Author's Note
Don't judge me, just read. I mean, judge all you want, I'm just saying that this is one of a couple chapters for this fic.
A simple state of mind
The hollow halls rattle and shake, their visitors long but forgotten. Dust settles, wind is blown, the empty castle howling at it's once famed glory. No pony left to stray down its unending halls. The marble cracks and decays, falling from above and smashing the floor of velvet and stone. Shadows of pony's playing and running about stain the backdrop. No pony is left to call this empty memory home. Not but one mare sitting at her perch.
The empty halls whistle with wind, blowing gusts through the open doors. The falling roofs and floors crack along their steps and graces. The second and third floors still intact, but barely holding. The castles roof, falling, nearly condemned.
Sitting on her perch, on the tallest tower, our once beloved, once hated princess of the night, gazes at her crumbling kingdom. There are no more joys to be had, no happy times of parties and whimsical adventures. No, those died off with her subjects. The elements of her sister and herself, haven fallen with time themselves. No harmony in these lands.
Statues of their former years all but gone now. All but dust scattered across Equestria. Memories of battles fought, friends made, couples announced, family crowned; gone now. Nothing but a faint image in her mind.
Sighing and letting a tear stain the wood roof below her, Luna, the former Princess of the Night, sets her dearest kins sun for the unbeknownst time once more.
She has no pony to raise and lower the celestial bodies for, now. She does it out of habit, out of the need to feel close to her sister again. But nothing lasts. Nothing holds for this Princess, turned Queen of Equestria. She has nothing to rule. Nothing but herself and the horrifying images that plague her thoughts.
Wandering down one of her fallen hallways, she thinks back once more, remembering the times she had smiled and laughed with her sister. They had their whole lives in this castle. Well, at least she did...
Shaking away the memories of days past, Luna sits on her haunches and looks over her family's regalia.
The bright and silver hoovlets, the sun embossed symbol of love; all left in the glass case to rust and become nothing. She would love to hold them again, to be near her sister, but she can't. To take them out would mean to destroy the memory of her. This is all she has to remind herself of Celestia. Why tarnish that?
"Hehehehe, you think you can keep her in a case?"
Oh is joy. She has awoken and come to play.
"You know this to be true, Moon..." Tired of this game they play, Luna can only sigh and think death would come soon enough.
"You miss her enough to keep her in a case? What loyalty is that to our kin? You must carve her a statue, let her memory be carved into the minds of all who come across it!"
She just loves to try, doesn't she?
"If I use any more magic than moving our moon and sun, you will be free... And what minds do you speak of? The trees and roots?"
"It's worth a shot everyday, is it not?"
"You'll have your fun soon..."
She means it more than she can let on. Her mind is weakened from the years holding her at bay, staying sane from abandonment, and keeping herself busy through the decades of torment. She has no reason to fight it any longer, the landscape is already what she would make of it. The ponies lives she would prey on are all but extinct. No need to fight, no need to hold her back; this would be her final move in the chessboard of life.
"You say that day after day, my dear. How long must I wait for my time?!" Nightmare has grown impatient over the years. Good reason, too. Luna keeps anything about the way to leave her subconscious a mystery to her. She has the way out, she just doesn't know it.
"When I say it to be so, 'my dear'." Almost showing signs of a smile, she stands and begins her twilight stroll around the castles outskirts.
Nothing but stone and fallen archways greet her as she trots around, looking for any signs of life growing in her garden; nothing but soil and decayed plants.
Years has she been praying for something to grow. But alas, she's been defeated by the bleached soil... Not even grass or weeds will sprout in the lost patch of land she calls a garden.
"Decades... Decades without you, and I'm not even worth it to be grazed a sunflower, sister?"
She hasn't been thinking of her for a few years, now. Trying her best to forget, to remind herself she can still be alive and well. But those are simply dreams; dreams that hold no truth for her.
"She leaves you in the dark for a reason, Luna."
"Please, just one day without this... It's her birthday, you monster..."
"I'm the monster, am I? Was not I who let her die in the pit she now rots, Lulu."
"Can't you show some decency?!" Luna blurted out in the lonely field. "She's DEAD! She's gone, she will never return, I will never be happy, I will never feel anything but sorrow, and she will feeling nothing but demise! ON HER BIRTHDAY, YOU CAN AT LEAST LEAVE ALONE, YOU TERRIBLE ABOMINATION OF HATE! JUST FOR THIS DAY DO I WISH YOU TO LEAVE ME BE!!!!" Tears began falling from her bloodshot eyes, bawling and sobbing, she collapsed onto the aged ground.
She was relentless, she never let her be, never gave her a moments reprieve unless she was in slumber. But this had gone on for too long. It was her birthday, for Methrals sake!
"I-I-I ONLY WANT THIS ONE DAAAAAY!"
Bawling until her eyes dried and she had nothing left to drain from them, she sat there on the dirt; starring at her garden in disgust. This was the day... This is the moment she's been waiting for... What a perfect finale on this day of hers.
Standing upright and grinning to herself, she looked down to her empty garden and began stomping in the soil, giggling at her own antics. Tonight shall be the best night EVER!
galloping into the castle and grabbing all the decaying wood and debris she could find, Luna tossed it into a pile in the main chamber and galloped into the throne room, cracking the throne from its stone prison and pushing it into the pile. Smiling at her work and sitting atop the throne, she yelled out in a booming voice,
"Happy birthday, Celestia Eternnia!!!! You are the one who has bestowed the power of all magic's unto I, and I thank you! Wishing you the most gorgeous of times with mother and father!!! I doubt they'll be happy to see me afterwards, but who is care anymore?!" She smiled and lit her horn with a deep blue flame, cascading it around her entire horn, and laughing for a moment before shooting it at the wood and letting her horn lose the fire.
"You remember that day you were waiting for, Moon?!"
"Luna, You fool! This will end with nothing but ash! What are you thinking?!" Even Nightmare can care? Hah! We happen to learn more about her now than ever before!
"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry about this. But it's not going to end with anything but ash and bones... Sister would like this death for me. Consumed by the very sun itself... Goodbye, my dearest Equestria. You will be better off without us..."
The flesh is willing: the mind is not
Author's Note
Bested by insomnia again Idk it's been like 8 years for this one
Read it I guess?
The flesh is willing: the mind is not
Flames sputtering about the castles interrior could be seen as fireworks to those around; if any pony were still there to witness them. Not on this day or any further, would ponies of any kind, griffins, mermaids, dragons... None would ever witness this poor queens last few hours. Even if they did, she doubts they would care what she was to do.
There in the throne room, alone forever more, apart from her own minds Nightmare, Luna, the last serving member of the royal family sat in her busted chair... hoping for the end.
"You know, my dearest friend..." Luna, lost in her emotional last few moments, having broken her already fragile mind, spoke to her trapped doppelganger.
"Yessss... Luna?" She seethed through her ethral teeth, at this moment ready for her own finale.
"You've hated this land for eons... And I've truly never understood why. The ponies, they tormented us... I hated them for our long imprisonment, for the pain and COMPLETE disappointment we felt when returning." Luna's eyes were shining from the reflection of the growing flames; hopeful, pleading. Never happy, or content, simply sorrowful and apologetic for not creating this timber sooner. "I felt joy for the first time in millenia when sister touched us once more. When we saw the world itself for the first time in centuries... But you?" She spit at Nightmare.
"I lived and continue to do so BECUASE they were WEAK." She spat back at the sorrowful elder queen. "You accepted that they hated you- US - you accepted that sister threw us to the side for that... That... PURPLE SCHOLAR."
Luna, in her last minutes, for the first time in nearly six thousands years; smiled at the mention of Twilight Sparkle.
"You mean Magic?" She grinned with her split teeth showing prominently. "Sparkle... The only student sister had cared for as our own." Luna, gapping out into her memories as the flames grew high, slowly but surely nearing the tips of the thrones legs.
"You still remember her name... And the GRACE she was bestowed instead of US?!?!" Nightmare was taking her down a road. Trying anything to weaken the wall between the star speckled mares mind and the true world.
Deeply sighing into her steadily falling tears with a truly beautiful smile strewn onto her muzzle, she spoke. "Yes, Nightmare Moon... I remember them all." Pressing into her chest, she tapped the various necklaces adorned over her body, the very elements themselves, the only powers left in the Equestrian World now. The powers Nightmare needed. "Twilight Sparkle... Magic. Kind, intelligent, hopeful yet lost in her own life. Pinkamena Diane Pie... Joy. Infinitely happy, the best friend of all, only needing the smiles of others to carry her will..."
"Joy was the worst of them..." Nightmare began chiming in as Luna recanted these heros of Equis.
"Rainbow Dash... Loyalty. Arrogant, quick minded, and above all; there for anypony at a seconds notice..." As she named these long deceased creatures, she tapped her hoof on their respectful charms. "Rarity... Generosity. Prim, proper, yet never caring to throw them aside if it meant helping another."
"You may stop at any moment, you're aware?" Her dark sulken friend let her know.
"We have minutes, Moon. Let us remember the creatures that saved us from you... At least once." Exhaling, she continued as her smile grew more frightening, feeling the heat of fire on her hooves. "Fluttershy... Kindness incarnate. Frail, fearful, the only being I'd witnessed save a beast from another, for the sake of them both. Applejack Apple... Honesty. Tough, fair, never afraid to let you know when you'd made a mistake, or might be doing so..."
Luna clung there with her head hung low, unable to carry the weight of her insurmountable depression any longer. This was her final minute. If there were any clocks left without her hooves broken through them, they might have been helpful for her to watch them tick down to her demise.
"Loneliness is the only thing we have in common, Luna." Nightmare happened to soften her hellish voice.
The downtrodden mares ears fell flat to her head, "We have more in common than that." They were honest. Why not be at the very end? "You wished for happiness, for friends, for love and understanding... We hoped one day you would leave this plane amused with it. Not a mongrel terrified of it..."
"We wanted..." Her voice was wavering now, fearful their existence may very well be near a gruesome end. "We wanted you safe..."
Luna's hooves now tingling, the scorching heat of the eternal sun, setting upon them for the last time. "Saftey was for foals, Moon." Her tears flowing freely as a waterfalls torrent, "Happiness and sorrow, hoof in hoof..."
"The moon itself held more joy than this ball of dirt, Luna. We could leave. We could let this world die and watch th-"
The flames had reached her fur, igniting the painful flesh of the empty mare. Alone.
"W..w..ee.." She fought through the agony, screaming internally to her last familiar memory. "WE... MUST..." They were both screaming now, nothing left to hold them at bay, no pony or critter alive to witness their howling. This was it.
Staring at her night sky twinkling dimly with the last few stars she could muster, dancing by her adored moon through the hole in the palace ceiling, Luna felt at ease. Nightmare did not.
Laying a calm expression on her muzzle, Luna's last words spoken aloud, were simply-
"You were never real, were you?"
The usual echoing of the nightmarish creatures voice was absent. Nothing left, nothing ever being there.
She had always been alone.
