The sun was crimson, a burning call through the drapes and once they were pulled aside it cast beams in the room, on the walls, on the bed like arrows. She jumped and ran to the window that the Princess had just opened, she ran so quickly it seemed she had never been asleep. The moment her hooves reached the light and in front of her appeared the outside, the blazing mare found back her smile. For her, it was a dawn. She had no idea of the time.

But she was smiling and contemplative and in those eyes that had surprised the Princess was a silent admiration. It hurt. Luna watched this mare and said nothing, the deep dark of her fur alone marking a cold distance. Now in the room all that was moving was the rays of light, hardly, and the flow of her stellar mane.

A few taps at the door diverted her from her feelings. "This must be your... your repast" she stated, leaving the mare at her window to go open the door. This was only the guards, having heard they had both awaken. The strong voice of the guard answered her raising brow: "Princess Celestia has come twice." He was dictating, impersonal, looking right in front of him. "She expects you and the guest to meet her at the throne room when you're awake."

"You can't expect an audience with a mare who hasn't bathed." Luna scolded.

"Also," the guard continued, as if he heard nothing, "Prince Blueblood has come once to inquire about the guest."

For a second she looked at the stallion, cold again, repressing all the questions she would have asked had she not been a Princess. As evening was spreading the younger alicorn with the crescent Moon for her cutie mark would act more and more like herself. So she showed nothing and decided, a pinch of irritation in her voice, that they would go to the throne room once ready. The guard nodded and left, leaving her alone to decide what ready meant and she definitely felt she herself wasn't. She turned to the blazing mare, to the other side of the room still looking by the window, slowly she went back to her.

Her pace had been willingly calm and measured, more than just the quietness of nights, Luna felt as if she was approaching a scared animal. She didn't know what to say or what to do, only what she wanted to ask and why she couldn't. That was why each of her steps on the carpet barely made noise, a graceful, royal walk. This mare standing in front of her, amazed by the landscape, was Victory. Maybe this name meant something after all.

"Kan we gon ther?" The mare asked.

And asking that she had turned her head, offering to the Princess a figure as genuine as one of a filly. Her smile, her tone were exactly that, the excitation of youth knowing no bound. She was asking for a permission, leaving Luna to wonder, in face of those inexpressive eyes, if the mare was sincere.

So she marked her doubt: "Thou mean to go in the garden?"

"The yerds? Non, I mene the felds, the strems, I mene the tours and touns, I mene the montaines!" The mare exclaimed.

"I see" Luna eventually answered. "The yerds will have to do for now."

Nothing would stop the sun from eventually reaching the horizon, the moment it would fulminate and disappear. She knew there wouldn't be much time before her own craft would fill the sky. Her look was up there while the mare at her side, touching the grass and hopping on it ticklish could hardly hold still. The two guards, after following them so far, stopped at the gates and let them go by alleys of sharp shadows. They were soon almost alone, with only the gardener crossing their path has he left his work for tomorrow. He waived his hoof and the Princess, answering in the same manner, felt somehow relieved. She trotted a bit to catch with her guest who, having seen all the flowers, was now pacing among their petals.

It had never been the statues that attracted her. She heard her name, not as a question, not as a wonder, for the first time she felt a pony called her for who she was. "Victory" the night mare called and she felt an icy jolt along her spine. Victory abandoned the heady scent of flowers and headed back on the alley, still disoriented by so many plants to see and by just the slight breeze she followed the pace of the crescent Moon.

Luna was first to break their silence: "So you still think I'm malefic?" It was as if she had read through her mind.

"I traste myn queene." It seemed to be enough, yet the mare added, almost muttering: "Als yow speken myn leden."

Those words reached Luna further than she would admit, at that instant she realized how true it was. Every word, every peak of the accent, the rhythm itself was familiar, it was this language she had always known, no, even an older one and yet, at that instant, she couldn't repress from feeling close to this mare, and how much this mare felt close to her. Luna forced herself to use the most modern words and expressions, and coldly, addressed only the first answer:

"So why were you a statue?"

"I was na kervyng." She cut.

At the same time they had reached the labyrinth, a few more steps and the pedestal was there, with only its two stone stars curved in the air. Like branches, all the remains had been cleaned, leaving hardly any mark of the two storms. Luna observed the mare as they hoofed along the alley, waiting for a reaction that never came. Victory had not even recognized where they were. Had she even been conscious of what had happened, the Princess couldn't tell.

"Yow wit my nam" the blazing mare finally said. "Wat is youre?"

Of course. She was too tired at the time to remember. "Luna" she answered, and she stopped short from repeating, she was Nightmare Moon no more. She actually needed to yell it, to that mare more than anypony. That she was not Nightmare Moon. But the young Princess remained silent and watched the sun approaching this fatal line. She, she didn't want to leave the gardens. She wanted to make it last through the night. She wondered if, under the stars, that stellar mare's words would be the same.

Victory had stopped. She was now looking, not at the bushes or the trees anymore, but at the towers of white. It was as if she had noticed Canterlot for the first time, something hard to describe, entirely held in her dangling hoof.

She kept looking, but her voice was shaken: "Telle me. Yef I lefde. Wolde yow contrarien me?"

"Trifle." The Princess answered immediately, slightly amused at the idea. "You may leave if you wish."

On those last words Luna added defiance, the same defiance she felt in Victory's behaviour, and more. The mare was really but a scared animal, it ringed so true, as the Princess took more and more time to understand she was realizing how lost this pony was. Feeling imprisoned. Threatened. It was so strange, yet now that Luna was thinking about it, for customs centuries old, it was so natural. So the young Princess decided… that she would try.

She approached and, with a compassionate vibration in her voice:

"But you're welcome to stay."

Victory turned to her, in that move her mane flared at the evening lights. Such dull colours, so vivid the second after. Maybe she had touched her, those eyes wouldn't tell. They were just smooth spheres of a grey shade, leaving almost no space for feelings. "I am yare" she answered, and Luna understood that it was time to go.

Her smooth pace leaded the heavy hooves of heavy legs, as much as she wanted to deny it she still felt feeble. Everywhere the bushes, the hedges, the trees grey on green under what was still a dawn for her, an inflamed sky over the gardens attracted her eyes and made her exalted. Yet she walked slowly, absorbed, and would say nothing anymore. There was almost comfort in hearing the armor of guards cling behind them, once they returned in the hall and stairs with their purple carpets and barriers engraved she raised her head in pride and fixed her look in the distance. Yes, she was exactly like them, exactly like those guards, a fierce and silent tap in those empty corridors. Even her mane curved sharp with but slashed braids contained had the rigour of their task, only it would need a bath, and a manedresser.

Only then did Victory realize that it wasn't a dawn but an evening, when crossing the aisle she heard sounds of hooves away from them disappear, and the first lights of night being lit. All was deserted, doors and doors shut on their passage as only they would trouble this part of the castle. On the other wall were windows aligned, letting crimson beams flow in between stone busts and open drapes of purple. Luna's pace had become inaudible.

"Ther be a mere bihynde the rifts." Victory whispered.

The young Princess had felt it too, a presence here but she hadn't noticed those hooves hardly hidden below one of the curtains, the white legs of a young pony. Now she could see how the tissue was rumpled by a grasp, and she caught a glimpse of the mane. There was no reason for a pony to hide in the castle, a game maybe, and even then… They had kept walking, approaching the hidden pony Luna could feel Victory at her side, more and more tense at each step. So she took on her, repressing her curiosity, accelerated slightly and once at the pony's height she feigned not to notice her. To her relief the mare calmed and, doing the same, only one guard took a brief glance while walking past the curtain. The quiet figure had a trembling breath in which was almost her voice, that of a mare.

As soon as they were out of sight the Princess of the night slowed, unwillingly, to the point she almost stopped. And she couldn't help but look behind, where the angle hid the past corridor. All was as silent as the evening could make it be, for all answer the fierce voice of Victory whispered, a bit stronger:

"Si hadde a croysant mone. Lyche youren." Each of her words like blades, yet she waited until the Princess would, by herself, keep walking towards the throne.