The Last Sacrifice

by Doof Ex Machina

Afterwords

Black swallowed the bitter taste of tears, sniffing and soothing himself with foolish hopes. How many years had passed since that day? Ten? Twenty? Hundred? Or maybe it all was yesterday?

Yesterday, yeah...

A fancy black car rushed by with extremely high speed. Mud and thawed snow flew from under the wheels. A young mare shrank back, muttering something under her breath.

Princess Luna looked like she was alive. Now, like, she’d wince and shudder, shaking off whitewash and rock dust, her mighty wings spread wide open. A spark of thousand galaxies would dance in her mane, showing the mystery of starlit abysses and black holes.

That would not happen.

The Savior’s Mirror had cracked on the same day when the fleet of lizards was stopped by the rebellious Princess. Realizing his uselessness, the confused Savior had disappeared somewhere. He was nowhere to be found as if there had never been any Savior.

Everyone had prepared for big troubles. Day by day newspapers had been blazing with press furore about a new crisis, that an enemy whom no one had ever seen in the whole life would reveal itself in all his glory. And then…

Nothing happened. The enemy was in no hurry. The shattered Mirror shut the door into Equestria not only for heralds of new salvation but also for harbingers of new doom. Surely troubles happened—but ordinary and trivial. A poor harvest, a hurricane, a wild tribe of gryphons ganging up on airways. Trivialities which could be solved by the Princesses. They ruled not bothering with the whinny of critics, and they were right. Only Luna wasn’t there with them.

The rebel Princess, the stubborn Princess, the beloved of wind! The memory of you lived in bunches of flowers that laid at your hooves in the spring, and in white snow that gleamed when the winter set in.

He slid a candy from his pocket and barely had time to prevent it from dropping in the mud. His eyes were watery, probably from old age. Take it, Your Highness. Your Highness? No, Your Majesty. The sacrifice that the universe had waited for.

The world was worth an existence when the embodiment of strength could sacrifice itself.

Black told himself: She didn’t want to die. She was going to kill, knowing that she might not come out victorious. She knew that her childish revolt might be the last. But could it be otherwise? She was the strength!

A gust of wind swept a few snowflakes and whispered woefully: She didn’t want to die. The wind was cold, biting and violent at this memorial. It was said that they never had to have it cleaned as birds did not dare to fly nearby.

She wanted neither to die nor to live in a world of weak-willed slaves. How many would understand her sacrifice? Would they understand, appreciate and mourn it? Black didn’t know. The wind didn’t either. They both cared little about others. Black remembered how he had sobbed by that wooden box and how he had prayed, not even knowing whom, for her to emerge from the husk of the destroyed leviathan. Wounded, beaten, broken—but alive. They hadn’t even found her. She just disappeared. She vanished as she had never existed.

Foals came here in evenings. They called Black an old fool and mooncalf when he told them about her act of bravery. And when the moon appeared on the horizon, they'd immediately run there to kiss her in the muzzle—a loving, innocent, naive kiss. For them, she was a hero of the beautiful fairy tale. Not a rebellious Princess but a brave servant of the Savior.

Did you want to be a servant of the Savior, Luna? Or was it a fate you had sought to escape? Perhaps you know it, wind? The wind didn’t know. The wind might well do know, but just preferred to keep silence. A bunch of biting snowflakes was its only response.

Author's Note:

Comments

[Viper Pit]

this last act of sacrifice is my own

[FinalFan]

It bothered me that there was no discernible in-universe reason for Luna's sacrifice to end the cycle. At least, I did not see any.

But the events of the story were well written and compelling.

[Doof Ex Machina]

8760364 Oh, the author of this story has a kind of explanation for this matter.

---

Well, humans... In my story, humans are the incarnated will of the universe. They appear in Equestria for a reason; in order to save all. It's like a creepy experiment. Someone is ready to sacrifice his life for you, but are you ready to do it yourself? Celestia wasn't. Luna — at least her dark self — figured out the hint. But what if she was wrong? What if, suddenly, her sacrifice would be in vain? She didn't think about this when she decided to kill herself. In the afterwords, I hinted that Nightmare's original intention was neither to die nor to break the enemy ship with her body. She just didn't want to live in the world whose inhabitants are incapable to defend themselves.

However, in the end it wasn't in vain. The universe was finally satisfied. The strong individual used his power for the purpose for which it was given to him. Nightmare Moon is truly a monarch, powerful and mighty. She isn't to wait for 'generous' help from other worlds. She is not a princess but a queen. Her acts are of royal scale. Her response to invaders is one that they will remember for life. Her sacrifice is a sacrifice of the monarch.

[FinalFan]

8761131
Interesting. Thanks for the reply!

... although I'm having trouble squaring "decided to kill herself" with "intention was [not] to die"

[Doof Ex Machina]

8762669
Thank you for reading!

I think what was meant here is that "intention wasn’t to die" refers to the moment when Nightmare attacked the enemy fleet. But when she got a dangerous wound, she realized that the best solution for her would be to sacrifice herself. She still had no place in this world.

[FinalFan]

8763703
I see. As a reader, I saw her actions as simply "win at any cost, or die trying" which is ... not quite the same thing, but not inconsistent with it.