//------------------------------// // "Sisters" // Story: Do Not Go Gentle // by ShinigamiDad //------------------------------// Luna lay still for a moment, eyes closed, gauging her surroundings by sound and smell: a haunted wind whistling through cracked and broken stonework, the smell of damp, mossy stone. “I suppose I should have expected this,” she mumbled, rubbing her hoof across her muzzle. She sat up and opened her eyes, then turned to face the other occupant of the hall, seated directly behind her. “Welcome, True Sister!” said Nightmare Moon, seated atop a crumbling throne. Luna sighed: “Reaper was right--this is cliché!” Nightmare Moon arched an eyebrow, and waved a hoof in the air dismissively. Now the two alicorns were in Celestia’s royal audience hall. It appeared to have suffered a heavy attack: windows were blown out, part of the roof was torn away, holes were blasted through the floor, several shattered pony skeletons lay in a heap in the entryway. And at the center of it all sat Nightmare Moon, at the top of the dais, on a tattered, blood-encrusted throne. Luna walked up the steps to the top of the dais, and noticed, as she approached, that the “throne” was actually Celestia’s broken and desiccated body, pinioned across the ruins of her former seat, shredded wings spread wide and held up by bloody spears. Luna shook her head disgustedly: “Still a cliché.” “Perhaps,” offered Nightmare Moon, “but you cannot deny that you have longed to see this come to fruition!” “I deny it categorically! You desired to see it, not me!” Luna replied, hotly. Nightmare Moon chuckled derisively: “A distinction without a difference, dear True Sister. You were me--are me!” “I was you, yes for a time…” “A very long time!” “But you are me no more!” Nightmare Moon paced in a circle around Luna: “You may fool the others with that line, True Sister, you may even fool The Bitch, but you cannot fool me!” “I do not seek to fool anypony, least of all Celestia! In fact, I do not believe I could fool…” Nightmare Moon cut her off sharply: “You will refer to that fucking cunt by her proper title, 'The Bitch!'” She turned and spat into the left eye socket of the skull behind her head. Luna furrowed her brow: “Am I truly this dramatic?” Nightmare Moon looked back at Luna, blinked slowly and smiled: “I normally take a bit more time and care. I usually raise my tail and urinate on her skull.” Luna shook her head and slowly descended the dais, looking at the pile of bones at the chamber’s entrance. She turned at the bottom and looked back up at her dark counterpart, in time to see Nightmare Moon’s tail drop back to its resting position as she stepped down from the now-dripping throne. Luna rolled her eyes: “So, what are we to do, now?” “Whatever you so desire, True Sister!” Nightmare Moon replied. “Grey Thorn has graced you with unlimited power in this dream to do anything you like!” Luna raised an eyebrow: “I can already do that!” “Really?” Nightmare Moon taunted, “Then explain the Tantabus! If you truly are all-powerful here, why would you need to punish yourself? Why do you continue to haunt our old, broken-down castle?” “Because of what I was--what you are! I have spent several days, now, revisiting my sins, reliving their horror!” Nightmare Moon’s eyes widened: “I know! The blood! The seed! The tears! The fluids of life! How alive they all made me, even in dream forms!” Luna recoiled: “And how dead it made the victims!” Nightmare Moon glared: “So what? They were all burnt flesh in the end, destined for Reaper’s touch and oblivion!” “Even were that true,” Luna replied evenly, “it is a better fate than that offered by Grey Thorn and his monster!” “And a waste! Reaper comes along and cleans up the mess, instead of Grey Thorn making true use of these ponies and their spirits. He gives them the gift of becoming a part of him--living on through him!” Luna arched an eyebrow: “You mean like an apple “living on” through the pony who eats it?” Nightmare Moon chuckled: “I suppose so, but at least those Grey Thorn absorbs do not get shit out in the end!” “A distinction without a difference,” Luna replied dryly. Nightmare Moon flashed a wicked grin: “Ha! Perhaps, but irrelevant for us. Grey Thorn does not want to absorb us--he wants to rule with us, feeding on ponies’ essences in a shadow world of our...” Luna interrupted: “Yes, yes--I have heard his delusion first-hoof; I do not need to hear it repeated by, well, myself!” Nightmare Moon regarded Luna coldly: “It is no delusion, True Sister. In short order he will defeat, or at least neutralize, Reaper, then absorb The Usurper’s energy. Nopony can stop him: not you, certainly not The Bitch--nopony!” “Be that as it may,” Luna replied, “I have to at least try. I have come too far in my redemption to backslide into the madness that you represent.” “Madness?” Nightmare Moon responded. Luna walked to the middle of the chamber, which now contained Zephyr’s wasted body, lying next to the blood-soaked tangle of bones and offal that was all that remained of Heavy Gauge. “Yes, False Sister--madness. This,” she said as she swept her hoof over the remains, “is the extreme to which you drove yourself--not The Bitch--you!” Luna’s nostrils flared as she advanced on Nightmare Moon: “So consumed were you--were we--with self-pity and rage, and eventually self-loathing, that it spun out-of-control, and we became a grotesque!” Nightmare Moon ground her teeth: “Perhaps it would have been best if our last dream had been fulfilled…” Two figures appeared on the darkened, silent, sterile surface of the moon, a few hundred yards from the terminator. Nightmare Moon glided forward like a ghost, leaving no hoofprints, until she reached the boundary between the safety of her dark prison, and the terrible, purifying radiance of her sister. She paused for a moment, and looked back over her shoulder at Luna, who stood still as a statue, as Nightmare Moon stepped out into the naked light. She writhed as colorless flames consumed her hide, and her mouth stretched in a silent scream while her flesh boiled away, her bones crumbling like dry bread. Luna turned away, and returned to the ruins of her dream castle. Nightmare Moon appeared a moment later, and sat on the floor next to Luna. “I suppose that was The Bitch’s version of mercy,” she said, poking at Luna’s nearly-complete collection of armor. “I always interpreted it in that fashion,” Luna replied, looking out the open roof at the stars. “A final escape if we so desired.” “She should have destroyed us.” “But she didn’t, and I have to honor the faith that implies.” Suddenly both alicorns glanced up at the portal banner hanging limply above them, as images began to flicker across it. Nightmare Moon tipped her head to one side and smiled slyly: “Well, I wonder if she would still qualify as a virgin after that!” Luna rolled her eyes: “I suppose I should send this dream of hers off-course before she becomes enmeshed in it any deeper.” She directed a pulse of magic from her horn at the banner, then turned away. Nightmare Moon continued to watch the scene with interest: “She really would have lain there, trapped in that dream until she died, would she not?” Luna nodded: “And I suspect that was Grey Thorn’s intent for me, as well.” Nightmare Moon shrugged: “You can leave anytime…” “Of course I can.” “Why does he fear death so?” “Why did we fear rejection and loneliness so?” Both alicorns looked up through the open roof as their attention was drawn to a new, six-pointed star, pulsing brightly above them. Nightmare Moon sighed: “It appears The Usurper is trying to wake you.” “Yes. I suppose it is time for me to go--she needs me. Equestria needs me.” Luna faded away, leaving Nightmare Moon alone. “That must be nice.”