“Sister, we need to talk. Now.”
“What is it, Luna? This is too early. I’ve barely just eaten breakfast.”
“I don’t care! Have you any idea as to what I’ve been spending the last four straight hours doing?!”
“Uhm… bureaucracy?”
“Besides that!”
“Meetings?”
Luna gritted her teeth. “No.”
“Signing bills?”
“No.”
“Luna, you’re not making this very easy. It’s not like you have too many unusual hobbies that I can name.”
“I have been researching your awful deeds!”
The Sun Princess was merely confused. “What?”
“You dare feign ignorance?! How dare you?!”
“...By feigning ignorance, like you said.”
“HOW DARE YOU INSULT ME?! YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!” Luna screamed at her belligerent sister.
“Luna! I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
In a flash much more intense than was needed, a book appeared in front of the enraged Moon Princess, and it was instantly clear to Celestia what it was. “This. Do not even try me. I know of your latest ‘escapade’. I am so disgusted…”
“Luna, why were you looking in my journal?!”
“Journal?! It’s a diary!”
“No, it’s a journal!”
“It says ‘DIARY’ on the blasted cover! What are you talking about?!”
“It’s my journal, so I’ll call it what I want!”
“Ah! Just shut up! I don’t care about what it’s called, but explain this! Explain yourself!” The book was roughly folded open to the relevant section. “How could you use your student as some kind of… lab rat?! What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“Luna! Luna! What are you talking about?! I did no such thing! And you were the one who brought up the name in the first place!”
“THOU HAST HERE WRITTEN, THOU WHOLEFULLY INSUBORDINATE WENCH!”
“That’s a joke! The entire journal is a joke!”
Luna stared at her sister with wide, scrutinizing eyes. After a moment, Celestia bashfully looked away. “What are you looking at?”
“My… sister. I’m looking at my sister. My sister.”
“...Luna?”
“You are unbelievable. You are a liar. A simple liar. I cannot believe you.”
“I’m not a liar!”
“Sister, it’s written here. It’s all written here. Why? You describe all the other attempts in great detail. And yet… you expect me to believe that this one is a joke? What is wrong with you? No, do not answer that question. Clearly, you are incapable of doing such a thing. So I must apparently figure this out for myself.”
“Luna, don’t say that! That hurts….”
“I am only saying the truth, Sister. You have a sickness. You need help.”
“Luna, seriously. I know I’ve gotten a little ‘wacky’ since you’ve been away. But what? I changed. I’m not the dutiful and solemn sister you remember. I’m sorry about that, but… well, that journal is a joke. Notice how I never wrote down my ‘plans.’ They were all just recounts of the fun we had together. Speaking of fun, that’s what that book is. It’s just fun. Sometimes, I like writing just for the sake of it. I like pretending to be part of some bigger narrative. I’m not really going insane. It’s just a little… well, albeit messed up, fantasy. It’s just fun. That’s it.”
“No, Sister, I read the ‘notes’. By a certain Ms. N. Mare M.? Yes, you’re ‘lovely’. I understand. I understand that she is the necromancer. Her works have infected your mind. She has infected your mind. That’s why you were just oh-so willing to use necromancy and disturbing magic for a windigo. I can’t stand this nonsense any longer, Celestia. You used your own student. She practically looks up to you like her second mother, and you betray that trust.”
“Listen to yourself! You think I would harm a hair on my Twilight’s head?! How dare you insinuate that! I love Twilight, and the very idea of harming her is revolting!”
“Then explain why the revolting idea is in a personal book you wrote! Why?! Explain! Show me! I am holding all the cards here, and all you’ve been doing is talking you’re way out of this!”
“Okay, but first, Luna, I need you to do one thing.”
“...What?”
“Wake up.”
“What?! What was that? Where am… I’m still dreaming?” Luna looked around, startled.
“I’m not entirely sure that was a dream,” a voice called. The voice was unnerving yet very familiar, but the moon princess couldn’t quite make it out.
It wasn’t until that a form was associated with the voice that the Princess of the Night realized exactly who was talking. A slender form came into existence, it’s boundaries condensing into the silhouette of a pony before becoming opaque and featured. The princess recognized this form, and was surprised to finding it standing in front of her, even in a dream.
“The Tantabus? What are you doing here? It is not our time. We had no arrangement.”
“I am not the Tantabus, Luna. I am you. I am Nightmare Moon.”
“That’s completely preposterous. You’re not even using vaguely archaic grammar and vocabulary!”
“That is of no consequence. What you saw, I fear, is too real to be ignored.”
“That was a dream. It is only my fears running wild.”
“...I am not so sure…. That felt… real.”
“Please. I believe I know a dream when I feel one.”
“And I know reality when I feel one. I am still a part of you, Luna. And I’m still not convinced but… that doesn’t matter. You still have plenty of evidence! Sister’s mind has become muddled.”
“No, she is simply stressed. Sister has been working rather hard lately.”
“Was that diary not enough for you?”
“Are you slow? That was part of the dream as well. Besides, even if it was real, I could probably chalk that with to Sister probably experimenting with… poetry… or… something. Maybe she just wants to emulate p. p. cummings.”
“You can’t play this off! There’s some sort of black magic at work here!”
“Tch, I suppose I would know from experience.”
“No, I would.”
“You are not a pony; nor are you a ‘you’— you are an tendril of myself, an artifact of my former feelings.”
“I am a pony!”
“You are but a figment that has been festering in my simple jealousy for far too long. You said it yourself—you are just a part of me, a now miniscule part that coalescing in some spontaneous dream.”
“You think I’m just a figment?!”
“Correct.”
“Then why were you locked in the moon for a thousand years?!”
Luna woke with a start. What a strange dream…. A dream where I believed myself to be inside my psyche…. I suppose there is a first for everything. But what of this… was that really Nightmare Moon? Is there really still a part of her essence in my mind? Or was that purely part of an uncontrolled dream…?
Luna sat up in bed, contemplating what she had just saw. That thing was right… the first dream was rather lucid, at the very least. I can see where the confusion might come from.
“But what do I do? What does this mean? Is it… prophetic?”