Every Nightmare's Caveat

by libertydude

Ashes to Ashes...

“Listen, you punk!” a harsh voice called out. Earth Shine recognized the mare stepping forward as the Commander. “Get that portal open or my whole brigade here will start playing a drum solo on your skull!”

Earth Shine smiled. “You can try.”

The Commander rushed forward, hurtling toward the prisoner at a speed faster than most Wonderbolts ever achieved. Earth Shine didn’t flinch as she neared him.

Whap!

The Commander’s body slammed against an invisible wall, and she fell to the ground with a whump. She hoisted herself up and glared through the barrier.

“You punk!” she yelled. “A force field won’t protect you forever!”

“Indeed!” Nightmare Moon shouted. “For I can disperse it easily!” She reared back and fired a powerful blast of magic straight at the table.

Splonk!

The spell bounced off like a ball to a wall.

“What?!” the Princess said.

Earth Shine shook his head. “Not even your magic can break my shield, Princess. I’m recycling the ancient magic coursing through this table. I can sit here as long as I want.”

The Princess’s face turned a beet red. “You will pay dearly for your betrayal!” She turned back towards the guards. “You lot! Go back to the castle and get some reinforcements! I’m going to get this traitor out if it’s the last thing I do!”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Earth said. “You’ll last longer if you stay here.”

“Silence!” Nightmare Moon shouted. “Now go!”

The soldiers were hesitant for a moment, then started off down the trail. Nightmare Moon turned back to Earth, who now laid down on his side and traced the table's surface idly with his hoof. Nightshade stood just off the table’s center, silent and unsure.

“Oh, you’ll receive your punishment, all right!” Nightmare Moon hissed. “I’ll make sure you stay in that moon for an eternity like my sister!”

Earth Shine looked up at her, a smirk upon his face. “What Moon?” he asked in an innocent tone.

“Don’t play dumb! You know which-” She looked up and gasped.

Nothing sat in the sky. No stars, no Moon, nothing. Not even the total blackness a city would have when all the lights were turned on. Just a firm Nothingness covering the skies, unending as far as the Princess’s eyes could see.

“There isn’t a Moon anymore, Your Highness,” Earth said. “It’s disappeared, just like everything else soon shall.”

“What’re you babbling about?” the Commander said.

“I’m babbling about the encroaching Nothingness above you. It’s the end result of time travel. Of that mare who escaped you months ago.”

Nightmare Moon’s horn glowed. “Don’t you think you can mock me like she did and get away with it.”

Earth Shine gave a sad sigh. “I’m not mocking anypony. Just stating simple facts. She was from a different future, then went back to the past to change it. She must have succeeded, because this world is beginning to disappear. Soon, there won’t be anything here but the vast Nothingness the sky has become.”

“Liar!” the Princess said, launching another magic beam toward him. It bounced harmlessly off the shield.

“Normally, you’d be right. But I’m afraid it’s true.” He pointed down at the table. “I had my first grasp of the truth when you told me about this table. About how nopony knew about it, despite the millennia this nation had existed. Why? Because it was hidden here in the forest? Or because it didn’t exist in this reality at all?

“Then came the missing texts. I initially figured the Ancient Scholars’ texts had been misplaced or shuffled around somewhere.” He stared down at the dirt surrounding the table. “Then I remembered the dust. It was there when I looked for the Ancients’ texts, and there on your chamber table. The reason for its appearance was simple: history became erased as time receded around us, and the artifacts from these times began to crumble into dust.”

Earth Shine pointed to Nightshade. “Nightshade provided the final clue. She remembered her parents one day, then forgot them the rest. Just as I started forgetting the early years of my life, despite knowing I thought about them weeks ago. It made no sense, unless those parts of our lives simply didn’t exist anymore. Not to mention the stars.” He pointed upwards. “I’d long memorized their positions in prison, so you can imagine my shock when they all started disappearing. A few missing might’ve been my own error, but Polaris gone? Ponycyon? Not a coincidence.”

He gestured to the entire forest around them. “That’s when I realized: this world doesn’t exist anymore. Not since that mare escaped you. She must’ve gone to the past and fixed whatever it was that made this world so wrong. Whatever cruel twist of fate that made you the ruler.”

Nightmare’s eyes lit up in rage. “Talk all the nonsense you want. You will not escape my wrath.”

“Yes, I will,” he said. “Because there won’t be a Nightmare Moon soon.”

“Hold your tongue, worm!” the Commander yelled. “Or else I’ll…I’ll…”

Nightmare Moon looked down at the Commander, and her eyes went wide. Part of the Commander was still there, but her back half had eroded into the same Nothingness the sky was now. She looked up further and saw the forest was also gone, replaced also by the Nothingness. By the time she looked back at the Commander, the armored mare was gone as well.

Nightmare Moon inched closer to the table. The Nothingness edged closer every second, absorbing everything it touched like runaway oil.

“This table was the epicenter of our destruction,” Earth Shine said. “The place where that mare began her changes. It was just a matter of when the universe would finally implode all the way back to it.”

“Let your shield down!” Nightmare Moon hollered. “Let me in!”

He shook his head. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t. The magic is self-sustaining now. It’ll last until the Nothingness overtakes it.”

Nightmare Moon’s face flew through a hundred emotions: Rage, confusion, amusement. But the one that she landed on as she began to melt away was sadness. Her eyes looked at Earth Shine the same as a spurned lover, having been thrown away by the stallion she’d entrusted so dearly. It was her last expression as she faded away into nothing, her eyes begging for something Earth Shine could never give.