Love Thyself (Cinderblox)

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.