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In the olden times, Equestria was not ruled by one, but two regal alicorn sisters, who had vowed to create harmony for the land. The eldest used her powers to raise the sun at dawn, the youngest brought out the moon to begin the night.
The sisters strove to maintain balance for their kingdom and their subjects, the ponies of Earth, Sky and Magic. But with time, the youngest sister grew resentful. Their subjects relished in the day her elder sister brought forth, but they shunned the mysteries and the beauty of her night.
It was on a fateful day that the youngest sister refused to lower the moon to make way for the sun. The elder sister tried to reason with her and begged for sanity, but the hatred in the heart of her younger sister had transformed her into an unholy mare of darkness. Henceforth she called herself Nightmare Moon and she threatened to curse the land with eternal night.
Reluctantly, the elder sister made use of the most powerful magic known to ponykind: The Elements of Harmony. With the magic of the six elements, she defeated her younger sister and banished her forever to the inside of the moon.
The elder sister took on responsibility for both the sun and the moon and harmony has been maintained in Equestria ever since Nightmare Moon's defeat. The legend, however, spoke of her return.
On the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal...
And the legend became true. One thousand years later, Nightmare Moon was unleashed onto the land with the aid of the stars. Her newfound reign brought everlasting night for Equestria and the elder sister, Celestia, vanished from the face of the planet.
But the Elements of Harmony had returned, as well. Six ponies, two of the earth, two of the sky and two of magic, discovered them in the ancient ruins of the regal sisters' castle and they used their magic to free the youngest sister, Luna, from the demon that had taken hold of her. The Elements of Harmony imprisoned the demon of the night inside the moon again, this time without a host to control.
The resentment and hatred left Luna and Celestia was found to still be alive. Plagued by remorse for her actions, Luna joined her elder sister once more, to rule over the land together like they had done in the days of old. This reunion of the two regal alicorn sisters marked the beginning of a new, unprecedented era of harmony for Equestria.
From then on, the Elements of Harmony kept the land safe. Passed on by the two sisters to their new bearers, many enemies of the kingdom became defeated by their powerful magic.
They got banished into dimensions that were as dark as their souls and from whom they should never be able to return, they got encased in stone to spend the rest of eternity as living statues and doomed to witness life come and go around them, some of them got even mauled in body and in soul and their remaining fragments were carried across the realm by the winds; the six elements took care of them in many ways and none of these fiends will ever return to terrorize the land again. It is not them I am in fear of.
A prophecy speaks of darkness, of darker times filled with horrors infinitely more harrowing and diabolical than anything the demon of the night could have conjured...
Once the demon of the night has been sealed away, once the shadow king has realized that shadows don't exist without light and once the demon of the sun has found a scorching death in its own domain, the land will enjoy a peaceful period like there has never been one before. But it will not last for long.
When the third one grows tired of the light that comes from peace and harmony, the world will change. The sun will no longer rise, the moon will disappear and the stars will be erased from the firmament.
Equus will become an empty planet, devoid of life, devoid of light. No one will be left to wish that the ultimate darkness could be traded for Nightmare Moon's eternal night.
The darkness will come and nothing can stop it.
These are the words of the prophecy that was found. It describes a fate much worse than neverending night, something that makes the eternal night of the demon Nightmare Moon look like a whimsical paradise in comparison... but can it really not be stopped?
Nightmare Moon is trapped inside the moon... King Sombra, no one else can be meant with the shadow king, has become a force of good years ago... And it was only recently that Daybreaker has been defeated after threatening to burn the world to ashes and that she was thrown into the sun... Does this mean there is not much time left anymore until the prophecy is fulfilled? Not long... How long? Are we looking at a few years? Or only a few months until the darkness is said to devour us all?
This realm has seen horrors before. None of them were as unfathomable as the cataclysmic disaster this prophecy speaks of, but darkness is something we know. The words of the prophecy are not clear about the force that will bring forth this future nightmare, it speaks in riddles, but perhaps there is a chance to decipher them in time.
Maybe all of this isn't true... Maybe these are just words spoken in feverish delirium by an old pony whose time had come and that were written down by gullible, superstitious fools. But if not... then we need to pray, to whomever will hear us.
I will pray. Whoever reads this, please do the same.
Comet Tail, Astronomer and Historian, 1008 ANM
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