Reflections of a Dark Past

by shadowmane1

Chapter 1

There is a tale that has become common knowledge among the ponies of Equestria, a tale that seems almost ancient in its power, but is only slightly more than two years old. A story of friendship, of magic, of good and evil. It is the tale of the return of Nightmare Moon, and her subsequent defeat by the magical prodigy Twilight Sparkle and her friends. This, phillies and gentlecolts, is a tale of conflict much like the other, but it takes place within the soul of a certain alicorn, the younger sister of Celestia, Princess Luna.

As Princess Celestia awoke and prepared to raise the sun to signal the start of day in Equestria, a very tired alicorn with a star filled mane prepared to retire only a few rooms away. Although the night had been rather uneventful except for a few troublesome unicorn fillies who had discovered transfiguration magic, Princess Luna was exhausted. Having winged down to the home of the fillies to revert their parents from the form of oddly colorful chairs. She returned to the castle observatory to resume her post as Guardian of the Night.

Though she had been working very hard on controlling her anger, when one of the fillies lied to her about the incident, telling her that she had painted the Cutie Mark on the pink chair that she was currently crying over, she had almost lost her temper. She did not spend weeks gaining the trust of her subjects to be lied to about a simple matter of uncontrolled magic! Once the parents were safely ponies again, the Princess warned the fillies to be more careful.

As her hooves touched the marble balcony of the observatory, Luna was suddenly hit by something very strong. Looking about as to who the culprit was, she realized she was untouched, nothing had hit her! Passing it off as a sudden gust of wind, she returned to the telescope used to keep an eye on all of Equestria. As she took the eyepeice of the telescope into her magic, she felt as though somepony was watching her, somepony very close. Shifting her attention from the telescope to casting a spell she had learned from Twilight Sparkle, she cast a net of magic to detect the location of the intruder. Expecting a guard to be looking in the open door of the observatory, she was surprised to find that she was alone. Yet still she felt those eyes upon her. Wondering if her spell had gone wrong or missed an area of the room, she turned away from the telescope this time to see for herself if she was alone.

"Odd, we could have sworn we felt somepony watching us." she said to herself, having seen that she was, indeed, alone in the room, nothing staring back at her except her reflection in the mirror near the door. Except still she felt those eyes following her every move. Somewhat worried that she was being watched by somepony she could not see or detect with her magic, she considered ghosts. After laughing a bit too hard at the very idea, she returned to her duties when she heard somepony laughing, a laugh she knew all too well. Turning around, determined to find the pony responsible for this cruel joke, she yet again saw nopony. Angry now, the joke having run its course she rushed into the room hoping to find the prankster.

Having yet again found herself alone in the room, she began to go back to the balcony when she heard the laughter, louder and closer now. Turning towards the source of the sound, she found herself face to face with her own reflection in the mirror, except it wasn't her she saw, it was Nightmare Moon. (end of prologue)

I hope you enjoyed the first installment of Reflections of a Dark Past, this is my first attempt at a fanfiction. Please rate and comment. Thank you