Pondering Its Prison
A dark creature walked across a dreamscape. The dreamscape was a dead woodland, the trees fallen and rotting. At the edge of the forest of decay was a land of soaring spires of rock reaching into the sky. There was nothing sentient here, only her and her thoughts.
She had never liked it here, this prison, this exile. It felt like she was the only living thing here, there had to be something here that she could talk to at least, besides herself. It was a lonely prison, making it all the harder for her to survive. She didn’t need food or water to sustain herself. It was a dreamscape after all; she could do whatever she wanted with no consequence.
As she walked to another part of her little kingdom of death and decay, she came across a pool of water. She looked at her reflection. It showed a being of shadow, tendrils of light-absorbing darkness wreathing where her mane should be. A single protrusion of darkness came from her forehead, above glowing white holes that were eyes.
The creature had always liked the way she looked, wishing that she could manifest in the material realm once again. The time she had been in the material realm had been a time of bliss and excitement. Until the white unicorn with wings had sent her to a place far away. A place that was cold, so very cold. It had been lonely in that cold place, with only a blue unicorn with wings to converse with. She was a nice enough companion, except that she didn’t like the dark creature at the time. Eventually they had started to talk to one another. The unicorn had called herself Luna, which is ironic considering what she had said about their imprisonment in this cold place. The creature had nothing to call itself, as it didn’t want something to be called.
They talked about things for some time, usually about how they both missed the place that was called Equestria. They swapped stories about their times there. Luna telling the creature about her sister, the white unicorn with wings known as Celestia, and how Luna missed her so much. Speaking about her sister made Luna upset, which the creature understood considering that it was Luna’s sister that had sent them to that cold place.
Luna had called the creature Nightmare Moon several times, even though the creature didn’t like that name. It preferred to remain, as Luna called it, nameless. The creature didn’t want to be chained by something it didn’t want. Eventually Luna stopped calling her Nightmare Moon and just spoke to the creature when she wanted to. The creature wouldn't go anywhere, so that wasn’t a problem for it. She quite liked that arrangement.
So the years had passed, the two of them getting to know each other better and better. Eventually they wouldn't even need to speak to one another, just sensing the other’s feelings and interpreting them into a form of speechless speech. The creature preferred that, it didn’t like having to talk. A free flow of emotions was what it was used to before being imprisoned in the cold place.
More years passed, until an event occurred that pulled the two into a room. The creature was the first to know what happened, taking control of the body they shared. Luna was powerless to stop the possession. The creature announced itself by the name Luna had given her: Nightmare Moon.
Nightmare Moon scared the creatures, ponies, with her form and voice. Her mane and tail billowing out causing a kind of cyclone and making lighting rain down. She then fled, running to a place that emanated magic. Magic that had once banished her to a place that was very cold.
She arrived at the castle quickly, finding the things that had banished her, the Elements of Harmony as Luna had called them. She found only five of them. The sixth was hidden somewhere, it could almost sense it’s location. It then felt a magic, a magic it had never felt before. It quickly left the chamber the Elements were in and went after the magic.
What she found had confused her. It was a purple unicorn, with five others surrounding it. One was another unicorn, two were pegasi, and the last two were some type of ponies that had neither horns nor wings. This intrigued the creature, having never seen their like before. After talking for a while they set out after the castle that had the Elements in it.
The creature was ecstatic about this; maybe they would be able to find the sixth Element that had imprisoned her, and then she could finally destroy the things that had imprisoned her. She led them through some tests first, which the ponies all passed.
They entered the castle, and made their way to the chamber that had the Elements. Nothing seemed to happen, and the creature had lost hope that the sixth Element would not appear before them. Then the purple unicorn had an idea and sent the others outside while it did something with the five Elements it had found.
It seemed to be going nowhere, so the creature decided to play a role in the finding of the Elements. She appeared in the middle of the inactive Elements, and picked them up in a vortex. She waited for the purple unicorn to take notice, then teleported them to another chamber of the castle. The unicorn charged the creature, teleporting to the Elements just before making contact. This surprised the creature, expecting the unicorn to attack her. The unicorn then did something with the Elements that almost worked. The creature saw this, and then destroyed the five Elements, deciding that if the unicorn could not summon the sixth, it would be better the destroy the five and be done with it.
The unicorn’s friends arrived, causing the unicorn have an epiphany. She summoned the sixth Element, catching the creature by surprise. They then shot a beam of energy at the creature. She felt a searing pain as she was forcefully pushed into a prison in which she did not want to be in.
She was thankful that she was not destroyed, merely imprisoned. She didn’t know how long it had been in this prison, only that she was there. There weren’t any trees, or spires, only a blank emptiness everywhere. She hoped for some way to escape, but there were none. She resigned herself to her fate, until Luna appeared. The creature was surprised, and confused. She had wanted a companion, or at least something other than the blank whiteness of her prison. Luna offered to make her a dreamscape, somewhere where she could roam without having to stare at the eternal whiteness of this prison. The creature accepted the offer, glad that Luna was back. Luna made a dreamscape that would reflect the mind of the creature.
Now that the creature pondered how Luna had made this dreamscape while sitting at that serene pool of water, she began to see it in a different light. Instead of the trees decaying, she saw them helping to bring new life into the wood. She saw the spires of rock as an ancient city. She began to see the subtle signs of woodland animals; the small tracks, the stock still animals that blended with the trees.
Maybe this place wasn’t an exile, but a paradise for her to live in. She still missed talking with Luna, the mixing of emotions and thoughts they had done while on that cold place. Maybe she could live here, and maybe she could even make a civilization of her own. Maybe make that civilization to model the one Luna had told her about while they were alone on the moon. Maybe, just maybe, the creature had found a reason to be happy.
So yeah, here's a thing. If you have any comments, share them! I'd love to see what people think about this. If you have an criticism, please keep it professional. 
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This was genius! Really, I liked it a lot. The word choice was great, and it read so fluently.
Great job!
Edit: About the tag... Maybe 'sad' would be an option? (it does feel like it could work, and 'sad' fics can have a happy/bittersweet ending)
4121787 Im not entirely sure sad applies. It is somber, and serious in its depiction of nightmare moon, but i don't think it has the hallmarks of a sad fic.
I do agree with you that the writing is pretty good.
4121854
I guess you're right on that. What would you suggest then?
4121873 looking at whats available, Sad IS the closest fit. i just dont like that because the stroy does not have the neccesary hooks to warrant it, in my opinion. i dont feel like the story is trying to put me into a particular mood, but rather put me into the mindframe of nightmare moon, which is a mostly pensive mindset.
my recomendation is to just leave it as AU. no tags are neccesary because no tags fit well enough.
I suppose that an argument could be made for the Sad tag, so feel free to make it, for the author's benefit.
4121963
Well, what happened to Nightmare Moon/Luna is tragic (being locked away on the moon for a thousand years), but even though the story mentioned that in a way, that wasn't the point here.
You're right, one tag is fine.
4121787
4121963
4122410
Thanks a lot guys/girls, it really tickles my pride that y'all like it.
Interesting take on Nightmare Moon as a completely separate entity from Luna, not as just an alternate personality. I liked it and I liked the style. Good job!
4125250
To be honest, I'm wasn't really sure how I wanted to portray NMM. I just sorta wrote the whole thing on an impulse after seeing the picture and that there was contest for it.
Gave it a read, I liked it. I like your idea of NMM and her prison. Very good.
4125866
Thank you.
Read-Later'd for future enjoyment.
4126452
Awesome.
Nice short read of Luna and NMM.
4138242
Thanks!
I see .....so that's what it.
For many of us Luna was seen as a tragic figure, she made an error, sure, but her punishment only made her angrier, and turned her into Nightmare moon.
It isn't revealed (at least in the show, I heard there's an explanation in the comics) where and how Nightmare Moon's energy comes from, and what it does to fuse her with Luna, my theory was, it was repressed anger of a 1000 years, or maybe she was NM before she was banished, I don't really know.
The way you portray "The creature" or "Nightmare Moon" as an entity a being, a perhaps not living but ultimately a thing that can feel, I had never thought of it that way...it's unusual but....I quite like it.
I normally don't read too many Luna fanfics. But I like this one, favorite.
4148003
Thanks a lot!
Greetings, Xhoral1865! Here begins the review you requested from WRITE.
You're mixing up its and it's. Possessive pronouns never have apostrophes. Ever. You don't say your's or min'e or their's or hi's, so why it's? You have the same issue with your chapter title.
Not quite, since you described it as full of fallen and decaying trees. It's rather nice that you took some time to establish her surroundings at least a bit, but I'd encourage you to flesh it out more, since it's creating atmosphere as well. And then don't belittle that work by saying nothing's there. Also note how many "to be" verbs you've already used. These are inherently boring verbs. I'd rather read about what happens that what is. You should be using more active verbs.
This is pretty repetitive to what you said earlier about the fallen and decaying trees. It could work, but it needs something to set it apart from that description so that it tells me something new. That first comma is a splice, too. It separates two things that could stand as separate, complete sentences.
Another comma splice. There are a number of ways to fix one, like changing the comma into a period, semicolon, or dash, depending on the flow and inflection you want.
Hyphenate your compound modifiers. This says something entirely different from "tendrils of light-absorbing blackness," which is what you want.
These are pretty contradictory. I'll also say that a lot of this description is quite repetitive. You've said multiple times each that this place was cold and lonely. Repetition for effect can be done, but you're not carrying it as a thematic element or coming at it from different angles. You're just saying it over and over again.
Since she says this after her exile had begun, you're asserting that she wasn't called Nightmare Moon until after she was on the moon? I'm not going to go back and watch the episodes to see if she was ever called that beforehand, so you may be in the clear, but she at least gained that name before Luna returned, so she wouldn't have known about it in the interim, and yet she's not surprised to be called that in the series pilot, so it still comes across as odd either way.
Wow, this really sounds like part of a story I wrote long ago and still haven't published...
You have a verb form that's off here. I will also say that the language feels odd here. That's always a tough thing to explain, but this sentence is very simplistic in its construction and word choice. It almost feels like something spoken by a child. Yet Nightmare Moon likes to speak in a decidedly grandiose manner. You're veering into a narrative voice that doesn't match what we know of her. It's a good idea to have your narrator at least in the ballpark of intelligence level, vocabulary, and word choice of the focus character.
Ah, okay. We get an explanation now. Carry on, as long as you have her warm up to the name eventually, since its usage didn't upset her in canon.
That's some repetitive phrasing. Watch for using the same words or phrases in a close space.
You don't actually need a comma here, since it's just a second verb for the original subject, and it's not particularly complex or lengthy.
I already see the main problem this story is going to have. Here's the emotional meat of the story. This is where you establish the relationship that will be the crux of the conflict. But by giving me all the information through a narrative infodump, you're keeping me distanced from it. I'm just supposed to accept as a fact that they get to know each other. Prove it to me. An action has a lot more meaning to me if I witness it, or at least witness the fallout from it. This is really information that you need to show me in real time, somehow. Take me back to when it happened, show it in a flashback, or allude to it by anecdotes told from your characters' perspectives. As pure narration, it really has limited emotional impact, because we don't see the effect it has on the characters, and character is what really drives the story. I don't read this story to know they're friends. I read it to watch them act like friends.
Misused semicolon. The main use of one is to separate independent clauses. In other words, you should be able to change it to a period and have both parts stand as complete sentences, and "Nightmare Moon" is not a complete sentence. Since you're giving a definition or clarification here, a colon would be appropriate.
I gather that you're trying to make her sympathetic here, but this makes it sound like she didn't even realize she was coming across that way. And yet she sends Celestia away, threatens the population, and laughs evilly at the prospect of eternal night. It's not going to be an easy task to explain all that. You have tagged this AU, but there are so many things that can entail. It's not automatic that I'd know to disregard that canon, unless you're more explicit about making it obvious that's the case.
While it's certainly acceptable to use sentence fragments for effect, This one doesn't fit the rhythm of what's around it. They're better used for follow-up comments, action, or disjointed thought, and you don't have any of that here. I'm not even sure you realized you did it.
Yet another comma splice and its/it's mix-up. You should get the picture by now. I'm not going to mark any more.
Maybe this is more revisionist history, but there's no clear point to doing so. Earth ponies predated Equestria and Nightmare Moon's possession of Luna, so I have no idea why she wouldn't be aware of them.
What I said before about facts being less powerful than witnessing something applies to emotions especially. Knowing that she's ecstatic is one thing, but seeing that she's ecstatic is quite another. When you describe how she looks and acts in a way that you get me to deduce that she's ecstatic without saying it outright, it has much more impact on me. This is the classic "show, don't tell" problem. Put yourself as an observer there, and don't tell me your conclusions. Just relay what evidence you'd have, including her expression, body language, speech, and other things a witness would notice, then let me interpret them. If you've done your job, I'll get where you want me to go.
You essentially have a double negative in there that changes the meaning.
Typo.
Missing an apostrophe.
"Some way" needs to be two words, and you have a number agreement problem: "way" (singular) -> "were" (plural).
i think the big problem here should be pretty obvious by now. The entire story is told via detached narration. I made this mistake myself as an inexperienced writer. It's like the difference between seeing a concert in person and reading about it in the newspaper afterward. Events have much more power when I experience them than when I'm merely aware of them. The strength of a story is in its characters, and I never get to know yours. The narration even lacks a personal voice, as if told from one of the characters' mindsets. An objective narration is certainly a viable option in a story, but you have to get at the characters' emotions somehow, and that's another avenue for doing so. You have to get the reader engaged with the characters, so the two main orders here are: Put this in a perspective where you relate not only what happens, but how the characters feel about it. It can still be an objective viewpoint if you want, but you have to get at the characters' emotions, and since you use a construct where Nightmare and Luna can share thoughts, you can touch on both of their feelings. Second, relay those emotions in a subtle way by getting me to infer them from the context of how they behave, not by explicitly telling me what those emotions are.
Next order of business: conflict. You have a weak one here, in that Nightmare manages to change her outlook on her surroundings at the end. But it's a very effortless thing for her. It just happens because she wills it so. There's no struggle. The characters at the end of the story are the same as the characters at the beginning. What's at stake here? What are the characters willing to do to achieve their goals, and what bad thing will happen if they don't? How have these characters changed as a result of their experiences? There are a small number of stories that can thrive without conflict. For most, that's the impetus keeping the story moving. Without that, you have a scene here, but not really a story. Like I said, there is a conflict here, but it's underwhelming. Play it up more, show me how the characters feel about it, make it something they have to strive for instead of just achieve it by effectively flipping a switch, and draw it out more so the conflict isn't defined and solved within a scant few paragraphs.
I won't rehash the mechanical things. Basically, if I had to poke you about something multiple times, it needs attention. Repetition was the thing that stood out to me most.
Lastly, and I touched on this before, beware using an AU tag as carte blanche to break canon. It warns me that you're going to deviate from canon (about which you're kind of in a gray area, anyway), but you still have to do something to show me how the differences make sense. For example, say an author wants to make Rainbow Dash timid. If she acts that way the entire time, such that the author could have invented an original character instead without hurting the story, then that's not Rainbow Dash. If he justifies why she's acting that way, like making her the victim of a mind swap or placing her in a crossover where the event that makes her who we know from canon hasn't happened yet, then the AU tag is an extension of her character, not an excuse to disregard it.
Your mechanics are definitely above average, and you have a knack for setting a mood, so good job with those.
Keep writing and have fun with it!
fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/349/4/b/reviewer_logo_longver03_01_by_burrakupansa-d5o60h2.png
Pascoite, WRITE's mineral
4150402
Thanks for the review. I'll take all of this into consideration.
I want to be able to write this quality so fast! 90 minutes, seriously?
You native speakers, you!
Personally, I'd prefer some sort of cut between scenes when they're long and jump in time. I'm not saying I know how to do this properly, but going to past perfect and then back to simple past deeper in the flashback doesn't feel right to me. It might be a little confusing when exactly the view moves between the dreamscape, the prison after the elements hit, and the moon.
Overall, it was a pleasant read. The depiction of "the creature" is great, details such as its take on names really spice it up. To me, it's a little sad that the whole of it doesn't lead anywhere, but maybe that is a matter of taste.
(Saw you in the group "I Just Want A Comment" and figured I'd comment.)
4169046
Thanks for commenting on it.
Hmm, the sequences seem hard to follow? I'll see what I can do!
Really nice story. I'm just going to drop the Review Link here if you don't mind.
4150402
Capitalization error in a WRITE review? Whoa! That's a first!