Love Thyself (Cinderblox)

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.