The night sky was littered with storm clouds and a worried Celestia found herself unable to sleep. The Princess’ room was dark, only the light from the occasional lightning strike outside lit the room. The rain fell heavily on the roof of the castle, it’s sound was mind numbing and relaxing. Celestia stood in front of her window and looked into the stormy sky with a worried expression, as if expecting something terrible to happen any moment.
Lightning struck right outside of celestia’s window, but as the thunder began to crack everything seemed to stop. The rain and lightning both seemed to stop where they were as if frozen in time. She did not need to turn for she could sense the pony that stood behind her, in front of her bedroom door. The light from the lighting shined through the pane of the window and revealed a pony shaped figure, dressed in a black robe. The figure had dark smoke like brimstone pouring out of it, it’s face and hooves were completely covered by the robe while it appeared to be hovering just above the floor.
The Expression on Celestia’s face had changed to one of pure terror, she recognized the figures presence and she knew what it being there meant. The figure just stood there silently staring at Celestia, it’s silence was unsettling and her heart began beating faster than usual. She stood there in anticipation of what it had to say, or if it would even say anything at all. After what seemed like an eternity of silence the dark being finally spoke, and what it said shook Celestia to her core.
“The time has come to pay your dues, Princess Of Sunlight.” The being’s voice was rough and nightmarish, and shortly after speaking it disappeared as mysteriously as it came.
Time continued and Celestia was left alone in a dark bedroom, she fell to her knees on the verge of tears, the mysterious beings’ words echoed through her mind like a canyon. The day that she had feared for so long had finally come. All of her foresight and knowledge could not prepare her for what was about to take place. That night she had nightmares of her kingdom burning and her citizens lying all over canterlot with their bodies mangled and deformed, and in the center of the death and destruction she saw her precious student Princess Twilight Sparkle with tears coming from her lifeless eyes.
The nightmare seemed to repeat every time Celestia fell asleep, so she would go days without sleep to avoid the horrors of her mind. Unfortunately the lack of sleep began to have a negative effect on her both physically and mentally. The princess became very sluggish and when spoken to she showed little interested in the conversation and seemed distant. Even her dear sister Princess Luna could hardly get The Princess of Sunlight to speak more than two words to her and when she tried to help Celestia, she would just ignore her sister’s question and go on with her business.
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Three months had passed and ponies had slowly stopped seeing so much of Celestia because she eventually stopped leaving her room, having all her meals brought to her room and only leaving to raise the sun. After a while she began to eat less, going several days without eating till the growling of her stomach got the better of her. She would sit in front of the window day in and day out just watching the outside as if she was anticipating something… something big.
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Nearly six months had passed since Celestia had her encounter with the mysterious being and her dreams became a never ending hell which she could not escape. She had been using magic and potions to avoid sleep but even the strongest of magic has its’ limits and after several days she would give into her need for sleep. Knowing her sister’s ability to enter one’s dreams she used powerful spells to prevent her sister from seeing the same horror’s she saw every night. However even in the rare moments of uninterrupted sleep she would wake up after just a few hours in a cold sweat with tears pouring from her eyes. She could only imagine what her subjects would think of her if they could see that she had become a paranoid mess of a princess who would rather cower in her room like a child who had just been beaten by her father than to warn them about the imminent danger that could arrive at anytime.
Celestia slowly began secluding herself in her room more and more till she stopped leaving it at all, her meals were brought to her by her servants and reports were given to her by the guards. During her absence upon the throne Princess Luna would take her sister’s place but she was more or less a figure head while her sister ruled from behind the scenes. Luna worried for her sister’s mental and physical health since she had not left her room for months, she wondered if her precious sister was even still alive. Luna had tried to check in on Celestia from time to time but she could barely hear even the sound of hooves clopping against the ground or the sound of pages turning in a book.
Luna began to lose hope in her sister. that maybe Celestia wanted her to take the throne to be a true leader and run this great land like the princess she was or maybe something was terribly wrong and Celestia was in some kind of danger. No matter what, Luna found herself worrying more and more of her sister and remember the days leading up to her transformation into nightmare moon. But why was she thinking about her past so much? Was it because Nightmare Night was so close? Or maybe because she did the same things that Celestia was doing when she turned into that monster, was that to be her sister’s fate as well? was she to become a husk of her former self and go on a rampage too? While she questioned her sister’s sanity and tried her best to rule equestria, Celestia was slipping deeper and deeper into the grasps of insanity.
Nightmare night had finally arrived but Luna was not as excited as she should have been. but with Celestia being in the condition she was in Luna hoped that she might be able to convince her sister to come out to help celebrate her sister’s special night.
The Princess of The Moon trotted down the hall to her beloved sister’s room, as she stood in front the bedroom door Luna pondered what she could say to Celestia then with a few light taps of her hoof she knocked on the door. There was no response she should not have expected anything less but she still held hope.
“Sister… I know you’re in there.” Luna finally said to Celestia through the door. “I… I don’t know why you have been so distant these last few months but whatever it is I hope you can make it to the nightmare night celebration.”
She waited for her sister's response but none would come. “At least give me a cough or something … Anything so I know that you are still alive in there.” Luna’s eyes swelled with tears as her sister’s silence continued. “Do you even care that your subjects worry for you? They ask everyday where you are and everyday I tell them that you are off on important business.”
Luna stomped her hoof and began to shout at her sister. “I CAN NOT KEEP LYING TO THEM AND PREVENT THEM WORRY IF YOU WILL EVER COME BACK!” The princess stood in silence with tears running down her face. “I wanted to bring you to the nightmare night celebration tonight in hopes to get you out of your room and hopefully raise your spirit, so if you would make an appearance it would be greatly appreciated by both your loyal subjects… and your beloved sister.” She wiped the tears from her face and walked off to prepare for the celebration.
Little did the princess know that on the other side of the door was a teary eyed Celestia, with her hoof placed firmly on the door. Her room was a mess as was her mane, she cried softly to herself, she had not known the suffering that she had been putting everypony through with her absence. Her sister had been working so hard just to keep everyone calm and Equestria running right, maybe getting out and enjoying the celebration would not be too bad. Besides nothing had happened in six months, what harm could one night of fun do? The Sun Princess would soon find out the error in her decision.
As Celestia prepared herself for the nightmare night festival her magic covered the mess that was her room and tidied up before heading to the celebration. With her beautiful white and gold dress on as well as her usual princess attire Celestia readied a chariot to take her to Ponyville. The guard pegasi hooked themselves up to the chariot and set off for ponyville, on the way Celestia could not believe how ridiculous she had acted before, a mysterious being coming to collect an old debt? Who would The Princesses owe a debt to anyway? Once the party was over Celestia planned to take a very nice and long rest.
As they neared Ponyville Celestia could see the bright lights of the festival she could not wait to see her loyal subjects and beloved sister. Suddenly an extremely bright light erupted from Ponyville and the chariot began falling out of the sky, disoriented by the light all she could do was wait for the chariot to crash land. While the chariot crashed into the ground the light faded and Celestia could see her guards as well as her chariot impaled with dozens of bright, glowing, white magical arrows.
“What is going on?” Celestia found herself asking as she came out of her daze. She found herself just outside the town’s limits and hearing ponies screaming from pain and panic. She rushed to her hooves and took off into the sky with her magic ready to take on whoever it was that was causing this panic. Once in the sky she looked directly at the bone white pony hovering above ponyville wielding a large glowing bow in it’s magic. Who was this being and why were they there killing innocent ponies? And where was Luna? The Princess found herself asking until she realized just who that white being was…. “L… Luna?”
Author's Note
I finally got someone to edit the story and I'm so happy for how it turned out
Special thanks to WingmanRed for doing such a great job editing this story.
