“Daphne?” Luna asks full of way too much excitement while looking at the fairy princess infront of them.

  “Yes Luna?” Daphne asks in complete deadpan.

  “She is also our girlfriend.” Luna states as a matter of fact.

  “No Luna.” Daphne responds once again in a I am very much done with this shit tone.

  Latifa blinked rapidly, color rising to her cheeks. “I—I beg your pardon?”

  Daphne pinched the bridge of her nose. “Luna, we talked about this.”

  “But she’s cute,” Luna replied, entirely unbothered, beaming brightly at the now thoroughly flustered fairy princess. “And she has that whole ‘tragic magical princess’ vibe going on. It’s very in right now.”

  Latifa looked helplessly between them, her face somewhere between scandalized and oddly pleased, while Isuzu audibly groaned behind them.

  “This,” Isuzu muttered under her breath, “is so far above my pay grade.”

  Daphne stepped forward, pnting herself slightly in front of Luna before her girlfriend could decre a magical harem union or something equally chaotic.

  “Princess Latifa,” she said with as much composure as she could scrape together, “please ignore her. Luna has the attention span of a niffler in a jewelry store and the filter of a brick through a window. What she meant to say is that we’ll consider helping you, depending on what’s actually going on here.”

  “I meant what I said,” Luna whispered loudly.

  “Luna, I swear to every pantheon—”

  Latifa, despite herself, ughed softly. It was a gentle, tinkling sound, the first true spark of life either of them had seen in her since they arrived.

  “You two… are strange,” she said, smiling genuinely now. “But perhaps… you’re exactly what this park needs.”

  “I will literally throw you in a fountain,” Daphne muttered to Luna, who was still making goo-goo eyes at the fairy princess.

  “You’d get your shoes wet,” Luna replied cheerfully.

  Latifa stood, brushing her skirts. “Come. There’s a great deal to expin. If Amagi is going to survive… we may need a miracle. Or two.”

  Luna gasped again. “Daphne! She needs a miracle! That’s us!”

  “No, Luna. That is not an invitation to adopt the princess.”

  “Too te!” Luna chirped.

  Isuzu walked behind them, rubbing her temples like she’d just developed a migraine. “This is going to end in explosions, isn’t it?”

  “Most things involving Luna do,” Daphne replied grimly. “But at least this time, they’ll be sparkly explosions.”

  Later that evening, the park had shifted.

  Gone were the silent attractions and dead-eyed mascots. The skies above Amagi Brilliant Park now shimmered with stardust, dancing ribbons of color swirling through the air like northern lights made of dreams. Floating nterns twirled through the air in intricate patterns, chiming softly with magic. Flowerbeds bloomed with radiant, impossible blossoms in colors no one had names for.

  And at the center of it all—was Luna Full alicorn form, surrounded by kids as they all cheered on the magical pony.

  Standing atop the stage of the park’s central amphitheater, Luna spun in slow circles, arms raised, her horn glowing with moonlight and her wings extended to their fullest. Magic poured from her like a symphony: silver, blue, and deep violet streams of raw enchantment that pulsed with warmth and wonder. Children ughed again. Visitors gathered. For the first time in what felt like years, the park felt alive.

  Daphne stood with Isuzu near the edge of the crowd, arms crossed. “I told her to be subtle.”

  “This is subtle?” Isuzu asked, staring sck-jawed at the literal lunar goddess creating consteltions midair.

  “For her? Yes.”

  From the stage, Luna beamed, soaking in the ughter and awe. “Dreams are made real when we believe in them!” she decred, rearing back into a whinnie as her wings fully spyed the sky glowing above her.

  Fireworks burst overhead—without powder or unchers—crafted entirely of dream magic. Celestial animals galloped across the sky: silver wolves, phoenixes of stardust, a thestral or two that winked out in soft puffs of cloud.

  And that’s when the temperature dropped.

  A heavy, unnatural cold settled over the park like a bnket soaked in dread. The lights dimmed—not flickered, dimmed, as if a deeper darkness was swallowing them whole.

  The fireworks stopped. Luna paused, head tilting like she’d heard something on the wind no one else could.

  Daphne turned sharply. “Luna?”

  The amphitheater stage cracked down the middle, and from the fractured earth rose a shadowy figure in tattered robes, wielding a gnarled staff made from twisted obsidian and hate.

  “Ahhhh,” the figure hissed, voice echoing like dry leaves dragged across stone. “I knew I smelled fae meddling. But I didn’t expect you.”

  Luna nded lightly on the ground in front of him, eyes glowing silver-blue, her wings fring defensively.

  “And I didn’t expect a necromantic knock-off of a Ren Faire reject,” she said sweetly. “But here we are.”

  The evil wizard narrowed his glowing eyes. “Still your tongue, moon witch. You’re interfering with a contract sealed in blood and shadow.”

  Daphne muttered from the crowd, “Oh, great. He talks like he chews on dramatic monologues for breakfast.”

  “Honestly I am gd you came I thought I would have to put in the work to dispel the curse on this pce but instead you came to me!” Luna cheers.

  The evil wizard snarled, bck mist curling from his robes like smoke from a burning manuscript. “You dare mock me, child of the stars? This nd was mine long before your kind ever learned to whisper spells to the moon.”

  Luna stepped forward, moonlight pooling beneath her hooves with every delicate stride. “Oh no, please, continue. You’re giving excellent vilin energy. Truly, I’m quaking in my sparkly boots. You do realize I am far older and much more powerful than you right?”

  The wizard stared at her in silence for a long moment. The wind howled around them, thick with the taste of ash and ozone. Somewhere in the distance, a carousel groaned, its eerie music warping into minor keys.

  “…You lie,” he finally hissed, voice brittle with disbelief.

  Luna’s eyes gleamed like twin moons. “Oh sweetie,” she purred, “I dreamt stars into being while your ancestors were still crawling through mud and offering bones to trees for good weather.”

  She fred her wings wide, and for an instant, the illusion of the sky above the park shattered—revealing the true night behind it. Vast. Infinite. Ancient. Stars wheeled overhead in impossible consteltions, and the air shimmered with reverence.

  The crowd gasped. Even Isuzu staggered back a step.

  The wizard, however, simply screamed and drove his staff into the stage. A pulse of bck magic erupted outward, warping the earth, curling the wood into cwed shapes, and dragging the shadows into grotesque forms that twitched and moaned.

  Luna didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

  “Cool,” she said.

  And then she fired.

  A single beam of compressed moonlight—thin as a thread, faster than thought—nced from her horn, punched through his chest, and exploded out the other side in a shockwave of silver light that disintegrated him on the spot.

  No scream. No speech. No dramatic monologue.

  Just poof. Dust. Gone.

  The stage cracked and splintered under the backsh, but Luna didn’t even flinch. She blinked once, then turned to Daphne.

  “Handled it.”

  Daphne, halfway through a sarcastic remark, blinked. “Wait—what?”

  Isuzu stared in horror. “Did… did you just vaporize a css S dark entity in one hit?”

  Luna nodded cheerfully. “Yup! He was annoying.”

  Latifa peeked around the curtain, wide-eyed. “…That was supposed to be the final boss.”

  Luna beamed. “Not anymore.”

  Daphne just sighed and muttered under her breath, “Why do we ever go anywhere?”