////////// Bridge //////////
I had... not meant to tell you of that..." Her murmur towards the floor was cut by a pained grimace, and Her tired eyes peeled slightly open. "Again, my own mind has done so much to undermine me, and my secrets are laid prone." Her next breath was shallow and clipped, and She raised her head to stare glimmeringly at the ceiling. "Sometimes I wonder it it is some curse that compels my fits of rage, but I think I am only searching for an excuse..."
At one point, the entire spectacle he'd just been witness to would've laid him flat; something as practically awesome as conjuring an entire thunderstorm was the kind of thing that would... well... awe him.
At this point, though, he'd already seen Her breathe fire, catch a bird in flight with nothing but Her magic, and crack solid stone with nothing but Her hooves; his tolerance had kinda moved on from remaining speechless.
So it was that when he sighed and shrugged his shoulders, he stared up at the woeful monarch-to-be with nothing more than a mild apprehension, and the nagging reminder to try to be tacit. "You've... had a lot to deal with," he offered as gently as he reasonably could: stepping forward and keeping his eye out for sudden actionable twitches. "I think I can forgive your... slips, what with all that you're... going to do."
He stopped his hesitant amble forward as he came a hoof-length away from Nightmare Moon, and from there he could see the absolute misery on Her face all the better. It tugged at his heartstrings, it really did. Too bad for Nightmare Moon that he hadn't had those strings tuned since birth, and the only noise they made were hollow twangs. No symphonic sympathy out of him, not-so-sorry to say.
There was a lot to think about in what She'd told him. Nothing about Celestia's war crimes surprised him- coincidentally, he already happened to hate Her- but for all that Nightmare Moon was clearly very terrified of Harmony, She also seemed to... deify it, funnily enough. A Deity's deity. No wonder She'd tried so hard to instill that fear into him.
No matter how he thought of it, there was still a... a disconnect in the logic. She and Celestia had once wielded the Elements of Harmony- they were once forces for good- they'd founded Equestria- etcetera upon nauseating etcetera. Then they'd had a falling out- but because Celestia had turned away from Harmony, not Nightmare Moon.
That was the part that boggled his mind the most. It just... didn't fit in his head for what he'd expected, nor for what he'd known. The Banishing War of famous history was no crusade against some great monster, but an Equestrian Civil War. Equestria split in two along the heavens, and gone to war with itself. Then, it'd been covered up in the aftermath.
He felt like screaming. No matter how he thought about it, it just didn't fit. Celestia, the ostensible evil sister, had ruled Equestria for a millennium, yet the land was at relative peace, or close enough that a pony could live in ignorance. Nightmare Moon, the self-purported good sister, had been banished, but now that She was back She wanted to... She had already...
"So, your sister... had a fall from grace, if I'm understanding... your ravings correctly," he managed after a long moment of thinking, as he eased himself to a seat in front of Her. Close enough to touch, but more importantly: close enough to watch Her downcast face. A face whose eyes turned immediately away from his, but he had already seen the shame.
Now She was trying to ignore the problem: that was just great. He blew out a short breath from his nose and shook his head reproachfully, for all it did to the mare who was avoiding looking at him. "Celestia had become... cold, and you..." He bent his head down to try to catch Her eye, for which he failed. "...you tried to revolt against Her. Which... didn't end well."
He was getting nothing from Her, and Her silence was beginning to grate on his nerves. He put a hoof to his head for the cold feeling against his warming skin, and grit his teeth as he leaned back in exasperation. "I just don't get it." he muttered: tapping his hoof repeatedly to his head. "If you're telling the truth, then by all rights your sister has more to answer for, but you're wanting to do worse."
He had hoped tapping his hoof in a rhythm would conduct his thoughts into a neat pattern, but all the percussion was doing was making his head hurt. He shook the growing pain away as his hoof fell, and grumbled in frustration as he turned his gaze to the side. Open window... Dark, blue sky...
"You just don't make sense to me," he murmured. The stars twinkling so faintly across the distance were of little comfort, and for whatever reason, they struck him as a very honest phenomena, then. They did not hide themselves, or lie, or make the truth so difficult. They only shone. The sun would drown them out come day, but they were still there. Still bright, and clear.
He sighed, and at the same time, so did She.
When he turned to see whether Nightmare Moon had come out of Her funk, he was only marginally surprised to see Her eye at the same window that his had been. Her face was creased and clenched in clear contemplation, though he doubted She was thinking anything so useless as he was. Probably thinking about the very real things happening to Her.
Probably thinking about him.
"My sister cannot return to the throne."
She suddenly spoke, and though he was tired and haggard from the recently past torment, he still sat a little straighter to listen better. The complete and utter sadness was draining bit by bit from Nightmare Moon's face, and quickly being replaced by a stoic, stony knowing. A genuinely unfeeling reverie, yet still spoken through a clenched lip.
"I watched helplessly as the lifetimes of peace wore Celestia down, and at times, I felt it as well. Through the days and the nights passed, I saw what happened when Harmony was not needed. When it was not constantly tested."
She turned back to him, then, and it struck him instantly how haunted the shadow behind Her eyes was. "I had only time to think in my banishment, and I had only my past to reflect on." Her frown fell deeper, but the wide expression in Her eyes that spoke of something seen did not abate. "There were times I thought it would never end. That I had already experienced the rest of my entire existence."
Her next breath was sharp, and Her eyes fluttered as the unseen millennia fled from Her face. She shook Her head, then raised it as a resolute hardness returned to Her. "I came to realize that my sister and I owed everything we were gifted to He whom we hated the most. He who destroyed the world before only paved way for the world we built. If it was not for his ceaseless villainy, Equestria would not exist. If it were not for Chaos, there could never have been Harmony."
A sick, shallow anticipation was building in his chest, because he was sure he knew where She was going.
Her eye bored into his: a plea clearly present there through the solid wall of impassioned dispassion. "I realized that there must be a villain for virtue to prosper. There must first be a tyrant for whom heroes are bred to defeat. Without adversity, there is only complacency, and in complacency, there is no Harmony."