//------------------------------// // Shatter // Story: Courage // by scion //------------------------------// It was evening in Canterlot, nearing sundown. The sun was low on the horizon, casting long shadows across the city. Celestia ate her dinner in the waning light, the small salad portion her dietician had given her. The majority of her little ponies would no doubt be doing the same, enjoying a good meal before bed. At the same time, she knew that there would be some, not many but some, ponies that were just waking up and eating breakfast. She smiled slightly to herself. The local night scene was something that Celestia had never even dreamed of. She had done a great many things to encourage acceptance of the night and darkness over the last thousand years, but the night life had evolved on its own. She had encouraged it, of course; such things would make Luna so happy. How her sister had loved it when she had found out that first week back, going out alone for a midnight stroll only to come upon a pony who was a kindred spirit of the night. If only there had been such a phenomenon a thousand years ago, perhaps her sister would not have become Nightma- Celestia bit down harder than she meant to on her salad fork, causing a tink that could be heard across the table. There was nopony there to hear it. The place, all set for her sister, was empty. The food which had been set out along with her own was cold by now. She hadn’t dined with her sister all week. Celestia sighed. Luna had been so wrapped up in her work these last few days that she had ceased coming to meals. This morning, the sunrise was late– Celestia had waited and waited for her sister to lower the moon, but her sister had not touched her celestial orb. She had finally done it herself, prepared for a verbal haranguing from her sister for touching her beloved Moon, but no such thing happened. She was worried. This obsession in some ways reminded her of Luna's fall; a thousand years ago, she had begun skipping meals and shutting herself away from the world as well. She had withdrawn, coming out of her chambers only on the most dire of reasons. Of course, it had all ended when she had come out in the middle of the day and had declared that the night would last forever. With a practiced smile, Celestia excused herself from the table as one of her faithful ponies began to clean up the table. She caught one last glimpse of Luna's untouched meal before it too was swept out of the room with her own dishes. For a thousand years she had eaten meals without her sister. She would not see such a thing come to pass again, not if she could help it. --- Celestia had optimistically checked her sister's bedchambers first in the hopes that her sister had finally decided to sleep, but she was disappointed. Then she had checked the astronomy tower, in the hopes that her sister had decided to take a break and do some stargazing, as she often did when she was stuck or needed time to mull things over. She was once again disappointed. She hoped, nay, prayed, that Luna would raise the Moon and her beloved stars when the time came for the changing day, but Celestia was disappointed in this as well. She gave up and brought forth the night, as she had so rarely done in the last two years, when it became clear that her sister would not be doing so herself. It was the last straw, in Celestia's mind. Something had to be done. Now. Before she lost her sister for another thousand years, or worse. She made her way towards her sister's Arcanum, deep within the cliff that Canterlot rested upon. Celestia had never been much for magic; oh, she was good enough at spells, quite adept at those she chose to master, but the inspiration and drive to create new forms of magic, to tease out the arcane secrets of the world, that talent belonged to her sister. It always had. She had built the Arcanum to cater to those interests, deep enough and far enough away to be safe for her more dangerous tests. More recently, her Arcanum had become her makeshift home as she examined the artifact that she had brought back from the Spring. A short conversation with one of the bat-winged Night Guard standing outside revealed that Luna had not left the Arcanum for nearly two days now. She had not been requesting meals for last day, though the Guard outside had ordered and delivered meals to her. The guard told Celestia that her sister had been unusually focused; she had barely acknowledged his presence, or the food. His delivery this evening had found that she had not eaten her lunch. Warning bells rang inside Celestia's head, even as she smiled and thanked him before making her way into the Arcanum herself. The large, hemispherical chamber was full of archaeo-tech objects, from thuamatic resonators to archaeo-spectral detectors. It was a place that had quite clearly been built and designed by her sister; the lone light in the room floated above the water chalice in the center of the room, and everywhere Celestia looked, it was dark– the stone, the counters, her sister... Luna sat facing away from the door, unmoving; even her mane appeared still. A tray of food, untouched, sat on the counter near her, the only noticable thing on the table as it appeared all the other arcane equipment had been cleared away from the area. All except the object, of course. It hung in front of her, the flat reflective surface turned such that Celestia could see her reflection as she came up behind her sister. Her sister did not respond to her presence, not even to the hoofsteps that Celestia did not muffle that sounded throughout the chamber. Her mane flowed ever so slowly, her fur was unkempt and messy, and Celestia's nose detected a certain staleness about her sister that indicated that she had not bathed in several days. Nothing highly offensive, mind, but every pony developed an odor after time without a cleansing, something that she and her sister, powerful as they were, were not exempt from. More concerning to Celestia was the unbroken stare of her sister into the reflective surface of the artifact, marred only by an occasional, likely involuntary, eye twitch. "Luna?" Celestia asked softly. There was no response. "Lulu?" she tried again, poking her sister slightly. Luna did not respond to this any more than she responded to her name. Celestia sighed. She had feared that her sister was becoming obsessed and it appeared that her fears were justified. Given her state, it appeared that she had perhaps even waited too long to intervene. Nevertheless, the situation was still salvageable in her opinion. Separation from the artifact, a few days rest, and Luna would no doubt be as good as new. "Sister, this has gone on long enough," Celestia said as she gently yet firmly pushed her sister with a hoof. "You haven't even taken the time to eat, much less perform your–" "NO!" Luna reacted violently once her sister had pushed her to the point where she had lost eye contact with the reflective surface. Celestia was not prepared for her sister to shove her aside. She now stood, eye still twitching, a mere half hoof from the mirror, her eyes wide as they peered into the black depths of the mirror. For a few moments Celestia simply stared. Then she tried a different angle of attack. "Sister, you have to get some rest," Celestia stated as she reached for the artifact. "Please–" The next thing Celestia was consciously aware of was the sensation of flying through the air– without the aid of her wings. After that, it was the very intense pain in her skull and back that came with being slammed through three separate tables filled with glassware and arcane equipment followed by an unfortunate encounter with the solid rock that made up the walls of the Arcanum. She lay there, dazed, before she was suddenly grabbed in a turquoise aura. It began to drag her across the floor, through the wreckage her sudden and unexpected flight had left. She lit her horn, attempting to clear her mind enough to counteract the spell, but before she could do so her horn was doused in turquoise and her magic forced painfully back into her skull. "Well, well, sister," came a silky voice. Even through her pain-induced haze, Celestia recognized that voice. Her eyes widened and her hooves struggled, but the grip was too strong and her magic was blocked. Her journey stopped just in front of the mirror, at hooves that were covered in silver slippers. Turquoise magic began to lift her, starting with her head and dragging the rest of her body up with it. Up, past the silver hoof slippers, past the silver armor that adorned her sister's now midnight-black barrel, past the armored neckline, past the muzzle that greeted her with fangs, up to the teal, dragon-irised eyes. The eyes of Nightmare Moon. "You should know better than to take something that belongs to me, Celestia," Nightmare Moon smiled, revealing the full extent of her pointed fangs. "And it does belong to me," she continued, running a hoof teasingly along Celestia's jawline. "It will ALWAYS belong to me and me alone, now and forever." She smirked. "Just as the night shall now last forever more. And you did it all yourself, sister; you set your own Sun for the last time, and have raised my beautiful Moon, all on your own." She giggled, a deceptively innocent sound, as she leaned in closer to Celestia. "Luna–" Celestia tried to say. "NO!" The force of the blow to her cheek sent Celestia reeling back to the floor. Her golden crown clattered against the far wall. "There is no more Luna, Celestia. There is only the Nightmare! And I SHALL NOT be denied!" Nightmare Moon threw her head back and laughed as she stood victorious over the struggling and defeated form of Celestia. Her horn lit and her starry mane billowed behind her armored helm as tendrils of magic began gathering around Celestia, focusing upon the horn. "With your defeat, SISTER, there remains only ONE thing in this world that can stop me. The Elements, those precious little jewels of yours. Only now, they answer not to you, but to six little ponies." She smiled predatorily. "Six vulnerable, mortal, insignificant little ponies. Once they are taken care of, nothing can stand before me. The Mirror is mine! Equestria, is mine! And the night! Shall! Last! FOREVER! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" It was the last thing Celestia remembered before the spell sent the Goddess of the Sun to her prison. --- “Twilight! Supper!” Spike called. His voice was muffled by the thick wooden door leading to the basement currently serving as her laboratory, but experience at listening to muffled words through doors allowed Twilight to make out his call. “Coming Spike!” she shouted back through the door. Her mind was still buzzing with thaumatic theories and calculations as she sat down at the table. She was breaking new ground here in every sense of the word, attempting to invent a new magic that would match the signatures and properties of a magic she had only really examined for a few hours. The fact that she had managed to flare her horn a fluorescent turquoise in color, with a similar signature to that of the shadow, was nothing short of a miracle. She was so preoccupied with her thoughts on magic that she wasn't even aware she was eating dinner. In fact, she only stopped thinking about it when a certain drake loudly announced that he was going to eat the rest of the ice cream, and she was half-way through automatically agreeing to it. After giving him a scolding and restricting him to two scoops, along with herself, Twilight decided that maybe it was time to take a break. As her friends had been reminding her every so often since the Smarty Pants Incident, breaks and sleep were an essential part of life and she was not allowed to go without either of them for extended lengths of time, on pain of Pinkie Pie intervention. As such, Twilight decided that, since the sun had now set and the moon and stars were out, she would take a break and stargaze for an hour before going back down to her lab. Luna's Night was always such a beautiful thing. Twilight had always enjoyed looking at the stars, those little points of possibility and inspiration, but she had to admit that the last two years since the true Princess of the Night came back had been the most spectacular, and she was eager to see what Luna would do tonight. She had barely finished setting out her telescope on the balcony when she heard the door to the library open. "Spike, could you go see who that is?" she called out. Behind her in the bedroom, she heard the drake grumble out a reply (something about interrupting his bath time, but she hadn't heard running water yet so he couldn't have started it) before he headed downstairs. She focused her telescope and eyed the sky, trying to decide what she wanted to look at first, but before she could look a thump reached her ears. "Spike? Is everything alright?" There was no response. "Spike?" she called out, trotting back inside. She called downstairs, but he still didn't answer. Her ears folded back. Something was wrong here, her instincts were telling her. Even though to her eyes, the brightly-lit library looked no different than– A candle blew out in a puff of sparkling blue smoke. Then another. Then another. Twilight watched, frozen, as the candles blew themselves out one by one, until the only light was the moonlight that streamed through the windows. Twilight gulped. Her hoofsteps as she descended the stairs were deafening in the silence of the room. "H-hello? Is anypony there?" A sinister chuckle from behind caused Twilight to nearly jump out of her hooves. "I am here," Nightmare Moon crooned. "Wha... ba.... Luna?" Nightmare Moon's smile widened to show her fangs. "No. Not Luna." Twilight flared her magic as the Nightmare's horn lit, but the sleep spell was too powerful. Twilight collapsed into an unconcious heap on the floor. Nightmare Moon took a moment to make certain that her spell was stable, before her horn flared again, picking a single book off the shelf. The Complete History of the Rise and Fall of the Griffin Empire, Volume 4, AE 189–329. The front cover opened, revealing it to be a hollowed out book; inside, was the crown with a pink starburst gem. The tiara of the Element of Magic. The grin on the Nightmare's face widened. --- Metal-shod hooves clicked on the stone floor. A single pony walked down the barely-lit corridor of rough stone. Green vines and moss covered the walls; as the pony continued to walk, he passed a great hole in the stone wall, showing the starry night in the sky and dense jungle beneath. He did not notice. One might be tempted to call this pony a member of the Night Guard; he was slate grey, wearing official-looking armor, and had yellow eyes. That, however, was where the similarities became warped. His armor was different, darker, with a different design; his crest was not made from hair, but seemed to be webbed like the wing of a bat; his tail was dyed a deep, almost black, purple color; but, most tellingly of all, were the reptilian diamond pupils of his eyes. A second pony, looking nearly the same and clad in the same armor, joined the first from another corridor. A little further down, a unicorn of this new guard joined them, followed by another. The four continued down the dimly lit hallways until a pair of pegasi guards joined the group. Together, the six guards marched past the multi-armed pedastal that had once held the stone representations of the Elements of Harmony, and into the throne room. The great room was in disrepair; parts of the ceiling had fallen in, and the columns were cracked. Despite this, it was still an imposing and awe-inspiring room. Even more so with the large form of Nightmare Moon on the dias that once held the throne. She did not turn at the steps of the six guards behind her, instead continuing to gaze out the window into her beautiful night. Not until the guards stopped and bowed did she acknowledge them. "Is it done?" "Yes." The six guards answered in unison. Nightmare Moon's gaze slid away from the night and onto the six guards before her. "Very good. Set up a patrol, and seal all entrances. None may enter except by my will," the Nightmare commanded. "Your will be done, Mistress of the Night." Nightmare Moon smiled, showing her fangs, as the six guards turned and left with military precision. The guards that had been charged with guarding and running the Diamond Dogs had not been cooperative with their new Queen at first, but a bit of the power she had gained from the mirror had turned them into her obedient servants without breaking their discipline. The Castle of the Royal Sisters was not Canterlot, but to Nightmare Moon, it was perfect. Only the most foolhardy would enter the Everfree. There would be no prying eyes, no heroes coming to stop her; the forest itself would defeat her foes for her, leaving her unchallenged, and the Mirror, her precious Mirror, safe from all. Her grin widened at the thought of heroes. Celestia was banished from the disc, her body and will imprisoned upon the very Sun from which she drew strength. She would not be a problem; she was as helpless as the Nightmare was during her imprisonment on the Moon. More, even; Celestia did not have the ingenuity or the connection to manipulate the stars to do her bidding. There would be no escape for the Sun Nag. The Elements, too, were no threat. Finding them had been foals' play. No hiding place could disguise the power that each Element exuded, not from her. And the Bearers, those oh-so-trusting mortal ponies that Celestia was relying upon to save the day, had been dealt with as well. All six of their minds were trapped within her realm of dreams, the plane over which the Nightmare held total dominion. Their bodies too had been taken by the Nightmare to her new Castle, as further insurance against potentially meddlesome foals. And all she needed was to turn one to her side, apply the slightest pressure in the right place, a stick here, an apple there... and the Elements would be broken, never to threaten her again. Even better, with the chaos the return of the eternal night would bring, Equestria would be paralyzed; the whelpling Cadence would not be able to restore order, not when it was clear where the real power lay. Equestria would be ripe for the taking; all the Nightmare had to do was bide her time. And with Celestia gone, with the Elements divided, with Equestria under her hoof... there would be nothing that was capable of stopping her. The black obsidian mirror shard reflected her form as she threw back her head and her laughter sounded throughout the halls.