Nightmare
How long had she been here? logically she should have died long ago.
Seemed Time really did stop her aging.
"Please, this isn't you. snap out of it!"
Oh, it seems we're back to the last one she killed.
Clover's eyes flashed red for a moment as she was forced to watch herself commit murder after murder.
She's tried giving into madness, that didn't help, but was a fun distraction for a while.
Then she went sane, and that didn't help either. Death still held her in this prison.
Sometimes she notices him, looking down upon her with a disappointed face.
The sound of a body hitting the floor filled the void, her last killing complete, she was heading toward her next town.
Wait.
A glimmer of thought broke through the haze. A warmth spread through her body, almost like it was guiding her to look closer.
Following the unseen guidance she forces herself to watch her last murder, but this time she notices something, a faint memory somewhere in the back of her mind.
This moment. She was cursing Chaos for bringing this upon her.
With a shock she realized she had given into hatred, and that resulted in a feedback loop from the Alicorn Amulet.
It was hard to feel things anymore, but maybe this apathy is what she needs.
She tried to remember her Shift when Time took her as an apprentice.
It was so long ago now.
Vague memories slowly pierce the fog.
With a shock she realized she never really was sane in her time here. The whispers of the Amulet served as an echo chamber for her hatred.
Speaking of Hatred, she swore she saw some pony with red eyes watching her a while ago.
couldn't be Death, His eyes are milky white. looking blindly at the world.
Whatever, back to the problem at hoof.
For the first time since she was put in this prison, she actually listened to the amulet around her neck.
The whispers that are always at the edge of her hearing become clearer, like a droning noise you got used to after awhile being focused on for the first time.
"It's All Chaos's fault."
That was wrong, she chose to do this because she believed Time knew best, who was she to argue with a god?
"Please, don't be corrupted."
It was wearing on her soul.
A ponies’ soul is made up of their thoughts and convictions.
With a huge effort of will, she not only listened to the amulet around her neck, but replied.
Each whisper was met with logic.
Each horrible memory was accepted.
Each act of brutality shown to her wouldn’t phase her.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she pulled herself together.
When all was said and done, she was alone in a globe of darkness. A soft thunk sounding through the void as the Amulet was removed, the red glow from it dissolving away to nothing.
“About time. I was beginning to think you’d never regain control.”
Far above the shadows Clover could see milky white eyes peering into her soul.
“Good. there’s much for you to do, I have a guest who’s..well, I can’t say she’s been waiting, as it was just a step to the left for her.”
The world around Clover shatters, The brightness of real light hitting her eyes for the first time in centuries caused her to blanch.
The room being one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen didn’t help matters either.
When she finally came too, she took it all in.
It made her soul hurt. This massive room was so utterly perfect that it brought tears to her eyes.
This must be the meeting place of the gods.
Each god was represented by a wedge of the octagon, the whole thing brought into harmony in
the middle where a large golden Hourglass representing time resided.
Clover felt a pull toward the center, almost like it was beckoning her. Before she could take a step however a hoof touched her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.
Looking toward the owner of the purple hoof she saw her mentor, covered completely by some kind of shimmering barrier of chaotic magic.
Seeing her mentor for the first time in ages, she reflexively bowed.
“Time.”
For her part, the alicorn simply stared at the Hourglass that so captivated Clover.
“Interesting…”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Sorry, I was lost in thought for a moment. I can feel harmony’s strings at work here, Clover the Clever. However, I am not your Teacher. To avoid confusion you can call me Beta. I’m a ‘younger’ version of the Time you met, when i was removed from the cycle by a certain dragonequus I was hardly one thousand Cycles old.”
“Sorry, what’s a Cycle?”
“Oh, one cycle is the Universe from its inception to it’s heat death. Time and others like myself count our age in how many times I have existed until the end of all things.”
She tapped her chin with a hoof. “I suppose you could think of it as ten to the hundredth power years each time. Back to the matter at hoof, my Originator is the Prime, the central version of myself who ascended to her power so very long ago. Every time the universe ends; she goes back to the beginning to start over.”
Clover’s mind was spinning, she had just assumed Time’s age was infinite, and now she was getting new information to disprove that assumption.
An assumption she’s beginning to notice, her mentor didn’t attempt to dissuade at any point in her training.
Although another question was buzzing in Clover’s mind. “What do you mean ‘Ascension’?”
Beta simply smiled at that. “She hadn’t told you? She was once a mortal, just like you. I believe she’s going to be born in roughly 182 years.”
Talk about splitting hairs. The chicken or the egg argument came to the forefront of Clover’s mind.
“Take your time, I’m sure it’s a lot to process.”
A cough draws Clover’s attention to a pair of beings behind her, recognizing Death she instinctively tried to cast the protection spells but the moment she saw the Alicorn standing next to him her mind went blank.
Before her is perfection, a pure white alicorn that almost seems so soft she’d blow away in a strong wind, her outline was hazy and undefined, almost like mist. Her features seemed to always be in flux, shifting from one moment to another, each form being more beautiful than the last. Eventually, green makes itself known to her, she notices vines intertwining around the Alicorn’s hooves and wings, seeming to keep this perfect being contained so that she doesn’t dissipate. Hair made up of Budding flowers and vines flowed behind her in an unseen wind
Clover’s very soul was aching at her beauty.
It feels as if her heart has stopped. Wait…
Touching a hoof to her chest she realized her heart had stopped, yet she wasn’t dying.
“I tend to have this effect on mortals, it’s as if they can feel from where they came, the soul seems to remember.”
Death’s raspy laughter filled the small room when he noticed Clover’s expression.
“Don’t look at me, with Life this close by it would be quite difficult to kill you here, even if you took a mortal wound. Though I suppose in one sense you have, she actually does stop your heart, her beauty is too much for mortals to process, but her very nature prevents such a thing from being fatal. It’s also why you don’t need those pesky protections against me, our auras are canceling each other out.”
Clover had to look away, taking a deep breath as she steadied herself, feeling her heart beating once again she couldn’t help sneaking a peak at Life one more time, causing said Alicorn to laugh a bit, the sound of mirth filling the large chamber.
Realizing she got distracted, Clover devoted a huge effort to forcing herself to stop thinking of Life’s perfect form and once again process the problem at hoof.
After a few minutes of her thoughts running around in a circle she found she was getting nowhere quickly, with a sigh she turned to Beta. “Alright, I give. What are you doing here? I don’t have enough information to make a guess at this point.”
“Knowing when you don’t know something, I see my taste in students remains strict. Though for the life of me I can’t fathom why she accepted. She doesn’t take students unless it’s part of an experiment, and those experiments are long finished.”
“Weren't you paying attention? She was kinda forced into the decision when she caused Clover’s shift without preparing countermeasures necessary to go back in time and rectify any mistakes.”
The sudden deep voice gave Clover a start, causing her to look for the source, only to come up empty. When she had given up, laughter from above caused her to look up.
Right into the eyes of Dragonequuis.
Clover’s first instinct is to blast him with magic, which she did only for the beam to burst into harmless confetti.
“My my, you really are her student aren’t you. She reacted the same way to me the first few cycles.”
Beta, for her part blushed and looked away. “Have I mentioned he ruined the experiment I was running at the time?”
Clover’s thoughts this time didn’t run in a circle. They ran into a brick wall and crashed, burning in a pile of rubble.
Time. Working with Chaos?
What in Harmony is going on.
~~~~
The bonds were weakening. Struggling more and more, Nightmare pulled against the magical restraints, a paltry planet above her serving as her attempted destination.
Somewhere nearby a Book lay on the ground, open to the last page, which of course was the first.
What did Chaos say? Oh right, a trick to being sane enough to know what you want to do, and insane enough to do it.
She’d already lost a few minutes because one of her stars drifted out of sync with the others.
With a pulse of power she realized the time was right, her eyes roamed around her, finding the four stars she managed to pull into the moon, with their magic combined with her’s she shattered the manacles that she’d grown used to holding her avatar imprisoned.
The face on the moon vanished.
“Aaaah, that’s so much better!” Nightmare cracked her neck and shook out the nerves.
An itch hit the back of her mind, it felt like ants crawling over her brain.
No, wait. It was the feeling of hooves on her body.
Someone was here. With but a thought she appeared before a rather interesting being.
Why was it so tall? With a small thud Nightmare realized she forgot to teleport her hooves with her, with nothing to hold her upright she fell onto her side, her eyes glaring hatefully at the super tall white pony before her.
“One moment, I need to go shopping for a bit.”
In front of her several different variations of hooves appeared, scrolling past as if she was viewing a catalog. If a causal pony watched this, they'd think she was using Chaos magic.
“To have fallen so far as to use his magic.”
Ah, speak of the devil. Meet the causal pony. “Sorry sister, but this isn’t the same….wait, you are my sister right?”
Tall, check. White, check, arrogant disposition, check.
Pink mane…kinda? “Why’s your hair so flowy flowy. There’s no wind on my moon.”
“An aftereffect of Using the Elements of Harmony alone.”
“Oh, right. Those things. I knew I was forgetting something important.”
With a flash Nightmare stood up…then fell down because her hooves were too small.
“Oops, one moment.” Another flash and she was her proper height, roughly equal to Celestia.
“Come to beg sister? I’m still blowing up that pesky planet of yours.”
“I’d rather you didn’t, I’ve got a student that I’ve grown rather fond of down there.”
Ugh, of course she does. It made Nightmare want to smack that smug look off her sister's face.
So she did, or at least she tried to. The blow that should have sent the offending head flying around the moon quite separate from it’s former body was stopped cold…or should she say stopped hot? This aura burns.
“Still only using Fire? Such a shame.” Nightmare was looking down at her quite literally burning hoof. “What’d I do to make you so angry? If anything I’M the one who should be mad. Which I am. Not insane though, just mad. Both definitions.”
The look on Celestia's face was priceless. Nightmare wanted to frame it and put it on a wall.
No, that’s not right. She wanted to frame it, get it all nice and pretty, then burn it.
Bonus points for the irony of burning an image of the ‘sun’ as ponies called it.
A sudden thought hit Nightmare and she started laughing maniacally.
“Something funny?”
“Yes, I just realized that the ‘Sun’ has quite a large ‘moon’ now.”
Oh, she’s headless now.
Awkward, it’s really rude to lose one's head when you have company.
Honestly.
A blue swirl of magic slowly climbed from the stump of what was formerly Nightmare moon’s head, forming a new head as the old one dissipated into the base magic it was made of.
Wait…
Looking closer..
“Sister…why does your body seem more…fleshy than before? How long has that avatar existed?”
At that Celestia's expression went from sour to stony.
Seems she hit a nerve.
No matter, Nightmare moon had more important matters to attend to, with a wave burning shackles wrapped around Celestia's hooves.
Her expression went from stony, to surprised, to incredulous when she realized she couldn’t break them.
“The opposite of the spell you used against me, you’re going to be stuck inside your sun until I’m finished destroying your carefully laid plans. I’ll be sure to unblock your view before I destroy the planet.”
Celestia's response was to channel a bunch of magic to her horn, too much it seems as her horn snapped and fell to the ground before her, moments before she was yanked away, forced inside her solar body just like the spell Nightmare moon escaped from a few minutes ago.
Though, since her magic wasn’t split between the stars she’d likely break out in a few hours.
Plenty of time.
Turning her sadistic smile toward the planet above, Nightmare Moon dissolved into blue mist and flowed toward Equestria, right toward the castle she remembered so vividly.
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YEEES
Hurray!
Oh man this is getting crazy!
I swear if I didn't know better, I'd think that Twilight is Discord's rightful opposite and forgot somehow. Because too much order, what Time wants, is bad. But too much chaos is equally bad. So maybe the reason their powers and interactions with the timeline are so similar is because they are twin deities. Harmony hurts them both when they go too far, obv.
I wanna see baby Twi in the face of Time ngl.
And the Nightmare! Yo!
11176511
was honestly not sure how to do nightmare's insanity. and I think I've got a good thing now, even dropped hints here and there about potential problems in the chapter too.