The True Story of Nightmare Moon
The Settings of the Sun
By iAmSiNnEr
Inspired by Shrink Laureate
“LUNAAAAAAA I NEED YOUR HELP COME QUICK IT’S AN EMERGENCY!”
Luna barged into the room, her horn alit with several defensive spells ready. “What is it, sister?” She paused, her horn going out. “What—”
Celestia shook a giant roll of paper in frustration. “Can you help me figure the settings for the sun out? I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to increase or decrease the humidity of the sun.”
“Oh.” Luna harrumphed. “Use the remote. Switch over to system B, and you can upload the settings to the main screen. You’ll see humidity on the section labeled ‘how to torture the ponies’, it’s pretty obvious.”
“...who named that?” Celestia looked up.
“You did, sister,” Luna pointed out. “After much effort by Mother to persuade you otherwise.”
“It was a good idea at the time!” Celestia protested. “I wanted to make it easy for me to remember!”
“What about the section you labeled ‘gamer moments’?” Luna muttered.
“IT WAS A REFERENCE TO MOVING YOUR AVATAR IN A GAME!”
“Video games haven’t even been invented for another three thousand years!” Luna retorted.
“Well, what about the game of Mario we played last night?” Celestia protested. “That was fun!”
“WE DID WHAT NOW?”
“You were drunk, too.”
“I WAS WHAT NOW?!”
“Ignore whatever I said,” Celestia quickly said. “Do you know how to shift the sun up and down? It’s not in ‘gamer moments’. It really is so confusing, figuring out the settings.”
“It’s in ‘Luna is annoying and won’t let me do this on my own’,” Luna grumbled. “Honestly, you named all of them yourselves. How do you not know your own settings?”
“The manual’s confusing, okay?” Celestia muttered. “Like, why is there even a setting to burn everyone alive?”
“At least it’s not as bad as mine,” Luna offered. “Mine has a send a piece of the moon hurtling to the planet, killing the entire planet’s population by throwing it off the gravitational field of the sun.”
“...you’re making things up, right?”
“The gravitational field part, yes,” Luna admitted. “But as for the killing the entire planet thing, I still can’t figure out if it does kill every creature that exists on the planet.”
“Okay, wait,” Celestia frowned as she read down the long scroll. “The manual says there’s a setting to ‘go Nightmare’. What does that even mean?”
“Should we try it?” Luna wondered.
“Not now,” Celestia shook her head. “It says here, emergencies only. Or if you’re pissed.”
“Gotcha. So the next time you steal the cookies from the cookie jar.”
Celestia looked sheepish. “Look, it was chocolate chip. Chocolate chip cookies are important.”
“Of course,” Luna sighed. “So what else do you need to clarify?”
“I found a setting that apparently starts global warming,” Celestia looked up. “That’s not a good idea, right?”
“Probably not, no.”
“Hey, look, the option for a solar eclipse—” Celestia paused. “Why does it say, do not use unless you have used the Nightmare option?”
“Father and Mother were weird,” Luna grumbled. “Like, seriously, if you give us a manual for the sun and moon, give us something we can understand.”
“Okay, so, what’s in your manual?” Celestia glanced over.
“Mine included turning the moon to cheese,” Luna rolled her eyes. “What was the point of that? Oh, and an option to turn the moon blue or red.”
“...blue or red. Not even yellow?”
“Celestia!” Luna groaned. “Why do I feel like you had a part in writing mine?”
“Well, don’t look at me,” Celestia protested as she pressed random buttons on the remote to figure out what they did. “So if I press C, two, and right arrow this makes the sun celebrate its second birthday by moving to the right?”
The sun moved to the right.
“Got it,” Celestia looked down the scroll again. “Hey, look, I found the self-destruct option! Click S, D, and all the numbers—”
Luna knocked the remote out of Celestia’s hooves. “WE ARE NOT BLOWING UP THE SUN!”
“Well, I don’t tell you not to blow up the moon,” Celestia grumbled. “Can I have the remote back now?”
“Here,” Luna relented, levitating the remote over. “Just don’t blow up the sun.”
“Fine,” Celestia said as she threw the bulk of the scroll aside, hunting for the end of it. “I wanna know what’s the final setting. Let’s see,” she grabbed hold of the end of the scroll. “Give control over to another pony by pressing T, S, and typing out Twilight Sparkle using the numbers corresponding to the letters.” She frowned. “Who’s Twilight Sparkle?”
“Dunno,” Luna peered down the scroll. “Why does your manual have an anti-cake cannon setting?”
“What?” Celestia looked over. “What do you mean?”
“Here,” Luna lifted that part of the scroll up. “To activate anti-cake cannons, press C three times and then eat cake.”
“I think that was Father,” Celestia peered at the scroll. “He did love his cake.”
“And under that,” Luna read. “To make the sun stronger so when you get too fat you don’t shift it too far off course.”
“WHAT DOES MY WEIGHT HAVE TO DO WITH THE SUN?!” Celestia threw her hooves up in frustration. “I’M NOT GOING TO GET FAT!”
“You do eat a lot of cakes and cookies.”
“WE HAVE ALICORN METABOLISM, LUNA!”
Luna snickered. “Alicorn metabolism doesn’t help if you eat six times your size every meal.”
“Luna, I swear to Faust I will take this scroll and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine—"
“Anyways!” Luna interrupted, shoving the scroll into Celestia’s face. “Anything else you need from me?”
“Yes, there is,” Celestia extracted herself from the mass of scroll paper. “What should be the rotation for the sun and moon exchange?”
“We get twelve hours each?” Luna suggested.
“What do you mean?” Celestia protested. “The day’s better! We get light and we can actually see things!”
“Yeah, well, the night’s prettier! So going by your logic, I should have more time!”
“No, you should not!”
“Yeah, I should!”
Celestia slammed a hoof on the ground. “Then we shall have twelve hours each!”
“I want thirteen hours!” Luna retorted.
“TWELVE!”
“THIRTEEN!”
“WE’RE GETTING TWELVE EACH AND THAT’S FINAL!”
“THIS SEEMS LIKE AN EXCELLENT TIME TO USE THE NIGHTMARE SETTING!”
“DO IT, THEN! I DARE YOU!”
“...”
“...”
“Now I know why the manual says we should only use it for emergencies.”
Luna rose to her full height, having magically grown in height. Her coat had turned a black color, and blue armor adorned her.
She laughed to the skies. “My name is Nightmare Moon. AND THE NIGHT SHALL LAST FOREVER!”
Author's Note
shrink, I blame you.
