It's Equestria's first, foremost, and simplest rule: Nightmare Moon comes first in your heart. Always. To betray one's devotion to Her Majesty with love for another is unthinkable. It is an act of high treason: a Heartcrime.
Night Chamberlain Rarity is not perfect. She's had the occasional liaison with her favorite Night Guard, a couple of incorrect feelings here and there, but she is certainly not a criminal. She is sure of it.
But then, Rarity's been wrong before.
An entry Winner of the Raridash doodles contest
Chapters (6)
Interesting premise.
Nothing quite like a dystopia where not only is Big Sister watching, she's watching your dreams. And remolding mind, body, and society to better suit her purposes.
Eagerly looking forward to more.
A phenomenal tale of tragic romance in a doomed universe, which somehow still manages to deliver a touch of hope. Well done, indeed!
As a pre-reader for this, let me tell you folks: you're in for an awesome read.
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Hope? Where?
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Oh, it's coming along. Our good friend Saddles has gone ahead a couple of chapters.
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When I was in the brainstorming phase of this story, my non-mlp buddies dubbed it Big Kruger Is Watching You. Though I'm sure Her Majesty prefers the comparison to a big sister (who does a much better job than certain other sisters)
Looooooved prerrading this. Tasteful, thrilling, titillating and a treat.
Opening with a bang.
Disturbing. So, love has been banned. I wonder Where Twilight and the others are? You can just feel Rarity's fear.
Very interesting start. Hope to read more of this soon
I said it's such a coup
It's nothing new
It's nothing we haven't seen
It's just a big to-do
To punish you
For being so unclean
Horrifying. Can't wait to read more.
Poor Rarity.
Wait, Rarity's parents don't really love each other? Ouch.
Hmm, has Moondancer been "praising the moon" a bit too much? Maybe Nightmare Moon's guilty of a bit of heartcrime herself.
I feel awful for Rarity. I love the banter between her and Dash. Trying for normalcy in such an abnormal situation. Also, I really doubt Luna's going to be reformed this time. If she's cured of the Nightmare she'll probably throw herself off a building or something. Making everyone write a monthly devotional to you? Was...was Luna not hugged enough as a child or something?
9487212 Was...was Luna not hugged enough as a child or something?
That's almost exactly the problem, no? Not enough attention, praise, respect, etc. from the Sisters' subjects...
'I may not pass the prison door;
Here must I rot from day to day,
Unless I wed whom I abhor,
My cousin, Blanche of Valencay...'
Always thought that poem was Rarity's kind of thing.
Two things so far:
1) I like how you've made the cult of Nightmare Moon a conflation of Diana, Minerva and Athena myths, in which she presents herself as a stern but loving goddess of rationality and proportionality (perfect choice for a High Priestess, BTW).
2) It strikes me that you've put Rarity into exactly the kind of story she'd love to read, and as the protagonist no less. Is that kindness, or torture? Either way it puts me in mind of the old bookseller's line from The Neverending Story: "But what if you were Captain Nemo, and the giant Squid was trying to eat you?"
Will Stephen Magnet put in an appearance, then? "Hiiiiiiiiii, I'm a Luck Dragon!..."
Ah, the necessities of watching your language. Can't cast darkness in a negative light, and the N word is especially tricky when not directed towards the sovereign. The hints of Pinkie and seeing Rarity quash her inner fashionista were also quite intriguing.
Moondancer apparently heads the Ministry of Truth, given those "refurbished" records.
Hey, if the knife is sharp enough, you won't feel a thing.
The deja vu is intriguing. How would Rarity know about something from another timeline?
Interesting how Dash remembers more than Rarity. I suppose Nightmare Moon doesn't have time to alter everypony's psyches as she desires.
Ohhhh! Game, set, and match.
But it's what the astronauts drink! (Sorry, but given the millennial lunar exile, it immediately camr to mind.)
Hmm... Emotional fatigue at the perversion of their talents, or Cadence recruiting for Sunwise?
"Spoiled Wind." My goodness, that maybe even worse than her maiden name. And that's taking the Rotten side into account.
And so the clock is wound and begins to tick. What now, Chamberlain? (And when does Twilight crash in from the past?)
I had a melancholy thought: Moondancer in this story is basically a ponified Heinrich Himmler to Moonbutt's Herr Schickelgruber.
Which leads one to ask: if Heinrich Himmler had just had one friend as good as Twilight Sparkle was to Moondancer, would he not have become a Nazi and not have instigated the Holocaust?
Seriously, guys like Himmler are a dime a dozen in geek culture. How is it that hardly any of them become genocidal overlords? Start writin' this down when I give you the nod...
Ah. Rarity's not the only one dreaming of what should've been. And what cannot be. This won't end well.
Also, Twilight's dead. I suspected as much, but getting direct confirmation... Oof.
They bleached Dash's mane?!
BLASPHEMY OF THE HIGHEST ORDER
also hnnngh Rarity and Rainbow are so cute
Nice to see Rarity's still a fashionista at heart.
Wow. That was so romantic. The scene with Nightmare was legitimately scary.
Science fact: moonbows are an actual thing! It's too faint to see any colors, so there's just this big halo around the moon. It's pretty neat!
aa i saw this and added it to my read later but didn't even realise who it was by?? the second i realised i immediately dropped everything to come devour this lmao
veryyy interesting concept, and the writing itself is super high quality as per usual. i can't wait for more!!
also, gASP she knowsss
that was
so romantic
squeeeE-
Is there something that you wanted,
More than anything?
Something you took for granted,
Never stopped to think?
All my life
I've wanted one thing more
All my life I've been
searching for
That something
That certain something.
Welp. This was dark as... dark.
Rarity remains fabulous even in the eternal night, though, and Lieutenant Dash is, well, dashing. (And fidgety, with chipped hooves... Sure, Rarity, that's just because you're an observant pony. No Heartcrime here!)
Seeing Spoiled there at the Family Planning is extra poignant when I think of your stories about the Riches.
Heh. About that...
I actually quite like this Blueblood. Amidst the gilded-cage dissipation, he may be the most compassionate pony left in the upper echelons. And kudos to Cadence for making the rebellion look good.
In any case, Twilight's here and gone again could provide the opening the couple needs to escape... or prompt the Nightmare to keep a very close eye on her subjects. Or rewrite the timestream and send everypony into a changeling-infested hellscape of a much less subtle nature, depending on how that works. We'll find out in time.
Another awesome installment!
Poor, poor Blueblood.
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Cadence would definitely make the Mysterious Mare-Do-Well outfit look good.
I feel bad for Blueblood. This chapter was exciting.
Volunteers are soon forgotten and many more of us shall die
The sick still feed the hungry and the last battle song has cried
But if there's a reason
I don't need to know right now
And the light of a fading star
Is what you were, is what you are...
Oh, the dawn won't stop weighing a tonne
I've done some things that I shouldn't have done
But I haven't stopped loving you once
This was so good it should be a Heartcrime.
Wow, this was incredible! Dash's declaration made me swoon.
Sweet ending.
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Called it!
"WHAT? YOUR DARK MISTRESS REALLY LIKES PAPER!"
"Without these friendships — life, what cauchemar!"
--Portrait of a Lady*
I'm just tickled by the fact that cauchemar means both nightmare...
i.ytimg.com/vi/2-cc1wOsbZE/maxresdefault.jpg
...and, quite literally, couch-mare:
i.pinimg.com/originals/44/39/e9/4439e9bd2b17c02452746a33abe36508.jpg
* A poem about a closeted gay poet whose patroness keeps dunning him for sex, so he flees the country. "Hard life? T. S., Eliot!"
Oh jeez, that's one hell of a way to end your opening chapter!
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Heh, while it was in the brainstorm-phase, the logline of this scenario was "Big Kruger is watching you"
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Specifically, a bang in a pantry.
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Yup! And as basically a washed-out version of a rainbow, they're thematically relevant, too. They're also super pretty.
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The first chapter of this is maybe the darkest thing in my fic career, despite being a bloodless exposition dump. (In retrospect, I wonder if it either scared some folks off or else disappointed them when the rest wasn't quite so grim. Or maybe the whole thing keeps the tone, it's hard to tell these things when you're on the inside writing it.)
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The letters that you left behind
No longer shall I read
Blood's between the pages
and I can't stand to see you bleed
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They still love each other plenty, just not to the point of being dangerous. Married couples who've been together a long time are (often) past the crazy passionate lets-do-something-crazy levels of love and are in the pleasant stable sort Her Majesty isn't worried about. That and also the fact that Rarity's parents are average ponies and not elites or politicians, nor did they associate with them before Moon's rule.
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Well you know what they say, when the princess does it, it's not illegal.
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The executions will continue until morale and adoration improves!
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Yup. This is a Romantic story with a capital R. I kind of wonder what this story looks like from Dash's perspective; I suspect it's something between a rock opera and a Nicolas Winding Refn film splashed with a synthwave soundtrack.
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A running trend is that Nightmare Moon is indeed generous on a surface level, and rewards ponies with their fondest wishes and desires. If she does things to make them happy, they will love her more and she'll have a happy kingdom.
That's how that works, right? There's no need to be unhappy otherwise, they have what they always wanted.
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Yes.
This horse has just the worst luck with names.
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"But you will find that when the mood...takes me, I can be most...generous..."
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Huh, bit of deviation from canon with Raibow’shair not being Rainbow, huh?
Woah. What a great escape, and a great climax to the story.
... Wow. That wonderful depiction of the Sonic Rainboom, those vivid details of Rainbow's mane, and gorgeous sentences like
Aaaaah it's all so rich and lovely and so sadly juxtaposed by the terrifying presence of Nightmare Moon. Truly atmospheric.
It's also cool that this story alludes to not merely being set in that S5-finale -verse, but is also aware of that fact. I'm very curious if it will lead anywhere.