My Spotlight Is Gone
My name is Lulamoon. No, my name was Lulamoon.
That was a long time ago. It was back when the Crystal Empire stood tall in the northern plains of Equestria. When it was a peaceful city, ruled by the resolute but kind leadership of Queen Lumina and King Sombra. When the Crystal Empire wasn't tainted by the scourge of evil.
I was born in the Crystal Empire. This in and of itself was strange: all crystal ponies are born as earth ponies, so a strange mutation such as seeing a unicorn crystal pony caught the attention of the entire empire. Ponies from all around the empire would come to see me, to see what magic was like; as the Crystal Empire had very little connection with the rest of Equestria, the mere sight of a unicorn, let alone one using magic, was an amazing spectacle for all the crystal ponies.
I grew up in the spotlight. Every day, ponies stared at me. The mere sight of a crystal pony levitating a cup made them gasp. As time went on, I suppose I craved more. I studied more and more magic, always eager to show off what I had shown to anypony who would watch, and in the Crystal Empire, it wasn't hard to find an audience. Being the center of attention became my life. For all intents and purposes, I was the expert on magic in the Crystal Empire.
Eventually, I drew the attention of King Sombra and Queen Lumina. Though he was also a unicorn, Sombra rarely practiced magic himself, so the kingdom had suffered from a real lack of unicorn relations. I was brought in first as a mere consultant, helping the castle with magic and even teaching King Sombra a few things. Over the years, my importance grew, as did my notoriety. Soon, every pony in the Crystal Empire knew that Lulamoon was working with Sombra and Lumina, and was going to help usher in a new era of magic. The King and Queen were so impressed that they offered me a position in the castle, one that I couldn't refuse.
I became the queen's magical vizier. As she was one of the few reigning queens who was an Earth Pony, she consulted with me on all things in the realm of magic. Sombra was more involved in the study of magic: researching what could be done with the medium rather than participating himself, so he never had a firm grasp on magic at all. Almost every day, I was teaching him something new, and more importantly, I was using my magic to help further the technology in the Crystal Empire, and soon the empire was in the midst of a technological revolution. I had never been more important in my life.
But something had changed.
Over time, my name seemed to have disappeared from the mouths of the Crystal Ponies. Instead, my work would be presented by other ponies, while I would remain hidden, just working. It was no longer about Lulamoon; it was about King Sombra and Queen Lumina, and the Crystal Empire. Every bit of research that the king presented, every new advancement that the queen could proudly present to her subjects, they were all mine. I had become a pony in the background, quietly toiling away and learning more and more while others took the credit for my work.
Perhaps over time I grew bitter. Perhaps it was just jealousy. Seeing event after event be presented by "King Sombra and Queen Lumina," without a mention of Lulamoon anywhere, would make any pony jealous. For most, they could deal with a little jealousy. But for me, I was suddenly out of the spotlight that I had been in my whole life. I craved it, it consumed me. There was nothing I could do to stop it; I couldn't present my work, I couldn't show off, I was a nobody.
The jealousy simmered, and it grew. I became angry, I became bitter.
I became desperate.
Perhaps I acted too rashly.
Very suddenly, Queen Lumina was afflicted with a horrible curse. It ravaged her body and her mind, confining her to bed and threatening to end her life. In desperation, King Sombra turned to me. "Save my wife," he begged me. "Please, Lulamoon, you are the only pony with such a depth of magical knowledge in all the Crystal Empire. You can stop the curse, you can bring her back."
It was exactly what I wanted. Now in the spotlight, I put my expertise of magic to use. I toiled over the queen for days, using every cure I knew. I made sure that ponies knew just how hard I was working, and just how much I was doing to save their queen.
But something else happened that I couldn't have predicted… the curse was far more powerful than even I imagined. I had thought that the curse could be reversed simply, but it had grown out of control. Nothing I did mattered, all the cures I had prepared were worthless.
The queen died in agony two weeks later.
Nopony in the empire blamed me. At the funeral service, ponies thanked me for all I had done to try to save her. They said there was nothing I could have done: the curse that had been placed on her was a dangerous one, and whoever had afflicted the queen with it must have been an expert in magical arts. But King Sombra wasn't as forgiving. He said that I was a failure, that as vizier I should have been able to save his wife.
Sombra retreated from the public eye for months. What few appearances he made, he was sunken-eyed, a dark complexion over his face, and he rarely spoke. He started consulting with me more and more about dark magic. He wanted to research more, he wanted to push the very limits of unicorn power, break through to new levels of magic never seen before.
It didn't take a genius to know what he was doing: he wanted to bring his wife back. He wanted to see Queen Lumina again, no matter the cost. But in his research, he finally did break through to the dark arts… and they shattered his mind.
The king went mad with power, enslaving the Crystal Empire under a reign of darkness. I tried to reason with him, but even through his madness, he momentarily remembered who I was, and what I had done to his queen. He had grown more powerful than any pony I had ever seen in my life, and he defeated me with ease.
The only thing I could do was teleport away from the Crystal Empire. If I hadn't done that, he would have killed me. For weeks, I recovered, I cleared my head, and I realized the depths of what I had done. Everything was my fault, and I had to fix it. I needed my redemption, or I would never forgive myself. Once I had recovered, I made my way back through the now-frozen northern plain, back to the Crystal Empire. This was all my fault, and I knew i had to do something. Anything. Even if it meant my own demise, I would stop King Sombra.
By the time I had gotten there, the city was gone.
Everything was gone. It was as if the city itself never existed. My only chance for redemption, my only chance to make everything right, was gone. Princess Celestia herself had come in and stopped Sombra, but with that, he was able to curse all of the empire to disappear for a thousand years. My friends, my family, everyone I had ever known, all gone, and there was nothing I could do about it. Any attempt to talk to Celestia would no doubt raise questions.
I was alone.
I gave up. I moved to a new city, a quiet village on the far outskirts of Manehattan. Ponies stared, no doubt; the mere presence of a crystal pony outside the Crystal Empire shocked them, and they stayed away. But then, I didn't want them to interact with me. I just wanted to be alone, to atone in solitude for what I had done. I had brought down an entire kingdom, and I had no chance for redemption. I had mentally given up, and was ready to simply live out my days alone until I died.
That didn't happen.
Years and years passed. I watched little colts and fillies grow up, I watched ponies age, and yet it didn't happen to me. My crystal sheen wore off, leaving me looking no different than any other common unicorn, but it was as if I was frozen in time, unable to age a day. I have never figured out why; perhaps being a crystal pony is more than just living in the Crystal Empire. Perhaps with no Crystal Empire to go back to, my body was irreversibly changed, and I was left an anomaly in Equestria, the last remnant of a lost race of ponies. When ponies in the town began to ask questions about why I never aged, I moved away to Hoofington. A larger city would let me blend into the background, not be noticed.
Years passed. Hundreds of years. I couldn't get close to anypony, lest they discover who I was and discover the truth. Over time, knowledge of the Crystal Empire drifted away, less of a historical fact and more a myth that ponies talked about alongside the tooth fairy. I watched from afar in silence, knowing that I was going to be the only pony to remember the fallen kingdom.
But one day, I visited Canterlot. I had never been to the royal city before, it was a spectacle like no other. I found myself in the Canterlot Archives, and furiously researched the Crystal Empire. It was there that I discovered the truth: the Empire wasn't gone forever. Sombra had cursed it to disappear for a thousand years. One day, it would be back. my friends, my family, the kingdom I loved, they would all return. It was only a few years away.
Something inside me snapped. I sold my house, sold my possessions, and started traveling. Originally, I just wanted to research more magic, to become even more powerful. But I suppose after hundreds of years of solitude, the desire to be in the spotlight again was simply too overwhelming for me to ignore.
Lulamoon disappeared into the background, and "The Great And Powerful" Trixie came to the front.
I started to travel from city to city, showing off. Everywhere I went, I was back in the spotlight, and with each spotlight, my power grew. After being gone for so very long, the mere ability to show off again became what drove me. I entertained crowds, I bragged about my abilities, I even outright lied. But I didn't care; for the first time in nearly a thousand years, I felt like myself again.
But I never lost sight of what I wanted. Every city I went to, no matter what happened, I made sure to keep studying. I made sure to spend my time working on my magic, improving as much as I could. I would have to hold back in public, of course—I guess I was always worried that if I showed off too much, questions would rise up—but in private. I worked. I trained, I studied, and I became more and more powerful. I knew that I was the most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria.
Until I met her.
Twilight Sparkle. I had never seen magic like hers before. Everything that I had lied about doing, she could do. She defeated an Ursa Minor on her own. She was the direct protege of Princess Celestia, and she made me look like a fool.
I shouldn't have cared. My ultimate goal was redemption, not bragging. I just wanted to put on a show while preparing for my confrontation. But when she overshadowed me, I couldn't let it go. Suddenly, I felt like I had when Sombra and Lumina had taken credit for my work, when nothing I did mattered because I wasn't in the spotlight.
It completely shattered my focus. Ponies laughed at me, and my spotlight had become the bane of my existence. Once again, I disappeared. I stopped caring about magic, I stopped caring about Sombra, I just wanted to be alone and lick my wounds.
Then, the news came: the Crystal Empire had returned.
For a few brief, wonderful moments, hope returned to my heart. I knew that I could do something that no other pony could: I could bring the Crystal Empire back to where it once was. I could defeat King Sombra, I could channel my magic into the crystal heart to free the ponies of the city, and I could finally get the redemption that I had sought for a thousand years. I trekked alone through Equestria, towards the frozen plains, ready for my confrontation. A thousand years had built to this day, and I knew that for the first time in a long time, my conscience would be clean. Even if I perished in combat, the knowledge that I went down fighting would leave me at peace.
When I got to the Crystal Empire… there was no battle. No confrontation. Sombra had been defeated. The empire was back to its former glory. And who had done it? Who was the pony who had helped save the empire, taken my redemption away from me, and left me with a scar on my conscience that now would never, ever heal?
Twilight Sparkle.
I suppose I lost myself for a while after that. I numbly walked from city to city, no longer showing off, no longer even talking to other ponies. But as I walked, that numbness gave way to anger. To hatred. To fury.
How dare she. How dare Twilight Sparkle not only embarrass me and take away my spotlight, but then take away the one thing that I had worked for a thousand years to accomplish. My one goal in life, what I lived for, torn from me by some friendship-obsessed pony who has had everything in life handed to her on a silver platter by the Princess of all of Equestria.
It made me angry. Furious. Blinded by my rage and jealousy, I tried to use some artificial trinket to make myself powerful, just to embarrass her. It was a dismal failure, and once again I came out looking like a fool, forced to apologize to her in front of her Princess. But in the days following, I realized that revenge, the punishment that Twilight Sparkle so deserved, couldn't come from some trinket. No, it would take planning. It would take meticulous work, continued improvement of my skills. I would have to return to doing what I do best.
And so I wander.
I go from town to town, and I show off. In each town, I get a little bit more powerful. In each town, I learn more and more about magic, more and more about my own abilities. I don't know how long it will take, but one day, I will meet Twilight Sparkle again. This time, there will be no showing off, there will be no magical amulets to amplify power, there will be no banishing from town, there will be no getting help from her friends. It will be me, and it will be her. No matter what she does, no matter how hard she tries, I will have my revenge on her.
She took everything from me. But rest assured, Twilight Sparkle… one day, I will take everything from you.