Mille Nox Noctis

10 AB

I awake and around me are the comforts of my room, my midnight blue sheets, my golden curtains that you gave to me, all that I own and would ever want.

With a stretch I yawn and look out the heavily veiled window, seeing it is evening.

Happily my hoof-falls bring me down the hall to the throne room where I feel you await me, Sister.

The sight of your white form and flowing mane fill me with far more joy than I had felt in so many years as I move to embrace you, and you look up in shock and horror.

"Luna?!" You say in shock, moving quickly back, away from me as my hoof brushes your silky mane.

"Sister, I..." Before I can speak I see a darkness spread from my touch, the hairs of many hues crystallized and falling away as you flee my touch.

With a cry of shock I stagger away as the grey shatters your hair and begins to spread in patches across your coat.

The grey turns parts of you to dust as you cry out in pain, a hoof falling off and leaving a splash of grey dust across the marble floor.

"What have you done, Luna? Why would you do this? I love...." You become nothing more than a pile of moon dust as I watch, the words I want so badly to hear robbed from you but the words you did manage tearing at my mind from within as my tears mingle with the dust, somehow turning it blood red as your remains coat me, dragging me down into my dusty, bloody grave.

I come to with The Nightmare's eyes filling my vision.

"Well. Wasn't that fun?" She whispers, almost dripping with pleasure at the thought of sending me under again.

"P...Please..." I beg as she drops a hoof full of moon dust across me, laughing with malice In her eyes.

"P... Please stop...."

She doesn't even think before replying.

"No."

And I drop violently into another sleeping terror.

11 AB

The little one thrashes in her sleep.

Two years of torture and she still clings to you as her salvation.

The most damaging phantoms being of your death or abandonment.

I have forced her to relive our banishment, our final moments on your planet, hundreds of times.

Yet still you do not come to save her.

I let her dream of your grace saving her from her current torture, before you rip her limb from limb.

Her silent screams lend me a fanged grin that glints in the moonlight.

It is quite amusing she once slept as a shelter from the isolation, that has ended.

I am The Nightmare, I am the terror of all dreams, the little one doesn't stand a chance.

I will turn her against you, you will become her worst fear, and you will never be able to reclaim her.

12 AB

I awake in a prison cell in the castle, but I do not panic, I do not even look around.

It took a long time but even The Nightmare cannot craft a dream that mimics reality perfectly.

Even as I hear you approach, Sister, I do not look up.

Your skeletal and rotting hoof forces my head up to look into your eyes as one of them falls from your head.

"I love you." I say in a dull monotone.

Your specter snarls, screaming obscenities at me.

"I love you." I say again, watching the dream fade as the Nightmare switches tactics.

The little one is far stronger in her faith in you than I could have predicted.

How she could have attacked you to begin with astounds me.

I have spent years trying to break her, she has not seen the light of your wretched sun in as long.

I finally let her rise from her dreams.

She opens her eyes and looks up to me with a smile.

I snarl.

"She has not come for you. She has abandoned you."

"I have not been in any danger. She knows that, if she is even able to see us."

"Then we shall remedy that."

I seize her hoof and slam it into the other leg as she lets out a shocked scream at the snap of bone.

As an alicorn it will heal quickly, within a month.

That simply means I can do it more often.

I leave her sobbing in pain and turn away.

The cries fill me with a twisted pleasure, and I lay down to enjoy the sensation as she recovers.

13 AB

I watch The Nightmare, my rage drifting through the empty space between us and somehow making it stronger.

The Nightmare grins wider.

The amount of physical pain she has inflicted upon me in the last year has surpassed anything I have ever felt even during the Discordant War.

My wings are crippled and my legs are unsteady.

My eyes are bruised and my horn has been broken then set back in place.

I have been unconscious for so long, I could only track the date by the stars.

I fought off The Nightmare finally, forcing her away as she rushed me to break my spine, curious if I could heal from something so terrible.

The blast of energy I used to force her away was pitch black and flecked with stars, not my deep blue magic I was used to.

"What have you done to me?" I choke out, coughing out blood and dust in equal measure.

She laughs, shaking her head in disbelief.

She is big again, an alicorn as black as night itself.

"You truly don't understand, do you? It is better this way, though. I get to have more fun with you if you don't understand."

I blast her away again.

Then I keep blasting her, my fear of the pain she has caused me driving me to new heights of power as I bury her in the grey dust.

My dreaming terrors echo in my head as I seal her underground, knowing that she may escape, but I may have a time without her.

I can be at peace again.

I block out her screams and turn away.

14 AB

Slowly, I pull air from your planet. The power required is immense and only the close proximity allows for it at all.

Wisps of the precious atmosphere at first, growing to a small layer around my moon.

The glow of the silvery sphere seems to increase a little, likely making it more visible.

I breathe for the first time in more than a decade.

I do not need breath, but it is unnerving and unsettling not to do so.

I meditate, feeling the breeze conjured up by the spells binding the air to the surface of my satellite.

Within months I have built myself a cave, which I shall sleep in, so I need not travel to rest.

During the carving of the cave I discover the dust is rich in minerals, and am stricken by a thought which fills me with joy.

Using yet more energy and seemingly endless time, I forge a sheet of metal from the Moon rock.

Even in the low gravity of the Moon I can tell it is light, far lighter than the metals we forged to create armor so many years ago.

This sheet is split into two rectangles and a very long strip, which I then fashion into a rough violin.

I only ever took interest in the violin, over other instruments I was offered lessons in. Over the years the mournful sound of the violin became a secret pleasure of mine and I became good enough to have written several songs for the instrument.

A strip of my tail serves as the bow, strung along another strip of the Lunar Metal.

I begin to play.

Tuning an instrument forged from an unknown metal in thin air without any tools takes time, but eventually I have a tune that reminds me of a true violin.

I name this The Luname.

And for once I find peace as I play.

(Following song is the song she plays, ignore the video, I couldnt find this song without the video but if someone knows the name of the song ill change this link: Solitude )