• Published 7th Dec 2013
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Nightmares Are Tragic - Jordan179



Nightmare Moon spends a thousand years banished to the Moon, then returns to seek her revenge. From HER point of view.

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Chapter 9: The Age of Wonders

Delving back into the past ... the deep past.

Almost four thousand years ago.

The Earth tamed by Ponies. Farms everywhere, tended by massive machines that fertilized, tilled, sowed, reaped the soil, letting one pony do the work of hundreds. Great mines delved the mineral wealth of every continent. Immense factories, powered by electricity, assembled raw materials into every sort of finished product. Railroads girdled the planet, each miles-long train hauling thousands of tons of goods. Gigantic screw-propelled freighters plied the sea routes. Colossal cities, which would have dwarfed modern Canterlot or Manehattan, grew up at the intersections of these planet-spanning transport systems, turning the night into day with electric light. There the goods were traded in global markets, enriching ponies all over the world.

Billions of ponies teemed in the streets of the cities and towns. Billions of free minds speculating about the problems of the Universe. Schools, universities, research institutions of every sort informed and organized these speculations. Printing presses hummed. Electronic voices spoke from record and disc, on radio and television, on a blossoming computer network. It was an age of Science, an age of Wealth, an age of Culture, an age of Happiness such as the world had never known. It was an age in which the eyes and minds of Ponies turned toward the Cosmos and their hearts said "Yes. We can master this. We will master this."

It was the Age of Wonders.

It was the age of Moondreamer.

Little Moondreamer Finemare, a foal newborn, innocent big eyes blinking in amazement at her bright glorious world. Playing with her sister Sundreamer. Fighting. Making up.

Little fillies now, off to school. A little brown colt, all alone but bravely standing up to bullies. A kindred spirit. Facing them down together. A friend for life. Dusk Skyshine. Playing happily together, all three of them. Dusk boasting that one day he would become a pilot.

But she's not Dusk. I'd know if she was Dusk.

An older filly now, just on the verge of marehood. Friendship transforming. When she looked into Dusk's eyes, something impossibly wonderful was looking back at her. Love swelling in their hearts. That long magical summer of Dusk and joy and discovery ... then Dusk was off to the Academy, but they still had the next summer, and the next ... getting to meet his friends from school: Glasses and Dashie and Slipstream and the whole band of merry fools ...

War overseas. Dusk's early graduation. A hasty marriage, a honeymoon on compassionate leave, a week and a half of happiness before separation, perhaps forever. Moondreamer trembling at the newsreels, enemy armies marching through allied lands, flashes of aerial violence, Dusk somewhere in the midst of the madness, at the mercy of forces which neither knew nor cared how much he meant to her ...

A letter from the War Department. Opening it with trembling hooves. "We regret to inform you ..." Eyes unable to focus, then reading on to see that ominous yet wonderful word wounded -- what would normally have been terrible but now meant that Dusk -- and life -- could continue. Compared to this knowledge, the Silver Star was meaningless -- though she would not let on to Dusk.

Dusk and Dashie home now, invalided for the remainder of the War. Dusk's wounds healed quickly, leaving him with a lifetime limp. Dashie's were more severe: a Nork cannon shell had torn right through his cockpit, nearly killing him. Dashie spent a long time with them, and with Sundreamer ...

... Dashie ...

If only Moondreamer had been able to taste his lifescent, the Moon Princess wished. If she had, I would be able to know right now. But something makes me think she could be him.

Strange thought. Dashie -- Dash Firehooves -- had been so utterly, over-the-top male. It's amazing that Dusk trusted me around him. But then Dusk always knew I found that way of being a stallion utterly annoying. Dash would have driven me to murder had he been my husband, or even lover. I loved someone smart, sensitive in his strength, unassuming but fearless -- well, Dusk. As Moondreamer, he was my only mate. Ever.

Who needed more? And, after Dusk, there seemed no point in trying again. All other stallions were -- not Dusk. They were at best only pale imitations of the real thing.

As a friend, though? Dashie was one of the best. Loyal, fearless, and off-duty a heck of a lot of fun. For a moment her mind wandered over epic parties, stupid but hilarious adventures, and times that merely knowing that the world contained a Dash Firehooves deeply comforted her.

He was just like Rainbow. Down to the facial expressions, the turns of phrase.

But ... Dashie, a mare? It was still hard for her to wrap her mind around the concept.

But then a soul could be reborn as either sex. Or of any species. I've been some strange things in some of my other Aspects.

If Rainbow is Dashie, I know what he -- she -- wants. That means I have a chance at charming her. Which is important, because if she is being attuned to an Element, and if the lavender one is Magic, by process of elimination she has to be Honesty or Loyalty ... if it's Dashie, probably the latter ... and in either case, that means she probably won't be easy to seduce to my cause.

Glory. A spot in an elite unit. That's what Dashie always desired.

And after I win, maybe in time she'll want to join my guards. I could recruit her for my new -- Nightbolts? -- Shadowbolts! The name felt right to her. And anyway ... she finally admitted to herself what she was thinking. ... I really don't want to kill Dashie. Not in whatever form the big dumb lug's taken.

Nonsense! the Nightmare reminded herself. If she opposes me, she must die! She is too strong and skilled to be ignored. I cannot be impeded by pathetic sentimentality.

No, thought the Moon Princess. Killing Dashie would just be wrong.

She opposes me! Slights me!

Dash never did that, thought the Princess. He was a good and loyal friend to Moondreamer. And I've never really met him in this incarnation. She could become an important henchpony, in time. If I kill her, I lose that opportunity, for who knows how many. more millennia?

I will give her a chance! Nightmare Moon decided.

She had put some thought into her trap. She wanted to catch her enemies one or two at a time. So she had cut the rope bridge -- the old drawbridge had obviously fallen into the gorge centuries ago -- but deliberately left it intact and hanging from the far side, tempting her foes to pull it back into position on the castle side. That meant that they would send one, perhaps two of their number, at least one obviously a pegasus, over to do that job, while the rest waited to cross on the repaired bridge, instead of trying to have the pegasi ferry them across or (worse) try another approach to the castle, such as the old stone stairway down to the bottom of the canyon.

As a final dressing of the stage, she slightly ionized the air in the gorge, attracting dust and water together to thicken the night-mists into a thick fog. If necessary she could raise that fog to isolate one side of the rift from observation by anyone on the other side. Divide et impera, she thought, in a tongue which had been almost dead even in the Age of Wonders itself.

She saw motion on the other side of the gorge. Quicker than thought she streamed down the close side of the canyon, into the concealing fog, and up the other side of the canyon. Radiating no more in the visible spectrum than those night-mists, she watched and listened.

Her enemies came running from the forest ...

Author's Note:

Nightmare Moon's not really thinking the quote in Latin, any more than Equestrian is English. It's in the tongue of some culture which played an analogous role in the history of the Age of Wonders.