A small bipedal creature opens the door and is delighted to see a winged unicorn, but nonetheless retains a dignified demeanor (although the nuances of human body language may be lost on the princess).

"Good day to you, Madam! Pray tell what land is this?"

(he has dealt with Horses enough to know a Mare from a Stallion)

Her ears flick towards the sound before she decides that she's really not going to get anything out of this book the 38th time through that she didn't get on the 37th, and picks her head up to regard the creature. It's the same sort of gangly thing the first one was, and it, too, only comes up to about her chin.

"Milliways," she says, a little belatedly. "Can you move the sun?"

"I don't believe I can move the sun- why do you ask?"

Nightmare Moon snorts. "It seemed about as likely as me finding out how to manipulate my cutie mark in Starswirl's old notes. A unicorn has no excuse for fieldwriting that bad." She eyes him. "What are you?"

"I am a Human. What's a cutie mark? Why do you need to move the sun? I'm afraid I am entirely ignorant of the affairs of Milliways."

"Hm. Like a minotaur without the bull. Strange, but that explains the lack of a mark. And no, I don't know anything about this place anyway, I came in like you did. Well, I assume like you did. Your cutie mark represents your destiny, your true talent in life. Usually for unicorns it influences the kind of magic you can do, or possibly the other way around, it's rather complicated. Mine is the moon." She indicates her flank with a nod of her head. The movement sets the miasma of her mane rippling over the book on the counter, but it ebbs after a moment. "I need to move the sun because...." She can't force the rest of the sentence out; briefly, she moves her mouth but cannot speak. She changes what she was going to say. "Our usual means is... indisposed."

He has also dealt with Horses enough to recognize when they find a topic upsetting.

"So, Milliways isn't your native world either? You know the name, though, so you must have heard more about it than I did when I came here.

I'm afraid I can't be much help to you yet on questions of destiny or changing it, I'm rubbish at theology. It sounds like my sister or my tutor would be more use to you. Would it be possible to move the sun using the moon, say by pushing it around, or is that a daft idea?"

"No, I'm from Equestria. Another human ran by and told me some of it, but you can ask Bar questions and she certainly gives much clearer answers. Not to mention alcohol." She gestures, this time at a stack of napkins set aside from her book.

Then she pauses, considering his words, and looks faintly amused. "How much do you know about astrophysics as it applies to magical masterworks? The short answer is no. If either of those people is a quick learner I could certainly use the help, but I'm guessing you've got earth magic, if anything, and all I've been able to do with that is estimate how much longer I have before everything on the planet either freezes or burns."

She takes another long draft from the flask next to her, using a telekinetic field to manipulate the glass. A similar field emanates from her horn, and winks out when she sets the flask down again.

He speaks with more urgency now, but still does not seem to be panicking.

"How long do you have? Do you know if time is passing at the same rate there as here?"

She seems much less concerned than he is. Also a good deal more inebriated. "Apparently time is stopped there unless you hold the door open. Not that I have any way of verifying that, but either it's true and I don't need to worry about it, or for some reason the Bar has decided to lie, in which case there's nothing to be done anyway, everyone is going to die, and I may as well not worry about something I can't stop." She picks up the flask again and toasts someone imaginary. "Fuckin' Celly, stupid perfect sunbutt," she grumbles.

(Wow, whatever she's drinking is apparently strong enough to get a Horse drunk.)

His attitude of urgency lessens.

"Does Celly normally move the sun? What's happened to her?"

Nightmare Moon's expression turns guarded. "None of your business. She's not around."

She's in mourning but doesn't want to talk about it even to be comforted. Well, what other options do they have.

"Okay. Will the twilight part of your world stay habitable? Could we evacuate people there? Or could we evacuate people into Milliways, or into my world through Milliways? My country is currently at war and rationing food as it is, but people who can eat things humans can't can probably survive there, and some of you could be able to get to countries further from the front."

he turns to Bar

"How well equipped is Milliways to accommodate refugees?"

Her brow furrows in thought. "The twilight.... Tell me, do you know what an eclipse is? The trouble would be getting it right quickly enough. That, and reassuring the population Discord is still imprisoned before they riot. And of course that only helps half the planet, there's not...." She trails off, staring into the middle distance, thinking.

The number of rooms here is not necessarily finite, Bar explains, on a napkin that Nightmare Moon pays no attention to. While there is rent, it can be added to one's tab, to be paid off at a later date. You may also camp out in the backyard free of charge, though the chance of non-Euclidean geography increases with distance from the establishment.

"What is your magic like?" It's quite a feat to interrupt a piece of paper, but Nightmare Moon manages it. "Who are you at war with, what are their capabilities? Are humans herbivores or carnivores? Bar, I need every account of any eclipse during the Discordian era that mentions quantifiable data, and other nations' contingency plans in the case of a war with Equestria." A stack of papers appears in front of her; she picks it up and shuffles through it with her magic. "Thank you."

"I'm familiar with eclipses, yes. Good idea. We have very little true magic, but we have invented marvelous machines, such as ones which can fly, ones which can move across the ground or water at great speeds, and boats which can travel under the water to ambush ships, marvelous chemicals such as liquids which set into stone, and powerful explosives and poisons, and a technique which can render people immune to certain diseases. Humans are omnivores, but there are plants we can't eat and animals we don't eat in my country. Our enemies are the Germans, Italians and Japanese. They seek to conquer the world, and the Germans in particular also seek to massacre certain ethnic groups they consider inferior and enslave others. They have machines, explosives and poisons similar to ours."

He reads the napkin.

"And it looks like Milliways is a good place to evacuate to, in any case. Is there anything the people of Milliways need help with, Bar?"

She's thrown briefly at the lack of magic. "Hm. Even more like the minotaurs, then. You're at war with three other species at the same time? That doesn't seem like a very good idea. Ponies are herbivores but we do eat dairy and there are even a few ambassadors to the griffons who've acquired a taste for fish. Dragons eat gems... I think. We don't really know much about dragons. Zebrica is on the other side of the planet, but zebras are pretty much like ponies. Biologically, anyway. How do you fly without magic to offset the weight? Who controls the weather and regulates the day and night? Who governs?"

"I don't think it was a bad idea at all compared to the alternatives. If we hadn't fought them we'd have been betraying our allies to conquest and we'd still have had to fight them later when they conquered our neighbours and moved on to conquering us. Unless we were prepared to surrender and let them massacre or enslave our own people. In fact, given the circumstances I'd say it was so clearly the best choice as to barely be an idea at all."

"What, do you have no artifacts? No conc- well, whatever the equivalent of ritual casting would be." She shakes her head. "Never mind. Equestria is by far the most powerful force on Equus; I had assumed the same of... what is the human nation called?"

"The United Kingdom. Of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, ruling over of the British Empire. I suppose being overwhelmingly more powerful than any enemy would make avoiding war much easier."

He pauses to think.

"There are non-talking horses in England who are able to live mostly on plants humans can't digest, like grass. No-one in England eats gemstones, but they're rare and expensive even without people eating them, and we can only get more by mining for them.

Do you think your peoples' magic could be used to produce food? I know when Narnia was locked into a long sorcerous winter its people survived in large part on magically conjured food.

I don't know exactly how we fly without magic- I think our flying machines push against the air somehow, but not quite the same way you do. So far as I know only God controls the weather and the heavens. And the United Kingdom is governed by an elected Parliament, a Cabinet they appoint, and a House of hereditary lords and ladies, with a mostly symbolic King. Other countries have other systems."

"Well, there you go, get God to deal with the germans and japanese and whoever else. Bribe her if you need to, seeing as she is the sort who would sit idly by while her people are slaughtered.

"And I thought you said you had close to no magic. If you have the means to produce food in winter then why aren't you using that? Even earth ponies need something to work with, they can’t grow crops in cold dead soil."

"... I don't think we can rely on being able to get God to do anything. And I think we might be His way of dealing with the Germans. I wish my sister Lucy were here, she's much better at dealing with this sort of thing. My brother Edmund could probably be much more help than me with figuring out evacuation, for that matter.

And England is a different world from Narnia. We don't have Narnian magic there."

"He sounds utterly useless, then, you should overthrow him when you get the chance and see if you can't take or replicate whatever he did to get power. There's plenty of ways to win a war with weather. The pegasi pioneered most of them, and six out of seven of them have feathers where their brains should be.

"Can you get them here? Or could you tell me where they are, so that I can fetch them while you hold the door? Teleportation is probably out, unless you're so good at describing things that I can get an accurate picture of it in my mind's eye.

"I take it Narnia is like Milliways, and you don't have reliable access to it or you'd already be using it to solve your problems. Shame."

"Just in my family's experience, he saved my brother's life and helped mend the rift between him and the rest of our family, deposed the murderous tyrants Jadis and Miraz and ended Jadis' magical winter, turned my cousin out of a dragon and helped him become less obnoxious, rescued prince Rilian from imprisonment, and is most likely going to save our souls. Not to mention having created the worlds and everything in them. He might not be reliable, but he certainly isn't useless."

"He's useless here," she points out. "And did any of that happen in the world you're in now? Maybe he's just the ruler of Narnia and not your United Kingdom. What's a soul and why do they need saving?"

She pauses. "I will give you the dragon thing, though. It's hard to imagine anything more obnoxious than a dragon."

He sighs and puts a hand to his face.

"I'm pretty sure He's the God of all worlds, but I think you'd need to ask my sister or my tutor for an explanation of how or why, or of whether that also makes him the ruler of them, or for what exactly a soul is and why they need saving."

He sits down.

"You're right that Narnia is like Milliways, and my brother and sisters aren't anywhere near here. You could fly to where they are, but..."

He thinks.

"I'm reluctant to let people into my world unnecessarily given how bad that sort of thing has gone before, but we might need to bring your people there eventually and your being a winged horse is definitely a good omen. Okay."

He hesitates some more.

"Do either of you have a pen?"

"Not mine, or we'd have heard of him. At least I assume so, I haven't heard of anyone else with that kind of power who doesn't flaunt it... though I suppose I wouldn't have, would I...? Never mind. I shall ask them later."

She raises an eyebrow. "I'm aware of why alicorns are considered good in my world, but why should they be so in yours?"

Here you are, says Bar, presenting a ballpoint pen along with the napkin.

"My tutor once rode a winged Horse to rescue his mother from Jadis, and the winged horse is also the emblem of the part of the British Army a friend has advised me to join once I'm old enough to enlist. And God in normally very subtle- we went hundreds of years with most people not knowing He existed. Anyway."

He draws a map and explains to Nightmare how to find his brother and sisters, who are in various boarding schools scattered around the southern half of a large island.

"Very well. I should note that most pegasi cannot do a fraction of what I can--winged ponies or no. An alicorn is greater than the sum of her parts. And technically horses are from Meshippotamia, which is closer to Zebrica than Equestria. Who is Jadis?"

She studies the map as he goes over it, then repeats the key points to confirm them. "How am I to find your siblings? From your descriptions of the places I take it they're not used to entertaining royalty, and I would rather a minimum of fuss."

"Jadis was an evil witch who ruled Narnia tyrannically and caused the sorcerous winter. My siblings' names are Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, people will be able to point you to them. I'm afraid that the sight of a winged unicorn in England may inevitably cause a fuss."

"Sounds like a Windigo to me. Strange, the similarities between worlds. Susan, Edmund, Lucy. Are their mane and coat colors similar to yours? Well--mane, anyway, I suppose you don't have a coat." She pauses, then looks a little sheepish. "Ah--if they ask who sent me, what should I say? I don't believe there have been any formal introductions between us.

"I had planned to fly invisibly, assuming the spell works. If it's night I may not need it anyway. This tutor of yours--shall I find him as well? And how am I to return to Milliways once our allies have been gathered?"

"Oh- yes, returning to Milliways to Earth might be a problem. So perhaps we should begin with evacuating your world here, if you expect that door to be more reliable."

"Unfortunately, I do not, and I am loathe to restart time without a concrete plan. Bar, is there some token I may carry to guarantee safe passage between worlds?"

No. However, you may hold the door open as long as you like.

"There you have it," Nightmare says, turning back to the human. "Unless there is some immediate crisis that you have failed to mention."

"Holding the door will keep the passage open, then?", Peter asks the bar. "Does that apply to the door to England as well?"

Yes to both questions, so long as the person who opens the door initially is a native of that world.

Nightmare frowns. "Time will flow normally in England while the door is open, yes? What about Equestria?"

Time will remain paused so long as you intend and are able to return here.

The alicorn rounds on Peter, turquoise eyes blazing with some unholy fire. "Don't. Let. Go."

"On my name and my honour I will not let go of the door until you return here."

(to the bar) "Thank you"

(To Nightmare again) "Susan and Lucy have hair about the same color as mine, Edmund's is lighter. And my name is Peter Pevensie. My tutor..."

he gives directions to an office in a university, and directs Nightmare to ask after Professor Digory Kirke.

She nods to him seriously. With her horn, it comes off vaguely as though she's knighting him, though she doesn't seem to notice the cultural echo. "I shall away, then. After you, Peter Pevensie."

Peter holds the door for Nightmare. It leads to a school corridor.

She nods to him again, looks up and down the corridor, and lights her horn. Shortly, she seems to shimmer out of existence. 

"Excellent," says Nightmare Moon's voice, from somewhere in the middle of the corridor. "I shall return with all haste." Hoofbeats mark her movement to the end of the hall--and then back.

"Er," says the lunar princess, sounding rather sheepish. "Which way is out?"

"Left to the end will get you to the stairwell. Then turn right into the ground floor and you'll find the foyer on your right."

"Thank you," says Nightmare, and leaves--in the correct direction, this time. On her way outside, she passes a number of other humans, who all look worryingly similar to Peter. She hopes they can tell each other apart, or at least don't all wear the same clothes all the time. It's going to be a very long trip, otherwise.

When she reaches a stone clearing, she leaps into the air, glad that flying also seems to work normally in this world. With a quick spell to determine the cardinal directions, she adjusts course for the university when she can find this Kirke, figuring that it will be easier to convince Peter's siblings to join her if someone they trust is already on her side.

It doesn't take her long to get there, despite keeping a low altitude so as not to lose her way above the cloud cover. Getting there is one thing, though; getting inside is another matter entirely.

"This is worse than the School for Gifted Unicorns," she grumbles, after having possibly gone in a circle. She remembers Peter's directions perfectly, thank you alicorn brain, but all the buildings look alike and she has a growing suspicion that she didn't start in the right place. Eventually she sighs, drops her invisibility, and wanders back to where she last saw a human.

"Excuse me," sir? madam? whatever-- "would you be so kind as to direct me to the office of Professor Digory Kirke?" Maybe she can bluff her way past all the ceremonial nonsense by just pretending that nothing is out of the ordinary. It's worked before.

People startle and stare at her.

"Um. I believe his office is in the Gibson building. If you go through there you'll come to a lawn and it's across the lawn to your right."

"Thank you," Nightmare Moon says, and takes her leave in the direction the human had pointed. Across the lawn, to the right, and there's a building with a plaque by the door reading something about how, presumably, Gibson gave them enough money to get a building named after her. How nice for everyone involved. She ducks her head to avoid smacking her horn on the doorframe, then, once inside, looks around for a directory of some sort, or maybe a map.

There is not a map evident. There is a desk at which several humans are queuing, and at which a clerk is telling the human at the front of the queue where they can find someone named Professor Lightfoot.

Excellent. Nightmare Moon trots up to the desk, ignoring the line. Royalty does have its perks.

"Do you know where I might find a Professor Kirke? Digory Kirke, if there's more than one."

The clerk doesn't know what to make of the unicorn asking after Professor Kirke. Fortunately, since it isn't in line it is presumably not her problem and she can just continue directing this man to Professor Lightfoot's office.

"If this is how you treat all visiting heads of state no wonder you're at war. I apologize for the interruption, but this is a matter of some urgency. Kindly either tell me where Kirke is or give me something of his so that I may find him myself."

Peoples' surprised expressions become more alarmed, and several of them move their hands in an unfamiliar gesture. The man at the desk, however, anxiously asks the clerk if she might also direct him to Professor Kirke.

"And are you asking that because a black unicorn is making a fuss about it?"

"Um. Yes? I figure he'd have a better idea what to do about her than we do."

"...I suppose so."

the clerk gives the man directions to both professors.

"Was that so hard?" Nightmare Moon unfurls her wings slightly, to make a point of them. "Trust me, I can be so much worse than a mere unicorn."

She looks away suddenly, and snorts. It's a surprisingly horse-like noise and movement, considering the perfectly fluent Equestrian that came before it. She hadn't been lying, though; she really doesn't have time for this. Without a word, she stalks off, following the directions to this Professor Kirke. Hopefully he'll be easier to work with.

The directions lead her to a closed door, at which she knocks. Briskly.

"Come in!"

She does so, using her magic to turn the doorknob rather than fumble at it with her hooves. "You are Professor Digory Kirke? Your presence is required, as is that of your pupils. Make haste, if you would."

Professor Kirke gets up and follows Nightmare at a brisk walk.

"And why would our presence be required, and by whom?"

She starts leading him outside. "I met Peter Pevensie in -- call it a nexus between worlds, of sorts. There is a deadly problem on my world that you, he, Lucy Pevensie, Susan Pevensie, and Edmund Pevensie may be able to help with. He requested I gather you, on the principle that five heads are better than one, so to speak."

Once outside, she looks around and grimaces. "I cannot teleport to a place I've never been, so we shall have to do this the long way. Get on my back." Nightmare's not totally sure this is going to work, but she's seen young dragons do it to their quadrupedal parents, so it can't be that hard. Certainly less hassle than holding him, and eventually three more humans, in her magic the entire way.

He pauses and looks around.

"That might be rather easier if you could stand by that bench, ma'am, I think I'm somewhat too old to climb a Horse all the way from the ground."

"Here." She grabs him up in her magic and sets him astride her back, just past the junction of her wings. "You may keep hold of my peytral, should you fear falling." That said, she recasts the invisibility spell, though they won't look any different to each other.

Professor Kirke squeaks in alarm as he's lifted. The sqeak turns into a laugh partway through.

He adjusts his position on Nightmare's back, and indeed grabs her peytral. Fortunately, he has (a little) experience with this sort of thing.

"Well, this brings back memories. Lead on."

She orients herself and takes off, heading to the next nearest school. An impatient part of her wants to go as fast as possible, but it would not do to send a wave of night crashing over the countryside in the middle of the afternoon, with a trail of murky stars leading directly to her eventual location.

Instead, she says, "You have met an alicorn before? I would find that hard to believe, but a great many unbelievable things have happened today."

"I haven't met an alicorn before, no. I take it that is your type of creature? I was under the impression the term referred only to the horn. But in any case, I have not in fact encountered any form of unicorn before but I did once ride a winged talking Horse when I was a boy."

"It does, to the soft cap covering a foal's horn that falls off shortly after birth. Somewhere across the centuries it got confused, and it's certainly shorter than 'winged unicorn.' Largely the conflation exists to annoy obstetricians.

"If that pegasus was anything like the ones from my world, I won't ask why you specified 'talking.' Never met a pegasus with anything resembling a brain-to-mouth filter, Celly was--" She stops abruptly and her small smile vanishes. "Never mind."

"That seems like a peculiar confusion- but then, perhaps no more so than our using a word for lettuce and spinach which originally referred to salt. In any case- what's this problem you need to deal with, and what might an old professor be able to do about it that the kings and queens of Narnia can't?"

"We haven't asked the kings and queens of Narnia because apparently there's no reliable way to get there from here. I'm told someone named God governs the realm and has a fair amount of power, should he be persuaded to bring it to bear, which from what I hear also seems unlikely. Equestria's affliction is - hmm. In simple terms, the sun is no longer circling the planet, and I cannot gain control of it to continue its regular orbit."

Apparently she doesn't know about the Pevensies' station. Well, he isn't going to spoil the surprise.

"Oh dear. That sounds inconvenient. Is it night or day?"

"Night over Equestria, day over the other half of the planet. --Here we are. If I render you visible, will you be able to retrieve the others quickly, or will they take convincing?"

He will be able to, and does, at least for the Pevensie brother who's at this school.

"We're to mount you, ma'am?"

She makes a face. "Not if you say it like that, you're not. You must be Edmund Pevensie; Peter Pevensie told me Susan Pevensie and Lucy Pevensie would be together." She picks up both humans in her magic and settles them on her back again, Edmund behind Kirke.

"I must say," Nightmare adds offhandedly as she recasts the invisibility spell and takes to the air, "I'm sure your parents are wonderful po--uh, people, but they could have been a bit more creative with your second names. Or at least made them shorter."

"Them being English, that would have been rather unconventional. 'Pevensie' is the name of our father's family.

But what was the urgent business Professor Kirke said you were here on?""

"I suppose that is how some of the earth pony clans do it, with whatever crop they grow. Still, what if there's--" She shakes her head. "Never mind. The sun is dead. I can't move it around the planet, so we need to either figure out a way to do that or evacuate everyone. Your brother thought you would be of help."

"Narnia, or some other world?"

"Apologies, I should have specified. Equestria is the land I rule. I don't know what other creatures call the planet, but our name for it is Equus."

"What is Equus's sun made of? What holds it in place? How did it move when it was alive?"

"I can see why Peter thought to ask for you," she says, stalling a bit. "There's -- the way is--" She stops and takes a breath. It doesn't really seem to help. "My sister Celestia moved the sun, and I the moon. Before we ascended, teams of unicorns did the same, though the working was such that all but one gave up their magic for it. You'd never find the volunteers for it in this day and age."

"Ascended?"

If she's relieved that that’s the question he chooses to ask, she doesn't show it. "Became alicorns and, incidentally, princesses. We were supposed to be convenient political figureheads." She twists her mouth in a wry smirk. "Didn't last long."

"And there's no-one around who can ascend into your sister's place, magically speaking?"

"Unfortunately, no. The process takes years, and even if we somehow found a candidate, there's no guarantee they'd have any affinity for the sun. They could very well have bubbles or butterflies for a cutie mark, and then where would we be? Back at square one, with some powerful idiot tottering around like a newborn foal and getting in the way."

"Well, then we need to find unicorn volunteers. Send out announcements. Give speeches, and have other people give speeches. My brother and sisters can help you, this sort of thing is half of what they did in Narnia."

She grimaces. "The situation may be... politically delicate. We are a prey species, and I'm sure there's already a great deal of panic going on." She falls silent, then, thinking. "Perhaps... if I could lend the power for the casting, we might only need, say, two unicorns.... The trouble is Starswirl was really the expert on concerted magic, and he's dead, more or less... but I'm fairly sure they used simple telekinesis, because of course each day it was a new set aside from him, they didn't bother coordinating talents. Someone with a sun cutie mark might have an easier time of it." Nightmare sighs and, seeing the school ahead, locks her wings to glide the remaining distance. "There's too much I don't know, and not enough time. I told her we should have a backup, and she didn't listen, and now look. Ugh."

"We have worked with panicked herbivores before. Lending your own power- would that still only buy one day before we needed a larger group? Still, people can be much more willing to make sacrifices for rulers who are willing to make sacrifices themselves."

"Well, I'll go fetch Susan and Lucy."

Nightmare acknowledges Kirke's departure with a nod of her head, but doesn't otherwise turn her attention from Edmund. "The truth is I simply don't know the answer to almost any of that. Could I provide the force for such a magical working without draining myself of magic? Normally a unicorn will pass out before her deeper reserves are touched, for exactly that reason. It was the casting that kept them conscious to feed their power into the focus, who doubly burned out from exhaustion and the sheer amount of magic channeled through them.

"It's been over two hundred years since anyone did anything remotely like this, and I fear that the relevant question isn't of willingness, or numbers, but of outright knowledge. Starswirl never wrote it down, and told no one but his apprentice, Clover, and she died perhaps twenty-five years after Unification. There are scant records of whatever unicorns, or indeed, the rest of the world, did before this system was implemented; certainly depriving five or so unicorns of their magic every twelve hours isn't sustainable, not when half would be lost to suicide or malady. We simply don't breed or mature fast enough. Even with our current population, it would be feasible for perhaps... two years, at the most."

"Two years might at least give us more time to find another solution, or to evacuate."

"Perhaps." He's right, she knows. It worked before, and she's intelligent enough to fill in the gaps Starswirl had left. Why is she so opposed to the idea, enough to keep inventing reasons to avoid it? She thinks back to the unicorns she'd known who'd given up their magic to move the sun and moon. Their haunted, dull eyes, their faded cutie marks, the soft, deliberate way they moved afterwards, like just breathing was a tremendous effort and anything more took all their strength. They'd volunteered, yes, but Nightmare Moon wouldn't wish that fate on anyone. There had been murmurs of a lottery system, though thankfully they'd never had to stoop to such measures. She suppresses a shudder.

Out loud, she says, "I am loathe to treat a third of the population as disposable, even in a crisis such as this. Stars know the nobles could use being taken down a few notches, but not... like that. We have time to think of a better idea."

"Hmm. If you aren't able to keep the sun moving, what will be the consequences? We might be able to find alternative ways to mitigate them."

"One half of the planet will burn, and the other half will freeze. Your brother thought we might make use of the 'twilight area' as habitable, but if we're already rounding everyone up we may as well evacuate rather than try to make something workable out of half a percent of the world's landmass."

"What sort of transportation infrastructure do you have? How did you get here, can we get other people out of your world the same way? We-"

...

Edmund's speech slows down

"Jadis had a way of making Narnia winter for a hundred years.

I wonder whether that might be able to help the warmer half of your planet, whatever it was? We'd need some way to get access to it, but last we heard there were still witches preserving parts of her magic. And you haven't been barred from Narnia."

"And you have? Brother dearest conveniently failed to mention that. A permanent partial eclipse could potentially keep the warmer half in a twilight state. The real problem is we have no way to warm up the cold half. This isn't the kind of crisis the Elements were created to solve.

"As to your first questions, yes, I've been informed Milliways will remain accessible to my world as long as I am there. There is the odd unicorn who can teleport with a passenger, and I believe there's been some rumors of a line of metal cars on tracks, like mine carts but for ponies. As far as I can tell nobody can figure out how to power the thing aside from 'get out and pull,' which defeats the entire purpose. For long journeys, the most common modes of transportation are sky and ground chariots or simply your own four feet. I suspect if we do fetch everyone it will be me doing the fetching. I can teleport much farther, much more frequently, and carrying much more than even the best unicorns."

"And if there was ever a summer counterpart to Jadis's magic I expect it was lost with Charn. What is Milliways?"

"A nexus. You'll get a better explanation when we return, if you want one. Charn?"

"Jadis's original world, from which she came to Narnia. It has since ceased to exist. We have technology which should be able to speed up the evacuation significantly, but I will want more evidence than your word of the stakes involved before I agree to share all of it. How fast can you take people through Milliways currently? How many worlds are accessible from it, and how often does that change?"

Nightmare Moon's eyes glitter at Edmund's caveat, but she doesn't bring it up. "As fast as they can go through the door, I don't know, and I don’t know. From what I can tell, it’s entirely random who gets a door in, and that determines the doors out. Currently it's only your brother and I."

Edmund pauses to think.

Eventually: "If we do help you evacuate your world to this one, what would you do once you were here? And besides you, what other powers from your world would we need to worry about?"

"You're smarter than you let on, aren’t you?" Nightmare also takes a moment, though in truth she already has an answer, and is deciding how to make it most palatable.

"I assume you mean the nation of Equestria, not me personally. I suppose we would settle somewhere uninhabited and rebuild. It would take a few years, at least, but nothing worse than the Windigos. Presumably we would then begin to trade and so on."

She pauses again, this time to get her thoughts in order. "Of the sapients... the griffons have no head of state. They barely have a state. I can make fealty to me a requirement of evacuation and that should neatly exclude the idiots who do nothing but bicker.

"Queen Imago leads the largest changeling hive, so she's the de facto ruler. She has the usual changeling magic, but she's a smart bug. I thought of getting her to impersonate Celestia, but of course she can no more move the sun than I can.

"I have no idea who the current Dragon Lord is, they toss around that scepter like it's a hoofball. The minotaurs use some kind of council system where practically anyone can lead the country if they get enough people to like them, so they never get anything done. I'm not sure if the goats are people or pets. Fealty oath will work for both of those too.

"The zebra Caesar is... Xerinus, I think, or he was the last time I checked. Zebras are proud but not stupid, and Zebrica is a dangerous place; I'd be willing to bet they've already decided who to sacrifice in an emergency. The Crystal Empire is locked under ice, and good riddance for it.

"The hippogriffs are led by Queen Astor, and honestly they're a small enough country that we can probably take all of them. Only about five hundred on that entire mountain, I don't know how they're not all inbred. There are rumors that she gets her power from a huge pearl, but they're remarkably tight-beaked about the whole thing.

"The -- oh, damn, the breezies." She grimaces. "I suppose there's nothing to be done. Their portal won't open for another three moons. They’d likely be too delicate to survive the transition anyway. There are a few other groups of semi-sapients and wildlife that I don’t think you have here, but they're obviously not the priority. Does that answer your question?"

Edmund has produced a notebook and begun taking notes.

"That- might be satisfactory. I should consult my brother and sisters before making any final commitments. If we demand the various rulers give their word not to make war against us or aid our enemies, can we expect them to honour those oaths?"

She's mildly surprised for a second. "Of course. If honesty doesn't convince you, numbers might: no nation would be stupid enough to break a promise to someone who could so easily crush them." Nightmare Moon glances around. "Where are they? You didn't take half as long to fetch. Do you think we should go after them?"

"The Professor will have been finding my sisters' classrooms and getting their teachers to let them out, I expect."

She blinks at him. "Is he not telling them the matter is of utmost importance? If the teachers are recalcitrant, ignore them. What class could be more important than the salvation of a world?"

Sigh.

"He probably hasn't thought to tell them that. How long do we have before people start dying?"

"Milliways stops time in its inhabitants' worlds of origin, by some mechanism unknown to me. Time is flowing normally here because your brother is holding the door open pending our return. Aside from that, I suspect there are already casualties, of the weak or infirm. My night has lasted for over three days now. Er. You know what I mean. Regardless, we have plenty of time to think of a plan, but very little in which to enact it." She dispels the invisibility on the both of them and starts moving in the direction Kirke had gone. "All the same, I would rather not dally."

"Useful. In that case we had better not trade respectability for haste. Taking children out of school without process or a believable explanation would jeopardize our legal and social position."

Nightmare Moon rolls her eyes. "What's more respectable than a princess? Do you disbelieve me?" She comes to a T junction formed by two buildings and stops, unsure which way to go.

At this point a girl runs out of one of the buildings and towards Edmund and Nightmare moon, stopping closer to the latter than is polite.

"Hello!"

"Lucy, Princess Nightmare Moon of Equestria. Nightmare Moon, Queen Lucy of Narnia."

"Queen?" Nightmare Moon swivels her head to look at Edmund, then Lucy again, and very narrowly avoids saying, But you're short. Power must manifest differently here. Instead, she says, "Forgive my lack of decorum, Queen Lucy, but there are more urgent matters at hoof. Though I imagine this makes everything much simpler; your brother was telling me Narnia is a land of magic, and you certainly seem more reasonable than this God person."

"Unfortunately our titles are only useful if we can get in touch with Narnia, and we might not be able to."

"What did you need help with, anyway?"

Nightmare Moon eyes Edmund, displeased. "'Our'? I had thought you were barred from the land. I do not appreciate being deceived. And you may get off my back," she adds, and instead of waiting for an answer picks Edmund up and sets him on the ground, not particularly gently.

To Lucy, she says, "My world is in dire peril. I will explain further but I'd rather we find your sister, who at this rate I assume must be some kind of duchess, so I won't be obliged to repeat myself so much."

"Aslan named us kings and queens of Narnia after we helped him overthrow Jadis, but also told us we could never return after the third time we left. We still have the titles but they aren't much use to us here."

Nightmare Moon stares at her for perhaps a few seconds too long. "Why?" She holds up a hoof almost immediately. "No -- this is already hopelessly confused. Susan, Milliways, then explanations. I'd rather like the whole story, this time."

"We have time there stopped, so we we can take as long as we need to prepare.", Edmunt assures his sister.

"As I understand, their sun used to be moved by magic-"

he breaks off and signals to his sister that Nightmare finds this topic distressing. And that they still need to assess how trustworthy she is.

"And here we are!"

"Hello, your Royal Highness. I hope we can be of assistance to your people."

"And now can someone explain what exactly is going on?"

"One moment," Nightmare says. She closes her eyes and lights her horn. There is a teal flash and then they are standing in the hallway of Peter's school, just outside the door he's still holding open. "I thought it best not to teleport directly into Milliways," she explains before walking in herself. She nods to Peter as she passes him. "Good to see you again," she says, then adds, "Your Majesty," a bit pointedly.

"I suppose I should volunteer information first, seeing as I am prevailing upon you for aid. Where would you like me to start?"

"To begin with, we should perhaps also include Bar in this conversation since Milliways might also be involved in whatever we decide to do."

He nods towards the bar.

I can provide room, board, and some supplies, a napkin says. Other than that, Management prefers we remain impartial in most single-continuity cases. You are free to use the facilities as you wish.

"'Continuity'?" Nightmare says, then shakes her head. "Not important right now."

"Well, then let us sit down. And you can begin by explaining how your sun used to move."

Peter leads them to a table.

Nightmare Moon follows, but doesn't sit, mostly because there's no comfortable way for her to do so. "All right. Unfortunately, our records are... somewhat patchwork, especially through Discord's reign, so I can only truly vouch for what I've seen myself. There are three major pony races: earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns." As she speaks, she creates images of light hovering in the air next to her. "The earth ponies tend the land, the pegasi move the clouds and regulate the weather, and the unicorns used to move the sun and moon around the planet. I don't know if that was ever sustainable, somehow, or if that's just how it was simplified through the legend. About a hundred and fifty years before I was born, for some reason, the unicorn faction ran out of power or lost some technique or artifact that let them do this, leading to the Windigo crisis. That lasted about twenty-five years, getting steadily worse, until Unification, which is when we started a new calendar. The unicorns implemented a volunteer system that relied on teams of ponies giving up their magic to move the sun, with the earth ponies and pegasi supporting the foundations of society. Also not sustainable, but less immediately disastrous. My...."

She stops, swallows hard, and continues, face as blank as possible. "Celestia was born about fifty years in and ascended to become Equestria's first known alicorn, able to raise and lower the sun on her own. About ten years after that, I ascended with a similar affinity for the moon. We were crowned diarchs, as representatives of each of the three races. Also, I suspect, as a preemptive bribe against us holding day and night hostage. We became known as 'the Royal Pony Sisters.'

Two hundred years later, Discord appeared. We don't know where he came from or why, but he styled himself the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony and he lived up to the name. He could move the sun and moon apparently effortlessly, and did so on a whim. My sister and I had some control, but he seemed to override it whenever he wanted. We defeated him with a set of magical artifacts called the Elements of Harmony and started a new calendar, again, because for some ponies it had been five minutes and for others it had been a thousand years. It's been about four hundred years since then, and now Celestia is dead, and I cannot move the sun." Her tone is tightly, viciously flat.

"And now I suppose it's our turn to explain our situation. We should begin with the war."

Susan stands up.

"Nine years ago in England's timeline, a faction called the NSDAP, or the Nazis, came to power in the state of Germany. The Nazis established complete control of the government by one man and strict control of all aspects of life by the government; expressing dissent of any sort is punished by imprisonment and even producing art in styles the Fuhrer dislikes is forbidden. They also follow an ideology according to which their own ethnic group should be supreme and others should be either enslaved or killed, and in which the complete destruction of one particular ethnic group- the Jews- is considered an especially important objective.

"Four years ago, the Nazis began a campaign of conquest, taking control of neighboring countries by force of arms. After they invaded an ally of the United Kingdom, her government responded with a declaration of war. Since then, the Nazis have allied with two other powers but antagonized others, and the war has become global.

"Two years ago, the Nazis began bombing the capital of the United Kingdom- that is, dropping explosives on it from flying machines. Like many children in the city at the time, we were evacuated to the countryside- to Professor Kirke's house in the country, in our case. And that's where Narnia comes in. Lucy?"

Lucy stands up, then after a moment climbs onto her chair to stand there.

"The world of Narnia is governed by something called the Deep Magic, which means that, if certain rules are broken, the world will end. One of those rules is that the kingdom of Narnia must be ruled either by humans or by Jadis' race, of which she was the last survivor.

"A hundred years before we came to Narnia, and at least fourteen centuries ago now, Jadis had conquered that kingdom, had its human population massacred, proclaimed herself Queen of Narnia, and induced a magical winter which rendered Narnia's borders impassible. It was foretold that her rule could only be replaced by the joint rule of four human kings and queens.

"In Professor Kirke's house, I found a wardrobe which had become a passage into Narnia, and met a faun who told me of Jadis and of her animosity towards humans. Edmund followed me and encountered Jadis, who correctly guessed that Aslan- that is, the Son of God- had arranged for the four of us to find Narnia that we might overthrow her, and who persuaded Edmund to betray us to her with promises of luxury and power.

"Rebels against Jadis's rule contacted the four of us. Edmund left to report on them to Jadis and the rebels took the rest of us to meet with Aslan, who was gathering an army to fight against the Witch. Then Jadis came to Aslan under parley and told him how she had taken Edmund prisoner- and cited a clause in the Deep Magic which granted her the right to execute any traitor, which of course Edmund now was.

"Aslan offered Jadis a deal- if she released Edmund, he would allow her to kill him in Edmund's place. Jadis, who hated Aslan, accepted. But in doing so, she triggered a clause in the Deep Magic she had not known of; that if an innocent was willingly killed in a traitor's place, they would be returned to life the next dawn and Jadis's rights to execution permanently revoked.

"After this, Edmund apologized for his treachery and the four of us joined the fight against Jadis. In the ensuing battle, Edmund risked death, and suffered serious injury, in order to break Jadis's wand- without which she was incapable of magic. Aslan proclaimed us kings and queens of Narnia and we reigned there jointly for fifteen years.

"After that-"

"-we were transported back to England and returned to childhood.

"We told Professor Kirke what had happened and found out he'd been to Narnia too, before Jadis's reign or the War. The wardrobe we got to Narnia through was made from wood from a tree he'd brought back from Narnia- we assume that's part of how it was able to happen. It hasn't lead to Narnia again since, 'though. But thirteen centuries later in Narnia's time, and a year later in ours, someone in Narnia blew a magic horn which brings aid to whoever blows it, and it brought us.

"By this time, Narnia had been conquered by a people called the Telmarines who for the most part considered all people but humans to be abominations and killed them whenever they found them. We had been summoned by a group of native Narnians who were trying to put a pro-nonhuman Telmarine prince on the throne.

"Peter offered to duel the Telmarine king over the crown- which they both claimed- and some treacherous Telmarine lords persuaded him to accept. Then after Peter killed him, the lords declared claimed he'd cheated and refused to acknowledge the victory. But Aslan woke and freed the Narnian gods the Telmarines had chained while they slept, and so we were able to retake Narnia.

"Aslan offered the Telmarines who surrendered a choice; they could stay in Narnia and accept having to live alongside nonhumans, or they could go through a doorway he made to Earth, where there already weren't any nonhuman people. Some of the Telmarines thought the doorway was a trap, so we offered to go through ourselves. Aslan warned that Peter and Susan were now too old to ever return to Narnia, but they chose to leave anyway.

"Three Narnian years later, earlier this year, Edmund and I got transported to Narnia through a painting of a Narnian ship which had somehow come to be in our aunt's and uncle's house. So did out obnoxious cousin, who got turned into a dragon while we were there and who Aslan turned back into a human. He's been a lot less obnoxious since. We got picked up by a Narnian expedition which ended up having to go to the edge of the world, where there is a wall of water and past it Aslan's Country, and when we got there, Aslan sent us back to England and told us Edmund and I were now also too old to return to Narnia.

And just recently, Eustace and his friend Jill got sent to Narnia by Aslan to prevent an evil witch from taking over the country by mind-controlling the new king."

"Here in England, most people still consider us to be children, so we don't have very much freedom. We've been trying to apply what we've learned in Narnia but we don't have many resources with which to apply it. There's still a war going on, of course. And that's our situation."

"I'm sorry about your sister."

Nightmare listens intently. Her ears occasionally flick, and she opens her mouth when Lucy says there are no non-human people on Earth, but she doesn't interrupt. She blinks once, then stares at Susan for a long moment, but doesn't acknowledge the condolences.

"Do you mean to tell me you are all the same species? You are at war with your own kind? Mistrust, unease, competition I can understand, but killing is... wasteful." She shakes her head in disgust. "As much as I'd sometimes like to lock every unicorn in Canterlot in a room together and let them fight it out, they are a vital part of our society and ecosystem. The reasonable ones, anyway.

"What does that mean, 'too old' to go to Narnia? It cannot be a land peopled entirely by children; from your description you aged while you were there. And -- God has a son? Is God the name of the creature or the species? Others of them could be more amenable to aiding us." She pauses. "I would also like to know what exactly happens if this Deep Magic is defied, since in my experience 'the end of the world' rarely actually means that. Presumably you don't know, or you would have said.

"If I should win the war for you, get rid of the Nazis or Germany or however you'd like, do you think your government would grant me, or Equestria, a boon? I could leverage that to our favor."

"I would say killing people of any species is wasteful and much more besides. Aslan is more an aspect of God than a distinct entity; there's supposed to be only one of the species. The age restriction is as confusing to us as to you and defying the Deep Magic would cause the sea to swallow the land, the sun and moon to die, and an army of sleeping monsters to wake. And what boon would you want to ask of our government? I expect they would be willing to promise you quite a lot in exchange for aid."

Nightmare Moon resettles her wings, in a sort of shrug. "We are not as far removed as you, I think, from our animal ancestry. Plenty of sapients would and occasionally will hunt ponies, given the opportunity. As to a boon, I would request uninhabited land be gifted to Equestria, and our sovereignty recognized. It need not be conventionally arable land, but we do need space. Ponies as a species are not fond of cramped quarters. Perhaps a few other, smaller things, once I have a better stock of the situation.

"You mentioned two others, Eustace and Jill. Are they also too old to reach Narnia? And--" Her mouth twists in thought, and she looks at the door. "What did Aslan say exactly when he forbade you from returning?"

"I think our Empire's only wholly uninhabited lands may be in Antarctica. The problem with which is that it's cold and dark for lack of sunlight, which I gather isn't a problem you're well equipped to solve. Our government would almost certainly be willing to give it to you if you helped us in this war, but I don't know if you would get much use out of it.

And Aslan's exact words to us were- well, in our case he addressed them to Lucy in particular”

" 'Dearest, you and your brother will never come back to Narnia. You are too old, children, and you must begin to come close to your own world now.'

I don't think Eustace and Jill are too old; they're much younger than we were the last time we came."

"Well, that's condescending as -- uh," she says, belatedly remembering she's speaking to this species' equivalent of foals. "Never mind. If we get either of them here, do you think they'd have a chance of reconnecting to Narnia through Milliways?"

"What would they need to have a chance of that?"

"...Excellent question. Bar?"

They would need to either consider the destination as their home, or have an especially strong connection to it in some other way. Results of experiments such as these often vary.

Nightmare Moon reads the napkin aloud, to save passing it around the room, then frowns. "Hmph."

"Perhaps we could reconnect to Narnia that way. Aslan said we wouldn't *return* there, not that we wouldn't- open a door there for someone else?"

"By all means, do try it. More resources is never a bad thing."

He tries.

"Still England. Is there a trick I might be missing?"

"If there is, I don't know it." She purses her lips. "Let us assume for the time being that we must work with what we have. The population of Equestria alone is nearly a million. I have no clear idea how to estimate other nations' populations, so for the sake of possibly drastic overestimation, a million will suffice there as well. All told, we should plan to evacuate roughly ten million creatures. It will probably come out to significantly fewer than that, but I'd rather have it and not need it, so to speak."

"If you have enough aid to offer, the Allied governments might be persuaded to lend aircraft to assist in the evacuation. But we'd need a way to get them to Equestria."

"Would your magic be able to help with that? By shrinking them, say, or teleporting them through Milliways? It would still only be tens of thousands of vessels to carry millions of people."

Nightmare stares down at the table, thinking. "There are a few shrinking spells, but none of them are very efficient unless they're connected to a mark. It's hard to control when the spell wears off, too. The question is, are your aircraft more efficient than I would be if I simply teleported the distance, and can they carry more? I can safely teleport a group of five, myself included, approximately one canter every second, though I've never sustained it for any significant period of time -- a canter is the distance between the tip of Mount Canter and the tallest spire in Canterlot, I'm not sure what that works out to in your measurements but it's a considerable distance, perhaps twenty minutes at a brisk walk. The rule of horn for teleportation is that the energy cost increases linearly with the distance traveled. Actual teleportation is instantaneous; the time is an estimate of how long it will take the caster's magical reserves to replenish. Occasionally Celestia or myself would teleport to another country rather than sail or fly, but I never liked doing so. It left the capital vulnerable. Given Milliways' rather... dubious relationship with conventional physics, I'd prefer not to teleport between worlds unless there is no other option. And at any rate the mass involved increases the energy cost exponentially, so if it is much bigger than I am then I will need to rest for some time between trips.

"If only there were some way to tell every creature on the planet to come to Canterlot.... Many travelers converging on a central point would be chaotic, but much faster. There are spells for amplifying sound, but none...." She trails off, flicking her tail back and forth unconsciously.

Edmund does some calculations in his notebook.

"twenty minutes for a horse would be a bit over a mile. But you're mostly ponies, aren't you, so say around a mile. Our planes fly around two hundred miles an hour, so a bit over a twentieth your speed. But we can have more than one going at one running at a time once you bring them through.

Another issue with our planes is they need fuel and they only carry so much, so they won't go past around a thousand miles- that is around a thousand canters- from the door."

"Telling everyone to come to Canterlot- I don't suppose you can write on the moon?"

"And do you expect people overseas will trust that a summons is for their sake and not for something nefarious?"

"Write on the...." Nightmare blinks. "That could work. Not writing on the moon per se, but I could move the stars to spell a message. That only works for the night half of the planet, but those who can read will help those who can't. They already know something nefarious is going on, the sun hasn't risen in three days. Or set, depending. Chances are they'll be relieved that somepony else is in charge. That leaves the creatures on the far half of the planet...." Her horn lights, and she picks up a few napkins, a pen, and one of the books she was reading from the bar behind her. They orbit each other in a complex pattern, not as a visual aid but as the unicorn equivalent of tapping one's fingers on the table. After a moment they stop, and she cocks her head. "Bar, must the door to a world always stay where it is first opened? Could I, for instance, open a door to some other part of the palace, or another country on Equus?"

Theoretically, yes, a napkin says. In practice, it is possible but not easily accomplished.

"How would we accomplish it?"

"You suggested an eclipse before? Could you write a message in several parts of the sky and eclipse the sun so everyone could read it?"

"I... maybe? That is, I could physically do it, I just don't know how effective it would be. I'd rather try the doors first, for simplicity's sake."

A napkin appears.

Try.

"So we have a provisional evacuation plan; you try opening doors different places and funnelling people through them one city at a time. If that doesn't work we tell them to come to Canterlot with the stars and funnel them through there. And you eclipse the sun and we hope that makes the stars visible on the other side of the planet too."

"Speking of eclipses, didn't you say you thought you could keep the day side of the planet habitable using partial eclipses? So you can definitely get the message to the people who most need it. Of course, that still leaves the issue of travel time."

"I can, but the issue with that is permanency; the moon's shadow does not cover the entire hemisphere, so I would be obliged to keep moving it minutely so that no one area became too hot or too cold. Doable for a time, but not my first choice, given the other options. Let us gather everycreature here before attempting to relocate them to your world. I am certain the royal pocketbook can cover the cost, and I will vouch for my citizens, as I assume other rulers will for theirs. We may need to set up guides, but for now the important thing is to get people out as quickly as possible."

Nightmare Moon crosses the room to stand in front of the door. "If I have this correctly...." she mutters, and closes her eyes. I am a Princess of Equestria, and it is my right to access any part of it. Pegasopolis should be no different than Canterlot in that regard. This door will take me there. With that thought fixed in her mind, she reaches out with her magic.

The door opens to a silver cloudscape. Nightmare grins triumphantly and closes it again, so time will remain frozen. She turns to the others. "Are we ready?"

"Well, I'm not quite ready to give up on getting the door to go to Narnia yet; it sounds like you could still do with more help and it's possible we just need someone young enough to be allowed in."

"If you think it's worth trying, we have the time. Frankly, the more I hear about this Aslan the less I like, but he may yet help. Shall I take one of you to fetch your cousin? Cousins?"

"I'll go."

Because he's pretty sure Edmund is up to something and he doubts he'll be any help with it.

He opens the door, and they leave.

He takes the door, but waits until they've had enough time to get out of a horse's earshot and smell then closes it.

"Professor, you were there at Narnia's creation. In some ways you have a stronger connection to Narnia than any of us. We think you should try the door."

"We don't have any cause to distrust Nightmare in particular. But nor have we vetted her thoroughly and of course the rings could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. So for the time being we're trying to keep her attention away from your and Polly's journey."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

He opens the door.

It leads to the same corridor as Edmund closed it on.

Edmund takes the door back.

Susan asks Bar about Milliways' political situation and gets hot chocolate. Lucy explores the garden. The Professor gets tea with milk and sugar and attempts to explain to Susan that Aslan is not an aspect of God but the whole of God. Lucy comes back from the garden much quicker than anyone expected now with wet hair.

Some other students come by. Lucy shows them the exploding stars and the garden and explains that the door now leads to a magical bar in another world and Peter is her brother and that he and a flying unicorn fetched her here when they found it.

From Reading to Eyton is a little over a hundred miles.

She's not going as fast as she could, for Peter's sake, so that leaves them with a bit of time to talk.

"Would you mind sharing more information about your government and the ongoing war? History, key figures, things like that."

Peter would not mind sharing.

Britain is ruled by a King, but in practice military and diplomatic decisions are made by the Prime Minister or by people answering to him. The House of Commons makes laws and the Prime Minister is appointed by and answerable to it. There is also a House of Lords, composed mostly of hereditary aristocrats, which adjudicates the interpretation of laws and can delay their implementation. The House of Lords also includes appointees of the King and Bishops who are supposed to represent God ("I'm afraid you'll have to ask Lucy or the Professor if you want someone who understands how that works").

The colonies have their own governments, headed by Governors, Governors General, and High Commissioners appointed by the Emperor on advice from the Prime Minister, typically but not always from the aristocracy. The government structures under that vary; some have mostly retained the pre-colonial systems while others have established parliaments modeled on the British one.

Peter gives his assessment of key British political actors. He considers George VI and Winston Churchill to be intelligent, honourable, and firmly committed to doing whatever they have to to win the war. There are other politicians who he judges foolish, untrustworthy, or naive.

18 years ago, conflicts that started with the assassination of an Austrian nobleman escalated into the "Great War", which resulted in the collapse of the German empire and the impoverishment of Germany. A faction formed in Germany who blamed the collapse on weak leadership and imagined machinations by Jews, an ethnic group already stereotyped as scheming and untrustworthy, and sought to establish a new, larger empire with a more powerful leader. A man named Adolph Hitler rose to leadership of that faction and consequently was elected Chancellor of Germany, after which he turned the German Republic into a dictatorship and established strict control of every aspect of life.

In Italy, a faction with a similar policy of government control of all aspects of life and aggressive militaristic expansionism marched on the capital, and the King of Italy ordered the military to stand down and appointed its leader- Benito Mussolini- as Prime Minister, replacing the previous democratically elected Prime Minister. Mussolini has since been strengthening his power and could likely now retain power even without the King's support.

Mussolini and Hitler established an alliance, and began invading neighboring countries. For a while the British government pursued a policy of appeasement, but soon it became clear that this would both constitute a betrayal of their allies which Germany was invading and ultimately result in German conquest of Britain itsself, and the Prime Minister declared war.

Peter can give extensive details on the subsequent war. Germany and Italy have now conquered France, which is separated from Britain by a narrow channel, and began bombing British cities. The President of France and the Queen of the Netherlands- another country the Germans have conquered- have fled to England and continue to command their overseas colonies and military forces.

At around the same time, Japan, under a nameless Emperor, had begun invading its neighbors and enslaving, torturing, and in some cases raping their populations. Last year, Japan allied with Germany and Italy and began attacking British colonies. Also last year Germany and Italy attempted to invade the USSR and Japan began attacking the United States of America; these were both large and powerful countries which had previously been neutral and subsequently became allies of Britain.

Peter gives his assessments of various military commanders (he apparently knows a lot about military strategy) and foreign political leaders. He regards Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the USSR, as untrustworthy, noting that he rose to power through political maneuvering often at the expense of his former allies. He regards President Franklin Roosevelt, and the American leadership generally, as naive and easily swayed by trivialities. Hitler seems obsessive in his hatred of Jews even for a Nazi and is treacherous but deeply overconfident. Mussolini also tends towards overconfidence. The Emperor of Japan chooses to defer in most matters of governance to his appointed Prime Minister, Hideki Tojo. As well as being militarist, Tojo believes the Emperor to be descended from a god- "I think probably wrongly?"- and therefore entitled to absolute power, and seeks to obtain and use that power on the Emperor's behalf.

Nightmare has her eyes forward but her ears flicked back, and she nods intermittently to show she's listening. When it seems like Peter is done, she says, "We have something similar to your House of Lords in Equestria, I think, only ours are on the whole self-serving and useless and I have always despised appeasing them. As to the rest, am I correct in understanding there is functionally no difference between your leaders and any other human, with the possible exception of the Japanese Emperor? If I stripped your king or Adolph Hitler or whoever naked and put them in a room alone, would they have any inherent power?"

"They would not. Separated from our kingdom as we are, the only things my family gain from our titles are skills and perspectives we would not otherwise have needed to develop and the loyalty of the few people in this world who owe allegiance to Narnia."

"What is the reason these various faction leaders have not simply been killed, then? Any of them, on either side. You have all these machines, surely you have invented something that can kill at a distance. Why not just drop a mountain on them, say to the ones that are left that you will no longer tolerate this nonsense, and be done with it?"

"We don't have projectiles anywhere near the size of mountains, so we'd need a pretty good idea of the target's location. And the furthest we can currently fire anything unmanned is around ten canters, and much less for our largest bombs. When troops get within firing range of a city any military or political leaders there can retreat to rooms buried deep enough underground that none of our weapons can touch them.

Of course there are Germans who'd kill Hitler given the chance. There have been times when a king or a president was assassinated. But any weapon that can kill from across a city will be kept in an army base, too big to use without being noticed, and too slow to do much with before someone can kill you with a shorter ranged weapon."

"Hmm. And of course you wouldn't have shields or wards... at least not magical ones, because you also don't have teleportation or...." She curls the side of her mouth in an apologetic grimace. "Forgive my indelicacy, but it appears your species has not progressed much further than throwing rocks at each other at very high speeds, at least when it comes to warfare. Not necessarily a poor thing, if that is all the other side has come up with too, and far be it from me to malign the usefulness of a well-placed rock, but I am trying to think of any reason this should not be as simple as it sounds. I am absurdly powerful compared to most ponies, but even I would be a fool to let hubris blind me."

"They also have munitions which explode into fireballs, and containers of poisonous gasses which they can spread over a large area to kill anyone who breathes there or burn any exposed skin. They may have invented other weapons along similar lines which they haven't yet chosen to use. And I haven't heard of them having any protective or offensive magic, but it's possible they have some which they keep secret."

"We can't plan for what we don’t know about, so let that lie for the time being. Fire I can deal with easily, as long as it is not balefire, which I doubt you have. It uses magic as fuel. The gas.... I'm not sure. I can create an airtight barrier, but the problems with that are obvious. Would they hesitate to cast -- er, deploy -- it on their own troops?"

"They haven't yet, but I wouldn't put it past them if the stakes were high enough.

We do have masks which filter poison gases from the air, including ones for horses"

Nightmare blinks. "Then, forgive me, but what is the point of the gases at all? Are these masks hard to make, or otherwise cumbersome?"

"They're easy enough to make that all of our soldiers and many our civilians have them by now. But they're hard enough to make that achieving that took a lot of resources. And it's difficult to breathe while wearing one. Also, the masks for horses only protect the nose and mouth, not the eyes, meaning you would still be at risk of being blinded."

"Which I do not consider acceptable as collateral, no. Hmm. There have been a few recent advances in the field of alchemy, in Equestria; I wonder if those same principles couldn't be applied here. Do you know the composition of any of these gasses?"

"I believe one of them is pure chlorine. I don't know the composition of the others, but the information is publicly available."

"And as such we can acquire it from the Bar at very little risk. If my guess is right, I may be able to render these gasses inert, but I'd like to do more research before I commit to a hypothesis." The lush green beneath them is giving way to more densely-packed buildings; Nightmare recasts her invisibility spell over both of them, though they won't look any different to each other. "Where do you expect your cousins to be? A school?"

"Yes; Experiment House. But having never been there, I should ask directions in the town."

Nightmare raises both eyebrows. "I would rather hope the name does not imply as much as it seems to," she says mildly. "Here, then; now the spell will only affect you when you are in contact with me. We should take care that you do not appear out of thin air, but aside from that, one young stallion asking directions should not cause a stir. Or, I suppose not a stallion," she adds. "Whatever you call a grown male of your species. Bull? Jack?"

As she speaks, she glides lazily over the town, then spots an open plaza and angles more directly towards it, landing with a quiet thud of hooves in an alcove on the side of a church.

"I'm a Man."

He climbs off Nightmare Moon and runs off. He returns after a few minutes with directions to Experiment House.

"Is it nearby? Lead the way, then."

Experiment house consists of a number of rectangular brick buildings among lawns and hedges.

"Have you a faster way to find Jill and Eustace than asking at the administration office?", Peter asks as they approach.

"Not without something of theirs." Nightmare looks around. "All of these buildings look the same. I hope you've been here before."

"I have not. There will be maps at the reception, 'though, which should be here."

And indeed there is a reception here.

Nightmare Moon approaches the woman at the front desk, figuring that the arrival of alicorn royalty ought to put her off-balance and therefore produce results faster. "Excuse me," she says. "Where may I find Jill and Eustace--" She pauses, realizes she doesn't know their full names, and turns to Peter for them.

"Eek!"

"Jill Pole and Eustace Scrubb."

"You're looking for. Jill Pole and Eustace Scrub. Yes, I should have. Their schedules here. What year are they in?"

She is visibly trying not to look at Nightmare Moon. If the princess were more familiar with human facial expressions, she would also see that the clerk looks utterly terrified.

"Year Six."

The clerk hurries to a filing cabinet and begins looking through.

Nightmare Moon has to bite the inside of her lip to keep from either laughing or sighing in exasperation. Neither would help. At least the woman's shock didn't make her useless. And, Nightmare Moon has to admit, if only to herself in a quiet corner of her mind, her staff probably would not have done much better, had a human walked into Canterlot Palace.

If she even still has staff. Nightmare conceals a frown. She's going to have to play that delicately. She can flout the unicorn nobles all she wants, since they don't do anything but whine, but if the ponies who actually run the city day-to-day oppose her, she'll be out of power before she can say, "But I'm an alicorn!" Luckily, the general population isn't that fond of the nobility either. Maybe that can work in her favor.

Nightmare shelves the thoughts for later, drawing her attention back to the receptionist, who is turning back to face them.

"Eustace-will-be-in-history-class-in-room-1-1-5-in-the-Excellence-Building, And-Jill-will-be-in-science-class-in-room-2-0-3-in-the-Happiness-Building, Sir!"

Peter, who was already looking at a map, leads the way to room 1-0-3-in-the-Happiness-Building, where he informs everyone that Jill Pole is "needed urgently elsewhere" and does not give the teacher time to object before he immediately heads for the Excellence Building.

"Narnian business, I take it?"

"I'll explain once we find Eustace."

Nightmare waits in the hall while Peter ducks into the classroom, and inclines her head to the person he emerges with as they begin walking. "Well met. You are Jill Pole?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"I am Nightmare Moon, ruler of Equestria." There's a half-second's pause before "ruler," as though she'd substituted the word in at the last minute. "At the rate today is going, I assume you must be a duchess of some sort," she adds, not without humor.

"Not at all, Your Majesty. Unless Peter wants to create me one?"

Nightmare starts to laugh, then stops as a thought strikes her. "Actually, Peter, do you think it might give her more of a tie to Narnia? Land that she considers hers?"

It being a school day, the halls are largely empty. One person sees them, turns an unattractive color, and flees in the other direction. Well. Not her problem.

"Hmm. That might be worth trying, but not currently having passage to Narnia will complicate things."

"Perhaps if the current plan fails to work unadorned."

"Perhaps."

And here is the door.

"Excuse me, Master Scrubb is needed urgently elsewhere. Eustace."

"Do you have..."

"I'm not asking you permission, Sir. Eustace?"

At this, Eustace goes to the door.

"You mentioned being able to teleport?"

Nightmare nods and then, on seeing their new recruit is willingly present, lucid, and unlikely to panic dangerously, teleports them all back to Peter's school's hallway without further ado. It takes a bit out of her due to the distance, but she's fine after catching her breath, and walks into Milliways after the children.

Peter closes the door behind them.

"You said you'd explain what was happening?"

"Yes. This is Princess Nightmare Moon of Equestria,"

at this Jill curtsies and Eustace bows.

"which is not in Narnia but in another world of talking animals, where humans were until now entirely unheard of. This is Milliways, which is another world again. While that door is closed, time is stopped in England; getting you two here was so urgent because Milliways' resources might be able to help us win the war.

This door opens to the home world of whoever opens it. But some people can choose to open it to other worlds they've been to. The four of us can only open to England. But we hope that, since you haven't been barred from Narnia, you might be able to open it to there."

A fairly accurate summary, save for the "talking animals" bit, which Nightmare raises an eyebrow at but doesn't contest for the sake of expediency. She inclines her head at the gestures of respect. Interesting that Peter made no mention of Equestria's own need. She would have, in his place; it puts her at a disadvantage in the exchange. Perhaps Jill and Eustace are the sort to insist on helping regardless of any benefit to themselves, or Peter means to undermine their trust in her by making her appear greedy. Or, she realizes after a moment, the opposite: that her interest in the war should be taken as altruistic. It could be more likely that they will find Narnia if they believe they are trying out of the goodness of their hearts, rather than as part of a bargain. Two to one that it behooves her to be candid, but perhaps only after the attempts.

"Well met, the both of you. I do not know if luck should factor into this sort of travel, but if it does, may you have the best of it."

Jill and Eustace each try the door.

It continues to open to the school corridor in England.

"Princess Nightmare Moon also suggested that if you couldn't access Narnia ordinarily, granting you a peerage there might strengthen your connection enough that you could."

"I don't know if that would work. Under Frank's law a peerage wasn't fully valid until the peer had set foot in their domain, and given that we don't know which lands the Telmarine kings have granted since we were last in Narnia we can only grant peerage provisionally, so the peerage we could grant would be short of a full one in two significant ways. And it's Telmarine law that matters now, but I'd expect granting peerage under circumstances this unusual would be comlicated under that system too. If only we had a Telmarine lawbook to consult."

"Bar says she can lend us a current Narnian lawbook and list of fiefs."

"Well, that's convenient."

Edmund proceeds to obtain and skim a current Narnian lawbook and list of fiefs.

"Could you lend us anything like that from Equestria?"

Nightmare solicits and receives a list of townships within Equestria and their various leaders, "but large swathes of the land are still wild zones, and our system is far less formal than yours seems to be. Most towns simply can't afford to depend on someone who doesn't even live there. Why do you ask?"

Are any of these towns obviously recently-conquered?

"Do you have lawbooks as well? Those would be useful for working out exactly what we'll be dealing with when we relocate you to Earth?"

"Bar, might I have a copy of the Windigo Accords?" A thin book appears in front of her, and she flips it open and turns it so the rest of the table can look it over. "Thank you. The core of these laws were created and ratified under the Fire of Friendship, which is possibly the only way any of it ever got done, though of course there were amendments and additions later, especially after Discord was sealed."

At a quick glance, most of the laws concern making sure the three races treat each other as equals. No government buildings or apparati may be made of clouds (with exceptions for cloud cities, and even then cloudwalking amulets are to be given out for free) or require telekinesis to operate; no one can refuse to hire a pony based on race if the job does not legitimately require a certain type of magic. Newer laws, towards the back of the book, describe provisions for the education of, say, a unicorn foal born to two pegasi. A solid half of the Accords are plans for government-run weather services, crop rotation, education, rationing, regulation of sunrise and sunset, and other such basic amenities designed to ensure the country runs smoothly. Equestria's property laws seem to work on what a human would call "common sense." Notably, there are only two mentions of other species: one law declares that non-pony sapients are exempt from the Accords' restrictions and protections unless they choose to forsake their own nation's laws, and the other, very near the end, mentions "tenant species" and the good treatment of them but doesn't explain what either of those are, instead saying that until the 407th meeting of the Reunified Equestrian Council, they should be legally treated as ponies with some form of mental handicap.

There are also no mentions of either rape or murder, though it may take a closer reading for that fact to be apparent. The closest any law comes is the decree, early on in the newer half of the book, that isolating a pony or forcing them to deny their talent with malicious intent to cause distress shall be punished by "personal appointment to the Palace." Jail time is very sparse when applicable, and often the sentence is mandated as no longer than "until everypony calms down." The leader of each settlement is required to personally visit anyone imprisoned daily. There is one mention of using the Elements of Harmony to "cleanse" anyone who poses a clear and dangerous threat to a majority of the country's safety, but otherwise, ponies are by and large expected to talk their differences out peacefully, with the help of a mediator if need be.

"Of course, there are other laws, like how to register a new spell with the Mages' Guild, procedure for accessing the Canterlot Archives, how tall or wide a house can be before you need an architect to sign off on the plans, that kind of thing, but those are mostly--trivia," Nightmare finishes. "Either unimportant or too specific to bother with in an overview."

They go over these for a while.

"Could you also lend us some general political and geographic histories of your realm?"

What she really wants to do now is talk to some of these "tenant species", but that will have to wait until they're ready to restart time in Equestria.

"Of c--hmm. Bar? Is it possible for you to lend us books from Equestria's--well, no, never mind, Equestria's future is a pile of ash. Histories of pre-Unification, early Equestria, Discord's reign, and modern Equestria, if you please. And comparable texts from other nations, if they exist." A stack of books appears on the counter; Nightmare Moon floats them over to a nearby empty table. "I confess I'm curious about some of those myself. I'm one of the oldest ponies around, and most who were alive before Discord broke us... did not remain so. And naturally exchanging knowledge between countries is difficult and time-consuming." She eyes the stack, which is taller than her horn is long. "That said... perhaps I could summarize the important bits."

"You could, but one of our reasons for asking after books is that having multiple perspectives on your world migh give us a more complete picture. Still, a summary would let us put things into context more easily."

"Smart of you. I keep forgetting we have all the time we need, here. Everyone who wants to read, take a book, and we'll pass them around so everyone can read everything." She takes the one on the top. "Ooh, changeling history. I didn't know they even had a written language."

Of them all, the Equestrian history is the most complete; it's unclear whether this is because they value writing the most, are the most advanced civilization, have suppressed other nations' records, or some other factor. The accounts match up, plus or minus some bias and mistakes, with what Nightmare Moon has already told them of her world's history. The "Windigo crisis" she mentioned earlier was apparently a period of extreme cold lasting multiple years and forcing an exodus out of Equestria, which was only averted by the friendship between a unicorn mage, a pegasus soldier, and an earth pony farmer. The Fire of Friendship, apparently a product of this, became the catalyst for lasting peace and brought about a sincere effort to unite as one nation of ponykind. The young nation continued to struggle, however, until a young pegasus by the name of Sunny Skies ascended (somehow--nobody is very clear on what actually happened) to become Celestia, the world's first alicorn, who took over the cycling of the sun and ended the hemorrhage of unicorn magic. A decade later, a unicorn named Luna ascended as well, moving the moon to Celestia's sun.

The next section has an awful lot of flowery language, but when deciphered says that the unicorn king Bullion ceded his throne and died shortly after Celestia's ascension, and the country was nearly brought to civil war again as they argued over who should rule, and how. Princess Platinum, Commander Hurricane, and Chancellor Puddinghead, who had also made friends at or near the end of the Windigo crisis, served as an interim council until Celestia was appointed as a representative of all three races. (A later book notes that she was likely meant as a figurehead, but look how long that lasted.) She, and eventually Luna, took the title of "Princess" so as not to outrank each other. With someone everypony could agree on in charge, the new nation actually begin to function. Other nations around the world were likewise on their own paths to country-wide government, though none of them, including Equestria, usually paid much attention to anything outside their own borders.

Approximately two hundred years later, or around 250 Era Unitas, Discord, the "Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony," appeared out of nowhere and toppled the Equestrian civilization in less than 24 hours. He destroyed the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters and warped the surrounding Everfree Forest into a wild, dangerous, magic-resistant place. None of the authors know why he targeted ponies specifically, and there are very few primary sources from that time. The events have largely been reconstructed from later accounts and research. In short, Celestia, Luna, the unicorn mage Starswirl the Bearded, his unicorn apprentice Clover the Clever, and several other unnamed ponies collaborated in secret to create a set of powerful artifacts called the Elements of Harmony. These Elements, which are described only as "gems," were wielded against Discord to seal him into a stone statue, which is kept in the gardens of Canterlot Palace under the watchful eye of Princess Celestia. A new calendar, Era Luminae, began once the survivors reformed a rudimentary government. The modern history book was published in 405 EL.

The more recent history documents the rise of city-states, where outlying towns are considered under the jurisdiction of the nearest metropolis, restored trade relations with the seaponies after Princess Celestia banished the sirens from the Gulf of Mexicolt, and the decadent indolence that plagues the unicorn nobility now that they are not sacrificing anything to justify their special treatment (the author is clearly not a fan of either group, though refrains from outright saying as much). The last chapter notes that this is the longest period of peace and prosperity Equestria, or indeed Equus, has ever seen, and speculates loftily about what new developments might occur.

Nightmare Moon snorts when she reads it. "Don't pay attention to the last part of this. Brighthoof can do his research but his imagination is sorely lacking. Trading with the zebras for gems, honestly. We can just grow our own."

There was never a real hope that they would find enough evidence to justify going against Aslan's will here, was there.

Eventually Edmund finishes reading the lawbooks.

"As far as I can tell, under Telmarine law I can grant you titles here and now." He sounds somewhat annoyed by this. "Alright. The way this works is I give you titles and in return you have to swear obedience to the Crown of Narnia. Is that alright?"

"I think we were both planning to obey the Crown of Narnia anwyay."

"We were."

"And there are a few options for places I could grant you..."

They proceed to discuss what areas Eustace and Jill should each be given. Eventually they settle on giving them neighboring fiefdoms in the North of Narnia.

The door still leads to England.

"Damn it to Tartarus," Nightmare mutters, then, more loudly, "My thanks for your efforts. I think at this point we should assume there is no help coming from that quarter, at least not that we can precipitate ourselves. Bar, may I have information on the chemical composition of all gasses used primarily to kill people on their world?" A chemistry book appears, with some of the pages bookmarked. Nightmare Moon floats it over and opens it. "Thank you."

She flips through it for a moment, then a longer moment, then goes back and rereads, and eventually she looks up and says, "I believe I can neutralize at least one of these. Possibly all of them."

"Good to know."

Meanwhile, something occurs to Edmund.

He approaches the bar.

"What happens to the money we pay you?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. Physically it simply disappears but it's possible an equivalent amount is created and spent elsewhere."

"Oh well."

He was hoping he could write a large check from the Narnian treasury which they'd be able to immediately replace without inflating the currency, but apparently it only might work that way.

"Well, I think we've covered everything we need to before we begin the evacuation. Time to open your door?"

She dips her head regally. "I am sure we are forgetting something, but I am equally sure standing here wondering what it is will not bear fruit. My plan is to open the door to Canterlot, write a message in the stars directing creatures to find the nearest Equestrian population center or embassy, then use the door to travel to various nations on the hot side of the world and offer them sanctuary in exchange for fealty. These will be the dragons, the zebra, the kirin, the minotaurs, and any other smaller groups they may be harboring within their lands. By the time that is done I expect most ponies, griffons, changelings, and hippogriffs will have followed my instructions or been convinced by the smarter members of their communities to do so. I would like them in groups of about fifty or so to a room, to prevent widespread panic. Bar, you may bill the Equestrian treasury for any foodstuffs or comfort items the refugees request, and assure them I will speak with them as soon as I am able and that this is only a temporary measure." She turns to the humans. "Many will likely try to help. Let them organize each other and care for the foals; it will give them something to do. You may answer any questions to your liking, but do not tell them Celestia is hurt, let alone dead. I will handle that later. Are there any objections?"

"Evacuation?"

"Nightmare's world is ending. We're helping the people there evacuate to Earth."

"Oh. Should we be using the-"

"No. Not if you were thinking what I think you were. Not just because Aslan said not to; we don't think Nightmare Moon or Bar is like Jadis but we can't be sure, and somebody in Nightmare's world probably is."

"Yes, I think we're ready for you to open the door."

Nightmare Moon gives Lucy a cool, evaluating stare. She holds it for a moment, then blinks slowly, like a great cat, and turns to Peter. "Then let us make haste." And she opens the door.

First, she rearranges the stars to spell "Equestria Canterlot." A bit vague, but it will do, and it's only four characters. Next is the zebras, since Nightmare Moon knows the most about them and the two nations are relatively friendly. As predicted, the Caesar clearly realizes she's not telling the whole story, but his guard is well-organized and they agree to publicly announce the evacuation and gather citizens near the embassy. Nightmare will return in several hours to take everyone waiting at that time. The guard moves out and the Caesar gestures for Nightmare to step away and speak privately with him. She does so.

"You realize I do not govern all zebras," he says quietly. "Zebrica is a vast landmass with many tribes, and the giraffes, elephants, and rhinoceros tend to keep to themselves. Some will be left behind."

Nightmare inclines her head. She doesn't apologize; her regret will not help the situation. "I can create an eclipse over part of the country. That may buy time. I can also return after about a week, to take any latecomers."

"Do it. Many Senators have some means of contacting their home tribes in a hurry. Mostly illegal means, but--we have more urgent priorities. Your method of transportation is not fine-grained enough to take you anywhere else in Zebrica?"

"Unfortunately, no." She leaves it at that. "Your citizens will be fed and sheltered at Equestria's expense. I will return in no more than twelve hours." She pulls the moon over their location, and brings it closer to Equus so the shadow will be larger. Any change in the tides will take effect long after they are gone.

From Zebrica she brings back the refugees nearest the embassy and moves to the dragons, who turn out to be much easier than expected; the Dragon Lord, a towering behemoth with gleaming wine-red scales, laughs and blows smoke in Nightmare's face. "So you ponies fucked it up, huh?" she says. "Dragons are a lot tougher than you little cutesy critters. We like the heat. You might be bailing, but I'm thinking we're about to get the whole planet to ourselves. We'll be fine right where we are, Princess."

Nightmare waves the smoke away with a wing. "As you wish. I would request you make the announcement public, however."

The Dragon Lord sneers. "Why? So they can all tell you in person?"

"If there is one thing I know about dragons, it is that they are independent," Nightmare counters. "There may be some who consider fealty to Equestria less tragic a fate than you would."

"No real dragon would," the Dragon Lord scoffs.

"Then wouldn't you rather get rid of any of the ones who do?"

The Dragon Lord stares at Nightmare, then smirks. "Gotta say, you're doing a lot better than the white one. Sure. I'll send 'em along, and good riddance. Now get out."

Nightmare bows and leaves.

The kirin she knows nearly nothing about, and winds up not having to; their leader is refreshingly reasonable, and their country is relatively small. The minotaurs want to hold a vote, of all things, so she eventually flies up high enough that she won't deafen anyone and amplifies her voice so the entire region can hear her. It's less organized than she'd like but at least the information gets out. That done, she heads to Canterlot to direct the palace guard to start organizing the refugees. They're terrified and confused, but their training holds.

Nightmare Moon is personal friends with Queen Imago, which makes this visit at once much smoother and much more awkward. The hive mind advantages the changelings, and most agree to take appropriate forms to help guide other species to evacuation points. They can sort themselves out on the other side.

The griffons are also as predicted, i.e., a headache. There is a furious debate between several community leaders, who by default are simply the oldest griffons in the immediate area, over whether Nightmare Moon is lying, at which point she rolls her eyes and does the same thing she did for the minotaurs, with the caveat that any refugees will be considered Equestrian citizens.

The hippogriffs turn out to be the most interesting, in that apparently, most of them aren't hippogriffs most of the time. The giant pearl rumor is true, and from what Nightmare can deduce (they don't let her see it), the small population on Mount Aris is a decoy, and the real bulk of the country is somewhere else. Because of this, however, they have a smooth system in place for getting everyone to a central location, enough that she can take the current batch of five hundred-odd hippogriffs and be assured the rest will be there when she returns.

And then she returns to the zebras, and starts the whole thing over again. And again. And again. It's over eight hours before Nightmare notices everyone else's fatigue and calls a temporary halt so they can rest. She's only keeping herself upright through a mixture of adrenaline, coffee, semi-legal stimulant spells, and stubbornness.

The Pevensies will help to organize the refugees and to keep everyone as calm as possible. They are indeed very good at it.

They will also ask Donkey and Cattle and Sheep and Equestrian Gryphons what they think of Nightmare Moon in particular and of Equestrian state in general; "We're trying to work out how to expect her to treat other species. We're not sure whether we can trust your princess to say, and we expect you might know things the chroniclers wouldn't".

The donkeys, mules, and the few griffons who lived in Equestria before the evacuation give approximately the same answer as most of the ponies; that is, "I don't know what's going on but I'm sure glad I'm not in charge right now." Most of them also seem to vaguely recollect that there is a Moon Princess and a Sun Princess, but the former doesn't really do anything, and sure, Nightmare Moon could probably be her, she's tall and she's got a horn and wings and a moon stamped on her butt, doesn't she? And she acts like she knows what she's doing, so, good enough for them.

Most groups of sheep and cattle are accompanied by a shepherd or cowpony, though a more accurate translation to human terms might be "chaperone." Generally this is a harried-looking earth pony who is doing their best impression of a kindergarten teacher screaming on the inside. Five minutes of speaking with the sheep and a short demonstration by a deadpan rancher will reveal that they will agree with whatever was said most recently, as long as it was said with confidence ("You know, I've always said the sky was green!" "My word, so have I!"), and the cows as a group display exactly zero interest in anything that's not food or being milked. If questioned at any length, they will think about their answer for a few minutes, lapse into silence, and, when prodded, placidly admit that they have forgotten the question, and by the way, did I ever tell you about the day last spring when the grass tasted so sweet, you see I remember because June had just had her calf and I said to her, I said June....

(The listener may, a friendly farmhoof explains to them, quietly wander off at this point, especially if said listener has heard the story several dozen times already or indeed was present during it, because the cow is by then usually quite unaware she was even talking to anyone. This social strategem works better with other cows, who mostly just like the sound of each other's voices and don't care at all about the content.)

Seeing the impromptu interviews, another farmpony scolds the Pevensies for "disturbing the fine ladyfolk after the day they've had" and wants to know just what is so important that it's worth distressing her livestock over.

"I'm sorry. We didn't expect it to distress them; cattle where we're from are either much more clever than these ones or too idiotic to understand language at all. We're not entirely confident this wont end up with Equestria conquering us, so we want to get a better idea of how she treats those of her subjects who aren't Ponies. Asking Equestrians who weren't Ponies seemed like the best way to figure it out."

The farmpony blinks. "Conquer you? Why would she conquer you? Do you need to be conquered?" 

"We do not, powerful countries often conquer weaker ones regardless of need."

This stumps the farmpony. After a moment to make sure Peter is serious and that she heard right, she says, "Why?" She seems to be genuinely and utterly confused.

"I think some people just want power over others and don't care much what they need to do to get it. What would you say makes a country need to be conquered? Has Equestria ever had to conquer a country?"

"Well, no," the farmpony says, and then thinks about it. "I guess it depends on your definition of conquering. We invaded the Crystal Empire back when the Shadow King took over, but that was because everypony was really unhappy and he wasn't letting anyone leave. I think the plan was to give it back after, but there was some magic thing that happened. I don't know, not my field. You should ask the Princesses if you want the story firsthoof."

"Ask me what?" Nightmare Moon says, having gone looking for the humans.

The farmpony gasps and rushes into a bow. "Your Majesty! They wanted to know if Equestria has ever needed to conquer some other country. I can't remember very much about the Crystal Empire from school, I'm afraid."

Nightmare's eyes flick to Peter's. "Did they," she says mildly. "And what conclusions have you drawn?"

"That you are unlikely to conquer us, although I'm still not perfectly confident on the point. And that your treatment of your non-pony subjects seems largely just, on which point I had also been uncertain."

Nightmare smiles, rewarding Peter's genuine reply with one of her own. "Your honesty is appreciated. As is your diligence. If you will excuse us?" she adds to the farmpony, who bows again and returns to soothing her cows, who aren't used to being around many things taller than they are.

Nightmare half-turns and holds the door to the hallway open for herself and the Pevensies. Her tone turns dry as she says, "Rather a compliment, really, if you think I could conquer you with--" She waves a wing to encompass their surroundings, generating a gentle breeze. "--this. Believe me when I say that I do not, at this moment, have the luxury of scheming. Do any of you require rest, or may we resume?"

They may resume