Nightmare Moon awoke with a start, this start being a hefty drop of water impacting her nose. As she awoke she began to feel pains all over her body, from dull aches to hash cuts.

For the Nightmare, this didn't make sense, this feeling of pain and dampness on her nose shouldn't be happening. She should have been dispersed by The Elements of Harmony and should be dead, but she wasn't. Strangely it was the pain that she felt that gave her the most comfort, because it truly said to her, that she was alive, and that she had her own body.

She was no longer a spirit.

This sentence flashing through her mind sent a shiver up her spine while also giving her an even bigger question, how?

However, to her at that moment, that question was not important. What was important was what. More specifically what am I going to do? Because she entered the battle with the element bearers fully expecting one side to be wiped out, she made her peace with that fact, but now here she was her own pony with a past coated in the blood of misdeeds, and probably one of the most recognisable figures in all of pony history, where is she to go from there?

It was at that point she began to get up and observe her surroundings, fortunately, her catlike irises allowed her to see in the incredibly dark room she found herself in, a few torn pennants and banners upon the wall, unlit torches held in their sconces, and strange faintly blue cracks spiralling out from where she laid.

The most pressing issues were all of the cuts and scrapes over her body, so she decided that the banners in the room could be done without and returned if needed, so she lit up her horn for the first time and took one down to fashion it into some form of bandaging for the more nasty injuries.

After spending a few minutes on that, and comparing herself to a mummified corpse, she began to explore more than just the room she woke up in. The sole way out of this room was a spiral staircase only going up, and having nothing better to do, Nightmare followed them upwards.

As she moved upwards her mind wandered back to her first thoughts, how, how was she alive, with her own body no less. She couldn't think of any way besides some necrotic ritual, but even then there should have been more magical residue than what there was when she awoke. But once again there wasn't enough time to ponder that question, as she had reached the top of the stairs, and looked out onto one of the many stretching hallways in all of the castles Celestia has any say in.

It was at this point she had a choice to make, left or right. After pondering this decision for a second she went with the left, a decision that would turn out to be the right one when she turned the corner, right into one of the armouries whose contents weren't transported to Canterlot when the switch of capitals was made. That made this room a veritable treasure trove of armour, weapons, but most importantly a disguise, as in this room there were a few cloaks, allowing her to hide the vast majority of her body without the need for magical concealment.

After a quick inspection Nightmare was able to find a pair of saddlebags that she could use, alongside a cloak and one of the swords that were in the best condition, as a millennium of decay and rust didn't do this armoury any good when it came to its stock. Unfortunately, there wasn't any armour that would fit her or would be in good enough condition to wear.

After assuring that the sword she had appropriated was hidden under the cloak she had wrapped herself in, she then donned the saddlebags she found and moved onwards out of the armoury feeling far more secure than she had when she woke up. The only thing left was to disguise her mane and eyes, which was no simple feat, but for a creature who lived in dreams, the magic of an illusion was not beyond her.

The ability to make her iris more round and to whiten her sclera were not beyond her abilities, deciding to keep the turquoise irises as they were comfortably familiar to her. She was even able to shorten and dull her horn making it even easier to blend in given her height was enough of a giveaway. All she needed now was something sufficiently reflective to square away any inconsistencies in her disguise. She also began to feel a sense of urgency as the new hallways she moved down had windows, or where glass windows used to be. She could tell that the sun was rising and so were the chances of someone discovering her, as she could no longer rely on the cover of the night and the shade to hide herself inside.

With a renewed vigour she trotted quickly through the next door at the end of the hallway and into a room that looked like one of the old dining rooms, however, something was different. This was a room that Nightmare remembered from her time as Luna's shadow, it was the dining room in which both celestial rulers ate their meals together as the duties passed over from day to night or vice versa. From this recognition, she now knew where she was and where she needed to go to get from directly under the noses of the Elements and the aforementioned princesses.

But before she moved to keep hidden, she needed one last thing, she needed sustenance, or more specifically a way to get that, and she knew where the treasury was. And while she couldn't consume the contents of that treasury, if her disguise was sufficient she could use the contents to get herself some sustenance. So now that she knew where she was she was able to navigate her way to this treasury, a left, a left, and a right, and there she was standing in front of what used to be an immensely reinforced room and door, now fallen victim to the brutal passages of time.

She was easily able to push the door open and out of her way only to see a disappointing amount of money compared to when it was the main storage location of all the crown's bits in the princessdom, however it was more than enough to fit into her saddlebags and to make her way out of the ruins and through the Everfree Forest.

While the forest was known to be immensely dangerous to any of the creatures that pass through it, many of those creatures, however, weren't a nigh immortal being of the moon. So she made her way out of the back of the ruins through the foliage to stay hidden from anyone that may be making the journey to the ruins that day, if there even were any, it helps to be safe than sorry, however.

Now for most ponies trying to make their way through the Everfree forest off the beaten path was suicide, in all but name, but as was mentioned before, most ponies aren't an extremely powerful paragon of the moon, so Nightmare was able to rely on a little lunar magic trickery. What she was able to do was use her stronger magical connection to the moon to ensure that she was always moving north, even while the sun was rising, she was able to utilize the trace magicks to make her way through the thick of the forest.

The one thing she didn't anticipate however was the complete lack of any and all creatures as she made her way out of the worst of the brush, it seems as if the inhabitants of such a forest knew that they stood no chance against her. As if they could sense her aura, and stayed out of her way, she wasn't complaining, though, as it made her escape far easier. If only it weren't for how overgrown this forest became, she might've been out by now, the sword she had borrowed coming in incredibly useful slashing the vines and outreaching branches.

After a few hours of chopping her way through the forest, she came across a clearing and at its centre a river and, as luck would have it, it was flowing in the direction she was walking, giving her an easy path away from Ponyville and into other regions of Equestria. But before she continued on her path, she took a break and sat by the river, and used the time to truly ponder her existence.

Questions like, why do I have a body or why am I alive? She obviously was the result of some spell or another, but who did it and why? What purpose would resurrecting Nightmare Moon serve if they weren't there to immediately curry favour with her? Was it some form of a cruel practical joke from the heavens or did she serve an even greater purpose that she herself couldn't foresee? As she began to fall deeper into thoughts, she felt them begin to consume her and her breathing and heart rate begin to increase. What am I supposed to do after I get a new life, what if someone finds out?

She wasn't conscious of the amount of time she spent overwhelmed by her thoughts, but as luck would have it she was snapped out of her thoughts by a sharp pain in her snout. It seemed that in that unknown span of time she had laid down with her head and snout suspended directly over the water, this aforementioned snout being the perfect target for a duck swimming down the river. This duck took a few quick snaps at her snout before swimming off further down the river.

This small gesture of hostility surprisingly calmed Nightmare down just enough to look at her situation in a new light. The sheer audacity, confidence and indifference, to who she was, shown by this duck made her think to herself, "So what! So what, if I don't know why I'm here! I am Nightmare Moon, I don't need someone to tell me what to do! I can live for myself, and that is just what I'll do!" With this newfound confidence, she shot up to her hooves, full of a newfound purpose. She thought that if she was brought back it was to wreak havoc most likely so, in part to spite those who she believes attempted to recruit her, and in part to atone for the harm she lead in the past. She was going to lead her own path of justice and retribution against those who choose to harm the innocent creatures of the world.

The first port of call of this harbinger of justice was to follow this river along to find some sort of town with rail or road connection to make her way away from Ponyville and the Capital as soon as possible. So with a renewed vigour she once more began a trek through this forest, but this time along, her trek became more of a calm walk thanks to the fact that she was mostly out of the forest by now and the river that she remained by kept most of the bushes and branches, she needed to cut through, out of her way.

While walking down this impromptu path she used this time to use the water as a mirror to subtly adjust her disguise to hide under the radar as much as she could. The pupil could be rounder, sclera white enough, adding a few light reflections to her eyes and all of the small details nopony would even think about when creating an illusion, one of the bonuses of being one of the longest working illusionists, she presumed.

And finally, after one or two more hours of walking she saw it, right there in the distance, a small village no bigger than ponyville, the typical thatched rooves, the taller bureaucratic building near the centre including a bank, a forge and armoury, fields of strawberry bushes, and ponies, many, many ponies just going about their day, blissfully unaware of who had just all but entered town. And at this moment, Nightmare Moon allowed herself to feel that one bit of satisfaction: she wasn't out of the woods yet, but at least she was out of the Everfree Forest, and into greener pastures.

And so, she began to walk forwards, into town.

Author's Note

Hey, look who's back.

And she's actually updating her story.

Gotta say, having my own time to update when I feel like it feels good.

And here it is, we're starting with the origins of the baddie hunter, anti-hero, Nightmare Moon.

See you later.