A Chance at Self Forgiveness

by Dreagknight-LostWriter

Dream Reflection

As Sunset laid on the ground, her mind at ease and devoid of any thoughts, she started to stir awake. Looking around, Sunset noted in horror that she was surrounded by darkness. She looked left to right, but darkness was all she saw. Even though she was surrounded in the shadows of darkness, the area she was in was illuminated by a mysterious glow. Panicking, Sunset jumped to her hooves as she tried to remember where she was or how she had gotten here. Sunset started to walk around, and the only sound she heard was the sound of her own hooves. Sunset couldn't think straight as her mind was going 100 mph with confusion, panic, and fright. While Sunset continued to walk, she saw a light glowing in front of her. Rushing, she galloped quickly to the increasingly bright light source. Right in the center of the light was an object Sunset was very familiar with, her guitar.

“My guitar? Why is this here?” Sunset asked herself.

Reaching out a hoof to touch it, Sunset stopped as the guitar turned to liquid and melted in front of her. Sunset stared in confusion at the puddle of liquid, when the liquid started to move as it morphed into an another item, this time Twilight’s crown from the Fall Formal. Sunset stepped back as her fears ran through her. As Sunset was about to turn and run, the area she was in was suddenly cleared of the darkness, revealing that she was in a large room. The room quickly took the form of the gym room back at Canterlot High. Sunset turned to look around the room. The gym was a complete mess, the same type of mess she caused. Turning back around to look at the crown, she was instead met with the portal mirror. Taking another step back, Sunset looked into the mirror to see herself arguing with Princess Celestia.

“This was the day I decided to leave, to abandon my studies, my lessons, Princess Celestia’s trust, everything,” Sunset mumbled, falling to her hunches.

The scene before her morphed, Sunset was now watching as her past self re-entered the mirror to steal Twilight’s crown. Sunset shut her eyes tight as the scene showed Twilight chasing her through the halls. When Sunset open her eyes again, she found two, light blue, slitted eyes peering back at her from the mirror. The mirror was now black, and only two eyes could be seen. Sunset slowly walked back, never taking her eyes off the eyes looking at her. The mirror was soon covered in a dark fog as the eyes disappeared within it. When the fog cleared, Nightmare Moon was left, locking eyes with Sunset.

“Ahhhh!” Sunset screamed, jumping up and turning around to run.

As soon as Sunset turned tail to run, she tripped over a rock and fell face first into the dirt. Lifting her head, Sunset found the room she was in was gone and that she was at the bottom of a crater. The crater felt all too familiar as Sunset tried to climb out of it. When Sunset finally got out of the crater, she saw that she was in front of Canterlot High at night.

“Sunset,” she heard someone or pony call out to her from behind.

Taking a deep breath, Sunset decided to turn around, knowing she would find Nightmare Moon behind her. Slowly, Sunset turned around, backing up as she did so. To Sunset’s relief, she found Princess Luna standing there instead of Nightmare Moon.

“Sunset, we need you to calm down,” Luna said, watching as Sunset’s eyes darted back and forth.

“What’s going on, why am I back in the human world? Why are you here? Where’s Nightmare Moon?” Sunset spurted out, her mind completely shattered as she try to recall what was happening.

Before Sunset could ask anymore questions, Luna lit up her horn and cast a brilliant azul glow on Sunset. Instantly, Sunset was overcome with fatigue, not enough to make her fall asleep, but enough to tire her out. Soon Sunset was laying on the ground, muffling a yawn while Luna looked around.

“Sunset, have you calmed down?” Luna asked, but her focus was on the school itself.

“I-I think so,” Sunset said, her mind finally slowing down. “Princess Luna, what is going on?”

Luna turned to looked at Sunset. “Sunset, you are dreaming. Everything you see before you is just part of your dream. Do you understand?”

“I’m dreaming?” Sunset mumbled. As Sunset looked around more, she saw that there was a dark fog surrounding the school.

“Yes, Sunset, you are dreaming,” Luna said, walking over to Sunset. “Sunset, I had to cast a spell on you that made you fall asleep back in my chamber.” Luna, with her wings spread wide, showed a window with Sunset falling asleep on her bed. “Do you remember now?”

Sunset stared at the window, her mind now processing everything. “I remember,” said Sunset, placing her face in her hooves and laughing to herself. “Why didn't I realize it sooner?”

“Dreamers tend to not know when they are dreaming until an outside force shows it to them,” Luna said, looking worried. “Sunset, I wish you not to panic, but hear us out.”

Sunset raised her head to look at Luna, Luna’s wings still spread out. Slowly, Luna retracted her wings to her side. Sunset was confused at first why Luna was nervous, but then saw on Luna’s left, Nightmare Moon was standing there.

“N-N-Nightmare Moon,” Sunset stuttered, her fatigue quickly forgotten.

“Sunset, it’s okay. We are not the Nightmare that you heard of,” Nightmare Moon said, tentatively walking around towards Sunset.

“But… why... you said?” Sunset couldn't think or form any direct questions as she watched Nightmare Moon.

“Sunset, what we said is true, that we have forgiven our self. What we did not tell you was that our self was our dark self. Simply put, our Nightmare self,” Luna said, walking in the opposite direction of Nightmare Moon.

“How?” was all Sunset could ask.

Luna kept walking as she thought of a way to answer this. When Nightmare Moon came close to Sunset, she looked at the deep crater that Sunset was next to.

“The scene you have went through speaks a lot about your guilt,” Nightmare Moon said, bringing up several small windows in front of Sunset.

Each window had a image in it, from the guitar to Twilight’s crown, the gym room, the portal mirror, a freeze scene of Sunset arguing with Celestia, another freeze scene of Sunset running from Twilight, and the last scene with the crater.

Nightmare Moon looked at the images, Sunset still shaken being close to her. “Can you put these in order, from start to finish?”

“Ho-how come?” Sunset asked, slowly stepping away from Nightmare Moon.

“I wish to see how this played out, these are part of your nightmares,” Nightmare Moon said, looking at Sunset, who had frozen in place.

Luna came up behind Sunset and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “You do not have to do it if you so wish not to, but I must let you know something. My Nightmare self watches over the nightmares of my dear subjects, the darker nightmares they have. It has been much easier to watch over the dream realm with a helper.”

Sunset looked at the images, then Nightmare Moon. “How are you able-”

“Able to think and act outside of a host body?” Nightmare Moon asked herself for Sunset. “For the easiest of terms, Sunset, I am a personality that was built up within Luna’s mind, our mind.”

“After our defeat by Twilight, all of our corruption was mostly removed,” Luna said, taking up the story. “The one thing left that the Elements could not remove was the personality that had already been formed.”

“So you’re the personality that came to be known as Nightmare Moon?” Sunset asked, to which Nightmare Moon nodded.

“As you can see, Sunset, we had to face ourself and make peace with what we have done and why we have done it,” Luna said, walking in front of Sunset and standing next to Nightmare Moon.

Now looking at Nightmare Moon with new eyes, Sunset could see that Nightmare Moon’s appearance wasn’t that scary. In fact, Nightmare Moon’s appearance seemed a little bit brighter in favor of Luna’s appearance, and both their heights were the same, except for their horns, of which Nightmare Moon’s was still larger. Sunset then looked back to the images before her and, using her magic, started to rearrange them. When Sunset was done, she had a timeline from when she left Equestria to where she was at now.

“Hmm? Sunset, can you explain each of these images to us, if you're feeling up to it?” Luna asked.

“I don’t mind,” Sunset said, looking at each image. “The first image shows when I demanded to Celestia that I should be a Princess. In the wake of my anger for being denied, I, well, I’m sure you know what happened next.”

Luna nodded with some understanding.

“This image shows when I went back through the portal. Instead of coming back to apologize, I instead stole Twilight’s crown and escaped back to this world. This image is more of an after image of when I framed Twilight for destroying a big event at my school, hoping to get everyone to hate her. This image of Twilight’s crown is when I couldn't accept losing to her and stole her crown again, this time putting it on,” Sunset said, lowering her head in shame. “This image shows my defeat to Twilight and her friends. I was at the bottom of this crater climbing out when Twilight offered to show me friendship.” Sunset finished, not saying anything about the last image, with her guitar.

“What about this image right here, what does this mean?” Nightmare Moon asked.

“I don’t know myself. Maybe how I was able to help Twilight and the others defeat the Sirens, but I didn't use my guitar at the time.”

Nightmare Moon looked at the picture more as Luna came over to Sunset.

“Sunset, we do not know what you will face when you face yourself. Just know that your otherself will have all the emotion you had built up to that point, the point of your defeat.”

“Face myself? You mean like-”

“Yes, like we did with our Nightmare self,” Luna said.

Nightmare Moon walked over in front of Sunset, holding two items in her magic. One item was a key, the other was her guitar that was sized down and fitted on a necklace.

“We do not know why this item symbolizes an importance to you, but we decided it's best for you to keep it on you,” Nightmare Moon said, handing Sunset the guitar necklace.

Sunset took the necklace and put it on.

“And here is the key to your mind. With this key you will leave the dream realm and enter your mind, where you will face yourself.”

Sunset reluctantly took the key. It had a base that matched her cutie mark and a frame that matched her coat color.

“Do not worry, Sunset, for we shall be there with you.”

“How do I use the key?” Sunset asked, looking around for some type of door to appear out of nowhere.

“We believe it to be that door,” Luna said, pointing to the school’s door.

“Oh.” Sunset slowly walked up to the school’s front door.

Taking the key in her magic, Sunset gently lowered it to the door’s lock. Seeing that the key went in smoothly, Sunset turned the key a full 360 degrees. With a click, the key was knocked out of the lock and magnetically snapped onto Sunset’s necklace with her guitar. Trying her luck, Sunset reached out and grabbed the door handle in her magic and tugged it open. As the door opened, the room inside was pitch black with no sound or even a hint of life. Casting a light spell, Sunset slowly advanced inside with Luna and Nightmare Moon behind her. Only taking a few steps in, the door closed shut behind them and faded away as Sunset ran back towards it.

“No no no, we’re stuck inside,” Sunset cried out, hooves tracing where the door used to be.

“To think we wanted to cast the world into an eternal night,” Nightmare Moon said, her eyes following the darkness.

“Sunset, we must continue on before you or I wake up, or it will be harder to get in next time,” Luna said, coming up to Sunset.

Seeing as the door wouldn't be reappearing, Sunset looked around in the darkness. With the light illuminating from their horns, Sunset could see that the building was a complete match of the school, yet the place looked like it was abandoned for years. Walking into the center hallway, all the lights in the school came on with a ‘thump, thump, thump.’

“Gah!” all three mares screamed, and covered their eyes at the sudden burst of bright light.

Soon all the lights in the school dimmed down low enough for the three mares to see again. Luna and Nightmare Moon looked around at the inside of the school.

“Sunset, over here,” Luna called at the entrance of another hallway.

When Sunset got near, her eyes widened at what she saw before her. Sitting by the locker was her human self. What surprised Sunset more was that her human self was sitting, back against the locker, her arms hugging her legs close to her chest and her head face down.

“This is not what we expected to see,” Nightmare Moon said, standing next to Luna.

“Hello?” Sunset called out to herself.

When she lifted her head to look at Sunset, Sunset froze as the look she got was pure hatred.

“Why are you here? Are you here hoping to destroy me once and for all? You have already decided to forget about me and everything we worked for, what more could you want?”

“I just want to talk,” Sunset said, taking a step forward.

Herself lifted her head and stood, glaring at Sunset. Sunset could see that the clothing she had was tattered and burnt. The same look she had when she was defeated. Glaring at Sunset with dagger eyes, herself raised her hand at Sunset and started to channel her magic. Before Sunset could react, she was caught into the magical hold and pulled forwards.

“Look at us. Once the proud and mighty queen of Canterlot High and Celestia’s student, now reduced to such a weak and pathetic state. We should have had so much more, but because of that twat Twilight, we lost it all. There is nothing you can say to me.” With a kinetic blast, Sunset was knocked back against another locker. “Now leave me alone, or better yet”—herself walking over to Sunset and bending down—“give me control of your body so I can show you how to truly gain power and take revenge on all those who disrespected us. I know you still have that hatred burning deep inside of you.”

Author's Note:

Welp, new chapter, new area, now the encounter.

Hope you ponies enjoy this chapter, tell me what you think below or just any theory you have for what's to happen next. I do enjoy reading you ponies comments.

Comments

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

Like the take on Nightmare Moon

[Dreagknight-LostWriter]

6298150 Thanks. She don't get much credit like Luna.

[Seirs]

6298150
6298171
I second Admiral's sentiment. I really really like the what you have here for Nightmare Moon, an very unique take, or at least one I haven't come across before. Tons of possibilities there.

[Dreagknight-LostWriter]

6309162 Thanks.