Lunatic stopped walking. "We are here," she said.
I looked around. I could see nothing of interest in any direction. In front of us and behind us, the path continued to wind its way up and down the mountain. To my left was a downward slope that ran all the way to the bottom of the mountain. To my right was the base of a sheer cliff that rose up the mountainside.
"Are you sure?" I asked dubiously.
Lunatic simply smiled and walked to the base of the cliff.
And then she was gone.
"Lunatic?" I asked nervously. "Where'd you go?"
I heard her giggle. "Calm yourself, human. I'm still right here. Follow me."
I hesitantly walked towards the natural wall of rock. I reached out to touch the wall, only to realize it was further away than I thought. I took another step and tried to reach it, but I had the same problem. I took a third step-
And Lunatic suddenly appeared in front of me.
"Waugh!" I yelped.
Lunatic giggled again. "I apologize, dear human, but the look on your face was priceless."
I grumbled. "Yeah, yeah. So what now?"
"Now, we keep walking. In a short time this tunnel will become too dark to see. When this happens, place your hand on my side and I will guide you the rest of the way. You may also hear a voice. If you do, be aware that its offer is genuine."
"Offer? What offer?"
Lunatic shook her head. "With your immunity to magic I doubt you will even have to deal with it, but I wanted you to be prepared just in case. Now please, come along."
I hesitated, then followed Lunatic. We were in a canyon made of the same stone as the cliffside that Lunatic had walked into. Our path was dimly illuminated by the natural moonlight shining down on us, but as we walked I noticed a dark mist that slowly suffused the air around us. Soon it became too dark to see, as Lunatic had warned.
I reached out and placed a hand on Lunatic's side and we continued walking though the blackness. Completely blind, I could only trust my senses of touch and hearing. I felt Lunatic's body holding my hand up as she guided me forward. I heard my own breathing, loud in my ears. I heard the noise of rocks crunching underneath our feet and the soft clopping sound of Lunatic's footsteps, but I couldn't see anything.
I waved my free hand in front of my face. I saw nothing, even though the hand was only inches away from my face.
I stopped walking and took my hand off Lunatic's flank.
"Wait," I said.
"What is it?" Lunatic asked.
"Shh-shh-shh. Just... give me a second."
I closed my eyes and just listened. Silence, pure and profound.
After a minute of this I opened my eyes and placed my hand back on her flank.
"Thank you," I said.
"You're welcome," she replied, "but I'm not sure I understand what that was."
I smiled. "In Ponyville, even in the dead of night, there was always some creature making noise, and there was always something casting light; the chirping of crickets, the croak of the bullfrog, the light cast by a hundred different houses. Here, though..."
I trailed off. I couldn't put into words how I had just wanted to stop and experience the silence and the absolute darkness. Lunatic seemed to understand my thoughts, though.
We walked a few more steps before I added, "and the company didn't hurt much, either," and playfully bumped her in the side with my hip.
I could hear the smile in her voice as she said, "I am glad you feel that way, human."
"Please, call me Derrick."
We kept walking, and eventually I saw a glimmer of light in my vision. I shook my head, thinking it a trick of my eyes, but the tiny pinprick of light in front of us remained.
As time passed and we continued to walk, the pinprick grew larger. Without any reference points I didn't realize until we were almost on top of it that it was an exit, and that the light came from what lay beyond.
"Welcome..." Lunatic said, "to the Kingdom of Darkness."
Stepping outside, the first thing that caught my eye was a huge black spot that hung in the sky, surrounded by a brilliant white glow. It was many times larger than the sun or the moon, and it was this that illuminated the world in a dim light. The rest of the sky was a dark blue.
"Is that... a solar eclipse?" I asked.
Lunatic replied, "Appropriate, wouldn't you say? Celestia gets the sun, my dear sister Luna gets the moon, and I get something that is both and neither."
I stared, entranced by the giant solar eclipse in front of me.
"Would you like a minute to take this all in?" Lunatic asked.
"I'mma need a minute," I said weakly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lunatic and I walked down the path, moving down the mountainside.
"So," I asked, "does that ever move in the sky?"
Lunatic replied, "No. There is neither morning nor night-time here."
"Really? So why do you call it 'Kingdom of Darkness'? It's really closer to twilight."
Lunatic grimaced. "There are some ponies who tend to be quite over-dramatic. They started calling this realm the Kingdom of Darkness and it caught on with the rest of the herd. That reminds me: if the ponies offer you a sacrifice to 'appease your dark malevolence', please don't be upset. That's just how they say hello."
I stared at her. "Really?" I asked her in a 'i'm totally judging you for this' tone of voice.
She didn't respond.
"So where will I be staying in The Dark Kingdom?" I asked, mockingly emphasizing the name.
"You'll be staying with me in nightmaretown."
"I'm sorry, what was that? I didn't quite catch it."
Lunatic sighed. "I said, you'll be staying with me in Nightmare Town."
I laughed. "Really? That's the name you chose?"
"No," she said, now annoyed. "I wanted to call it something more elegant, but once the ponies saw what happened to them on this side of the mountain one of them coined the name and every pony started using it."
"Wait, what do you mean, 'what happened to them on this side of the mountain'? Does this have anything to do with the offer you mentioned?"
Lunatic nodded. "While walking through the darkness, every pony that went through heard a voice offering to alter their form into whatever they desired. Most of the ponies took this voice up on the offer. I wish to point out that I had nothing to do with this magic. It was something older and deeper than anything I'm familiar with."
"Let me guess," I said. "This voice twisted their wishes and turned them into something horrible?"
Lunatic sighed. "Yes and no. All of the ponies that I rescued from Equestria were chosen because they didn't fit in there. I didn't realize until much later that the sort of ponies who would take me up on my offer tend to have certain... predispositions."
"And?"
"And every one of them desired a form that was 'dark' or 'gothic'. Some of them even became changelings. Although I still can't tell if they were already changeling infiltrators that just didn't like their job, or if they were ponies that wanted to be changelings. Whenever I ask I'm just told, 'This is how I always was on the inside.'"
I laughed. "So you're telling me that this Nightmare Town is populated by goths and freaks?"
"That is a rather uncharitable way to put it, but yes. Essentially."
I grinned. "Sounds like my kind of town."
We walked on in silence, then something else occurred to me.
"So, the changed ponies that live in Nightmare Town, what do they call themselves?"
Lunatic replied in dull frustration, "Nightmare Ponies."
"Hah!"
I like this story! The chapters are a bit short but now overly so!
You dear author get a thumbs up AND I will be tracking this story
5204609
Thanks!
I have anxiety issues, so I break the writing up into small chapters so I don't get overwhelmed by my own expectations. It works fairly well.
I've found that 1,000 words is a good minimum chapter size. If the chapters get any shorter than that, readers start complaining.
5204618
I think that 1000 is a good number for one chapter but I still felt like too much was happening in too little
But I still like how it's going along so far
5204618 and rightly so, for in under 1k words not much can happen, unless it is horribly rushed. I find your chapters to be at the verge of that, but not quite unbearable
and while the idea is quite interesting, I find the execution...lacking. It is hard to believe both princess Sunbutt and princess Starbutt would be that dense and, frankly, stupid.
furthermore, I would have liked to know a little more about that mirror you mentioned in the first chapter, to have changed the Gay-Vampire-Book's mind about one of her friends that easily, drastically, and without her talking to him about it like any friend should
and lastly, if you are gonna change the canon, you should include an alt. universe tag, since in the comics, Nightmare Moon is a corruption brought about by an entity from another realm called a Nightmare, and can thus not only not have its own independent form, but can also not be cleansed of its evil
You sir/mam just got a fav and a thumb, keep up the good work :D
This is humorous! I really like this.
5204706
My only major disagreement is on your last point. My understanding is that the AU tag is appropriate for when a fundamental aspect of the series is completely overhauled from its point of origin. Changing the nature of Nightmare Moon is a change from comic canon, but I'd argue it's not nearly severe enough to warrant an AU Tag.
For more details on AU, check out this TVtropes page, but be warned: tvtropes pages can be massive time-sinks if you aren't prepared for them.
It seems okay so far, but honestly? I'd have just stuck with calling her Nightmare Moon.
Well this is good, however I wish to point this out to Twilight earlier in the chapters.
Twilight, there's simple thing, it's quite easy to use, do you know what it is? ITS! CALLED! ASKING! And better yet, use a truth detector! That way, you won't be paranoid that he's 'lying' to you! AUGH!
Still though, this story isn't half bad.
This is good, now give me some MOAR!
>Ecocat<
5204720 Canon disagrees with you.
She's already given Discord a second chance, even after he betrayed them.
And he was nothing but a villain throughout all his past history.
5204706 Actually, this version of NMM violates both comic and TV show canon.
In the comics, the Nightmare is an independent entity. In the TV show, it was a manifestation of some form of unclarified dark powers, though one can speculate it may be similar to the corrupting magic in the Alicorn Amulet or Sombra's Dark Magic.
In neither case is the scenario presented here a possibility.
5190690
See, that right there is why this story needs an AU tag. Celestia's well over a thousand years old and has seen quite a bit of evil in her long lifespan. She's the LEAST likely to act like a paranoid lunatic.
Luna... now there's a horse of a different color. She, having been polluted by evil, might be far more nervous about a species that seems to act upon the impulses that turned her into NMM.
You forget, Celestia is the pony who wished to save her demented sister rather than destroy her, and even set free the unrepentent villain Discord merely on the off chance he might decide to be good for a change.
If anything, Celestia is portrayed hopelessly, irrationally optimistic at times of the willingness of evildoers to change.
But not always: Sombra was decidedly irredeemable in Celestia's eyes, and she certainly didn't hesitate to try and blast Chrysalis. There was also no second thought of the peril of Tirek. She took him very seriously. I believe she's governed by both the magnitude of immediate threat and her knowledge of the natures and actions of the individual creature.
In that vein, a single human with no advanced weapons nor the capacity to create more immediately, and with no powers at all would be viewed as a severely limited threat. At best, if he demonstrated violent tendancies, he'd simply be imprisoned for observation.. or maybe blasted by the Deus Ex Rainbow Lazar to see if that helps.
Maybe you should do a scene where Twilight uses the mirror again and this time she sees all the GOOD aspects of humanity and she realizes that she jumped to conclusions.
5206770
I've received multiple requests for a scene or chapter like that. I have no intention of writing it due to my own writing limitations, but if anybody wants to write it I'll add it to the story.
5206840
talves this
5207920
Like so many other things in my life, I can only say "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Please sir, I would like some more story.
this is the best fic ive read in a long time
I feel like I've seen this story before...
It's like Nightbreed, but girlier. I love it.