You had your fun spanking ponies for their crimes and rather enjoyed it, but you knew this day was to come sooner or later. Nightmare Moon is in your grasp and ready for punishment, yet you feel conflicted as you look over to select your tool of choice for the evening. You know Nightmare needs to be spanked, but you love Luna. Nightmare must be punished, but until she turned back into Luna, there had to be a middle ground.
Looking among the belts, pans, and whips you brought along in a duffle bag, you click your teeth as Nightmare groans, awakening. “What a naughty mare you are, destroying your home as you have, assaulting your sister. And for what? Jealousy, loneliness, things so trifle you can simply talk it over.”
Struggling to stand, she finds her body far too heavy to lift, yet nothing holds her down, “You think you can judge me? I’ll tear you apart.” Magical energies crackle yet do nothing more than a slight surge with tiny pops of light. “W-what?”
With an “ahh” you pick up a riding crop decorated with a crimson handle and a strange symbol embroidered into it. “I’m not too worried about you doing anything against me.” Walking over you brush away a little rubble with your foot and point at the carving. “Ten years of research and studies in rune-based magic. Until I let you go, this trap has you bound by your very soul. A more simplistic way of saying it is…” You groan as you scratch the back of your head, “you’re bound to my will.”
Walking to her flank you pat her head and caress her back. “If you think you stand a chance of getting away with this…” she threatens.
Pulling back her tail you laugh, “Oh Nightmare, I don’t just think. I know. You see I found a nice spell to force you to face that which you fear the most… or help show what could be wrong with you mentally. Kinda hard to adapt an old spell when you can’t really translate the language. Anywho, I then adapted it to a rune and… well…” Once again you chuckle as you swing the crop around a little, “I wonder what you fear the most?”
Teasing her with the crop, you press the tip of it into the side of her flank, causing her to gasp and look around confused, “What was that?” She shouted, worried as her ears twitched trying to find a source to what she heard.
Looking around, you ponder what’s going on as you look at the crop. “What… you mean this?” Pressing its tip into her side again her ears twitched as she looked around only for her to stop as you remove it, “Huh…” you say in a baffled tone, “tell me what you hear.” You lightly strike her with the crop.
Gasping again she looked around again with twitching ears as she mumbles, “Sunshine, lollipops…” She trails off only for you to strike her a little harder in curiosity. “Sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows…” She trails off again.
“Huh…” you mutter yet again as you test the crop upon your left hand only to hear “Sweating Bullets” by Megadeth as you see the laughing skeleton jet fighter from Pearl Jam’s “Do The Evolution”, and yet you have the strange somber feeling from the song “Bother” by Stone Sour. “I’m gonna have to have Celestia smack me with this a few times, I clearly have some issues I need to work out.”
Shaking your head you turn your focus back to the mare caught in your trap. Dragging the crop across the side of her flank, you see the worried look in her eyes as she struggles to look back. Her worries and fears begin to escalate as you start singing. It wasn’t your voice or the tune that caused this. No, it was the song you chose to sing; even you had to ponder why you started singing “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd (good song, just seemed oddly appropriate in some strange way).
With the first strike Nightmare gritted her teeth; now she was hearing two songs—one in her head the other from you.
You sing gently to her that there is no pain she's receiving, as you lay the next harsh slap on her flank, harder than the last.
“Please! I’ll give you anything you want, just stop!” she cried.
With a few more spanks you hit the mellow tone just before the guitar solo, blissfully singing your claim to being numb and its comfort.
Starting to tear up, her form as Nightmare started to waver. “I kn-know a spell for that,” she stutters. “I c-can help you feel blissfully numb... i-if that’s what you want.”
With the guitar rift taking its solo in your mind, you ignore her cries and bribes as you spank her a few more times, you see uncertainty upon her face as she questions which song was more troublesome. The one in her mind or the one from your lips?
Again she begs for you to stop as she slowly returns to being Luna with each spanking you give her. Once again you claim to being comfortably numb as the solo comes to its end and with it you give a devilish smile. You press in on her reddening flank with your finger as you raise the crop as high as you can telling her it’s just a little pinprick.
Swinging as fast as you could you sing to her, “There’ll be no more”
“A~ah~ah!” She cries out as the crop lands on her already sensitive flank.
With that her transformation back into Princess Luna is complete, though she is in a blissful daze. She’s panting as she looks back at you while you rub the crop over the reddened area, singing about her current condition. Coming round to face her you place the crop under her chin to slightly raise her head.
Looking down at the carving, you choose to test your level of control over her for future reference, “Can you stand up?” you inquire as though you were commanding her to move.
Looking down at the rune again, you smile with a slight chuckle; you can’t help but sing about your belief on its effectiveness. As well as your thoughts about how pleased you are with an untested set of runes. Looking back you nervously sigh recalling how everything claimed it was a bad idea to use just one untested spell, and not know how it would work (but two untested runes just made it all the worse). You thank whatever amount of luck kept the two of you safe.
Her tongue dangles out of her mouth as she wobbles under her own weight and mouths a few words. Tilting your head slightly, you lean in to hear her, yet find that all she’s doing is mouthing. No sound comes from her and you feel slightly cheated. Dragging the crop across her body, you playfully chuckle.
“I sang to you, the least you could do is sing to me.”
Giving a light tap on her flank one last time she sang with the loveliest of voices you had ever heard, the words that flew out of her mouth made you question her life choices up to her transformation. Even bigger question you had: why did she sing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by The Beatles?
She drifts off muttering the song as her knees start to bend. Clearly she’s in a much further state of bliss than you first thought.