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// Such a Nice Jail 
// Story: The Unintended Psychological Consequences of Inter-Dimensional Travel 
// by Dafaddah 
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The cell was clean. By that I mean I likely could have eaten lunch off the polished concrete floor, and probably with less risk to my health than off a “clean” plate in any of the Casino’s all-you-can-eat buffets. Yes, I know I set the bar pretty low, but this was supposed to be a jail cell, after all.
 
In addition, the bedsheets were cleaned daily, the food good, and the only complaint I had was the metal contraption over my horn that completely shorted out any attempt at using magic. But then, I spent much of my life wearing a collar that constrained my abilities and compelled me to follow orders. Less than a year after my liberation from forced servitude to the Chaos goddess Eris by Princess Luna and her friends I was no less a prisoner than before. ‘Good going, Day!’ Moon would have chided me, then wrapped her wings around me in consolation. I sank to my haunches in this too-clean prison. Even after what I’d done all those centuries ago, how I missed her! 
 
I was still fully consumed with wallowing in self-pity when I heard a voice call at my cell door. “May I enter?”
 
I looked up to see Princess Luna. Her expression was inscrutable, giving me no clue as to her intent. But I was in no state to humour anypony, and quite frankly intent on fully experiencing my sulk. “Can’t you just leave bad enough alone?” I called out, hoping she would take the hint and go.
 
She smiled crookedly. “Bad hath long been an acquaintance of mine. Her countenance is as familiar to me as that of the mare who looketh out from within the looking glass.” 
 
Luna opened the door and waited at its threshold. I sighed and nodded my assent. She entered and sat on the floor in unselfconscious imitation of my own less-than-flattering pose, wearing my sister’s face and that... look in her eyes that I hadn’t seen since I... since... when Moon was still with me.  But, then, she wasn’t my Moon, and to feel otherwise was just fooling myself. The familiarity of it all raised my ire. 
 
“What right have you to impose yourself on me this way? After I helped you regain your magic, and you made ready to leave the realm of the Casino, I thought I made it clear to you that I was done with you!”
 
She shrugged and lidded her gaze. “Yet here you are.”
 
That was indeed a fact I could not contest. Moon, despite her penchant for mawkish displays of emotion, was never a fool. I reminded myself that this princess most likely shared many of her traits, good and bad.
 
I nodded. “Indeed, here I am.” I gestured to the cell around me. “But you need not be. In fact, I cannot think of a single proper reason for you to intercede in what are clearly not your affairs.”
 
She shook her head. “This is merely what one sister must do for another.“
 
I raised a shackled hoof to point at her face. “You are not my sister! You merely look like her, and we both know that.” The chains clinked on the concrete as my hoof fell back. “Besides, I gave up any claim to sisterhood, even towards Moon, when I betrayed her to the Pony of Shadows. “ I looked down at my fetters. That was not the proudest moment of my service to the former ruler of the Casino universe, an act that haunted my nightmares still.  “You’re not her, and I would give anything that you were.” 

Heat rose from my neck and face, but the magical restraint on my horn prevented it from blossoming into anything more potent than the flush of humiliation. How had I let this mare get under my skin so rapidly! Tears fell onto my forehooves, adding yet another shameful act to my list of weaknesses since leaving the Casino. 
 
Princess Luna sighed. “I would never presume to claim otherwise.” 
 
She placed a hoof on my withers and moved closer. The heat of her body pressed against mine made me aware of how cold I felt in my otherwise posh prison. I had always hated the cold. Moon had reveled in it. 
 
I wanted to back away, to withdraw from this intimacy that only reminded me of how much I had lost, and how wrong the world felt after I chose foolish ambition over the sister that I loved. But this closeness, the shared warmth and even this Luna’s very scent shouted to my senses that my Moon had indeed returned, and my entire being wanted her there and for me to no longer be alone. 
 
Luna’s voice when she spoke was hushed, and gave evidence of deep misery. “Daybreaker, I claim not your lost Moon as a sister, but you.” 
 
I chewed on her words for an instant and realized how little I knew of this mare who shared so much with my sister. “How could that be?” I asked.
 
She pulled away just enough so that I could see her eyes and the tears pooling in them. “In this Equestria, it was I who betrayed my sister Celestia.” 
 
I laughed, surprised and confused. “How could that possibly be? Of us two, Moon was the one who valued others, who prized friendship above all, and who rebelled against our master rather than betray those who trusted her. As we have much of our early lives in common, I imagine Moon and I must be a pair greatly alike to you and your Celestia.”
 
She again shook her head. “Except in our case, we didn’t have a master to please, but only our subjects, the ponies of Equestria. This is my sin, that when they heaped gratitude on my sister for her day and all it brought them, and mostly just slept oblivious through my starry night, I grew jealous and spiteful. Finally, in my rage and bitterness, I became Nightmare Moon, and rebelling against her vowed to banish the day and create eternal night.”
 
“So what happened? Obviously neither you nor your Celestia destroyed the other.”
 
“No, but Celestia was forced to banish me to the Moon, where I festered in regret and impotent rage for a thousand years, until I finally escaped and my soul was redeemed through the power of friendship.” 
 
I had not known the full story, and I admit I was astounded by this admission. “How ironic!” I concluded. “The very sensitivity to others that drove my Moon to rebel against our master drove you to betray your sister.”
 
She smiled sadly. “Yes. Which is why when you told us your story, I could not help but feel a kinship towards you. Our transgressions are so unhappily similar, and the guilt and burdens that bear us down are so alike. Verily, if I could not find it within my heart to forgive you your past, what right had I to beg forgiveness for mine own?”

Her tortured gaze bored into mine. I saw more of myself there than I would have thought possible.

A thought suddenly occurred to me. “I had always wondered why, when we confronted Eris at the Casino and she tried to kill me, that you stepped between us to take the blast that should have ended me.” I smiled ruefully. “I admit, that moment affected me more deeply than I would have thought possible. Here, defending me was the little sister I loved, and who died because I didn’t... I wouldn’t... ” Again tears fell onto my shackled hooves. 
 
I felt more than saw Luna wrapping her neck and her wings around me in the way we did when we were so much younger and so much more innocent. It was as if a dam had burst, and I, a warrior and henchmare of tyrants, I wept for Moon, and I wept for Luna, and I wept not least for myself. But through all the tears, though shackled and constrained, I realized something: how much better it was not to weep alone.