Nightmare's Reign

by NorrisThePony

A Glimmer of Hope (X)

The first dream, the dream Luna had taken to referring to as 'the Moon Dream' for simplicity's sake, collapsed with little to no effort. Not that she had doubted her own success, she had been crossing the dreamscape for centuries and in many ways knew it better than reality. And despite Nightmare Moon's morbid warnings that if she were wrong, then she was irreversibly killing her own consciousness, she had the utmost confidence her prediction was accurate.

So then, as the moon began crumbling and breaking into itself like paper in a fire, she simply stood her ground with her eyes closed and mind focused not on the chunks of rock being flung about in slow motion, but on forcibly collapsing her own dream. And with her eyes closed, she did not have to watch as Celestia's letter was captured in the impossible wind and carried into the abyss with everything else. The last sound she heard before the dream ended was one final, jarring explosion half muted by her own humming magic.

And then the next thing she was aware of was the pain.

"Ah!" She screamed in surprise as she stood and then immediately fell back onto the ground as her hoof bit back in protest. "What the...my hoof! It's broken!"

She would've loved to have seen where she was now, and in what state Equestria was in, but her vision was completely red and her head was throbbing with an agonizing headache.

"Oh no..." Nightmare Moon muttered. "Oh no no no..."

"What?! What is it?"

"Well I've got good news and I've got bad news." Nightmare Moon said. Judging from the volume of her voice, it sounded like Nightmare Moon was a literal present force...which meant that she still must be...

"You made it out of the Moon Dream." Nightmare Moon consoled. "So that's good. The bad news is...you've just fallen a thousand feet onto a marble floor after loosing your wing and now nearly every single bone in your body is broken."

"No...no matter." She mused, as Discord's 'Tartarus' castle came into focus through the red. The floor was still littered with shards of glass from where she had crashed through the ceiling, and off to the left somewhere the wall by the balcony was almost completely destroyed. To Luna, it looked as if it had remained unchanged during her four years on the moon. "I just have to collapse this dream layer as well."

"I dunno if you can just do tha—" Nightmare began, but was cut off by Luna's magic springing to life. Under normal circumstances, the light humming wouldn't have been distracting to her, but when Luna attempted to cast magic the soothing hum did not occur. Instead, it shrieked, sounding painfully labored and disjointed. "Luna, your horn is broken, too! Stop before you hurt yourself!"

"My horn isn't—" Luna gasped, squeezing her eyes shut and digging into the ground with her left forehoof, which fortunately wasn't broken.

"Stop!" Nightmare Moon snarled. "Besides, if it's a comatose nightmare you can't force your way out of it."

"What do you know of dreams and nightmares?!"

"As much as you. Listen. The Tree of Harmony is where we need to go. But you can't fly and you can't cast magic."

To Nightmare Moon's fury, Luna said nothing but continued trying to cast her magic, grimacing against and ignoring the ensuing pain.

"LUNA!" She bellowed. "Stop!"

"Nightmare, my horn isn't broken. My wing isn't missing. It's a facade of the mind."

"Yes, right." Nightmare Moon snorted. "A particularly rich facade, I must say."

"That's what dreams are! There are no walls around us, the ground underneath us does not really exist, there is no air or wind or sound or anything! Nothing is real! Therefore, any pain or injuries I sustain here are simple illusions." The sound of Luna's magic was sounding more pained then ever now, its horrifying shrieks echoing across the empty concrete halls.

Above it all, Luna suddenly screamed out loud, her eyes suddenly opening wide and billowing with dark, purplish light. Her scream was long, painful, and anguished, but also frightening and malicious.

Nightmare Moon raised an eyebrow and blinked several times in disbelief. Surely she couldn't be sinking into further darkness and insanity? After all they had been through? Had the stress of the whole ordeal already done its damage?

No, that wasn't what was causing Luna's madness.

It was them. The Nightmare Forces. She had felt their presence for some time, but never so much as now. For so long, she had thought she was the only one left, and certainly the only voice in Luna's head. Apparently she wasn't alone. And now she was helping Luna, a kind-hearted, guilt-ridden alicorn who genuinely wanted the best for everypony except herself. The Nightmare Forces weren't going to like that. And Nightmare Moon knew this more than anypony, after all, it had been her desire as well to harness Luna's dark desires for long enough to overpower her and take over her mind completely, thus ruling Equestria under the darkness and despair she required to live. An eternal night. An eternal feast.

But not anymore, she had abandoned those desires in favor of helping her friend, and by extension she had abandoned all the other Nightmare Forces that she did not know still lingered. Perhaps she would explain everything to Luna eventually, but it seemed as though now was not a very appropriate time.

"Luna, hold on!" She screamed out. "It must be working because they're trying to stop you, so keep doing it, but don't let them gain control!" Nightmare Moon implored frantically, not wanting her only friend to sink into insanity when they were so close.

"Silence, demon!" Luna hissed suddenly...no, it wasn't Luna. It couldn't have been. It was her voice and the words left her mouth, but she was certain something else was saying them. "You've betrayed us in the past and now you'll pay the price for your actions!"

Definitely not Luna. Nightmare Moon thought to herself as she dissipated just as Luna stood on hooves that technically should have been completely broken. The green glow in her eyes had only grown in intensity, and her coat had darkened to the point of being almost indistinguishable as blue or black. She snarled as Nightmare Moon disappeared, but fortunately made no further move to assault a foe she could no longer see, and therefore by her limited reasoning posed no threat. Instead, she too dissolved into the same purplish light, teleporting upwards to the Tree of Harmony far above. It was a distance of more than a thousand feet, but she teleported it with complete ease, not even hesitating before reaching out a hoof towards the silvery root.

Nightmare Moon had the strangest sensation that they would be returning to this place before long, and that there was much more at play than they had thought. Nevertheless she kept her suspicions to herself as Luna firmly grasped the root of the Tree of Harmony.

"Luna, are you still in there?!"Nightmare Moon breathed from within her mind. "If you are...hold on...things are about to get rough."

Luna...or the corrupted beast that she had just inexplicably turned into, did not have a chance to respond as the magic of the Tree of Harmony immediately kicked in, leaving the Dreamscape behind once and for all.

---

"Hello?!" Luna screamed. All around her was...well, she had no idea WHAT it was. She was standing, or perhaps flying, or walking...and all around her strange shapes of every shade of grey and black were swirling around like snow in an infinite expanse of empty space. Although it wasn't empty like a void, there was certainly things around her, but they all looked like mirages or shadows of things that should have been there but weren't. Looking up she could see the faint outline of the roof of some important looking building, her and Celestia's castle is she wasn't mistaken. The more she focused, the more she could make out various things, like her throne which was tipped over and lying in the center of the room, or the moon shining through an exposed bit of ceiling.

A pony-like shadow caught her attention, and with no other leads to go on, she started to walk towards it. However, the moment her hoof touched the ground again, her world exploded into a dissonant explosion of color, sound, and light. Everything was blinding and deafening, and it only got worse with every ensuing step she took. While she had been able to make out shapes and forms before, they existed now as warped and distorted images that came and went through a swirling hurricane of colored, glowing mist. The sound of her hooves touching down on the marble floor echoed into infinity in a never-ending feedback loop, and her head was throbbing with the same agonizing headache from earlier.

Eventually she made it to the pony figure and did her best to see who it was through all the chaos. It was an alicorn, she could tell by the unfurled wings and huge flowing mane, as well as the long horn that was nearly twice the length of an ordinary unicorn. This alicorn was standing in an offensive stance, with her rump angled towards the ceiling and her eyes squeezed shut.

Through the swirling mist and deafening sound of her hooves still echoing despite her movement having stopped, Luna had very little difficulty identifying this alicorn as herself. Specifically, it looked like her mere moments before she had attacked Discord while he was breaking free from his stone prison. Now, ironically, she was the one encased in stone, preserved in this fighting stance for nearly four years.

"Not a bad pose to be remembered by..." She murmured, but instantly regretted it when it was screamed back at her from every direction. Her headache piquing up again, she did the only thing she could think of and lunged towards her stone self, praying that somehow, the contact would be enough to free her from whatever new hell she was in.

Fortunately, it seemed like it was, because the moment she made contact with herself her world exploded into sweet, peaceful, silent darkness, but for a second, before a familiar voice was heard.

"Luna! You made it!"

"Yes, Nightmare." Luna said, although her words made no audible sound. She tried speaking her next ones louder, but received the same result. Instead, she tried thinking her sentence, expressing it as if she were speaking to a mare in her mind. "Have you any idea what just happened?"

"What do you mean? Describe it to me."

"Well, I was in this strange...it looked like my throne room, but everything was wrong. It was dissonant and chaotic and every one of my senses were overloaded by the sheer presence of everything. It was like simply existing was a task."

"Really?! That's what you experienced?" Nightmare Moon sounded completely shocked. "Well, yeah, I sure can explain what that was. That, is what I experience all the time. Perpetually. When I'm not in your consciousness like I am now, my world is pure insanity. But now, I'm seeing through your eyes."

"And seeing nothing."

"Well, your eyes are currently stone, so yes. But what happened to you...that's what every living thing experiences when it doesn't have a body, or, vessel if you will. It's one of the reasons why a creature like me needs something like you to leech off of."

"I see." Luna said, not understanding in the slightest. "Well, it looks as though I'm currently encased in stone now. Brilliant. What an improvement."

"Quit griping." Nightmare Moon demanded. "This stone should start shattering any moment now. When it does, run. Or fly. Just, get out of the immediate vicinity of your current surroundings as quickly as possible."

Now this Luna understood. After all, Discord most likely ruled Equestria now, and her return was most certainly not going to be met warmly. Even if he didn't rule Equestria, there was a very heavy chance that her subjects had found out about what happened to Celestia. Either way, it was evident that things were going to get a lot worse before they improved.

After less than a minute, her rock prison began shaking and cracking, and she flinched at the sound, wishing for it to be more silent. Crags of light were the first thing she noticed, but it was the dim light of nighttime and not the dramatic blinding flash she had been prepared for. Blinking profusely, she moved every single one of her limbs, looking for one that was free of the stone. The first one to show signs of life was her left wing, and the rest quickly followed suit, until she fell onto the floor in front of her headfirst.

"Alright, you're free!" Nightmare Moon chided. "Now MOVE IT!"

Although her wings still felt stiff and lifeless, Luna instantly complied and took to the sky, flying through a hole in the ceiling and into the night. Because of their complete inactivity for four years, Luna was instantly exhausted as she beat them much harder than normal to keep herself aloft. Nevertheless, she shot through the hole in the ceiling like a bullet, and sailed forwards into the night.

Equestria was in a state of complete destruction, but Luna had been expecting as much. In fact, she was almost relieved that the damage wasn't as bad as she had been anticipating. Most of the trees that had previously been dead were now scarred and burnt by fire and unicorn magic, showing signs that her subjects had responded to Discord's arrival with hostility. Luna couldn't refrain herself from grinning proudly at that, while also worried that no pony had survived through the battle.

Then again, genocide was seemingly beyond even Discord, perhaps not because of morality, but simply because without ponies Discord would become bored. As disgusted as it made her, it at least meant the preservation of ponykind for the time being. Hopefully.

What looked like floating rock caught Luna's attention, and squinting her eyes she realized that it was the wreckage of somepony's house...or perhaps it was a bit of her own castle. Either way, it looked like it was caught up in some residual chaos energy, still affected by Discord long after Discord had left it alone. Several other inanimate objects such as tree branches and even circular drops of river water were also floating around, free of the confines earthly physics. Above her the night still reigned supreme, leading her to believe that even Discord had been unable to free the day from its eternal banishment.

"Where is Discord, anyways?" Luna wondered out loud.

"Hmm. Good question. If YOU were the Spirit of Chaos, where would you reside?"

"I wouldn't." Luna reasoned. "Why settle for one town to terrorize when you could constantly travel across Equestria, spreading chaos to unsuspecting ponies?"

"That's true. After several years, ponies in a singular town or place might even start to get used to the unpredictability of life under Discord's rule. But leave them alone for a few months, make life seem almost normal to them...and THEN appear! It would take a long time for that to grow stagnant."

"Precisely what I'm hoping." Wherever Discord was now, it did not look like he was anywhere close. But he was out there somewhere, an omnipresent danger that eventually she would have to confront...and ultimately defeat.

She'd barely done it with her sister AND the Elements of Harmony. Now, she had neither and was expected to take on Discord and prevail. It wasn't exactly what she wanted to do, but it was an unfortunate necessity. She'd agreed with Celestia to spare Discord's life in their past confrontation, but now she had to weigh her subject's lives against his own. It was perhaps possible for him to reform, but it just wasn't a chance she was willing to take anymore.

The trouble of actually defeating Discord was still Luna's biggest concern anyways. If she'd had trouble in her first battle, how could she possibly hope to win now? The very prospect seemed ludicrous. Centuries had passed, and yet she remembered every second of that conflict vividly. The dread of being inches between life and death, the soothing warmth that had enveloped her when she was sure she had finally met her end. But Celestia had been there...the way she always had...Celestia had saved her life in that moment—

"Damn it." Luna muttered as her headache suddenly reared its teeth again. It was enough to actually shake her from her straight flightpath. She rubbed her temples with her forehooves as she flew, a futile attempt to stave back the infuriating pain.

"Luna...are you alright?"

"Fine, thank you."

"You're worried about defeating Discord, I presume."

"It's one of my many concerns at the moment, yes."

"Well I have an idea." said Nightmare Moon.

"Please, share it."

"It unfortunately comes bundled with an alarming revelation."

"As if we didn't have enough problems to snuff out the tiny glimmer of hope that remains." Luna groaned. "Well, go ahead, tell me anyways."

"Well, it might seem a little far-fetched, but it might actually be crazy enough to work. Here goes; currently, I'm not the only Nightmare Force inhabiting your mind. In fact...as of now I believe you're currently playing host to thousands of them."

"What in the name of sanity is a 'Nightmare Force?'" Luna rolled her eyes peevishly.

"It's what I am. We originally resided on The Moon, but we've been trying to free ourselves from that cold prison for eons. But remember... they're not like me. They're not content simply being a VOICE in some ponies mind. They wish to control, and will stop at nothing until they do. You seeing where I'm going with this?"

"No."

"For heavens sake, Luna. It's obvious! If we can find a way to transfer the Nightmare Forces currently infecting you into Discord, what's happening to you would instead happen to him!"

"What do you mean..." Luna began, but something else from Nightmare Moon's sentence suddenly caught her attention instead. "What's happening to me? What did you mean by that?!"

"Your headaches, the...thing...you became in the dreamscape....don't you see? The Nightmare are trying to take control of you. And they're succeeding. If we let them, then whatever is left of you...and perhaps myself, would be destroyed."

"So then if we find a way to transfer them to Discord..." Luna pondered the result. The total destruction of a being's own consciousness, reducing them to a mere ghost in their own mind, simply watching helplessly as a creature other than themselves destroyed everything they held dear. "Nightmare, that's barbaric! That's...that's worse than murder!"

"Need I remind you that if we do not, then you'll meet the same fate?" Nightmare Moon said coaxingly. "You think he would spare you if he were in your position?"

Groaning in agreement and defeat, Luna said nothing in reply. Nightmare Moon was right, after all. It was a necessary evil that she bore the responsibility of carrying out.

"Why would a Nightmare-Controlled Discord be any improvement though?" Luna pondered. "I would think that would be even worse, no?"

"Ah, well that's the best part! We've already established that without negative emotions, guilt, envy, jealousy, et cetera, then the Nightmare Forces starve and die off? In that case...what negative emotions does Discord possess?"

"Surely you can't seriously be asking that!" Luna chortled. "And you say I ask stupid questions!"

"Well, think about it! What is the motivation behind all his terrible deeds?"

"Entertainment!" Luna exclaimed, not caring that the word was spat out loud enough to echo to the ground below. "It's all his sick idea of fun!"

"Precisely my point. There's no actual malice behind his actions. Really, there's no motivation either. He does the things he does because he doesn't understand that it's wrong."

"I hardly think Discord is that righteous."

"But do you think he possesses guilt? Envy? Jealousy? Anger?" Luna had to admit, Nightmare Moon once again had a fairly valid point. "I'm sort of assuming here, but I imagine the Nightmare wouldn't have a lot to feed on. If we're lucky, they'll starve and die shortly after. I think."

"You think...?"

"Well, do YOU have a better plan?"

"Your plan doesn't even sound complete! How do you expect to transfer the Nightmare Forces to begin with?"

"I haven't worked out the details yet! Just...give me a few hours and I'll probably have a more coherent plan. In the mean time...do you think the Changelings could help us when we go to battle?"

"Queen Elytra was opposed to getting involved with Equestrian quarrels."

"She was, wasn't she? That cowardly over-sized cockroach..."

"Nevertheless I suppose I could attempt to convince her to change her mind." Discord's reign, after all, was not only an Equestrian problem if the Changeling's required ponies as a food source. "There is not harm in trying, after all. You're right, I think we could use all the help we could get."

"We might not survive you know." Nightmare Moon said grimly. "We might fail. The odds are all stacked against us here."

"Yes. I'm aware." Luna turned her neck to watch her wrecked castle already disappearing in the distance. "When was the last time the odds were in our favor?"

"Indeed. That's true. Well, I've got some thinking to do. I hope you don't mind being alone for a couple of hours."

"Okay." Luna shrugged. True to her word Nightmare Moon did not speak again, leading Luna to wonder where she fled to in her mind where she was not 'present.' It was a strange concept indeed, but it seemed as though Nightmare Moon traversed Luna's mind as simply as a pony traversed the earth.

With nothing else to focus on, Luna turned her attention to the depressing land below. There were significantly less signs of destruction the further she flew from the castle, which had must have been the epicenter of the initial battle against Discord. Several times Luna had to fly around entire trees floating aimlessly around, some of them ridiculously colored in vibrant patterns and others producing various objects that a tree could never produce. In some isolated patches the ground had gone from being dirt to being a white area with a green grid-shape covering it. At no point did Luna look down and not see something so completely absurd that it failed to remind her that she had a lot of work to do.

Even so, it looked as though Discord's magic touch was...lacking. Mostly everything simply looked silly for the purpose of looking silly, but lacked any personal connection that it was the Spirit of Chaos who had impacted them as such. If she didn't know any better she would've sworn Discord's chaos looked...uninspired. Then again, what did she know about chaos?

Luna flew for hours into the night, with no particular destination in mind. She felt a slight tinge of guilt for simply killing time when there were ponies despairing under Discord's rule, but she wasn't about to rush in and get herself killed either.

Eventually her hours of flying paid off, and she let out a gleeful cry as she beheld what looked like torchlight ahead. Dipping down through the air, she flew over the beacon of light and examined what lay beneath her. Two rough looking carriages surrounded a small congregation of ponies and a small campfire. Luna took note of the fact that they were all Earth ponies save for one, a pegasus. They were all huddled around the fire for warmth, but looked up with terror at the black outline of the huge skeletal alicorn flying above them, turning in circles until she landed on the ground in front of them, giving her wings a ginger shake and yawning.

"Hello! Please do not fear me!" Luna called as she trotted towards the ponies, who were shivering in place. Oh, how she despised having to beg ponies not to fear her every time she greeted them. "I would just like to...to warm up, I suppose. And rest. Unless I'm intruding, of course!"

No response. As Luna approached closer she could see their features more clearly...although most of them were still obscured by their terrified huddling. Nevertheless she was easily able to deduce that four of the six ponies were stallions and the other two mares. Several bore enough resemblance to each other for Luna to decide that she had probably stumbled upon two separate families of ponies traveling together for safety's sake.

Not wanting to cause any further fear, Luna sighed and turned around. Better to leave them behind then, if they were so mortified by her presence.

"Are you...are you an alicorn?"

Luna instantly whipped around and trotted forwards again. The pony who had spoken was a light purple mare with a slightly darker purple mane.

"Yes, I certainly am!" She said, wearing a clearly forced smile. "I realize that...appearance wise I may not look it...but my name—"

"...is Princess Luna." She finished.

"Yes. It is."

Silence.

Her subjects had always disliked her, it looked as though that had only gotten worse throughout her absence. Shuffling awkwardly, Luna was unsure whether at this point she was even coming across as intimidating at all...she couldn't possibly see how.

"M...may I sit?" She asked, pointing at a vacant spot by the fire.

"By all means." The purple mare once again said. It looked as though she was the voice of the group, who were staring at Luna with expressions of amazement and fear at the black alicorn who was apparently the lost Princess of the Night.

"Are you really her?" Another finally piped up, a blue stallion with a spiked yellow mane. "She's still alive?!"

"Yes, obviously she is!" Another spat irritably.

"Is Princess Celestia still alive too?"

"N...no." Luna muttered. "She isn't."

More silence. Luna cleared her throat and stared into the fire, well aware that she was currently being scrutinized by six pairs of judging eyes.

"I have been gone for some time." Luna said, finding it easier to speak if she addressed the fire instead of the ponies around it. "I understand Discord is currently ruling under chaos and tyranny. I'm sorry I have not been around to help you, my dear subjects."

The sound of the cracking fire was the only response to Luna's words. They hated her, plain and simple. Luna had always known that. She had been expected to be bombarded with questions, perhaps even accusations, and she had been ready. But dealing with this silence was a whole new level of difficult.

"Do any of you ponies know where Discord is now? I promise I shall fix all of this."

"No." One of them responded. Luna couldn't bring herself to look up to see which one. "We haven't seen him for almost four months."

"He is still in Equestria though?" Luna inquired.

"Yes."

"I will find him. I will end this, I promise."

Luna yawned again and continued her analysis of the fire. She watched it with intensity for a long while, perhaps minutes, perhaps even hours. Despite its simplicity and familiarity, Luna couldn't stop herself from marveling at the dancing orange flame engulfing a thick dead log of some century old sycamore. Perhaps the tree had been from the Everfree, but Luna did not ever remember there being sycamore trees in the Everfree. Even the White Tail Woods were almost exclusively coniferous, which meant that these ponies must have traveled far. She looked up to ask them where they were from, but was shocked to see that the only pony not sitting with their heads hung in sleep was the other mare. She was still staring at Luna with wide, unblinking eyes, and her coat and mane were both completely grey. Unlike the majority of her traveling companions, she was a pegasus. With a disturbed shudder, Luna realized she had been staring at the fire for at least an hour, and by extension this mare had been staring at her for a full hour, too. Unblinking, with those cold, emotionless eyes...

"Can...can I ask where you ponies are from?" Luna attempted a comforting smile and more than likely failed miserably.

The pony in front of her simply shook her head and frowned slightly.

"I understand." Luna shuddered. "How...how about your names? I'd love to meet you all a little more formally."

Once again, the pony said nothing in response, but once again shook her head, 'no.'

"I...I see. Can you tell me anything?"

"She doesn't talk." A high-pitched voice said, making Luna start and whip around to face it. With surprise, she saw a young pegasus filly staring at her from the shadows of one of the carriages. Like the silent mare, this filly was completely monochromatic.

"Ah! Hello!" In the past, Luna had noticed that young fillies and colts seemed to be the only one of her subjects to ever see her under any sort of positive light. She had been through so many young pony's dreams, but this particular filly was a stranger to Luna.

"She hasn't spoken ever since Discord did this to us." The filly motioned to her mane and coat. Unnaturally monochromatic, it seemed.

A shiver of fury and disgust crept up Luna's spine. She had seen this the last time...ponies who dared speak were permanently silenced. But...but this filly was speaking, which meant that her corruption was of a different nature.

"And...what did he do to you?" Luna dared to ask.

"I...I don't...remember..." The filly stuttered. "Th...that's what he did. I...don't know what I did or who I was or anything."

"He destroyed your memories." Luna concluded. "And those of her, too? She's your sister, isn't she?"

The filly nodded. The resemblance, even beyond the simple black and white coloring, was one of the first things Luna had noticed when she beheld the filly.

"I'm terribly sorry." Luna sighed.

"You don't have to be sorry. It's not your fault."

This time, it was Luna's turn to fall silent. The innocence of a child truly did wonders at exposing to her just how much evil in the world she had to correct.

The filly leaped down from the carriage and onto the ground, sitting down beside the black alicorn staring sadly at her hooves.

"But it is my fault," Luna said, turning to look into the filly's sad eyes.

"Everypony said that you're hiding something terrible and that's why you left us." The little filly said, rubbing her eyes sleepily with her hooves. "Some even think that you killed Celestia."

"Yes, I know."

"Well, I don't believe them," she said. "I think you're a great Princess."

"I wish I shared your enthusiasm." Luna sighed. Here she was, spilling out all her troubled to a little filly of less than ten years, and yet it felt oddly fitting. "Sometimes a Princess has to make choices that she isn't proud of."

"It must be hard...making those choices." Luna's heart shattered at how caring this filly sounded. Amidst all the fear and loss, compassion still lived. It was something that no amount of darkness could extinguish.

"No, the hardest part isn't making the choices," Luna saw that despite the fire the poor filly was shivering, and she outstretched one of her skeletal wings around her. She said nothing for a long while, simply sat listening to the little pony's breathing steady and slow into the relaxed pattern of slumber.

"The hardest part is having to deal with the aftermath," she whispered. Looking up, she saw that the other mare had also dozed off, leaving Luna truly alone.

"Well, that was painfully awkward."

"Ah, Nightmare Moon." Luna muttered a lazy greeting. "How goes the search for a solution?"

"Actually, I think I've got everything figured out."

"Yes? Then how are we going to transfer the Nightmare Forces into Discord?"

"It's a three part plan. Quite simple. First, you need to weaken him enough that you can approach him long enough for the whole process to happen. Once you have, you should be able to start the transfer by touching your horn to his forehead. That, however...will potentially be very, very destructive."

"Meaning what exactly?"

"Meaning the chance of you surviving the transfer is...questionable."

"Can you be a little more specific, please?" Luna grimaced as her previously dormant headache gave off one painful, isolated throb.

"If I were to give you a survival percentage...it would probably be, like, fifty."

"Fifty."

"Maybe sixty."

"Ah, well the odds are in my favor!" Luna said sarcastically. "Albeit ever so slightly, but they are!"

"There's one other step to the plan, genius. Shut up and pay attention." Nightmare Moon retorted. "You're basically transferring some of your corrupted magic into Discord, but he's a being of pure, unlimited potential. This means that your unicorn magic would basically be minimal by comparison, and it would just be overpowered by Discord's much more powerful magic. That's why we need to use an additional source of magic to help us with the transfer."

"Another source of magic that is pure, unlimited potential?" Luna asked. "I...I think I know of an item."

"You do?! Excellent! Where?"

"With certainty I could not tell you..." Luna thought back to her castle, specifically the hidden room in the library. If she was not mistaken, Celestia had taken it with her when she left. "But I have a hunch. My sister's temporary home."

Thinking back, Luna often called that incident the cataclysm of all the events that transpired since, but in all actuality her and Celestia's strife had started long before.

Was Nightmare Moon present in those years of slowly building mutual anger between herself and her sister? Luna could not remember. But she did remember the hurtful words they had flung at each other, how sibling rivalry had started evolving into a full-on battle. Neither of them welcomed the negative emotions swelling up between them, and both of them had sought some solution. Some way of going back to simply being sisters who loved each other to no end, and no longer separated by their own inner conflicts.

Luna couldn't remember if it was her or Celestia's decision that they should stop living together in the Castle in the Everfree. All she knew was that it was a decision both of them had agreed would be best. Some temporary distance between each other, some time to let their bitter resentment towards each other die off on its own.

If only it had worked.

It was no secret to Celestia that Luna had felt overshadowed, so the ideal solution when they agreed to rule together, apart from each other, was that Luna remained in the heart of Equestria and Celestia moved to some small, peaceful town by the sea. One would get the attention she sought, while the other got the rest and relaxation she deserved. The stress they both carried would die off and the unwelcome emotions would die off, too.

What was that town called? Luna remembered its location, but not its name. She had visited Celestia often and she had liked the town quite a bit, but its name still escaped her.

"Luna, there's something I need to tell you." Nightmare Moon interrupted her thoughts, jerking her back from her memories.

"Okay."

"Your headache is only going to get worse. The Nightmare Forces are growing in strength. I tried to reason with them but they don't care to hear from me anymore. In short...we have less than three days before they have control."

"Then we should get going." Luna rose, gingerly removing her wing off the sleeping filly so as not to wake her.

Lifting into the air once again, she set a course in her mind for Celestia's beach side home, and started off towards the East.

Comments

[Razzy]

No pressure at all.

Cya
Raziel-chan

[Pluie]

Oh damn, didn't expect Dusk Falls to make an appearance here.