“It’s such a beautiful night tonight, isn’t it?” Nightmare Moon said in a chipper voice.
“It is ma’am.” Supreme General Umbra replied to his queen. Both were currently located on a balcony that led out from the queen’s throne room. It was the highest point of the queen’s mountain side castle, and from there you could see the entirety of the capital city of Canterlot. Nightmare Moon would often go to the balcony to just think and reflect on her life. Things from her mother’s death, to killing her own sister, and her being crowned queen would often be on her mind. She stood right at the edge of her white stone balcony, fore hooves planted firmly on the gold trimmed railing as she looked over her nation. She was dressed in a fancy dress of midnight blacks and royal blues. The colors complemented her black coat and dark blue star-filled mane nicely, a mane that flowed outwards off towards the horizon. Her sparkling silver crown sat on her head containing blue sapphires, the same blue color as her eyes. Her overall outfit was themed around the night sky, in an attempt to distance her rule from her sister's tyrannical day themed empire. Her light blue fishnet stockings trailed from her thighs and shoulders to her dark blue hoof guards, hoof guards that currently shuffled as Nightmare Moon turned to face her general. Her lips smacked together as she began to speak once more.
“Do you think that if I cracked down harder on the protests that they’d stop or become prevalent?” She questioned as she walked towards her general. The plush red carpet that extended from her throne room and onto the balcony squished as she took steps on it. As she walked the moon light glistened on some of her sparkly silver makeup, highlighting her heavy purple eyeshadow and long black eye lashes. The whole effect gave her an almost ethereal look, with her whole face a glow. Her thestral general squinted at the display and answered his lady in turn.
“I believe they’ll just become more of a nuisance, your highness.” Umbra replied while staring slightly up at the cloudy night sky. The moon was shining bright on that cold Autumn night. It lit up the general in a way to reveal the many metals he had on his black military uniform. The whole uniform was then accented with various shades of blue. The general stood with his bat wings kept closed at his sides, a serious expression on his gray face. His thick black eyebrows gave his face a permanent scowl. His eyebrows shared the same midnight black color as his slicked back black mane and the slight stubble that dappled his face.
Nightmare Moon clicked her tongue as she turned away from her general and back towards the balcony’s end. She brushed her blue mane out of her face and sighed as she planted her hooves once more on the balcony’s golden railing. She leaned forward and pouted slightly. Her gaze was drawn to the horizon as she mulled over her thoughts.
“I was worried you’d say that...” She trailed off. Umbra tore his gaze from the sky and looked at the queen. He was about to comment before Nightmare Moon spoke up again. “Why are ponies so resistant to my rule?” She turned and faced Umbra, now leaning back against the balcony’s railing. “I mean I’m just trying to help the uneducated masses. They should be grateful, if it weren’t for me they’d still be living under sister’s rule.” She looked to the sky and tilted her head back deep in thought. “When sister took over they all sang her praises, ‘oh we love you Queen Daybreaker!’” She said mockingly. “But even though they crowned me and celebrated me they hate me now? I just don’t get-”
The rest of what Nightmare Moon had to say was cut off as a sharp pain in her gut made itself known. Her face looked towards the heavens, a mixture of pain and surprise displayed on it. She looked down at her gut as her eyes shrunk to pin pricks. Driven through her stomach was a blade. A long sword had skewered her through her gut and right out her back. She looked up to see that the saber belonged to her own general, Umbra. He was right in front of her now, looking at her with a pained expression as a single tear trailed from his right eye down his face. Nightmare Moon tried to ignite her horn and flare out her wings, but before she could Umbra tore his blade out of her body and sliced her horn and wings clean off at their base’s. He tossed aside his weapon and caught her as she crumpled to the ground, cradling her in his arms while the blood from her wound stained his uniform. She coughed up some blood and weakly looked at her general and asked one simple question, confusion clear on her face.
“W-why?” She stuttered, teary eyed. Umbra’s pained expression gave way to a determined one as he stood up pulling Nightmare Moon up with him. He leaned her against the balcony’s golden railing, holding her shoulders, and got right in her grief-stricken face as he spoke.
“I had to.” He simply stated. He got right up against her, pressing into her chest as he stared at her coldly with his piercing yellow eyes. “I know some will see me as a hero for what I’m doing, but I don’t feel like one. I’m just simply a pony who happened to be at the right place at the right time. I didn’t want to do this, honestly I didn’t.”
“You just…” He trailed off as he began to break down into tears, “You became a tyrant! Just like Queen Daybreaker!” Nightmare Moon was crying harder now, hearing all of this from Umbra. “You always told me that everything you did was in an effort to scrub your sister’s tyranny away, but all you did was replace her tyranny with yours!”
“But I…” Nightmare Moon tried to speak, but she was cut off by Umbra.
“No,” He said, “No, you don’t see it. You got so wrapped up in the political game that you become jaded. You forgot what put you in the position of queen in the first place. You cracked down on ponies to keep them in line and tried to make them conform to your vision of what a model kingdom should look like. You took away their freedoms and tried to scare them into line!”
Umbra controlled himself, staring at Nightmare Moon with a coldness in his slitted eyes, “You even enslaved your subjects and forced them to mine during a resource shortage. Your very own subjects! You just became the very thing you sought to destroy, and somebody had to stop you. They had to!”
Umbra breathed heavily as he looked right through Nightmare Moon’s own slitted eyes and straight into her soul. At that moment, she knew he was right. “So, I have a plan.” Umbra began, “I’ll dispose of you and say you were assassinated right in front of me. They wouldn’t suspect the supreme general, so they’d believe me when I tell them who it was. I’ll say it was a well-known criminal and they’ll take the fall. Then as supreme general I’ll be crowned King Umbra. I’ll use my new found political power to rid this nation of tyranny and set up a council. And slowly, over time I’ll set up a democracy and dismantle this monarchy. Doing the one thing you and your sister could never do, bring about true peace.”
With that finished he looked at Nightmare Moon with regret clear on his face. He took his hooves off her shoulders and grabbed her by the thighs. Lifting her up and then letting her fall backwards off the railing. As Nightmare fell she saw the truth in Umbra’s words and smiled a tear-filled smile. She saw him staring at her with a crestfallen expression as he collapsed to the ground and wailed in agony. She wished him the best as she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, accepting her fate. The last thing she heard as she fell was Umbra’s cries of anguish, because after that there was nothing. Her world went pitch black as her skull connected to the rocks below her, splintering into a million different pieces. The moment she died was the moment her country was free. It was reborn and to be shaped into a new and free nation, one without tyranny. One finally and truly at peace.
“What a shame.” a dark figure mused. From the mountain where they stood they could see the burning remains of Canterlot clearly. The cold night’s wind whipped the figure’s dark black mane around wildly. It had been a year since Queen Nightmare Moon had been assassinated and King Umbra crowned Equestria’s new leader. He had tried very hard to weed out corruption within his government, but in the end he was the one to ultimately be corrupted. The dark figure stepped from the shadow of a tree and into the moonlight, revealing a red curved horn and kingly garbs.
“To think one with such high hopes of destroying tyranny would fall to its practices in the end.” Sombra postulated as he continued to watch the capital of Equestria go up in flames. He had recently been crowned king of the Crystal Empire and had come to Equestria to partake in trade negotiations, only to find the capital in disarray. He saw the allure of power twist Celestia and Luna into what they had become. A queen burning with a fiery rage and another queen trying to snuff out all the light with her darkness.
“In the end the cycle of tyranny persisted, and this time it seems to have finally caused Equestria to collapse.” Sombra said impassively. One of Sombra’s escort guards came up to him and asked him what they should do. Sombra thought about his next actions carefully. He concluded that there was nothing he could do for Equestria. It was given three chances to change its ways, yet it refused and now it goes up in flames. He decided to turn back with his escort and return to his kingdom. He left Equestria to own devices, he left it to burn. ‘Maybe from its ashes something pure can rise?’ he thought, ‘Or maybe it will stay dead. Only time shall tell.’ Sombra set out on the trip to return to his kingdom, one yet to be tainted by tyranny and one he ruled with compassion and fairness. A kingdom truly at peace, at least for now.
