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// Bonus - Unsorted, Unverified Drafts 
// Story: The Stereotypical Drafts 
// by JinxTJL 
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////// Accusation of Caring //////


"Did you realize that you allowed me to remember everything? Even the moments when you had possessed my body?" he questioned: his eyebrows jumping for every accentuated syllable.

He lowed his head: staring up through his eyebrows angrily as Nightmare Moon's nostrils flared widely. "I remember what you said with my mouth when Princess Celestia had us pinned. It kept coming to my mind whenever I thought of your plans for Equestria, and it kept seeming so contradictory."

That agent holding his limbs and breathing into his ear, and all She had done was keep his eyes on Her sister.

A queer note of satisfaction swelled in his chest as a flash of recognition passed across Nightmare Moon's face, and suddenly, Her hateful stare was still. "I remember the things you whispered into my ear after I left the party, too. After you made me leave Applejack."

Trotting forward, every second that he wasn't looking at the stars an agony: not even the slightest care for the jubilant sounds of partying ponies as he left them behind.

He felt some sort of heavy joy rise behind his cheeks as Nightmare Moon cast her gaze down with clear regret tinging Her bitter scowl, but his face kept a hard edge as he bravely edged his hoof forward. Caught Her eye; stared Her down as he bared his teeth. 

"Everypony on Equus grew up hearing tales of the violent and vengeful Nightmare Moon and how She tried to blanket the world in an eternal night, but ever since I've known you, you've shown me so differently."

...Finally, something we agree on.

...Together, we are going to save Equestria.

"You act so cold and apathetic, but I know you. In everything you've said, and everything you do, you show that you can't help but care." He edged closer to that monolith of clashing fur and steel, and it was so clear to hear a rising growl from behind Her snarling fangs. Yet still, he pushed himself forward until they were almost nose to nose and he could feel her seething breath mixing with his. 

"You're still Equestria's Princess, and you don't have any intent at all-" Cut.



////// Contradictory Goddess //////


It made a certain, twisted sense, considering everything that She'd been presenting Herself as. In one moment, She'd claim that She intended to save Equestria, yet in the next would claim that She intended to conquer it. She'd denounce Her sister for apparently pressing orphans into the military, yet turn around and claim that She'd do worse.

What She'd done to him... was worse, but... there was still Her clear lunacy. If, as a fact, She was masquerading as a villain to accomplish some enigmatic purpose, then the clear contradiction She seemed to live as was explained all the more by the fact that She just wasn't right in the head.



////// Point of No Return //////


He'd read somewhere- too long ago to even begin to remember where- that in the moment before a great shock, there's a sort of calm clarity. A sense of inordinate, immaculate peace in the midst of a storm, as though the world itself had slowed to allow a moment of reflection.

He'd experienced something like it a few times before, but just then, he gained a new awareness for the sensation.

First: he heard the dull thud upon sound itself as the air around them burst from the anticipation of a pressure. Milliseconds before anything had even happened yet, and yet: there were some forces that made such an impact, the world felt it first.

Second: he was treated to the bone-chilling sight of Nightmare Moon's eyes turning completely white in a quick flash, before they unexpectedly bled from their tops to their bottoms in pure, runny black.

That was about the end of what he understood, because from the instant that his ears had popped from a pressure so great as to preempt itself, he'd begun to stumble to his hooves. It was around the time Her eyes began to ooze black from their sclera that he'd turned, and began to run.

None too soon.



////// Luna Shining Through //////


"I'm sorry..."

He wished he could feel heartened at Her apology, but there was so little to gain from it at this point. It was hollow, and useless, and didn't make him feel or think of anything except the ceaseless insincerity that constantly spewed from Her mouth. Even as Her saddened gaze with its round pupils that sat at such disparity with how he'd come to know Her turned to catch him, there was something in his chest that only chilled at the pure emotion.

"I've been... afraid to tell you what I'm doing here, Light." Her quiet murmur was accompanied by a gentle rustle from Her wings, and before his dispassionate eyes, Her posture straightened to a semi-proud tower. The morose lines of Her face lightened until they were nearly invisible, and She stared at him a little less reservedly than before. "I harbor such misgivings, myself, and I can only wonder what you might think to hear of it."

That didn't surprise him in the least. As a pony who hid a lot of things, himself, he knew that kind of fear. He could very well empathize with that, but not so much with the entire shipload of personal regret and trauma She was lugging around.