Nightmare Before Dusk

Nightmare Moon barred her teeth, her sharp monstrous fangs, as she looked down at the impotent unicorn stallion that dared stand against her. He wasn’t alone. Five others - mares - grouped together with the pretty colt to stand against her. Their attempt to stop her eternal night disgusted her. It was a pathetic display. Lots of digressions about friendship, the power of… something or other. She barely listened to the plebs, and six of them dared to stand against her. Five had been felled but one… one was defiant. The mulberry pony slammed his hoof down and ran it across the floor, readying for a charge against her. Her! How dare he. “You’re kidding? You’re kidding right?”

He wasn’t kidding. She had seen the expression on his face a thousand times before. A thousand self-named heroes, a thousand ‘valiant attempts’ to end her plans... a thousand corpses. It was exciting the first hundred times, but after that it just became a nuisance, then it began to bore her. Maybe she should just put a magic beam though his chest now and get it over with… Nah. He was young, and full of spunk. She dared say, she felt sorry for him.

Nightmare narrowed her eyes and huffed. She decided to give him a chance to really prove himself in a fair exchange of might. She lowered her long, spiraled horn, the tip of which was sharp enough to puncture steel. Similarly, he lowered his, the smaller horn wasn’t as deadly, but one wrong move from her… things were beginning to get exciting again, and her lips cracked into a large and toothy smile. As they charged at each other, she was paying to the sound of her metallic shoes stamping into the stone ground, the rapid beating of her heart, the growing fire in her loins. A thousand years of banishment, and she was treated to a true fight, to a true opponent she could just sink her teeth into. For his honorable and futile charge, she thought about offering him mercy. She would just impale him through the heart…

In her excitement, she failed to noticed the magic pooling around the unicorn’s spiral.

Right when they were the two were bound to collide, there was a flash of magic which bounded the night alicorn. When she blinked away the spots in her eyes, she discovered that the unicorn had teleported away. The alicorn of the night skidded to a halt and looked around with a frustrated growl. “Where did you go?!” She demanded of the dishonorable cur.

She released a hiss when she spotted him, over her shoulder and far behind her. In her anger, she dissipated into a thick black cloud and shot towards him. She was unable to halt, even at the sight of him channeling his horn with magic.

When she assumed her physical form once more, landing before him, ready to strike, his purple missile glanced off the side of her neck. She gasped in pain, and on reflex, she simply swatted him in the face. Despite the weakness of her strike, he was blown away, and sent careening through the air. Displaying a surprising level of finesse, he landed and skidded across the old stone ground. Nightmare furrowed her brows, wide eyed. There was a magical energy connecting the six, she could sense it, see it as it bounced between their unconscious bodies, all linking with her unicorn opponent.

“No… NO!” She roared in rage. She couldn’t lose here! She couldn’t return to the banishment!

She braced herself, clamping shut her eyes, awaiting for the magical energy to hit her. For the first time in a thousand years, she felt afraid. She couldn’t go back. Not again, not to the isolation, the loneliness of a desolate rock in the midst of a void. There was no day, no night, just pale light and an empty sky above, the green and blue pearl across from her moon taunted her needlessly. She couldn’t… she couldn’t… A minute passed, then two. It was quiet. Was she back? No. She could feel the warm air on her coat, the gentle gust of a summertime night. Cautiously, her fear began to evaporate. She cracked open her eyelids, her bright blue hues looked upon her enemy, and oddly, she realized it before he did.

Nightmare smiled. It was almost piteous, but ultimately, it was cruel. She chuckled darkly, a low laugh that echoed off the walls of the ruin. Gradually, it grew launder, bringing up her when it evolved into a full on guffaw; slamming it down repeatedly upon the ground, feeling triumphant and oh so happy.

“No… No… no, no, no!” Dusk Shine’s lamentations came out after each shallow breath, panic beginning to overtake him as it dawned on him. He took a step back, looking upon the nightmare with a resolute terror, his expression horrified as he realized the futility the situation.

Nightmare smiled as he looked at him, taking slow and deliberate steps towards him. He was frozen with fear, and the alicorn knew she had all the time in the world now. Victory was hers. “You failed.” She told him, hammering the word into him, feeling a cruel glee as his expression tightened, tears starting to appear at the corners of his eyes. “You lost. Your plan failed. You let everypony down, and after all your hard work getting here, you haven’t a single thing to show for it…”

Each word, each truth, sank Dusk’s heart even lower. His hind legs eventually failed him, and his rear fell to the ground, tears fell to the floor from his blank face. “I know…” he muttered, emotionally drained. “I know.”

Nightmare stopped just before him, her lip curled. “Valiant effort though, I must admit. You tried everything you could. You bested my challenges in the forest to get to me. Not bad for a mere student, I suppose,” the alicorn parted some words of respect upon the pony. She just couldn’t help it. He was adorable. “You can’t be blamed honestly. The same way in which a foal cannot be blamed for being unable to run. I am a god, you… well, you are not.”

Nightmare heard nothing else from the broken stallion thereafter. She expected something. Some fire to remain, some kind of biting or scathing remark, some defiance. But… nothing. Nightmare raised her brow, looking down on the stallion with a passive countenance, glancing around awkwardly at the walls of the ruins, at a loss for what to do surprisingly. The sight was so depressing that not even she, in all her malevolent cruelty, could summon the heart to kill them all. Damnable unicorn.

She looked over Dusk. He was a lithe thing, clearly of a bookish demeanor. His frame was youthful, coltish, a stallion barely past the threshold of adulthood. Gears began to spin in her mind. They worked, and spun, like a machine whose purpose was to create a fate for the unicorn who dared defy her. Torture, imprisonment, unimaginable cruelty… were all pushed aside to make way for a more scandalous fate. One that came about from the memory of that charge, the one kindled a fire in her nethers, reminding her what she went a millenia without. So, perhaps there was a way to combine all of the above, with her need for personal satisfaction.

“I think I know what I’m going to do with you.” Nightmare informed him, the mare smiling when the stallion raised his muzzle to look at her, with justified worry in his eyes. Her inky mane slowly poured onto the ground, and spread towards him. The stallion was frozen, even as it began to cover him, the cold embrace wrapping around his hooves and coursing up. “You know, the moon is a beautiful thing, but it was awfully lonely. One thing I desired up there was-”

“A f-friend?” Dusk offered weakly, forcing an even weaker smile.

Nightmare Moon scoffed, her lips cracking into a menacing grin. She lowered down, until she was eye-to-eye with him; violet and cyan reflecting off one another. “I don’t have friends. I don’t long for any either. But there is one thing I’ve always wanted. Ever since I was a foal actually…” She said, her magical mane continued to envelop him, until all that remained was his head, the dark ethereal shadow continued to consume that as well. “A pet.”

With widened eyes, Dusk could barely react before the two of them suddenly disappeared in a flash.

Dusk’s friends entered the room soon after in a huff, looking around frantic and nervous for their friend. “Dusk? Dusk? Where are you?” One shouted…

But they were too late.