Nightmare Moon was not one to sit about and wait in hopes that she might sometime escape. She would bring about her freedom with her own two hooves!
All she needed was power. Enough to fill the stars and drag them from the skies.
For an alicorn in chains, that was magic she just didn't have. But she could take it; it was only a subject's duty to give of themselves for their Princess's sake, was it not? Still, that would take time, centuries even, and with such thorough bindings she would be unable to take more than scraps from from common peasants.
No, she would need somepony... special. Somepony attuned to the stars themselves.
And if no such pony could be found, then she would make one.
Now with an audiobook provided by Illya Leonov.
Approved by Nonpareil Fiction!
fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/259/d/7/headcanon__accepted_by_texasuberalles-d6mjbqd.jpg
There are too many fics about Celestia breeding Twilight´s bloodline, but this is the first time I see Nightmare Moon doing the job. How ironic.
Still, is unnerving (and even disgusting) how both alicorns use their subjects as pieces in a chess game. Oh, the arrogance of the gods...
5929765
Actually check The Moon's Aprentice
I really like this story have you thought of making a sequel to this
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5929765
I very much enjoyed the irony of Nightmare Moon eagerly creating her own defeat.
I tried to make Celestia more sympathetic (keeping rocks picked up with a kid as treasures alongside stuff you'd expect to find in museums or sealed away in the royal treasury, for instance). But yeah, there's a disconnect from how she thinks and how an ordinary pony does.
5929869
Oh, that's a good one. I unfortunately lost track of it after putting off reading a chapter for a day (because... y'know, they're pretty big), and then that day became a week, and a month, and... well, you get the picture. I should go read that again.
5930069
Is that really necessary? The story doesn't really have any major loose ends that would prompt one. I suppose I could invent something, or try to come up with a whole new approach to the first episode... but neither of those appeal to me. I think a sequel should be a natural outgrowth of the previous story; maybe I'll get inspired at some point in time, but at the moment I have no intentions of making one.
I have too many other story ideas to work on, anyways.
5930374
Yeah its a neat one and I recommend it, also love Twi's character develpement there, because just a lil spoiler, lets just say her RP alignment isnt Lawful good in that fic xD
Also im sorry for poking another story on yours, I have yours in the row, I read a lot and what I do is DL the epubs to later read them on my tablet when I have some free time, but hey you made a story with Twilight Velvet and I love her a lot <3 so I have to read it hehee
Cheers.
5930395 im sorry if id made you up set I just really liked the story and if I like a story id 9/10 ask if a sequel will come out just play it safe then sorry so I know if I need to keep an out for a sequel or not again sorry for up-setting you
5930839
At the time I lost track of it she was floating pretty solidly in the True Neutral range.
Not a problem! Whenever you get around to it's fine.
5931084
I apologize If I came off as upset--I was trying to elaborate on how I felt about sequels. I'm actually quite flattered. I suppose one of those huge, prolific authors who have two dozen stories with two dozen sequel requests each might get annoyed by it, but knowing someone likes my story enough to ask for a sequel is a welcome treat.
5931856 its okay and again sorry if i'd made you upset by any means that was not what i wanted to do and I'd home you have a grate day
Lil' Corrections:
Not sure what this meant
comma after 'Harmony'
lots of 'the' here. I'd recommend '...wished she had time to savage the lights of all fools...'
5932100
Thanks for pointing those out. Corrected and, in one case, rephrased.
I altered it to "Still, no seal was strong enough to wall away the entirety of her power."
5930374
Aw, how sad. But I love what you have here. This is the delightfully devious kind of stuff that a competent villain should do in a story, and I adore good villains. They change an okay story to a great story. If I had to fault anything, it was that Nightmare Moon is implied to have assumed that she didn't need to do anything beyond getting Twilight a cutie mark binding her to the stars. Still, with her character, I can easily understand her making that mistake (and having her make that mistake makes it unnecessary to continue this story; canon can unfold as is with this setup).
Double period.
I noticed a couple other minor grammatical errors, but I unfortunately forgot to write them down.
5939871 Getting a response from one of my favorite authors sends me into bouts of mindless giggling. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
And since don't have a comment box on your profile page, I'll take the moment here to thank you for adding this to your favorites.
Whelp, my asshole tablet didn't post the comment last night, so I'll try again.
Great work on this story, dragonjek. I was actually thinking by the end of it, the story was kind of worthy of the dark tag, given the literal chess game of the gods thing happening there.
5942358 I considered that, but eventually decided against it. I suppose it technically qualifies, but I don't really view it as a dark story--just one with dark themes.
And one that I'm very glad you enjoyed!
Wow, nice story and love the point you make actually makes a lot of sense, even can see this being the real deal if hasbro even went and tell the story in deep...
5950421 Thank you!
Whoah major Machialestia there :p
6147489 I've always been fond of the whole "benevolent manipulator" type of character. They've got everyone dancing to the song they're playing, but the musician is playing it for their sake in the first place.
...
I have an excellent talent at badly mangling metaphors.
6599879 Celestia expected that NMM would say that.
Okay, it's interesting that Nightmare Moon is responsible for Twilight.
6626031 I found the irony delicious.
I reviewed this story!
My review can be found here.
Now this is some nice celestia. I love it.
6750025
I always thought that being manipulative fit Celestia wonderfully. That doesn't necessarily make her bad, though--I don't get why so many people seem to think so. There's an awful lot of "waaarrggh she's evil" fics out there.
I love how Celestia casually puts a massive monkey wrench in Nightmare's plan by using the very same filly that was used to initiate her escape from the moon.
Makes me wonder just how loudly the Nightmare would scream and rage if she ever figured it out (if she hadn't been blasted with the Elements, that is).
5929765
u wot m8?
6750348 Exactly! It's like people can't seem to believe that there could be someone using every means at their disposal for the good of their country.
6750348 In that aspect she's similar to Havelock Vetinari the patrician of Ankh-Morpork.
Would you please be so kind, as to tell me the title of that story?
We see a lot of Celestia as a manipulator. An immortal chessmaster, making the moves needed to put Equestria on top.
But this feels like the first time that this manipulation has felt so... benevolent, I suppose. And sweet mercy, that final line. I got chills.
6750443
Mirrors would break 7 dimensions away.
6753289
Love Vetinari. Much like everything else Terry Pratchett makes, come to think of it...
6754207
Sorry, I don't really remember. I don't recall it being particularly notable. I could find a story with that sort of Celestia after a bit of searching through my libraries, but I don't have the specific story that made me start thinking about this on hand.
6756189
I always spend a long time trying to make sure a story ends on the right note. The paragraph that closes a story is one of the most important.
Oooooooo.
Dat end line.
~Skeeter The Lurker
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5930395
A full-blown sequel would probably be overkill, but I would have loved a second chapter or epilogue showing Nightmare Moon's reaction upon realizing just who it was she was facing in the second episode. (Even if she didn't see the need to check up on Twilight Sparkle over the years, I would expect her to recognize Twilight's name & coat/hair color, as well possibly her cutie mark.)
On the other hand, part of what makes this story so neat is how it ties into canon seamlessly, so an sequel/continuation which deviated too much from canon would detract from this story. (This is part of the reason I don't want a stand-alone sequel, as anything more with enough of a plot to count as it's own story would probably need to head away from canon.)
6758678
I would be delighted.
I liked this, in particular in the subtlety Nightmare Moon shows in her scheming. I think you handled that aspect of her very well here, and that lightness helps to keep a fairly exposition-heavy story from feeling heavy. With the exception of a slightly predictable ending, I don't think there's much to complain about here. I ended up wondering about possible consequences, so have a like.
7007989
Was it that predictable? I thought I hid Celestia's one-upmareship pretty well, until the last segment.
7008371 It wasn't very predictable -- it's not like I could see it coming from the very start -- but when it came, I wasn't surprised. That didn't stop it being an enjoyable read, though.
So happy to have found this. The age old 'two demigods play chess with the life of mortals' re-imagined in a beautiful way. Nightmare's characterization in particular was great. Solid work, have a fav.
7752549 Thank you. It took a while to get Nightmare Moon's part down; I'd either overstate her monstrosity or I'd push the Luna's reactions too strongly, but I'm happy with how she came out in the end.
What a clever idea. :D
8208401
I’m glad you enjoyed it
Definitely one of the more interesting twists on the "Eugenics of Harmony" concept out there. I especially love the idea of little Twilight-shaped living spells running rampant through the castle after she got her mark. Thank you for this.
You wrote this for me didn't you? Ahh yes. Admit it. I know you did...
8221499
"Eugenics of Harmony"? I haven't heard it described that way before. I'll need to remember that. And I'm glad you enjoyed it!
8224506
No! you've discovered my secret!
Guilty as charged. You got me.
I listened to Morganfreepony's reading of this, really enjoyed it. Also if fits my personal headcannon in regards to the Prophecy. The Prophecy told of the return of Luna not Nightmare moon. Place a comma between night time and eternal and the meaning changes from endless night to performing the task of bringing forth night eternally. Also the Sun is a star and clearly Celestial helped free Luna. Nightmare misunderstood and had a big part in her own defeat.
8296347
Yeah, his voice was amazing! I was blown away when I heard it.
Personally, I'm of the belief that the Prophecy functioned on multiple levels. Prophecies are always complicated things--they always come true, but never in the straightforward way you would expect them to (when they aren't only understandable in hindsight, at least...). I also thought it was about freeing Luna (although "she will bring about nighttime, eternal" is grammatically incorrect. I felt that only the "on the thousandth" to "her escape" were the prophecy; like the first part of the sentence, I think that the latter part is just part of the description in the book, stating what she would do upon her return rather than a prophetic warning.
Although... I didn't really think of the Celestia thing. I headcanon the sun as just being this flat glowy disc that Celestia hides when the day is over (the moon's actually an orb, though); the stars part was talking about--sequentially--Twilight's cutie mark, the stars themselves, the Elements of Harmony (represented by the stars on her flank), and the Element of Magic in particular.
Anyways, setting headcanons aside--I'm glad you enjoyed my story!
Ooh, nice!
Nightmare Moon breeding Twilight's line to set herself free was a neat idea, and one that I don't think I've seen anyone do before (unlike the Eugenics of Harmony thing)... and then flipping it around, that was excellent. Goes on to show that if you're working against Celestia, a long and subtle play of careful behind-the-scenes manipulation is playing her strengths to the hilt!