//------------------------------//
// Stuck Inside 
// Story: Forever My Night Free 
// by nitelight 
//------------------------------//

"And I will do everything in my power to bring that world back!" Those were the last words Princess Twilight remembered hearing herself say before she tried to teleport away from Nightmare Moon and her guards and use Starswirl's time spell. She was so sure that her plan had worked. She should have been in Cloudsdale, back when Rainbow Dash was about to perform her first sonic rainboom. 
But the dark and worn out stone around her all but confirmed that she hadn't made it out of this world quite yet. Her head hurt and there was a tightness around her horn and back leg. Trying to shake the stars out of her vision, the young alicorn opened up her eyes fully, only to be met with more darkness. There was no window in the cell that she was in, but even if there was, she doubted much light would peek through, since no sun was there to light up the world below it. 
Trying to stand up was useless as well, the chain on her leg restricting her as to only allow a little movement to either end of the small room. Her magic was being cut off by the inhibitor on her horn as well. She had to think. How was she supposed to get out of this? No way would Nightmare Moon trust her again after she had tried to escape and deceive her once before. Even when she had been threatening Spike, she had dared to—
Wait. Where was Spike? Snapping out of her dizziness, Twilight frantically looked around the cell again. There was a shabby looking, makeshift bed on one wall, and bars in the front. And other than Twilight herself being chained to the back wall, there were no other signs of life within the walls. Even the corridors beyond the door were devoid of anything other than the occasional sound of dripping water. 
She wanted to call out to him, to see if he was near. But something in her was saying that it was not a good idea to do so. She already knew that no pony here had any problems being a little rough with her. That, and her throat was incredibly dry. How long had she been out for? Even if she could see it, without the moon changing its position in the sky, she had no way of telling. 
A faint clicking of metal caught the princess' attention. It was subtle, far away from where she was, but it was definitely there. A guard, most likely. And it sounded like it was coming in her direction.
The lighting of the sconces on the walls with their blue flame hurt her eyes as the guard approached, their own blue fur almost blending into the surrounding color. 
"Good, you're awake." Her voice was raspy, yet familiar. "These are regards from Her Majesty." A small metal box was unceremoniously thrown into her cell, clattering loudly against the stone. "Much as she was displeased by your actions, she doesn't want you dead. Eat up. Appointment is in one hour." And with that, she had started to walk off, sparing her no additional glance. It was quick and to the point. Most likely to confuse her more of the time and get her to break down easier. 
"Wait!" Twilight felt herself call out to the guard mare despite her best interests. It wasn't... was it?
The guard made no indication that she had heard her call out, making her way back down the hallway she had entered from. 
"Rainbow Dash!" That's what did it. The guard stopped in her tracks, and was almost fighting herself to stop from turning to face the alicorn. 
"I told you that you'd end up in the dungeon if you didn't tell the Empress what she wanted to know. How you know my name, I won't ask, Time Traveler. Whatever you're playing at, I'm not going to help you out of this." The pegasus continued her walk. 
First it was Applejack in the war against Sombra, then Pinkie and Fluttershy in the resistance against Chrysalis, and now Rarity and Rainbow Dash serving Nightmare Moon. Twilight couldn't stand seeing her friend being taken away from her like this. If only she hadn't used up so much of her magic fighting Starlight, she would have been able to take care of those Timberwolves on her own and avoided this whole mess. 
But when she tried to call back to Rainbow to get her to talk, despite how unlikely that was, her voice did not carry outside of the four walls that she was confined in. Why not? Upon further inspection, she could see a very thin sheen of magic over the bars that served as the fourth wall of her cell. A sound barrier. Great. Even if she wanted to, calling out was useless, as only she could hear her own voice. It was almost creepy. This could drive somepony crazy after a while. 
But could she find a way to talk to someone without talking? She only knew a little bit of sign language, not enough to do much more than spell her own name, so that wouldn't do her any good. That was, if the other even knew how to understand sign and communicate back. That was also if there was anypony else around... She couldn't be completely alone, right? 
Shuffling her way across the small room, she strained as far forward as she could get, extending her back leg as far back as she could to look out of the bars. Aha! There were some more cells on either side of her own, and even some across the hall, though too dark to see if there was anyone inside. Even if she called out, it was unlikely that they could hear her, as she was unable to hear any of them. 
"Psst." 
It was so quiet that the princess almost couldn't hear it, but her head whipped around regardless. It was the only other sound other than her own breathing and thoughts, so it was not hard to miss. 
"Psst! Hey! Over here!" The voice said more clearly this time, a small pebble shooting out of the wall that was near the makeshift bed. 
"Um... hello?" She was cautious with it, slowly walking over in the direction it came from. It felt good to not have that chain pulling on her leg anymore. Inspecting the wall closer, there was a hole large enough in the stone she could almost fit her hoof through it, leading all the way into the cell next to hers. She didn't want to get too close to it, suspicious that this could be a trick. 
A triumphant 'yes!' could be heard from the other side. Perhaps the pony was thinking the same thing about the mute spell on the bars. 
"I've been trying to get your attention for a while, y'know. They brought you in a while ago, making a whole fuss about it. What'd you do to make them so mad, huh?" The voice was almost playful, amused at the situation that she was in. Despite how much she wanted to talk to somepony else, Twilight hadn't even considered that some of the ponies in here might actually be criminals... then again, with Nightmare Moon ruling, anypony could have been thrown in here for any reason. 
"I sorta tried to trick Nightmare Moon so I could escape. She wanted something of mine." It wasn't entirely a lie, but she wasn't about to go around telling strangers 'yeah, I'm from another timeline, and Nightmare Moon wanted the power to change the timeline so she could rule forever, and I tried to trick her and get back to my world but she ended up overpowering me and taking away everything that I had.' Best not to trauma dump on random ponies. 
"Really? Thought you would've done something much worse, considering how you looked. Good thing they were nice enough to patch you up." 
Twilight opened her mouth to question the other before she felt a sharp pain in her wing. She had probably been too focused on what was going on around her to focus on what she looked like, adrenaline too high to feel the pain. But a pain was very much there, a sharp sting and humid feeling. That must have been how she had been captured. In asserting her anger against Nightmare Moon, she had raised her wings after teleporting to the map. Way to make yourself a bigger target. "What about you? What did you do?"
"Other than my name? Broke the most sacred law Her Majesty laid in place for us." An annoyed huff came along with the sound of them falling to the floor. "Can't talk about the sun. Can't do a lot of things. Most are used to it, though. It's better to keep quiet than fight against it. She's too strong to fight physically, anyway. I've tried." The voice paused as if contemplating if they should tell Twilight what they were thinking. "I was a student of Princess Celestia's before Nightmare Moon returned. No one even knew of the prophecy, and we were all unprepared... I tried to fight back, protect my teacher. But, well, here we are. Name's Sunset." 
"Twilight." She mumbled out her name. That was Sunset? She sounded so... different. But if she had been here since Nightmare's return, the years must be weighing down on her. But the story was different from her own world. Sunset had betrayed Celestia and gone into the mirror world years before Twilight entered into the school of magic as the Princess' student. But here... Nightmare moon came too early. Unless the prophecy was different here, she had broken out of her prison before her thousand year sentence was complete. Sunset must have still been a dedicated student at that point. But that meant that Nightmare Moon had been ruling for much longer than she had thought. In her world, she and her friends had found the elements only a few years prior. But if what Sunset had said was correct, Nightmare Moon had been ruling for at least the past decade. 
A whole ten years without seeing the sun. It seemed almost impossible to think about. How had the lands not died without the light of the sun to feed them? Nightmare had claimed that she banished Celestia to the moon upon her return, similar enough to her own world. But then again, moonlight was just reflected sunlight... perhaps Nightmare had found a way to focus that light in such a way that the plant life wouldn't die. If she wasn't currently in her dungeons, and probably on a list, she would have to ask her about it. Maybe she could ask Luna when she made it back to her own timeline. 
Luna. If the circumstances were what she was familiar with, then that meant that Luna was somewhere within Nightmare Moon's mind. Somewhere deep down. Had Luna been conscious during her banishment and possession? Did she know what was going on right now? This wasn't right. Luna had suffered enough those past thousand years in exile, and she had felt awful about what had happened after her reformation, even going as far to punish herself during her own dreams. She couldn't just let this world's Luna suffer even more than she currently was. 
But that would mean gathering up her friends, and finding the Elements of Harmony. Nightmare herself said they had never been found. In her world, Twilight had found the elements in their stone forms in the ruins of the Castle of the Two Sisters. That castle here was inhabited by Nightmare Moon. She hadn't hidden them herself, and, assuming she had Luna's knowledge, no way she would have hidden them in the Tree of Harmony. Then again, that was probably the best place to look for them since, while the Everfree forest was much larger, it was not overgrown and out of control from those seeds that Discord had planted. 
That was also if she could convince her friends to go up against her, anyway. So far, Twilight had only come across Rarity and Rainbow Dash, neither of which seemed to be willing to stand up against their leader. That left Pinkie, Applejack, and Fluttershy. She had seen them in the other timelines, yes, but not in this one. She'd been too busy laying in a dungeon. Where would they be? Sweet Apple Acres would most likely be most overgrown by the Everfree, but she was likely still doing something in her area of farming. But Pinkie and Fluttershy? Their skills did not suit this new world too well, and were probably in a similar situation when living in fear of the Changelings. A resistance against the evil of the world.
Was there a resistance against Nightmare Moon in this world? Unlikely, but still possible. Once she got out of here, she would have to do a lot of research. 
With a sigh, the princess slumped against the cold stone floor of her cell, eyeing the box that Rainbow had dropped off to her. She didn't necessarily want to eat food given to her by someone who very clearly hated her, but she didn't have much of a choice. She was starving, after all. Without her horn, it was a bit of a struggle. Hooves and teeth were not dexterous enough to help her in the task without managing to spill some of it on the floor around herself. But she supposed the situation could have been worse. 
She would wait for that appointment with Nightmare Moon and look for another way to get out of this mess. She only hoped that whatever forces in her head that were still good granted her mercy.