"I'm so sorry Luna...but you made me do this."
Luna's face cringed and clenched as she heard the very familiar voice of her sister loud in her ears but her eyes stayed shut closed. She tried to force her eyes to open, but they remained closed almost as if they were sewn shut.
"I never wanted to hurt you...but I have to protect our little ponies...I'm sorry."
Luna heard the voice but could not pinpoint where it came from or the source of its origin. She heard it as though she was only a few feet in front of her. But why could she not see a thing? Why could she not see her sister? Despair and desperation filled her soul as she tried to cry for her name and find her bigger sister to try and find comfort for the darkness that filled her vision. She scratched and scraped her hooves across nothing, but the sound of claws gliding against glass rose in her ears. Sharp pains filling her heightened Alicorn ears.
The earsplitting sound breaking through the sound barrier and cutting deep inside of her. She reeled back in pain against the ebony darkness, to try and find something to brace herself against. She cried out in her head,
What is it?! What's happening?! CELESTIA WHERE ARE YOU!!!
The sound raised in volume and it felt as though her eardrums were going to explode. She pressed her ears down with her hooves and felt as though she was crushing her own skull with the force she was working on her ears. As the sound raised in volume she cried against the noise and screamed the wailing call of a banshee. Trying to combat the noise as best as she could. Once more she cried out with her mind,
Nightmare? Nightmare what's going on? What's happening?
No answer came from her symbiotic friend. She heard no hiss or remark from the nightmare force that inhabited her body. Only the rising sound of claws against glass and nails against steel. It was such an awful noise. The worst noise she had ever heard in her life. Nothing could break the amount of pain she felt right now. Her head felt as though it was being split in half. Her body felt as if it was boiling in steaming hot water. Her bones felt like lead. And her eyes felt as though they were going to burst out from her head.
She had never felt so much pain at once. This amount of pain told her something was going horribly wrong on Nightmare's side of things. Thought she could not see the events unfolding, she expected the worst. And whatever was happening to her was the worst thing she could ever hope to endure. Nothing could surmount the pain she felt now. Racking up to a new level of pain Luna gyrated and seized under a bone breaking force. Her back felt as though it was being reduced to dust and her ribs collapsing in on themselves. Blood rising and filling her lungs and mouth. The bold taste of iron forcing itself in her mouth. Coming up in large gouts and spurts of the ironic fluid. She felt the beak breaking force of the other entity in her body. Before she felt her muscles fall limp she heard the voice of the Nightmare Forces call over the dark winds themselves,
Your pain is only just beginning, Moon Goddess...
Luna awakened in a fit of violent coughing, spitting up mucus along with some blood. Her ears ringing with the feint noises she was subjected to hearing. Her head still spinning from the haze of unconsciousness. A last cough allowed her to let her open her eyes.
She lied on her stomach on what felt like soft sand, gently caressing her midnight blue coat. And brushing lightly against the pink flesh underneath. Luna felt considerably lighter, as opposed to her lead bones no more than a while ago. It was unlike anything she felt before. No pain was ever the same as the pain she had received a while ago. Nothing was more excruciating. Her vision was blurry and she began seeing spots at the corners of her vision. Exhaustion filled her muscles as she pushed against he pain to stand up, every joint of her body pulling against her. With a groan of pain she stood up.
She breathed heavily in the air of wherever she was. She tried to sense where she was. She was not in Equestria as far as she could tell. But was she anywhere. She could not even feel the wind, it was not gently billowing past her. Her vision was still blurry and hazy, unable to make out exactly where she was.
Luna took this time to wonder at the events she knew up until this moment. Trying to piece them together, to formulate what might have happened. Luna pressed a hoof to her head and caressed the base of her horn and said to herself, "Alright Luna...what was the last thing you remember?"
The last thing she remembered was her final conversation with her sister before she struck a deal with the nightmare forces. Her last shared words with her only family left. They did not see each other after that on the greatest of terms.
"Lulu, what do you hope to accomplish with this? You don't even know if this will work?"
"But if I don't try then I run risk of our ponies fearing me for this generation and many more. I don't want OUR ponies to fear me."
Luna spoke as she discussed with her sister the various reasons on what their course of action should be. Celestia sat on her bleached white marble throne, while Luna discussed on her obsidian throne to Celestia's right. The white alicorn kept her gaze at the center of the great hall and retorted after a mournful sigh, "Their fear is misplaced and will be over before you and they know it. Trust me, this will only last for a few more years I promise."
Luna gritted her teeth and strained her muscles in her forehooves as she responded, "I cannot wait for another year, dear sister. More and more ponies fear me by the hour. Their nightmares need to end now, and I cannot grant them their wish."
Luna's voice grew distant as she continued on until she looked at the floor in forlorn. Her aquamarine eyes bore for longed sadness and depression, showing that she had spent many nights on the subject. She blinked gently and held her eyes closed and her sister answered, "Lulu. There is nothing that I can do about this now. My control over the Dreamscape is not as large as yours, I cannot manipulate dreams like yourself. All I can promise is to wait it out, this will pass."
Luna coughed up more blood and stained the ground beneath her. She closed her eyes shut and shook her head violently, trying to break the haze, to crack the barrier between consciousness and unconsciousness. She raised her hoof to her forehead and rubbed her skull, her hoof sounding as if it scraped against gravel. After a little bit she felt her magic slowly rise in her horn and activate brightly in a midnight blue aura. A pulse of shadow came from her hoof and gently sought through her mind and felt the lingering haze lift away. granting her renewed vigor and strength, destroying the remains of Nightmare Moon from ever inhabiting her mind. She did not even sense the Nightmare being, strange.
The Moon princess finally opened her eyes and her breath was taken away. Staring right at her. The large celestial body of Equis, the planet she has come to know as her home. She saw the large body of land in a sea of light blue, the continent being Inoch. The irregularly shaped continent rested calmly on the sea of bright blue and Luna stared blankly and coldly at Equis. She formulated no words and no thoughts that could make anything better.
Luna kept her gaze frozen on the large planet, unable to lift herself from the shock. She thought mercilessly on how she got to now. She mulled through her mind and only saw and heard her conversation with her sister. That was it. It was all she could remember. Nothing made sense, how was she on the moon?
As if to answer her question she felt shadows on the pale surface of the moon and reshape and form into a pony. Luna knew the pony well, with no formal introductions needed. Standing menacingly to her side was none other than the embodiment of the Nightmare Forces itself. Elmashul, embracing the thing that ponies feared the most. The unknown. His name was given to him as he has many legends amongst the Saddle Arabians. The embodiment of nightmare and fear itself, but the projecting aura that he emitted was a numb feeling. Shock never left Luna's face. She bore the same expression as her veins seethed with hatred as she hissed, "What have you done?"
The flowing form of shadows billowed and said with the chorus of voices,
It is not what I have done. But what you have done young goddess.
"Don't," Luna snapped raising a hoof, "Don't pull that on me. We both know it was Nightmare Moon that controlled my actions. We had a deal."
That deal was to give them a new face to fear, Elmashul said as he carried himself on the wind and whispered closely in her ear. His dark and silken voice sending shivers down her spine, And that is exactly what she did. Why? Has events been placed that you are unproud of?
She stared coldly into the entity's dark red eyes and felt no fear or dread in her soul, only anger. Her breaths permeated with pure vengeance and revenge. A feeling she was not used to feeling. She only felt like this when she and her sister faced down Discord, who had proven to be a more taxing enemy than she expected. She grit her teeth menacingly, drawing forth energy from her source of mana and her eyes glowed the same color as the moon as she threatened, "Do not be coy with me Elmashul...tell me why I am up here. Now."
The shadow had no mouth but spoke with projecting darkness, an entire chorus of voices answered,
Once Nightmare Moon absorbed into your body she did as she was told. She invaded the nightmares of the ponies of Equestria and made herself the new face to fear. But she lingered, she ravaged the countryside and plummeted the world into sustained darkness.
Luna dropped her threatening stance as the news hit her. Her body was used as a way to satisfy a cruel entity's wish of breaking and destroying the Equestrian ponies. Her stomach heaved and she kept the contents within her stomach. She held a hoof to her mouth and she said to herself in a darkened tone, "Oh stars..."
Luna could tell he had an imaginary smile on his face as the shade continued, Oh it gets better I am afraid. You see, you had so much power that you resisted the magic of your sister, forcing her to bring out the only things that could handle such a threat...
"No."
...the six stones that embody the spirit of Equestria...
"No...please stop."
...the Elements of Harmony. She used them and took you down, kicked your flank and then banished you to the moon.
Luna's knees faltered as despair washed over her. She harmed her sister. She harmed her ponies. Her subjects. The subjects that had faith in her. The same subjects that believed that they could take the throne like their parents, Nox and Solaria. Hope that they could bring them into true happiness and harmony. That everything would be fine. Yet, she turned a blinded eye and abandoned their faith. She abandoned those that trusted her. She delved into a darkness not meant to be seen by normal ponies.
She accepted her deal with the devil and she lost her soul. But now her ponies had two faces to fear. Nightmare Moon. And herself. The feelings washed over her spirit and her soul, now she was broken. Her eyes welled up with tears but with all the strength she had left she forced to keep her tears in her eyes.
The devil himself finished as he faded away into the dark blanket of space,
We are not done young princess. I am not done with Equestria. I can give you the keys to escape, but I will only do so when you embrace yourself as who you truly are. A wielder of dark powers does not easily resist the lure of the dark. I alone can make you whole. What you thought was a symbiotic relationship, was nothing more than me revealing to you for what you really are. A nightmare.
Luna shook her head as her eyes slowly lost more and more strength. But the shade finished, the choir of voices fading in the distance,
You were born under the signs, young princess. This is your destiny. Now drown yourself in it.
With Elmashul gone, she let the levee break and her tears fell like rain from the sky. She huddled herself, her muscles clenching and spasming under her fear and despair. Her back hunched over the pale dust of the moon. Her soul screaming over the non-existent wind on the moon. Her voice only being able to be heard by herself. She messed up. She abandoned it all, and for what? For power? For jealousy? For attention? No. For weakness.
It was her own weakness that she now listens to her wails and cries for forgiveness where there is none. Her voice growing numb and her ears blocking the voice of herself. She felt the drops fall onto herself. The salty tears running down her cheeks and staining her dark blue coat. the once pristine coat now all but damp with the liquid of despair. No solace. No forgiveness.
In her crippled breaths she whispered with shaky breaths, "I'm...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...father..."
She became the monster he told her not to become. She became something to fear and to regret. Remorse filled her soul and a constricting iron grip embraced her heart. Not allowing her to stop her tears from falling. Her screams seemed unending and distant. She wanted with all her might to accept her fate. To return to Equestria. But she knew that she would return with more promises of destruction and annihilation, with a distant feeling of woe.
Her torso failed her and she was now on her hooves. Her hooves imprinting in the lunar dust. She opened her watery eyes and saw the pale surface of the moon she was given to protect and to master. Only making her feel worse. Everything, a constant reminder of what she had become. A monster. Her own leech. Her own stasis of symbiosis, feeding off of herself but gaining nothing in return.
Despair set in and she prepared herself for the worst. A line of a tear streaked down her hunched face and fell off of her muzzle. The drop being the only sound she heard besides herself. The sound echoing in her ears. With that tear that fell, her soul died.
And the strong heart of Princess Luna, stopped beating. With no other purpose left, then to wallow in her own shame. And her own fallen spirit. Her heart now forever to remain within the moon...
