“Look, sister! See how soundly our beloved subjects sleep!”
The Elements lie in the growing shadow. They are purple and pink and white and yellow and orange and blue and their faces are lax and surely they are just asleep. They must be. They will wake and vanquish Nightmare Moon and save Luna.
They do not move.
She looks away. She’s not here. She must be dozing as she waits for the beautiful moment of reconciliation. It will be wonderful. She will never be happier.
The shadow slinks into her blood, her heart, her horn.
She must look back. It is her duty. She must bear the way they do not move as the moon rises. The moon is pale and huge and she must look back, she must. She looks back. She has to look back. She is their Princess. She has to look.
Never have their coats been so lurid. The umbra overcomes their bodies. No, they are not bodies. They are her little ponies. It’s dark, she’s crying, it’s hard to see. There are cinders on the floor.
“Luna, stop,” she sobs. She looks at her sister. But that is looking away and she must not look away. She looks back at her student. “You must lower the moon!”
“Luna is gone!” Luna snaps. “I am Nightmare Moon!”
The mare spreads her wings to wreak vengeance on Equestria. Her wings are sharp. They are black against the sky devoid of sunlight. This is not her sister. Her sister has rounded wings.
This is not what she foresaw. This is not how the nightmare ends tonight. There is rubble and moonlight and it cannot be. This is like the beginning of the nightmare a millennium ago. This cannot be another beginning, a failed ending. No.
Suddenly there is a rainbow around Nightmare Moon and she can see all of the stars spinning in the galaxy and they spin out in a rush like the beginning of a race and embrace her. There is light everywhere and it hurts.