You may think it's a long way down to the chemist's...
The Elements of Harmony were not unlike a certain blue weed that grew in the ever expanding wilds which seemed desperate to strangle the castle just beyond their reach. There was always a certain...ironic twist that they put into their punishments.
Discord, for example, had been turned to stone. A being of inconsistency and chaos, forced into a rigid and unchanging form for...however long he would be there. Unchanging. Dully predictable, and unlikely to be anything else in the next thousand years or so, all because of a set of magic rocks that were, quite frankly, far more powerful than they had any right to be.
Having been subjected to that very same force, Nightmare Moon found herself...on the moon.
Ha, ha. Night eternal. Very funny, if one happens to have the humor of a sadist.
There was no point in testing the boundaries of Equestria, or even the entire planet, for that matter; the Elements were nothing if not thorough.
But, if that were so...
Taking a moment to stretch, she gave one beat of her wings, sending her upwards. After a moment, she twisted in the air and flew directly up, and away from her moon. Minutes of silent flight passed in an anticipatory stupor, as she focused entirely on her senses, magical or otherwise; she could feel the pull of the moon, but she always had. It was no stronger, nor more binding, than it ever had been.
She was free to go wherever she pleased.
A wry grin split her face, as she turned and looked upon the planet once more. She considered testing the barrier, just for the sake of assurance. But another idea took hold, one that was more likely to produce...results.
So instead, she looked the other way, chose a direction, and flew. If life existed here, it had to exist somewhere else - she would return with not just a vengeance, but an army.
The universe outside of the relatively small realm of her home planet was strange.
Wisps of galactic force were spread out in massive clouds of energy, some manifesting in strange, physical ways. At some points, reality seemed to fold in on itself, bending into a tunnel to some other far-off place in the universe. Meteorites stormed, and comets burst, even in the cold emptiness of space.
The lights of the sky which the naked eye could see through the density of an atmosphere drifted aimlessly; at such a slow pace, perhaps, that one might think they moved not at all. Nightmare knew better; they were alive, in the same way the Elements were. Not conscious, but instinctively doing what they had done for the past millennia: move.
Every once in a while, one would dart away from her to thousands of miles away, then dart back, then away again, as if it weren't quite sure where it was actually supposed to be. The rigid, steady magic that controlled it made her wretch, but there was nothing she could do.
For now, the heavens belonged to Celestia.
The name still left a bitter taste in her mouth, even unsaid.
She doesn't care. She's already tossing about the stars as if they were her playthings. And why? Is my night not already perfect? Is she still blind to my work? Does she not care
She shook her head, and flew away, leaving the star to its schizophrenic movements.
She was not shocked to find herself before a star all too similar to Celestia's prized sun. She had known there was something else, something different beyond the land of Equestria.
But then, meteorites were almost entirely different from what was found on Equestria, and they were still lifeless chunks of rock. Much like the planets before her, she idly mused, shortly before taking off and leaving it to itself.
She would find her army. Somewhere.
She had flown for many miles - or whatever it would be that you could measure the length of space with - in complete silence, and without the presence of a single other thing.
She could see lights in the distance. She could always see the lights in the distance, and see how their meek power shown from afar, no matter how much space was between herself and them. This was the marvel of the void; with nothing, not even air, to stop it, light could continue for as long as it wanted, to show whoever cared to look its magnificence.
She sneered at the thought. That was what Celestia had thought, and all it had lead to was the destruction of her sister - now her worst enemy.
For a number of miles more, she simply reveled in the emptiness. Before, she contemplated, she had felt isolated despite being surrounded by a number of other ponies. Now, she felt isolated simply because that was the definition of the word.
The former was worse, if only just.
Nightmare wondered how she would convince the populace of Equestria to follow her lead.
Not that she wasn't powerful enough, of course - she could move the moon on a regular basis, and as far as she cared to move it, for that matter. But, as she considered it, the fact became increasingly apparent that for all her power, she wasn't able to change how ponies thought.
Perhaps she could do so temporarily, as seen by the number of fixation curses she knew, but every magic had limits. Some were arbitrary, some were logical, and some were outright bizarre. The limit in the fixation curses was that, the longer it went on, the more likely the pony being influenced was going to break out of it.
These times depended mostly upon the power of the caster. So, technically speaking, she could force the ponies to love her moon.
But even before she was banished, she knew it wouldn't go on for long. The sheer amount of ponies she would have to control, and how much time it would take to find all of them...no, she needed something permanent.
Eternal night would have worked, she was sure of it. Continuous exposure would have forced them to take solace in her moon, no matter how loving they were on their precious sun.
Geoffrey the comet was quite the conversationalist.
It spoke to her, yes, and she listened intently.
It spoke of the gasses that composed it, of the ice that permeated its being, and even of the places it had been. The story was in its pock marks and scars, of the subtle inconsistencies that marked it as different, somehow.
It certainly wasn't fit to be a servant, unfortunately. For all of its witty commentary, Geoffrey seemed much too focused on where it was going, rather than on virtually doing anything else. But that was okay. It was performing its own private task, and as much as Nightmare felt she could interfere, she knew she could not change it.
After hours on end - or was it minutes? Days? Who even knew how to count in a place without a celestial body? - Nightmare left Geoffrey to its course, after a quiet 'goodbye'.
Of course, she did leave her own mark on it, as a story to be told to future travelers. Although, she was concerned that being broken into shards might not leave enough to tell a story in the first place.
She found herself rather taken by the natural beauty of chaos.
Not Discord's foul ideal, but rather, the things that are after being left to simply be, unattended, for centuries on end.
The cloud of purple and pink, interspersed with flashes of interstellar lightning, flowed into and within itself, the dust of broken meteors like streams of light, was one such display. Dragons of ice and dust roared, only to be extinguished by their own brilliance. Ponies of whirling fire danced around them to be blown apart, only to reemerge somewhere else; sometimes right where they were, sometimes on the edge of the cloud.
Nightmare marveled at the raw power that had become this impossible formation without being alive at all. She imagined what she could do, if only she could bring the ponies to life.
For the first time in centuries, Luna earnestly thought about who one of those ponies looked like - a massive wingspan, a pink mane billowing in unseen winds, just before shattering within the wave of another - and cried.
The stars were once inviting hosts of a place beyond her home.
Hosts of a land without land; of the empty heavens in which one could soar forever, without neither care nor concern. They all seemed to be so close together, from home. Even when the court astronomers told her of the vast distances between them, she simply nodded; it seemed too impossible to be true.
Perhaps the shock had simply been delayed, but now, she knew.
Now, she saw how far apart they were. She'd flown between them, through the endless space between each light. She understood how it seemed that even clusters of them could not speak, not without shouting so loudly that the shock wave could rend entire leagues of land into scattered earth.
She knew, because she felt as though she were one of them too. She knew, because despite all that she had become - her mane, longer than before, filled with more constellations, composed of stars brighter than even those that she flew around - all the power she controlled - enough to create one of those immaculate nebulae of gas and energy - she felt empty.
Not because she was hungry. Her exile was mercifully spent in a perpetual state in that regard.
But, she felt that there was no emotion within her. After all these centuries - or, what she hoped had been centuries, and not mere decades - it seemed to have drained into the cosmos she flew in, as if trying to fill the expansive void that did nothing but swallow all that entered it.
And the worst part was that, in her endless searching, she - not even once - thought to look behind her, to see what she was flying away from. That left no markers.
No trail.
No way home.
Just as her emotions had left her, so did she, herself, enter the void.
As if she were trying to fill it in some vaguely impossible notion of hope.
The Elements had a backup plan. Of course the Elements had a back up plan. They were precise, powerful, and thorough. No loose ends left untied.
Even after a thousand years.
Luna simultaneously lent her thanks to and resented them for being so harsh; such a force to be reckoned with, one that could part the heavens and tear an alicorn drifting through space back down to the world where she was banished from, even if the part of the planet she was pulled down to wasn't actually facing her.
Or perhaps it was. The world was spinning regardless, so she supposed that it could have timed itself out correctly.
"It's the Mare in the Moon! Nightmare -" A moment. A cautionary pause. "...Moon? But...she doesn't look like she did in the book."
This caused a number of ponies to begin muttering among themselves, but Princess Luna was more concerned with a train of thought that name set off.
That name was vaguely familiar, Luna knew. A few moments searching through her dazed mind brought up the correct memory; it was...her, in a way. A darker side. The side that had simply faded in her exile. She remembered the emotions that spurred her transformation. The ones that merged into a singular, entirely unpleasant force, and became the driving motivation behind her actions - but they seemed insignificant now. Petulant, even.
So, no. She didn't quite feel those anymore. Although, there was a spark of something else. It was painful, but not...instigating.
"Hello, my little ponies."
The crowd went silent, and the sound of hooves gingerly tapping the ground as they parted for somepony else seemed quite foreboding.
"Twilight, if you could help me bring her somewhere private..."
"Hey, what about the- I mean, your highness, what about the Summer Sun Celebration?" This caused the 'highness' to laugh. It was melodious, but sounded somewhat restrained.
"It will begin in due time. First, however, we should guide my sister to a more comfortable place." A shocked gasp went through the crowd, which went silent after a few moments.
"Sister!? Then, that means-"
"There is no call for panic, Twilight." Highness stepped over her, and through the swimming, mismatched frames of her vision, she could make out a distinctly white coat. "I believe that she is...reformed. And of her own doing, no less."
Highness leaned down, much closer than before, and whispered so that only she and Luna could hear.
"Words cannot describe how proud you've made me, Luna."
"...th-thank...you?" And then, she blacked out.
When she came to, it was in a bed in a room filled with a number of different books, and morning light was shining in through the windows.
At either side of her bed was a small group of ponies, and a dragon. There was Highness - no, Celestia, an unnamed purple unicorn with a cutie mark of stars, a white pony with a pink mane and a red cross cutie mark, and the dragon; a child, by appearance, with green and purple scales.
"Most peculiar," she muttered, immediately catching the attention of all residents.
"I'll leave you all to it, then. Let me know if she needs anything else." The - well, she was probably a nurse - respectfully backed out.
"I'll go, too." The purple pony almost left, but was promptly stopped by Luna's sister.
"Please, Twilight, stay; I think you two will get along well." Twilight nodded nervously, putting on an unconvincing fake grin.
Luna took her eyes off of Twilight after a moment, and turned her gaze upon Celestia. The elder sister simply smiled, with no small amount of...something in her eyes. Part guilt, part joy, part fear, and part hope.
"Welcome back, Luna." She breathed deeply, and spoke, "Please, can you forg-" She gasped as she was cut off by Luna's death grip hug, the lunar mare's eyes seized tight like slowly failing dams attempting to hold back the water.
"Always," she whispered, her voice hoarse after centuries of disuse, "I'm so sorry."
Celestia silently guided her wings behind her sister's back, wrapping her in a soft, feathery hug. Luna couldn't have ever felt happier, nor more at home, than she did in that exact moment.
"So...are we going to get some breakfast?"
Twilight's angry response was drowned out by the laughter of the sisters, and after a moment, a nervous chuckle from the other pair.
Author's Note
Y'know, I was originally going to make this a comedic story somehow, but when I started writing, I just kind of didn't.
I hope you liked it!
