• Published 4th Nov 2017
  • 1,306 Views, 4 Comments

Luna's Adventures Through the Looking Glass - Bronyxy



Why didn’t Princess Luna come to help fight off the Changeling invasion during Shining Armor’s wedding to Princess Cadence? Now we know - she was having a few problems of her own in an alternate universe where Nightmare Moon ruled unchallenged!

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1 The Nightmare Returns

Princess Luna stood in the gardens of the Royal Castle, looking up to review critically her handiwork stretched out majestically overhead. Artistically, this had not been a particularly good night, principally because she had not been able to focus as something had been clawing at her mind; something she hadn’t quite been able to pin down, and it annoyed her.

She was especially concerned because the day that was due to dawn would see Princess Cadence married to Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard, and she didn’t want anything to go wrong if she could help it, especially with the threat of a Changeling attack. Concerns about the forthcoming wedding had swamped the dream realm with angst ridden dreams from all quarters of Equestria; everything from guards and caterers worried about arrangements, to guests worried that they would not look their best. Amongst all these mostly petty anxieties, she was a little concerned that she had not been able to find Cadence’s dreams for the last few nights.

Luna knew that she should have lowered the moon already, and she could feel the tension building between the celestial bodies, but she just wanted a few moments more to trace what was amiss. In frustration she stomped the earth with one of her forehooves and let out a grunt of exasperation; whatever was wrong would have to wait for tonight; her time was up.

With a nagging sense of disquiet she directed her magic to the moon and lay it to bed once more. In its place a purple twilight broke over the lightening sky, melting the stars away. The sun peeped over the horizon as she knew it must, but stamped her forehoof in frustration once more; she would brief her sister on what she had, or rather hadn’t found so she could be on her guard. But brief her on what? A hunch? A feeling? The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it all seemed. Perhaps she would just turn in for bed instead without saying anything.

Celestia was tense. The whole Nightmare Moon episode hadn’t been over long and her sister had for some reason been reluctant to lower the moon; the Sun Princess would have to tread carefully. She would greet Luna as was customary for a handover discussion over breakfast / evening supper, choosing to complement her as an opening gambit and perhaps she could judge the tone of the conversation and steer it round to what had been on her mind. A fear lurked in the corner of Celestia’s mind that maybe it would not be Luna that came to greet her but a black alicorn in battle armour. No matter how much she tried to dismiss this thought as unfounded and irrational, it refused to leave her.

A few minutes later her fears were stowed away when she heard her sister’s gentle clip-clopping as she came to her supper, not wearing battle armour, but just her usual livery collar and crown. Celestia breathed an inwards sigh of relief:
“Good morning Sister. That was a beautiful display of stars last night.”
Celestia had always lacked a finer appreciation of her sister’s nocturnal artistry, and although meant as a compliment, it wounded Luna who knew it had been far from her best work. This innocent comment put her immediately on the back hoof.

“Good morning Sister” replied Luna suppressing the bitterness she felt at her sister’s comment and lapsing into the olden tongue that she resorted to when angered by her sister “Fare thee well?”
“Good, thank you. I wondered from where you had lowered the moon this morning as I did not see you at any of your usual vantage points” said the Sun Princess, trying to be tactful.
Luna took this as another dig. Yes, she had been in the gardens. Why should it matter where she conducted her duties from? What right was it of her sister to probe her? Any lingering questions she had about telling Celestia about the night’s events now lay firmly quashed.

“We were in the gardens, Sister” replied Luna maintaining her outmoded speech with no other reason than to needle her sister “Please accept our apologies for having been late in our duties” she conceded with a thin veil of grace that barely concealed the simmering sarcasm she felt inside.

Celestia accepted the apology, choosing to turn a deaf ear to her sister’s tone as there did not seem anything of immediate significance to concern herself about, and tried to engage her instead by swinging the one-sided conversation round to her thoughts and observations about the day’s wedding. Luna just looked progressively more bored and simply wanted to go to bed; she was tired and knew she would have only a few hours sleep before she had to be up in time to support her sister when the ceremony started. At the earliest possible opportunity, Luna interrupted her sister’s flow and excused herself to retire, leaving Celestia to handle the final preparations for the pomp and circumstance of the wedding; that was the sort of thing she was good at after all.

Luna trudged back despondently towards her bedchamber, still distracted by what could have caused the nagging ethereal anomalies that had lingered into the waking world. She also found it odd that she had felt so antagonised by her sister. Something was wrong and she knew it, but could not pin it down. Perhaps she just needed some rest?

She opened the door to her private quarters and stepped in, closing the door behind her. Her sixth sense stepped into overdrive, warning her that something was wrong; or was it just her paranoia? She was tired and had only a few hours to get any sleep, so dismissed it, drawing up to her vanity mirror to remove her crown.

“Hello Luna” rasped a sinister voice. Luna froze. She knew that voice. No! It couldn’t be …
“Have you missed me?” it gloated, then snapped “Well, look at me when I’m talking to you!”
Luna looked around quickly, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, then froze again. The mirror! She turned her eyes tentatively whilst keeping her head fixed where it had been pointed.
“That’s better” smirked the voice, and then added tauntingly “You’re getting warmer!”
Luna knew where the voice was coming from and whose it was, but she didn’t feel ready to face her.

“Look at me!” screamed the voice. Luna had no choice and slowly turned her head to face the mirror. As she looked, her face started to morph from blue into a one of black wearing a helmet:
“NO!” she screamed “I was freed from you! You can’t be back!”
“Reach out to me” taunted the voice.
“NEVER!” screamed Luna.
Her face could not move away from the apparition in the mirror and next thing, it put a forehoof up, forcing Luna to do the same, as if image and reflection had been reversed. She had no control.
Luna felt her forehoof raised and then reach out to touch the hoof in the mirror, except there was no glass – the hoof was real!

The apparition laughed scornfully at the obvious distress of the Princess from whom she had originally been created.
“Move over to the full length mirror!” screamed the black alicorn, her eyes staring vengefully at Luna.
“NO! You would be able to come through then!” retorted the Princess, fully aware of what the return of Nightmare Moon could mean.
“You always were weak!” taunted her alter ego “DO IT NOW!”
Luna held her ground as tears formed in her eyes due to the effort of resisting.
“Oh look at you – CRY BABY!”
“NO!” she screamed again, her nightmares all turning to face her at once.
“You’re pathetic! You’re weak!” gloated Nightmare Moon “Come to the mirror – NOW!”
Luna realised that Nightmare Moon was using a command spell and would not be able to resist without magic, so she focused on casting a counterspell, but the blue aura forming at the tip of her horn just fizzled and went out.

Nightmare Moon cackled contemptuously as Luna’s magic failed her, and she started to move towards the mirror, unable to stop herself against the pull of the magic.
“NO! NO! PLEASE!” begged Luna, all her options running out.
The black alicorn laughed louder and harder as Luna drew closer to the mirror, a plan starting to from in her mind. Luna had been banished for her sins a thousand years ago and Equestria had not faltered. If she were to disappear, life would continue as before she reasoned, far better that than allowing Nightmare Moon to challenge her sister and usurp the rule of Equestria again.

As she drew up to the mirror, her demeanour changed from one of fear to courage and she sprang forward to charge into the black alicorn. Nightmare Moon was taken off guard by this sudden reversal and tumbled backwards causing her to lose focus on the command spell she had been casting. Not only were they now free to fight as equals, but Luna had succeeded in keeping Nightmare Moon away from Equestria; for now at least.

Princess Luna’s bedchamber was now empty, but had anypony been in there they could have chanced to see two alicorns fighting behind what looked like a large mirror, but clearly couldn’t have been as it no longer reflected what was in the waking realm. Instead, it projected what was happening in another dimension, the most unpleasant one of all; the realm of nightmares.

Fear had turned to anger as Luna recognised the sacrifice she had just made. Her sister, indeed all of Equestria had given her a second chance and welcomed her back into society as diarch alongside Celestia, and she had made friends, six mares in particular springing to mind. Now she had been forced to turn her back on this wondrous new start just to fight this evil pony born of her own jealousy.

The two alicorns faced one another, legs braced and hooves dug in, firing a stream of raw magic at each other.
“You’re weak!” screamed Nightmare Moon “You’re worthless! Let me finish you!”
“No” retorted Luna her voice deepening with newly restored authority “I have been strengthened beyond what you can ever imagine with the Magic of Friendship. You have never had any friends, and never will. You know that I am stronger than you will ever be.”

The clash of magical streams began pushing back to Nightmare Moon as Luna’s words struck home, and before she could allow Luna’s good magic to overwhelm her, she broke lock and skipped deftly to one side, casting a protective black bubble around her and then vanished with a pop.

Luna stopped firing her magical aura and looked around at her new environment. It looked like her bedchamber, but not the one in Canterlot; then it struck her, it was her bedchamber in the Castle of the Two Sisters deep in the Everfree, but it had been redecorated in darker colours with pictures on the walls showing Nightmare Moon defeating Equestria, and on the ceiling a large diorama showing in graphic detail her killing Luna and Celestia. She looked away in disgust and knew what she had to do.

This nightmare was of her own making, and she was the only one who should have to face it; not her sister, not her friends, not the ponies of Equestria. She regarded the full length mirror, the portal into her world and knew what she must do. She turned, bracing her forehooves against the floor and shed a tear for what she was giving up before launching her hindlegs in a bucking action that would have made even Big Mac flinch and shattered the mirror into myriad tiny fragments, none of which could allow a pony through ever again.

She was trapped, sentenced to spend eternity in the realm of nightmares, a fate that would make banishment to the moon for a thousand years seem like a tea party by comparison; but then again, the Equestria she knew and loved would be saved from Nightmare Moon.

It was a price she felt she had to pay.