A few hours after moonrise, Nightmare Moon had just left the tunnel and was now treading the rocky ground of the Badlands. The Princess of the Night was still in her simplest attire. A step behind her was Swift. They walked with an accelerated pace through the greatest of silences.

Swift followed the order and his Queen with the utmost respect. The bat pony's armour was shining. Since he had been placed under the direct orders of Major Antares, the latter left nothing unchecked, reviewing him at every opportunity to make sure that he would not embarrass her in the presence of the Queen. Despite this treatment, he had a discreet smile that tried to reach her ears.

Nightmare Moon looked over her shoulder at the hills behind them, then turned back towards Swift, intrigued by the smile he could not repress. "May I ask what makes you smile like that, Private Swift Chess?"

Swift laughed briefly. "I apologise for the misbehaviour, my Queen, but the look on Cute Bite's face when you ordered me to leave my weapon at the camp... I thought her eyes would pop out of their sockets."

"I see. Did you ever think of telling her the truth about her sister—the late Lieutenant Antares?" Nightmare Moon asked curiously.

His smile became faint, but remained present. "My Queen, if you knew Cute Bite like I do, you'd know that even if you told her this yourself, stubborn as she is, she would refuse to believe it. Cute Bite is a dreamer. She looks at Your Night and sees there the two mares that she esteems more than anything else, to the point of putting them each on a pedestal. Her sister, at your side. Two eternal constellations in her filly heart. You, our majestic Queen, and Antares, your devoted warrior."

Nightmare Moon thought it over for a moment. "Perhaps I should do something about that. Luna didn't care much for that at the time. She preferred to plunge into creating the Tantabus rather than worry about picking up where I left off, taking my reign for granted."

Swift was already imagining the look on Cute Bite's face and the endless stream of tears that would follow. "Whatever you have in mind, I believe Cute Bite would be touched by this gesture." A thought raced through his mind. "My Queen, if I may ask you this question—no doubt indiscreet—where does this sudden urge to tell her the truth come from?"

Nightmare Moon gave a side glance at her subordinate before looking ahead of her again. "I had a conversation with Twilight Sparkle. And..." She stopped, drawn by the sudden sound of hooves fighting to remain steady. When she looked at Swift again, he was pale. "Is it that shocking?"

The bat pony blinked. "No, my Queen. I've just realised something. You can never, never, never talk about Princess Sparkle in the presence of Cute Bite. Worse still, under no circumstances must they meet," he said in a firm tone.

Faced with the seriousness of Swift, Nightmare Moon resumed her walk, pensive. It was easy to ask why, but she preferred to think for herself at first. Her deduction led her to an obvious conclusion. "More than those who held the blades that killed her, does she hold Twilight Sparkle solely responsible for her sister's death?"

He joined her side. "Yes. If you're looking for an excuse to start a war between the Moon and Equestria, order her to assassinate the princess. She will be glad to do it, but she will be far from discreet," he said before continuing, his ears drooping, his face low. "She becomes unrecognisable as soon as that name is uttered. Even I find it hard to get her to come back from those moments."

"I've never known the proper punishment for these opportunists. Since I've been back, they rot in jail, waiting for me to find something appropriate for their treason. An execution would be too sweet as a death."

Swift tried to figure out where this conversation was leading. He could see that his hoofsteps were leading him to the changeling hive, but the discussion revolved around Cute Bite and Antares. "My Queen, is there something you wanted to tell me? I can see this is the kind of thing you can't say to everypony, so if you have something to share, just say it. It's not my first secret."

Nightmare Moon stopped to look at the moon. "Swift, this conversation has no real purpose; think of it as a confidence between a Queen and her royal assassin. You may not be trained to kill, but you're the best substitute I've got at my disposal."

Swift sat with his back to the moon beside the alicorn, watching over her safety— though he knew it was useless. "So, I'm just a confidant? As long as I don't have to kill anypony, I think I can do the job, my Queen."

"Now that the ban is lifted, there will be no need for a royal assassin. Antares was the last, and she didn't have to fight me. Even without it, I caused her death," said the thousand-year-old mare, sincerely affected by the death. "I want you to know, like all the royal assassins who were also my confidants before you, the real reason for their presence by my side through the centuries. They watched over me like a hawk. On the day my banishment ended, Antares had orders to watch over my return. In case I was banished again, her orders were to control me, and, in the worst case, to kill me. Anything to prevent a second bloodbath. That is why I have had an assassin at my side for a thousand years. To take my life if I ever again become the senseless monster who decimated Luna's bloodline when her father tried to control me. I was unable to control the rage that overwhelmed me then." She sighed, amused. "Time is a wonderful thing. Whoever you were, whatever you did—in the end, there is nothing left. Luna has been forgotten by Equestria, at best the unknown protagonist of a fable. Just like how my becoming Queen of the Moon has been sublimated."

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"Didn't you fight to unite the major bloodlines under your ruling?"

"It wasn’t a fight, but a slaughter. Back then, my adoptive father—an opportunist who was the current Primogen of his bloodline—used me as a leverage to claim leadership over all the Primogen so he could rule Broncoliande. After my banishment, he ordered me to calm down. At that very moment, we both realised that I was no longer a child afraid of father’s wrath. After cleansing what is now my palace, I walked out, and saw that the other Primogen were there. And they knew that none of them could defeat an alicorn. Then, the Major's ancestor approached, removing the symbol of his status as Primogen of his bloodline and surrendered it to me. A sign of submission. And the others followed his gesture."

"I find it hard to believe that it wasn't my ancestor who first submitted to you. Seriously, it was the best move to make to get into the future Moon Queen's good graces, don't you think?" Swift joked.

"He was one of the last to make sure the idea was a good one." She turned her eyes to Swift. "You're taking the revelation rather well."

"Humour is my defence mechanism. If I wasn't wearing this armour, you could see the goosebumps on my back. Besides, that was a thousand years ago; you've changed, otherwise why else would you have turned the Cute Bite bloodline into bat ponies to look after you? If you ask me, over time, the royal assassin was an excuse to be a friend—the only friend the mare behind the queen's mask could afford to have."

"Inasmuch as I was not banished a second time, it will remain just a theory."

One detail didn't fit the story Nightmare Moon had just amended. "My Queen, if all the Primogen did not dare to fight you as one bat pony, and if your own father and the rest of your lineage was not an opposition worthy of your power, how could Antares alone have won against you? Or, if the necessity was there, kill you? Moreover, she did not have the advantage of surprise."

"Perceptive," Nightmare Moon said with a smirk. "That's the question I've always asked myself with increasing anxiety as the centuries have passed. And since I couldn't get any research done on the Moon, I employed Celestia's lackeys to answer the question. As Equestria finally had the necessary scientific level in the last decades, I manipulated a few pegasi in key positions with post-hypnotic suggestions through their dreams. They eventually found that a certain type of meteoric metal was capable of rendering magic ineffective. So I forwarded plans to an armourer, who was killed by Antares once the order was complete. I couldn't allow him to divulge this to anypony."

Two points connected in Swift's mind. "I understand better now why she had to kill that bat pony. It explains a lot. But even knowing all this, I think Cute Bite would refuse to believe that her idol was a royal assassin. But if you think about it, defeating Celestia, or murdering her—it's almost the same thing. Moreover, what would be the point?"

"You're going to let her base all her decisions on a lie?"

"My Queen, I promised Antares I'd watch over Cute Bite. No matter what choices she makes in life, her safety is all I care about. And that's no lie. Antares was your lieutenant—arguably the most loyal of all—willing to lay down her life to defend your legitimacy. Whereas others sought to clear Princess Luna's path to the throne, or even kill you, since that was your order." He gritted his teeth. "I won't have anypony pretend this was all an act. No one!" he shouted, tears in his eyes as he stared into the distance.

Nightmare Moon could not prove him wrong. Like all assassins before her, Antares had been most loyal to her. "This conversation is over. Go back to camp. End the night as you see fit—within reason. I will endorse your choice when I return."

Swift regained his composure, chasing away tears with the thumbs of his wings. Before turning before the alicorn, he curtsied, wings spread. "Sweet night to you, my queen," he said, before turning north.

Nightmare Moon went in the opposite direction, sinking deeper into the Badlands. As she arrived at the entrance to the beehive tunnel, she could see Chrysalis sitting there, stargazing.

She turned her gaze when the sound of the hooves caught her attention. "You finally showed up. You got lost on the way? Oh, joking aside, how's the coup d'etat going?"

Nightmare Moon took her place at a reasonable distance from the Queen of the Changelings. "Believe it or not, Luna revealed my presence to Twilight right after talking about Celestia’s death, which made my approach to her much easier afterwards. I don't want to rush anything, so I'm giving her time to think. I'm trying to make sure I'm seen not as the monster, but as a princess, no less than Celestia."

Chrysalis gauged the Moon Mare. "You ooze jealousy from every pore, my sweetness. Was it hard not to kill Twilight on sight?"

Nightmare Moon ignored the taunt. "It pains me to say this, but I need her alive. If I killed her, it would do me a disservice. Even if I admit it, the urge is there. I must turn a blind eye to this urge because my desire to rule Equestria is stronger than any other."

Chrysalis was amused by this. "Even stronger than hanging around my daughter's dreams? I'm reassured; I doubt it's in good taste for an old fossil like you to hang around a child like Aglowing Shell." She thought for a moment. "Even though, considering what Celestia has achieved, perhaps you'd be quite capable to turn my daughter into an alicorn. That would make you her equal, no less," Chrysalis mocked.

Nightmare Moon frowned, but ignored the taunt. She continued in the same tone, "About your daughter, I have been thinking. It would probably be best if she knew the truth about me. As Sparkle said, a friendship cannot be based on a lie."

Chrysalis' surprise soon gave way to a wicked smile. "Hold on, butterfly. You—the one who dreams of being Celestia's equal, who dreams of killing Twilight—went to the Princess of Friendship for advice on your little moral problems with my daughter?" She laughed a thunderous laughter that could be heard all the way to Canterlot.

Nightmare Moon couldn't ignore the taunt this time. As angry as her coat, she used her magic to grab Chrysalis by the throat, and, with all her might, pressed her against the nearest wall. "Yes! So what?!" she shouted in her face.

Chrysalis hiccuped in shock. Despite the pain, she kept smiling as she looked Nightmare Moon straight in the eye—while also waving at Chitin lurking in the shadow of the tunnel to stay back. "All that pent-up anger. That age-old jealousy. Will I ever have the pleasure of tasting it, my darkness?"

Nightmare Moon turned her gaze to Chitin, whose luminescent blue eyes cut into the darkness of the tunnel. She released Chrysalis with an irritated grunt before looking at her again. "Then will you officially introduce me to your daughter?"

Chrysalis considered the idea for a moment, gazing up at the stars, then snapped her tongue and teeth. Chitin started to run, the sound of their gallop getting lost in the tunnel. "Follow me.”

Nightmare Moon had a moment's apprehension. She certainly wanted the child to know the truth, but didn't want to lose the only innocent soul in this world who cared about her at all. Yet, Nightmare Moon had to stick with her decision. If she didn't, she would make a fool of herself.