“This is going to be very boring,” Nightmare moon murmured to herself, letting one of her fore-hooves rub her forehead although there is a helmet obstructing this intention. “How are we goanna spend the remaining 999 years.”
It has been one-year Nightmare moon tried to intrude her dear sister’s sweet dream using the residences of the moon, the lunar spirits, and messing with Celestia and her precious little ponies’ dreams is getting increasingly difficult because steps have been taken to form defense.
“No, tis supposed to be our kingdom, our precious little ponies. They should be honored to serve their queen’s purpose, to dethrone their princess and welcome their legitimate queen,” Nightmare moon stomps her hoof and shouts to no one but herself. “Damn Celestia and her vicious and misguiding propaganda, though we would do the same if we had won at that time. Still screw her, we will have troubles comfort our precious little ponies when we take control of Equestria years later.”
Nightmare moon hops off her oversized dark-blue throne and moans aloud while wandering around. “Also damn these idiots for their hypocritically sabotage on their link to Celestia, now tis much too costly for us to meet our sweet sister again. As for our little ponies, we used to implant suspicion of Celestia into them and it worked impressively. But Celestia gradually established a mental barrier between moon and Equestria. Now tis impossible for us to achieve the scale as massive as it used to be. And Celestia is selling her barrier to other nations for political benefit whenever we showed tendency to pay a visit to them. How dare thou to let thy sister alone on the moon with nothing to do, no one to talk to.”
Nightmare moon suddenly stops murmuring, realizing something. “Hey, thou, the one sucking thy tail.” Nightmare moon points a hoof to the shadow creature by the door of the chamber. “Are we talking aloud to ourselves again?”
“Yes… Oh, No, Lady of the Moon.” The ex-lunar spirit replies nervously. “Thou didst not talk to yourself just as thou didst.”
“Ah, thou will never understand the difference between flattery and truth, will thou? And, call us Queen, not that stupid name.”
“Yes, La…My queen.”
“Now these little subjects of ours are getting more and more stupid. They were not like that when we first arrived. Now talking to them is a waste of time as well as damage to sanity.” The self-crowned queen of moon murmurs to herself again, which she is totally unaware of. “Maybe tis because of our dark magic. They might react more severely than other species when transformed by dark magic. They were incredible creatures with various appearances but now they must be relatives to dirty marshmallows, while they cannot do chores and they cook like shit. Now look what we have here.” Nightmare moon checks the preciously prepared dinner. “A bowl of half-charred strange-flavored goo for dinner. What are we expecting?” Nightmare moon rubs her temple and throw away the goo into the garbage using her azure magic, looks tired and frantic. “No, no, stop thinking about them, our poor sanity, we will find out the reason later.”
“Is this what happens when a pony hath not talk to an intelligence for long?” Nightmare moon gradually guides her train of thought to another direction. “Is this what isolation doth to a social being? Talking to oneself, feeling lonely. We can assume that Celestia is suffering the same situation. Maybe we can share the loneliness next time sisters meet in the dream. Just like the old times we preen each other, share warmth near fireplace on that old velvet carpet. Hope she will leave the access available.”
“No, No, stop shewing mercy to our life long enemy, especially when she took what supposed to be ours. We do not cherish the old sisters time and Celestia is now enjoying the respect of our little ponies as trophy of victory. Keep these in mind and shew her a piece of our mind when the fatal fight finally comes.” Nightmare moon let out a sigh and decides to call it a day or whatever it is. After all she gradually lost interest in using her own definition of day and night, as well as other details because no one really thinks about these changes of words in daily life except herself who actually ordered so.
Before long Nightmare moon reaches her room, opening the door and finds her room ever worse than it was when she left: Blanket shaped like a ball on the floor and splinters of multiple objects spread all over the room with strange flavor permeating in the air. “Why are we not even surprised to see this mess? We are certain that we were expecting too much.” Letting out a faint sign, Nightmare moon throws several her shadow subjects who were still “doing” their jobs out of her room with her magic grasp.
Nightmare moon walks straight to the mirror, fear to see her appearance. “Come on, tis not that bad.” The mirror was obscured by the excreta of her shadow marshmallow subject, but it still reflects a figure of a mare with disheveled fur, red eyes, scruffy feathers, even her ethereal star mane has lost its luster.
“Smile, Nightmare moon.” She watches the reflection in the mirror and tries to persuade herself. “Smiles makes thee brighter. Thy subjects would be heart-broken if they see this appearance.”
Nightmare moon tries smiling for several times but fails. “Who are we kidding? Appearance and facial expression is for others to appreciate. We have not moved our facial muscles for a whole year because no one actually care about it, including us.”
Ignoring the mess around her, Nightmare moon hops onto her bed and disarm herself. She puts her helmet on the dresser and settles down. “Let us summarize for today … or tonight, whatever. Introspection is always what a good ruler would do.” She picks up the blanket ball on the floor and shakes off the debris of multiple unrecognizable things attaching to it. “We get up in the morning. Swallow shit-like breakfast, and sit on the throne murmuring trifles all day long, and nothing else. Oh, come on, Nightmare moon, thou are better than that. Sugaring up something relative to thee is something fundamental for a politician, without which how can thou defeat thy enemy on propaganda and governance.”
“Nightmare moon, thou must be strict with yourself.” She curls up in the blanket while trying to convince herself about self-control aloud. But something leads her mind away. “This blanket smells disgusting. Someone needs to do the laundry. Apparently not these dirty marshmallows. The only option … Oh, by Faust’s name, even thinking of these commoners’ things makes us feel like a peasant while we do not remember a spell of cleaning.”
“No, no, focus, tis not the time to think of something about cleaning a blanket.” Nightmare moon curl herself up tighter in the blanket. “Celestia banished thee here and thou cannot take this like a bounty, a vacation. Keep that in mind and be vicious and aggressive. Be strong in mind, physically and magically.”
“Look what thou had done since thou lost connection to Celly’s dream.” Nightmare moon keeps on criticizing herself. “Sit there on the throne and think about something trivial. Thou will never defeat Celestia if things go that way.”
“We have one advantage over our sister. That is, which she will never understand, someone hath to scarify for a better tomorrow. Celestia hath to spend time to take care of our little ponies that we would regard it as consignment. Celestia barely confronted us if the elements had not get in the way. Now time is on our side as we spend no time on these marshmallows. Luck won’t always favor thee, Celestia.”
Nightmare moon has make up her mind, but she suddenly realizes one thing. “Wait, for Faust’s sake, are we talking all these aloud all the time? Is this what the loneliness do to us? We really need someone to talk to, the real communications. Celestia would not be happy if she found her little sister lost her sanity after this little separation. No, Stop caring about her. We cannot think straight right now.”
“We really should keep our mind in order. We must change. We should work out a training plan, Err… Celestia’s mental barrier separating our little ponies and us will be a good start, which will also keep us in touch with things happening on the ground. In the meantime, we really need some followers, trusted followers. Celestia will be surprised to find her sister is not alone, and cure our … ‘talking to oneself’, by the way.”
“Surprising for us, we actually know a spell that can do this. We learn it during our lessons shared with our sister which were taught by The Beared. That old friend hath brilliant teaching skills and admirable knowledge but we did not pay much attention, shame for us. He must have played an important role in that mental barrier…”
“No, no, think straight, we got works to do. This spell, actually restricted, can summon sapient individuals to our location. That old one were shamed to create this, as he said, but he could not withhold the desire to show off. In the end we happened to keep this in mind.”
“En, enough of these nonsense, we can hardly bear ourselves.” Nightmare moon moans impatiently, mostly to herself. “How many are we going to summon? Err… One? Too little. Cannot form sizable force. Three? Too much. We have to teach them one by one all by ourselves. Fine, we’ll take the average.”
“How to manipulate… the number and the characteristic… of targets.” Nightmare moon gets out of the bed and start wandering, trying to make up for her mind absenting in Starswirl the beared’s lessons. “We cannot clearly remember the details. Let’s have a try. It won’t hurt, will it? The experiments always cause casualties. And we are not going to summon several ones, we are going to summon many couples. They will serve us generations by generations and build a city here, thriving and prosperous. And we will be their queen.”