The stars were beautiful, once.
The words came to him in a fit of sleeplessness. He'd found himself ruined by insomnia, his rhythms thrown off by the lack of sunlight… and everything else that had happened.
Quillfeather tossed and turned and squirmed and shivered in his cot. His heart ached. His head spun threads, stanzas and verses knitting together like a spider's web. Exhausted, covered in a cold sweat, he emerged from his blankets and dragged himself through the night to his desk.
He wrote by candlelight and the light of the Moon:
The stars were beautiful, once.
The moon was beautiful, once.
You were beautiful,
once.
No longer.
...
Darkness incarnate looked down on him, a cold fury in her slitted eyes.
"Is this meant to be a joke, Quillfeather?" Nightmare Moon asked. Her words were like ice (fitting, for they bit like the cold she had wrought upon the world).
"You desired a poem," he said, not daring to meet her eye for fear of freezing under her gaze. "And I have written one."
"Even if this could be considered poetry," she said, "surely you knew that this is not what I asked you to create."
"You did not ask me," he said. "You demanded. And you demanded the impossible."
"The impossible? All I wished was for a poem that would venerate me and my rule, to display in words the beauty of my night so that the citizenry would finally celebrate it as it deserves." Nightmare Moon narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying that the night is not beautiful, poet? Do you not understand the position you are in?"
"The night was beautiful. It was the tapestry whereupon the grandeur of the cosmos was most proudly displayed." Quillfeather shook his head. "And in your conquest you have stained it."
Nightmare Moon cocked an eyebrow, gave him a cruel smile. "Have I now? In my quest to make the ponies of this land finally appreciate the thing I took great care in creating, how, pray tell, have I ‘stained’ it?"
"You have turned it into a tool of oppression," Quillfeather said, finally meeting her glare with his own tired features. "Just as you seek to do with my poetry. As you seek to do with all that is beautiful. Such is your nature: You corrupt what is precious and turn it into weapons of the heart."
Nightmare Moon stared down at him.
"Once, I looked upon the moon and the stars with awe," he continued. "They inspired me. I respected their creator as someone who appreciated beauty, who sought to create beauty. I cannot imagine the time and care it took Luna to paint the stars. It is unfathomable to me. I have sought for all my life to create something even one-tenth as wonderful."
"Then you are awed by me," Nightmare Moon said, "for it was I who painted the stars, I who created the Moon."
"No," Quillfeather said. "I am awed by Luna. You are not her. She would never have used her artistry for such purposes as yours."
"Luna was weak. I am nothing if not Luna's better."
"Luna was an artist," he replied. "You are a dictator. Nothing more."
"A dictator, am I?" Nightmare Moon said, voice booming, the Moon disappearing behind her flaring wings. "All I demand is that which is my right. If that requires me to rule with a stern hoof, then so be it! History will be on my side; I will ensure it. If you or anyone or anything dares to challenge my rule, then I will reduce you all to ashes."
With finality, the piece of paper containing the poet's scratchings burst into blue flames and was consumed.
"The night will be celebrated. I will be celebrated. I do not need your pathetic excuse for poetry. I will simply find another who is more willing to put their artistry towards my noble cause. There is no shortage of poets in my night, Quillfeather."
"And if you do find one who is willing to ignore their heart and twist their words to suit your ends, what then?" he said, scraping the ashes of his work into a pile at his hooves. "Their words will only ring hollow."
Darkness incarnate stared at him. Sighed.
"Guards, take him to the dungeons," she commanded. "He is to be executed within the hour. Privately; he will not be given a chance to spread his poisoned ideas to the citizens."
She looked down at Quillfeather, as iron-clad soldiers (manifestations of her own magic; she could not trust ponies to follow her orders anymore) moved into position beside him. "I thought of you as a friend once," she said, voice haughty. "I see now that my trust in you was misplaced."
"This is the price we will all pay," he replied, as they escorted him from the room. "Every one of us."
The door slammed behind him.
Without a word, Nightmare Moon stood up from her throne and began walking. Through the halls of the palace, the ones only she dared tread, to her destination. She pushed open the door to her private chambers and stepped inside, her armoured hooves clicking on the stone floor.
Inside were dozens of canvases—failed paintings of the night sky, all of them. Gaping wounds adorned their stomachs.
Nightmare Moon looked upon her latest attempt, half-done, already abandoned. The words of Quillfeather's poem echoed like the hoofsteps in her halls:
The stars were beautiful, once.
The moon was beautiful, once.
You were beautiful,
once.
No longer.
As the moon hangs in the sky,
And the stars once painted so gently
blanket the world
in light
gone
cold,
I pray the coming dawn returns to us
the heart you stole in cruelty
and in fear
and in sorrow.
Her night will not be your tool.
My words will not be your tool.
I
will not be your tool.
Do what you will.
Darkness incarnate began to cry.
And Luna cried with her.
