were gone, you became a monster foals think is hiding under their beds. All of the factors that turned you into Nightmare Moon are present, plus a few new ones just to really needle you over the edge. So please, tell me, what makes you any less dangerous than you were, say, the year before you turned into Nightmare Moon?”

Luna’s eyes widened. Her gaze plummeted downward as she mumbled, “We… I know not.” A few seconds of silence clung to the air before she added, “But even if I do… my sister will do the right thing. And so will the bearers of the Elements.”

Nobody snorted. “Yeah, because they’re really going to risk the lives of everyone on the planet if you clearly show you’re going to be a repeat psychopath. You don’t have another chance, Princess: If you fall to your own madness again, your sister will put the kill order on you.”

“She would do no such thing!” Luna roared, her eyes snapping open and glaring at Nobody with a stomp of her hoof that left a crater in the ground. Her vision began to blur as she felt the grin emanating from Nobody grow wider.

“If you’re so sure of that, then why are you crying?”

Luna wiped her eyes with her foreleg and resumed her glare at the dark god as she shouted, “Maybe because I would not blame her if she did! Maybe because I hate myself for what I did! Maybe because I do not want to be a danger anymore! Maybe because… maybe because all I want in the world is to never hurt anypony ever again…” She wrenched her eyes closed, but that did little good against the torrent of tears that were bubbling to the surface. “Maybe… maybe I deserve it…”

“No you don’t,” Nobody said reassuringly. “You deserve to live. Death is no punishment; living with your guilt as it tears your heart to shreds from within… now that’s a punishment that fits the crime.”

“I… I suppose thou speakest the truth…” Luna sobbed, her head hanging low.

“However, all this distrust, this fear, this outright hate being sent your way from your subjects… I don’t really think you deserve that. You clearly feel bad about what you did, after all,” Nobody added.

“Do… dost thou truly think so?” Luna asked, managing to blink back the tears and look up at the deity.

“I’m not one to lie about such things,” Nobody chuckled. “That’s why I think I may have a very special offer in store for you… if you’re interested.”

Luna sniffled and sat down, sitting up tall as she tried to regain her composure. “W-we’re listening.”

“Good, good,” Nobody purred to herself. “My offer is this: I use my powers as the god of forgetfulness to make everypony completely forget that Nightmare Moon ever existed, as well as erase every mention of her or the origins of Nightmare Night in every book across the planet. You’ll have to do a bit of political maneuvering to create a new version of history of what happened to you for that millennium long absence, but as far as everypony will be concerned, they’ll just be happy to have their princess of the night back.” She leaned in close and added, “And your sister will have no reason to ever distrust you again.”

Luna narrowed her eyes. “What dost thou desire in exchange?”

“Nothing at all; I’m a god, what could I possibly want from a lesser immortal like yourself?” she asked, waving her hoof as if she were brushing away the question. “There are no strings attached to this offer whatsoever.”

Luna gulped as the full implications sunk in. “That is… uncharacteristically generous of thee.”

“What can I say? I can be a kindly elder god when the wind blows in the right direction,” Nobody said with a giggle. “So… what sayest thou, Princess Luna?”

Luna averted her eyes to the ground as a silence separated the two immortals. After a while, Luna finally said, “We… will have to consider thine offer a while longer, Nobody. We cannot reach a decision on such short notice.”

“Very well; I have all the time in the world.” She chuckled darkly and added, “Which, if my riddle goes unanswered, may only be until midnight. Don’t wait too long.”

Luna blinked, and Nobody was gone, leaving her alone in the garden with Discord’s statue and the sound of the whistling wind. She lowered her head and narrowed her eyes, both in deep thought and deep concentration as she turned herself into a cloud of vapor and wound her way against the wind. She reformed herself on the balcony of her bedchamber with a soft hiss.

Luna let out a loud yawn as she trotted inside. Her gaze shifted from her personal desk, which held a scant few official documents and potential laws that had to be reviewed, to her bed. “Surely the nobles of Canterlot will understand if we don’t feel quite up to delegation this evening,” she said to herself as she sauntered over to her bed and climbed between the covers. A small frown crossed her muzzle and a shiver went down her spine at how cold her bed felt that night for some reason. “Must be the wind,” she muttered as she turned over and tried to get some sleep before she had to lower the moon again.

A chilled wind swept through the streets of Canterlot, softly whistling under the night sky into the ears of anypony out and about that early in the morn. One such mare shivered from her bare bed of cold stone in one of the capital’s dark alleyways. She pulled her tattered cape tightly around her and pulled her hat tighter around her head, though neither did much good. The wind cut straight through the fabric and down to her very bones. The only sound that graced her ears was the sound of the cruel wind and the occasional hoofsteps of pedestrians who were out and about for whatever reason. She heard some sort of commotion going on about something that had happened at the palace a few hours ago, but she didn’t pay it much mind. The raking claws of her empty stomach on her insides kept her from focusing on much, even the task of getting some sleep.

The mare’s ears perked at the sound of hoofsteps – hoofsteps drawing closer, reverberating off the walls of her alley and coming closer. Her horn glowed with a weak light, but sputtered out before it could do her bidding. “Bucking hay,” she cursed under her breath. She pulled her hat lower over her head and huddled up against the wall out of the stranger’s path, another shiver coursing through her body due to the cold wall against her back.

The hoofsteps got closer and closer until they just stopped, right next to her curled form. She waited on bated breath, shifting her hooves under her in case she needed to run.

“No need to be scared,” a smooth male voice said. “I’m here to help.”

“The G-great and Powerful Trixie d-does not need handouts,” the mare said as her teeth chattered, refusing to look up at the stallion.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is on the backstreets of Canterlot slowly starving to death, and that’s if the cold doesn’t get her first. Is she sure she doesn’t want some assistance?”

She shivered a bit more as her stomach growled against the cold, hard stone. “Wh… what’s the catch?”

“No strings attached,” the colt assured. “I won’t be demanding any… favors afterward like the last stallion who extended his hoof to your aid.”

A gasp escaped Trixie’s lips and her head shot upward. Her eyes beheld a colt before her wrapped from head to hoof in gauze. His face was hidden by the low cowl of a blood red hood and cape that went back to his flanks, though from her low angle she could see saddlebags hidden underneath.

“How… how did you know that?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

He let out a small laugh. “I make it my business to know everything, Trixie, and right now I know you need my help.” The saddlebags he kept hidden under his cloak snapped open, and out floated a loaf of bread and a canteen. “Go ahead; take them.”

Trixie’s eyes flitted between the offerings, the colt, and back again. “Trixie doesn’t trust you. Something feels… off about you. She’s too tired to place it.”

“Trixie doesn’t have a choice,” he said back. She felt like that should have been a threat, but his tone was somehow disarming.

Keeping her eyes on the stranger, she took the loaf of bread in her own feeble magic field and brought it to her lips. She bit into it, and the second her dry tongue made contact with the soft, heavenly fluff past the crust her eyes shot open. She couldn’t help but tear into it, her stomach eager to have some sustenance after so long being forsaken by food, proper manners be damned. She only stopped her gorging to levitate the canteen and chug down half of it before she could stop herself. Water dripping from her lips, she wiped her muzzle with her leg, panting out, “T-Trixie is most grateful, kind sir.”

The colt let out a good natured chuckle. “No need to thank me; it was no trouble at all.”

Trixie decided to leave it at that and wolfed down the rest of the loaf of bread and guzzling down the last of the canteen’s contents. She let out a loud belch and promptly put her hooves over her mouth. “Apologies,” she said.

He waved his gauze-wrapped hoof dismissively. “No need to apologize. Once you’ve seen the things I have, lax manners don’t even register anymore.”

Trixie arced and eyebrow and asked. “Are you… a soldier, then? Is that why you need all those bandages?”

“I’m not exactly a soldier, but I’ve seen my own fair share of war,” he said. “As for the gauze… well, let’s just say I’m nothing pretty to look at and leave it at that.”

The unicorn’s eyebrows raised higher. “There hasn’t been war in Equestria in centuries.”

“I’m not exactly from around here.” His saddlebags opened once again, both to take back the canteen and to remove a blanket from its confines. He laid the blanket gently on Trixie’s shoulders, the mare sighing softly in delight as it warded off the cold. “You take care of yourself, you hear?”

The stallion turned to leave, but Trixie couldn’t stop herself from blurting out, “Wait!”

The colt turned his head back around and tilted it. “Yes, Trixie?”

The mare blushed slightly and looked to the side. “Trixie was wondering… if you would be so kind… if you could let her stay the night at your home?” she asked through gritted teeth.

The colt just laughed. “You really do have a problem asking other ponies for help, don’t you? Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have a home, myself. Not exactly, anyway; I guess you could say everywhere is my home.”

Trixie felt her ears lower in disappointment. “Oh… you’re a wanderer, then?”

“From a certain point of view.”

The mare lowered her eyes and curled up with her blanket. “Trixie thanks you for the help you were able to provide, at the very least.”

She heard no hoofsteps leaving the alley. After she started pondering what exactly what he was doing, he said, “I may not have a home myself, but I’m sure I could come to an arrangement with a hotel to let you stay there.”

She raised her head again, hope sparkling behind her eyes. “You would do that…?”

“It’d be no issue at all; I’m a very powerful colt,” he assured as he began to canter off. “Now come; if you want shuteye before daybreak, we’ll need to get you to a hotel soon.”

Trixie briefly wondered how one could be powerful and still be homeless, but decided not to look the gift horse in the mouth lest it bite her. She shakily stood on her hooves and followed the stranger. She bit her lip when a realization hit her. “Trixie apologizes, but she didn’t exactly catch your name, Mister…?”

“Please, no honorifics. You can just call me… Nobody.” Next Chapter: Daybreak Estimated time remaining: 36 Minutes