As twilight dawns, the cattle of the field nestle against their calves, the hue of golden morning dims to violet night, sleep fills the eyes and minds of near all; one woman of a special sort only now brings herself to the waking world. Though slumber slips through the town and world around her, bringing so many to a blissful rest, she stands vigilant and alone as the warden of the night. Her name is Luna, Princess of this great kingdom, and the ruler of the night.
Her sister Celestia's world, the world of the morning light, is filled with talk and action. A world as vibrant and ever active as the ball of blistering heat that lights the sky above it. While Luna's world has been as it always will be, a world of spanning silence and hushed breathes. A world as still and constant as the pale moonlight that glows in the sold black sky. It is as it always has been, and as it always will be. As constant and consistent as the cycle of the heavens, the light always coming before the dark, and the dark always following after the light.
Once there was a time Luna, Princess of the Night, had sought to end the cycle and bring the world of the waking light into the realm of her pale night. A pursuit that had cost her family, respect, and inner tranquility. A pursuit that forced her sister long ago to suspend her sister from both the realm of the waking and the world of dreams to the pale night's eternal prison for more years than any bared to count. Isolation, desperation, humiliation... For more years than she wished to count, Luna suffered under the chains of her own creation. And it was that creation that had never left her...
Where doubts formed into a loathing of herself, she submitted herself back to acceptance. Where fear flayed her skin to the bone with the crimes of her own making, she found in herself courage to endure the pain. Where despair twisted her mind and distorted what truth she had known, she found hope in the small things that she could see clearly. Isolation gave her time to think. Desperation allowed her to dig deep inside herself. Humiliation restored in her humility. All these things she could change in herself willingly. But the willingness to change brought from it a dark creation.
Out over the city, the warden of the night watched her people; wafting dreams and soothing slumber filled her sight into a world that was beyond the eyes of others. It was a world all her own; a world of fantasy, hope, and ambition. The thoughts of all people swelled through the sleeping city air, forming clouds of near endless dreams that both meshed together and not at all. All dreams so different, so vastly shaded with different colors brought on by different dreamers; yet all matched against the pale moon that hung in the vast night sky. Luna watched them all, each one existing for perhaps an eternity but spanning within the matter of a second before swirling into a new reality waiting to be explored.
Merchants dreaming of mountains of gold, guards imagining endless glory, children sinking into a world where school was no more, and the thoughts of a princess in a realm shared only with she and her sister. All so different, but all the same. Dreams of what they wished they had and yet may still gain. The drive to do what you wish to change and achieve; that is the key the world of dreams leaves with you. That is what Luna had come to know. Though drive and ambition she had also come to know as two stark realities at odds with one another.
Though long ago she was bound by her very sister into a prison brought on by Luna's own design, it was a short time ago that her binds broke and she had returned to the world of reality. A world she greeted with brimstone and twisting shadows brought on by years of self-torment. Though inside Luna had learned her mistakes and suffered her own chastising, her outer voice and being lashed out as the same shadow that was born from the twisting of her mind years ago. It was not until harmony was brought into the nether of her own inner demons through the aid of magics long since forgotten that Luna herself awoke into the world of the waking.
But as Luna knew better than anyone else, when one awakes the dream only slips into slumber. Though she was now awake and living among her family, subjects, and all else; she knew that her dreams still thrived inside her... Though Luna had no dreams. Only Nightmares. A life of borrowed time was how Luna viewed herself now. A life she spent watching over the dreams of those she cherished and wanted for nothing but their safety. Quelling their nightmares and soothing the storms of their inner thoughts. That was her life... And that was all she had come to want on the outside.
Though time and again, standing upon the balcony overlooking the world of pale night she had come to know, she would glance back to the depths of her bedchamber. A chamber unchanged from the years she had been gone, though kept free of dust and cobwebs by the loving memory of a devoted sister. Still, among her old possessions, she found most alluring her vanity mirror in the corner of her room. When the hours drew late and the dreams filling the sky had become still and as stagnant as the castle fountain, she would step into her chambers and look into the mirror.
It was no mirror of magic, no spells or witchery enchanted against the reflective surface. It was only a mirror for looking at one's self. But when Luna looked in it, she saw just that; herself. On the outside of the mirror she wore a silken robe with elegant weaves that gave her form the illusion of the sprawling night; twinkles of integrated gems shimmering in the dress when the moonlight hit it just-so. On the inside of the mirror, she wore a coat of armor as ink black as molten obsidian that spiked and twisted in threatening manners across the body. Both eyes of real and mirrored looked into one another; both the same yet vastly different.
Why do you deny who you are?
I know who I am. I am not you.
You are nothing but me. Ambition and desire. Body and soul.
I have a duty to my people. To my sister, I will never betray her as I did before.
Your duty is to the night, not people. You are the princess of the night. Not the hound of the day.
I respect my sister and she respects me.
You fear your sister and she fears you.
I do not doubt my purpose anymore.
You accept what little you are given.
I do not fear what I do not understand like I did before.
You bravely follow what your sister has planted in you.
Despair will no longer drag me down as it once did.
You hope to not suffer again.
I am no longer a Nightmare to those I love. I refuse you and your empty promises. There is darkness within you and nothing but that. I have light inside me; and I no longer accept you.
You will always be a Nightmare to those you wish to love. You may reject me, but I will always remain. I am your darkness inside you. And I am your only light left that sees you as you are. You do not need to accept what is already you.
Every night it is the same, a Nightmare speaking to reality; reality fighting a Nightmare. Though the battle wages on for more days than she could bare to count, Luna never changes. She stands strong, brave in the face of what she once was and what she may yet be. For now though, upon the balcony overlooking a world of dreaming loved ones, she sees only hope and the light of those that love her as well. A love for a princess that once brought Nightmares, but now only assures a soothing night...
