6 Chapter Six

Midnight Thunder woke up to the slow realization that he had been kidnapped, which blew all of his worst case scenarios out of the water short of an immediate smiting clean out of the water.

He found himself in a dilapidated room, lit by moonlight as he rose up to his hooves, shaking off the daze of... He had been knocked out in the grab, he was only now realizing, and took a moment to check himself over.

His bag had been dropped next to him, on the thick rug that he had been left to sleep on. Didn't look like it had been opened, which was convenient. Midnight wasn't sure if he had an explanation ready for the contents, yet, or for that matter just how suspicious it might be for a stray pony to be wandering around the countryside with a sword, among other things.

In a relatively peaceful period such as this, Midnight was fairly sure that even the weapons that official soldiers and guards were generally more ornamental than not in most cases, and his was not only not that, he wasn't any kind of guard at all.

Sword, armor, and grimoire, all wrapped neatly in his travel cloak alongside a few other common travel items. Perhaps they wouldn't even be noticed if the bag was just opened up, the top layer glanced at, and then shut again. Or perhaps not. It was probably better to not open it up and check to make sure everything was still there yet until he was sure he wasn't being observed. That hinted that there was important stuff in there that he was paranoid about losing. Suggested that he didn't have faith his... host, he supposed, was hospitable enough to not go rummaging through his things. That was a bad accusation to imply in the direction of someone old fashioned like Nightmare Moon. Midnight imagined that any goodwill he might have from conversation would burn away in the blink of an eye, with that.

... The breeze called attention to the fact that a fair chunk of one of the walls was gone. Looking out through it and across the Everfree Forest from the slowly crumbling structure left Midnight feeling as though it was probably fortunate that this section of the building still had a roof on it.

"So this would be... the Castle of the Two Sisters." Midnight noted, walking carefully in case the floor gave way beneath him and forced him to fly. "It's sure seen better days."

"That it has."

Midnight restrained a flinch, because he had been certain that nobody else was in the room with him... and yet, there she was. Nightmare Moon in the flesh, sparking up a flame in the room's hearth. Dried wood crammed into a stack inside crackled and popped as the fire bloomed and built up.

"A thousand years ago, this castle was the pride of all Equestria. Now it stands empty, ruined, and forgotten as one of the sisters who reigned from its thrones." Nightmare Moon stated grimly. "Tis from this new throne in Canterlot, a new capital, which Celestia has reigned from these many years of late."

Midnight had not planned out conversing with Nightmare Moon beyond her initial arrival, and frankly a lot more than he would care to admit of that had been ad-libbed and saying things that it seemed like she would want to hear as he pushed towards a general end result. But he'd been willing to drop that at a moment's notice to duck back to safety. Here? There was no quick relative safety of ducking into a crowd to be had, and he was feeling out of his depth as he tried to determine what she wanted to hear now.

What should he say? He wasn't really qualified to chat about the royal sisters' family disputes. Did she want him to comment on the change of political locales? He supposed the Everfree probably had something to do with it, but he didn't have a solid grounding on the thousand years of Equestrian history between then and now that would let him mention the details. His aim was to fi the future, not quote details of the past.

He elected to venture a thoughtful sounding and throaty noise, continuing to stare off into the foresty distance filled with Everfree monsters. In a calm and stoic way that implied he wasn't at all concerned with their distant and unconfirmed presence, of course. It served the dual purpose of letting him listen closely and think about what he should say. Always better to be quiet when you were listening. Start talking on your own, and you'd start drowning out the other person's words.

Nightmare Moon telekinetically prodded a poker into the hearth for a few moments before seeming satisfied with the blaze.

"Humph. I shall have no part of her city in the sun." she declared. "Let it crumble and wither away as this monument to the past is restored. In time, it will shine once more as a jewel in the night."

"A bold proposition, your grace." Midnight cut in, prepared to point out a couple of little issues with that plan that were nagging at him. "There may, of course, need to be some testing done with regard to building material for the repairs. I may have been misled on the subject, but I believe that the heat of the sun has something to do with drying out cement and concrete?"

"If heat is a requirement then sufficient flame should serve just as well." Nightmare Moon declared haughtily, with a click of her tongue in her mouth and her hoof against the floor.

"And leave a lovely blackened patina over the surface, I imagine. Well, nothing that sufficient scouring and a nice coat of paint can't fix, I suppose." Midnight noted dryly and delicately. "I imagine that there will be no shortage of material to burn, as there's quite a great swathe of overgrown Everfree that will need to be cleared out in order for supplicants to make their way to your majesty's throne room."

"Very well, you have made your point." Nightmare Moon declared, leaving Midnight nodding along as he silently wondered just what point he'd apparently made. "A suitable location shall be chosen upon which to erect a temporary edifice more suitable as a temporary venue to hold court upon."

"Splendid, your queenliness. I'm sure that the population will be glad to hear of the relative ease in seeking your counsel, once they have adapted and acclimated to the new state of being." Midnight said, trying to recall just how long it was supposed to have taken for those specific ponies to make their way here through the Everfree. He would need to keep Nightmare Moon occupied and satisfied with his advice until then, after all. Speaking of: "Was there something else I could do for you?"

Nightmare Moon hummed in thought for a few contemplative moments before speaking.

"Flatter me." she ordered, once her thoughts had worked their way through to their conclusion.

"Your eyes are like pools of glimmering starlight and I can't help but wonder if I might fall into them." Midnight replied, not missing a single beat as he shamelessly quoted something from a book of old-fashioned and classy pick-up lines he recalled reading once.

From the way it sounded like Nightmare Moon had nearly swallowed her tongue midway through the line, she probably approved of the flirting! Or was too shocked at the boldness to formulate a coherent response.

Either worked, really, so long as Midnight didn't have to try to defend himself or flee from  royal smiting before the intrepid band of mare heroines arrived.