It Was War

Luna walked through the imitation palace she once called home. Though this place had been her prison, Celestia hadn't had much control over her activities. This gave Luna time to purse any activity she could think of; her project for the first fifty years of her sentence was recreating the palace in Canterlot, her memory was infallible and so the imitation was near perfect. She spent a couple hundred years walking its halls and scrawling her thoughts on the wall.

A thousand years later, as Luna walked those very same halls, she realized her descent into madness inspired by loneliness had not been a gradual thing. She'd begun by counting the years of her stay, up to fifty years. After that she began to count the days; under the 7305 day were the words, "Just let me die."

Luna unconsciously put a hoof on the words, and heard her sister's pleading again. "Luna dearest, please speakest Our name. Tell Us that our friendship can be mended. Tell Us that thou mayest return to Us peacefully; We hath no hatred for thee, only a longing for thine presence next to Us!" Her plea was followed sullenly by, "Or perhaps thou hast a hatred for Us deeper than We can understand. Regrettably then, We must extend thine sentence by a year once more. Perhaps in a year thou will find a voice for Us."

That hadn't happened as far as Luna was concerned. She didn't hear her sisters voice for the entirety of her imprisonment; she'd felt forgotten. Had her sister truly tried to reach her, if so how many times.

Every year. The writing on the walls seemed to whisper.

Had it been every year? Then why hadn't she heard her sisters pleas?

Luna was shaking violently, a rage she'd thought far behind her quickly rising.

Yesss... The walls hissed, far beneath the notice of the furious princess. The stars in her mane began to wink out one by one leaving behind a black nothingness.

Luna tore herself from the writings and stalked down the hall, praying the nightmare would show herself before she had time to reconsider her thoughts.

One thousand years. The walls hissed when Luna neared the end of her writings. Luna's journey stomping through the hall took her all the way to the throne room; wherein the Nightmare sat statuesque upon the black marble seat.

"Did you enjoy the walk?" The Nightmare's voice filled the air around Luna and sent vibrations through her body and soul.

Any reasoning Luna had done to calm herself down was clearly wasted as she let out an animalistic roar her hoof came up and slammed into the ground shattering the floor with ease. This meant little as anything in this palace would yield to even her lightest of touches.

The Nightmare was unfazed. She leaned forward slightly and seemed to instantaneously change forms. Whatever it had been before was impossible for Luna to remember, but now she stood as her last physical incarnation. Jet black coat under sections of a light purple armor.

Luna's coat was beginning to darken as the Nightmare descended from the throne revealing that she as well bore Luna's mark; a thing that was supposed to be hers alone. The fires of hatred burned within Luna and radiated out of her in a tangible force that warmed the room.

"Has your sister sent you to me yet again? Did you perhaps miss me so much that you came back of your own free will?"

The Nightmare's tone was mocking at best.

"You know why We are here. Now return what you have stolen before We are forced to violence." Luna was just as afraid of such an occurrence as she hoped the Nightmare would be.

"I have stolen nothing, I do recall being given several things however."

"We will not be tempted by thee again. Tell Us what it is you want so we can be done with this meeting." Though the Nightmare still stood on the opposite side of the room, Luna felt as though she was slowly being backed into a corner.

"All I want is someone to talk to, and here you are."

"We have no intention to stay."

"And if I decided to keep you? Or what if I convinced you to stay?" The Nightmare came closer.

"Nothing you could do would keep Us here." Luna said taking a few nervous steps back.

"If I have nothing for you then why would you come back?" The Nightmare reminded Luna that she did in fact possess something the princess wanted.

"But We promised our sister we would return from here." Luna near pleaded.

"Indeed?" The Nightmare said with a wicked grin. "Then shall we say 'anything but that'"?

"Anything, but." Luna could not hide the shaken fear in her voice. Her rage suddenly subsided at the thought of the promise made to her sister.

"First your sister's soul was worth as much as my aid in taking revenge. Now you want it back for the sake of, what exactly?"

"It was not Ours to give!"

"You gave it nonetheless, and I would be the only one to lose here if I simply returned it to you." The Nightmare began to pace back and forth casually, well aware that Luna was more or less at her mercy.

"Why do We hear the voice of our sister from centuries ago? Was that your doing?" Luna asked after a moment of silence. She needed a distraction from the thoughts of what she would pay for her sister's sake.

"Perhaps." The Nightmare ceased moving and she resumed a much more neutral expression. "It could very well be that your sister tried to reach out to you. Perhaps she was more than willing to give you a year to let you let go of your hatred. When you said nothing to confirm those hopes, perhaps then she was forced, due to uncertainty, to extend your sentence. What if I knew this and didn't tell you, what would it change now?" Her tone was dangerously calm.

"Why?" Luna's reply came weak and distant. The answer was yes and the Nightmare made no attempt to deny it; Luna now wanted to know what sort of explanation could justify such a cruel act.

"'Why?' You ask? Why, when another alicorn is thrust into my domain bearing part of another's soul and a hatred like I hadn't felt in so many lifetimes, would I want to keep said alicorn in a state of isolation? Tell me, do you, or did you ever plan ahead for when an enemy was to fall?"

Luna did and said nothing.

"Of course you have; I know you have, because I've been a part of you." Suddenly she was behind Luna as she whispered, "And I will always be a part of you."

"The elements of harmony cleansed my body of you, even now you are still reeling from their power!" Luna backed away quickly, from the revelation.

"Truly, because of them, we will never share your body again. That doesn't mean I am all gone. I will be your doubt and your unshakable fears for all eternity now. I let your hatred grow and fester for several centuries before revealing myself. By then you were a husk drained of the will to miss those you'd left behind. It was a simple thing to give you something you thought you'd need and get exactly what I wanted in return."

"Stop this at once!" Luna demanded.

The Nightmare chose to ignore the frightened mare before her and finished her tirade, "Now it has come again. You stand before me asking for something you think you need; once again I will have what I've wanted since the beginning."

Luna began to shake, all her fury fleeing her body as a cold apprehension settled in.

"Simply put, I will have your soul in the wake of your death; in exchange your sister will be made whole, and the two of you will live for as long as you wish. What say you to this arrangement?"

Luna nodded slowly, stood and left the room. Her exit followed by the Nightmare's dark chuckle ringing through the halls of the palace. When she was outside the walls of the castle began to sink into the ground. Everything she'd left here was being taken back with her; the imitation palace was spawned of her memories and could no longer hold up in the absence of their blueprints.

The Nightmare released the magical anchor that'd been holding Luna in case she changed her mind; with the weight on her own soul gone Luna was immediately pulled back to the Canterlot palace, by her sister's insistent summonings.

Though she'd accomplished her goal, she could not give her sister a smile to convey such.

Celestia's worry would only increase over the next few days as her sister sat silently in her room; watching the moon at nights and crying.