The Unfortunate Case of Doctor Luna and Mistress Moon

by cleverpun

3. You WIll Pay Dear, My Dear

Luna awoke violently. Her clothes had tangled into the bedsheets. A sharp, viscous taste clawed at the back of her throat. A hoof went to her head immediately.

She lurched out of bed. It certainly looked like her quarters; the university had a very distinctive architectural style—lots of natural woods and slopes—and her bookshelves were immediately recognizable.

She took a step forward, and her dress strained at the motion. She looked down, and her throat dried. A smear of blood covered the front of her clothes. Surely she had not strolled over to the biology department or anything like that. How had…

She froze. The memories of last night flooded back to her. She had finally tested her elixir. The board had refused approval and so she had tested it on herself. It had hurt. Her entire body had burned and torn, her teeth had shifted, her skull had ached. She had blacked out.

Except she hadn’t. She had gotten up. Prowled the city streets. She had encountered a mare, alone in the dark. She remembered the metallic taste of blood, the wet taste of sweat, the salty taste of…

Luna clamped a hoof over her mouth, fought the urge to vomit. It can’t be…

She rushed to her desk, pushed aside papers. She had written so many notes, formed so many theories. The elixir could not have done something like this.

She glanced down at her dress again. The blood had started to brown, and flakes of it fell off her shirt as she moved.
She scrunched her eyes shut. She tried to remember more of what had happened, but that only made the memories more vague. A mare had been waiting alone in the dark, by a street corner? Luna remembered saying something to her. She remembered a rush of adrenalin, of happiness.

Nothing else came to her, just a mare in the dark and a rush of euphoria.

Luna opened her eyes again and went to the bathroom. Perhaps the blood belonged to her. Perhaps she really had went to the biology department. She couldn’t have, wouldn’t have injured somepony else. She certainly would not have enjoyed it. She did not enjoy hurting ponies.

She paused. Except, she had fantasized about hurting the board yesterday. She remembered that clearly. The thought had spurred her to take the elixir. The idea of seeing those smug, identical ponies fail had helped her summon the courage to drink.

Celestia, as well. The thought of wounding her sister, of breaking her, that had been there too.

Luna shook her head. “No, it can’t be.” She said it out loud, but the words felt disingenuous.

She turned back to the table with her notes on it. Maybe something had gone wrong. Maybe something had been contaminated or altered when she handled it.

Maybe it did exactly what it was supposed to?

The thought had to be false. It had popped out of nowhere.

Luna dug a page out of the pile of papers. Some of the mice had gotten violent. They had attacked other mice, tried to bite the aides. Some of them had injured themselves. She turned the page over. Those same mice had always calmed down, afterwards. Steady doses of the elixir, in increasing strengths, had created a seemingly positive change in behavior. That had been the catalyst for her proposal. She had learned all she could with mice.

Luna looked over the page. The writing stared back at her, her own handwriting saying the same things she had just gone over in her head.

She looked down at her shirt again. The blood sat there, flaking and crinkling.

She couldn’t have hurt someone. It had to be some side effect or hallucination. Perhaps she had gotten drunk, had been attacked, instead of attacking someone herself.

She looked around her desk again. The ampoule sat where she had left it, hastily corked. She didn’t remember closing it up.

She lifted the ampoule. So much liquid remained in it. She had barely taken any. She turned to her notes. The next dose up only took a few more millilitres.

She looked at her shirt again. “Too dangerous,” they had said. Celestia and the board had conspired together, come up with that lie. It had to be a lie, didn’t it? They wanted her to stay second rate, to stay under Celestia’s shadow, to be quiet and unproductive.

Luna grit her teeth. She would show them. Her research only posed danger to the ignorant. She dug up another syringe, checked her notes, prepared the next dose up. She would show them. She didn’t even notice the crinkle of the blood on her shirt.

She tied another tourniquet, injected herself again. It felt just like before; warm and pleasant. It happened faster, though. She barely had time to enjoy it, to reflect on what a liar and skank her sister was.

She closed her eyes, and darkness took her.

Comments

[Nevermore777]

Oh, no Nightmare Moon prospective?