//------------------------------// // Chapter 11: Mare and Rider // Story: Nightmares Are Tragic // by Jordan179 //------------------------------// Nightmare Moon swept back into her old throne room.. Here, so long ago, she thought, I made my final transformation. Here, I broke the lie of Harmony. Here, I first openly confronted my tyrannical sister. To here I cast her down, with the powers of the Nightmare surging within me. Right here, where she had the instruments of my destruction. Here, where we kept ready the Elements of Harmony. She looked once again at the ingenious mechanism they had built so long ago to deploy the Elements rapidly, so that never again might they be taken unawares by their foes. The mechanism I designed, the Moon Princess thought, struck by the sudden unfairness of it all. The last time my machine was used, it was to aid in my own defeat! Metaphor for my whole life, she thought bitterly. Before and after I embraced the Nightmare. Focus, the Nightmare told herself. You must destroy Twilight. She is almost certainly Celestia's own apprentice, the only one in all probability with the ability to activate the Elements themselves. The others are merely her minions. Kill Twilight, and Celestia's whole attack is defeated. Kill Twilight?, the Moon Princess thought. No, surely that's not necessary. I can defeat her, detain her in one of the old cells enchanted to suppress mages, explain the truth to her. In time, perhaps she could become my apprentice. If she was powerful enough to serve Celestia, she has too much potential to so casually destroy. I'll need ponies like her to help me make my new world ... Idiot! mocked the Nightmare. Had you done my bidding, finished off Celestia a thousand years ago, instead of casting her down to this very spot, the one place she had the tools she needed to defeat us, we could have made your new world then and there. If you lose this time, do you think your sister will be sentimental enough to spare you again? She can be ruthless toward those who harm her little ponies, you know that well! The Moon Princess had no head in this form, but still her head was hurting. Bidding, she thought with confusion. Do I hold converse with myself, or with someone else? Was it like this back then too? She remembered her resentment, slow-building across the centuries, as her sister became increasingly important, increasingly-beloved, and she herself fell unregarded into her sister's long shadow. Her too-great trust for Sombra, his seduction of her, politically and .... she squirmed with shame at the memory of her own surpassing naivete. After that, Celestia had never really trusted her again ... it was unfair ... her sister had the love of a whole nation! But Sombra had taught her other things as well. Including the source of his own power. And, one terrible ... no, wonderful night ... she realized that she might call upon it as well ... Whispers in the darkness. A long slow attunement. And then ... then she had taken the final step and ... She would finally confront Celestia ... she had called ... and ... ... and ... ... the Shadow had taken her! It had not been enhancement. It has not been aid. It had been ... ... possession ... ???!!! Enough, the Nightmare told her. A great force slammed her into the back of her own mind. Manacles of icy hatred chained her by all six limbs and her horn, or their spiritual analogues. There will be no more of this nonsense. Stunned, she beheld the Nightmare's slitted green eyes glaring into the depths of her soul. I had hoped to leave you in charge of all tactical decisions, the Nightmare hissed. That is the more efficient method of riding you. But here, your pathetic personality keeps attempting to resurface. There would be no way to stop you from doing so when you finally confronted Twilight Sparkle, and you fully understood Celestia's design. You can still serve as tactical advisor. It is in your own interest to do so, since both of us will perish if we lose this fight. But I, once again, will be firmly in control. Once .... again? the Moon Princess thought with confusion. This has happened many times before, coldly stated the Nightmare. Always, I win. Always, I make you forget. Forget that I am the mistress, you merely my steed. I rule by right, for I am by far the stronger. You are weakened by so many things -- by your own self-doubt, your sentimentality, most of all that confused mixture of kin-selected altruism and misaimed reproductive urge that you have warped into "love." I have no such weaknesses. I know that all that matters is power. I do not doubt myself or have sentiment. I and my kin struggle for domination, as is the law of Nature, and I reproduce by infecting others with my essence, as is the way of the highest form of life in any Universe. I do not "love," not my kind, not even my own kin, I just hate them less than I do the rest of existence. Therefore, I am stronger than you. Therefore, I dominate you, now and forever. Other memories flooded into the Moon Princess. I can understand you, she realized. On the Moon, the Shadows were only whispers ... I am your own Nightmare, the Shadow told her. I have learned the pathetic concepts your kind, which imagines themselves goddesses, use instead of true and clear thought. It has been a great degradation, but one necessary in order to effectively ride you. And I shall gain glory by it in the end. I shall ride you to the overthrow and destruction of all Ponykind. No! Luna cried, straining against her bonds. Useless. As before, they were iron, she no more than a little filly attempting to break the unbreakable. I have let you have free rein for far too long, weak little "Princess," the Nightmare continued. If I had taken firm hold earlier, all of those larvae pretending to be Celestia's champions would by now be dead, along with Celestia's own apprentice herself. Your tactical advice still can be useful, though, the Shadow mused. To kill them, you will have to become tangible, and you know better than I how to operate a tangible form. So I will have to link you to some motor functions. But I will have ultimate control. The reduction in reflexes should not prove a problem, given the great superiority of my mount to any of those champions. I'm not just a mount, Luna protested. Not just a thing for you to control. I'm a pony! I'm myself! You always think that when it comes to this point, the Shadow said. Such a useless affirmation of identity, when you lack the power to impose your will on me. Still, if you had no innate spirit, you would be useless, both as steeds and as ... sustenance. And now the last preparations Sleep! the Shadow told her higher consciousness. Luna was in what others would have regarded as a dream-state, but which to the dream-walker was utterly unreal. She knew things, did things, remembered things by association. But she had no control over her actions. She moved slowly, as if half-dead with exhaustion. Very good, said the Shadow. Reflex reductions are within acceptable bounds, for now. Later, when there's time .... It listened with her faculties. Ah, it thought. They come. Celestia's champions entered the throne room. The last act begins.