"Let me tell you a story of my sister in times past, and how I came to the terrifying realization of conflict's inevitability." She spoke: a more sure, decisive tone to Her voice than a moment ago.
The words carried a powerful edge of consciousness that... didn't usually remind him of Her. Oftentimes when She spoke to him it only sounded like pomp and bluster inflating Her voice- though, that might've been his less-than-stellar attitude towards Her.
This, though, sounded important.
Important and attention-grabbing enough that most of the questions that had been on the tip of his tongue slipped back into his throat. His rear found the floor almost reflexively, and he stared forward with a new expectation brimming behind his thoughts.
Sure, he wanted to know why, exactly, She had dropped what... was now looking like a façade. He also wanted to know if She was also just feigning the insanity and the restrained bloodlust, because if She was, then She was just a phenomenal actor, and She deserved his full and most genuine commendations.
Also it'd pretty much destroy all trust he held in Her, but that was the sort of thing he'd have to decide in the moment.
Before they began, though...
"Do... we have time for a story?" he spoke cautiously. He spared a look over his shoulder to the door just behind him. The ominous, looming door. He looked back to Nightmare Moon, who was regarding him curiously, and softly shrugged his shoulders. "Aren't all the heroes already... in the castle? Won't they find whatever they're looking for soon?"
It was a valid question, and for it, Nightmare Moon's downcast stare lightened a bit. Her mouth parted for a subtle understanding hum, and Her eye tracked far to his side- to a plain, grey wall, as he saw. Nothing special about it.
"Do not concern yourself of it, my child," She murmured, narrowing Her eyes further onto the- it was just a wall. "The castle is large and fraught, and their goal has been hidden quite well." He quirked an eyebrow: ready to rebuke before She abruptly continued speaking. "Even further: I have taken it upon myself to lead them astray with spectres and tricks at every turn. They shall not have an easy time of it."
His first thought was, of course, to ask how She was doing that, but he only made it as far as opening his mouth before She brought Her hoof to Her chin and lightly tapped it there: contemplation, or frustration, written on it. "It is rather difficult, however. They are all remarkably competent in their own ways, but it is particularly difficult to stay abreast of Rainbow Dash."
Huh. So annoyance at Rainbow Dash was a universal thing, then? That proved four years of arguments right.
Her attention returned to him from where it was seemingly nowhere, and he decided to just shut his mouth for the time being rather than say something derogatory about Rainbow Dash. "We will have to proceed promptly as it is. We have even less time to waste than we'd once had."
It seemed as though She had it taken care of. No skin off his flank: She was really the only one standing to suffer from his... acquaintances finding what they needed.
Oh, alright, they were his friends.
The scathing beams of moonlight arrayed in long patterns behind Her made for an excellent backdrop to Her straightened posture, and how She stared up at something on the wall behind him: a reminiscent, wistful look on Her face. "It was... too long ago to remember, now, when my sister and I wrested the world from the grasp of Chaos and founded our new land of Equestria." The wistful sense of Her expression diminished: replaced by a small grimace. "An age very long past, yet the scars of the time still burn."
Her eye fell, not to him, but to the floor. "Ruling came far too quickly for us, young as we were, and there were suddenly eyes upon us at every turn. Ears pressed to every door we hid behind. Our every decision newly affected lives beyond our own, at scales far larger than even I, for all my ambition, had ever imagined."
For as quiet as the story was, his heart was hammering in his ears. The founding of Equestria? She'd been there? What was he thinking- of course She'd been there: She was Celestia's sister. It didn't matter if She wasn't ever mentioned in the history books, or if the history books left out... anything about Chaos- whatever that meant- the only thing that mattered was hearing it from the source.
If that source was telling the truth, at least. He'd append every nugget She fed him with a neat little asterisk for the time being, until he could be sure it wasn't a total load of horseapples.
Nightmare Moon, with Her voice so plain and quiet, trailed off with a quiet grimace at the floor: looking as though She had tasted something unexpectedly foul. "As difficult as it had become for us, we agreed upon a solemn vow. A promise to each other to uphold the values- the virtue we had earned through adversity, that had brought down the Tyrant, and that had brought us to our rule."
His skin chilled, and his breath caught in his throat as Her darkened eye rose suddenly to his, and Her voice became altogether bitter.
"My sister broke that vow."
She fell silent for that heavy moment of far-off scorn at something he couldn't ever even hope to see, so he felt emboldened to speak, for once. "What do you mean when you say virtue? You've said it before in different contexts, and you haven't ever really explained what you meant by it." An inexplicable new thought popped in between his others, and he hummed thoughtfully. "...Does it have something to do with Harmony?"
It didn't necessarily have anything to do with Harmony; virtue was just a word, but She always had a very strange kind of emphasis whenever She'd said it. Something a little tart; a wholly unsaid meaning in the weight of the otherwise completely innocuous word. Or maybe it was wishful thinking- he sure loved to wish that anything that was happening was easier to understand.
As easy as, say, ascribing an arbitrary secondary meaning to an ordinary word based on nothing but a wild hunch from his inner ocean of random conjecture. That was about where he was sitting for ease, at the moment.
Maybe that said something about how twisted this all was.
His heart fell for a moment as Her face, at that word, largely scrunched in apparent pain. He nearly bit his tongue and apologized before she sighed wearily and nodded: looking almost ashamed to do so. "You... have the right of it, as much as it pains me to remember." His mood flipped; he inwardly cheered for the wonderful part of his brain that had randomly thrown that out, as Nightmare Moon's forlorn stare drifted past him. "For all that I can no longer recall leading to our genesis, my sister and I were once the wielders of the Elements of Harmony."
His celebratory track cut short, and he tumbled off the congratulatory caboose as a huge ball of confusion fell onto the tracks. Every bone in his body was broken including his skull; his brain had become a gelatinous soup.. "The what?" he blurted out, realizing only a moment after that the question was stupid. Even then, though, he couldn't think of anything better to say: just standing dumbly with his mouth open as Nightmare Moon stared at him with a vague, almost genuinely concerned quirk in Her eyebrow.
What in the name of all that was unholy were the Elements of Harmony? Were they weapons? It sounded like it, if She truly was implying that She and Her sister had used them to defeat some vaguely-named tyrant. Though, if they were connected to the force of Harmony, which Nightmare Moon spoke of in such fear...
Realization dawned on him, and then he did know what to say. "Are they what the heroes are looking for?" he once again blurted in a hurry, though he felt less obsessively admonished for it this time. Too often was he too reluctant to speak; if he had the answer this time, he was going to give it!
Nightmare Moon seemed shocked at his forwardness: leaning back shortly and blinking slowly as She just... stared at him. "...You are correct, Light." She spoke, after a long moment of silence that had made him want to crawl into a hole and die. Her brow furrowed into itself, and Her mouth clenched in with consideration. "Forgive my surprise, I had only thought you able to be led to answers."
The blow landed, and he was immediately winded. Rocking back on his hinds as his mouth gaped mournfully open: he stared up at the shadowed ceiling with a silent plea. Why couldn't anypony just take him seriously? Wasn't he doing well with his forward attitude in questioning Her? He was trying his best, Tartarus damn it!
He quickly shook off his melancholy, though not without a self-pitying tear in his eye, and he returned his attention in time to see Nightmare Moon nodding to Herself. "Yes, it is indeed the Elements of Harmony which are soon to be at their beck, and levied for my doom." She sighed, and shamefully averted Her gaze from his. "...Though, considering they are powered through committal to virtue, I cannot be so jealous as to say that I were at all worthy to wield them, instead."
She seemed momentarily preoccupied with feeling sorry for Herself, so he took the opportunity to frown, and criticize. "They're powered by virtue?" He thought about toning back his incredulous tone a little. He did not. "Like- good-naturedness? How does that work?"
It was a little bit muleish to be so skeptic at a time like this, and knowing that just as well as he did: Nightmare Moon turned an expression of admonishment onto him. "Be not so prejudiced, Light!" She chided, and he recoiled gently back as She shook Her head. "I had told you not to think lesser of the power Harmony holds for its name, and I had truly meant it. Harmony is never to be underestimated."
He bit his tongue and affected a reproached sulk as Her gaze hardened. As She continued to speak, Her tone grew suddenly darker: a very odd relic for how Her face seemed, now. "Harmony is the force that suffuses the very earth we walk upon, and to align yourself to it is to be granted tremendous power. The mighty trees, the swift rivers and the vast fields: the monumental strength of Equus itself."
Something in Her jaw tightened, and- as his constantly overwrought stare immediately noticed- Her horn lit to bring Her helmet into the air. As the pure colored metal turned and came to face Her, something in Her expression changed, and something in the air shifted.
A sparkle of light at the corner of his vision had him blink to clear it, except it strangely flickered again. Again, in a different spot, and Light raised a hoof to rub at the eye. What was wrong with him? Wasn't he past seeing things, or was he regressing? That was just great... Before he knew it, he was probably gonna forget his name again...
And then he saw the light in his other eye. And then again. And then again. And then more.
Sparkle. Crackle. A sharp tang of audible energy that startled him fully, and his ends of his fur prickled as purely visible branches of electricity filled the tight space around Nightmare Moon's helmet. It had happened all at once, and yet he'd long felt the build-up in the charged air around him. It was powerful; it spoke of destruction in silent words that he could feel tickling his fur.
Watching the tendrils of glowing light that danced and snapped in volatile motion along the surface of the metal was just as terrifying as he'd always imagined it would be when he'd thought about how pegasi did their work. The weather team handled the dangerous form of energy often enough to reach his ears from Rainbow Dash's boastful mouth, though she never seemed to read the kinds of papers he did. About how careless pegasi misusing their magic could end up dead, or worse. He'd often thought about trying to tell her off for being so reckless, but then, wouldn't that have been like kicking a puppy?
Unlike Rainbow Dash, he was sure Nightmare Moon understood what She was doing: Her face far away and Her eyes laying stilly on Her helmet. The face of pure, silent concentration: lit in dull flashes of light to reflect the dominance in Her gaze. Now that was awesome.
"The bonds between ponies strengthen, and for their reverence to fealty, they themselves are afforded greater strength by the will of Equus," She intoned gravely: Her voice booming with force that was suddenly very underscored as the relatively inert electricity easily doubled in its intense motion along the metal. It shook and rumbled and even the motion itself produced a sound like pitched screaming, as though the power held within was raging.
He was suddenly very afraid to be sitting no less than four or five hoof-lengths away. He couldn't even escape: only press his lightning-lit body against the unmoving door, and hope beyond hope that Nightmare Moon really did know how to play with electricity.
The surface of Her helmet was barely recognizable as it shone from the light of the innumerable chains and vast arcs of glowing electricity, and Light was no longer entirely sure the increasingly rising ringing wasn't going to render him deaf. Not until he heard Her speak again, and saw the helmet bob into the air: sparks trailing out behind the distance and dying in the air.
"With the Elements of Harmony amplifying and acting as a conduit for the power they share-"
In a single moment, She thrust the helmet toward the floor, and if he hadn't already been pressed back against the door as much as he physically could be, he would have jumped further back in terror as the metal met floor, and something exploded.
His breath was suddenly forced out of his chest as the air around him tugged toward the point of impact, and although it had been far too quick to see, he imagined that the tendrils of white-hot electricity had leapt in every direction as it violently discharged. Crawling along the receding air like fire across rope, and impacting the wall- the floor- his body; the intense arcana scorching every surface the purposeless bolts could reach.
Like an explosion, and the visceral shrapnel that followed. It wasn't the blast that killed the most, it was the aftershock.
Except- that wasn't what happened.
He'd never closed his eyes- though he sort of wished he'd spared himself the blindness- so although the impact had consolidated into a painfully bright flash of light, when it faded and he could see again, he could clearly see that nothing around him was scorched by the erratic consequences of what She'd done.
There was only a small crater of blackened stone rubble sitting underneath a calmly floating helmet.
"-Gods will topple, and miracles are made possible."
He blinked- kept blinking rapidly as he struggled to return to calm; tearing his eye away from the helmet that had burnt through solid stone to stare, completely astonished, at Nightmare Moon's quietly solemn face. Not beserked or manic at Her wanton show of destruction, only... silently reflective on what She'd just done.
...As should he have been.
It took many moments for him to regain his posture, and Nightmare Moon allowed him that. It was maybe the least of what She could do for him, though She probably could've easily done more. He didn't really begrudge Her for Her inaction, though. Only setting her helmet again to Her side, and staring down at the hole She'd made between the two of them as he held a hoof to his chest and tried to forget the mental image of his charred corpse.
It was difficult for him, even more than it usually was- which, admittedly, could've been a tad higher on his priority list. As it was, he'd narrowly avoided death or the direct threat of death tonight... too many times to count. The normal sorts of introspection and reflection that kind of thing would've caused might've been... too large to just ignore anymore.
Eventually, he found himself staring down into that hole as well. Feeling for once, the creeping sensation of a looming end on his shoulders.
It was a heavy-hoofed way to make Her point. She was very fond of doing that, he realized.
He could only stand the silence of thought for so long, so he raised his gaze from the reminder, and he met the knowing gaze of the mare who had once seen an empire topple. Such an ancient stare; a half-blind gaze that had seen more than he ever would.
When it wasn't frenzied... When it wasn't manic... It just made him feel so small.
What did he know to deride anything She said?
"I understand," he murmured quietly, and for that, She finally nodded.
"The Elements themselves are no weapons; Harmony holds within itself limitless power, and it affords portions of that strength to those whom righteously carry its Elements." Her reverie was a stolid mirror to the immense excitement that had captured the atmosphere only moments ago, and even for that, Her voice dipped lower with Her gaze. "It was that power which my sister turned away from. It was a ceaseless wrath that took her, instead."
She seemed bereaved in that small moment: so much so that he nearly talked himself out of saying what he'd wanted to say. But as She hung Her head, shook it from side to side and sighed, he had to remind himself that She'd done it many times before and that She'd recover. "Why would She... turn Her back on such... such power?" he murmured hesitantly, and Her eye raised to meet his as he frowned. "That sort of thing seems... intoxicating."
Even as he spoke of it, the idea of limitless power was extremely enthralling. Never mind what he'd do with it- he'd be able to do anything! That, itself, had to have been a universal want, right?
The Elements of Harmony... Too bad he probably wouldn't qualify to bear any of them... The things he'd do... Oh, it was a twisted thing to imagine turning them on Celestia.
He had to wonder exactly what they were, though. The physical possibilities of apparently all-powerful magical artifacts certainly begged something grand and staggering, but could otherwise in reality be totally small and benign. He didn't know a lot about artificing, but he did know the classic joke that an ordinary piece of paper could detonate a tavern in the right hooves. And something something- a unicorn walks into a bar.
Though he'd said it sort of lightly while imagining far worse, Nightmare Moon's face began to... darken, in a way, at his words. Something like a cynical scowl beginning to grow over Her face.
"Yes, you would imagine the benefits would focus the mind to Harmonic perpetuity," Her scowl only deepened as Her reply came out in short tones, and he began to wonder if he shouldn't have said anything. "-but perhaps even believing that undermines what Harmony regards as true virtue."
He knew- for sure- that he shouldn't have said anything as Nightmare Moon forcefully stomped Her hoof: a pure anger returning like an old friend to Her face. "It is surely no easy thing to keep such touted values within oneself, and so did my sister prove herself so much lesser than I once thought she was." She sneered, and at that, She tossed her head angrily to the side as Her wings audibly rustled unsettlingly on Her back.
"My sister was once Kind, Generous, and endlessly caring, yet the mare- the monster that took her place over time was too diminished to even be called her shell." She spat: her once calmed posture growing noticeably more tense as She spoke with sudden vitriol in Her voice. A new sort of fire was beginning to kindle in Her recently rounded eyes: a fire that was far more calculating than purely destructive.
A fire that knew why it burned.
He felt like he was watching the beginnings of a house fire, but for the life of him, he wasn't sure how to go about dousing it. He'd thrown down the kindling, lit the match and walked outside, but even then he sort of wished he could go back and give a second thought to whether the insurance money was really worth it.
It seemed thinking of Her sister made Nightmare Moon just a little angry.
"What did She- well... do?" he managed, somehow. What else was he going to do at that point? Travel back in time thirty seconds and say 'actually, it doesn't really matter why your sister changed, let's talk about something less obviously traumatic for you.' Might as well go along for the ride if he was gonna strap himself in so tightly.
He knew some pertaining details of Celestia's possible evils, even besides what She'd done to him. Of the surviving history that was still open to the public, his lackluster searches through dusty library corners and information desks had turned up records protected under religious significance of Celestia persecuting Black magic practitioners in... rather gruesome ways. Ritualistic immolation, for one. If that wasn't morally objectionable, he wasn't sure anything short of genocide would be.
...Had She committed genocide?
The way Nightmare Moon was beginning to snarl- again, very unseemly for Her new face- he wasn't sure his guess was so far off. "It began as innocuously as any fall from grace: with simple slips." Her eye fell down as She rolled Her shoulders, and Her stance slightly widened- which reminded him of a pegasus preparing to take off. "She would speak with terse meanings at meetings with foreign dignitaries, as though she found them unworthy of respect. As though those whom we had taken such lengths to ally with had suddenly become so untrustworthy. As though she had begun to see them as enemies, as I came to suspect her of."
Her breaths were coming in deeper- hotter as Her nostrils flared and Her hateful stare unto the floor narrowed. "And it only grew worse when I confronted her of it. When I dared to attempt to remind her of what she'd promised to me- to Equestria, she would take it as an affront! Accusing that I were somehow naïve! As though it were petty politics and imperialism that felled Discord, and not the magic we shared! As though he would not have killed us all if it were not for the Elements!"
He was losing track of where She was going, and as She stomped her hoof again- hard enough that that stone beneath Her hoof splintered- he wasn't sure She was seeing all that clearly anymore. The rounded light of lucidity behind Her eyes was growing dimmer: less pronounced against the flaring blaze of rage burning within. He wasn't sure She was still talking to him, anymore.
He had to do something before this got out of hoof. He gently cleared his throat, and tried to speak up. "So you decided to-"
He was cut off before he'd even finished one sentence as Nightmare Moon suddenly threw Her chest forward, and Her wings flared open. The two magnificently kept limbs were just as beautiful as last he'd seen them with their gleaming black sheets of pristinely kept feathers, though he only had a glance to appreciate them as they simultaneously and very forcefully flapped in very clear aggravation.
He was buffeted by sudden wind; forced to cover his eyes as Nightmare Moon screamed yet more of Her frustrations. "Year after countless years did I stand idly by, hoping that she would one day see sense as indignity after indignity were laid from her hooves, until I was paid for my indolence by her most rank betrayal!"
No longer did Nightmare Moon need Her most terrifying of features to seem dangerous: the posture of immense strength She commanded in Her tensely towering pose and manic, snarling face was telling enough to strike a profound unease into even him. For as intimate as he was with Her temper, he still wasn't sure if She would always stop Herself.
For something as grave as a betrayal between sworn sisters, Nightmare Moon might just lose all sense.
"Long had I claimed the Thestrals, they who were mocked and reviled through history, as my beloved, and they as my devout, yet even for my love my sister's hoof could not be stayed!" The lunacy was returning to Her eyes, darkening the newly-ordinary gaze with something that seemed far more chilling than it had ever been before.
Something was beginning to happen. Every strand of his fur was standing on pins and needles as a charge in the air began to build and shift, and as his hooves were struck by a sudden weakness and he fell to a stunned seat, the scene began to change before his eyes.
From the air, so thin as to dry the mouth upon a taste, did visibly dense clouds of mist began to bubble into plain existence. Building from nothing until puffs of smoke were tangible and textured white, and as they swirled into a halo above and around Nightmare Moon's raised head, they began to darken.
"She would drive those I loved from their homes! She would claim their ancestral land as her own, and provide them nothing!" Nightmare Moon howled as the wind- suddenly a tempest around him that blew his mane about his face- raised its pitch to meet Hers. Her conjured storm clouds grew in mass around the tip of Her horn by the second, until the ceiling was entirely obscured quickly enough that he could've blinked twice to miss it.
No longer was the quiet night a refuge, for a storm had descended upon him.
And nowhere was safe.
"What choice did I have but to go to war with her, for nothing if not their sakes?! For the sake of sanctity itself?! No other creature would dare object to her evils! I had to make a stand!" Her bellow was accompanied by a frightening flash of light, and it was suddenly clear by a delayed rumble that shook through his bones that Her storm was a very real thunderstorm. The clouds above them did not stay idle; thunder ripped and clear bolts of restrained electricity lit disparate sections of mist in terrifying shades of singled-out anticipation.
Yet even as he stared, his heart racing and his breath stilled; his form pressed low to the floor and his hooves shaking relentlessly: the storm never struck. It only threatened.
War. The Banishing War. The cause of the Banishing War.
"My sister refused every peaceable option offered, so I only gave her what she'd always wanted!" Her entire form was shaded to the point of a nearly blind shroud, except for the moments that the rumble would shake through his bones, and a flash of lightning illuminated her for the barest moment. And in that fleeting moment, he could see how She scowled so bitterly. "Even then, she was not satisfied! Even then, she could not show compassion! Not to her sister; not even to our subjects!"
The air was becoming thick from the forming condensation to the point that it was beginning to choke him, and he didn't think there was anything he could do about it. He put a forearm over his mouth just to help remind him he was breathing as Her form flashed again from the lightning, and he watched as Her eyes were the last to dim.
Eyes that weren't even staring at him.
"Depravity became her most trusted ally, as she slandered my name to the point of revulsion among even those once ambivalent! No tactic was below her, not even performing her own atrocities while ascribing their blame to me!" Every word came more hatefully; every tone clipped more and more of its own tail as though She were violently snarling and slurring, though he often couldn't see Her to know for sure. In fact, half or more of what he was hearing he was only piecing together over the storm, so She actually might've been yelling about adoring her sewn possibilities.
Even when he couldn't see Her, though, he knew where her eyes were. He knew where Her mind was, and it definitely wasn't there with him.
The world She described... it was unlike any he'd ever heard, but so terrifyingly close to those he'd once imagined. Exciting nights spent under the covers with a book and a candle, reading macabre stories of death and decay while imagining how cool it would've been if Equestria was a much worse place.
Though, for the frankly disturbing amount of time he'd thought about the alternative as a foal, Equestria was at peace, and it'd been that way for hundreds of years. The only race that ever even came close to making trouble these days were the dragons, and that hardly surprised.
The atmosphere, physical and mental, had become too hostile to believe, especially for how they were still indoors. Blinking every half second barely helped as the wind made it impossible to see: his only comforts Her words and the tangible weight of the door on his back.
Never had he been so afraid to hear of a war.
"Hamelet had never fostered me or mine, yet my sister did not hesitate to have it destroyed on merest speculation! The order slipped from her lip, yet it was said among the masses that it came from mine! What justice lies in that?! Where is the peace you say she keeps, if not in her actions?!"
Too much was happening to think straight, and his overwrought mind nearly sent through a screamed question about the Sonic Rainboom. For as much as Hamelet's destruction intrigued him even through a literal indoors thunderstorm, there was something more pressing. For his own edification, and because he couldn't stop thinking about how the storm might've been affecting the millennia-old architecture.
He couldn't let this go on: he had to snap Her out of it before the castle came crumbling down around them.
Raising his voice high enough to hear it as even a whisper over the storm was painful enough that his throat would reap the consequences, but still, he tried. "What about you?!" he screamed, and it was clear She'd heard him: in the next flash he could see Her eyes were finally on him, though still burning with hate.
He choked back a half-formed breath full of humid vapor into the crook of his forearm, then raised his head again to scream through the buffeting wind. "All you've done is talk about what your sister has done, but what about the things you've done?! How are you any better for the things you're going to do?! What gives you any right over Her to lead if you're both just..."
Monsters.
He trailed off into a choking cough that clogged his nose with humid foulness, though his ragged recovery was stalled as his ear perked, and even over the deafening noise of the storm Her words cut through it as though it were dead silent.
"Celestia is not worthy to be compared to me! Her evils were done out of a growing cancer in Her blackened heart that infected even our own land! Everything I have done, I have done for Harmony!"
Her voice boomed through the raging whirlwind, and he whipped his head up to stare towards Her as the painful chunk of dread that had built in his chest shattered and burst into leaded surprise. Had he died in the storm and gone to purgatory, or had just heard what he'd thought he'd heard?
Another flash; another rumble. The manic rage on Her face had stilled.
He mouthed unheard words silently as, gradually, the wind around them stilled and slowed to a halt all at once. The ever-present rolling of thunder quieted to a gentle rumble in mere seconds until that, too, was just gone. There was a flash of lightning that was suddenly alone, and even the dark clouds from which it all came began to lighten, then thin, then entirely did it all disperse. A storm conjured in a minute, then dispelled in countable seconds.
He was left, then, sitting on the floor staring at Nightmare Moon, as Nightmare Moon stared back.
"You're doing it for Harmony..?" he whispered again, though this time there was no storm to throttle the words into silence. This time, as Nightmare Moon's still, stunned gaze met his, he could see the denial in Her eyes. Her head shaking slightly at his words, then the thin line of Her mouth gaped slightly open to deny nothing.
She'd acknowledged it. For all that he'd accused, and all that she'd pointedly avoided it, She'd finally said it.
As his breathing quieted from its shallow frenzy and his nerves respooled, he slowly began to find his hooves. One hoof under him, then the rest, and as he stood silently in front of the motionless figure of Nightmare Moon, something finally changed in Her disbelieving expression. A minor crack in the reflection, then Her emotionless frown was suddenly less so, yet much, much more.
Her mouth quirked- jerked oddly, as though She'd tried to say something but forgotten the words, and then Her eyes fluttered closed as She drew in a deep, unsteady breath. She took another, and another to make up for it as Her wings folded down onto Her back, and Her tense shoulders shivered down into a kind of resigned ease.
And then, She spoke: a quiet regret clear in the thick tone of Her voice. "It had not always been my intent, to do as I am." She whispered, and then, he was sure his head would just explode.
Nightmare Moon's face- a face that he'd thought he'd known in every flavor- tightened in a very clear pain that he'd never seen from Her; a pain that She seemed to feel physically. "In the time that I last walked Equus, I had only wanted to depose my sister for whole good." Her voice caught, and His vision blurred as She choked back a clear sob. "She had changed so much, and grown so cold.... For all my jealousies, I truly believed I was doing the right thing..."
He had to forcibly shake the blur from his stinging eyes, and as he did, Nightmare Moon had too. Her eyes were open and her gaze was straight, yet tinged red and full of tears. A strength somewhere within, as She made Herself so vulnerable. "I saw what havoc the endless peace wreaked upon my sister. How the days of stagnation wore her mind and frayed her nerves, until she began to break that peace."
Her frown wobbled between words, and then, Her shoulders were trembling. The idle thought he'd been chewing on about Celestia in a better time immediately disintegrated, but by the time he'd stood in a mindless rush to make sure She was okay, the shaking had abated, and She was nodding haltingly: sniffling wetly through the motion. "It was a constant question upon my mind during my banishment. Even as the silence stretched on and my hatred for her grew, there was still a part of me that... that wished to know."
Her eyes fluttered with shining tears as She shook Her head, and Her mouth gaped open for a silent moment of quiet reverie. A lastingly uncomfortable moment of thought that ended as She closed Her mouth with a breath, then a sigh. "And... then I found the answer."
Her voice lightened at those words, though he'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise as She took a long, shuddering breath: Her tears running newly fresh streams down Her cheeks. Her next breath was stronger; the next, rhythmic. He joined Her after a moment: breathing deeply in time with his racing heart, as the two of them synergized without words.
And then, She frowned, furrowed her brow, and raised Her voice. "My sister and I were born into strife, and it was through that strife that we found our ascension." She swept a hoof across Her face, and there were fewer tears in its wake. Her voice continued to rise with every word; She was finding Her resolve, as he continued to lose sense of Her. "In all the time I was alone, I came to realize that it was the peace we brought about that caused my sister to fall. In the absence of fire, her heart grew cold, and Equestria suffered the consequences."
Another breath; the emotion overflowing in Her voice as She clearly struggled to contain it. "For we, high as we are, who live so long in such calm, what choice is there but to fall?"
She took that moment after to focus on calming Her breath, and in that moment, he knew he had to speak. "But- but isn't there?!" He immediately lost control of his voice, and his hooves- itching with adversarial energy- carried him forward an intensive step that he reversed just as quickly. He needed to focus on his breathing; in, and out.
With an added reminder to himself to stay calm, he swallowed, and again focused himself onto Her tired, glimmering gaze. "You're- you're speaking as though there's no hope for you or your sister. I- I don't know how long you've lived, but..." His confidence fled as he tread into deep water, and his eyes instinctively found his hooves. "-just because you're long-lived doesn't... that doesn't necessarily mean you'll... fall..."
He bit his lip. These metaphors were too heavy and they were making him feel stupid. He didn't know where they'd detoured from necessary evils, but She was obviously saying that immortality necessitated a depression of morals. That... however Celestia had changed, it was because She couldn't handle living so long in such... peaceable times.
He couldn't disagree more. He had to, from the depths of his blackened heart, believe otherwise.
What hope would there be for his future otherwise?
For as impassioned as he was, Nightmare Moon only stared at him: a reserved, weary glaze to Her still-leaking eyes. As he sat there with his hooves in his lap, staring meekly up at Her with a lean to his back and a bent in his ears, She only seemed occupied with something far away.
Until She blinked, and something new gleamed in Her eye.
"The problem roots far deeper than my sister and I, I'm afraid."
He stared at Her, befuddled, as She took a sharp breath, then opened Her eyes to him: a clear purpose returned to Her stare. The tears were slowing. "It is the entire concept of a lasting peace at all that causes us- any of us, to fall."
He swallowed back a half-thought, stupid protest as Her gaze tracked to the side: to one of the many windows along the far wall. "Very few alive have seen as much as I, and what I have seen is how Harmony can only decay in the absence of antithesis." Her eye swept back to him for a startling second, then returned to the window as Her brow narrowed. "In the time of my life, I watched as generations passed without a true evil arising. There were many small injustices, but never had their way of life been threatened, and so they grew complacent in their ways of thinking."
He knew where She was going. He saw what She was saying. And for as little as he comparatively knew of the world, it was bringing a sinking sickness into the pit of his stomach.
She turned back to him, then, and Her cheeks were dry. Her gaze was full and weighty, and there was a piercing sight to Her stare that froze him in place. She knew. He didn't know what She knew, but She did.
"It is as such now, and it is for that reason that I must step forward."
The ceiling stretched higher above him before his eyes, and She grew with it: seeming a mighty giant for the sheer authority in Her steady voice as She spoke. "My sister has allowed the Equestrian ideals of Harmony to fade from the mind entirely, such that a colt could live in fear for his life simply for pursuing that which he is meant for."
Her hoof raised; it slammed into the floor. "I cannot allow this to stand."
The mighty impact shook the floor beneath him- or maybe it just shook him- but either way, the numbing awe preventing him from speaking was broken, and he sucked in a breath. "So you're going to destroy the peace?!" he cried in a breath, and as he shouted, he stepped forward. Drawing closer to Nightmare Moon for no other reason but for emphasis, as he vocalized without a pause to think. "If you want to teach Harmony, then teach Harmony! Even if providing an evil will somehow strengthen the peace, you're still doing evil!"
Didn't She see how self-defeating Her plan was?! Trying to create peace by tyrannizing Equestria? It made no sense! It was- it was a literal contradiction! It was like- trying to end hunger by killing everything everywhere! Whether it worked or not, it just wasn't worth it!
While he inwardly voiced every argument he could think of, Her eyes narrowed further as a shadow crept over Her gaze. "If I could trust myself with such beliefs, then trust that I would cast aside my ambitions without a second thought."
He was shaken from his mental screaming by the scathing hatred in the hiss of Her voice that had seemingly come from nowhere, and it was all the more startling that She seemed to be directing it towards Herself.
But then, She shook Her head and blinked once, and the shadow was gone- just gone. Her voice raised with a waver- "The rationale of it matters little," -then, it firmed. "I know well that the populace simply could not accept the ideals which I preach. Too many have forgotten their morals; too many have already forgotten Harmony."
He immediately wanted to dispute that. He wanted to espouse the virtues of the individual and the inherent goodness in everypony. Spout complete schlock about how society was in a golden age and that crime was down and the average pony would never know tragedy.
But he didn't, because he'd be lying.
A dimly-lit sidewalk spattered red. A loss he'd never fully remember.
He shook off the long-faded memory of a city he'd never known, and focused just in time to watch Nightmare Moon raise Her head proudly: a glinting drive in Her eye. "Murder and mayhem goes unpunished every single day, and It is because Equestria's citizens are fragmented and disparate. They know so little of hardship that they refuse to see the light of Harmony." Her jaw clenched, and She swept a hoof out through the air. "In my reign, there will exist so few freedoms that those who remember will be forced to embrace what few they can."
A burning shock blurred all sensation for a long moment of lost confusion, and as it faded, he became aware that he was staring at Nightmare Moon in horror. A figure who he'd once thought rational and in control, yet now he was seeing She made up for a sore lack with a large abundance.
"If I do not tear Equestria apart, then these problems will only continue to worsen. The corruption growing in the highest echelons will spread and corrupt absolutely, until our land becomes a living cesspool. What I am doing-" Her face hardened as Her eyes closed, then they opened with a powerful intensity. "-it is my duty. As Equestria's Princess, I must fragment the kingdom so that it may one day rebuild itself better than it was."
She was insane. Well and truly insane, and it was all the more difficult to believe because She seemed so lucid. He'd thought insanity was about a loss of control and inhibition, and doing things you'd regret as soon as sanity slipped back in.
But then, even as She spouted total nonsense, Her eyes were clear and purposeful. No amount of cloying wrath clouded Her mind as She confidently spoke of bringing about total anarchy for the greater good, and She seemed to clearly grasp that concept of a greater good.
Not lacking for lucidity, but just so fundamentally broken that She could completely fool Herself into thinking She was making sense.
But She wasn't. She... wasn't making sense... was She?
His hoof found his head- and it didn't help. His clear-cut lines of morality were blurring before his eyes: the shapes of good and evil seeming frighteningly similar in the growing fog. A fog that entangled itself between his every thought: clogging the works of his mind and gumming every attempt to clear it.
And then, Her voice began to whisper in.
"I saw what happened when our land's state of Harmony was not constantly tested. In the absence of strife, virtue only decays. Equestria must know adversity to be safe."
That was true, he wanted to say. He mouthed the words to test them on his tongue, and they made sense. Time wore down all things, didn't it? Even morals? Nothing was exempt: that felt right to think.
"There must be a villain for virtue to prosper. Without adversity, there is no challenge, and without challenge, there is no growth. Can ponies raised to know nothing but peace really be trusted to lead in times of war?
No... No, of course they couldn't. He tried to imagine anypony from Ponyville forced into combat- and he couldn't. The friendly smiles, the pleasant ambiance: it was baked into the individual. They could never stand up for themselves if something terrible were to happen. They'd probably all run around like headless chickens as their homes burned down around them- none of them would be able to just take charge.
"If the ponies who embody their Elements are not constantly tested upon them, then they could never be worthy."
That was right... They were all so flawed... they would never be able to embody virtue...
"If even the Gods are not safe from immorality, then what hope is there for your friends?"
So little hope... What had they done to be worthy of the Elements of Harmony..?
"Their lives have been short, and full of peace. They have never known war, or loss, or true evil. What hope do they have for maintaining their virtues when faced with the unknown?"
That was true... It was all so true...
"In the land we will make, there will be no place for their weakness."
A better place... for sure...
"You must trust that when the time comes, I will be justified in having them executed."
No...
No.
No!
"No!"
The shout ripped from his throat with such primal vocation that it immediately burned his throat, but he relished it. He luxuriated in the pain because he knew that pain was wrong.
He knew that She was wrong, and what She was saying could never come to pass!
The run began as a step forward: a mistaken amble that he nearly retracted, but then, he began to move.
The fog was sloughing away. The questions he'd once chewed on through his youth were once again being forgotten. His regular rational thoughts of real, tangible things were returning to them, and as he embraced the feeling of sensation that he'd grown to trust in his heart, he knew that snuffing it would only be a crime.
Everything She was saying was total inanity.
Though he had thrown himself forward as quickly as he could, he still had to cross the short distance between him and Nightmare Moon, and in that distance that he could only clear so fast, he was forced to watch as the surprise in Her eyes faded. His advantage was lost, yet he kept going.
When he reached Her, and he planted his hooves into Her chest, She only stared down at him with a quiet mourning.
"You can't do this!" His shout was desperate, and it didn't help the image as he roughly tried to shake Her, but She hardly budged. Even for his entire, reared weight on Her chest, She still stood tall and unaffected. He stared up at Her pleadingly: begging Her with his gaze to reconsider. "Please! There has to be some other way to save Equestria!"
All he could think about was flashing in the dark space between every blink, and his wonderful thoughts of her freely fueled his desperation. "With enough effort, you could teach the citizens to be better! You could incarcerate everypony who's too stubborn to change! You could reward the good, and punish the bad!"
He couldn't control himself at this point, and he was sure that fact was very apparent to Nightmare Moon, because he'd begun to imagine the scent of sweat and apple shampoo, and then his cheeks had begun to wet. It was stupid and immature and he hated how little he could stop himself, but still, he kept shaking Her. Kept screaming. "You can write harsher policies! You can hire assassins! You could just abolish the stupid aristocracy if they're so corrupt!"
He tried to blink the tears away, but that only freed more to crawl down his cheeks. His shoulders were shaking; weakening to the point that he could barely support himself on Nightmare Moon's stoic chest anymore.
So he laid his head forward until it brushed soft fur, and tried not to picture that it was orange instead. His hooves fell forward, around Her waist, as he thought of shining blond hair like bales of hay. "It'll never work like you want it to... It's dumb and self-defeating... It's crazy... It just doesn't make sense..."
And then, he could only sob. Thinking of beautiful emerald eyes that would pop and bleed into the white. Mixing with the red, and clashing so terribly.
He didn't want Nightmare Moon to win. Screw Equestria and screw everypony in it, he just... he just...
He didn't want Applejack to die.
A weight pressed itself into his shoulder, and his head flew up with a gasp as a second joined it. He immediately tried to look up; to back out, but then, he was pressed firmly forward, and his next instinctive sob was muffled by the fur.
It was disgusting, what She did to him. The things She made him feel were unnatural with all that She'd done, and he swore he'd see Her dead or worse for them one day. And even with that thought screaming through his head, he let himself relax forward into Nightmare Moon's embrace, because he just didn't know what the hell else to do.
"I know," came Her whisper, and it was suddenly so much harder to stop himself from sobbing freely. His mouth gaped uselessly open as he babbled thick nonsense, and the bunching pain in his cheeks began to swell. All the while, Nightmare Moon quietly shushed him and whispered small kindnesses the likes of which She'd probably never even experienced.
That was how they stayed for a moment; for an hour; for the night, until his snot had long since run far down Nightmare Moon's coat, his throat had run dry, and his tears had finally, finally slowed. It was then, when his whimpers had quieted to inaudibility, that Nightmare Moon whispered to him.
"I know it doesn't make sense. I know it's not going to work like I think it will."
More tears slipped out seemingly in spite of his attempts to control his breathing, but he was able to choke back his quiet whimpers enough to cough out a response into Her stomach. "Then why..?"
She sighed, and the hoof that had for so long stayed idle on his shoulder pressed gently in. "Because it is all that I have." Again Her hoof pressed in, then again in time with Her breathing to reassure him as his next breath was sharp. "For as little and as long as I'm able to remember, this plan of mine has always shone brightly in my mind, but it shines alone. So little of my life before the war and before my banishment remains, and even of the war, I have no idea whether this plan was part of it."
A chuckle reverberated out through his cheek: humorless and wan, but still he pressed himself into it for even the slightest comfort. It brought little. "I suppose the possibility remains that it was nothing but a whim of mine that I once scoffed at and discarded without a second thought. For as insane as it all sounds, it very well might've been."
Her voice dipped. "But it could have just as easily been my life's passion. It may have once been all that drove me in opposing my sister. And for that possibility, I cannot abandon my path."
He shook his head; tried to make himself sound stronger than he felt. "Then just... don't. It's not too late, you can still stop yourself..."
His hooves grasped tighter; Her hooves stilled in their rhythmic press, and a sigh raised Her chest against his cheek. "I have killed, Light Flow." And then there was a flash of gold rings and jutting bone, as Her voice affected a faint murmur. "I have already dethroned my sister, and declared my intent to the kingdom. There is... no turning back."
Something in his heart shattered.
One final press into his shoulders, and though he'd long since lost the last of his tears, he wished he could've mustered a few more just then. "I am sorry, Light Flow, but I truly must do this. I am resigned to my fate, and though I know Equestria will revile me through history, I will act in evil's stead. I am willing to destroy the land I built, only so that it may not destroy itself.
"I cannot ask you for your forgiveness, for I can never forgive myself, but I must ask that you try to understand.
"You must try to find the strength to join me."
Acceptance.
He allowed himself to be pushed away, then, and as he stared up at Nightmare Moon with tears on his cheeks and a growing dullness in his chest, Her eyes shone with something just as resigned as he felt.
"It is time," She spoke, and he agreed.
It was time.
He did not move from his spot where Nightmare Moon had hugged him as She stood, and began to walk past him. He did not look up as She stalled for a moment at his shoulder, and there was suddenly a flash and a mild taste of burning in the air.
He did not make to move after Her, even as he spared Her a glance and found Her pitying gaze from two long, slashed pupils, and a coat of blue metal hung on Her head. She beckoned him in a single word to follow, and he said nothing in return as there was a soft sound of shimmering, and a tremendous creaking filled the air.
Fresh air billowed over his fur.
And then, he was alone.
He'd failed.
The door had swung open behind him as he'd sat in useless repose, and Nightmare Moon had walked out. Towards the heroes. Towards wherever his friends were waiting for Her.
Pinkie Pie, who had never given up on annoying him.
Rarity, who always knew just how to set his heart at ease with snippy remarks.
Rainbow Dash, who he'd always thought was the second most beautiful mare he'd ever met.
Applejack.
He was going to miss them.
He stood, then, and his bones ached for the movement. He'd not been sitting where he was for very long, he didn't think, but the time had worn on him. A slight, pinching pain in his joints as he clenched the muscles in his withers, and stretched out his legs behind him.
Was it going to hurt?
He began a slow trot forward, then. A mild amble, really. A slight, sombre jaunt through the room. He supposed he could've moved a little faster, but he sort of wanted to savor the moment. It was the first time he'd been alone all night, and who knew when he'd have another chance to be alone with his thoughts?
Who knew what was going to happen after?
His breath was coming in steadily and in rhythm with his hoofsteps, though it was a concerted effort. Really, as he brushed aside stray bricks and trotted widely around a toppled pillar, it was nearly impossible not to succumb to the pounding in his ears. How his heart raced. How every hoofstep dragged more and more until it was like he was wading through mud.
He was feeling that creeping end over his shoulder again. Looming. Staring at him. Waiting for him.
But the more he thought of it, the more he was just delaying the inevitable.
So the inevitable came.
And very soon- sooner than he ever wanted- Light Flow stood at the window. Looking over the edge, and staring down at the grey scape below.
Thinking of summer days and apple stalks.