//------------------------------// // 1/12/2023 - Chapter 48 - Death of Innocence // Story: The Stereotypical Drafts // by JinxTJL //------------------------------// This is most akin to an alternate telling of chapter 48. Wait with bated breath, and see what could have been. ////////// Bridge ////////// She grimaced, and feeling emboldened by the short flash of vacancy: he stepped forward. "It's something from before, isn't it?" he pressed, and as She turned Her troubled gaze to him, he allowed the prickling sensation of performance to fuel his insistent tone. "Something from before you... became like this?" He nodded persistently as Nightmare Moon, sans most everything that made Her Nightmare Moon, watched him with low, lidded eyes. Not responding to his increasingly bold strides to put words into Her mouth, at least until She blinked twice. "And how would that be?" His head caught in the middle of his brazen overture, and as his mouth hung dumbly open, Nightmare Moon frowned. A frown that was more immediately Her as it gained a soft edge of scorn, though still comparatively soft. "I'm not fool enough not to see your tasteless bid. It's your thought that as soon as I come to say something to your effect, I'll undergo some great epiphany and-" Her frown became a scowl. "-'come to my senses,' as may be assumed." He bit his lip and leaned back onto his haunches, feeling a new sense of shame worming into his skin as Nightmare Moon raised Her chin: looking altogether as haughty as She ever had as the unreserved emotion She'd begun to show buried itself. "You claim I am without pride; you assume me weak simply because I struggle to control myself; yet if you believe I am so tawdry as to upturn my belief on mere accusation alone, you must instead yourself question." He opened his mouth to respond, but almost immediately he found he didn't know what to say, because he was fairly sure he didn't understand at all what She'd just said. As if Her goal was to confuse him with Her archaic manner, She huffed lightly and straightened Her back again: seeming satisfied in Her rapidly chilling expression. "I was bid to make clear my past and my duty as I had believed you finally worthy to share my burden, yet now..." She sneered, and he felt his shoulders begin to sag with a cold sense of failure. "...I am no longer sure that you are so astute." With a shimmer and a whoosh, her helmet came from Her side to set itself down in front of Her hooves, to lay inertly and ordinately with its face towards him. "Tell me yourself of how I 'used to be' if you understand so much of me and mine, as you do seem to be so enlightened. I am sure it will be no difficult thing for someone of your exhaustive talents." With the simple motion, Her face finally hardened in stony stoicism. "You may speak now, my dearest child. Speak, and tell me of my past." Okay, he'd made Her mad. No- actually- wait- this was worse than lackadaisical old mad. To say he'd stepped in something foul was an understatement akin to likening a typhoon to a windy day. No, this time, he'd flown way beyond the bounds of what was okay. He'd taken the impossible level of trust She'd placed in him with the removal of Her helmet- something not even Her own sister had seen- and he'd tried to reach further. Like a greedy child snatching impatiently at what wasn't theirs. She wasn't angry; She was disappointed. Though, as funny as that was, She was probably also pretty mad, too. Oh, why'd he have to go and make Her so mad when She was just letting her guard down? He'd so nearly tasted the impossibly sweet taste of victory, but it was only the bitter taste of something foul. Like... grapes. Blech. As a second passed and it became clear She wasn't going to budge from her sudden vigil against his advance on Her past, Light sighed heavily through his nose and lolled his head back against his neck. The motion felt nice, but it was more important in that it let him catch a quick glance at the door behind him. Still closed; She hadn't tried anything, it seemed. Though... He straightened his neck and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Aren't we out of time?" he tried hopefully, causing Nightmare Moon to raise one eyebrow high enough that it touched Her forehead. He tried to shrug his shoulders, but it might've come off as a lukewarm roll- he wasn't sure. "Aren't the heroes in the castle? Do we really have time to sit around and play guessing games again?" It was hard to say why, exactly, he was arguing against his tertiary plan of stalling her until the heroes kicked down the door. He was reasonably sure it was because he didn't want Her to surreptitiously try anything sneaky without his knowing. He was less sure it wasn't just because he didn't want Her to think he was stupid. Or maybe he liked the idea of resolving the whole thing before Applejack got there. Let him be the historic hero that everypony remembered how great he was- wow, he'd gone way off the track of his foalhood dream. Maybe it was time for a checkup after this if he was still alive; he seemed to have discarded everything that made him, him. Whether Light Flow was stupid and his personality discordant and whether She thought him so, he still kept his eyes beaded on Her as She set Her jaw and raised Her chin barely. "We have time yet; I am diverting my attention between you and they as I distract them with spectres," She spoke loftily, which immediately begged his question of how She was doing that. He blinked bemusedly as Her eye flicked and narrowed onto a particularly blank stretch of wall to their side. "This castle is large and fraught, yet we still only have so much time." Her frown peeled back until She was nearly snarling in constrained annoyance. "They are each and all extraordinary by themselves, and it is particularly difficult to stay abreast of Rainbow Dash." His curiosity at Her purported self splitting and multi-management was washed immediately by a moment of exasperation at hearing the familiar name, but then, something bright that seemed awfully like an idea squeezed between the tightly-wound irritation. His tongue darted out to whet his drying lips, and he shot a quick glance to the wall Nightmare Moon was staring at. "I've got a question, if you'd dare to answer it." He tapped his hoof intermittently to the ground in a patternless pattern as Nightmare Moon turned slowly to sneer at him, but he didn't let it dissuade the growing question on his buzzing tongue. He puckered his lips for a second just because he was nervous, then nodded shortly. "Why haven't you just hidden the weapons they're looking for?" The question felt enormous, none the less because Nightmare Moon's eyebrows immediately jumped then hardened with nearly no in-between. "Do you honestly think me a complete dullard?" She snapped: drawing Her frown deeply into an angered glower which nearly made him startle. "If there were any way in which I may be rid of those accursed things, rest well assured that I would away to have it done now!" She was becoming angrier: the veins in Her forehead popping visibly. That was good; that was what he needed. Despite how he felt a bit like he should cower, he instead raised his head and kept his eyes wide open and full of dumb persistence. "Are you sure? With every resource no doubt afforded to you- me notwithstanding- I'm sure you could have found some way of getting rid of them. Like throwing them in a volcano or something!" He stepped forward, and though his eyes were wide open, he didn't notice how Her muscles began to tense. "I can't believe there could be anything truly beyond you!" He felt the token 'except concede' begin to crawl up his throat, but he swallowed it back down as he instead began to nod insistently. "Maybe there's some other reason you haven't done it! Maybe you just don't-" There were many warning signs to his folly, yet all the same, he noticed too late simply how large that anger in Her eyes had become. "'Perhaps I simply don't want to-' is that what you think you are getting at?!" Nightmare Moon roared: Her hoof raising high and then falling to the ground in such a forceful stomp that he was nearly deafened by the echo. As it was, the fluffy pressure against his ears was so momentarily overwhelming that his legs wobbled forcefully enough that he nearly lost his balance. Then, as he shook off the ringing and took an unsteady step back, his jaw was grasped and his head was jerked roughly to stare forward at Nightmare Moon who had pressed Her face forward until they were nose-to-flaring-nose. He squirmed and tried to backpedal out of the grip, yet all he managed to do was squish his cheeks as Nightmare Moon's intensely open and unhinged eyes dominated his view. "You want so desperately for it all to just go away as though it were a dream: that of a madmare's lunacy dissolved in an instant as though clarity could be so Kind!" She was screaming so loud and Her face was so so close and his jaw hurt and suddenly nothing he'd been thinking of was as clear as it had been a second ago. Everything felt muddled and jumbled and no matter how hard he pushed himself back on his hooves he couldn't get away and he was just sorry, okay?! But Nightmare Moon wasn't reading his thoughts or the terrified emotions on his face: only continuing to yell as though he still even cared about whatever they were talking about! "There is nothing in this world I would wish for more than for what I must do to be so unimportant! So worldly and fringe that I could simply forget it all entirely- but that is nothing more than a fantasy!" He desperately tried to shake his head against the increasingly crushing pressure, but Nightmare Moon bent Her neck back: taking him with it. His hooves skidded audibly across the floor, then not along the floor, and suddenly his neck hurt so much more because he was floating in the air with nothing under him and he still couldn't get away from those blue burning eyes. And he couldn't breathe. His mouth was filling with backwash, and he couldn't breathe. She was choking him. "Perhaps you have been right all along, Light Flow!" She spat with newfound venom as a strange recklessness entered Her eye, but he didn't care that he was right he couldn't breathe! "Perhaps I have sabotaged my own efforts of designs dead and buried, but can I be so blamed?!" His hooves, kicking along the air, hit against something hard and there was suddenly the sound of metal clattering and scraping across the floor. Yet not even then was Nightmare Moon affected: Her cyan blue eyes wide with a frenzied mania all too suddenly familiar to him. "Do you know of the pain I feel to act as I am?! Do you know of how sorrowful it is to consign mine own kingdom to oblivion for a good that I am unable to reap?!" Her shaking grew more desperate, as his struggles grew weaker. There was a strange dimming growing at the edges of his eyes, yet Her glowing eyes seemed all the brighter. "You are so thoughtless as to play at the role, yet you know nothing of the toll it takes to be a villain! You could never even begin to fathom the agony of turning thine back to a land thou built with thine own hooves!" Her words- so loud- were growing oddly faint, as a strange kind of ringing was taking its place. And that dimness was growing larger- so much larger that he could barely see Her anymore. He couldn't really tell if he was still kicking his legs anymore... The pain was growing fainter... Everything slowed to a blurry halt, and as Light Flow was being held in the air by his neck: at the whim of an insane Goddess with no more familiarity in Her eyes than he would have at squashing a bug, he came to a realization. As he saw the tears running through worn trails across fur, long and deep enough to bead and drip off a chin, he had assumed in his terrified state that they were his. Yet, he wondered how he was able to see his own face. And then he realized. She was crying. Everything came rushing back, yet it all felt so slow. Slow enough that he could count the connections in his body as they lit with mana. Slow enough that he could feel the energy behind his eyes before it lit his horn. Slow enough that, as his horn lit, he had already begun to kick his hooves up. Her grip was around his jaw, not his throat, but his own weight was working against him: crushing his windpipe by simple application of gravity. It wasn't the most painful thing that had happened to him, but it was plenty awful in other ways. Like the uncontrollable fear of not being able to control that vice-like grip: that made the inward squeezing sensation and the clenching so much worse! He'd really never expected he would be strangled, though he'd never expected being poisoned either. What a fun life he lead. It was so hard to breathe..! It wasn't Her fault; it wasn't Her intention, but still, he needed to speak! In the moment that his mana made contact with hers, he'd thrown all of his strength into curling his body up. He was no athlete, and he wasn't even very fit, but he'd still managed to press most his his hindlegs into his stomach as a reddish glow mixed with cyan blue. He'd never known why it made ponies so uncomfortable to be touched by his magic. Nightmare Moon, in-between a bout of screaming, gasped in slight shock as his manifest mana touched Hers, and the grip around his jaw loosened just barely. Enough that he felt the freedom of sucking in a new breath, though it was going to be gone just as quickly. It was less than a second that his hooves were up, Her grip had loosened, and his chest was full, but a moment was all he needed. "Tell me why..!" was the only thing he managed, and his hooves were already down, and he was again being choked. Whether it was because his horn blinked out as something within his throat again closed or because She'd simply recovered: Her firm strangle was renewed. His previously limp hooves flew with renewed vigor to press uselessly against his throat and swat forward at the air, though even as he closed one eye in exertion, he knew it was probably useless to struggle. He wondered if She'd even realized She was doing it. He didn't think so: there was still nothing short of total lunacy in Her eyes, even as they narrowed again in anger at his question. They did that a lot. She'd probably hate being interviewed- buck it hurt! He missed breathing..! "Of course you want to know why," She hissed: floating him closer as She stared resentfully into his strained eye. She shook him roughly, and he gasped breathlessly out in renewed pain as something that probably should've stayed still jostled. "It is all you ever bemoan: 'answers, answers, I want answers,' yet only mistrust do you offer in return." Her mocking was punctuated by a vicious snort, and he had to remind what little of his brain was receiving oxygen that She was so insane that there were still fresh lines of tears on Her cheeks even as She carelessly strangled him. Still, he could certainly throw all that garbage about Her never raising Her hoof to him out the window. That innocence was nice while it lasted. Out the window..? The forming idea was cut short as, to his utter surprise, Her magic cut short. He tumbled to the ground in a rough heap: landing first upon his rear, though then did his head follow dutifully after. What a joy it was to experience gravity all over again; he'd surely missed that cruel bitch of a law. Though most of his attention was focused on coughing, wheezing, and writhing for some relief from the pain on the floor, he still faintly heard through the pounding as Nightmare Moon stepped closer to him and began to spit more curses at his prostrate self. "Very well. If you would desire the truth of my past so badly that you would cast aside the love of the moon itself, then you may have it." If he'd not been too focused on the new, awful soreness around his throat to do anything but gasp for shallow breath, he would have stood immediately up and screamed his confusion. He'd not 'cast Her love away!' He'd done nothing of the sort! She was insane. Less lucid than She'd ever been before, even when She'd nearly thrown Herself at him. Now, She actually had. It was terrifying. He'd thought he was safe from Her attacking him, but if She had lost so much sense that She'd view his simple questions as some kind of hateful incursion, then he was far less safe than he'd thought. It seemed he'd forgotten how She'd come to tear his mind apart in the first place. Not through concerted malice, but by misplaced wrath. He wasn't sure if he could stop Her, anymore. He rolled to his back, for as painful as the motion was, and cracked an eye open to see as Nightmare Moon's towering face set so stonily into apathy began to circle above him. "There was no one day on which I realized my sister had become unfit to rule, though there came a day in which it became too difficult to ignore." His overwhelmed brain caught up, and it occurred to him that She was beginning a monologue; walking in a circle around him with her eyes set forward for long enough to have completed a full pass. As such, he was treated very quickly to a view at the back of Her head which was, surprisingly, completely black. Not the slightest bit of blue to be found; it seemed the aberrant color was only on Her face. And... not that he was focusing on it with everything else going on then, but the dense cloud of starlight and mist wafting from Her head was actually coming from Her head. Just... spouting in a vertical line across Her head where there should have been hair. He'd thought- With Her helmet on- It had looked- No, he didn't really know what he'd thought of it before, and all he knew now was that having mist for a mane looked impossible. It seemed as though She was going to go on for a while, so he worked his hooves under his torso, somehow, and leveraged himself into half reclining and half laying, barely. He'd make this monologue a dialogue if it killed him. "What do you mean... unfit to rule?" he rasped throatily. His voice was ragged from the choking, and though it was somewhat jarring to hear himself, it wasn't why he flinched. As he coughed out the last syllable, Nightmare Moon jerked Her head to shoot him a dangerous glare, though did not break Her stride. He almost thought that She wouldn't respond. But then Her fierce scowl ticked into a slightly less harmful glower, and Her eyes returned to Her front. "When my sister and I rid the world from the shackles of Chaos and founded Equestria, we took an oath to uphold the values we had earned through adversity. A solemn, virtuous thing, I had thought." Her head lowered, and Her voice tore into a full-on growl as She spat the words out. "My sister broke that oath." Light nodded slowly, though it was more to test out any pain as he spared a hoof to rub his sore neck. It was interesting to hear Her speak, with absolutely no reverence in her voice, of something as grand as the entire founding of Equestria. It really put into perspective just how far She'd fallen given how much anti-virtue propaganda She'd screamed at him. Of course, it wasn't very surprising to hear the short tale appended from his historical recollection; he'd pretty much taken for granted that She'd just been written out of the 'Celestia created Equestria' doctrine taught to foals. It probably wouldn't have blown over well to include a second Goddess who had taken to shunning purity. 'Chaos,' though... He didn't know what that meant... Did it have anything to do with the way She spoke about Pinkie Pie? Was Pinkie Pie some kind of timeless monster whom the two of Them had defeated in an era past? He wouldn't be all that shocked. Nightmare Moon's next step was louder, and as he flinched back with one eye open, he noticed Her gaze on him for a moment as She passed his front, though She quickly passed. "Never had I believed my sister would fall far enough to treat those whom we called ally with such vitriol as she did, nor did I think her capable of rank betrayal. Yet it was nothing less which we were all discovered on a day very much like any other." She stomped Her hoof heavily, and he jolted as She suddenly audibly snarled: spittle flying from Her mouth as She flipped from monologue to screaming in a contradicting instant. "Those whom I had claimed as my devout felt her unprovoked ire that cursed day, when she dared to claim their ancestral home for her so-called reform! "Hated and reviled and called mutants as they were within our society, they had no place to go when she forced upon them her ultimatum!" She whipped Her head from its heated gaze to instead heatedly gaze at him, and he was startled further by the pure venom within. "What was I to do as those whom I loved were left without their homes?! I had no choice but to put an end to my sister's senseless cruelty!" Light felt short of breath, though he couldn't quite pin down whether it was because his throat was still bruised from being choked or because Nightmare Moon's psychotic glare was piercing directly into all his deepest fears or because She wasn't making any sense at all? "Can you even hear yourself?!" he cried raggedly, and immediately began to regret it as Nightmare Moon took one enormous step towards him that he felt reverberate through his bones. Still, as he cringed, he swallowed his rightful apprehension, and scooted back on his butt for safety as he continued. "I'm all for demonizing your sister, but you're talking about everything She's done as though you haven't done worse!" He was glad he'd begun to scramble back, because even before he'd finished speaking Nightmare Moon had begun advancing: an advance that began with a stone-cracking stomp about where he'd been sitting. He wasn't sure if Her coming for him or how audibly the stone had splintered was scarier. "I am a saint when measured against my sister!" She roared unreservedly, and he could see the bones in Her neck against how taut Her muscles had become. His rear began to pinch from his scrabbling slide along his tail as Nightmare Moon stalked highly after him: what he could only describe as fanatic delusion in Her pitching voice. "The evils she has committed- the evils she committed in my absence are vast enough that they are known through history as wars! Wars that never would have happened if only I had stopped her!" He was struggling to control his breathing and his thought process as his hooves continued to propel him backward: watching wide-eyed as before him Nightmare Moon seemed to morph by fluid seconds into a beast. The scant moonlight casting in from broken windows shedding light across Her inky black body as Her limbs elongated and lost focus between strides. Her gaping fangs dripping fluid across their pointed lengths: open to tear him into pieces if he were to stumble. Shapes too jagged to be wings risen from Her back: too formless in their inken existence for any action aside from rot. Piercing blue eyes reddening and blackening until they were so draconic he could feel the fire coming off Her breath. A dread beast conjured from a Nightmare. That continued to spout antigovernmental tirades. "How many wars begat by Equestria have you the names of?! How many can you say were just, or warranted?! For the defense of our home, or our way of life?!" came the gurgling roar from the figure squelching across the stonework- except it wasn't... It didn't- Light Flow sucked in hot breaths one after the other, and as he opened his eyes from a sudden pang in his head, again was the figure Nightmare Moon: though not how She'd been. Not large, and cold, and apathetic. Distant, yet open. A monolithic figure kept at hoof's length, but still reachable. This Nightmare Moon was lean and possessed of a fierce hunger in Her wild eyes like a rabid animal. Her helmet was gone, Her physical defenses lowered: but it was then that She seemed more dangerous than ever. Stalking lowly against the ground with Her wings, covered along their clear ridged bones with gleaming sliver armor, pitching high and back as though She were about to take off after him. He'd pushed too much. Forgotten himself for too long. Now Nightmare Moon was speaking of Her past, exactly as he'd wished. Would it have been better to have left well enough alone? Light swallowed dryly, and though he didn't check over his shoulder, he could feel the end of the room creeping towards him. "I- I know much of many wars!" The boast was weak and felt like a lie in his mouth, and even She in Her mindlessness snapped Her jaws in a feral cackle as though it were a joke. He shook his head desperately, and tried again to sound proud. "But there's not- not much to know! Thorough documentation of most historic wars from within the past thousand years is difficult to find!" Nightmare Moon snorted heavily, and with Her next step did Her back arch high and Her head fell low. He could feel Her spit onto the floor all the way from his prone position such that he slowed his backwards crawl, just in time to flop back and bang his head on the floor as Nightmare Moon jerked Her head up to stare directly at him. "The censoring of Equestria's history again owes to my sister, and it is yet another crime resulting directly from my absence!" He flipped himself to a sitting position quickly: holding a hoof to the stinging bump on his head as he tried to look reasonably assured through the extreme adrenaline. "You're saying that Princess Celestia's been censoring history?! That- that can't be right!" His voice came out too loud; Nightmare Moon's pupils shrunk by a fraction, and he cursed himself for sounding too knee-jerk disbelieving. It was, perhaps, the most singularly terrifying second of his life when he realized that Nightmare Moon was about to leap forward. He'd spent so much of his life watching ponies: feeling abjectly ostracized by, admittedly, his own wanting, and it was a particular memory of watching Rainbow Dash take off through the corner of his eye that he compared Nightmare Moon to in that instant. She was already low, but then She crouched just lower. Her shoulders shifted- slightly more together. Her wings pitched higher and widened away from each other. Her waist came up- Her piercing eyes stayed on him. Her entire body tensed. He spent the next moment, having seen everything happening all at awful once the moment previous, panicking. It was the moment after that he began rolling. The world blurred in a messy smear of colors running as he pushed himself to the side, and though it was only three short turns lasting maybe as many seconds, by the time he stopped himself with his hooves impossibly below him, something fast and large impacted the floor to his side. The resulting powerful shockwave of force that filled his ears with the horribly dense sound of metal pulverizing stone rocked him such that his third hoof to begin bending- as he'd already begun standing up- slid out from under him, and he came crashing down to knock his jaw painfully into the floor. With his pounding face on the floor and his hooves still weak from the shock, Light Flow cracked his eye tentatively open to see what had happened: an entirely disquieting moment that he felt in the skip of his heart. A sight he may never forget. Nightmare Moon, standing with Her front two hooves in the shallow concave ditch filled with tiny shards of grey stone, standing with Her wings still pitching back up from where they must have recovered from propelling Her forward, staring down at him with Her back straight and Her piercing, slotted eyes so full of lunacy. Once, She'd nearly caused the death of his mind by tumultuously removing parts of his memories and personality until he was nothing but a tired shell. And now, She'd just tried to kill him. She'd actually tried. He didn't know how long he held Her gaze; it couldn't have been longer than a moment, yet it felt like forever. Having a hundred moments of security dissolved in an instant, while searching with a wordless plea on his lips for anything behind the mania to show some familiarity. Some remnant. Some reminder. But there was nothing in Her eyes except the madness, and for as long as he'd though he understood something of Nightmare Moon, only then did Light Flow truly understand that Her true deception had been in pretending She'd ever been sane. He'd always thought he was decently insightful, but in that moment he wasn't sure if he'd ever felt like more of a fool. And then he began again to stand. He gasped in exertion as his hooves found the floor and he pushed himself to standing; the action came none too soon as he glanced away to see Nightmare Moon pull Her hooves free of the rubble where his broken body could've been with a shake and a grimace. And still, no matter how he searched, he could find nothing but apathy mixed with annoyance mixed grimly with mania. He backed off as his hoofing steadied: backpedaling such that he never took his eyes off Her as She turned to him, but he could still begin running at less than a moment's notice. Perhaps seeing his surprisingly prompt response at dodging- or running away- She did not immediately attack, choosing instead to stomp Her hoof decidedly. "Equestria's history is nothing as you, or anypony knows it!" She bellowed, and as he flipped from despondency to bemusement, She snorted roughly: tossing Her head with a snarl. "From the eve of my banishment to the moon, my sister saw fit to 'wipe the slate clean,' as it were, and have only the events that she deigned recorded!" Okay, he was in the process of having his entire education invalidated while being extremely menaced, but both things were being done by a figure that was comparatively timeless, so what the hell- he'd remain open to it. He'd come out of this a smarter, smugger pony- if he came out of this at all. How would he make it out of this, though? She clearly didn't care very much about him anymore- or Herself, given that She'd just tried to pulverize Her only way out- so the chances She would listen to his arguments and back down were... pretty much null. He just had to keep talking. Keep refuting. Keep himself alive, and maybe, just maybe, he'd find some miraculous out to this dangerous hole he'd stepped into. He licked along his bottom lip, glancing quickly but not at all sneakily to his side, before refocusing himself on Nightmare Moon. He was thinking, but there was only one thing predominantly on his mind. "So you were banished, what- a thousand years ago, right?" He swallowed thickly, not bothering to wait for a response to a question he very well knew the answer to. "That means the Equestrian calendar restarted after you were banished, which means history was significantly altered around that time, which means you probably are telling the truth." She'd never said, but he'd already assumed that Nightmare Moon had been the oft-speculated figure from the obfuscated Banishing War that had restarted the Equestrian calendar- but it was thought that the monster from the war had been the one to destroy most of Equestria's records. He supposed it was possible, in such a timeframe, for the actual information to have long since been suppressed: that it had been Princess Celestia who'd waged a war against history after Nightmare Moon had been banished, rather than the opposite before. Either would have made sense: this was just about agreeing with the right pony right now. He blinked out of thought, and Nightmare Moon was still standing stilly in front of him. About three hoof-lengths: a very short distance. "But why would Her Highness do that? It doesn't seem like-" He was lucky he'd just blinked- he would've missed his que to throw himself to the side. As he jumped away from where he'd been standing- skidding forward on his heels until he turned- Nightmare Moon had long since flapped powerfully forward and whizzed by him at a speed that blew his tail around to smack him in the side. His breathing was ramped; his attention rapt and ready to run as the full figure of Nightmare Moon flew towards the approaching wall- until Her wings pulled up, and She flapped once. That one, single flap was enough to offset Her forward speed, slow Her, and even slightly propel Her back. And then, as She was caught hovering in the air, She flapped again, dipped slightly, and rose nearly silently up. He'd never seen a pegasus move like that- except, She wasn't a pegasus. His life was in true danger for maybe the first time in his entire life, and of course, it was from a living Goddess. He'd always imagined he'd had the worst luck, and it really was incredibly unlucky that he'd been proven so right. Her ascent was short-lived as nearly immediately after did She turn to face him. "You would grace her with an honorific after all she has done?! To you- to I- to the world?!" She screamed furiously, and for once as they weren't directly in front of one another, Her voice fully gained a loud, reverberating echo that rattled his thoughts. Buck his soul straight to Tartarus, he hadn't even meant to call Her by Her title, it was just instinctive! He'd spent a lot of his life over at the Apples', and Applejack's grandmare was very religious! Granny Smith wasn't above smacking other ponies' foals if they were disrespectful of Celestia- he meant Her Highness- he meant Princess Celestia! He didn't think saying sorry would help at that point, and Nightmare Moon didn't give him a chance to, anyway. "My sister, 'Her Royal Highness, Princess Sol Celestia, is as worthy to be honored as mud for the lifetimes she's spent pushing others into it!" She jeered: throwing Her hooves skyward as She bellowed again. "She did very well to subjugate our own race, effectively enough that they would sooner question the ground beneath their hooves before peering into their own history, yet even the other races were not safe from her wrathful designs! "Know ye of the Griffons, and the war named by Equestria as the 'Annexation War?!'" It was incredible that Her eyes still shone so brightly, that even at their distance, he could see the fury within. "After all they had suffered in the past, when they dared to question my sister for my whereabouts following my disappearance, she turned upon them, and Equestria was rallied to beat them into abject poverty!" He did know about The Annexation War, and it was one of the most important wars taught in schools. From what he remembered from class, Griffonkind had largely made nuisances of themselves for being nobody's ally and everyone's general enemy. They would sack and pillage throughout the respective eastern and western countrysides whensoever they seemingly pleased, and whatever opulence they enjoyed was oftentimes literally built off other creatures' backs- they purportedly used to practice slavery. That was until Equestria put a stop to their largescale banditry and subsequently reabsorbed the bulk of their ill-gained territories. As an official Equestrian province with the Crown officially keeping watch over them, they were forced to stop robbing and start trading. He couldn't remember exactly what they exported, but he was pretty sure he'd aced the test at the time. They were allowed to keep general autonomy back then, but even today the Griffons were largely subordinate to Equestria. He'd always found their state a little strangely grim for a supposed equal province of Equestria, but he'd never really questioned if the historical account were entirely true, especially because of how happy grim things tended to make him. Was it any less believable to think that, whether the Griffons were banditfolk, Equestria had aggressed them for no reason? He'd have to look into it another time. He blinked- and Nightmare Moon was descending. He yelped skittishly, and threw himself forward as quickly as he could. Luckily for him he was such a dope- if he'd done it any quicker, Nightmare Moon could have just adjusted to stomp wherever he landed. As it was, he felt the wind blasting down from Her descent as his barrel scraped the floor, and though there was no great shock that blasted his frail body with pressure, he still groaned in discomfort as every part of his body that had hit the ground throbbed. And then it occurred to him the reason he'd thrown himself forward, and he scrambled to his hooves. For as long as it'd taken him, he honestly expected to be met with a faceful of stone-shattering hoof as he turned around, but thankfully Nightmare Moon was still crouched low from where She'd hit the floor. Only a moment after he'd turned, though, She turned as well: throwing Her head to the side to cast a hideous glare over Her shoulder that rooted him to the spot with a feeling very much akin to staring down a Manticore. "It is recorded, in Equestria, as the Annexation War," She hissed: Her entire body shaking with the long, hateful breath. "But it is known to Griffonkind as The Fall." She extracted Herself from Her low posture: returning to standing at full, towering height; all the while Her piercing gaze, full of hate and cruelty and chilling difference, never left him. Yet, as Her wings flapped to blow a swirling cloud of dust around Her, there was an edge of sorrow there, too. Understated against the rage, but perhaps, unless he was mistaken, exacerbated by her slipping sanity. It was nearly as if the emotion was coming through more genuinely for how little control She had. "It was no coincidence that my sister first chose to assault the Griffons after she was finally rid of me," She hissed fitfully, though this was less scornful and more muted: Nightmare Moon's gaze sinking low, though keeping a far-away rage. "She knew well, and had always disapproved of my strides to make peace with them. There is no doubt she was only biding her time to make war them, and I suspect she'd always wished to. "She'd harbored ill-will for them from the day we donned our Crown, seemingly in spite of my attempts to bridge our differences." She tsk'd in an angered exclamation at whatever memory She was seeing. "She never understood how I felt, as she had never seen their past as I had, and likewise: I could never understand her malice, knowing as I did." Light eyed Her quivering, leaning wings with apprehension as Nightmare Moon bent Her head low, and then- to his respectfully silent shock- She literally spit onto the floor. "And look at them today. For how mighty they once were, their civilization lies in shambles, even after a thousand years." Her eyes rose from the dull sheen of Her mark upon the floor to stare hatefully at him, which he tried very hard not to flinch away from. "It is cruel, what my sister has done to them. Continues to do to them, as she levies eternal subterfuge and plots to prevent their rise." She muttered; Her voice growing louder again with every word as Her face clenched further into fury. "Her crimes know no end! Would you really bid me stop; allow her to return to the throne after all she has done? Am I- for all my flaws- not the lesser evil?!" He jumped anxiously back as She suddenly leaned forward and stepped quickly toward him, though it was with only a single step that She thrust Her head forward: the burning ice of Her stare undoubtedly posing a question to Her menace. Even then, while She was still advancing to painfully aggress him, there was still a small voice somewhere in his head that made him think twice about discarding Her argument. Was She the lesser evil? Would it be worse to have Celestia return to the throne? What did it really mean to have Nightmare Moon rule Equestria? He knew what it would mean for him, allowed to have anything his heart desired, but... what would it mean for everypony else? What would it mean for Applejack? Unless you desire death. ...Oh... that was what She'd meant... It was an odd thing, to have such an underwhelming sense of understanding dawn on him. It was no great epiphany to realize that She'd not been threatening him, though She'd sort of carried through on that inadvertent threat anyway. No, Her real insinuation had been- Cut. ////////// A Slight Step Back ////////// 'For all that I had done for the griffons, my sister had done as much in turn. All my efforts amounted to naught.' (approx. quote) She shook Her head slowly: the first non-aggressive motion She'd made since taking flight. "It was not until long after I was banished that I was aware enough to tread dreams, and it was only long after that when I found my efforts to establish Harmony undone." His ear perked: barely catching how Her voice quieted. "How it hurt me." Light... wasn't sure what to make of it. He didn't quite feel at ease enough to be at ease, but neither did he think Nightmare Moon- head low and eyes distant with stormy memory- was fit to lash out again. Not so quickly that he wouldn't be able to see it coming, at least. See it coming..? Something occurred to him, though he chose to shake his head and stow it away for later as he gradually allowed his muscles to relax. Dubiously scanning each and every tense cord behind every loosening muscle: he was caught between feeling pity for Her and feeling as though this was a good chance to run away before She recovered. He thought about telling Her he was sorry, but that seemed about as helpful as screaming purposeless rebuke at Her for trying to unceremoniously murder him without thought for the consequences. He chose, after a short moment he took to stare towards the nearest window and think again of Applejack, to think constructively. He swallowed, took a short step back, and readied himself to run. "I'm... You're making it all the harder to understand you, and what you're planning." He trailed off as Her wings, laying low over Her back, twitched slightly at his words. He swallowed, again, as his throat had dried at the movement. "It's okay: I believe that your sister is the greatest evil the world has ever known. She's done enough to you, as you say, and She's done enough to me." He raised his hoof in the beginnings of a backpedal: clenching his entire body in expectation of something explosive as he tentatively finished. "You've made it abundantly clear that you oppose your sister's views and her ethics, but you've also made it clear that you're going to emulate Her. You're willingly choosing immorality while obviously hating yourself for it." He blinked rapidly as his breath sped; slight tension raising in his chest as Nightmare Moon shifted barely upwards, though he managed to keep his voice steady. "It's almost like you want to be genuinely evil- but then, you wouldn't act like you're doing something good. Like you regret what you're doing- like it's necessary evil. "I don't understand why you're so willingly contradicting yourself. You... you are aware of it, aren't you? You have to have some actual goal at the end of this, don't you?" he eased: shaking his head softly, and trying to search Her subdued face for any sign of clarity. It felt desperate to directly ask Her if She could conceptualize Her own insanity, but then, he was desperate. He couldn't lie to himself, and he wasn't even afraid to admit that he wanted Her to be sane. Now that She'd thrown conscience to the wind and literally pounced at him a few times, he found that he really missed Her cold, apathetic demeanor. He missed the lofty, intelligent mare who would sneer at his ignorance, surely, but would also engage with him. Do more for his faults than trying to hurt him for them. But the Nightmare Moon he'd very gradually come to know was gone, or at least diminished. In Her place was a mare he didn't recognize: with Her head bowed low enough that he couldn't even catch Her eyes. On one end of the extremes of aggression and depression, and She'd flopped so quickly that he still felt tension just watching Her. A warm feeling was beginning to grow in his face, but he blinked it away with a rough shake of his head. He wouldn't cry for Her. Not the mare who'd strangled him half to death, nor for the mare She'd been only momentarily. He just... wished he could understand Her. He wanted to understand. He was missing a crucial puzzle piece that She just wouldn't provide. He knew She wasn't genuinely evil: Her regret and the way She spoke of Her sister's actions made it clear She had solid definitions of morality that She would just as soon flaunt. But he couldn't figure out why! Why was She going to overthrow Equestria from her apparent tyrant of a sister, only to then assert that She would rule dominantly? Why would She decry Her sister's warring nature in the past, only to declare that She would evidently instate some kind of martial law?! It would make complete sense if She were wholly good: then it would be a clear-cut story of the good sister deposing the bad one. Something like- Celestia had a fall from grace, and Her sister took to ruling alone after wresting control of the kingdom away. It would've made Her a hero, if it'd worked out that way. It would also make sense if She were just wholly bad: then it'd be a struggle for power between two similar forces. Something like- Nightmare Moon had a fall from grace, so Celestia banished Her to the moon. For as little as he knew of Celestia's history, it didn't make much sense to think of Her as the 'good sister,' but it wasn't as though Equestria was under martial law. Either of those would be quite simple; very much unlike what was actually happening. Nightmare Moon was acting bad, while possibly being good, while feeling bad about feeling good: all the while being so insane that She couldn't stop Herself from doing bad things! He was grasping at whatever forgotten straw was left in his head, and as he skipped from the theory that She was only doing all of this to spite Her sister, another happened to land on his tongue. "You said-" He coughed, then smacked his lips and cleared his throat as his mouth was unexpectedly dry, then tried again. "You said something about how you tried to foster Harmony between Ponies and Griffons earlier, didn't you?" Nightmare Moon hadn't moved in the entire time that he'd been thinking, and neither did She move but an inch at his words. He seethed in quiet frustration at Her very sudden listlessness, before deciding to take a bold step forward: speaking as he did. "That sounds innocuous, but you've told me of the force of Harmony, so I think you meant something a bit more literal than a turn of phrase." He stared straight forward at Her hunched form as he slowly approached Her, but forcibly averted his eyes after a moment when his chest began to pang. Shaking his head, and trying to think clearly through the burning memories of safety. "Harmony is a great force of order laying dormant in the land- but even though you spoke of it fearfully, it basically represents something righteous. I think." He was trying very hard not to allow his growing worry over Nightmare Moon's state affect him, even as he drew slowly closer. Close enough that he could see how Her chest shook and fell under Her peytral, yet still not close enough to see anything of Her face. Was She still frightfully wrathful? Had She truly fallen to such a deep depression at simple memory of grief? "You said that you and your sister took an oath- something about your values." He found his gaze sliding to the side, and forced himself to stare directly at Her. No matter if it hurt, he needed to be ready if She lashed out. "I don't think it's wrong to see a connection between your values and the word Harmony. I'm beginning to think that, since you seemed like you knew of Harmony intimately, the oaths you and your sister took were related to..." He faltered, realizing that he hadn't actually stopped to think about the end of his sentence what with thinking mournfully of Nightmare Moon. He licked his lips and stammered for a moment: blinking nervously and stuttering out the first thing he could think of. "...um- upholding Harmony?" That felt right, though not to Nightmare Moon for as much as She reacted. He was close enough to Her that he couldn't actually get any closer without outright touching Her, so he came to a cautious stop. "Are you- No- You'd said that your sister broke her oath, but that implies... you haven't." ////////// Bridge ////////// Continuing on, after thoughts never realized. Light swallowed heavily: feeling very much like a mouse in the den of a sleeping lion. Was he really about to imply what he was, after all She'd done and would come to do in the future? It... felt stupid to accuse Her of it, yet... he didn't really have any better idea. That was the right way to do this, right? Process of elimination? Standing in the moonlight before the ragged, hunched form of a Nightmare that had recently broken every trust he'd had and tried to kill him, Light still felt as though he was doing something wrong. "You... want to be defeated, don't you?" Motion. A twitch: barely noticeable at Her shoulder. "You're doing evil, knowing it's evil, and knowing it's wrong. You're taking the throne with the expectation that it's going to be taken away." He pressed forward, not with any sort of confidence in his chest, but with a slowly growing ice. A sick feeling of worried anticipation, like the feeling at seeing an arrow fly. Knowing that it would harm, and knowing that it... very well might hit its target, but knowing all the same there was nothing to be done. He didn't want that arrow to hit. But then, if he'd really wanted to avoid it, he wouldn't have fired in the first place. "You're going to act as a martyr, aren't you?" It was that word. It wasn't anything else he'd said, it was that word that made her react. It happened too quickly for him to react; as he was, there was no way he ever could've moved fast enough to get away as She lurched forward- no, as She sprung forward. There was hardly even a second in-between his final word, and the envelopment of a shadow sprung across a mere hoof-length. He didn't catch Her eye. He couldn't see Her face. As weight pressed in on him at every side, his only thought was that he was- Probably something about danger. We're done here, and this telling of events is over.