The Fall of an Empire

After the initial outburst, everything was quiet. Only the echoing sound of the pony’s voice was heard. The anger and tension seemed to spread across the crowd or ponies as they, one by one, stood up facing the stage. The look on their faces was unmistakable. Anger, deceit, sadness.

Luna looked at the crowd, shocked; then glanced towards the Solar Empire banners, waving proudly, glistening in the soft glow of moonlight; then at the royal guards, shifting at their post, ready to defend their princess from what they knew was coming; and then, Luna looked at her sister. Celestia was backstage, and Luna expected her to look just as surprised as she was, but instead, her sister only looked guilty. As if Celestia knew this would happen.

“What is the meaning of this…this madness?!” Luna yelled at the crowd, and she felt Nightmare Moon’s surprise at her actions. “Do you not know your place? Do you not serve your princess?!” Luna stamped her hoof on the ground, hard, for good measure.

Celestia quickly scampered onstage, whispering in Luna’s ear. “Luna, let’s get inside, NOW. I’ll explain everything.”

“So that you can fill her head with MORE of your lies, eh?! Why don’t ya tell ‘er the story you told us, Celestia!” A pegusus shouted from the crowd. The statement was followed by more angry reactions. The royal guards moved forward, circling the audience. Luna stood back, scared and confused, she turned to her sister, who was just as afraid of the mob threatening to break through the line of royal guards.

Before Luna could say anything more, they were briefly surrounded by a bright yellow light. When she opened her eyes, she found she was in her room with her sister, who was sighing in relief. Celestia quickly got up and began pacing and muttering, the way she always did when she was upset.

“Tia, what happened out there? What was that all about?” Luna’s confusion quickly turned into frustration when her sister continued pacing with her horn glowing in concentration.

“Why didn’t I see this coming… Should have seen this coming…” Celestia looked as if she was on the verge of crying, even her mane was tense.

“Didn’t see what coming? What’s going on?” Luna tried to get her sister’s attention, but nothing seemed to work. Nightmare Moon yawned in dismissal.

She is hiding something from you. Is that not obvious? The snarky, but royally eloquent tone inside of Luna was no longer at the mercy of her outside body. Luna found that Nightmare Moon had a mind of her own now, even after a couple days of returning to Equestria.

Why isn’t she listening to me? It’s not like her, she never hides anything from me, and I hide nothing from her.

Well, I must give you the point that you are talking to me, Nightmare Moon, and your sister knows nothing of me. But from what *I’ve** seen, I think that our sister is hiding something from more than just us.*

For some reason, it was the words “our sister”, “us”,  that bothered Luna the most.

Should I just…get her attention…somehow?

I don’t know, should you?

Luna sighed. Why was the spirit living inside of her always wiser, more confident and proud than she was?

“CELESTIAAAA!!!” Luna’s voice escaped as a booming roar, the clouds overhead covered the bright moonlight, a shadow concealed the outside and the room was dark. The only illumination was Luna’s eyes, which were a bright shade of blue mixed with purple, and the pupil was invisible.

The elder alicorn whipped around at the sound of Luna’s voice throbbing in her ears. Celestia froze in fear. How could she explain this? After what she’d already done, how could she possibly be forgiven?

“Ahh, yes, er, Luna… I uh, believe I owe you a clarification, for this matter.” Celestia swallowed as she wondered how this was going to sound. Luna returned to normal as the clouds concealing the moonlight slowly faded away.

“Just, umm, look in the bookshelf, it explains everything.” Celestia immediately put her hoof in her mouth directly after she said it. What was she thinking? This would be the absolute worst way for Luna to find out about what Celestia had done. But of course, Celestia thought, it would be the easiest way…

“Beg your pardon, but did you say the bookshelf, Tia? Uh, which book?” Luna was confused as “A Brief History of Equestria” levitated out of the dusty shelf and onto Luna’s front hooves.

“Start at page 145. It explains…everything.” Celestia lowered her head solemnly and trotted out of the room.

“Alright, Tia! I’ll just be reading then, I guess.” Confused, Luna flipped through the pages until she reached 145. The title was “The Legend of Nightmare Moon”. The front cover of the chapter was a painting of a tall black mare with a purple, starry mane. Rearing up into the air with silver armor and pointed hooves, she was menacing and fearsome. Luna turned the page and found that this legend really DID start at the beginning.

The first chapter was all about Luna and her sister, about how Tia raised the sun, Luna brought the night. Luna appreciated the drawings, they were rather beautiful, and the calligraphy was smooth and elegant. She ran her hoof over the pages, trying to remember the days when she and her sister were happy, with their parents, without Discord. A tear slid down Luna’s face and dripped into her soft blue mane. Luna shook her head and turned the page.

She stared in concern at the drawings on the next page. The lovely, bright blue alicorn now stared at the dark ground, eyes glowing in anger at the sleeping ponies below. “Resentful”, the book described her as. Resentful of the fact that the ponies of Equestria frolicked in the daytime, but ignored the night Luna brought to them.  Luna wanted to yell at the book, to scream and change the words on the page, to stop anyone else from believing these lies that somepony had written about her.

Reluctantly, Luna turned the page, waiting to see what false stories and rumors lay on the parchment ahead.

And she was right.

Luna shuddered at the moment, the moment when her soul was shredded open, and another was shoved inside. Nightmare Moon looked truly evil as she stared down upon the frightened ponies below. She vowed she would shroud the land in eternal night, the book said. Luna wanted so badly to cry, who would write this about her? And why?

She turned the page slowly, and felt an instant burning all over her body. She felt it, she was there, the moment when she was ripped away from her familiar, her hopes, her dreams, her sister; banished to a barren, empty landscape, only to be torn apart every second of every night, clinging on to whatever pathetic hope there was that Luna would ever return.

Patience had to fade.

But as Luna was reading, her bottled rage grew fuller still as she read a disturbing sentence. Reluctantly, the elder sister summoned the Elements of Harmony, and banished her sister permanently in the moon.

The young alicorn choked on her own breath as she reread the sentence over and over again, repeating that one word that did much more than bother her. Luna could handle being bothered, but the word melted away her anger, and turned it to petty sorrow.

Permanently.

Was she truly meant to be there, in that hell of a place, forever? Had she escaped out of pure luck? Was she fated to a life of torture? Luna’s mind raced with questions as she turned to the last page, wanting to see this liar, this horrible, horrible pony that had written this, this filth!

The last page was of Celestia, surrounded by happy, frolicking ponies, whilst in the background, an imprint of a pony, trapped in the moon, stood sadly, depressingly. Luna almost ignored the page as she skipped to the end, to where the author’s name was, where the identity of the pony who communicated her as a monster was. When Luna finally saw it, she almost fainted, and almost collapsed in horror.

Signed: Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia