Nightmare Moon Eats Turkey
By Blue Bastard
A thousand years ago, Nightmare Moon had dreamt of her grand return, where she would overthrow Celestia and conquer Equestria and then the rest of the known world in her dominion of night. After all, there really wasn’t much else to do when one had been trapped on the frigid hell that was the moon: The lack of atmosphere didn’t help with the non-existent heat retention of the reflective surface, after all. And while it had been a minor setback that her return a few years ago hadn’t quite gone exactly as planned when the impossible had happened and Celestia’s protégée had united with five random strangers in the name of friendship and activated the Elements of Harmony, purging her from the body of Princess Luna, the Nightmare had long since planned for such a contingency.
Indeed, this past Nightmare Night – the very idea that a celebration of her had been Celestia’s idea amused Nightmare Moon to no end – had in fact weakened the boundaries between the physical realm and that of the ethereal where Nightmare Moon was forced to reside in a ephemeral state, and after a year or two of restful slumber, she was ready to “help” Luna try to start the Equestrian Civil War all over again.
Too bad she couldn’t have foreseen Luna’s immediate acceptance of reestablishing their deal was in fact a trap. On the plus side, Nightmare Moon could at least enjoy having her own, physical form without having to share it with a lesser being. On the minus side, however, she was stripped of any power, unable to fly, and was currently bound in chains in the middle of some library carved into the middle of a tree. Compared to having been locked in a dingy dungeon cell for the past month, at least this library had a sufficient amount of light sources, but Nightmare only knew too well that she was only moved because something was going to be done to her that couldn’t have been performed in the dungeons of Canterlot.
“So, has your ‘return’ been everything you hoped it would be?” taunted Princess Luna, walking into the room from behind her evil counterpart. “Because to be quite honest, I do rather seem to have benefited exponentially in terms of public adoration from your breaking out of our lunar prison.”
“But you remain in her shadow, do you not?” countered the manifestation of jealousy and rage of the younger princess. “Let’s be fair, now, are you really happy that you lost a thousand years to isolation with only me as company in your shattered mind? Celestia is quite the poor avatar of justice, given we only happened because the ponies out there loved her and not us, but what did she do? She removed us further from the public eye, to the point where our very existence was but a scoffed-at myth while everypony merely worshiped your beloved older sister like a real godde-MUROPH!” Without warning, a purple-hued spoon had appeared out of nowhere with some kind of brown compound on it and shoved itself right into the dark alicorn’s mouth. It tasted something like bread, Nightmare noted.
“I do apologize, Princess,” came the voice of the newest addition to Nightmare Moon’s “list of ponies to kill ASAP” given recent events. Twilight Sparkle – or rather, Princess Twilight Sparkle – joined Luna, a smug grin on her face. “But I don’t think I could stand to hear more of this thing speak as if it was the same as you.”
“Well, I can not say she is entirely wrong,” sadly noted the Princess of the Night, before perking right back up with her own smile of smug satisfaction. “But at the same time, she is a part of me that I am quite glad is not in me anymore.”
At that point, Nightmare Moon managed to spit out the spoon, though whatever bread-tasting-gunk had been on it had been forced to slide down her throat with a most unpleasant aftertaste – and get a word in her defense. “But I am still here, a fact I know you and Celestia and whoever that other pink alicorn is that’s going around saying she’s a princess, too. Doesn’t it bother you, Luna, that ever since your return, you represent an even smaller amount of the number of alicorns on this planet now? That makes you even less significant?”
“Credit where it is due, Twilight,” said Luna, pretending to ignore Nightmare’s constant belittlement, “spending a millennia with this harridelle ranting on and on about things like this really makes it easy to cope with the sheer amount of bull manure that plagues the royal court these days.”
“YOU WILL PAY ATTENTION TO ME!” screamed Nightmare, not happy to be treated in such a manner. “AND BEFORE YOU EVEN SAY HOW I MIGHT START TO KNOW WHAT YOU WERE FEELING WHEN NOPONY PAID ATTENTION TO YOU A THOUSAND YEARS AGO, NEED I REMIND YOU THE ONLY REASON I EXIST IS BECAUSE I AM THE LITERAL EMBODIMENT OF THOSE FEELINGS IN THE FIRST PLACE?!”
“Yes, and for that I have thanks to be giving,” calmly answered Luna. That got Nightmare to shut up, namely because as an extension of Luna’s darker aspects, she knew that the younger of the royal sisters got uncomfortably calm when she was about to do something really nasty. “Twilight, I do believe that was the oven timer that I just heard.”
“Ah, yes, it’s ready!” the youngest alicorn chirped, flying off to the kitchen.
“Wh-what’s ready?” nervously asked Nightmare, no longer willing to see just what she was about to face.
“Oh, you’re about to experience one of the greatest joys of the modern age,” taunted Luna, stepping closer and closer as she spoke until her muzzle almost touched that of Nightmare’s. “You see, in the time that I – sorry, we – were involuntarily vacationing on the moon, Equestria experienced a great reunification in the wake of us trying to split it apart and undo what our great mother Faust had done to bring peace to the land. On the day all old wounds were finally healed up, which incidentally ended up on a day almost a month after what is now Nightmare Night, Celestia declared a national holiday known as Harvesttide, where ponies of all types and walks of life join in family and have a great feast.”
“And that has what to do with the thing or things you’ve got being prepared by Celestia’s pet brownnos-MRNPH!” Another purple-aura-coated spoon with more of the disgusting breadstuff had found its way into Nightmare’s mouth before she could finish the insult.
“Well, if you haven’t already figured it out, we’re about to have you be a culinary test subject as I’m sure you didn’t have any other plans for this week. Harvesttide actually isn’t until tomorrow, but Twilight wanted to practice making the main courses, and given how she performs best when receiving only the most honest of feedback truths, you get to be the lucky mare to tell her how badly her food sucks!”
“Luna….” Twilight said from the kitchen, not expecting the insult.
“Twilight, think of it this way: I suck worse than you: you are merely trying to improve your cooking. I had to be split in half to improve my attitude.” Hearing that, Twilight grinned, appreciative of the gesture by her friend and fellow alicorn.
“Now, where were we? Oh, yes…” Luna then lightly patted Nightmare’s cheek, grinning evilly all the while. “That stuff on the spoons that keep ending up in your mouth? That’s called stuffing, which is a bread-type mixture used inside the turkey while it roasts in the oven!”
Nightmare spat out the second spoon in disgust, but not at the “stuffing” this time. “Did you just say turkey?”
Luna laughed. “Oh, yes, did I forget to mention that? See, Harvesttide is such a special occasion, that it’s the one time everypony in Equestria proves that ponies are not entirely vegetarian and can eat meat! Poor Fluttershy of course disapproves of the mass murder of so many turkeys, but hey, it’s tradition, that makes it okay after all.”
To say Nightmare Moon was in shock was an understatement. After all, she was so evil that Celestia had been forced to create an entire holiday based on how evil she was, though admittedly Nightmare did criticize the fact the whole holiday seemed to function off the idea she ate foals. The very idea that she would engage in cannibalism was gravely offensive, but…the fact her day was followed by a day where ponies everywhere devoured meat while celebrating their unity as a civilization? It was up in the air as to whether Nightmare was more horrified at the fact ponies openly engaged in such a thing, or if she was more horrified that she evidently had played a key role in causing such a thing to happen in the first place. Sure, Nightmare willingly admitted she was evil, but she also would have pointed out she at least had minimal moral standards when it came to not killing other animals just to eat them.
“Oh, Nightmare Moon~!” sang Twilight as she walked in, levitating what looked like a slightly overcooked carcass of a large bird on an equally large plate before her. What Nightmare could only guess had previously been a living thing now was set on the table in front of the evil alicorn, plucked of all feathers or other bodily parts such as internal organs, a mockery of its former self right down to the little white covers on what had been its feet. “I hope you’re hungry, because you simply must try a sampling of all of the turkey’s parts!” continued the Princess of Friendship, her magic now brandishing a knife and was using it to cut slices of meat off the body onto a plate.
“Uh, we’re all princesses here, right?” ventured Nightmare, now desperately trying to get out of having to actually eat turkey. Unlike her original counterpart, Nightmare really did wish to remain a vegetarian in the face of this terrible, terrible atrocity she was being forced to possibly commit, and another stint in moon jail was preferable at this point. “Can’t we talk this over? Please?”
“Hmm, let me think,” replied Luna, before her horn lit up in its own dark blue aura to conjure up a fork. “Oh, yeah, I’m afraid the answer to that is nope!” The fork immediately dove right into a slice of the turkey that was on the place, before lifting it up and shoving it into Nightmare Moon’s mouth.
The “stuffing” from earlier had been bad, but not even the taste of blood back when the civil war had been raging had been as bad as the turkey taste currently in Nightmare Moon’s mouth. To the ancient horror that the nightmare was, eating a formerly living being was bad enough, but it was worse when it felt like she was ingesting slimy parchment. It took all her willpower not to void her stomach as she was forced to chew and then swallow her first piece of meat. Once it was down, she had to gasp desperately for air. “Are you this cruel to normal prisoners?!”
“Didn’t you pay attention?” asked Twilight, taking her turn to force-feed turkey to Nightmare. “Luna did say that all ponies engage in Harvesttide, which includes eating turkey!”
“B-but what about other species?! Surely not all of the lives locked in the dungeons are po-MNNNGGHPPHH!”
“You mean like the one or two griffins and dragons that end up down there?” interrupted Luna with her fork loaded with turkey breast. “Come now, you constantly point out how you know everything I know since you were made from a part of my subconscious, you know just as well as we do that ponies and other equine species on this planet are the only sapient non-carnivores around.”
“And frankly, with the kind of teeth you have, Nightmare?” reasoned Twilight on her turn to stuff the Nightmare with turkey, “I’m quite surprised you don’t enjoy eating meat!”
Nightmare’s nightmare of having to be force fed turkey continued for what seemed like another half-hour, much to her dismay and her royal tormentor’s glee. Ultimately, even the evil-powered gastronomic part of Nightmare Moon’s body could take no more abuse, and with a freakish surge of strength, the alicorn was able to burst from her bondings and had she been able to do more, could have easily subdued both Luna and Twilight.
Except she was still without her horn’s functionality, and immediate revenge was not at the forefront of Nightmare Moon’s mind. Rather, she instantly made a beeline for what looked like an indoor outhouse and without a second to spare, began to remove the horrid meal she’d been forced to consume in the fastest –and most sickening – manner known to all creatures as she struggled to keep her head over the edge of the ivory chamber pot with the hole in the bottom.
Sighing in victory, Luna leaned over to whisper to Twilight, “I wonder when she’s going to figure out Harvesttide doesn’t actually require everypony to eat meat.”
In turn, Twilight had to keep from buckling over in laughter as she replied, “I’m more concerned when she figures out that wasn’t turkey at all, but my mother’s recipe for tofurkey!”
HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYPONY
Author's Note
Inspiration credit to this comment by Alaborn, though I bet this isn't quite what he had in mind
