I was a little inspired, the last chapter came out yesterday and yet here I am attacking again!
Illusion looked desperately from Celestia to the door, where he realized that a younger mare watched the scene, shocked.
Luna finally came out of her shock state at seeing her sister fainted and rushed to her.
"What did you do?" She asked angrily at Illusion.
"I did nothing! He tried to defend himself."
Luna approached her sister and the first thing she noticed was the black mark around one of Celestia's hooves.
"Shadow's Poison." She murmured worriedly. "It was exactly what as I was coming to warn her, had no idea she had gotten it."
"So those things are also poisonous? Nightmares can not get more dangerous. Has some antidote?" Illusion asked worriedly.
"No magic antidote and the healer said that our stock does not have the necessary herbs to prepare one. Downside even without incidents the new shipments will still take days to arrive, and I doubt that will not have incidents, Nightmare is, more than ever, determined to destroy us."
"Well, there was something else I wanted to discuss with you two, but you were busy and my conversation with your sister was briefly interrupted by this terrible incident, but six days ago a caravan of ponies came to my kingdom. Ponies from lands beyond this one. Maybe we should try to get help from there..."
"Wait! There lands beyond here?" She interrupted.
"That's what they say and I certainly never saw ponies like them here before. They said they are moving, to where they had no idea, but surely this is beyond our small shadowy world."
"You think it's possible, places in this world away from the shadow of Nightmare, maybe we can get everything we need somewhere out there, it can not hinder us..."
"That's what I hope, my dear princess. But first we need to find a cure to your sister. How much time we have?"
"I do not know, sire. Might be hours or a few days, all I know is that we can not waste too much time, even if I have to pick the herbs myself." Luna determined.
The two together got Celestia back to her room. Illusion ran in search of his books, maybe there was something in them that could save Celestia, but Luna wouldn't wait and prepared to leave. Illusion could be in charge of everything meantime, he would not leave until he had sure Celestia would be fine any way, unless some emergency arose in his own kingdom, or he received direct orders of the Council.
She, on the other hand, was not even calling the Council at that time, she knew they would not approve the trip, but she did not let that orders would put her sister's life at even greater risk.
She was ready to leave when a guard approached.
"Your Majesty!" He bowed to her. "Where is Princess Celestia?"
"My sister is currently unavailable. She was poisoned by the creatures of nightmare this morning." She said.
"We knew that the disease had reached some ponies, but never thought would come to the Princess. She will survive?"
"It depends on whether I get the herbs for the antidote in time. Therefore does not delay me, and do not tell anyone."
"But, Your Majesty! We have a group of ponies approaching the south gate. What do we do? Could be a trap."
"They are just travelers." Illusion came suddenly. "They are the group I told you, princess. I figured they would come by, but not so soon. They comes out, maybe they have what we need."
Luna thought for a moment.
"Alright, let's get these new visitors." She solved. Since we still had time even if she needed to go get the herbs.
Princess Luna and King Illusion waited at the gate for the caravan approaching. Luna somewhat impatiently, each passing minute could be fatal.
They were a group of about twenty ponies, all nicely bundled up from the cold. Nine of them were unusually taller and thinner than the others. Some pulled sleds loaded.
One of the ponies who led the group finally approached, bowing to both, as is the rest of the group, then stood up and asked: "Whom I speak as ruler of this kingdom" The voice was definitely female, but it was still strong and had an unusual accent, slightly pulled to the language of dragons.
"Princess Luna, co-ruler of the Northern Kingdom of Circle of Hope, the resistance against the reign of Nightmare. Whom can I contact?"
The pony threw back her hood, revealing be an ice blue, almost white unicorn, with lilac eyes and silver long mane, though her eyes were more drawn to the format of alicorns eyes and her ears were more pointed, her teeth slightly sharp, certainly a strange kind of pony.
The others followed the gesture of their leader, also removing their hoods. Dressed like they were, was impossible to differentiate pegasi from earth ponies, but Luna didn't doubt there were representatives of the three races. But what really drew her attention was the highest group of ponies. They were not ponies, actually. Luna tried to remember something she had had read... They looked like a group of deers. A strange group indeed.
"I am Queen Sapphire Sky, leader of the Company of Flames, travelers migrating from distant lands, passing through this kingdom of shadows. These are Jasmine FoxSparkle and Oak Firewhisper," Sapphire showed a couple of deer, "leaders of the Company of Leaves, a group of lost lands not so distant, also looking for a new home. We ask for shelter from the storm approaching on this realm, if you allow us the honor, princess." She made new reverence for Luna.
"Sure. We can not offer them more than shelter and some food, but we share what we have without fear." Luna replied cordially.
"It is an honor for us, Princess. Many are not as gentle as Your Majesty. What we also have is not much, but if we can compensate for it somehow..."
"Normally I would not ask anything for it, but you came in a dark hour for us. My sister, Princess Clestia, is very ill, poisoned by the Nightmares. We do not have herbs for an antidote and may take a long time to refill them, I would be eternally grateful if you could help us."
There was a minute of silence in which the guest ponies and deer looked at each other, then Sapphire nodded at Jasmine, who stepped forward.
"We lost our healer a few moons ago." She replied. "But fortunately we carry an inventory of forest herbs where we came from, yet able to use and I know how to create an antidote, perhaps a little differently than you should know, but I give you my word that works."
"We do not deal with Nightmares often, but now and then they escape beyond this earth." Oak said. "We had to learn how to defend ourselves against them, but got nothing to show the Breath of Fire."
Luna could only assume that the "Breath of Fire" referred to foreign ponies, or maybe dragons, but dragons were dangerous creatures and that did little contact with the forest creatures, none of them friendly.
-MLP- -MLP-
"Deers!" Moonlight interrupted in surprise.
"That's right. Gaia is inhabited by many creatures, not just ponies, even Equestria, who at that time was not called that, has several different races living on there."
"Like what? Besides ponies, dragons and deers?"
"Griffins, zebras... Not even I know everything, I just know what Mommy told me, I think even she don't knows all about Gaia and even over Equestria."
"Gaia is like our planet Earth here, isn't it?"
"Exactly. Equestria would be equivalent to the mainland where we live. Other creatures, plus more ponies, I imagine, would inhabit other continents. As the lands are surrounded by sea, some simply don't know the existence of other lands, as it was in our world there long."
"What about the mysterious ponies? Why are they different?"
"They have pointed ears, slightly sharp teeth and wings like dragons, plus a mark in the shape of dragon claws in one of their hoover, the mark of an ancient covenant whose breach forced the group to leave their homeland in search of another. But I will not spoil your surprise."
"What about the deers? How are they?"
"Like the ones you've seen on TV, Moon, except that, like the ponies have four different races among them. The earth deers, equivalent to earth ponies; winged deers, equivalent to pegasi which has wings and can fly, walk on the clouds and other things that usually do pegasus; are mages, which are the equivalent to unicorns, they have hooves like gems and shiny marks on their legs and are able to use magic; and has the winged mages, equivalent to alicorns, they are very rare, have more powerful magic and also able to fly. Distinctly ponies, which are colorful, deer only vary between various shades of brown, but they have colored hair, usually wear short or stuck somehow, different from many ponies. Can I continue the story now?"
Moonlight nodded, interested.
Well, this chapter was basically improvisation. The shadows's poison? It was not scripted. Travelers? Should appear more in the future when I could get the right breed to add here, what happened to come from a photo posted by a friend who made me realize that it was exactly what I was looking for, then no, that idea doesn't belong to me although characters do. The scene with the human sisters? Simply emerged while I wondered if I should finish the chapter there or not, so basically this was a surprise chapter.