Princess Celestia has summoned Twilight Sparkle to Canterlot for a challenging request: help ease Princess Luna back into modern society, and cure the sadness that seems to hang over her like a cloud - all before the Nightmare Night festival. But when Twilight Sparkle's perfect plan goes awry, can she rescue her ruined festival in one night?
An alternate take on what might have happened before the episode "Luna Eclipsed," we are introduced to Princess Luna in more depth, with focus on the centuries she spent before turning into Nightmare Moon. 5153 words, created especially for Scribblefest 2017!
Winner of the "Applejack Award" for Scribblefest 2017, see: https://everfreenw.com/archive/2017/events/scribblefest/index.html
Applejack Award
Apple Bottoms with “Nihtmer Niht”
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/366417/nihtmer-niht
The Applejack Award was one of the most contested categories we had for judging. Ultimately, Nihtmer Niht ended up winning out in the end for being very true to the show. The theme showed strongly throughout the story, and we loved the Aesop at the end, which really made this story win. Hard work paid off in the end, didn’t it, Apple Bottoms?
Very nice. I liked it.
8001035
I'm glad!!
Thank you!
Good Writing!
That was great. Looks like they were at some kind of pony version of Stonehenge at the end.
8001162 For future reference, princesses and princes are referred to as Your Highness. Your Majesty are for queens and kings.
But even in the show they use Your Majesty, so...
8002739 Thanks for the tip! I just sort of repeated the terms I'd heard in the show, I didn't know it was actually incorrect!
8001757 Thank you very much!
8001942 Thank you! Yeah, that was my goal! I thought it would be pretty cool if they had their own version of Stonehenge, since Luna would have been around during the time it was used! Ponyhenge maybe?
Was this before or after Tiberius?
8003492 That's a great question! I don't actually have access to the mini-comic he is featured in, so I will leave that to your capable imagination!
...I think you might have another winner on your hands here, Apple Bottoms. (Though hopefully not in my category this time.
)
Also, once you mentioned the Melon Collies, I had to play a certain song that really complimented the rest of the fic as I listened to it:
8023116 Aww, thank you!
I am a little worried about how this story will do, since I usually write 'villain being redeemed' stories, and this one felt a lot more episode-like to me, although maybe it would be more like a made-for-tv movie since the mood is a little more somber. Like a Lifetime movie, for Luna! 
Thank you for the song recc! I've never heard this one before, and I like it! Very atmospheric!
8023404 You're quite welcome. I'll probably do a review of this story on my blog sometime soon (I've already done two others so far). I honestly think this one is better than last year's entry (though, as we've established, my opinion was clearly not shared by the judges!
), so have some confidence in it.
I'm also surprised you've never heard this song. It was everywhere back in the mid-90s and still gets some play today.
Anyway, it also had a pretty impressive music video with an homage to the groundbreaking silent film "A Trip to the Moon."
...or maybe it's just that I really am getting old.
You know what? After my last comment, I thought to myself, "This song would be great for a PMV about Luna. Oh, but there are probably a ton of them already."
But there aren't. There isn't even one. Not a single solitary one.
I might have to learn how to make one of those.
Some issues I noticed:
A lot of hyphens (-) are being misused as dashes (– or —). This can be a tricky problem, since keyboards only have a hyphen and no dash keys, but in Windows you can get usually around it by holding down Alt while typing "0150" (short dash) or "0151" (long dash) on the numeric keypad over on the far right side of the keyboard.
I don't like using "you", since technically it briefly shifts the perspective from third to second person. Could be rewritten as something like, "(It was as if they had never taken a hundred-question survey before!)"
I also thought that in the scene with Twilight being visited while she's lounging in bed feeling sorry for herself, describing so many of the details on Pinkie's map takes away some of the possibility for dramatic suspense by giving away Twilight's solution for how to make things up to Luna. It would be better, in my opinion, if this was allowed to reveal itself as it happens during Luna's second visit, rather than being tipped early by the features on the map.
All of those, however, are minor gripes. Overall, this story does a lot of things right. I really thought this was well-written and sweet without being sentimental or saccharine, so good job.
8032305 I'll follow your good judgment on the dashes, I wrote it on Google Docs and I've never gotten the hang of how to get those dashes looking right! I've sort of trained myself into using the - dash for all dashes, I'm afraid!
Thank you for the helpful tip! You also make a very good point about the map, I think you're right about the dramatic build up being stronger if the 'reveal' had been later when Luna was in the forest! Now I want to change it! 
I'm glad you didn't think it was overly saccharine! That was another problem I wanted to dodge!
Let me start off with what didn't work for me: The opening bit, where they are worried about a missing library book. This is a little bit forgivable, as this is set in an early season, so Twiight should still panic a bit about these things, but the way you frame it here sets a bad tone. Basically, by the time Celestia actually enters the scene, all of the mane six are in full on panic about something very stupid. This casts them as weak/immature just as Celestia is about to trust them to do something important. It's a hard sell in that light. I'd highly suggest trimming this up a bit. Maybe have Twilight worry a bit, and her friends just dismiss it. But don't have all of them fall into it with such melodrama. Dash falling to the ground and crying out in all caps is too over the top. In addition, none of that has anything to do with the rest of the story, so it is, at most, a set up for a "joke" which we all know the punchline to already. Of course it's not about a library book.
That said, the rest of this... it gets really good. I actually fell for the "melancholy" pun, not getting it until it was explained. Nice!
You also do a great job of showing the first party failing in a sort of by-the-numbers way. It doesn't just "go horribly wrong" or have some random chaos happen like a sitcom, instead it fails specifically because it's not what Luna needs, and the ponies themselves catch on early and realistically. Cutting with the sack-race "blackout" is also a good pacing, as by that point we understand the failure mode, and don't need to see the rest of it detailed out.
Having Twilight stay in bed for "weeks" until the night of feels a tad unrealistic. Just add a little more about her being depressed about it, and hole-up in bed once the deadline gets closer maybe.
Past that point... I really like it. As Winston said, maybe make the map a little more subtle. Have her see the forest perhaps, but don't point out the specific stones. Still though, the rest is great. You really caught the feeling of Samhain here, both in description and details, and the contact with departed friends and the past. I can't help but be reminded of
Pinkie's comment at the end is the perfect way to cap it off too!
8034244 Thanks for the feedback! Sorry the first bit didn't work for you; I was trying to emulate some of the 'getting ridiculously panicked over silly things' like in the episode where Twilight Sparkle tried to use time travel to give it sort of an episodic feel, but I may have gone too far! I am inordinately pleased that I snagged someone with the melancholy pun, it was one of my favorite parts to write!!
And thank you for that music link - I LOVE Loreena McKennitt!! 
Time to keep up the annual tradition... congratulations on winning EFNW's Applejack award!
And the kicker... this time I won too! The Fluttershy award for "Freedom Flourishes!"
8107675
Thank you for informing me!
Ha ha you always beat me to it!! This time I tried to check every day, and I failed!! Oh well, there's always next year?
Huge congratulations to you on your win!! I scrolled down and saw your name, and I knew you would be ecstatic!! It's a great fit for the Fluttershy category, way to go!
8107675 Congrats to you both! "Freedom Flourishes" and "Nihtmer Niht" were my two favorite stories out of the entire contest, so I'm glad the other judges thought so too!
8108103 Aww thank you Xepher!! That means a lot to me!
I laughed out loud twice, there, but my like was specifically for Dash freaking out to Princess Celestia - I found that oddly adorable.
This is a story that's just before the theme song, just beyond the credits roll. Great job!
I'm broadly with Xepher on this. Although I appreciated the S2-style personalities for the Mane Six, the opening section was the bit I liked least -- even lampshaded, that's a really forced pun, and even a mild gay joke doesn't quite fit with a show-tone story. However, once Luna arrives on the scene things really take off; I love the "slice of life, but the life is a really unusual one" feel. The end is even better, with some simple yet effective lore; it gives me a new perspective on Luna. I definitely found that aspect more interesting than the comedic stuff.