Underneath a star-filled blue sky a pony opened her eyes and squinted up at the moon that shone large and bright above her. A cursory glance informed her that she lay in what appeared to be a lonely clearing surrounded with trees.
She knew not where she was, yet there were more important questions at hoof…. Hoof? Upon second thought the term sounded both foreign and familiar. It made sense to use the term hoof, did it not? For she had hooves of her own… Did she not? With a grunt of effort she pushed up into a similarly familiar, but foreign, standing position and looked down.
She did indeed have hooves. Her fur was an off white and it appeared that she was wearing some form of shoes. Or at least she was mostly wearing them. Her back right hoof was outright missing one and the rest looked damaged.
A pity, she really liked this armor. It brought out the color in her eyes….
She looked down and frowned at the sight of a jagged hole that rent through the armor on her chest. It divided what looked like an ornate sun in half… From the signs of the state of her armor, she had been in some sort of battle. Yes? Battle felt familiar….
But why could she remember nothing before this point?
Wait, what was that over there? It was covered in vines, however she knew that she saw something underneath…. At first she tried to take a vine in her mouth and give it a good tug but it would not come free. Her wide wings flared and she flapped them, attempting to provide further force. This was rewarded with a rustle and a snap as the vine snapped and she was sent tumbling back with several muttered curses in ‘old equish’.
She glared balefully at the vine covered statue (for what else could a stone figure be) and much to her surprise she felt the rising anger rush out of her. The vines on the statue then erupted into flame, making her yelp and backpedal away even further.
The mare let out a sigh and hung her head. Something told her fire was bad…. Out of the corner of her eye she could see what appeared to be flames dancing on her shoulder. This prompted a reaction that she would keep a secret to her dying day. She screamed like a little filly and dropped to the grass, starting to roll around. Much to her horror and surprise the fire did not go out. Neither did it catch the grass on fire. The panic began to ebb, and she started to feel foolish. Why was she afraid of her own mane? Her tail was in a similar state was it not? Such idiocy. Nopony would ever hear of this!
She quickly righted herself and huffed, teeth clenched together while she approached the statue as if the events of the past several minutes had never occurred.
The statue was of a pony, but the elements had not been very kind to it. She wondered how long it has been here. There looked to be an inscription, though…
“Daybreaker”
That stuck a familiar chord inside her. Something that resonated deep into her heart and soul. THAT was my name. Daybreaker
With this realization came further confusion. That was her name, but it was not… As heartened as it were that she knew her own name, it felt more like a pseudonym… Or some other moniker…. Yet, she felt comfortable thinking of herself as Daybreaker. Her old name hardly mattered right now.
She gazed up at the moon and felt a tumultuous rush of emotions… Hatred, despair, sorrow, longing…. The sight of the moon hanging above was like that of a lost friend, or perhaps…. sister. A massive surge of hatred erupted from her heart at that. Sister, it was!…. The Betrayer.
She fought with her sister for days as SHE tried to murder her! And then her ponies have the gall to take her side and… She brought a hoof up to the split chest piece. She remembered a blue blade held by a black mare bearing tears that evaporated as soon as they fell. Something had happened. She had… died?
Was that why she felt so strange?
A wetness brought her hoof to her right eye and when she pulled it back she saw that her fetlock was dampened. Tears? Her sister had tried to KILL her! She had betrayed her!
CURSE HER!
Daybreaker dropped to the ground as the welling hatred pulsated in her heart. This felt terrible… This felt wrong! Her hooves rest upon her head and pulled what seemed to be some form of helm off. With the helm discarded she buried her head beneath her hooves to try to cut herself off from the outside world. Sister…
--//The sound of battle pierced her ears as she ‘saw’ a black furred pony as big as she is wielding a large crescent axe in her magic. The black pony soundlessly yelled out and dove at her. Daybreaker reached out, took her own weapon in her magic and blocked the strike with a snarl.//--
Breaking from the vision she let out a yelp and stumbled back. A massive tree crashed to the ground before her, narrowly missing the statue, dirt falling from the roots where the tree had been wrenched up from the earth.
Levitation, one of the most basic of unicorn magic…. Foals play for an alicorn of her terrible might!
She closed her eyes again and shook of that thought. She turned to the large tree and focused on it, her horn lighting up with magic. The tree didn’t budge an inch. She felt disgust worm it’s way into her gut and turned her back on the tree in disgust. She took a few stumbling steps, her gait righting itself with only a minor limp. Let us not remember that we cannot even pick up a measly tree in our magic. She needed to find somepony and… ask them a few questions.
A black pony gazed out over the land with tired, teal eyes. Her armor had long since been traded in for something more regal and less…. Practical, much to her despair. Decorative silver shoes that shone in the moonlight, a breastplate bearing her emblem, and a tiara were all that she wore now whence in the past she had the tenancy to wear her armor much to her sister’s chagrin.
Why was she feeling so nostalgic all of a sudden?
Had it really been so long since the night began? … Had it been so long since she had slain her sister?
It had all gone so wrong…. She had hoped that a show of force would cow her sister, but after three days when her strength began to wane Celestia lost all form of reason and had come at her with everything she had. With every spell she saw her sister’s form pervert much like her own, and it was then that she realized that her plan had gone awry. For all the close calls she had never meant to murder her own sister, just…. make her surrender.
Celestia hated combat, and Luna was always the victor in their impromptu training with the guard. Yet as the red sun rose she realized that her sister was not infallible. When she fell into the fire of her own fury, the being known as Daybreaker had been born. As great and terrible as Nightmare Moon. The rush of power had put her on her back hoof, but it was only because of those ponies that had come to aid her that she had prevailed.
While her sister was distracted she had gone in for the kill.
Her sister had died that day. In more ways than just one. Kindness had turned to rage, and the very sun had started to burn the Equestria she had once loved. On that final day, Nightmare Moon had died as well.. It was such a silly name created to strike fear into her sister’s heart… Yet as she cradled her sister’s body and bore it to the Everfree…
Why was she thinking of this now? Why? Oh…
She chanced a glance at a nearby paper that held the date. A thousand years since the ‘Final Day’….. A thousand years since her sister was slain. She brought a hoof up to wipe a few tears that had begun to collect. While she had retained Nightmare Moon’s physical appearance for the most part, her fur had lightened a few shades to vaguely resemble the pony she once was…. The corruption was something she would have to bear for the rest of her immortal life.
A cursed immortal life without her sister. The first century she had tried to distract herself with work… Picking up where Celestia had left off, dealing with some territory conflicts and even dealing with the fact that without the sun many plants had begun to wither and die.
An eternal night, such a foolish thing.
The elements of harmony had turned into useless chunks of rock, otherwise they would have been able to remove the taint!
Luna sighed and turned back towards her bed. It would be a short night until she had to be up for her ‘royal duty’…. She almost missed having to wake up early in the evening to let her sister lower the sun so she could raise the moon. Such a distant, fleeting memory….
A pang of sadness crept into her heart as she slipped down and curled up on the covers. She hoped that wherever her sister had gone after death that she would be able to run free, bereft of royal duty….
‘What in Tartarus is wrong with this forest?!’ Daybreaker let out a yelp as she ducked underneath some form of wooden wolf with glowing green eyes and absolutely nauseating breath!
It smelled like a decomposing corpse encased with decaying wood!
Why would a mare that could torch vines in mere frustration have trouble with a few wolves?
Because she didn’t want to burn the whole damn forest down, that’s why! Something held her back, making her think of all the ‘innocent creatures’ such a wildfire might harm…
Innocent creatures instead of her own survival?! MADNESS!
Bucking madness!
Nevertheless, here she was running for her life from a band of wolves made from firewood! She let out a sigh and spun, flinging a branch she held back into the face of a wolf who was following just behind her fiery tail.
Had she mentioned just how useful an incorporeal tail was? She would have been food for these things many times over if they had been able to grab ahold of either her mane or tail...
However... What use were wings that she couldn’t move to? And magic she couldn’t use when she willed?!
It was sad, and outright infuriating! A figure of her stature reduced to running away!
She broke through the tree line and her eyes went wide. That was not good! Her hooves dug into the dirt as she skidded to a stop on the edge of a massive gouge in the very land! A gouge that had a pang of familiarity.
She narrowly had time to flare out her wings and make a desperate leap into the branches above before those insufferable piles of twigs would be upon her!
And now she hit the bottom of the barrel.
Hiding up in a tree while those wooden beasts snarled up at her from below. It was enough to make her blood boil and visions of this forest burning were becoming increasingly tempting. Yet…
NO, what if somepony got caught in the blaze?
A stomp of her shoe clad hoof shook the branch she was on and she stared out across the gorge.
In what was the more ‘peaceful’ part of her trek through this light-forsaken forest, she had tried to fly. And tried… and tried. Her dignity could not take hitting the dirt even one more time.
As she stared out across the gorge she could feel the tree shake. She would not fall victim to these wolves made of combustible!
The mare, even if she couldn’t fly, would attempt the most basic of pegasi maneuvers. How hard could it be to glide across? She rose on the shaking tree and took a deep breath.
One… Two… She leaped from the branch into the open space over the gorge and spread her wings. It took a considerable amount of willpower not to close her eyes. She would make it.. She would!
But why did it look more like she was falling?
…Oh dear mother…
Author's Note
Comments and Critiques are appreciated. This is my first attempt at writing something to actually post up somewhere.
Preface: Dawn of the Final Day
“Many years have passed since the moon turned upon the sun and ponykind was forced to make a most terrible choice, and yet I feel like it was yesterday. I stood guard for our princess during the day, and when I took my post I saw her speaking with her sister.
If only we, as subjects, knew what our neglect was doing to the princess of the night! Then we might never...
Nevermind…
The princess of our night turned upon Celestia, princess of our day, and they waged a fierce battle. The towers of our castle rocked and many fell under their might! A gorge was rent onto the earth that stretches nigh as far as the eye can see.
The long night, some called it. The time when our night princess went to war with her own sister…
……
The sun rose. The dawn of the final day.
An angry, flaming red ball of fire that overcame the dark of the night. On that third morning Princess Celestia appeared like a demon, wreathed in fire. Those who stepped into the sunlight were quickly afflicted with terrible burns from the heat. Grass began to shrivel. The canopies of trees erupting into fire. Around us the very world began to burn in HER fury.
An angry, betrayed goddess furious with the hand fate had dealt her…. The peals of broken laughter we could hear hiding within the castle sent chills down our spines. She was no longer the kind princess that we had doted upon. She would burn us all…. The ponies here in Everfree… The ponies back home in the Foal Mountain settlement… I wonder if the ice up in the north was melting to.
……
Much to our sorrow…. First Minister Clear Sight passed from the heat on the sixth day.
We had to put a stop to it. How could we truly choose between two evils? A mare who would place the whole of Equestria into an eternal night or….
Or a mare who wanted to burn Equestria of all that caused her such pain….
May our forebears forgive us for the choice we made. A group of our best left to aid Nightmare Moon in battle. That was the last we ever saw of them. After a quarter cycle of the royal timepiece, the sun flared an angry red once again before it faded into it’s normal gentle yellow… then dimmed as night overtook it… And then it was gone. To all of us who saw this we didn’t know what to feel….
The sky was dark, and the moon shown overhead triumphant.
I thought…’May our remaining goddess have mercy on us’…. “
Captain Gleaming Targe, ~~First Solar Regiment~~ Eighth Lunar battalion
Author's Note
Well, here I am to try to give writing a try. Wish me luck.