Monody of a Nightmare

She's not quite sure how long her temper tantrum had lasted. All she knows is that she had stomped about hard and long enough to embed parts of two of her delicate silver horseshoes within the frogs of her hooves, and that enough time had passed for her mane to lose several stars and gain just a few more.

As the last, token embers of her rampage first fade, flicker, then die out, a deep, insistent ache begins to make itself known from within her injured hooves, and were she still able to voluntarily produce fluids, she might tear up at the feeling. As it stands, she settles for a slight wince as she sits down upon the pale surface of her prison, favoring her right forehoof and back left hoof in the process.

At The Nightmare's first attempt to remove the first horseshoe, she must pause to tilt her head back, jaw opened wide and displaying all of her serrated teeth as her expression twists with agony. It lasts for years, centuries, millennia, and for several minutes until, finally, she lowers her trembling head to find that the stubborn silver has moved maybe half of a centimeter from its original position.

She grits her teeth. Luna whispers a tentative offer. Her pride is what causes her to shove her counterpart away, and the force silences herself once more, still watching The Nightmare as her surface thrums with worry.

'This is going to hurt.'

Gripping at the shoe with both her substantially weakened magic and her other forehoof, she yanks at the tarnished silver as hard as she can. It comes off with a small squirt of blood and pus before clattering to Luna's surface, and as The Nightmare catches a glimpse of the inside of the destroyed regalia, she finds herself dismayed at the fact that her long-emptied stomach is still able to lurch so strongly.

The dry heaves last for at least ten minutes, and her throat burns for hours after. She decides that, perhaps, she should not look at the shoe again.

Glancing down at her injured forehoof, she grimaces at the sight of the scraped keratin and the way her unshorn fetlocks fail to hide the raw patches where the horseshoe had dug into the sensitive meeting of flesh and hoof. A flash of anger runs through her. When Luna sends her hushing, comforting words, she does not push them away this time.

The healing process is wrought with just as much - The Nightmare would argue even more - agony as its start had been.

As she glares at the scabbed-over frog of her right forehoof, that dark little thing squirms around inside of her heart, hot and strong and angry. She goes to pick at it, hissing silently as Luna pushes upon her mind insistently, begging her to leave it be.

Her songs tell tales of a nasty scar that will leave her frog thickened with unnaturally tough tissue and a weakened ability to grip objects manually, if she is to follow this path, and it is all tinted with that imploring, sorrowful tone.

'We shalt do what We DESIRE!'

She rips the scab off and tips her head back to shriek into the endless void of space once more as blood oozes to the surface of her injury, rushing forth to meet the vacuum of her prison and forming deadly crystals. As the nothingness of her surroundings attempts to enter her flesh, and she watches the skin around the newly-reopened wound bloat up before the faint, black glow of her magic surrounds it to heal it once more, her grimace darkens into an infuriated and wretched scowl.

'This is all Our blasphemous sister's fault.'

Luna brushes up against her mind with a tentative, gentle touch, requesting the freedom to speak her piece without being silenced.

It is a neutral request, and so, The Nightmare grants it with a heave of her chest that would've been an angst-filled huff.

Her second half sings to her of how this is not Celestia's fault at all, but rather nopony's fault at all. How it is The Nightmare's fault, how it is Luna's fault, how it is the universe's fault and how it is Terra's fault even as it is nobody and nothing's fault at all. It is simply a casualty of the war that The Nightmare had fought and lost of no fault of her own, and as Luna's lilting voice drifts into The Nightmare's head, she urges the pitch-black mare to please begin to forgive herself.

The condescending, airless scoff that The Nightmare releases in response is less than half-hearted in its efforts, all of the fuel behind it drained out of her by Luna's words and the suction of space.

At least the latter seems to have been blocked by the new, oh-so-thin scab that has just finished forming over her frog.

She decides to leave it be for the time being.

'...what didst thou mean when thou asked Us to forgive Ourself?'

Luna sighs with the weight of a world inhabited by a single, hurting alicorn. She remains silent for a moment too long, and her song is weak as she whispers - so, so softly that The Nightmare must strain to catch the sad notes - that she mustn't give her other half answers to questions which she isn't ready to ask.

A flash of irritation runs through The Nightmare's body, settling within her heart and fueling the dark little thing writhing about inside, but she tamps it down. The action takes no small amount of effort, but...

The moon's lilting, airless winds caress her mane in a way that neither magic nor science can possibly capture.

'Dear Luna...We art growing so weary of all of this- this hatred. Perhaps We shouldst begin to face the truth that-'

Sharp fangs grit together, then worry at a charcoal lower lip. The Nightmare struggles to face her next thoughts as she draws forth tiny pinpricks of blood from her nervous chewing.

'-that perhaps Our Nightmare shalt never truly be satisfied.'

Her eyes ache. She wishes she could cry.

'It beeth like Us, in a way.'

In a rare fit of anger, Luna positively hisses out a questioning retort.

'Calm thyself, O Calm One.'

She receives a barrage of curses that slowly taper off into melodic laughter.

'We simply mean that Our Nightmare seems to be...shrinking.'

The question is much curioser and gentler this time.

'Thou hast seen that, as We hath starved upon thine surface, We hath become shrunken and small.'

As the dark little creature screams out to her for vengeance, she squishes it like an ant with the ease of decades of practice.

'Our Nightmare, too, hath become smaller.'

The shock from her soul's counterpart is both expected and well-warranted. She nods in agreement.

'We believe it is due to the fact that We hath been squashing it down at every opportunity, rather than encouraging and feeding the little pest.'

Luna sings her praises, lauds her for her efforts, practically bombards her with cheer and pride, and The Nightmare's breast swells with joy, cheeks glowing with the faintest of flushes as what little, dehydrated blood she has left rises to the apples of them.

'We thank thou for thine kindness, dearest Luna, but 'twere thine own words that sparked the beginning of Our extermination efforts.'

She already knows what The Nightmare had meant, but all the same, she hums inquisitively.

'Thou art as coy as ever, Luna. We mean what thou said about...Us forgiving Ourself.'

It is agonizing to gulp, but as the bone-dry folds of her throat stick together, she does it all the same, too used to the sensation to gag anymore.

'We cannot forgive Ourself if all We are is a vessel controlled by Our Nightmare. We wert prepared to control it at its full power until We grew strong enough - or simply used to its screams - to be welcomed back to Terra, but...We art just as powerful as We wert back when We first started.'

A mirthless chuckle leaves her as she glances down at the front of her barrel, bones so well-defined that she can count every single rib.

'Most likely even less.'

She shakes her head, whickering silently as she lays upon her belly and gives a weak smile at Luna's comforting hushes.

'So as it became easier to push away Our Nightmare, We examined it closer, and found that it had become smaller.'

Her smile grows just a little bit as she tries to avoid irritating the split in her lower lip. She fails as it breaks back open, the taste of iron flooding her mouth as blood invades every single parched inch of her tongue.

'We believe that...perhaps We shalt continue with Our efforts. We do not wish to be so optimistic as to believe that We couldst ever destroy Our Nightmare entirely, but...We couldst weaken it enough so that it is a nuisance instead of a threat.'

For the first time in over a millennium, something like hope simmers warm in her chest.