The Mind Is the Last Sanctuary, or So I Thought...
Why can't you hear me, sister? I scream and cry, moan and shout, but you walk around with deaf ears, ignoring me... I don't even know why I bothered to ask that, I'm talking to myself in my head... Not talking to anypony who can talk back really deals a devastating blow to your sanity... But I digress.
I realized the Nightmare was upon me far too late. I thought it was just a 'temperament issue' that I had to work on, as you were so fond of pointing out. But alas, it was not. It was far worse than I had realized. It was the Nightmare, slayer of the alicorns, destroyer of our race.
We grew lazy, sister, careless. We tried to forget about what our parent told us. Tried to forget our parents. We succeeded, both of us. We could not see it coming. Even as it closed in on me, I denied its existence.
I don't know when it first took hold, but I know when it had me in its grip. It took over my body first, so as I could not cause alarm. It forced me to continue my normal activities even as it slowly began controlling my senses.
My speech went first, so I could not warn you. It spouted slander, tried to ruin our rule. You have no idea what it is like to hear your own voice speaking against your will and I hope you never do. I tried to stop it but I could not, it just took my struggles in stride, my stride. It continued to eat my mind slowly, one piece at a time. That's what if feels like, many small animals chewing. Nibbling, chomping, chewing, biting, devouring, eating, burrowing, destroying, consuming, gnawing, all encompassing...
It's... getting harder... to carry on conversations with myself now. I don't know how much longer I can do this. The more I think complex thoughts the more it seems to slow down the Nightmare. I'm doing this for you, sister, for Equestria. In that I find the strength to continue. I only hope you can recognize the signs soon, or I fear it will be too late for me.
It took my hearing next, it is very hard to describe how that felt. I just woke up one day and I couldn't hear. It carried on conversations with you, tried to influence your decisions. I know not what it said but I can only hope you rejected its advise. It listened to the pleas of our subjects then crushed their hopes; I could see it in their faces. I saw it yell at our subjects, our servants, our soldiers, and our guards. Protectors, guards, subjects, peasants, slaves, worthless fools...
Next... was my sense of touch... let me tell you sister that was disturbing. The Nightmare would walk on floors and beat our prisoners and I still could not feel a thing. All I had left was my sight and taste, not very useful senses for doing much of anything... Although, at least I was able to keep an eye on what the Nightmare was attempting to accomplish, even if I was powerless to stop it. Powerless, weak, foolish, failing...
I hardly... even had a warning when it took my sight from me. I was watching a conversation between you and the Nightmare, how weird that sentence feels... Watching a conversation between yourself and somepony else from your own point of view yet unable to do anything... Anyway, the Nightmare just blinked my eyes and I never was able to see out of them again. Blind, blinding, visionless, crippled...
My final sense... taste. How useless we think it is. How often we take it for granted. I am cherishing my taste for as long as I can. You wouldn't believe how I love tasting my food when that's all I have left. I am a slave to my own tongue, craving my next meal. Because it is still my tongue. Mine, not the Nightmare's. That is the only thing that tells me I am still alive; that the Nightmare still hasn't... taken me completely.
That is where I am now, my taste is the last sanctuary of my mind. I can only hope that you... are discovering the fraud, destroying the Nightmare, even... as I rot away in my own mind. Time is meaningless in here, the only way I have to record the passage of... time is my meals. And I won't even know when they are gone, how can I? How can I know when something is gone when I have... nothing to compare it to? Time is flying by at a rate unknown, so it could have been... hundreds of years since my last meal or five minutes and... I wouldn't know the difference. Maybe... my taste has already been taken... No! I will not think like that. I won't, I can't, I can't I... can't, I... will... It is... It's gone... It has me completely...
The... Nightmare is pushing me farther and farther into my mind, deeper and further into my mind. I have to stop it. I can't stop it. I feel, like I feel like I can't, even get my get my thoughts in order now because. Its... It's... Burning my mind. My mind is burning. It's winning. I'm leaving. Going. Consumed. It, it, it, has. Me. All. Of me. I'm trying. So hard. Difficult. Painful. It would be easy to give up... Simple. Painless. Just let go... No! I can't, it can't... Equestria... Sister... I must, I must, I Must. I MUST. Keep fighting. But it's so strong... Slipping, falling, fading, falling, fading, fading, dieing, gone, burned, used, destroyed...
I can't. I will. I must. Keep fighting. Sister. For you. I know. I am gone. But you. Carry on. Must protect. Subjects save. From me, it. Celestia... Be strong... Slipping, falling, fading, falling, fading, fading...
Luna opened her eyes and stared into the face of a terrified Celestia, blasting her in the chest with the Elements of Harmony. She smiled softly. Celestia did it, she discovered the Nightmare. I don't have to fight anymore, there will be peace in my mind once more. "Thank you, sister," she whispered. Then the world went dark, darker than it had ever been before.
"Tag! You're it, Cele!" squealed Luna, fleeing her sister's wrath.
"I'm gonna get you, Luna!" yelled Celestia, sprinting after her sister.
"You'll never catch me!" she squealed, keeping ahead of her sister.
"But I already have!" yelled Celestia, leaping on top of her sister. Luna crumpled under the weight of her sister and was pinned to the ground underneath her. "And now you must prepare for your punishment," said Celestia, grinning wickedly and flaring her wings.
"Nooooooooooo! Somepony, anypony, help me!" yelled Luna, as Celestia's wings descended onto her sides and began tickling her relentlessly. "I... Give... Up... You... Win!" she squeaked out between laughter.
Celestia got off of her and helped her to her hooves. "What now birthday filly?
"How about a game of hide and seek?" said Luna after a moment of intense thinking.
"Anything for my sister," said Celestia, smiling. "I'll hide first and you can count."
Luna smiled and covered her eyes, "I'm only going to count to my age before looking, so you better hurry up and hide!"
"I'm already gone," she said, running away.
"Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty!" Luna finished after a minute of counting. "Cele? I'm gonna find youuuuu!" She uncovered her eyes and turned around. "You can't hide forever!" She looked around the small clearing. "So you went into the forest, did you? Ready or not, here I come!" Luna pranced into the forest, looking for her sister., stopping often to look at a pretty flower or an interesting plant.
She wandered deeper into the forest, but the deeper she went the more foreboding it became. "Cele...? You win... Just-just come out so we can go back to Mommy and Daddy," she whispered, glancing nervously at the thick, tall trees that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. "Did you hear me? You win, Cele," she whispered even quieter.
She saw some movement out of the corner of her eye and quickly turned to look at it, but there was nothing there. "Not funny, Cele," she said. "I know It's you!" she shouted into the forest.
"I'm not Celestia," whispered a deep, raspy voice from behind her, "I am much, much worse."
"Help! Cele!" screeched Luna, before losing consciousness.
Luna woke up and stared into the face of a gagged and terrified Celestia, a mere two tail lengths away from her. I feel like I've seen that before, but where? she thought, feeling a spark of recognition in her mind. Celestia was splayed out on a vertical table face up and held down with restraints.
"Good, you are awake," hissed the Voice from a hidden location. "Let us get right down to business shall we?" Luna was unable to see anything in the dark room beyond Celestia so she was surprised when she heard the whirling of gears and clanking of machinery. One of the restraints holding down Celestia's left foreleg pulled outward slowly and Luna could hear her shoulder popping out of place. Tears poured out of Celestia eyes and she screamed as loud as she could into the gag.
"Cele!" Luna screeched. "You monster!" she yelled at the Voice, her own tears dripping down her face.
"You can end this, you know," purred the Voice, as the gears began cranking again. "If you save your sister now, you could see her again, unharmed. You could go back to the happy times when you didn't have a care in the world... Back to the welcoming embrace of your parents... Back to when you were just one big, happy family..."
"What do I have to do to save her? To protect my parents?" asked Luna, trying to block out her sister's muffled screams
"All you have to do is answer one simple question, then everything will go back to the way it was. Your parent's will still be alive, your sister unharmed, and you will forget this ever happened..." There was a long pause filled only with the sounds of Celestia's pain. "Tell me how to destroy the Elements of Harmony," it continued, lustfully.
Celestia nodded pleadingly even as her foreleg was twisted and torn from its socket. She screamed louder, as more tears continued to flood out of her eyes. "Eez una, ell im," she choked out around the gag.
"Yes..." whispered the Voice. "Listen to you sister, save her, and leave in peace. She knows what she is talking about. Wise, old, knowing Celestia will never steer you wrong."
Celestia's gag fell of off her face and slithered away into the darkness. "Please, Luna tell him. He said he will set us free. We can trust him to do what's right. He won't hurt our family; he will reunite us. Just tell him what he wants to know so we can go home," she said pleadingly.
Luna smiled at Celestia, "You're not real, none of this is!" she laughed suddenly. "You really had me going there," she said, even as she was sprayed in the warm, sticky fluid that had somehow gotten from her sister's broken stump to her face. "Celestia would never tell me to reveal that secret to anything; no matter what anypony did to her."
"Let me assure you that this is real and you will tell me the answer, or your sister loses another-," started the Voice, before being cut off by Luna.
"No," said Luna softly, with steel in her voice.
"Don't you know who I am?" said the Voice. "Who do you think you are to challenge me?"
"I AM THE GODDESS OF ALL DREAMS! LEAVE MY KINGDOM FOUL NIGHTMARE!" screamed Luna, spit flying from her mouth. She grew from filly to giant in a split second. "YOU WILL NOT RUIN MY DREAMS OR MY MEMORIES! BEGONE!" she screamed. The Nightmare screeched in agony as her dream exploded into a million fragments.
Luna weakly opened her eyes and observed her surroundings. Why am I on the moon? She looked up and saw her planet above her. She struggled wearily to her hooves and stumbled around before falling down again. She was completely exhausted from battling the Nightmare. The Nightmare was still there though, waiting in her mind, rebuilding its strength, nursing its wounds. In another day it will once again be upon me, even stronger that before. And this time it will stay out of my realm for as long as it needs to, it will wait until I no longer have the power to resist it. Then it will crush me and all who stand it its way.
Luna glanced up at her horn to discover it was glowing intensely, just as she had suspected. She smiled softly, "So, Nightmare, even you can't survive out here without a protection spell." She felt a hissing in the back of her mind. "I may not be able to defeat you but I am well aware that you are merely a part of me, a sick, twisted, demented piece of my mind," she said, scrawling a few words in the moon dust with her magic.
"Do you know what you do when you can't destroy part of something?" she said, placing her crown next to the words.
(You wouldn't) it hissed, from her mind. Promising glory and power, it projected images of her ruling the entire world. The sole ruler. The one with all the power. The loved one. The benevolent one. The protector of her ponies. It projected lies.
"You destroy it all..." Luna burrowed into the soft moon dust with the help of her magic. She hollowed out a small tomb for herself, laid down her head in forelegs and closed her eyes. "Pleasant dreams," she whispered. Luna took a deep breath in and then expelled all of the air out of her lungs, sighing in contentment. She lowered her artificial atmosphere spell and breathed no more.
Untouched by wind, weather, and all manner of beasts; Luna's crown and final words lingered until the ends of time. "I forgive you sister, I always have and always will. Keep watch over our subjects, they need you now more that ever. And always remember, I will be waiting for you in the next life. Just don't wait too long to join me sister, I don't want you to get lonely."
Author's Note
Stay tuned for the stunning conclusion in Cadance's story! That's right STUNNING! (I hope)
What exactly is the Nightmare?
Why does it only target alicorns?
Who were Celestia's and Luna's parents?
All of that might be answered in the final story!
You will have to read it to find out!
