"What do you wanna be? The Princess, everyone adores? Or the monster, that you are supposed to be?"
o0o
Nightmare Moon. For Luna this name fills her with shame, regret and hate. After the Mane Six purified her from her worst nightmare, the true suffer begins. Luna's guilt plagues her together with the question, if the ponies will ever see her as the Princess and not as the monster, she had been in her past.
When Ponyville is inflected by a rare and strange disease, Celestia has to clear the air. She too has comitted a sin in her past and now her mistake threatens the life of so many ponies, even children. Celestia asks Luna to find the Elements of Disharmony, which has been lost decades ago. But sadly someone else is after them as well.
Can Luna find the stones? Or will her enemy be faster? And during her search, will Luna ever be able to see beyond her past and face her greatest fear? Will she return as the Princess, everypony adores, or as the monster, everyone has seen in her?
AN: This story will have a sequel. It was inspired by the fanfiction Past Sins by PenStroke, the movie Balto and my own Headcanons. All characters belong to Hasbro and Lauren Faust. The OCs Brightwisker, Dead River, Cobaltwave, Sharp Sword, Amentia, Deimos and Phobos belong to the author.
The story is on hitatus, because at the moment I am not really in the mood for continuing it. Probably also because so less people read it.
The coverimage is from InuhoshitoDarkpen.
I'm confused
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The Prelude was intended to be that way.
Lullaby of a princess much
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Reminds you of it, I think. :)
Question. Did Nightmare Moon Originate from Luna?
Do I smell a false promise?
6159939
Luna and Nightmare Moon are two seperate beings in this story. Nightmare is in fact a dark force, who once made a deal with Luna. But this deal was obviously broken.
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Depends on how you define false promise. Celestia said those words to calm Luna down. Of course no one of them knew, what would happen in the future, so yeah, it is a weak promise.
6162295 then that's it for me. I hate this route.
6162312
Okay, and why? Just because I am curious. Also why would this be a reason to block the whole story? No offence, but isn't that a bit prejudiced?
If Nightmare was a creation made by Luna, it would mean, she is evil and I guess, no one would want that. Second, the comics have stated, that Nightmare was a force and I actually liked that idea. Also to this deal: Luna agreed willingly. She allowed the transformation to happen. It is not that Nightmare had to force her way in. She simply promised her everything, she ever wanted, in exchange for Luna's body. And Luna was so desperate that she agreed. And a very huge spoiler for the sequel, which might interest you: Nightmare Moon is Celestia's and Luna's 'half-sibling', because Creator made her accidentally. And scince Creator is the Royal Sister's mother....
6162560 the parasite route takes away from Luna as a character. Nightmare Moon HAS to originate from Luna for me. She can be parasidic after Twilight's EOH but not before.
Luna/ Nightmare Moon is like Two Face or Anakin/Vader. It has more impact. Thus the parasite route is a automatic blacklist for me.
6162578
Okay, I see and I understand your point. But this host-thing can also be made in different ways. It can be completeley negative - forcing Luna into Nightmare Moon - or somehow neutral (I do not write positive) by somehow talking Luna into allowing this to happen. For me Nightmare Moon is somekind of mixture of parasite and dark side of Luna aka Doc Jekyll/Mr Hyde. She knows more about Luna then any other. Just a curious question: How do you think, Nightmare has been created then? Also in my story Nightmare Moon knows about Luna's troubles and uses them against her.
An amazing, beginning; it truly draws you in and forces you to ask questions which can only be answered by moving forward. Well Done, my friend!
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Thank you. I hope, you enjoy the rest of the chapters as well.
-This would flow better with a "that"
- I think you mean suffering
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Oh, hups. Thanks for the two tips.
This prelude is quite intriguing. I simply cannot shake a feeling of some sort of connectivity with your style of writing. It's so alike my own, yet quite different and unique. It's almost spooky. Anywa, back to the chapter at hand: It truly was wonderful. This is what I like to see in any work of fiction, an amazing description, a cryptic beginning leaving you with just the right questions and just the shere elegance in writing. While reading this I felt like I was reading a Luna story. It had her flavor and scent spread through the chapter and just that beautiful mystique, wonder and beauty that the night regal possess. You are a true artist. I am looking forward to the rest.
Are the two us somehow mentally synced? Like some sort of a weird creative bond that transcends our human knowledge?
Because these are some of the ideas I wanted to use for my own headcanon, but have either forgotten or could not fit them in. And that exchange betwee Sharp Sword and Luna reminded me of my scene with Amethyst and the Pegasus General. Please, don't thinkI am accussing you, because I am not. i am just astounished of how much alike our brains operate, even though we are countries apart. The power of Princess Luna, am I right? But seriously, this was fantastic! I love every single word of your captivating wonderful story and this chapter was something I thought about. You have written it ten times better than I could and her transformation was wonderfully done. And you kept Celestia in character! If you could double like and favorite this story I most certainly would. I will pick up tomorrow and I intend to finish this story. Like Radifus' plans, this is far from over 
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That is true. We both have a similiar, yet unique style to one another. Probably because we enjoy the same thing and have even similiar ways of thinking.
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Thanks. This chapter was really important for me. It is presenting Luna's conflict with her past. And of course Sharp Sword: The fun fact is: I first imagined him with a red coat, but then I thought, I don't want him to have red fur. And I am so glad, that Celestia is in character. She is actually not that difficult to write, but still...
6387524 You'd actually be surprised how many fanfics get her character wrong. It's almost as bad as Pinkie Pie
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Really? Yeah, well I know, there is Tyranntlestia and Trolllestia. In Switched I have Reflected Celestia, who of course is different. I think, if it is an alternate universe it is okay. But you are not yet by the chapter off into the forest, aren't you? You would have to read like crazy.
6387866 No, not yet. It's because I commented on te profile page so it automatically skips me to the last chapter. i may be a fast reader, but I'm not that fast lol Oh and I know about Trollestia and Molestia, but I was talking about regular Celestia portrayed poorly (see Rise of Spike the dragon and a lot of Human vs. Equestria stories, to know what I mean).
6387910
Okay.
First off, I am sorry for taking so freaking long to get to this chapter. I had some business I had to attend to and thus I didn't do much reading in general (heck I barely wrote my own story), but I am back now (for two days then it's back to school yay
). But enough about my boring life, let's talk about this amazing chapter. First off, big props for the names. While they're not 'show accurate', I absolutely love their backgrounds. I mean if you name two of the sinister trio like Mars' moons, then you get immediate points in my book. Amentia is simply an amazing name (somepony's been reading up on their latin books 
) and her character seems rather interesting. The Shadowbolts were always an enigma to me and the fact that you actually had them to be self sustained entities is pretty freaking awesome. Amentia has a good head on her shoulder, but man oh manatees is her moral compas out of wank. I mean, she just murdered a filly and allowed her 'mother' to devour its soul for the equivalent of a phone call to NMM. Seriously, that is some messed up ish right there. Still, she mnakes for a fantastic subject and an interesting villain. Oh speaking of villains, BUCK YOU LIGHTNING DUST! 
Seriuously, you should know better than the guys who are siding with a creature that wants to bring eternal night! Why are someponies such clueless twits, I will never know. Anyway, this was probably my favorte chapter thus far. The parastic route you're taking is definitelly an interesting one and I would really like to see more of it. There were a few spelling mistakes (oh and this:
,
. It should be either hung or hanged, but I would suggest hung and you spelled grass a few times with only one s), but they were nothing too major. overall, great chapter with some nice villain motivation and really dark thematic. Good work
[youtube=aAM8iz4QJgI]
Sorry, i just had to
As you can see, Ovinnik was what some might call 'not very good at his job'. Unless the job description for a guardian has changed over the years lol.
I am just gonna say this, before my official review, Applebloom is portrayed adorably here
This chapter was a nice retelling of the Lunar Eclipsed (one of my personal favorites and the one that got me in to mlp and bronydom). I really liked how you took many classic scenes while at the same time putting your own spin on the whole thing. My favorite part was that poem Zecora recited. I felt like it was somewhat forshadowng the events that will come. it's quite creepy how well the description of that beast is similar to Nightmare's horrror. And that cliffhanger was just frightening to say the last. The fact that you killed off Dinky Do and made her lose her soul was frightening. This is shaping up rather nicely and I can't wait what else you have for us.
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Thanks. I chose the names Deimos and Phobos, because of their meanings. Terror and fear. And Amentia was first called Maniac, but then I realized that there is a show character called Mane-iac, so I decided to find another way for her name, but still meaning madness. So yeah, I used latin, because I found it would fit even more with the trio.
I am glad, you enjoyed Amentia so much. I always felt that the Shadowbolts belonged to Nightmare Moon, so I knew, her main servants would be those three. And yes her moral is really messed up. But I used the show as an inspiration. Moreover Zecora's tale. The phrase "Gubble up ponies in one quick swing" had to come from somewhere, so I was like: How about Nightmare eats souls? And this happened then.
And on Lightning Dust: Well, she is a little idiot and bitch, so yeah, she will realize her bad decision later.
And thanks for checking the mistakes.
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Thank you very much.
To the Marespearan point.... Yeah, I had to do this. I mean, she uses Shakespear english. But I did not want to write shakespear, so I ponyfied his name. Hope, he is not killing me for that. I even ponified some other horror figures. Like Doctor Horrible from Doctor Horrible's sing-along blog. I just thought, he would be a cool costume for Rainbow Dash (I never liked the idea of Fluttershy as Doc. Horrible). Rarity is going as a ponified version of Elizabeth Báthory, who was really called Blood Lady and did what she described. Scootaloo is maybe the Midgard Snake and Sweetie Belle is a vampire.
And to Applebloom's Ovinnic spirite costume. This folk's tale really exists in slavic. And yes, he probably did not do his job in the apple family, because of this: