Luna's perspective of how she became Nightmare Moon and was banished from Equestria until the Elements of Harmony saved her from her living nightmare.
Luna has been getting lots of complaints about constant nightmares from ponies everywhere, so she tries to make a spell to put an end to it one and for all. The only problem is, instead of solving the problem, she brings her own worst nightmare to life: Nightmare moon. Being the swift and cunning pony she is, Nightmare Moon quickly possesses Luna's body and turns everypony against their beloved moon princess. Celestia has no choice but to send Nightmare Moon and Luna to the moon where Luna waits a thousand years for her nightmare to be defeated.
---------- Note: The 'Alternate Universe' tag is simply because it's so different from how things happened in the show, and parts of the story take place on the moon...
Luna awoke at dusk. She slowly crawled out of her bed, and once she was standing she stretched each of her legs. Then she heard the familiar call of ‘Princess, your breakfast is here.’ Two guards came in levitating a tray of toast, coffee, and an apple as Luna placed her crown on her head thanking them with a yawn.
She quickly ate before walking to her balcony overlooking Canterlot. Looking to her left she saw Celestia on her own room’s balcony. They nodded to each other before completing their nightly ritual. As Celestia moved the sun further west and out of sight, Luna pulled the moon into view from the east until the moon hung high in the sky with the sun completely hidden beyond the horizon.
As Celestia went back into her room to sleep for the night, Luna went into her study. After quickly checking in on everypony’s dreams, she chose ten dreams to visit personally that night. Luna began to conjure the Portal to Dreams and checked on the moon one more time before entering her own sister’s dream. She traveled through other dreams. Some were happy, but others were terrifying: Celestia had dreamt about the night she and Luna lost their parents.
As the ponies began to wake up, Luna returned to her balcony to wait for Celestia. She appeared moments later, and the two performed their morning ritual. Luna pushed the moon to the west as Celestia pulled the sun from the east and then returned to her room to sleep for the day.
When she awoke that night, Luna found her room filled with letters. She stacked them in a neat pile before going out to raise the moon. After quickly going over everypony’s dreams she returned to her room deciding to read the letters rather than visit dreams.
As Luna read the letters they all began to say the same things:
‘Princess, is there any way for me to not have nightmares?’
‘I’m having trouble sleeping because of nightmares.’
‘Can you help me get rid of my nightmares?’
Luna had never thought about keeping ponies from having nightmares. If she could, Equestria might be a much happier place. It was nearly midnight, six hours before she would go to sleep. Luna went to work in her study trying to create a spell to end nightmares.
---
She worked on her spell four nights a week, using the other three to study the dreams of others. A journal held Luna’s own dreams for even more reference.
Three months after she received the letters, she cast her spell after she had raised the moon and Celestia had gone to bed. Luna nearly galloped to her study anxious to see the results, but what she found was the exact opposite of what she wanted.
In the middle of her study stood a black mare with silver armor and a flowing mane that looked like the night sky.
“Who are you?” demanded Luna.
“Why, my dear, don’t you recognize me?” asked the mare, “I’m Nightmare Moon, your worst nightmare, and thanks to your spell, I’m here.”
Luna tried to run, to call for help, anything, but Nightmare Moon tackled her while magically keeping Luna’s mouth shut. She flailed around under the larger mare’s body but could not escape. Beams of light filled the room as she began shooting magic at her attacker, but it seemed as though every spell missed.
A chair flew across the room, a pile of papers was scattered across the floor, a massive burn mark was steaming on the floor near a corner of the room, but her nightmare was still there. Then it was Nightmare Moon’s turn. Her black horn began to glow a dark blue before her whole body dissolved into nothing more than a cloud that looked like part of her starry mane.
Luna half ran half flew down the hall. Her mouth was still glued shut, but it didn’t matter, there were no guards around to hear her scream. She had to escape on her own. Tears of fear streamed down Luna’s face. Her mane flowed freely behind her. She lost a shoe as she ran, but she didn’t try to go back. Luna made a sharp left turn and found herself at a dead end. She turned around quickly, but it was no use. Nightmare Moon’s cloud of night flew towards her.
Luna’s mouth was forced open as the cloud of stars came closer and closer to her. She tried to blast it away, but the cloud dodged her spell easily. The stars were only two feet away now. There was nowhere for Luna to go, nothing for her to do, the tears continued to flow down her cheeks. She screamed as the starry cloud flew down her throat, and then everything went dark.
Luna’s whole body was in pain. It was like somepony had just shoved another pony down her throat, which was kind of what had happened. She felt herself walking, but all she saw was darkness.
A voice spoke in Luna’s mind, “Do not try to tell anypony what has happened. I am in control of your body, not you”
Then Luna heard herself speak even though it was not her own mind commanding her body to do so, “Good morning sister, I was just taking a nice night stroll through the castle. Shall we go exchange night for day?”
Nightmare Moon spoke to Luna’s mind again, “I will allow you to see what’s going on, but do not try anything.”
Light snapped into Luna’s eyes, she saw her body as Nightmare Moon moved it through the castle with Celestia walking alongside her oblivious to what had happened. Luna looked the same as always, blue legs with her light blue mane just longer than her shoulders, wings folded neatly against her side, and the same ink blotch moon cutie mark on her flank.
The only difference was that she was not controlling her own body. Luna began to cry, or what she assumed was crying without the tears. She was trapped in her own body, being forced to watch as her worst nightmare came true, and it was all her fault.
---
Nightmare Moon was a harsh ruler. Ponies began to hate the new Princess Luna, whom they were being forced to call ‘Her Highness Nightmare Moon’. Celestia tried to talk to her sister, but it seemed useless. Luna’s new attitude never wavered. Eventually, Celestia used the elements of Harmony against Nightmare Moon.
As the Elements impacted her body, there was a blinding flash of light. When Luna opened her eyes again, she was trapped in a sphere. There was only one see-through wall, and it split the whole room in two. There was no way to pass through the wall, physically or magically. Then she noticed Nightmare Moon on the other side of the wall. Luna tried to walk closer, but she felt herself float across the room. There was no gravity in this place.
“Where are we?” demanded the other mare.
Without thinking, Luna replied, “Inside the moon, that’s why there’s no gravity. Celestia sent you here, and I was forced to tag along. We’ll be here for a thousand years, too.”
She was unsure of how she knew the last part, but as she looked around her half of the sphere, Luna noticed a bed and a refrigerator floating around. She opened the door to the fridge, which was stocked with food. She removed an apple and closed and opened the door once more to find another apple in place of the one she was currently holding.
Just then, a large clock drifted past her head. It showed what time it was in Canterlot, and at the same time, it was counting down how much longer she would be trapped in the moon. She pushed off of the wall careful not to run into the clock and floated towards a deck that was bouncing off of the curved wall of the moon. Luna grabbed some paper and a quill out of the desk and began to write.
Two hours later she finished writing. Nightmare Moon had magically chained her bed to the wall along with the other furniture in her half of the moon. She was now laying there with her back to Luna. Turning back to her letter, Luna read over what she had written before adding a few more lines to her personal account of what had happened with Nightmare Moon:
“Dear Celestia,
Do not worry about me, sister, I will see you soon enough. Rule over Equestria without me, for now. Come up with a plan for when Nightmare Moon and I must return. I do not know if I will be able to do anything to help you, I fear I won’t, but we will have to wait and see.
Always Your Little Sister,
Luna”
Luna focused all of her energy on sending the letter to Celestia before curling up on her own bed. She quickly cast a spell to keep herself on her ever floating bed before falling asleep, preparing herself for the next thousand years, trapped in the moon with her worst nightmare.
---
Back in Canterlot, a letter appeared before Celestia, whom had locked herself in her room, heartbroken after having to banish her own sister. She read the letter, and as she learned what had really happened with Nightmare Moon, tears began to roll down her cheeks. She had sent her own sister to the moon, trapped with her worst nightmare. Spell after spell, she tried to bring Luna back, but nothing happened. Eventually, she accepted what had happened and curled up on her own bed looking out of the window at the moon. Turning her back on the place of her sister’s banishment, she slowly cried herself into a restless sleep.
Luna spent her thousand years trying to figure out how to defeat Nightmare Moon, while Nightmare Moon spent hers being bored out of her mind. As their time began to change from years to minutes, Nightmare Moon became more excited for her turn at redemption.
When their last seconds of banishment were up, Luna once again felt the unearthly pain of Nightmare Moon’s soul being squeezed inside her body, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself in Ponyville. She had always quite liked Ponyville, but as she looked around she noticed that instead of her own body, she held the appearance of Nightmare Moon. Luna was led to what looked like a town meeting, and after a rather long, boring speech to the ponies gathered there, Nightmare Moon vanished taking Luna with her as she began to try to trick a few ponies who were wandering the Everfree Forest.
The six ponies found a way through every one of Nightmare Moon’s traps until they came to an ancient castle. Ad Nightmare Moon landed in the highest tower, she changed her appearance from Luna’s body to her own just as a single, lavender mare entered the room.
Luna wished she could warn the mare, whose name was Twilight Sparkle. Soon the other five ponies that Luna had seen in the forest came rushing in. Twilight’s eyes shined suddenly, and then Luna knew what Twilight knew. These pones represented the Elements of Harmony.
Nightmare Moon was confused as each element was named along with the pony who represented it, but Luna understood as Twilight finished her speech revealing where the spark came from to unite the elements. If Nightmare Moon was still confused, there was no time for her to figure it out before she was hit by the colorful magic. Luna fell to the ground and Nightmare Moon was gone.
Then Luna was being helped up off the ground, as she looked up, her eyes met her sister’s. They did not need to voice how much they had missed each other, for there would be time for that later. As the eight ponies walked back to Ponyville, Celestia explained what had happened to the six Element Bearers.
Then, after many welcome back parties for Princess Luna was able to return to Canterlot with Celestia where the two talked, discussing Luna’s letter from so long ago. Luna explained what had happened to her in the past one thousand years, and Celestia did the same.
Eventually, Celestia went to bed as Luna rose her old prison in the sky, happy to be home and once again ruling the night.
