"Ugh...I think I'll try to get some actual shut eye now..."
My eyes closed as the pendant I held slowly left my hand. It's gentle fall lulled me into slumber. Music filled the darkness of my mind. My eyes openened again to a beautiful red and teal landscape. The sky was painted a spacial blue with bright white stars and fading white clouds. Two red moons hung aloft the skyline.
Before me was a gorgeous Meddy in a long cream colored ball gown, slippers with a slight heel, elbow length gloves that seemed almost apart of her making it as if you couldn't tell where the purple of her NetNavi exo-suit began and where the creamy tan of her dress ended.
We danced a slow personal dance, her head planted firmly on my chest as I stared deep into her orange tinted glass covered eyes. Her hair swept to and fro as if a cloud of stars...a shadowy...cloud...of-'This isn't right.' The music starts to fade as a shadow dances across "Meddy's" face.
"Do you truly find pleasure in the company of this common wench?" Said "Meddy".
I pulled away quickly, drawing my luminous blade. "Midnight Mare...that...was a rather cruel joke."
The images around me shifted into the base form of my mindscape. The facades hiding Midnight's form and my scars faded. Midnight placed a hand upon me.
"Had you allowed me to possess you these injuries would never have come to pass." I swat her hand away and pulled back further.
"Have you been reading my memories!?" I ask in shock. "And since when did you start caring about me and who I spend my time with!?"
"When she made me apart of her! Can you hear her screams? Her cries for salvation?" As Midnight rose her arm a shadow rose and formed an image. Luna was being shown, her eyes covered by a leather binding. Her forelegs stretched upward and forced still by chains as she was kept kneeling on her hind legs.
What had been frightening about this is that a black shadowy mass encircled her, constantly shifting upon her frame causing her to convulse.
"He-he-hhh-help...me..." I couldn't help but reach out at the image, falling through forgetting it was just an illusion.
"You! You're toying with me! Playing against my fears!"
"This is no game! Had you spent more time growing our power instead of gallivanting in the arms of another-"
"The fuck do you care!?"
"Because I love you!" 'Wait what?' "I was born from her! Everything she is, everything she has ever wanted made ME. Have you forgotten what you did to her? How you made her feel..."
A memory began to build around us of a time long forgotten...
-Appleoosan Mountains: Fifteen Hundred Years ago-
"Sir, Luna's battalion was seen a few marks back. How should we proceed?" Asked Minos, a good friend and the bastard child of a Buffalo and Minotaur.
"Minós what have I said about calling me "sir"?"
"Not even on the field of battle, si- Azure."
"Thank you, have Bronze lead the infants, injured, and elderly to safety. All other hooves, paws, and claws on deck. We bottleneck through the mountainside into the caverns and thin the ranks. I'll keep her majesty busy."
Preparations went smoothly, my adopted son Bronze Hilt grew into quite the experienced sword fighter and my faith in him was never in question. He would lead the weaker to safety while I kept the strong at bay.
Dragon scouts scoured the skies, Griffon sentries kept watchful eyes upon the advancing forces, and the ponies hid in strategic ambush spots for greater advantage in the upcoming close quarters combat.
I didn't even have time to blink as one of our dragons was shot out of the sky by a dark magic infused boulder.
"Suppressive fire!" Shouted one of the griffon. I focused upon the point of origin and used the Fiery Barrage skill of the demon knight.
Not a moment too soon it seemed as I and many other rangers managed to drop many a scrambling pegasi. Bedlam erupted around us as Luna's ground forces advanced upon us with mystical mortars and a lot of bombs.
This wasn't bad. In fact this was good. The troops were being lead along the paths of the mountainside. The further they pushed, the deeper they entered. They deeper they entered, the harder it became for them to pull out...not like we gave them that chance.
Before they knew it, Luna's troops had blown a boulder on top of themselves. They scrambled, disoriented and scared. In their blind confusion were they separated, picked off, bound and gagged one by one.
'Huh, I was so sure Luna made her wa-' Side-barred by a cobalt blur of glistening metal, I faced my tiny attacker who from head to hoof was covered in wicked crow like armor.
She couldn't have been more than ten. Yet there she was trying to either wack me or fillet me with a spear. I couldn't concentrate and it almost cost the lives of both me and my opponent. A loose mortar knocked us both into a cavern, trapping us with the explosion.
Luna had woken up first, blood had dried onto her armor and one of her wings was broken. She stood over me with her spear pointed at my face.
"D-don't m-m-m-m-move...I won't be *gulp* held responsible for m-m-my actions."
"You're scared? You have me pinned to the floor and you're scared?" I ask.
"You are a demon of Tartarus. I...I don't know...I can't trust you!"
Then I remember I have a helmet on. "You're wounded so how about this, I remove some armor, then you remove some armor, then I remove some armor and then you remove some armor."
"NO! THIS IS A PLOY I SHALL NOT-" The Lunar princess drops onto a hind leg in visible pain.
*sigh* "Helmet comes off," I see her raise her head as she looks at me in surprise.
"What?" I ask.
"You...aren't the monster my sister said you would look like."
"That's a shocker. What, she tell you I was a rat that spat venom everywhere?"
Luna lifts her helmet off of her, a small patch of dried blood where a wound used to be.
"No...worse, but I would have liked to see that."
I tapped my shoulder and the pauldrons pulled back. "You're rather young to be on the battlefield aren't you?"
Luna tosses her bent shoulder coverings onto the floor. "My sister says I'm a natural...but I don't want to be here."
Gauntlets and chest plate fold back into my inventory. "Then why fight? Youth shouldn't be squandered with horror."
Luna drops her chest plate and three of her limb guards but winces as she touches the fourth. "My sister says I shouldn't waste my talent, ow...it hurrrrts...."
I recall the rest of my armor and motion Luna towards me. She whimpered a little, okay she whimpered a lot but I insisted. She caved but she couldn't quite get up.
I slowly rose and made my way to the injured filly. She squirmed at my touch but nonetheless let me lift her. I took her to the warmer part of the cave and sat down with her still in my arms.
I mindlessly lit a fire next to us and stroked her mane as slowly as possible.
"Don't be afraid please. Close your eyes if you have to, I'm going to make this as painless as I can."
She settled and shut her eyes. I felt within my inventory and equipped myself with my goto mage set and the Oracle class.
I set my blade edge first into the ground and tapped the hilt.
"I hope you like music. I do..." I let the filly in my lap bury herself comfortably and finally launch the healing spell. Before she knows it, I have her offending armor piece in slices on the ground.
"Th-thank you. I've never heard this language before..." Says Luna.
I start working her wing, preening it and ensuring the bones don't shatter. I cast another spell, feeling my heart beat increase.
"How do you feel now?"
"Safe, my sister kept telling me how much of a cruel monster you are. I'm glad she was wrong."
"Maybe you can change her mind about me. Luna?" Looking down I see her snoring softly, her head in the crook of my knee.
"Sleep well little one, you'll probably be hunting me in the morning..."
...
-Present day: Mindscape-
"I remember leaving her with one of my capes, but come on, she was ten!"
"She fell in love with you! Your kindness bore doubt into her mind! She believed that once the war was over that you would take her hoof in marriage! Year after year...do you know what it was like? To have lived a thousand years with only one thought?"
"Where is she?" I ask somberly.
"Find her yourself!" Midnight left my mind, leaving me to my haunting thoughts. I bring up a shadow and focus the image. Luna is there again, crying in her chains.
"I know where you are..."
