“This is boring. You’re boring. Figure out another game to play.”
We have been imprisoned in the Moon for no longer than three days, and already we wish we were removed of this petulant filly. We wished we were removed of her less than one minute into this torture.
“Oh, please. You can’t stand yourself?” Nightmare Moon rolls her eyes disbelievingly. “I’ve known you far longer than you think, Luna. I’ve been there, always watching, always waiting. I’m the mare inside yourself that you never realized was there.”
We don’t act so foalish. It is above our station to do so. As a Princess of Equestria, it is our solemn duty—
“To be boring. Now let’s find something else to do.”
The Moon knows why we decided to entertain this simple-minded mare initially. We shared number games and riddles, what small amount we knew. It appears she is little more than raw power, severely lacking an intelligence with which to wield it.
“Oh, now that’s an insult.” The dark mare’s voice drips with sarcasm. A few seconds of silence pass, then she volunteers her voice again, insisting on our own memory to fabricate entertainment once more. “Come up with something creative again, Luna. I like games that make me think.”
And we like games that involve time spent thinking. In silence.
Nightmare Moon volunteers no further dispute, a pout adorning her mouth as she sulks on the floor. This is what we wanted?
We desired the power to change our lives. We languished under the shadow our sister cast, until we embraced the shadow, this... loss of what makes us a pony.
The darkness brings us only power, no strength. The cost of forsaking our own will is to lose ourselves to a mare who knows not what she wants, yet has the power to do what she wants. A directionless, formless soul such as this deserves no host.
Yet, we, in our ultimate wisdom, delivered one to her in our greatest moment of foalishness. Were it not for the Elements of Harmony, my sister would have been bested, killed, and her nation handed over to a newborn with delusions of grandeur.
More than anything else, we are disgusted with ourselves for allowing this creature into the world, using our body and possessing our mind. It is deserving of us to be put with such a simple creature, who clops her hooves together when she successfully completes a tongue-twister, or finds herself puzzled as to the motives of a chicken crossing the road. She calls herself the creature of nightmare, but she only irritates us. There is no fear in our heart.
Nightmare Moon is staring bitterly at the floor, then her vision becomes hazy. We feel a tear escape from her eye, rolling down along her cheek to splatter forlornly along the floor.
Our heart softens. It is not right to criticize a foal.
“I am NOT a FOAL!” Her words ring out angrily in the quiet solitude of our prison. We can tell that we have made her angry.
If she is no foal, then she must prove herself mature enough to be thought of as a mare by her peers. Petulant, silly behavior as she has shown has no place in—
“I’m stronger than you. I’m stronger than all of you! I’ll show you. I’ll escape here and level Equestria.”
No creature can stand up to the Elements of Harmony.
“I can, and I will.” She smiles villainously. “I just need to destroy them before your precious sister can wrap her magic around them.”
We can think of no objection to this. Can the Elements of Harmony be destroyed so easily?
“Celestia, you no longer hold power over me. I come and go as I please.”
“But then what do I rule, Sun? Equestria needs no ruler if I give them no help.”
“Then you will be nothing to your people, Celestia. You are incompetent.”
I wake up gasping from my fever dream. Never before have nightmares plagued me this badly, nor has sickness drawn so much strength from me.
I glare angrily into the peach-colored sky. “This is your fault, Moon.” It maintains its steady position in the sky, unmoving, unwavering. The Sun, which I decided to raise again and give at least some semblance of normalcy, blazes nearby, slowly arcing along as is its due.
The greater of the sister bodies moves at my command. What does the younger want?
Luna. What did she want? Power. Control. She wanted to be in charge of everything. And I would give her all of it, if it meant lowering that persistent Moon and saving Equestria.
From below me, I hear a din. The farmponies are flocking into Canterlot from all of Equestria, begging for help with their nonexistent crops. In a month or so, Equestria will begin to starve, even if I were to fix things right this moment.
I haven’t the strength or the heart to see any visitors today. I keep the door to my bedchambers locked, lethargically glaring at the Moon from my bed. It is to blame for all of my problems.
What... caused problems in Equestria before? Discord, he was a problem—and Luna too. How did the great threats to Equestria become stopped?
The Elements of Harmony.
The realization that I could have fixed this from the moment Luna disappeared shocks me. Is it really so easy to save Equestria?
I open the door out of my bedchamber, the guards at my door saluting as I sickly drag myself along the floor in the direction of the throne room. One of the guards speaks to me, saying, “Princess Celestia, your audience is requested in the throne room.”
“I will take no audience today. I am unwell. Tell the townsponies their crops are beyond saving, but we will provide them with seeds to replace what crops were lost.” I continue my slow, plodding canter, not bothering to wait for a reply. I am making my way to the throne room anyway.
After what seems an hour to my sluggish brain, I arrive at the door to the throne room. The guards wrap the doors in their magic, swinging them open for me.
I smile weakly, mustering up my wavering magic and struggling to move aside the stone slab hiding the Elements of Harmony. The obstruction removed, their mobile rises up, the five smaller Elements surrounding Magic.
Immediately, I notice that something has changed. The Elements I can see are no longer the gems I used to defeat Luna; in their place, five round stones have appeared. Each of them has the same generic symbol on it, no one distinguishable from the other.
I hope that these work as they must, as they always have.
I wrap the five Elements I can see in the grip of my magic, calling upon the love I feel for my nation as the spark that will ignite them. I watch the center stone expectantly, waiting for Magic to reveal itself, as it always does.
There is nothing.
I call desperately for the means to save the citizens I love and cherish, for anything that will ease their suffering and hunger, to make right what once went wrong. To fix everything.
Still, Magic does not come to me.
Frustrated at my inability to command the Elements as I did so recently, I give a loud shout of anger toward the large white stone that encases Magic. The odd stones that have replaced my Elements land loudly on the stone floor, rolling around a short distance before they come to a stop, their uselessness compounding the futility of the situation.
All crops that Equestria grows need equal amounts of sunlight and moonlight... and I took away the power to control the Moon with the same thing that now refuses my magic.
I think I’ve doomed my nation. Me. Celestia, older sister and rightful ruler of Equestria.
Because of me—my thoughtlessness, my arrogance—Equestria is dying.