Princess Luna opens her eyes to an astral plain. She stood upon thick clouds, though it felt more like a hard-surfaced floor. The thick clouds seemed to have no end below her, meaning Luna had no clue how high in the air she was. Above her was a sky full of stars, not a single cloud blocking them. There was, however, a red hue to the whole sky and the clouds below, though Luna didn’t seem to mind, believing it to be the effects of aurora borealis.
Luna knew exactly where she was, even if it looked a whole lot different than she remembered. She was in the dream realm, her nightly domain. In her thousand-moon absence, it seems the realm changed itself into the bare bones of what Luna had created. She remembered it having rolling hills, beautiful constellations in the sky, all centering around an elegant castle of Luna’s design. The red hue seemed to be the only thing that hadn’t changed, though ironically that was something that did change from time to time.
Luna thought back to how it used to be, how many years it took her dream of everything, trying to make everything perfect. All gone due to the lack of her mind’s presence. It would take a long time to rebuild it all, but it was important to her work. It was the realm she brought ponies suffering from nightmares to calm and relax for the rest of their nights, anything they dream of would appear before them and any nightmares would disappear from their mind. She was determined to get it back in working order for the ponies who desperately needed it, and there were quite a lot.
“How does that work if you’re the nightmare?” a voice behind Luna asked. It sounded exactly like Luna. Luna glanced behind her, not even startled.
“Be gone, I’ve no time for emotional projections, there’s much to be done.”
“Oh Luna, you know I can’t leave, a pony can’t get rid of their own emotional projections.”
Luna gave a small growl as she turned around, she should have known this was going to happen, it had only been a week since she returned after all. In front of her was… her, there was very few differences between the two. The main one being that it was ever so slightly see through. Aside from this, it was a near perfect replica of how Luna saw herself.
“Fine, what is it you were brought out for?”
“A simple question, though it will probably expand into more as we go,” The projection said, “How are you going to pay your debts, Luna?”
Luna took a step back, “W-what do you mean by that?”
The projection took a step forward, “Oh you know exactly what I mean Luna.”
Luna closed her eyes and stamped a forehoof down, “No, Tia told me all was forgiven.”
“Luna, you know that isn’t true for everypony, you know there are those out there that are scared of you, that hate you. They remember what you did a thousand moons ago.”
“I was a different pony! Nightmare Moon commanded those soldiers, not me!” At this point tears were rolling down Luna’s face, remembering the countless soldiers that she, as Nightmare moon, had slaughtered. She lowered to a sitting position.
“You and Nightmare Moon are one in the same, you can try to deny it all you want but you know it to be true. The question is, when will they decide to get their revenge, and when they do, how will you react when the fires have surrounded you, and everypony is coming after you?” The projection circled around the crying mare, slowly transforming into Nightmare Moon. Luna once again shook her head.
“No, Tia wouldn’t let anypony harm me, even if I do deserve it…”
“Are you so sure?” The projection said from over her shoulder, it had a smirk on its face.
“Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
The projection lifted a hoof in front of Luna’s face, it slowly started to turn dark red as blood manifested itself onto the hoof, “You have a lot of blood on your hooves, Luna. Countless soldiers, innocents, even Starswirl couldn’t escape you. Of course, there was also Celestia’s student, barely earned her cutie mark and you ended her without a second thought, you didn’t even know her name, you just wanted to hurt Celestia. Don’t you remember?”
She did remember. It was one of the last things she did before Celestia banished her. She remembered how she just strolled into the castle with her guards, cutting down soldiers and servants alike. She recalls how she chose that specific day because Celestia was out on the front lines and her precious student was all but unguarded. The poor filly wasn’t even awake when she burst in. Luna shuddered as she thought of it, how unfair it was. She could only imagine how Celestia felt when she found out. She shut her eyes harder and stamped her forehooves on the ground.
“But they know I’m sorry! Tia knows I’m sorry for everything I’ve done!” Luna cried out.
“You’re not so sure of that, are you?”
Luna closed her eyes, tears streaming down them, she wasn’t sure, in fact, she was surer of the opposite, that everypony including Celestia hated her.
“I-It won’t be long before they want my head on a pike, I have too much blood on my hooves. W-what can I do? I’ve nowhere to run and hide.”
She looked back to the now blood covered monster that was her projection, looking for answers to what she could do.
“You have to remain here and take whatever punishments they give you, and you must never let yourself forget what you did,” The projection stated coldly.
“But what if they don’t punish me if Tia doesn’t bring it up?”
“Why would she not bring it up? You caused her more pain than she ever deserved,” it snarled.
“T-Tia may hate me, but she wouldn’t bring it up, she’s never been like that, I was always the more vocally angry one.”
“Hmph, that’s true, but then it’s simple. You still have the knowledge of the war; the dream magic we developed.”
“The Tantabus?” Luna’s eyes widened at the thought of it. The projection gave a sadistic smile.
Luna had developed the Tantabus as a way of psychologically scaring her enemies. It would enter a pony’s dream and induce the pony’s worst nightmares. It wouldn’t stop until the pony woke up meaning not even the strongest of Celestia’s troops could withstand it. Of course, Luna never completely mastered it, and it seemed to have a mind of its own as to where it went, but if Luna kept it in her own mind than it would be a perfect punishment.
“Yes, you’re right, that will work, it’s the least a monster like me deserves…”
The projection nodded, “Now you must wake, it’s nearly morning and you have to find the spell in the old library, or wherever it ended up.”
Luna nodded and stood up, wiping her eyes. The projection burst into mist and was slowly absorbed into Luna’s form, becoming a part of her again. Her eyes flashed the briefest of green before she blinked and it was gone, she didn’t even notice it. She sighed and closed her eyes to rejoin the waking world.