A Nightmare's Lament

by Draconis187

Rating: everyone
Tags: Random, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Nightmare Moon
Length: 3448

Is it possible for a villian to change how they are perceived when they believe they stand little chance?

It has been... four years since my return during the Summer Sun Celebration and my subsequent defeat the self same day. I woke up to find myself wandering the plane between the living and the dead, unable to cross over and unable to return and seek my vengeance on the ponies that sent me here.
Yet... I find this time here in limbo most informative as I watch the living go about their lives and I discover I can still enter the dreams of those who sleep. Their screams are some reprieve from my situation but for the fourth time I see Hearth's Warming I find myself feeling something... a feeling I can not stand as it makes me reconsider my standing and my goals.

Published 2013-12-31 22:40:05 UTC
Last updated 2013-12-31 22:40:05 UTC

Redemption for the Past

Author's Note

This was the result of me wanting to do a one-shot for New Year's Day. It is completely random idea and do enjoy the results.

Redemption for the Past

A Nightmare’s Lament
Redemption for the Past
Author: Draconis187

Hearth’s Warming has come and gone with the New Year fast approaching. For many it is a time for jubilation, hope and reflecting on the year that has now reached its conclusion, to be logged in some tome that has yet to collect dust like its kin. The new year is often seen as a clean slate to many, from little schoolfoals to even the diplomats.

To some, reflecting on it is too hard to bear if they had suffered tragedy in one form or another. The death of a friend, loved one or maybe a stranger they vaguely knew. For the latter it is not too difficult to recall the memory but ponies are very caring for even a stranger they only knew for a minute.

Caring… something I’m not. I was born without the capacity to care for anypony other than myself. I didn’t have a reason to. Why should I bother with the lesser classes when they’ve never lifted a hoof to assist me in any way? They all deserve to be in one place: under my hoof.

Earth ponies, Pegasi or Unicorns, it doesn’t matter what tribe they belong to, I deserve to rule over them as is my right. I’d be somewhat benevolent at least. Those that follow would live to serve my every whim while the rest would die by my hoof. Unlike dear sweet Celestia or her weakling sister Luna, I love getting my hooves dirty.

But… sadly my plans were pushed back. Indefinitely. A… minor setback I believe though. One can not stop my inevitable return, only this time I’ll be smarter and I will not underestimate Sparkle and her friends a second time.

That was my plan and I would have had to tread very carefully since that purple pain became an Alicorn. What a ridiculous notion, friendship being the reason she joined the master race of Equestria. Although her power now is far greater than it has ever been, her mind is still the same and still vulnerable to the same psychological attacks.

It was something to remember for later but I digress. I had been watching the ponies from limbo, watching them laugh, play and squabble with one another. It warmed the pit where I should have a heart to see such animosity among my, soon to be, subjects.

Love, happiness and other worthless, positive emotions had no place in my grand design. And since Celestia loved her sun so much, I had planned to make her stay there permanently and watch as I ruled over her precious subjects. My plan for Luna, on the other hoof, involved her being my personal little slave, to carry out my every command without question.

Sparkle… I wanted to end her and her friends. Or possibly capture Sparkle and let her watch her friends suffer their worst nightmares until the light of life is snuffed out of them, leaving them nothing but lifeless husks. Or maybe subject them all to torture, hurt their families as they watch helplessly. There were so many options I was almost giddy from just thinking about it.

I envy the living while I simply walk though the plane between living and dead. I can’t really die nor can I live, I simply… exist and don’t at the same time. I am the being that terrorises the dreams of my subjects, turning their happiest, comforting dream into a nightmare that makes them wake up in a cold sweat and crying for their parents.

For a while I enjoyed this. Hearing them scream my name as I twisted their little inner worlds to my own twisted design and force them to stay asleep for as long as possible, making them endure it until I was finished with them. It gave me a way to amuse myself during my time in limbo.

Again I seem to be trailing off… Point of this… reminiscing is, well I am not too sure. I have been the same Nightmare Moon as I have always been. I still wished to take my true place as ruler of Equestria and shroud the world in eternal darkness. I do not know but over the past few weeks, with Hearth’s Warming I have been in a little less of a conquering mood.

I have watched as colts and fillies played in the snow, helping their parents with Hearth’s Warming decorations and being told stories around the fireplace, all snug and warm. It brought such happy smiles to their faces and made even the dreariest day seem as far away as the moon I was imprisoned on for a millennium.

Since the start of the Hearth’s Warming season I had been feeling some odd sensation in my chest, somewhat warm and I wanted it to stop the very instant I felt it. Yet it kept coming whenever I saw those blasted happy foals.

The season dragged on, culminating into that confounded show about how friendship drove off the Windigoes and Equestria was founded. Utter horseapples, how can friendship drive off creatures like them? Then again it was friendship that got me here. Tore my soul from that weakling Luna and banished me to limbo, effectively cursing me to wander this plane with my only interaction with the land of the living being entering the dreams of sleeping ponies.

All in all I guess it could have been worse. I could be completely deceased. There was a point I actually wanted to be completely gone from this world, watching in envy as I met another lost spirit, only to see them move on to the next plane to their eternal rest.

This was as Hearth’s Warming began and as it ended I realised just what I had been feeling: happiness. Genuine happiness as colts and fillies frolicked in the snow. By Faust I wanted to gag to badly that day.

Then there were all the happy dreams I entered. Playing with living snowponies or dreaming about an oversized version of a toy they wanted. I recall one dream where a colt dreamt he was some batpony, a thestral to some. He was showing off his wings to his classmates who were all envious of it. Turned out the colt was a thestral but he hid his wings for fear of being rejected.

I seem to keep going off track for some reason. I believe by now you are all wondering why I have been using so much past tense with my old plans. I did it again, you see? Well as the New Year is a day away from now I have been wondering.

I have said before that the next year is like a clean slate, a fresh start? I had been wondering maybe I could try this year to be better, instead of causing nightmares, chase them away? Yes, it is ironic and foalish but… seeing all those young foals reminded me of one thing: I never had a foalhood of my own or even an actual life.

I was never young, never had parents nor did I know what it was like to feel snow beneath my hooves. Bah, why am I even thinking about such nonsense? Still… it would have been nice to have been normal in some regard.

Get it together Nightmare! Here I am, wandering limbo, rattling off about utter nonsense about having feelings, for wanting to change the monster I was born as.

But, am I not entitled to that? Entitled to want to change the way I was perceived by others? To Tartarus with them and their perceptions of me, I never cared about how they saw me so why should I start?

Why am I feeling this way though? Feeling like I want to be good, nicer to others? Was it a result of the Elements of Harmony or did I always possess the capacity to be good if the right strings were pulled or given enough time?

Well, I can rule out time since I spent a thousand years on the moon but there were two things I lacked the capability to do at the time: the ability to see what was happening on Equestria and the dreamwalking.

If they could give a malicious spirit like Discord a second chance, why not me? After all, I can not interact with others beyond the dreamscape and when they wake I return to limbo or search for another sleeping pony. There is always somepony, like the cyan Pegasus, the Bearer of Loyalty. Rainbow Dash I believe they called her, always sleeping when given the chance.

And no, I have not gone into any of their dreams, nor Celestia or Luna. They’d recognise my appearance as more than just a simple dream. A dream… In all those years on the moon I never slept, always thinking of my vengeance and using that to stay awake. Even now I do not rest for spirits can not rest.

An interesting event during the year was Nightmare Night. An entire night dedicated to giving me sweets? At the time I wanted to crush such petty and worthless offerings to my greatness under my hoof and imprison all that dared to perform the profane act.

Looking back now I think I would have accepted their offerings although I doubt my teeth would thank me for it, given the volume I have seen them give to the various statues of me. Enough to give me a millennium of sugar rush.

I would like to point out the notion that I eat the young is nothing more than hogwash and hearsay. I do not devour the young or the old. I have a delicate palette and a figure to maintain, whether I am living or a spirit. I have some standards to adhere to.

Back to a clean slate, maybe when I help a sleeper I should introduce myself under a pseudonym or as I am? I doubt many would mistake me for the Slendermane or the Headless Pony. Or perhaps I shall do what I do best and operate in the darkness.

I do not require them to believe in me or sing my praises and I am aware of the fact that trying to end a millennium of stigma against my name will take more than just chasing away the nightmares of others. I am called Nightmare for a reason. I inspire dread wherever I appear for that is what I am.

But if they wish to keep fearing me, so be it. It shall not deter me for attempting something that if I would never have believed even if I were to tell myself: being good and damn it all if I die again trying.

Epilogue

A Nightmare’s Lament
Epilogue
Author: Draconis187

It had been two years since I had set my mind to changing how ponies saw me. And it… had been a very trying time on me, mentally speaking. A few things happened in those two years so allow me to inform you as to what transpired during my first attempt to paint myself in a new light to the populace.

The first dream I tried to turn back from being a nightmare started with a small, lime green, Pegasus filly around six or seven years of age running through an incredibly dark forest. What she was running from was a strange, shadowy figure. How imaginative and scary… I saw the so-called ‘scary being’ and facehoofed. I had seen scarier things come from the Bearer of Generosity’s fashion line. I would never catch myself wearing something so… colourful. Ugh, if I ever did, somepony put me out of my misery for I would have to be insane.

Despite this, the filly was deathly afraid of it and eventually, as what usually happens in these types of nightmares, she tripped on a large, exposed root that she would have seen in real life. Then again, this creature would not exist in real life, nor is there a forest darker than the Everfree in real life but I digress.

The filly squealed and cringed as the figure caught up to her. But something was not quite right with this particular nightmare. You see, when you have a near-death dream/nightmare, you wake up before you hit the floor if you are dreaming of jumping off a cliff or in this case, before the hooves of your attacker touch your body in a fatal area such as your head or windpipe.

If you fail to wake when this happens then your body may go into shock and you might suffer a heart attack strong enough to kill you or at the very least land the dreamer in a coma. So in order to prevent either from occurring I froze the creature, and in effect the entire dream, in place except for the filly.

Now the filly stared at the figure for what seemed like hours, literal hours but in truth it was about four minutes. The filly shuffled and got out of the way as I finally decided to make her ‘monster’ vanish. It was time to let her see what a real monster looked like as I stepped out into her view.

The reaction was instant: she shrieked and tried to run off but her legs refused to let her move an inch. Another type of dream but I had better stop myself from rattling off again. I simply laid down a metre from her as she struggled, patiently waiting for her to stop. If you waited for a millennium for the right stars to enhance your magic to overcome the spell lock of your prison, you would have a lot of patience as well.

I kept waiting, looking around at the area she decided to have a nightmare in. It was much darker than the Everfree that was for certain and yet nowhere near as frightening. I scoffed a little, making the poor filly make some form of odd noise, somewhere between a squeal and a yelp as if I was directing it at her.

The filly looked like she was never going to calm down as she kept struggling so I got up and walked off, telling her to have a pleasant dream before unfreezing the dream and her legs. I just did not want her to run off. I actually wanted to talk, try to calm her down but I could see it in her eyes, I was wasting both my time and hers.

Before I left though, I made sure to change her dreamscape to a form of candy land since when could any young foal not resist free candy, let alone a world made up of it? The tree bark was chocolate, the grass was red liquorice, that kind of thing. I did hear her squeal with joy as she began to devour the very forest she was afraid of. Was quite the sight but I left as she chewed through a former oak tree.

That was my encounter with my first attempt to change my modus operandi and my image. It could have been looked at as an abject failure but despite the response I got, I persisted and my dreamwalking had me encounter the oddest dreams I could have ever encountered.

One of the unicorns from that pat- that prestigious school Celestia had set up for unicorns had a dream his books were the size of buildings and were chasing him. I set them alight and changed the scene to graduation day with him as the top of his class. I could have seen his smile from the moon, it was that bright.

But… sadly I was finally found out by Luna. It was inevitable since I gained the dreamwalking ability from her. And by found out, I mean she and I were muzzle-to-muzzle in some filly’s dream she asked if we were kissing. I then discovered was known as blushing and embarrassment.

She forced me into her dreamscape and interrogated me to no end. I was sure two days passed in reality but I kind of lost the concept of time after the first four hours of questions, rage, and crying at a few moments.

Now I understand her frustration at me, I did try to shroud the world in darkness, twice in fact and failed but that was beside the point. I was the one in control at the time and then the strangest thing happened after what may have been the twelfth hour: she apologised.

Now why in Tartarus did she apologise? Because she created her alter ego, in other words, me. It was also her fault that what happened to us happened. That I was simply doing what was in my nature.

Now imagine Princess Luna with the most dumfounded, shocked look imaginable. Got it? Good, because that was the way she looked at me when I told her I wanted to turn over a new leaf.

She confirmed my initial hypothesis that the Elements brought upon this change in my personality and that it simply needed time to ‘settle in’ as she so eloquently put it. It solved one mystery but even she was stumped by the fact I was in limbo and was able to dreamwalk.

She initially thought I had returned to flesh and bone which made her give me that look twice in one day. Or was it still night at the time? Oh well, I digress. You see, she decided since I was trying to turn over a new leaf, she would be something akin to my parole officer. If I was ‘good enough’ she’d see about giving me a body.

Okay, the reclamation of my body was far too tempting and I agreed without so much as blinking. She smiled at me and told me how she thought I wouldn’t disappoint her.

‘I won’t disappoint her’? Since when did I have somepony’s expectations to live up to? Not hers and that was for bucking certain. What can I say? I may have been turning over a new leaf but that didn’t mean I instantly became the poster mare for reformed villains.

Luna monitored me for the most part of the next year and a half. She and I had a rather rocky relationship but we both knew we weren’t going to be bosom buddies from the get go, if ever.

So at the end of that year and a half, Luna began to monitor me slightly less frequently, using the time to better attend other duties or tend to the dreams of other sleepers. It was strange to no longer have her almost literally breathing down my mane.

But it did not mean I was going to revert to my old ways. I meant it when I said that I was going to change how ponies perceived of me and I was slowly making progress. Bit by little bit, I had foals hugging my legs for saving them from their nightmares. At first I thought they were attacking me. Luna laughed when I told her that and almost made me want to buck her in the teeth, almost.

I also, at one point, had a fully grown stallion kissing my hooves, singing my praises. It was my turn to give Luna a dumbfounded expression and that only made her laugh again. Oddly though I found myself laughing as well, as if I found it humorous but how could I have found a clearly degrading act funny? Was it because Luna was laughing, or did I actually find something comedic in it?

The past two years saw me experience emotions like any normal pony. For those few moments I did not feel like the Nightmare Moon they all saw me as, rather I felt like the Nightmare Moon I wanted to be. And that made me feel like I could endure anything the world could possibly throw at me. I know I have many years ahead of me to fully get through this but I know that I am making progress.

I will continue to pick away at the pedestal they had put me on of the old me. I shall erect my own statue in their eyes and when they hear my name, they will smile.

Author's Note

And here it is. Another completely random fic. Hope you liked it though.