You are Nightmare Moon. The darker side of Luna. Ex-empress of the Starlight Empire. Sister of Celestia and adoptive mother of your thestral children, Counter and Anti. For a while, you were the most powerful pony on Equis.
You have been taken.
You are free now. Free of the suffering at the hooves of your sister's ignorance. Free of all of your burdens set upon you by your subjects. Now you are a subject. Breathe, and taste your freedom. Feel the air fill your lungs again.
But how did it come to this? This is an important question, princess. What brought you here?
For you, it was empathy. You felt everything at once. You understood everyone's pain and shared in it.
Your people were starving, and you felt all of their pain. You had to turn against your sister to save them. We can find another way, said Counter, and you said no, I have exhausted all other options. And Anti said then we will fight too, and you said no, I cannot bear to lose you two.
You had to protect them because they were why you were fighting. If you lost them, then what was the point of it all?
You need to overcome contingency; force all who challenge you to play by your rules. Your convictions must be indestructible. Your potential must be realized.
There is a knife for you. It is shaped like [negation]. Pick it up.
You will not need empathy to keep fighting. You will need only your own inner strength, and the ability to set the rules.
Pick up the knife. Cut away your empathy. Make your own rules. Take your new shape.
------
I've been told, many, many times to stay determined. To keep fighting. I've been told this by my hoof-to-hoof combat teachers as they knocked me on my back. I've been told this by my adoptive children as I went to war with them. I've been told this by so many important ponies in my life. But none of those ponies ever reached me with the same depth that a dream had.
It's a long story, and I hate telling it, so sit down, shut up, and don't interrupt.
I've never really been an assertive pony. I grew up in my sister's shadow, always wanting to be like her; as pretty, and patient, and kind, and perfect. Even though I was far younger than her at the time, I had to gain control over my celestial body before her, but she beat me to it. I was always envious of her...
One day... I was out in the palace gardens at night, and I was trying to connect with the moon. I was trying so hard, even though my horn was hurting. But I heard something in a bush behind me. I tried to ask who was there, but I got knocked out.
While I was out, I started to dream about being lost under a mountain. I'd fallen and broken my wings, and I couldn't get back up. A kind old creature helped me out, but I wanted to go home... So when she fell asleep I snuck away. I wandered, and wandered, staying hidden from everything. It was tough, but I managed. And at the far end of the caverns, I met one more creature, who asked if I wanted to have a cup of tea with him.
He told me that if I was here, then I was somewhere floating between life and death. I believe the exact term he used was fallen down. There was no way to escape this place, unless I'd been told I could leave. When I asked by whom, he just stood up and left, saying "Stay determined, Luna," despite that I'd never told him my name.
Even now, sometimes I see strange, almost nightmarish creatures in my dreams, telling me to "stay determined," that "it's all just a bad dream." Except for two of them. Both of them were nothing more than skeletons, and one of them had cracks in his skull. He spoke in a language I couldn't understand, but somehow I knew what he was saying, and I knew that he was friendly.
The other one, though... He only ever appeared once, and all he said was, "[redacted]"
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Here's the thing about pain that I never understood until I had to do it myself. How can you be in pain when you're smiling?
Growing up, I only ever knew smiles to be genuine displays of happiness. When I saw guards smile at me, I always thought they were happy. When Mom and Dad would smile at me, I thought they were happy. I never knew that smiles could be fake; manufactured to mask pain.
But as I started getting older, I started noticing that ponies were hiding something from me, but they'd smile and tell me they were fine, that everything was okay.
One day, Luna came to me and told me that she was feeling depressed. I thought she was joking. She'd been smiling for months before then, and she genuinely looked happy. She told me a few more times, and then she stopped... She kept smiling, and laughing at my jokes, and telling her own.
She ran away a few years later... I never understood why...
Then there was the Lunar War. I had to fight her, face to face at the Battle of Noc'tren, and nothing has ever hurt more than that. Not the speech I gave to the thestrals of the Starlight Empire, not the years that came after. But after a few years, I started to hide my pain... first I hid it with anger... then I hid it with a smile.
------
Fluttershy awoke feeling warm and happy. In her arms was the love of her life... lives? That didn't matter. At least, not now. That was a better conversation point for when she was drunk. Now, however, was a much more tender moment, and talk of death would instantly murder such a moment.
She pulled the sleeping unicorn just a little closer to her, and smiled as she scooted even closer, their bodies sharing warmth. The softness of Twilight's body against her own felt like happiness on her skin. A soft moan escaped her lover's lips, followed by a yawn.
"Good morning, Shy," the unicorn whispered.
"Good morning, Twily," Fluttershy replied.
Twilight turned around and opened her eyes, meeting Fluttershy's teal ones with her own. For a moment, they just stared into each other's eyes. The universe revolved around them for just a few precious seconds. The world outside could wait. Nothing was important enough to interrupt their morning together.
Twilight leaned in and kissed Fluttershy softly, her lips curling up in a smile as she felt her lover melt into the kiss as well, scooting closer and wrapping her arms around her body. She, too, wrapped her arms around Fluttershy and pulled her closer by the waist, feeling Fluttershy's soft belly firmly pressing against her own. Internally, she debated if it was the right time for what she wanted to do, but a swift motion from Fluttershy negated the need for such a debate. She pulled the unicorn on top of herself, and brought one hand up behind Twilight's head, pulling her deeper into the kiss. The other hand, however, went in the exact opposite direction...
"Aïe! Fluttershy!" Twilight gasped, looking into the pegasus' eyes in surprise.
"What?" Fluttershy's expression shifted to something akin to horror. Her hand shot off of Twilight off to one side of the bed. "D-did I... oh dear I should have asked... I'm so— MMM!!! Mmmm... mmmm~..."
Twilight cut off her marefriend with a sudden kiss and reached over to where Fluttershy's hand had fled to, pulling it back and placing it where it had been, before moving her own hands to a similar position on Fluttershy's body.
Fluttershy pulled away for a few moments, taking a moment to catch her breath before asking, "Twilight... um... how far do you want to go...?"
Twilight blushed at the question, and turned her face away in a vain attempt to hide it. She managed to stammer out a short few words before biting her lip. "I-I um...I don't know..."
Fluttershy smiled at her and reached up to Twilight's face, turning the unicorn to look at her. "Do you... not want to...?"
"Of course I want to!" Twilight blurted. "I mean, uh... I do want to, I just... never thought I'd get to experience this... especially not with you..."
Fluttershy rolled over and brought herself on top of Twilight. "May... may I... um..."
"Y-yes."
Fluttershy gave Twilight a warm smile. "Stop me if I make you uncomfortable or you change your mind."
Twilight could only blush and nod in response. Fluttershy's soft, innocent smile contorted into something Twilight had never seen before, but it made her feel even more in-the-moment than ever. She blinked and closed her mouth for a moment, only for the sight of Fluttershy removing her civilian clothes that she used as pajamas to send her jaw dropping back down again. Despite the fact that they were in bodies that weren't quite their own, Twilight could only describe the now half-naked mare straddling her and staring at her with an evocative expression as "incredibly sexy."
The rest of the morning... No one else needed to see or hear about what happened to know what happened. But they did take full advantage of their remaining day of respite.