//------------------------------//
// Reconstruction 
// Story: Mare Doloris 
// by TinCan 
//------------------------------//

The interior of the great dome was almost entirely hollow. The light from my lamps, Nightmare Moon's horn, her eyes and the statue's glow were the only illumination. We stood in an open central area, supported by a ring of columns. A wall about five times my standing height stood up around the edge of the room, and behind it was some sort of stair-step terrace rising to touch the outer wall. A single monolith stood alone in the exact center of the chamber. It all looked like a cross between a temple and some sort of stadium or arena. Every ell of the walls and pillars was engraved with intricate bas-relief.

Before I could interrogate Nightmare Moon about it, I felt a rumbling and shifting of stone beneath my feet. The building must have been collapsing! Terrified, I abandoned the cart and sprinted on all sixes back toward the exit just in time to see a huge slab of glowing blue stone slide over the passage, completely blocking out the daylight. Seconds later, the rumbling ceased.

"What's wrong now, Pangolin?" Nightmare Moon called after me, sounding quite pleased with herself. "I'm just making sure we're sealed in nice and tight. There'd be no point putting air in here if it could just escape outside, would there? Get to work." My legs turned to jelly. Few things are more dreadful to the dweller of inhospitable worlds than being separated from one's permanent shelter. Path of least resistance, indeed! I felt as I had when the search of the crater seemed fruitless. Would she let me out when it became clear that my paltry supplies of nitrogen and oxygen were unequal to the task of filling the room?

With trembling claws, I plugged the emergency mixer into the battery and attached containers of compressed gas to its intake feeds. I flipped the switch to activate the machine, which coughed, sputtered, then purred as air began to spray from the funnel at the top. According to my suit, this artificial cavern was just slightly warm enough to keep the elements in a gaseous state.

While the mixer worked, the little statue amused itself by covering and uncovering the output funnel, seeming to enjoy the feeling of air rushing from the device. Nightmare Moon, for her own part, simply sat at a distance and watched, looking from myself to the mixer and back, growing more and more unhappy by the minute.

When the first pair of canisters ran out and I moved to disconnect them and replace them with fresh ones, she finally spoke up. "This is taking far too long," she complained, "and you clearly didn't bring enough of those air bottles. There's hardly two breaths to rub together in here!" Her magic picked me up off the ground and shook me so roughly my jaws rattled. "I've had just about enough of your tricks, Pangolin! You had to know it wouldn't be enough, you must have! This is sabotage!"

Of course I knew; I warned her that this would happen beforehand! I didn't have enough materials to create that much atmosphere, and even if I did, there was no way I could carry them all here in one trip! All this I said and more, but it only seemed to make her angrier.

"I made my case; I told you what they did to me! Any decent being would be falling over itself to help me, so why are you still dragging your hooves? I warned you what would happen if you tried to work against me again, didn't I?" she raged, shoving me against the inner wall of the arena and holding me there. I twisted to take the force on my side rather than my own air tank. Pain shot through my body and I felt several scales crack and chip against the inside of my suit. "Maybe I'll seal you in here until nightfall with nothing to breathe but this measly little puff of air, how would you like that?"

I would die! If she left me here, I'd choke and die. If she beat me more, she'd either crush me to death or my suit would rupture and I'd freeze. She'd given her word!

She grew more enraged as I spoke, but took her weight off me, letting me slide down to the floor. A bright white scratch marked the stone where I'd been forced against the wall.

"Milking my mistake for all it's worth! Twisting my words to save your miserable scaly hide! You horrid monster, just keep pushing me and I'll—uh?"

She suddenly stopped mid-rant and turned to look behind her. The little statue was tugging urgently at the sparkling curtain that formed Nightmare Moon's tail and silently mouthed words at her.

"What?! What do you care?" the pony asked, still furious.

There was a pause while the little statue presumably responded.

"I know you think you're being good, but it doesn't work that way," Nightmare Moon said, her voice softening to the same benevolent, maternal tone she'd used to speak to the little statue before. "Do you remember how we got into this in the first place? If you don't keep your guard up, he'll walk all over you, just like all the rest. This monster won't behave until he understands we won't let him get away with anything else."

To my dismay, the statue seemed swayed by this line of argumentation. I was about to speak up in my own defense, but the dust pony wordlessly spoke again, this time raising a foreleg to indicate its horn and then pointing to the mixer.

Nightmare Moon screwed up her face in distaste. "That must have been his plan all along, to force me to labor like a commoner. Why should I degrade myself?"

"...Well, yes, It would be a waste after all the time it took to build this place," she allowed, her resolve weakening. "And to fly again, on real air, not just dragging myself around by my horn..."

A small smile returned to her face, and she addressed me once again.

"Pangolin, in spite of your unforgivable laziness and negligence, I've decided to make up for your severe shortcomings out of the goodness of my heart."

I had no idea what she was about to do, but thought it wisest to express my gratitude for bearing with me.

"Yes, well, my mercy and forbearance are far greater than any other pony's, but you still manage to push their limits somehow. See to it that this doesn't happen again. Now, behold the power of the true princess of the night!"

The entire cavernous chamber was thrown into stark azure illumination by her horn, the central pillars and monolith casting inky bars of shadow across the distant walls. The small atmospheric mixer, with two empty canisters still attached, began to hum and rattle. The lights on its side blinked on and off rapidly in meaningless combinations. Then the impossible happened. A gale of fresh air blasted from the empty mixer, howling like a hurricane. I threw myself to the stone floor, trying to minimize my profile against the storm. Dust swirled across the ground, the walls and ceiling creaked and I felt the weight of the air without press against my suit.

The air she had created from nothing. Or... from magic? From her mind? My rudimentary understanding of physics was unequal to the task of explaining what was going on. If she could do this, and she disliked the vacuum, why hadn't she long before? Was the mixer necessary somehow?

It took less than a minute to fill the whole room with what my suit called 0.97 atmosphere. As the roar from the mixer subsided into the usual humming and putting, I raised my head to look about.

A strange, sourceless illumination filled the dome, as if the air itself were shedding light. Borne on the wind still circling the sealed arena, Nightmare Moon was soaring around the ceiling, wings spread wide,  laughing with giddy abandon. I don't think I'd ever seen her this happy before, not even when she was bullying me or shoving my garden down her maw.

It certainly looked like a lot of fun from where I was standing. I doubt there's a single intelligent flightless species that hasn't been a bit jealous of winged creatures. On the floor below, the little statue leapt and danced about, sharing the princess's excitement.

When Nightmare Moon ended her flight a few minutes later, she seemed in much better spirits. "Excellent, excellent," she said, giving her wings a shake before folding them back to her sides. "It's true what they say; once you learn, you never really forget how, even after centuries."

"Now, Pangolin," she said, trotting up to me once more, "Have you figured out why I had this place built?"

I shook my head and quickly shut off my suit's lamps so I could face her without shining its lights into her eyes.

"My original plan when I got free was to simply rain down judgment on the whole lot of them equally, starting with whoever first fell beneath my shadow, but while I was telling you of the crimes the ponies committed against me, you were constantly telling me that they were not the ones I ought to go after. I have decided to take your advice."

Beneath my helmet, I gaped. Had a miracle just occurred? Was Nightmare Moon about to renounce her vendetta against the rest of her world? Was this dark dwelling to be a more permanent habitation where she could live out her exile in relative comfort? I was beside myself in surprise and anticipation.

"Your nasty, devious little mind possesses a certain low cunning that does not come naturally to those of us who rule." She grudgingly admitted. "But credit where it's due; your plan has merit! I must deal with Celestia immediately and decisively once I return. She may have already squandered her trump card sending me here in the first place, but if anypony can hope to resist me, it'll be her. Once she's out of the picture for good, why, I can dispatch the rest of them at my leisure!"

I sagged in disappointment. Worse than useless! My exhortations had only gotten her to strategize instead of just raging.

If she noticed the effect her words worked on me, she didn't care. "To make certain that I can wipe the floor with the usurper without a hitch this time, I have constructed this little training studio. Here I will test myself against her until I'm certain of victory."

How did she plan to do that? Wasn't her sister back on the planet lording it over the her subjects?

A horrible thought came to me.

Was... was I to stand in the role of her opponent? Cold sweat seeped from between my scales. I stammered that I was very fragile, and reiterated that the slightest rupture of the suit, even in this atmosphere, would cause me to swiftly freeze to death, violating her oath.

She laughed at me again. "Pray don't flatter yourself, Pangolin. Unless you had that metal wand back I wouldn't bet on you against a cranky foal." She tapped the side of her head. "No, Celestia is in here. I will draw her forth and give her a form, and then we will see who is the greatest princess!"

Oh, another dust pony then. Wouldn't that be like playing a game against oneself, though? I voiced my doubts as to how this could teach her anything she didn't already know.

"Just when I think I've heard the limits of your ignorance you go and say something like that," she observed, slowly shaking her head and clicking her tongue in an exaggerated show of disappointment. "You may not have noticed over the last month, but my memory is perfect. Do you understand what that means? Everything I've been telling you about my past is as clear to me as the moment it occurred. I can go back and count the lashes on the eyelids of the first pony I ever looked upon. I have suffered the presence of my sister for several mortal lifetimes. I know her. She as good as lives in me.

"But... we've never battled. Not in earnest. So, I will take all my memories of her and grant them a portion of my power and they will act as she would. It won't be as strong as true Celestia would be, naturally, but it will weaken me enough that we'll still be in parity."

Nightmare Moon stood before the monolith in the center of the room and began casting what, to my ignorant eye, looked like her mightiest spell yet. Air began whipping around the room again in a gale and her horn shone so bright that I had to tint my visor to keep from being dazzled. A network of glowing fissures crawled across the surface of the stone.

Panic seized me. She was going to make one of those creepy, hostile constructs in the image of the being she thought hated her the most and grant it powers comparable to her own? I couldn't begin to express how unwise this idea seemed. What if it proved too much for her? Speaking loudly to be heard above the wind, I reminded her she hadn't exactly covered herself in glory the last time those things had turned violent.

"Thanks ever so for the vote of confidence," she shouted back, rolling her eyes and continuing the spell. "Since when are you even concerned about my well-being, assassin? If my sister's double somehow manages to cast me down before I can destroy or dismiss her, then all your problems will be over, won't they?"

Chips of stone began falling away from the monolith and disintegrating into fine, white powder as they struck the floor. As they were removed, a skeletal form began to emerge from the rock. Its proportions were similar to Nightmare Moon's, save that it was marginally taller and sported a longer horn.

"Oh, right!" the night-black pony suddenly exclaimed. "You can't get out of here unless I open the door, can you?" She half-turned her head toward me and smiled coldly. "Better hope I win, then!"

By this time the glowing stone skeleton had been entirely freed from the rock and stood up to its shins in the fine powder, undisturbed in the center of the howling winds. Then, even the powder too began to shine and flow upward over the skeleton, sculpting itself into the form of its flesh.

The end result was quite intimidating. It was the largest and most detailed dust pony yet, clad like Nightmare Moon in boots and a breastplate, but wearing a pointed diadem instead of a helmet. Its hair was even more voluminous than its creator's, trailing off from either end of its body in great floating curtains, lightly whipped by the edges of the surrounding vortex.

The wind died and the light of Nightmare Moon's horn receded to a single point sitting at the tip. She paced in a circle around the new statue, admiring her work with a mixture of pride, scorn and the faintest hint of apprehension.

Before it was too late, I asked if I could move the mixer and myself to somewhere safer than the arena floor before battle was joined. It was not that I had any doubts about her promise to me, I hastily added, but in the thick of things, and with that thing not exactly being herself anymore—

"You want to join the rest up in the stands? Be my guest." She said.

The... rest? I raised my gaze to the rows of benches rising around the arena pit.

Hundreds upon hundreds of pale gray faces stared back down at me, glowing faintly with the blue light. One, its head still twisted backward, smiled with too many teeth and beckoned for me to come up and sit beside it.

I suddenly found myself hiding beneath the trolley, shaking and stinking.

Nightmare Moon snickered. "Suit yourself."

She turned back to the still-inert statue of her sister and raised the glowing star at the tip of her horn until it touched the stone point of her counterpart. There was a pop of static and the star vanished, plunging the room into absolute darkness. Even the spectating statues had lost their glow.

I heard faint sounds of movement from the blackness. Then, a voice:

"What is this? Guards! Chamberlain! ...Hello?"

It did not belong to Nightmare Moon.