Consequences of Past Mistakes

by SoaringCoal

Prologue - Nightmares of a Time Forgotten

It was so dark, so cozy and relaxing. Celestia could lie there forever. She felt more relaxed than she had felt in centuries. There was no sound or any implication of anything being out of place. She grazed the surface beneath her, expecting it to be her soft bed, but were met with her hoofguards scraping against a metal surface. She didn't remember taking on her hoofguards. Celestia found it odd, but was to tired to investigate or care. So very tired. She could hear whispers, they were almost like a soft breeze but even weaker. She couldn't hear what the whispers said, but she didn't care. The hard surface beneath her filled her with more comfort than she knew she could ever feel.

Celestia could hear a faint ringing starting in her ears. It was annoying but didn't sway her from her resting. It became louder and louder and stopped as if it had never been there.

"How adorable."

A shiver went down Celestia's spine as she heard the deep sinister voice. For some reason she could feel herself starting to sweat under the voice. She didn't know why. Celestia wanted to get up, but her body didn't want to. It was almost as if something was trying to hold her down. She forced her eyelids open with great difficulty only to discover herself lying in her throne room. The throne room was dark, only illuminated by her sisters moon giving light through the stained glass windows that bounced off the white marble walls of the room. She couldn't remember herself going into her throne room. Celestia glanced around at the pictures in her windows. They depicted the grand victories and trials Equestria had endured throughout time. Her students and friends victory over nightmare moon, Discord, Tirek and many others. There was something wrong with the room. Celestia couldn't place it, but it felt unfamiliar.

"Hahahaha."

A small laughter rang through the throne room. The same sinister laughter. A drop of sweat dripped down Celestia's muzzle and she could swear she saw a shadow move outside one of her windows. She finally struggled to her legs. She couldn't understand why it had been so difficult to get up. The air became icy cold around Celestia, but it was weird, it felt almost... Alive. As if someone was breathing down her neck.

A sudden thunder sounded outside the throne room and it's lightning lit up the entire room for a split second. In that moment, Celestia could see shadows in the room that shouldn't have been there. Small piles and a long form that resembled that of a snake. Celestia was getting scared. The voice seemed familiar and yet not. "Hello?" She called. No one answered.

Celestia caught sight of something moving in the corner of her eye and turned her head to face it. She gasped in surprise. The stained glass window on her right side had been changed, but that didn't make it less familiar. Celestia's stomach dropped and she could feel tears pressing in her eyes as she processed the picture in the glass. It showed the greatest attrocity ever commited in Equestria's history. She turned away and clenched her eyes shut. She couldn't look at it without feeling the pain of the past pricking at her heart. So much pain.

"Awwww, poor wittle pwincess, does it hurt to look at it?"

First now did Celestia recognise the voice. She wished she hadn't because it only made the pricking in her heart worse. The voice laughed again, louder than before and then abrubtly stopped. It snarled, growing more malicious. The voice filled her body with dread.

"You can only imagine the pain it brought me, that you brought me..."

Celestia tried to speak, but her mouth wouldn't let her. Tears dripped down her muzzle and only now did she realise she was shaking. She slowly opened her eyes once more and saw her now altered throne room. All of the stained glass windows had changed. All of them depicting the horrible achievements of one particular individual. Each picture more horrible than the next. Suddenly an image blinked across her eyes. Celestia could see endless pony corpses spread across a large meadow, blood from the victims shading the grass on the meadows green in a dark red color. The sun was eclipsed by the moon, but it's colors was odd. Instead of giving the world beneath it a orange hue, it gave everything a cold blue color. Celestia now noticed something that made her blood run cold. All of the pony corpses were alicorns.

She blinked and the image was gone. She gasped again for air. She looked around and saw her throne room had been darkened by some unnatural light. At the other end of the room she could see red glowing eyes and the darkened form they were attached to. The form was about three times her own size, but it had a more serpentine shape. she couldn't make out any details, it was to dark.

"But trust me, Celestia..."

Another image flashed across her eyes. It showed a burning castle with living ponies trembling beneath a serpentine shape that was covering the same eclipse. It was the same darkened figure she had seen in her throne room, laughing with malice at the ponies. It all seemed so familiar, so awfully familiar. She blinked again and this time the figure was halfway across the throne room. Celestia tried to move, but she couldn't. Her hoofs wouldn't let her. She could hear snarling and she could make out from it's form that it had a tail and wings, but not much else.

"What im going to do to your 'precious' Equestria..."

Another image flashed before Celestia's eyes. It was her, Luna and Discord, rolling and playing in the same meadow that her previous image has shown full of alicorn corpses. The image changed, and now it was a familiar event Celestia had hoped she could forget, but she never would. The day she and her sister betrayed him, the day all other Draconequui went extinct. She blinked and saw the figure were now only twenty feet away from her. Lightning flashed outside again and Celestia could make out the mismatched limbs. She tried desperately to move her legs, but they wouldn't react. She was stuck. Her heart was pounding and tears kept pouring down from her eyes. Celestia had in her long reign over Equestria not been scared more than a couple of times. But she knew that there was no creature in existence that scared her more than the one approaching her.

"Will make what you did to me seem like a childish prank."

Images kept flashing across her eyes. A familiar draconequus terrorizing ponies and slaughtering alicorns. The sky raining fiery rocks, rivers turned boiling and plants wilting. A malicious laughing in the distance. The horrible images stopped flashing and Celestia froze. In front of her, only inches from her snout, was the creature she feared the most in the world. The creature, she had once called friend. A creature, she had once loved.

"But do not worry, my dear..."

As the creature talked, the unnatural darkness covering it disappeared, revealing the last draconequus. Discord. But he looked different. More beastly. Long claws were stretched from his eagle talon and lion paw. bony spines erupting from the start of his neck and stopping at the end of his tail. Celestia stared at the enlarged draconequus and could feel her heart pounding faster as he gave her a toothy grin, revealing his razor sharp teeth and that one larger fang.

"Instead, enjoy the ride."

Another image went across Celestia's eyes. It was the inside of canterlot throne room but here, canterlot was in ruins. Twilight and her friends were all lying on the floor, lifeless. Large gash wounds were covering them all. Near the throne, Luna was hanging from a long piece of metal, impaled on it. Celestia blinked and now, Discord was coiled around her like a massive snake. Celestia could feel him tightening around her, crushing her bones. She let out an agonizing scream, but that didn't stop Discord from tightening the grip further. He grinned maliciously. "P-please, D-Discord... Im s-s-ARGH! Sorry!" She managed to get out despite the agonizing pain. He laughed again and looked at her with a mix of hatred and amusement.

"Your words mean nothing to me."

*CRACK*

---

Celestia woke up screaming and shaking. Her heart was pounding. She put her hoofs over her eyes and started to sob uncontrollably. The nightmare had all seemed so real. Part of it was. She took away her hoofs and looked as well as she could, with tears pouring down her face, around the room to confirm her castle wasn't in ruins. Her sight was blurry from the tears, but she could still see it was her room and her bed.

"CELESTIA!" The door to her bedroom burst open, revealing a frightened lunar princess and two spearwielding guards assisting her. When Luna saw Celestia, her eyes widened and she levitated the guards out of the room before they could see Celestia. "GET OUT!"

The guards both landed on their rumps against a wall. They looked at eachother shortly before turning their confused gazes to the Lunar princess. "But your highne--" They didn't get to talk further as the door to Celestia's bedroom slammed shut.

Luna trotted, worried, over to her sister who had, once again, buried her face in her hoofs. Luna sat down on Celestia's bed, put a hoof on her shoulder and gave her a comforting smile. "Celestia, what is wrong?" Luna asked sympathetically. She could feel Celestia shaking.

"I had another nightmare..." She answered as tears dripped from her muzzle.

Luna's eyes widened and she could feel her own blood running colder at the mention of the nightmare. Without further thinking she pulled Celestia into her embrace, hugging her tightly. "I-it's okay, Celestia." Ever since Discord had been freed on Celestia's command and reformed, she had been getting the occasional nightmares and they were getting more frequent. Nightmares of a time long past and the consequences of the their actions.

"Why won't they go away?!" Celestia screamed while sobbing, as she clinged to Luna, as if, for dear life.

"I-I do not know, sister." Luna answered with sadness in her voice. It was not because Luna hadn't tried to make the nightmares go away, but they just wouldn't. No matter what she tried, she could not despel those nightmares. She had even tried to enter the nightmare herself to pull Celestia out, but that had only resulted in Luna getting the same nightmares she had tried to despel. "It doesn't make any sense. He's reformed, this shouldn't be happening..." Luna said to no one in particular.

Celestia looked away, tears continueing to drip. I wish I could tell you why, Luna, but it is too painful to even think about. She looked out of a nearby window where she could see the lights from Ponyville. But perhaps it is time. Luna joined her in her gaze out the window. Celestia's lower lip quivered and she looked back at her sister and nodded. Luna understood and returned Celestia's nod. "It's time. We have to tell them."

Comments

[Nerfyy]

niice :D i like it so far ^^ i love storys, in who the princesses did something to him that made him evil ;D and not him doing something evil first ;3

[Marina]

Pretty nice!