Stories in Stone: Luna's Royal Guard- The Story That Reimagined Nightmare Moon

Wow. There is a lot to unpack here.

Those of you who have been with me a while know that I have talked about the author TDR in my Author of Honor series. (Note: start that up again)
You likely also know that I had been putting this series off because I needed a break from long stories for a while. Well, I finally read it and....

I shouldn't have waited. Because once I started, I had to finish it.

Now, I won't be going into characters and nitty-gritty details. The story exists for a reason, and I honestly don't think I could do justice to the story through a likely mangled recap. No, this is instead going to talk about how the story rather cleverly reimagines Nightmare Moon, and Luna's descent into madness. The story cleverly starts her off as the goddess of both the moon and war, and places her smack dab in the middle of multiple conflicts. She also gets progressively more aggressive in her warmongering, due to how she feels Celestia has been running the kingdom. To briefly summarize, Luna believes that Celestia's multiple attempts at peace with the other nations has cemented ponies as prey in the eyes of the other races, thus causing a constant cycle of war. In a way, it kind of reminds me of how Patrick Henry said, "Gentlemen may cry, 'Peace, peace', but there is no peace. The war has actually begun!" Luna is of the mindset that, 'if we don't attack them first, they will never leave us alone.' Those are noble intentions, but, road to hell, and all that.

This was also perhaps one of the most frightening interpretations of Nightmare Moon I've ever seen. Most other interpretations have her only really attacking Celestia, maybe a few guards, and that's it. Here, we see her armies actively attacking innocent towns and harming civilians while she impassively stands by. So much more frightening than the over-the-top Nghtmares of other stories.

Also, the integration of the name and phrases is surprisingly organic here. If you don't know what I mean, then you clearly need to read the story again. But for those of you who do know? Yeah. I got chills when she said, "THEN THE NIGHT WILL LAST FOREVER!!" It was at that moment I knew there was no going back.

I know this is a bit different from my usual reviews, but I thought it would be best if I stuck to what made this story unique for me. Either way, thank you all for reading, and I hope to speak to all of you again soon!