Love Thyself (Cinderblox)

Chapters

IV - Waxing
VI - Say a Prayer to All the Gods
II - Waning
I - A Thousand Stars Melt With the Sea
V - Full Moon
III - Plead With My Own Shadow
VII - New Moon

IV - Waxing

Author's Note

IV - Waxing

Moonlight lanced through the air from the heavens to the shore, and melted into a stream where it touched the water, like the train of a wedding dress laid out over the surface of the sea. The waves were gentle, lazily rolling in and out without foam. The sand was black, and the shoreline stretched out in both directions with barely a curve. The beach stretched infinitely behind Luna, though she did not turn to look at it, and the sea stretched infinitely ahead of her. She descended a curved staircase of white marble, placed upon the sand without the rest of the building it belonged to, and stepped onto the beach.

Nightmare Moon stepped across the water towards the shore, walking on air and parting the sea in her wake. Her body was a brushstroke of darkness blacker than the starlit night, and her mane a piece of the cosmos stolen from beyond the reaches of ponykind's eyes. Her eyes were pools of moonlight reflecting the sea, and her armour was wrought of alien metals fallen onto the world from the stars. She was all things mysterious and obscure and tantalising in that way only the deepest recesses of our desire can be, and she was beautiful like only a dream can measure up to.

She moved like the tides and her voice was like the wind in a storm, powerful and grand and filling all the space between the earth and the sky. "So you have come back." The words may have sounded mocking had her tone not been so sweet and filled with longing.

Luna looked down at that, unwilling to address her actions. Nightmare Moon was on her in a blink, moving soundless through the air at the speed of dreams and shadows to stand before her, her breath hot on Luna's neck. Luna shivered in the tempered night air.

"My, my, little Luna. There's no need to be shy. There's no judgement here, you know that." She leaned her head down farther to be eye level with Luna. Her fangs glinted in the moonlight. "Go ahead and tell me why you're here."

Luna swallowed, then slowly lifted her head to gaze into Nightmare Moon's slit-pupil eyes. A blush spread softly on her cheeks. "I wanted to see you," she managed to say without stammering.

Nightmare Moon smiled. She took a step closer and her chest pressed into Luna's, armour and peytral both melting away so they could touch coat against coat. Her body was heatless, but not cold. It was like pressing into a block of wood, just slightly less unyielding. Had she possessed a heart, Luna would have felt it beating in time with her own as it sped up. Luna's neck lay over Nightmare Moon's shoulder, and Nightmare Moon wrapped her own neck over Luna's, and inhaled deeply of the starlight in her mane. "I have missed you too, more in these last few days than in all those before."

Luna hesitated, considering if she should pull back, but then leaned more into the embrace. It wasn't warm, but it was sturdy, and that was comforting in its own way. She closed her eyes and smelled the cosmic void Nightmare Moon carried with her. Her wings stretched out, just a little, not yet reaching for a hug but relaxing at her sides. "I think I missed you too." She just hadn't realised.

"It is good to have you back." Nightmare Moon pulled away, and her armour was on her chest again. She extended a wing, and a feather soft like an evening breeze delicately stroked Luna's chin. "Shall we have a walk together, my dear?"

Luna looked up at her, blushing and bashful like she was a little filly again. "I would love it."

Nightmare Moon smiled. She turned and took a few soft steps on the sand, then looked back to see if Luna would follow. She allowed her to catch up, and together they walked side by side along the shore, Nightmare Moon's longer strides coming in a bit slower to accommodate for Luna's shorter gait. The sea rolled tirelessly in and out, its gentle rhythm a pleasant backdrop to the sound of their breaths. Finally, Nightmare Moon broke the almost silence with her voice. "The night has always been beautiful," she said, looking around at the sea and the sky and then at Luna herself.

Luna smiled at that, giddy with a simple joy she hadn't felt in so long. Was it really wrong to indulge her own happiness when she saw her subjects doing the same, and so often guided them towards it? "It really is," she replied, eyes fixed solely on Nightmare Moon's strong, elegant body.

When describing beauty, most may say a pony looks like a statue, a body carved to perfect shape and devoid of blemishes and imperfections. Nightmare Moon was different. She was rather a painting, or a poem, if one needed to compare her form to art. Her body was not one any sculptor could carve into rock or metal alike, light and yet powerful and curved in ways impossible to replicate when looked at from different angles. She was colour, and emotion, a vibrant flash of imagination ever shifting, ever living, beautifully alive in ways not even Celestia with her radiant, statuesque fairness could compare to.

"And such a shame it is others still so rarely see it for what it is," Nightmare Moon continued, hooves leaving crescent groves in the sand where she stepped.

At that, Luna darkened slightly, and looked away. It was true, and yet she knew better than to let herself be swayed by those words. No more of it. She should call the whole thing off. Yet she kept walking, as Nightmare Moon did the same beside her, silently. She looked up at the sky, stars tracing impossible patterns, a dark canvas painted in constellations no mortal ever had seen nor would. It was truly beautiful, enough to soothe her soul of worries and convince her she wished to stay there. She sighed wistfully.

Nightmare Moon stopped, and turned slightly towards her. "What troubles your heart, little Moon?" Her tail and her mane curved on winds unfelt, forming with her body a crescent around Luna.

Luna did not look at her at first, then sighed and turned to stare her in the eyes. "It's... this. You know what it is."

"Have we done anything wrong?" Nightmare Moon asked. She leaned forward. "Is there anything wrong with being happy, or wishing for it? Would they have you believe it's wrong to dream, after already refusing to wake and witness the night?"

Luna's breath came even and deep. She wordlessly opened and closed her mouth, then swallowed. "You're right. We haven't done anything wrong." She took a step closer. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin the moment."

"No. No need to apologise." Nightmare Moon's mane and tail closed in a circle behind Luna. "You didn't do anything wrong. It's good of you to think of your subjects. Always the loyal servant of your ponies. But here, you don't need to worry about that." She smiled, a scythe blade of silver hanging in the darkness of her face. "This is for you. For us." A step closer herself.

Luna peered up into her eyes. They were deep, bottomless wells, and the more she looked the more the colours changed and fractured, blue shattering into a kaleidoscope of shades and shapes that was the ever changing flow of dreams. It was a spectacle she could fall into, one she felt she could admire for ages. Every fantasy of the heart sketched into vision, given shape and colour and feeling enough to feel lived, enough to take over the mind for a spell. It was the right and duty of all ponies to dream, after all.

Nightmare Moon's breath washed hot against Luna's face. "This is for what you want."

Luna breathed deep. It smelled of seawater and freshly baked bread, of adventure and the comfort of home, and it smelled of ozone like the upper layers of the atmosphere she'd pierced through when she'd gone to grab hold of the Moon. And it smelled of things impossible and unreal, a smell that was a feeling and a fantasy, a concept without form or reason that only could exist within a dream. It smelled of freedom, and comfort, and possibility. Luna smiled. "What shall we do, then?"

Nightmare Moon spread her wings wide, and all the stars fell down around them and their winds blew away the sand and the sea, until they were standing on nothing within a sky full of floating lights surrounding them. "Whatever we want, my dear. Anything at all you wish, so long as the time permits."

Luna took in the spectacle around them, and Nightmare Moon in the middle of it all. "Then let us be happy, together the both of us. Let us be free."

VI - Say a Prayer to All the Gods

By day, the castle was a welcoming place for all those who entered it. The tall glass windows flooded the halls with light and the colours of the drapes and flowers and carpets and stained glass rivalled those of the gardens outside. It was like a piece of the world beyond the walls, a continuity between the city and the palace meant to put the citizens at ease, to highlight how the seat of power was not so different from the land over which it ruled, and yet the sturdy marble and iron gates provided an extra stability, a layer of protection without oppression. During the day, the castle felt like a home should.

At night, things were different. Luna could not fault her sister for it, not when she'd ruled alone for a thousand years, and she'd done her best to address the matter. It wasn't too bad when one shone a light. The tapestries and painted walls still looked bright as the guards patrolled the corridors, and the statues did not seem sinister in the glow of their horns, their shadows soft and their expressions gentle. Even under moonlight, the corridors looked pleasant, their hues inviting and their corners safe.

But there was no Moon that night, and the stained glass of the windows let barely any starlight through. In the darkness, the tall walls of the throne room were imposing, foreboding, cold and solemn. The ceiling was a pool of shadows and all the space that would have made ponies feel welcome in the daytime was just emptiness, like the room was the hollowed chest of a dragon, the stone walls its ribs and the coloured windows its scales between them. Luna's steps on the marble filled the night air without coming back, like the darkness was swallowing them up.

Ponies feared the darkness. They always had, and they always would. And they were right to do so.

Luna's hooves carried her all the way to the foot of the steps leading up to the throne, and there she laid herself. The guards would not find her. She knew their routes and routines better than they themselves did, and she would not be there long enough for anyone to ever notice she had. She looked up, up towards the throne and further up, up towards the shadows and the ceiling and further up, beyond the rafters and beyond the roof tiles and past the layers and layers of atmosphere she'd once pierced through with her wings, towards the stars and towards the Moon, unseen yet still there.

She lit her horn, and stretched her magic through untold miles, far out to where no mortal wing could sustain flight and no creature could draw breath. She found her Moon there, where it had always been since the night she'd made it hers, and she held it. She did not pull it, or tug it, or impede it in any way. She merely touched it. Felt it in her grip. The way one feels a tree in their garden, or a pillar in a temple. The way a foal holds their mother's hoof. She held her Moon and held onto it, searching for stability until the world stopped spinning around her. She did not rise yet. She breathed deep, and long, and slowly. Little by little, the marble beneath her felt a little less cold.

She lay there. Contemplating, losing herself in her memories and thoughts. She'd lived longer than all but a few other creatures in the world, and her divinity meant she recalled most of her days better than any mortal would. So it always took her a while to go through it all. Ponies sometimes mistook it for indecision, or even laziness, back in the early days of Equestria. With time and experience, Luna and her sister had learned to act quickly when the situation called for it, often without making the wrong choice. But for this one, Luna needed time, and patience. She'd fallen victim to carelessness one too many times.

Eventually, as she walked through the hallways of her memory in her mind, her nervousness melted away. It was nice to reminisce, for a while. About the good times she'd had, about the bad times she'd surpassed. There was confidence and reassurance to be found in dreams, just as there was worry about the future. They were a place to understand both. A place of meaningless time, to come to terms with the past and with what was to come. She'd known that, once, she'd arrived at the same conclusion before, and on some level she'd always acted according to it. But it was good to rediscover it, and remember what her place was.

Luna opened her eyes, and looked at the throne. Her horn shone, and she held onto her Moon in the sky. Then, slowly, she pulled onto that connection. The Moon did not move any closer to Equestria, but little by little Luna rose. To her knees, then to her hooves, standing tall in the middle of the room. Her eyes shone like twin forest lakes lit by a full moon, and a calm, collected smile sat on her lips. She knew it wouldn't last. She knew dreams are always meant to fade, their memories waning with time, their certainty thinning out like mist in the sunlight. But that was no matter.

Dreams were meant to inspire. To show ponies what could be, and what they could do. There would have been no point to them if they lingered on in perpetuity. Worse, they may make ponies wish to retreat to them, and shun the real world for one where success comes easy and all is always well. That would be no good for anyone.

Luna let go of her Moon, and turned away from the throne. She knew what awaited her next. She knew she could do it. She knew it would not be easy, but it would be done.

II - Waning

Luna stood on the beach, wind caressing her mane and tugging at her feathers. It wasn't a strong wind, but it was a violent one. The wind of a sea preparing for a storm, harsh and salty, digging into the skin and warning sailors to keep away from the open waters, to head back to land if they are out at sea. A wind that could pick up at any moment, with a crack of thunder splitting the skies open to pour rain down onto the world, and whip at the beach and the waves, reshaping the sand and blowing away anything ponies may have left.

It was night, and a crescent of white light hung among the darkness in the sky, as if its light was piercing through smoky clouds like a pin tearing through paper. It was a sickly light, almost green, and yet enchanting to look at. Staring up was like staring into a deep ocean pit, too deep for light to penetrate, the Moon a shining pearl at the bottom miraculously reaching out through all the sand and mud and algae and shadows. Inviting one to dive in and take hold of it, and bring it to the surface.

Luna wasn't looking at the sky, though. She had eyes only for the one in front of her, narrowed eyes of barely contained rage and disgust, and a single word of fury flung like an accusation through the silence of the beach. "You."

"Us," Nightmare Moon replied. It was a hissing sound, like what a snake or an insect would make. It slithered and cut through the night air and silenced the wind and the waves, and suddenly Luna could hear only her own breath and heartbeat, and Nightmare Moon's voice. "You have come to me again, my dear."

Luna gritted her teeth, lips curving in anger. "I did not come," she managed, her tone trembling with the need to shout the words. "You should be dead." She meant both meanings of that.

"Yet I live." Nightmare Moon tilted her head, like an owl curiously observing something. "I wonder why that is?"

Nightmare Moon stood with her hooves in the sea, just past the furthest edge the water retreated to when the waves rolled away from the beach. Blacker than the darkness around her, naked and with her wings spread, she looked like a grave marker planted in the soil, an old chunk of rotten wood stabbing the earth to show the resting place of a nameless soul. Her eyes and mane were the only things breaking the illusion, and even those were darker than usual, like shadows and black smoke were draped over her form.

Luna resisted the urge to storm forward, or away, to do anything rash and violent. She dug her hooves deeper into the sand until she felt it humid and packed around them, and forced her heated breath to come in slow, deep waves. "What do you want?"

"The same thing I've always wanted," Nightmare Moon replied. "I want to make you happy." She lifted her hooves. It was with a wet, sucking sound, the sand and water clinging to her legs from where they'd stabbed the ground and rushing in to fill the empty space left behind. It reminded Luna of pulling a blade out of a wound. She only had a moment to appreciate it, and the next Nightmare Moon was in front of her. She'd moved the way things could only move in dreams, a second in one place and the next in another. Her breath was cold against Luna's face, and it reeked of death and rotting things on the shore. "Won't you let me, my dear?"

Luna flinched, her first instinct to back away. Her hooves in the sand kept her from doing so, and instead she stared Nightmare Moon in the eyes. She straightened her neck and moved her face closer, hot breath blowing from her mouth and nostrils. It was like looking into a mirror, in a way. Many ponies only saw the worst of themselves when doing so. Most ponies' worst, even imagined, wasn't as bad as Luna's. "I do not want anything to do with you, not now, not ever again."

Nightmare Moon smiled. Her fangs were a clear white flash splitting the darkness of her form, catching all of Luna's attention up close. She reached out a wing, and a feather at its tip, and Luna steeled herself not to recoil at the touch. She would not show weakness. She was not scared. Yet when the touch came, it was soft, and warm, like the long half-shadows of a late summer afternoon. Nightmare Moon's feather caressed Luna's neck and her shoulder. "You say that, and yet you have called me here. You want me, Luna. You miss me."

Luna's anger flared and her horn shone bright. "I do not, and I will not," she forced out through barely moving teeth. Magic pooled at her command between them, ready to shake the earth when it was unleashed. "Now go away before I rid myself of you."

But Nightmare Moon only smiled, her expression all the more sinister in the glowing light of Luna's magic. "You cannot bring yourself to do it. I'm still a part of you, after all, and you've grown past hurting yourself like a moody child." Luna's neck twitched at that. "We need each other, you and I. We should accept each other. Help each other. Like it was always meant to be. I can't exist without you, anyway." She leaned forward, uncaring in the face of Luna's magic, and whispered in her ear. "And you can't go on without me. That's why I'm here."

A part of Luna wished to simply let loose the magic she'd been gathering at her horn's tip. Let it glass the shore and boil the sea and cleanse the world of the shadow in front of her. But something in that voice gave her pause. Something in the way the words crawled into her ear, and rolled down her back. She shivered and her feathers stood on end, and her focus lessened, her horn's light dimming. Her breath was growing just a little quicker, but colder too. "Explain yourself."

Nightmare Moon stepped closer. Her neck pressed against Luna's, her form passing through the peytral and resting against her chest. "I am the voice of your heart crying out for the joy you're denied. I am your desires manifest. I am everything you want. I am here because you have made me, because you have called me, and because you need me. And I want nothing else, nothing more, than to make you happy." Then, she arched her neck, and bit into Luna.

Luna's eyes went wide. Nightmare Moon's fangs were like icy nails stabbing through her flesh, and yet they did not hurt. Rather, they burned like a drug spreading through her from the point of injection. Her heart hammered against her chest. Once. Twice. Thoughts came swirling to her mind from the dredges of her consciousness and she beheld them clear as the Moon in a cloudless sky. It all lasted just a moment.

Nightmare Moon pulled back, leaving no wounds behind. She licked her fangs and sighed contently, and suddenly she was a little bit more there, a little bit more blue and less black, more pony and less shadow. She rolled her shoulders like she was feeling the bone and muscle in them for the first time in a long while. "I would be lying if I said I didn't miss this," she purred. "But there's no lying here, right?" She focused on Luna again, slit eyes like a cat studying its prey. "You let me do that. Nothing happens here that you don't want."

Luna took a step back, teeth on the verge of chattering, then one forward as her wings spread. "I will not allow you to undo what I have worked for!"

"And I would never." Nightmare Moon closed half the distance again, with measured, heavy steps this time. "So let's make a deal. I promise to remain here. I promise not to do anything you wouldn't want me to. You can come find me, whenever you wish. How does that sound?" She stretched out a wing, and dragged its tip against the underside of Luna's neck. "You know there's not much else I can do without you."

Luna wanted to scream, or to retch, anything to stop herself from sighing at all the feelings the touch sparked. She took a step back and turned, disgusted, eyes shut like that would help any. Then she forced herself to calm her breath. Nightmare Moon smiled, but did not move. Luna spoke once she was sure her voice wouldn't tremble. "You will stay here. I will be watching you. Be warned." Then she stormed off, mind swirling around all the thoughts Nightmare Moon's voice and touch had conjured in her.

I - A Thousand Stars Melt With the Sea

Luna had seen many things in her time. More than any other pony, more than most creatures save perhaps Discord. Dreams, while often not as fantastical and unusual as most ponies would consider them, were still home to quite the selection of odd, bizarre, unnatural, and impossible things, and Luna had lived so long and seen so many she knew well the extremes they could reach. She knew the peaks and the lows the mind could conjure unimpeded by physical reality. She had seen terrible things, and she had seen beautiful things.

She'd never seen anything as beautiful as that. It looked like a diamond glimmering in the light, perhaps, but that failed to do it any justice. She did not know what it was, but she was mesmerised by it, enraptured at the sight. She'd been navigating the dreams, looking over her subjects, and suddenly it was there, not belonging to any of them but rather an apparent feature of the dreaming itself. She was scared to approach it lest her mere vicinity upset its seemingly delicate existence.

It was a sphere, a perfect drop of what seemed to be water at a glance, not that such things had much concrete meaning in dreams. In it shone a firmament of stars brighter than any Equestria had ever found its skies graced by, all arranged like the pieces of a single art piece of unimaginably complexity. From every corner she looked at it, Luna found new lights, new patterns, new swathes of the cosmos contained within it. It was like someone had travelled to the middle of the sea at night, smoothed out all the waves, and then pulled up its edges and engulfed the starry sky within it. It was a marble only one capable of shaping the universe might play with. Luna loved it from the first moment, and more so with every moment after it.

Her approach was slow and methodical. Time was not a concern, as it never was in dreams under her command. Part of her unhurriedness was a worry that a step too far, or one taken too quickly, would ripple out and shatter the miracle, shred its delicate glassy surface and spill its contents onto the dreaming like raining stardust. Part of it was a desire to admire the spectacle for as long as possible. It was rare for her to find something truly worth her appreciation, and she liked to savour those moments. She was, after all, entirely in control of how long it would take her.

But the drop of cosmic water did not rupture. The bubble did not pop. Soon, or much later, depending on where one chose to measure the meaningless time it took her, Luna found herself just beneath it, peering into its surface and past it at the burning stars floating within it. Where had it come from? The dreaming itself, if she had to guess. It sometimes presented her with oddities like it. Was there anything more to it than looking beautiful, though?

Luna hesitated. She did not wish to disturb it, to break it. But she was curious, as ponies are, even the really old ones like her. She suspected, if she let it be, it would just eventually disappear as it had come to be, fading and morphing into something unrecognisable. Such was the nature of dreams and all things born of them. So, if there was perhaps some risk in looking more into it, it was unlikely there would be any harm more than what time would do itself. And she was curious.

She reached out with a wing first, then stopped halfway there, thinking better of it. Instead she folded it back at her side, and lit her horn. Very gently, with all the minute grace of a control over magic so fine only someone as experienced as her could exercise it, she stretched out her telekinesis and felt the surface of the sphere. It did not break, thankfully, nor react in any meaningful way. A bit more pressure, no more than resting her aura on it, just so she could properly feel it underneath her ethereal touch.

It felt wet. Cold. Somewhere between glass and water, and unlike both. It felt solid, but strangely soft. Not quite smooth, but the texture wasn't rough, or jagged, or particularly noticeable. It was almost like skin. It didn't feel tense, despite looking like a bubble. It smelled of ozone and seawater. Taking hold of one side, Luna tried to nudge it one way. It moved easily, not too heavy in her grasp, and the stars within it shifted to yet a hundred more arrangements and colours. It was like a kaleidoscope window into infinite alien skies.

She moved it back and forth a few more times, confident she wouldn't damage it, gleefully staring at the spectacle inside. Until, suddenly, after a slightly more forceful push, she felt something different. At first she feared she'd gone and broken it. Then she had a proper look. It was still all there, perfectly intact. She felt her magic better. It was like it had sunken into the sphere, moved past the surface. It was like something was pulling it in.

Blinking, she let go of it and stepped closer. She placed a hoof on its surface. Then she pushed. The sphere did not move. Her foreleg entered it. Luna had a moment to contemplate that. Then, something tugged hard at her leg, and she fell forward into the sphere.

She fell, through stars and emptiness and light, the icy cosmos rushing by around her and through her until suddenly everything was dark. She held her breath, feeling the pressure of deep water around her. She saw the Moon above and swam towards it, and dragged herself onto the shore. A few more steps, and she dried herself with her magic. Nothing but sand in front of her, water behind her, and empty skies above. Then she turned.

V - Full Moon

Luna and Nightmare Moon galloped side by side over the sea, waves parting beneath their hooves and water sprays shining like diamonds in the moonlight. They ran, and ran, and ran until the end of the world. For hours, days, until their chests heaved and their limbs ached, far away from everyone and everything. And when they finally felt they didn't want to run any more, there was an island, and they laid themselves upon the white sands of its shore and lay there, breathing slowly, letting fatigue wash over them. They were free. Free to go anywhere, and do anything, and be happy.

Luna rolled onto her back and looked up at the sky. The stars sat arranged in patterns she'd never seen before, infinite constellations laid out for her to see. She'd never seen air so clear so close to the ground. The night sky had a depth to it, a liveliness, a breadth of colours unlike anything Equestria had ever seen, even in its oldest days. It was beautiful, and it was alive. She sighed contently and watched it intently, admiring every corner of the sky, every patch of its tapestry, more intricate and beautiful than any artwork ever constructed by mortal hooves.

Nightmare Moon rolled beside her, on her back as well, shoulder to shoulder with each other. She'd discarded her armour just as Luna had her regalia, and her black coat was ruffled, matted with sweat and seawater and dotted with sand. She breathed loudly in time with Luna's own breath, and for a while she just watched the night sky with her. Their starry manes entwined beneath them, and one couldn't tell where one's began and the other's ended. Then her long black horn lit, and her magic stretched up to the stars.

The heavens began to change. Revolving and moving around, new constellations appearing before Luna's eyes, patterns and sights no one had ever seen formed by stars continuously shifting about in predetermined paths much faster than they normally could, and then swerving around in new directions, painting new scenes, telling new stories real and imagined. The entire sky was an ever shifting artwork, a mosaic of shining jewels moving like a living thing. Luna's breath caught in her throat at the sight. "It's beautiful," she murmured quietly, but not too quietly not to be heard above the waves.

"The most beautiful thing," said Nightmare Moon. "This is our beauty," she continued. "Your beauty, and my own. To change, and inspire. The highest art, the most perfect. And we are the greatest artist, weaving the dreams all art is born from." She turned her head towards the side. "They would have you in chains. Forced within their own confining rules, bound by their limited understanding. And they will forget. You should show them. We should let them see."

Luna sighed. For a moment longer she kept looking at the sky, then her body turned too and she stared into Nightmare Moon's eyes. Their horns touched as their manes entwined beneath them replicated the spectacle above. Up and down all Luna saw was the blazing night sky, and in front of her only Nightmare Moon. "It truly is the most beautiful sight," she said. "But if that is the ideal, you are its closest manifestation. Not quite flesh, and not quite shadow. Beautiful as no pony could ever be."

"It is in our nature to change, as the Moon does." Nightmare Moon moved to fully lie on her side, though she did not exactly turn. Rather she shifted, her dark body melting from its old position into the new one. "You changed too, when you left me. But they stopped you. Held you down. Don't you want more than that?" Nightmare Moon's wing stretched out, a blackness between Luna and the stars too dark to divine any of its features. The tip of her feathers sank into Luna's neck like a burning knife, and shadows spread like poison through her veins.

Luna shivered, eyes closed, legs tense, back arching. In her mind, she saw it, she felt it. She lived it. Tasted it, smelled it, heard it, she was there and yet she wasn't. The power coursing through her with the strength of all the tides, and beauty ever shifting and resplendent in the dark, not burning it away but becoming one with it. She felt the admiration, the awe, the inspiration she imbued ponies with. The joy she would bring once she made them see.

Then it was over, melting away into her heart. Her eyes opened and she was there on the beach, Nightmare Moon in front of her. Luna giggled, then leaned forward to nuzzle the other mare. Nightmare Moon leaned into it. Their muzzles rubbed against each other's, softly at first, then harder. Bumps, and rough motions, forceful and snappy. Then a kiss. Nightmare Moon's lips on hers, her tongue in her mouth, her breath in her nose. Luna's eyes snapped open in shock, but just for a moment. She purred and welcomed it.

Nightmare Moon was on top of her. Hiding the whole sky with her body, her glowing eyes her new Moon and stars. She leaned into her, lower, deeper. The light burning into Luna's mind and the shadows melting into her body. Every limb on fire with power and life, heart pounding madly with a need to be free, huge and soft black wings encircling her body and keeping her warm and safe and shielded from everything outside.

Nightmare Moon pulled back and fell to the side, black smoke trailing between their mouths that fell upon the sand like coal dust. She was panting and trembling, her frame and visage for a moment skeletal before the darkness around them came to fill her body again. She smiled a fanged grin, and again her wing reached out to Luna, this time caressing her barrel and chest, then her neck.

Luna was smiling, eyes foggy, her expression dreamy. She reached with her own wing forward over Nightmare Moon. She wanted to feel more of that body. Every shifting curve and edge. A coat soft as shadow and powerful muscles beneath. A strong body. Beautiful. One that commanded respect, obedience, and admiration. She shuffled closer, and rested a leg around Nightmare Moon's neck. For a few seconds they lay there, panting. "Thank you," she eventually whispered.

Nightmare Moon's breath heaved a few more times as she soaked in Luna's gaze. "You needn't thank me," she said when her voice returned to her. A few more breaths and her shaking stopped entirely, and her body relaxed. "I should thank you, rather. But there's no need for that either. We are each other, after all, and one should always care for themself. You'd just been made to forget." She stood slowly, but deliberately so, no rush to her motions. "I do believe there's still time. As much as we want this night to last for. And there is still much that can be done."

Luna stood as well. She had a look around at the endless ocean beyond the small confines of the island. "Where should we go? Should we find some other place?"

Nightmare Moon chuckled at that. "Oh, Luna, my dear. There's no need to go or find. You should know..." She stepped forward. "We are given the right to shape the world." Her wing sank into Luna's chest.

Luna closed her eyes and sighed. Flashes danced into her mind, emotions pure and unburdened by reason and reality. Love, desire, unrestrained, boundless, and a weightless joy she hadn't felt in so long. Not since days distant even to her memory, of a time before Equestria, before the crown weighing on her head.

When she opened her eyes, the most beautiful palace she'd ever seen was emerging from the sea. Arches of onyx and obsidian held up by thin frameworks of silver, chains latching onto the skies, hallways winding onto themselves in impossible geometries and rooms as spacious as one wanted, or as private as one needed, with vaulted ceilings filled with moving stars. A castle built without the tyranny of logic, and a home one would never need to leave. It had everything she could desire.

Nightmare Moon led her through spiral corridors and looping staircases to a room with a sky full of stars as its floor, and an open ceiling like an eye filled almost entirely by the Moon. A throne stood at the far end, the world laid out beneath its legs like an island in the sea of black all around it. And they summoned creatures never before seen and made them all bow, and rewrote myths and legends and created new ones, and reshaped the laws of the universe to their whim as time flowed around them, unnoticed. And they laughed, and cried, and kissed, and became each other. And they danced, and the stars beneath them cast a single shadow on the Moon above.

III - Plead With My Own Shadow

Luna did not run. Not yet. The castle was not empty, and the sound of her silver shoes on the marble floor not quiet. She could not allow herself the privilege of running, lest the guards hear and the maids gossip, and the castle was not suited for quick flight. So she walked, if with a bit more energy to her steps than customary. Enough to seem irritated, perhaps, but that was no matter. It wasn't as if worse things weren't said already about her. Things she wished not to hear. Thoughts she wished not to see. But it was her job. Her duty. Her obligation.

Luna reached the doors to her tower. The tension in her body was evident, skin taut over her neck, wings not touching her sides, mane roiling like the sea in a storm. She fumbled the latch in her magic, swung the door open hard and barely caught it in time before it could slam against the wall. She stepped through with shaking legs, and exercised all her composure as she forced herself to close the door behind herself gently, softly. Then she let it all shatter.

Luna was running, grunting, pummelling the steps on her way up to her room. Always her. Always the monster. Always forced to go through it. Never a foal in Equestria who was scared of Celestia. Luna was crying. Always her duty to be there. To see them cower away from the shadows. To see them fear the night. To see the Nightmare with her face in their mind and hear the stories, the memories, the whispers, the thoughts of ponies young and old, the tales they told their children and the conviction behind them. That she wasn't different. That she wasn't fit. A life steering them to safety in the shadows and this was the thanks she got.

The door to her room, unlocked, swung on its hinges. Luna threw herself onto the bed, choked screams muffled by the covers. Then she was gone. She was drowning, sinking, the stars whizzing around her, the cosmos at the bottom of the ocean welcoming her. She opened her eyes and stared at the faint Moon above, and let the water carry her up and the waves deposit her onto the shore. She lay there, trembling, looking at nothing. Abandoned. Alone.

Nightmare Moon came to her. She walked slowly, her steps sloshing in the water and sand as she emerged from the sea, and once she was close she stopped and stood, casting her warm shadow over Luna. She did not approach her yet, merely watching and waiting, knowing her presence was felt. Eventually, Luna's sobbing quieted down to slow, shivering breaths, and her body sat still. Nightmare Moon walked until she was beside her, and then lowered herself, and extended a wing over Luna. "They hurt you, did they not?"

Luna did not speak an answer, but she did softly nod after a while. Then she gasped as Nightmare Moon leaned into her, moving Luna's wing out of the way and pushing her to her side. "What are you...?" she asked, her voice hoarse, then she gasped as Nightmare Moon sank her fangs into her chest. Her first instinct was to push back, but it only lasted a moment. She did not have the strength to do it, and in the time it took her to gather it she surrendered to the tide of sensations Nightmare Moon brought with her. It felt good, and it washed away her worries and her pain.

"It's okay," Nightmare Moon whispered in her ears, as she pulled back her fangs from Luna's heart. "I'm here now. I'm here for you, and I always will be." Then she bit down again around Luna's neck, wings sinking into her chest. "You don't need to worry about them here."

Luna's hooves pawed weakly at Nightmare Moon's chest, but without conviction. She let them fall after the second bite, and quieted her string of disconnected words. She just let herself sink into the feeling. It was like ice. It quelled the burning maelstrom in her heart. It made her numb to the hurting. It made her feel at peace, detached from all that was haunting her.

Then came the visions. Sounds, sensations, flashes of colours. Thoughts, or fragments of them. Emotions, gone before she could get a clear hold on them. They felt good. Love. Adoration. Admiration. Respect. Happiness. Acceptance. Freedom. A flash of light before her eyes, a vision that lasted only a moment, she saw herself flying over the ocean, waves rising and falling at her command, water twisting itself into whirlpools and tunnels at her will. Then it was gone. The cold was gone, and the safety was gone, and the gentle warmth and the shadows and the light was rushing in again, the world with all its noise and all its pain.

Luna leaned forward, desperate, eyes open wide, legs outstretched, reaching out for Nightmare Moon again. She found her, held onto her, pulled herself in. They kissed, and Nightmare Moon was in her again. The pain was smothered again, the memories silenced, and she felt good again. She saw herself again, triumphant and free. She leaned into the kiss. She gave herself to it. Embraced Nightmare Moon and abandoned herself to her.

Nightmare Moon pulled back again, jaws clamped around a piece of Luna's heart, the pain torn from her body by force. She swallowed it, and her shadows grew denser, more there. Luna was at peace. She lay on the beach and felt nothing bad, and nuzzled into Nightmare Moon. They both sat there awhile. Then, slowly, Nightmare Moon stood, gently lifting her wing from Luna's body. "You must go now. They still require you. But I'll be here. I'll always be here, when you need me, when you want me. Whenever you want to be happy."

She walked out into the sea, and Luna was left alone to contemplate her fate.

VII - New Moon

Luna walked onto the beach. She came from nowhere, not there one moment and there the next. Dreams worked like that, and she knew dreams better than anyone else. She knew dreams too well. She remembered them, when no other pony could. She knew their beauty, she knew how to make a refuge out of one. She knew how one could get lost in dreams, and never find a way out, and more than anybody she knew how to make it so. She wished she'd remembered sooner. She wished it was easier to be what she was not. Then she shunned those thoughts, and all others like them that had brought her there in the first place.

She looked up at the sky. The stars in alien patterns, beautiful and shifting about like dancers without a song. The Moon shone bright, larger than ever, bigger than even the Sun, pulling the waves and waters at its command. The shoreline had moved. The old marble staircase was halfway submerged, a distance out at sea. The water was churning, but without foam. It moved like shadows. Cold, heavy, filled with all sorts of things beautiful and terrible. Luna was not alone.

But she spoke first, eyes fixated on the sky. "It's no good like that," she said. "There's a storm coming. Sailors won't know their way back if the stars are not where they should be."

Nightmare Moon was next to her. She'd been in the sea a moment before, a sword of darkness stabbed into the ground unmoving among the waves, and then she simply wasn't. She moved as she pleased, and went where she wanted. Right then, she wanted to be around Luna, circling her like a shark. "What of it, dear? We can save them, without a need to hide our work. Let them bask in our glory and us in their gratitude and admiration."

Luna wanted to snap back. To say they'd put them in that danger to begin with. But she said no words, and only a quiet mewl escaped her lips. Her knees felt weak, and she barely stood. The water lapped at her hooves and it all came rushing back to her, eroding her certainty. Would it be so bad if things were different? If she was the hero, and the world was as beautiful as she could make it? Her thoughts were spinning, and so she kept her eyes on her Moon. It was never easy, was it?

"And why are sailors out at sea, anyway? Is it because our land lacks what they need? What do they seek, Luna? Beautiful sights? Food to feed themselves with? The thrill of adventure? We can give it to them. We can give them everything they want. We can give everyone everything they want. They just need to be with us. You just need to be with me. No longer need our work be effaced come the light of dawn. No longer need ponies toil and chase for the happiness they saw, the happiness we showed them, never to find it elsewhere. We can show them a better life, and they will be grateful for it."

"Many a great and beautiful thing has been built by that toiling, and many a dream inspired by the sight of one of those things." She was changing the subject. Taking time. Hiding, praying for a miracle she knew too well wouldn't come. She was scared, and her eyes misty like the sea around and beneath her. "Without them our world would be sterile. An ouroboros of regurgitated assumptions, of ponies wallowing in their own convictions. Nothing would grow in it."

"How can you know that when we've never been allowed to see it through?" Nightmare Moon was whispering against her ear, and circling around her still. Everywhere she might have looked, she would have seen her. So, Luna looked at the Moon. "They are right to fear us. They know the change we could bring. Order is the enemy of change, and it has always been. And you would deny our triumph to claim it brings a cycle? Does the Moon not obey a cycle? Don't the tides? Are we not a pendulum, Luna, two sides of the same thing? Has their hate clouded your mind enough for you to hate yourself as well?"

Waves struck Luna's knees. She would have fallen over in the water, but she kept herself anchored to the light of the Moon in her eyes, the only fixed point in the roiling sea of stars that was the sky. And every word filled her mind with thoughts she could not, should not ignore. There was no running away that wasn't running in circles. So she listened.

"You say every pony would wallow in their own ideas. Why is that bad, Luna? Should ponies suffer the pain and insults others inflict on them? Does anyone truly know what you want better than yourself? Is there anyone better than you at reaching for your happiness, without others to drag you down, when given the means to achieve those goals? The means we can give them, Luna. Is it not a good thing to love yourself?" Nightmare Moon stood in front of her, looking down at her, wings spread to halt the raging wind, eyes glowing brighter than the stars.

And it was true. Every word of it was beautiful. Every promise wonderful. Luna looked into Nightmare Moon's eyes. She stepped forward, stumbled into the water. Nightmare Moon caught her, strong, standing firm among the waves. She held her. She wrapped around her. She was in her, and was her. They kissed, shadows and dreams flowing into Luna. The water rose around them until it touched the sky and the stars poured themselves into it, and the Moon shone above them and all around them was a swirling wall of water and stars.

Luna kissed her, heart beating hard within her chest surrounded by a darkness eating every bit of pain and suffering and worry, a warm nest of happiness and safety. She breathed in the water and the smoke on the air, the smell of distant lands they could bring, of adventure they could give, of freedom. She tasted Nightmare Moon, cold as ice and hot as passion, and every want and desire and every wildest fantasy and fancy came tumbling into her mind and she knew she could give them everything, and she knew they would love her for it.

Luna opened her eyes. She stared into Nightmare Moon. Her body unmoving, unflinching in the storm. Her will unbreakable, her presence commanding. Her mane alone a greater sky than any ever seen over Equestria, and her coat of shadows ever flawless. And a fire in her soul, a longing in her eyes, a determination in her that would make her bend heaven and earth to get what she wanted. And she loved Luna. She truly did. Truly, honestly, she wanted her to be happy. And Luna loved her too. She couldn't not love her, not when she was everything she wanted, everything she thought was beautiful and strong and desirable, everything that would make her happy.

She broke the kiss. Her voice was shaky, but she did not stutter. "Yet, they would all be alone, and all their great works for no one but themselves. Is their happiness worth their loneliness?"

Nightmare Moon smiled, and her wings sank like fangs into Luna's heart, and Luna was filled with all thoughts good and wonderful, and she was happy. "Of course it would be, my dear. For us, and for them. They can always choose, and they will always choose us, when we show them the truth."

"And we would rule over them?"

"Over all those who choose to love us. And love us they will."

Luna gave a quivering sigh, then a deep inhale. "You told me once before. What are you?"

"I am the voice of your heart," Nightmare Moon said. She smiled.

Trembling, tears running down her cheeks, Luna hugged her. "You are, and far too long I've pretended not to hear you." A pause. Another deep breath. "But one lives not for one's self alone. One shouldn't shirk duty for happiness. One mustn't isolate within fantasy and refuse the world, even when it hurts. A pony without peers may as well have never lived, and one whose works are only dreams, however beautiful, has never been a part of history. What we want is not always what's best. And a Princess must not put her own desire over the well being of her subjects and her country.

"And so... you must be silenced."

A lance of moonlight fell from the heavens, and pierced Nightmare Moon's heart. She took a step back, bleeding smoke from her wound and mouth. She looked at Luna. She smiled. "So you can stand on your own, after all."

Then she was gone, and Luna was alone in the desert.