The Punishment
Everypony has a shadow.
A piece of themselves they would never admit to having.
It appears the moment you are born. Something hidden away at first, always lurking. Ever present.
Never fading, never truly dispersing…
Just always there.
Some ponies display it with no regards to the damage it can cause. Some keep it tucked away, refusing to acknowledge it’s existence. These shadows become what we fear at night, the thing at the corner of your eye, the nightmares in your dreams. We may even become the very darkness we swore to hide. You may sleep a little too deep, stay in the same place for too long, and it will always be there. A shadow that you will all too soon come to recognize.
Then, you will realize.
Only, then will you know.
Princess Luna hacked and coughed, dust billowing around the room.
Immediately, she took on a battle stance, growling as she looked around her whereabouts. Having just been teleported by an outside force, she immediately grew suspicious of where she landed. Where was she? Where was her sister?
“Tia?” Luna called out, not relieving her tense form, “TIA! Where art thou? Dost thou know what hast attacked us?”
Not hearing a response, she nervously flicked her eyes about the room. Quickly noticing some sand on the floor beside her, she picked it up with her levitation. “Celestia?” She stared at the sand in her magic before hearing something shudder. She quickly pointed her horn at the wall. Where it had been solid before, it now shifted to the right with monolithic speed, shaking the entire room as it slowly inched open.
“What kind of machinery is this?” Luna whispered to herself, staring at where the wall had just been. With a narrowing of her eyes, she took one last glance at the room before looking at the sand in her magic.
“If thou hast done anything to my sister, and ye think me unable, than ye are fools. If ye have taken her and ye are not afraid, then ye are dumber than a newborn foal,” Luna murmured threateningly. “Where am I? What hast thou done?”
Knowing whoever had trapped her here got her message, she dropped the sand. “I am Luna, Guardian of the Night and Princess of Equestria! I will escape, I will look for ye, and I will never stop!”
With that final proclamation, she left the room
Finding herself facing cobblestone walls, hallways and roofing, she could see light pouring in from numerous windows. Thinking of what she had seen in the room, she continued to traverse the current hall. Her only company being her thoughts and the sharp clack of her regalia against the rock of the floor. “Those runes placed there…” Luna began.
“Those runes… they are amateur at best. How ye were able to even catch me of all ponies off guard is a feat I must commend, though it will not suffice. Low-cost teleportation, and ye were able to send me here. For the strength of such an inscription, I can safely assume I cannot be more than a city away. So where hast thou taken me?” Luna explained in full before asking. She smiled at her own smarts.
Quickly returning to her own senses, she regained her serious composure. “Tia? Please tell me thou art here…”
A loud pop scared her witless, but she would never admit that. Spreading her wings in a show of instinctive dominance, she frowned at the sight of a swirling vortex of water in a basin. As it began to flicker an image into life, it showed Luna herself, staring down at the bowl through a window. Quickly casting her gaze to the window, her eyes scanned the notable horizon.
In the window of what she assumed to be a nearby corridor in the building she now occupied, she saw something that shook her to the core. A figure, dripping malice and mana like waves of the sea. Stars like those that adorned Luna’s mane dotted the figure, it’s tall appearance only making it seem more dangerous.
“What in Equestria…” Luna found herself uttering, observing as the garish thing shuffled away from the window, bringing with it the view on the basin. Seeing the basin’s image move in time with the creature’s movements, she logically connected that the basin and the monster were one and the same, the basin sharing a view of what the monster saw.
She watched in mild fascination and slight thrill as she watched it begin to go down another path. With a tinge of concern, she looked down the nearby hallway and found nothing, but could see that the creature seemed to have moved a lot already since she last looked. It now seemed to be rounding a bend…
Luna glanced to her left and saw a shadow creeping up against the brightness of the day. Her mouth parting slightly, her fight or flight instincts kicked in. Charging up her horn, she waited until it had come into view before blasting it to smithereens, and…
Nothing.
Only a glowing horn and a dark creature were manifested, the latter coming ever so closer with each slow second. Realizing what kind of trouble she now lay in, she quickly made her way down the nearest hallway. Seeing a door at the end of it, she quickly rushed down to it before trying to pull on it with her magic. It did, but it remained closed.
“Locked!” Luna growled, “And a complex-spell inhibitor… Thou art smarter than I gave thee credit for,” she muttered.
Glancing behind her, she widened her eyes at the sight of the creature nearing. “I know you… I’ve seen you plaguing my little ponies’ dreams!” With that stated, she quickly went to work at the door. “Picking locks is easy,” she monologued, “You just have to know what to push, and, if you’re careful…” Her blue magic quickly worked its way and the door made a resounding click.
“You see, Tia? I told you I was…!” Luna began to say with a smile, her grin fading as she remembered Celestia wasn’t there at the moment. “...you see? Still got it, the better sister!”
Opening the doors wide, Luna was confronted with a blank flat wall. “No…” Luna whispered, turning around to face the monster she had met just a few moments ago. “I can’t actually fight my way out of this…
“What an odd feeling,” Luna began to say to herself, “I’ve never lost like this before. Never, even as an alicorn… and here I am, going to. Finally dying. “
“Tia…” Luna murmured, talking to nopony but wanting to connect with her sister in some way, “I’m sorry Tia. I failed you. I’m… I’m actually scared, Tia. Scared of dying. Scared of losing. Who would’ve thought, huh?”
As the cosmic entity neared Luna, Luna closed her eyes in resolution. Just then, a deafening silence pierced the air, electrifying Luna’s fur. A soul-shaking rumble filled the corridor and Luna cracked an eye open to see what was happening.
In front of her, the entity had seemingly frozen.
“What happened?” Luna asked, “Was it something I said?” She waved a hoof through the mist that the creature emitted, it seemingly conforming to and around Luna’s hoof.
Hearing the rumble get louder, she could feel the world move, and she chanced a glance out the window. It showed the entire building, moving. The Castle, as she had now dubbed it, now opened a wall behind her. A wall that let her traverse away from the creature and into the safety of a light-filled room.
Glancing once more at the cosmic abomination, Luna darted into the narrow hallway. As halls go, this one was fairly short, almost leading directly to a room. A room that was oddly well furnished and had a desk, a fireplace, some flowers, and a painting. “Where in Equestria am I, that I would be trapped in a place such as this?” Luna asked, observing the plushy bed.
Luna looked over to the mantel to view the painting better, and smiled at the sight before frowning. It was a cracking painting of Celestia and Luna when they were new alicorns, smiling like the world didn’t exist. It brought warmth to Luna’s heart, but Luna knew something was wrong. It’s weathering immediately told her it must be old, but the question was: how old? She and Celestia hadn’t been alicorns for more than a few centuries, so something was off. It seemed to be at least five-hundred years older than it should be.
Feeling it in her magic, she somewhat confirmed her own thoughts. “Where did ye get this?” she cried out, “Nopony but Celestia and I could have something as personal as this! If ye have taken this… then I fear we are in more danger than I realize…”
“TIA!” Luna yelled, “I NEED YOU!”
Just then, a foggy mist invaded the edge of Luna’s vision, and she turned to see the entity moving towards her again. “You,” Luna narrowed her eyes, “I guard the dreams of my subjects. I make sure they are as peaceful as minds can become. I fight off creatures of the night, and you; you should not be here.
“Someone has been messing very heavily with magic to have brought you here,” Luna whispered menacingly, “A Nightmare. You should not have been able to escape the realm of dreams!”
It did not respond. It did not surrender. It did not hesitate. Continuing as if it had not heard Luna at all, Luna squinted. “I’ve fought Nightmares like you. Much scarier, bigger and dangerous. You are nothing.” Luna dodged the creature's grasp, heading towards a nearby window. “I told you I’m afraid of dying, yes? I don’t like to lose. Well, that is very true.”
She gripped the nearby chair in her magic and brought it up, just as a lion-tamer would do. “Because you will have never expected this!” Luna smashed the window behind her with the chair, and promptly followed it right out.
Spreading her wings, Luna immediately found her pegasus magic to be weaker than normal, and she shakily adjusted her wings so she could glide. Without full magic, her wings alone would not be able to sustain suspended flight or achieve lift. Breaking the through the fog layer below, it dispersed, revealing water.
Luna didn’t realise how fast she had been going when she crashed into the water and fell unconscious. With her mind inactive, she slowly began to sink into the waters, her body disappearing from the surface. The cold stung, the water invaded her nostrils, and her brain began to reboot. With a jolt, Luna opened her eyes and began to paddle her hooves. At least a meter underwater, she spun in place before nearly gasping at what she saw.
Thousands of unicorn skulls made up the waterbed, any other substance being seemingly non-existent. With a burst of leg power, Luna shot out of the water, sputtering and wet. Her wings weighed heavily at her sides, her regalia crooked and her mane limp.
“The subjects… the subjects, Tia, why do they fear me?”
“They do not understand the night as you do.”
“That cannot be it… they… they do not like me, do they?”
“...”
Luna shook her head as a thought crossed her mind, stinging.
Luna began to hyperventilate a little, quickly escaping the water’s slippery grasp. Looking back at where she had fallen, her eyes wide, she backed away fervently. She didn’t want to be in the water anymore than she had to. It somehow brought to her mind something she had wanted to forget about…
Looking up at what she now saw to be an enormous castle of sorts, she made her way into the cavern present and up the staircase.
At the top was a burning fireplace and several pieces of metal. One quick glance was all that told Luna this, but upon closer inspection, she saw something else. The metal jewellry was of the same make and fit as hers. Shining, gleaming, and most important, dry. There was also a towel that seemed to have fully dried out, and Luna looked around her.
With nopony in sight, Luna slipped off her adorning crown and hooflets and tossed them to the side, helping herself to the completely dry counterparts. She also dried her mane, tail and fur, and left the towel on the ground. Just as she was about to leave, Luna felt an uneasiness strike her, and she looked over what she had done.
What if the ponies who owned it came back? WIth that thought in mind, she placed the towel where she had seen them and her own regalia in the spots she had taken them from. Making sure everything seemed ‘okay’, Luna left.
She slowly made her way up, up and up, higher. To wherever the staircase led her. She soon found herself at the top, a room filled with various knacks and contraptions. Urns and books filled shelves in the walls, pots and pans hung from the ceiling. Barrels filled with things unknown were scattered around, and another basin filled with scrying water showed another ever-moving image.
In the center of the room was a missing tile, a hexagonal stone that simply wasn’t. Scratches pointed to the missing tile, as if drawing attention to it. “A missing piece of the floor, and ye want me to find it?”
She turned to the water-filled bowl and watched as the image continued to show the Nightmare moving, constantly going forward, never stopping. “Nightmares art meant to scare little foals, and even full grown ponies. Is that what ye wist me to be? Scared?”
Luna stomped her hoof down. “I will not be mocked like this! What dost ye think this to be, a game?”
A flash of a memory hit Luna like a brick, making her stumble back in surprise. Breathing heavily in the blink of an eye, she put a hoof to her head. “What in the…” she tried to think back to what she had remembered, but it hurt to think.
A flash of rainbow light and her sister… “C-Celestia… what...?” she stuttered, trying to think.
A shifting of the wall behind her distracted her from her thoughts. Her mind turned from her memories, and her confused expression only grew as she looked at the opening corridor before her. Another hall. Another entrance to an ever growing maze.
“A maze… is that what this is…?” Luna asked, her head spinning.
Her powerful demeanor now lessened in her weakened state of mind, she walked down the new corridor and found herself confronted by a door. Beside her was a glass display that ran from the ground to the ceiling. Inside it was a substance akin to raw mana, cosmic like Luna’s mane, flowing like a waterfall. Glancing out the windows in the hall, she could see a graveyard and a lone grave… which scared Luna more than she would’ve wanted to say.
“A… a grave?” Luna inquired softly, spying another shovel, “Another spade... doth somepony want me to dig?
“You were always the smarter one, Tia, what would you do?” Luna muttered. She could see Celestia doing what she knew she would do, and Luna nodded. “Yes, sister, of course. Of course.”
Grabbing the shovel in her magic, she struck the spade into the soft fresh earth. “If I had my way, I would just blast all the dirt away…” she breathed to herself. “No, Celestia. I know there’s a minor spell for anti-magic right now… maybe I could just levitate it away… Yes, I know that’s not how magic works…”
Glancing to the door and the tank filled with water that showed where the Nightmare was, she paused. “Something as slow as that? What do you think, Tia? An hour?”
Nodding, she continued her personal ramblings, talking to herself all the while.
With all her attention focused on the dirt in front of her, she did not see the shadow seem to phase, coming closer and closer with each passing second.
In no time at all, she was nearly a foot and a half deep into the grave, a growing pile of dirt stacked on either side of her. Her form lay standing just to the side of it, her shovel working tirelessly to remove the soil. A trickle of sweat ran down her head, her horn sore from the constant use of her magic. She hadn’t had a need to use her magic continuously like this since-
Mist began to creep in from somewhere, and Luna immediately recognized it. Wincing as she lifted the spade up to eye level, she swung it around, hoping to face the Nightmare with it. “Where art thou, foul creature? I will have words with thee!”
Seeing an empty courtyard and only one door, she glanced to the scrying tank and found the image to be stuck, fixated on one thing. With cautious determination, she inched to to the door, gripping it with her magic. With a look around at the empty scenery around her, she opened the door.
Mist blew full force into Luna, nearly knocking her back and making her lose her grip. With a push of her magic, she grunted with effort as she tried to shut the door on it. The Nightmare seemed to screech, it’s cosmic hoof impeding the door from fully closing. Tendrils of fog creeped around, trying to push past, but Luna could only push harder. Slamming into the door with her own body, the hoof retreated and the door shut. She promptly put the shovel under the handle of the door at an angle and she hoped for the best.
As the Nightmare knocked on the door, threatening to beat it down, the shovel stayed, and Luna collapsed, exhausted. “Bucking bellhops…” Luna gasped, “Yes! I beat you!”
“I mean… I have bested thee!...” Luna wiped her forehead. “That was a close one…”
She proceeded to watch as the door stopped shaking, and the Nightmare began to move once again. “Wherefore dost thou goest?” Luna asked it, “There beith only one entrance… So where dost thou go?”
Being the creature that it was, it still did not respond. Only hobbling. Only lurching. Slowly moving. Her head lanced with something indescribable.
“Did you really expect me to sit idly by while they all basked in your precious light?”
Celestia stood resolutely, watching Luna speak.
“There can only be one princess in Equestria, and that Princess is me!”
“GYAAAAAAAAH!” Luna shrieked, clutching her head as she fell to the gravel path. “C-Celes- No-!” she whispered feverishly, her mind breaking.
“W-what…” Luna gulped, shakily getting to all four hooves. “What was that…”
Staring up at the sky and seeing the tinge of the sun going down, she frowned. Who was raising the moon? “What are you doing to me?!” she cried in frustration, stomping a hoof into the ground. Rocks flew and she felt an angry tear fall from her eye. With a telekinetic burst, Luna grabbed the shovel from the door and marched over to the grave, reinvigorated.
“I will find out who thou must’ve buried, and I will avenge them to Tartarus and back!” Luna promised, and she went back to digging.
Night had finally fallen as Luna had finally reached what she would’ve expected to be where she would find something. With a glance at the stars above her, she paused. Paused, as her mind tried to process what she was seeing. “That can’t be right… How?”
With a twitch of her eye, she plopped her shovel down and hit something solid.
Gasping, Luna rushed down into the grave and begin to swipe away the dust where she had hear the clang. She could feel the tell-tale sign of hard stone against her metal hooflets and she began to see words emerge.
WE
Luna frowned as she saw the collective pronoun. Intrigued and a burning feeling in her chest, she swiped away more of the dirt.
ARE
As another word joined the previous, Luna began to dread what she would find.
THE
NIGHTMARE
Luna stared at the last word scripted on the tile. “We are the Nightmare…?” Luna asked, confused. Reading another inscription on the side of the blocky letters, she widened her eyes.
WE
ARE
IN
THE
MOON
“We are in the Moon,” she whispered.
Mist began to fog up her view and she impatiently waved it away before realizing what it was. Staring at the fog around her hoof, she glanced up to see the Nightmare glaring down at her.
Luna nearly jumped out of her metal garments. Shrinking into the ground surrounding, she stared up at the Nightmare, wide-eyed. “Foul beast, creature of the night! What dost thou seek from me; my death?!”
The Nightmare just stood there, not responding, and it began to reach out it’s hoof, reaching for Luna’s trapped figure. Luna began to breathe heavily before closing her eyes and thinking back to what made the creature stop.
“...scared of dying…
“...scared of losing…”
Luna realized something, and her heart nearly broke. She had to confess. She had to admit to her own insecurities… and with no way out, she needed to…
“I’m afraid of the nightmares I fight!” Luna shouted, and the hoof paused. “Whenever I dream walk… I dread to see what I’ll find in the dark recesses of the mind! I've always shown control in the astral plane, but it’s all been a facade! I… I’m afraid of you!”
The Nightmare seemed to accept that answer, and Luna nearly melted in a puddle of relief right then and there. The Nightmare slowly retreated just enough so Luna could get out, and proceeded to freeze in place. She then stood her ground as she watched the castle above her twist and turn, the entirety of it seeming to be an amalgamous mess.
She carefully climbed out of the grave and rushed to the only door, shutting it behind her. Knowing that it wouldn’t keep the Nightmare trapped anywhere near as long as she would like, she quickly rushed away from the setting altogether.
And just like that, another sharp pain crossed her brain. Collapsing and writhing into the hallway she had fallen into, images rushed through her mind.
“I cannot be mocked like this any longer, sister.”
“Luna… you must be lenient with the ponies. They just… need to see you as you are. Not something you aren’t.”
“I have tried everything! ...They whisper sweet daggers behind our backs, even as we speak!”
“You must be patient with them, Luna.”
“Patience is something I have not had for a long time, Tia.
“Have patience yet, sister. They may change for the better.”
“I do not count on it.”
Luna could feel tears streaking her face. She shakily raised a hoof to feel the damp fur, and she lay against the wall. Recovering enough to be able to move, she clacked on hoof down to set herself up. Back on all four hooves, Luna closed her eyes and focused on making the pain go away. “Whatever ye have done to me to incapacitate me in this way, I will rectify it soon enough. For now…”
Luna eyed a room she could see at the end of the hall. A plaque with an image to the door’s right showed what room it was. “For now, I will occupy my time to something worthwhile.”
“Where are you hiding this room?” Luna shouted to nopony. “I have seen every single room in this castle now, and I have yet to find a room that is marked with a Moon! I know you can move this building around, so where is it?”
She began to monologue to herself, a habit she had now developed in the short time trapped in the building. With no company but a walking Nightmare and silence, she used her musings to fill the void. “It seems to me that this place is wanting me to find this room… and yet, it evades. Where it is I cannot fathom, and the Nightmare…” Luna glanced to see the Nightmare enter the doorway to her left. “It is slow as ever. An unstoppable, evermoving force. If I go to one end of the castle, I can get nearly an hour and a half of free time…”
She observed the Nightmare with mild interest for another moment before escaping the room she was in. She quickly ran to the same room she had jumped out of a day earlier and glanced around. “Every room I’ve been to goes back to how I found it if I leave it alone for a while…
“Like a looped magic cleaner,” Luna murmured, “Fascinating. Our ponies have been able to make up the most mundane of spells, hm, Tia?” No response, and Luna sighed. “Still need to get out of here. Right. Need to save whoever has been trapped here as well.”
Luna continued to explore the castle further, going around and backtracking to each hallway. With nothing better to do, it was all she could do to not feel useless. “Somepony’s been moving the moon… and only my sister and I have the magical prowess to do that,” Luna murmured as she walked down a certain hallway. “Does that mean… that my sister is okay?”
She suddenly heard a loud clack and a creak reach her ears. Her head swivelled to follow the noise, and she backtracked, back to a staircase she had not somehow noticed before. With her mind racing, she began to smile and followed the stairs down to a set of doors. A set of doors that had a crescent engraved into it’s finished wood. With a wide swing, her magic opened them and found a wall slightly ajar, letting some soft blue and white light through the crack.
“Hello?!” Luna cried through the crack, “Is anypony there?!” Dropping all formalities, she tried to see through the wall. “Are you okay?”
Luna waited for a few seconds before crying out in frustration and disappointment. Walking back out of the stairwell and the Crescent Room, she returned to where she had first appeared. She ran her hoof along the written inscriptions inside the Teleportation Room, and she followed the archaic lines leading it to a contraption that was connected… to a skull.
A horned skull.
She made her way to it, eyeing it with morbid curiosity. She gently picked it up off the ground and stared into it’s empty eye sockets. “What happened?” she inquired softly, the skull’s dark eyes glaring holes into Luna’s own. As if expecting a tale of woe from the dead. She then saw writing in the dust that so dominated the castle and read it aloud. “Bird?” Luna whispered.
“Are there birds around here?” Luna looked around as if expecting an answer from her kidnappers, but nothing. Frowning, she left the room, skull in tow.
She carried it around with her as she climbed another staircase. She talked to it, wanting to see what mysteries it contained, though she knew nothing would come from it. Emerging at the top of a tower in the center of her self-dubbed prison, she set the skull softly in between two parapets and she gazed up at the stars.
“The moon is especially beautiful tonight…” Luna whispered. “Tia… I know how to move that wall… but I don’t… I don’t know if I can admit all the things I’ve… I’ve been hiding. It… it would destroy everything I hold dear to me...
“And… and I’ve been following breadcrumbs… crumbs that have been leading me around like a headless chicken… And yet, there is really only one thing I truly want to know.”
As she saw mist begin to creep up on her, she continued to watch her night sky. “Somepony’s been playing with my night. My stars… they’ve moved… and the moon… who put a pony on the moon?”
“Oh, dear sister. I am sorry..."
Wincing as something her sister said wandered across her mind, she put a hoof to her temple. It threatened to render her immobile but she withstood it. Cornered and with no way out but down once more, she faced the Nightmare. “Dost thou knowest whomever hast defiled my moon?”
Luna sighed. “Of course not.” With another glance upward, she squinted. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say I somehow travelled a few hundred years into the future. The stars are all slightly ajar, and I know my stars, since I am their caretaker.”
With a glance at the skull, she closed her eyes. “But… I do know better. Who touched my sky?”
With a soft sigh and a droop of her head, she whispered. “My sister…” She finally turned to face the Nightmare. “She has always been there for me. A constant. A steadfast rock.”
The Nightmare stopped. Luna continued. “I’ve always looked up to her. I’ve always seen her as my great big sister, who always knew better… and yet… I…” Luna looked away. “I...I am envious of her. Of the way she is loved more than I.
“Ponies play in the day, and they sleep through my gorgeous night… a night I always work so hard to maintain. A night I always try to make spectacular, and nopony ever sees it. Nopony appreciates it as much as the day. And… and because of that…” Luna felt hot tears run down cheeks.
“I hated her!” Luna cried in a flash, shouting at the Nightmare, “Is that what you wanted me to say? Is that what you’ve wanted me to say all along!?
“I- I hated Celestia!” Luna sobbed. “She… I… I thought she didn’t do anything! Nothing to try and get the ponies to be more appreciative of me! But she did! She did try! And I…”
Luna tried to think but couldn’t. She tried to remember why and what happened, and she couldn’t. But the answer seemed enough. The Nightmare retreated, it’s misty fog billowing in an unseen wind. It’s cosmic swirling and lack of face menacing as the castle shifted around Luna. Luna’s own mane twisted and turned in an astral wind, and she sniffled.
She didn’t notice the skull silently fall away from it’s perch, joining the thousands of other skulls in the water...
With a quick breather and a close of her eyes, she rushed down the stairs and further and further she went. She ran across the castle, down a few halls, and made her way to the Moon Room. Opening them wide with a swing of her magic, it opened to a long hall that remained black, leading to something that Luna could not fully describe.
“By the stars themselves…” Luna whispered, all woes forgotten for a moment. The light shone softly onto everything, illuminating Luna’s every movement. In front of Luna, twice as high as her and with no malice intended, was a wall.
A wall made of pure mana and dream energy. A barrier. And most important of all: an escape route.
Made out of pure magic and made of the very substance dreams were made of, Luna was able to sense how powerful it was. Why a wall was made of dream energy and pure magic escaped her, but it was there nonetheless. As Luna felt it, she closed her eyes, and she gasped.
At least ten feet thick of solid pure tempered normal and dream magic. A basic anomaly, as pure solid magic was unheard of. She then felt a sucking sensation as her hoof remained, feeling the wall. It’s undulating cosmic radiance glowed bright, and Luna sucked air in sharply.
“Not another step,” Luna watched herself say. “Did you really expect me to sit idly by while they all basked in your precious light?”
“No,” Luna whispered seeing what she was doing. “Luna… me, don’t!”
“There can only be one princess in Equestria! And that princess... will be me!”
Luna watched herself in horror and lamentation as she rose the moon above the sun, causing the first eclipse in over a millenia. Dark magicks erupted from the forced cosmic event, rays of darkness gripped Luna. Luna watched as she struggled slightly, almost afraid, before she was completely engulfed in the ball of power, and it coalesced into something sinister… something evil.
“A-hahahahaha! AHAHAHAHAHA!” Luna watched the new her laugh. She gasped as she saw herself begin to annihilate everything she could see.
“No… no! What have I done!?” Luna cried out, trying to stop herself, but it was no use.
“Luna, I will not fight you! You must lower the moon! It is your duty!” Celestia decreed. Luna watched as she herself blew a hole into the roof, showing the moon brightly. Smoke and dust billowed in the air, and it cleared away to reveal Dark Luna emerging.
“Luna? I am... Nightmare Moon! I have but one royal duty now: to destroy you! And where do you think you're going?” her dark self cried, and Luna widened her eyes. She thought back to what she had seen on the stone in the grave.
“We are the Nightmare…” she whispered to herself, and she began to cry. “No, no that can’t be… that can’t be right...”
She watched in horror and great sorrow as she and her sister began to fight, Luna’s darker self; Nightmare Moon fighting Celestia. She could only watch and remember as she attacked Celestia with all of her might, landing a hit on her sister, causing Celestia to plummet to the ground below.
“CELESTIA!” Luna shouted in alarm, flying down to her sister. She saw Celestia’s limp form and immediately burst out crying. “Celestia… please… please don’t- don’t be… I need you… Celestia please…”
She then gasped as Celestia got up, her horn glowing. Bruised and with a resigned look on her sister’s face, Luna wondered what she could be up to. “Oh thank the heavens and the gods above you’re okay…”
“Oh, dear sister. I am sorry, but you have given me no choice but to use these.” Celestia whispered, and Luna glanced behind Celestia to see a panel opening up. A panel that was all too familiar…
“N-no, it c-can’t, I can’t… Celestia, please tell me-!” Luna began to plead, but Celestia was only a memory. Celestia burst up and out of the hole in the ceiling, facing off against Nightmare Moon.
Luna couldn’t help it. “Luna, please! Get back to your senses! Don’t do this! I can’t be like this! Not this evil! Not enough for the Elements of Harmony! Please, no!”
But it was all just a memory.
Nightmare Moon and her Sister faced off in a battle of epic proportions, and Luna watched in silent remorse and Celestia successfully fired up the Elements. Luna felt her heart break as she watched Celestia use all of them on her own, all of them against her.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Nightmare Moon shrieked, and the rainbow light carried her all the way to the moon. Luna’s image imprinted onto it, dark spots now dotting her moon and showing a mare in the moon.
“We are in the Moon,” Luna found herself whispering, and she couldn’t hold it back.
“No… please, no!” Luna sobbed, watching her sister begin to cry and fall into the remains of their castle. “Celestia… I’m so so-sorry… please, just… no… no… NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Luna shrieked, her mind nearly shattering from the force of the memory. Her hoof disconnected from the wall and she collapsed onto the floor in a heap of feathers and fur.
“No…” Luna wailed, bringing a hoof down on the stone beneath her. She was crying into the rock itself, turning it’s grey into a darker shade. “No… no…
“Why me?” Luna asked nopony, propping herself up against the wall. “Why is it always me!? Why can’t it be anypony else? Why is it always me that gets persecuted, beaten up… and… and hated… why me?!”
Luna continued to cry, her breath hitching and her will severed. “Why?” she continued to say, staring down the hall of the room. Just then, another memory surfaced to mind, one that had happened not an hour or two ago…
She then saw writing in the dust that so dominated the castle and read it aloud. “Bird?” Luna whispered. “Are there birds around here?” Luna looked around as if expecting an answer from her kidnappers, but nothing…
“B-bird… why bird?” Luna asked herself once more, and this time, it struck her. It struck her like a sack of bricks. “Of course… Of course it is… It’s always me, Tia… even stuck in my own mind, it’s always me…”
She stood up, her remaining strength returning. Her mane slowly grew shorter and shorter, her tail following suit. Her magic was depleting itself, and it was being all focused into Luna’s left hoof. She could finally see mist creeping up out of her vision once again, and she knew what had returned.
“Hello, Nightmare,” Luna said cheerfully, her eyes betraying her changed demeanor. I see you’ve... thou hast come back to play. Do you... Art thou in want of a story?
“Celestia used to tell me a story to put me to sleep a long, long time ago.” Luna explained, and her hoof cracked against the magical wall with enough force to break her metal hooflet. Crying out in pain, Luna growled.
“When our parents had passed, it became one of my favourites. Especially when she said them.” Luna swung her hoof and shouted from the impact. “Gyaaaah!”
Now heaving from the exertion, she gingerly balanced on her three good hooves as she reared up for one more hit.“According to her there’s this... There beith an Emperor…” Luna could feel the Nightmare breathing down her back, and she faced the wall with her last remaining dignity.
“And he asks a shepherd’s colt…”
Luna felt a tear go down her eye as she breathed heavily, seeing the mist and darkness begin to surround her.
"How many seconds… in eternity?”
And the Nightmare embraced her.
It’s funny, really.
How a pony can withdraw into their own minds to protect themselves.
How a pony can create their own little world to live in.
Luna sputtered as she wheezed, still clinging to the last vestiges of life.
I had thought that I had been kidnapped against my will, that I had been taken from my sister and left to fend for myself. And all those skulls…
Her hooves twitched and her mind convulsed with pain from every single movement. Her mane lay fully limp beside her, her mane a pale comparison to it’s full majesty. Slowly, Luna began to crawl her way away from the wall, slowly, ever slowly.
I had thought there were other prisoners in a place like this. Other unlucky participants in a cruel game of cat and mouse that somepony had set up.
The Nightmare now gone and consumed by the mist is so created, Luna was left alone. Alone to move. Alone to die. Alone to suffer.
A thought that proves to be more true than I realize.
Crawling up the stairs and away from the Crescent Room took an eternity, but Luna did not care. She had all the time in the world. To die. To live. To save herself. To save that part of her that still wanted to live, that still wanted to fight, that still wanted to be strong.
After all, how could there be other ponies in my own mind?
Luna sobbed in pain as she walked along the corridor walls, each hoof making a heavy thud on the ground.
A torture chamber of my own creation?
Each step burned. Each breath threatening to be her last. Her mind on the verge of breakage.
A place… a place I have made to punish myself in the worst way possible…
Another corridor. Another staircase. Another moment where she could die. She pulled herself for some of it, lumbering up and down the rest.
To relive the same mistakes… to confess the same fears… and to punish myself over and over again… forever...
Luna cried as she neared the Teleporter Room, a large flashy symbol signifying its position.
An eternity of pain. An eternity of suffering. An eternity of repentance. An eternity… an eternity of loss.
The door slid open, revealing the same room she had begun in, and the room where she would take her last.
What is life, without pain?
She found herself heaving as she stared at the lines connecting the runes to the crystal… a depowered crystal that required something to power it.
What is life without sorrow?
She charged her remaining magic into her horn as she rested on the crystal, and she felt tears rush down her face. The door closed behind her as dust began to softly billow in an unseen wind.
The mind works in mysterious ways… yet it still logic still remains. Each room reset after I left it for long enough… and so, that means the runes would have as well. That means… that means I’m still here… in the runes themselves. Teleportation… another word, really, for long distance instantaneous destruction and construction. And thus, the rune would still have some part of me left in it...
A spell she hoped would work… and it did. She screamed as the crystal cannibalized her the rest of her magic, even her very life force itself. She whimpered, before falling limply to the side, seeing the crystal power up, and watched as the rune in the middle of the room began to glow… bright, brighter, and brighter still.
How long can I keep doing this to myself?
Luna blinked as her lip quivered, tears falling as her hoof trailed letters in the dust she lay in.
How long can I torture myself… killing the old me… to fashion a new one… a new Luna to endure the same pains as I have?
Her hoof fell to the side as her breathing began to shallow, a word now spelt from four thick letters.
B
I
R
D
How long?
Luna smiled sadly to herself as she felt her life fading away. Her last thoughts being of seeing Celestia again on good terms, and as sisters once again. A dream she hoped would one day come to pass. A dream that would take an eternity.
As long as it takes.
And Luna died. Her body withered away, her form blowing in the gathering wind and turning into, all that remained being her skull. Her hooflets beaten and broken, they disintegrated into the very sand the floor was covered in as well, and her tears dried up, the only remnant of her actions being a word.
A soft electric crackle began to fill the air, wind began to stir and popping could be heard. The light grew in it's intensity as blue magic expanded. A bubble of amalgamous mana constantly shifting, and in an instant, a loud bang indicated the arrival of a pony. A blue alicorn with a moon related cutie mark appeared comatose in the the middle of the room, deathly silent. Only for a moment, it lay motionless.
Luna hacked and coughed alive, dust and particles billowing around the room.
Immediately, she took on a battle stance, growling as she looked around her whereabouts. Having just been teleported in by an outside force, she immediately grew suspicious of where she landed. Where was she? Where was her sister? What happened?
“Tia?” Luna called out, not relieving her tense form, “TIA! Where art thou? Dost thou know what hast attacked us?”
Not hearing a response, she nervously flicked her eyes about the room. Quickly noticing some sand on the floor beside her, she picked it up with her levitation. “Celestia?” She stared at the sand in her magic before hearing something shudder. She quickly pointed her horn at the wall. Where it had been solid before, it now shifted to the right with monolithic speed, shaking the entire room as it slowly inched open.
“What kind of machinery is this?” Luna whispered to herself, staring at where the wall had just been. With a narrowing of her eyes, she took one last glance at the room, not yet noticing the remains of her predecessor, before looking at the sand in her magic.
“If thou hast done anything to my sister, and ye think me unable, than ye are fools. If ye have taken her and ye are not afraid, then ye are dumber than a newborn foal,” Luna murmured threateningly. “Where am I? What hast thou done?”
Knowing whoever had trapped her here got her message, she dropped the sand. “I am Luna, Guardian of the Night and Princess of Equestria! I will escape, I will look for ye, and I will never stop!”
And Luna began again.