The nightmare had come to torment her again.
Luna ran through familiar halls: the manor another her in another time might have called home twisting and swirling around her.
It was a labyrinth. A mad world, half familiar half unknown, endlessly stretching before her. A prison she could never escape.
A window hung down from the ceiling, shedding dim light mockingly down onto her head. She threw against it but the icy glass would not budge.
Sobbing heavily, she looked outside at the scene beyond, even if she could get out there was no safety. The wind pummelled against the sides of the house, sheets of rain falling like heavy stone, whilst lightning tore its way across the sky.
The dark heavens filled with dark anvil-clouds. And the blackened shapes of pegasi within darted to and fro, egging the storm on. Her wings, willowy, frail and unused would be ripped from her back in and instant.
They’d take her away into the darkness… and… and…
Crack!
Her foot caught in a crack in the floor and sent her sprawling. Around her the whispering shadows giggled in delight. One them taking from and descending onto Luna.
Falling over her own feet she could only stare as a unicorn came striding out of the darkness before her. He wore a friendly looking moustache, a pair of neatly perched glasses and fine velvet suit. And, with a warm and tender look, her father reached down and whispered, “Freak.”
"Lord High Hall really is the funniest stallion Gal', you have absolutely no idea!"
Celestial Grace sank back into the thick cushion of her chair, a small smile of peace falling across her face as her fathers booming voice filled the room.
The soft candlelight lit the faces of the family clustered around the dining table.
At the head Golden Sovereign gestured wildly, his eyes as wide as his smile as he told the story of his latest exploits at the palace.
Across from him, his flighty wife Galaxia let out a tittering laugh, the curve of her mouth less wide, but no less genuine.
And looking directly at her, a curious look in his eye, even as his lips involuntarily quirked was her older brother Blueblood, tall, and strong, and fast on his way to becoming the youngest captain of the city guard in history. He quirked his eyebrow at her, waggling it roguishly in precisely the same way he had as a small colt, convinced this new interloper of a sister was a changeling in disguise.
She gave in.
A loud laugh, bright as sunlight burst outward, filling the room and combining them all together in laughter. She couldn't remember the last time they'd done that.
For that brief brief moment Celestial Grace was entirely content. Safe in her home, surrounded by family, completely happy in a way she hadn't been in years.
Then her father finished his joke.
"So of course I told him, "What did you expect? They were only Dirt-Ponies. I'd be surprised if they could count higher than four!"
The rest of her family burst in laughter, Sovereign banging the table with a hoof in tribute to his own jest. Celestia forced a blank smile, strained and forced, quietly cursing herself for allowing herself to believe.
Eyes blurring with angry tears she could never let loose she stared past her father to the ancestral tapestry hung high on the wall behind him. Generations and generations of proud Bloods stared back at her, each crowned with a shining horn gleaming above their mane like a false halo. Beneath their hooves she could see the crushed wings and backs of the "lesser" ponies below, trash thrown to the wayside by the cruel elitism of their "betters".
She grit her teeth, the harsh grinding noise muffled by the braying laughter of those she called kin.
The mask slipped back into place.
The beloved "only" daughter of the Blood family excused herself from the table.
“Freak!”
“Mutant!”
“Aberration!”
“Traitor!”
The voices were closing in ever faster now. An army of twisted memories, whispering of things she would never know, surrounding her like a pack of hungry timber-wolves. They taunted her with tales of fields and clothes and friends.
Backed up against the window Luna curled into a ball, trying to block it all out. Between the storms both inside and out, the noise in her head was hammering through her like a steel spike. She had been alone for so long the mere idea of this many other people looking at her, even acknowledging her presence, sent tremors through her guts.
What did their words even matter.
It was all true.
Luna tried to scrunch down into the corner. The noise bombarding her grew deafening, reverberating around her head until it felt as if she would burst from within.
And, just when she thought she couldn't take it anymore, that noise inside came screaming out,
“STOP! STOP PLEASE NO MORE!”
Everything went quiet.
Luna drew back her feeble wings and peered into the darkness.
A single white figure loomed. As pale and menacing as death itself.
“No…” Luna whispered.
“It’s over…” The figure whispered stepping forward, the flagstone cracking beneath its hooves that did not even touch the floor.
“No…not you…”
“It’s over… It’s over…” The figure continued implacably moving closer.
Luna couldn’t run anymore. Why would the figure ever show her mercy? Luna was the shame riddled secret child, not the perfect pristine elegant child. She sunk to the floor, abandoned by all.
She couldn't cry anymore. The tears had run dry.
The figure was almost upon her, still murmuring its message of dread. Through the dull twilight a row of glass teeth glittered in its mouth.
/ Hmm... /
With a low thump and rumble of thunder, the clouds outside the window parted. Luna blinked in confusion. Bright moonlight flooded the room banishing the shadows, chasing them back into the depths of the void. Looked blinked and looked back up. And there, illuminated in a halo of light her sister knelt down to her, eyes crying out with worry.
“Luna! Luna! It’s ok, it’s over now you’re safe.” Celestia pulled Luna close, hugging and reassuring her as the dream began to fade. “I’ll always be with you Luna… I won’t abandon you… I’ll always keep you safe…”
“LUNA!” Celestia whispered, cradling her thrashing sister as her eyes snapped open. “You’re ok, it’s over it was just a bad dream… I’m sorry I’m late I got stuck with the others…”
“Tiaaaaaa…” Luna whimpered holding her sister close, she nuzzled into her sisters pink mane. Though she was illuminated in paler moonlight it was the same as in her dream.
This was the real Celestia.
A few deep breathes and calm took hold once more. “Celestia… you’re never going to leave me are you? You won't get bored of me and go back to being Celestial Grace with them?”
“What? No… never!” Celestia sat back and looked into her sisters eyes. They were the same as their mothers eyes, and would have been called beautiful had they not belonged to a Pegasus.
“Promise?”
Celestia smiled. “My sweetest little sister; I Promise that no matter what, I will always look after you. And on that note, would you like me to go get you some dinner?”
Luna’s stomach growled in response. “Ohh! Yes please!”
With practiced dutifulness Luna shuffled across her creaking bed into the far corner of the room away from the door. Celestia quickly worked the lock and slipped out, locking the door once again behind her.
She didn’t think her poor sister would try to escape. And, Luna knew there was no point trying. But, continuing the little ‘games’ they played helped keep things just a little less… crushing.
Once Celestia was a safe distance away Luna slipped off her bed and padded over to the window. She peered up through the glass. Up towards the moon above. It seemed silly. It had just been a dream. All in her head. But… it would be polite…
“Uh hm… Thank you for helping me with my nightmare.” She called up into the night’s sky. “It was very nice, since it’s just… me.”
And as she turned back to the bed, mind wondering what Celestia would read her tonight, she couldn’t help but think… the moon seemed to twinkle back at her in response.