Meeting of the Moons
Back when Celestia and Luna ruled together, Luna grew increasingly more envious and resentful of her sister. Her sister was revered for the day she worked to create. Ponies would be able to work and play during the time the sun shone on Equestria, but come night were tired and ready to rest. Not only did ponies not appreciate Luna’s night; they were afraid of it. The night became regarded as a time to be feared as monsters and misfits made came out to prey on the innocent. And as people feared the night, they too feared Luna. This culminated in her transformation into the dark being known as Nightmare Moon.
Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon; a wicked pony that sought to bring about an endless night over all of Equestria. This is what the history books say. Luna remembers things a little differently.
Luna remembers the fear and distain ponies had for her and her night, but she also remembers having one friend who empathized with her feelings. This friend gave Luna confidence in herself and promised that with their help Luna would become just as loved and respected as her sister Celestia if not more.
Luna doesn’t remember much of what happened after that. She remembers bits and pieces of doing some terrible things, but details eluded her. What Luna does remember is a vast, black void. The feeling of being everywhere and nowhere. The feeling of weightlessness. The emptiness of it all. The silence.
Luna doesn’t remember all of her time as Nightmare Moon, but she does remember her time as the Mare in the Moon.
All of it.
1000 years of…
...Nothing.
“Luna?” Celestia meekly called out again, slightly louder.
“Huh!? Wha-um wh-what is it, dear sister?” Luna asked back with trepidation, looking away from the window towards the door. She wasn't permitted outside on the balcony yet. "For her protection," is how Celestia put it.
“I was just wondering if you’d like to come out to join me for some dinner,” Celestia said softly.
Tensions were high between the sisters since Luna’s return, so Celestia had been taking every chance she could to get Luna involved and out of her room. Appearances at parties, meeting dignitaries, and eating together were the best Celestia could get Luna to do due to how busy she was. It seemed to work for a time, but Luna started doing less and less until it got to the point where she would hardly come out of her room. On reflection, Celestia figured Luna was forcing herself to go along with Celestia’s plans for her sake since she never seemed comfortable with what was going on around her. Celestia wished she could do more for her sister, but she didn’t want to make her more uncomfortable or drive her away.
“Um, n-no thank you. I’m… not very hungry, I’m sorry,” was Luna’s response. Alicorns could go a long time without eating, but this has been Luna’s response for the past few weeks.
“Oh no, that’s okay. I’ll just have one of the maids leave the food outside your door. Goodnight, Luna.”
“Goodnight, sister.”
Celestia turned to walk down the hallway. She kept her ears perked just in case Luna had anything to say to her before she left, but she didn’t. Just before turning the corner, Celestia looked back at the door to Luna’s room wistfully before heading off.
The truth was Luna did want to call out to her sister but couldn’t find the words. Luna loved her sister. However, she was also scared of her. For her entire banishment, Luna went back and forth through every type of feeling she had for her sister, Celestia. Luna hated Celestia for what she did, but she loved her as she did what she had to do to save Equestria. Celestia could’ve killed her instead, but was her banishment meant as a mercy for possible redemption in the future or as torture for the rest of time? Did Celestia somehow implant the memories of her doing those terrible things and convinced the rest of Equestria that Luna was evil during the past thousand years?
Luna was torn. On the one hoof, Celestia was the one who put Luna through a thousand years of isolation, but on the other, Celestia was also the only pony Luna still knew and loved from before her banishment. The one pony Luna felt she could love and trust was also the one she feared angering the most. In her heart, Luna still loved her sister, but her mind had so many thoughts and fears regarding her. She wouldn’t dare talk to Celestia about it either for fear of upsetting her.
And then there was Luna’s “friend.”
Luna was told this so-called friend was the malicious force that transformed her into Nightmare Moon, but she could only trust the word of her sister and the history books – books that Celestia would’ve corroborated on. Luna did trust her sister, Celestia, but couldn’t shake the feeling of emptiness left by their friend’s absence. Back before her banishment, this friend was the only one Luna could confide in with her woes. To be told that they were merely using Luna for their benefit hurt, and Luna was unsure who to trust.
“What should I do?” Luna whispered to herself as she lay underneath the covers of her bed. Her room was the same as she left it a thousand years ago, even cleaner in fact – Celestia must have ordered it to be cleaned before Luna arrived.
“You should go out there and tell Celestia you’d love to have dinner with her,” Luna responded.
“Nay! What thee shouldst doth is march down thither and giveth her a piece of thy mind!” Luna objected.
“Please, use your inside voices. The guards or servants will start more rumors about how I’m crazy,” Luna begged.
“You are crazy,” a myriad of voices answered.
Luna sighed. She counted her lucky stars that none of the rumors seemed to reach Celestia; that or Celestia didn’t let on that she knew about them. In an effort to keep some semblance of sanity during her... sabbatical, Luna created many different personalities during her time on the Moon. Some are mirror reflections of herself while others were different ponies entirely. After a while she lost track of the voices in her head.
“Please stop, I just want to be alone right now,” Luna again pleaded.
“No, you don’t. You spent a thousand years alone. If you really wanted to be alone, we wouldn’t be here,” was the callous answer.
“Please…”
“Without us, you’d be a quivering mess of a mare. Maybe it’d be for the best if we did leave.”
“We’d never leave you, don’t listen to her.”
“You need us.”
“No you don’t”
“Stop…” Luna shut her eyes.
“Give in.”
“Let go.”
Luna curled in her bed.
“Forgive her.”
"Run away!"
“Revenge.”
Luna trembled under the weight of it all.
“Quit.”
"Sleep."
“Die.”
“STOP!” Luna thundered.
…
...
“… Are- are they gone?”
“For the moment,” a new voice answered. “It was getting awfully loud in here.”
Luna opened her eyes, only to be met with a black void, all too familiar to her.
“Where am I! Wh-who are you?! I-is it you?” Luna asked hopefully. “From before?”
Suddenly the void filled with stars, not of Luna’s doing. Unlike the feeling of intangibility from before, Luna could still see she had her body and was standing on some false floor that stretched into a sea of even more celestial bodies. Then a rectangular doorway formed of pure light appeared before her.
Out from the doorway stepped one of the last figures Luna expected to see. Before her was a bipedal figure dressed in a stark white three-piece suit. The way the light bounced off and bent around it made it appear ethereal, like a radiant beacon that outshone even the sun. In place of a head was the skull of a bird.
Then the figure spoke with a slight echoey rasp that revealed eons of wisdom and understanding beyond Luna’s comprehension.
“Greetings, Princess Luna. I am Khonshu.”
“Khonshu?”
“I am what can be considered your counterpart back in my dimension. I reign over the Moon there, and I have come bearing grave tidings,” Khonshu softly explained in his methodical and spectral speech.
“...What kind of news?” Luna asked, skeptical of the whole situation. This was possibly another trick of her mind.
“Your world is in danger. Your Moon is infected. And you are the only one with the power to stop it.”
“What? Infected? How so? What kind of infection?”
“I do not know what plagues your Moon, nor for how long. What I do know is that its stench of sickness is palpable enough to be felt across dimensions. If left unchecked, it may have catastrophic consequences not just for your world, but all worlds.”
“What? B-but I can’t fix it! I haven’t had power over the Moon for a thousand years! Even now my sister is the one who governs it; ask her for help! Please, I’m not ready for this kind of responsibility so soon, and after my grave mistake years ago I may never be, please, there must be somepony else who can do this!” Luna implored hysterically.
Khonshu was silent a moment before speaking, “Hmm, not ‘somepony’ but perhaps 'someone'.”
“Wh-what?”
“Very well. In order to aid your investigation, I shall send you my avatar.”
“Your… avatar?”
“ Yes. He will aid you in your quest. Now I warn you, he is unhinged, sadistic even, but he always does what he believes is right. It will be up to you to guide him, nurture him, and in turn, he will do the same for you.”
“But… what do you mean unhinged? Sadistic? He sounds as bad as I was! Who is this ‘avatar’ of yours anyway?” Luna questioned, nearly hysteric with the flood of information and feelings.
“His name is Marc Spector.”
“…Mark… Specter…?”
“He may well be as bad as you were. But this you may need. You may learn a thing or two from each other,” Khonshu said.
Khonshu looked at his wrist before sighing. “My time is running short. I must be off. Heed my warning. And take care of him, my… no, your Moon Knight.”
Then with a snap of his digits light rushed outwards blinding Luna until she awoke in her bed. Was it all just a dream? Another figment of Luna’s imagination?
“…Moon Knight…?”