“Ugh! WHERE did we put our things?!” Princess Luna let out an exasperated sigh. It was the day of the Nightmare Night festival, and the Princess was scheduled for a visit to Ponyville. Of course, that was if she could find her Nightmare Moon armor.
“Every single time,” she muttered to herself, throwing her possessions around with bursts of cerulean magic, “we have some sort of event going on, we’re always caught unpre- AH HAH!” With a triumphant yell, six pieces of armor were levitated into the air, darkly reflecting the light cast by Luna’s horn.
“Six pieces of moonsilver, crafted in a distant star and cooled in the vast emptiness of space,” she said fondly, examining each piece carefully. “It would have been a testament to our skills had it not been born of our hatred and jealousy.” A wistful sigh escaped her mouth. “Oh well, no changing that now. Perhaps it is better for us this way. After all, it’s bringing us closer to our subjects.” A smile broke out over her face as fond memories of the previous year washed over her.
“Well, there isn’t any use of donning this quite yet,” Luna muttered, blowing a mote of dust off of her helmet. “It’s still my sister’s day, after all.” Still smiling, she set the pieces of armor on her empty dresser top, arranging them from helmet to greaves.
“Might as well grab as much sleep as we can before tonight,” Luna murmured, stretching and yawning hugely. “It’s going to be a busy one.” Giggling tiredly, she climbed back into her bed, tugged the blankets over her head, and slowly drifted back into sleep…
~*~*~*~
It wasn’t outrageously chilly, especially for this time of year. Winter was approaching, and Luna could taste the oncoming storm that was still months away on the wind that tousled her mane. Opening her eyes, she took in the scene around her. She was atop a crest of a hill, overlooking the entirety of Ponyville. As she looked down over it, she expected to see fillies and colts parading around the streets in costumes, or the festival of carnival games that she attended last year, or even a fretting parent here or there looking for their young ones.
Instead, the town was completely silent. Luna cocked her head and swiveled her ears, attempting to catch any sign of Nightmare Night. All her efforts were for naught, however, as the only thing to reach her ears was silence.
“….l-u…n-a…”
Luna flinched, though it felt as if her hooves were rooted in place. Surely that was just the breeze playing tricks on her, right?
“L-u-n-a…..”
“Show yourself, fiend or trickster!” the princess of the moon shouted to the air. “We are the Protector of the Night, Princess Luna, and we will not be trifled with this way!” Despite her tough façade, Luna’s legs were unsteady, and her knees felt like buckling. Once again, she attempted to lift her hooves off the ground, only to, once again, feel like heavy construction blocks were tied to her, anchoring her firmly on the ground and snaring her in place.
A cold cackle pervaded the air, giving Luna chills independent of the breeze that still flowed gently around her head.
“Luuuunaaaa, how could you forget usss so quickly…?” two pinpricks of red light began to glow mere inches away from the midnight blue alicorn’s face. “We were sooo close oncceee…”
“W-we demand that y-you show yourself th-this instant!” Luna stammered, giving the two red lights the hardest glare she could muster.
“As you wish…little sister…” a dark outline began to materialize around the two red pinpricks; a long, tapered horn, a pair of feathery, majestic wings, a crown/tiara hybrid set with beautiful jewels, and a glowing sun emblem of a cutie mark.
“S-sister! What are you d-doing here?” As relieved as Luna was to see her kin, she was still uneasy. While it was definitely her sister, Luna still felt off about Celestia. After all, glowing red eyes weren’t part of her attire last time Luna checked.
“Just playing a little game, sister dearest,” Celestia muttered, giving Luna a wicked grin. “And you’re the main participant.”
“Game? What do you mean, game? What are you up to?”
“Patience, Lu’. The rules will be explained…” Celestia trailed off, turning her back on her sister and spreading her wings.
“Wait! Where are you going? You can’t just leave me here like this!”
Another wicked grin flashed across Celestia’s face. “Like what, sister?”
“We can’t move our legs!”
Celestia folded her wings and let out a malicious giggle. “Luna, have I ever told you how much…” as the white alicorn spoke, her teeth began to elongate and sharpen
“…I hate it…”
“…when you TALK LIKE THAT?!”
Luna’s eyes widened as her sister’s body began to twist and deform, her mouth growing much larger than the rest of her body.
“I BET YOU TASTE DELICIOUS,” Celestia growled as her gaping jaws began to close around Luna’s-
Luna bolted upright in her bed, drenched in a cold sweat. Her entire body was shivering, and she could still smell the putrid breath of her sister-who-wasn’t-her-sister’s gaping maw.
“A dream,” she mumbled in disbelief. “It was only a dream…”
~*~*~*~
As Princess Luna watched the sun set below the horizon, her mind was troubled by her dream. “We never have dreams that vivid, that real, unless they mean something,” she murmured uneasily, shifting her gaze to the mirror. As she looked, two small points of red light began to glow where her eyes rested. Gasping, she blinked and shook her head violently. When she looked again, the red lights had vanished.
Luna giggled nervously. “We should control our imagination more…” Shaking off any lingering uneasiness, Luna levitated her armor off of her dresser and into a bag she had slung over her shoulder. “These thoughts have no place in our mind,” she reminded herself sternly. “We have festivities to attend, and ponies are awaiting us!” And with that, Princess Luna took a brisk hoofstep out of her room.
~*~*~*~
“Just think, it’s been an entire year since we’ve been to Ponyville!” Luna chattered excitedly to her guards pulling the Midnight Chariot. “It’s a good thing you two decided to dress up, as we’ve heard bats are a perfect spooky theme for Nightmare Night.”
The two bat ponies glanced at each other and rolled their eyes, deciding it would be futile to try and explain to their princess that, “No ma’am, this is how we always look,” for the umpteenth time. Instead, they opted to say nothing. It didn’t dissuade the chatty princess, though.
“Oh, we’re going to have so much fun!” Luna giggled, clapping her hooves together. “We’re going to go bobbing for apples, and spider tossing, and all other sorts of fun activities!”
One of the guards cleared her throat and spoke up. “You’ll get your chance soon enough, your highness. We’re nearing the Nightmare Moon memorial.”
“Perfect!” Princess Luna cried with glee. “Set us down at the statue and take the carriage to Ponyville. Park it near the Library, if at all possible. Miss Sparkle informed me that she’d save a place for our carriage. We want to make our entrance as spectacular as possible!”
“Of course, your highness.”
The rest of the brief flight was traversed in silence, only broken by the sound of Luna rummaging through her bags, triple and quadruple checking she had everything she needed.
We want to make Miss Sparkle and her friends proud, Luna thought to herself, allowing another grin to spread across her face. Along with giving Ponyville one of it’s best Nightmare Nights ever!
“Starting our descent, your highness,” the female bat pony guard said quickly. The chariot began a quick descent, floating gracefully to the ground. The runners made a soft thump against the ground as Luna hopped out, bag swinging at her side.
“You’re wonderful guards, you two,” Luna gave them the warmest smile she could muster. The two nodded and returned a smile, taking off to go stow the chariot safely out of sight.
“Now it is just us,” Luna murmured, turning to face the Nightmare Moon statue. A single piece of candy floated from her bag to the ground at the base of the statue. “You will leave us alone for another year, yes?”
Luna didn’t expect a reply from the inanimate statue, and was not disappointed. The only sound that followed her voice was the wind whistling through the branches of the Everfree Forest.
“Well, time to go,” Luna muttered, adjusting her bag to a more comfortable position. “Can’t be late for our own holiday.”
~*~*~*~*~
Clop, clop, clop, clop.
As lonely as the walk was turning out to be, Luna accepted the solitude as a blessing. It gave her time to think, which she oft never had enough of. She thought of all the experiences that she’s had in the past year, the things she’s learned of that sprouted up in her absence, including the darker side of Canterlot that only comes out to play in the night.
SNAP!
The midnight blue alicorn started in fright, recoiling at the sudden sound. She had been so lost in thought that the sharp sound of her hoof coming down on a small twig jolted her out of her walking dream.
“That’s odd…” Luna pursed her lips, looking around. “Normally, the sound of a twig breaking wouldn’t even be of a concern to us…” After this brief pause, the princess continued her trudge towards Ponyville.
Clop, clop, clop, clop.
“It’s weird, hearing our own hoofsteps,” she mused. “In fact, there hasn’t been any sound of anything other than me and the wind since I landed in the forest…” Normally, Luna wouldn’t have been perturbed by this slight detail. However, for Nightmare Night, she specifically planned the lunar phases so that a full moon would be over Equestria every time, and full moons usually sparked the howling of timberwolves. But she hadn’t heard any timberwolves since she’s landed. Nor has she heard the scurry of nocturnal critters, such as raccoons and opossums. She hadn’t even heard the sound of crickets.
Everything was dead silent.
A slight shiver went through Luna’s body. This is getting a little odd. The sooner we get to Ponyville, the better. With a slight nod to herself, she picked up the pace to a trot, wind flowing a little faster through her mane.
And, on the wind, she thought she could pick up the faint sound of an all-too-familiar cackle.
~*~*~*~*~
“Finally!” Luna let out a little joyous squeak to herself. She had come up to the isolated clearing that lay just outside of Ponyville. This is where, for a night, she would become the symbol of fear and darkness that scared the residents of Equestria so good at night.
“Let’s get these things on, then,” she muttered to herself, jamming the helmet on her head with care not to hurt her horn. She slipped on the rest of her armor, arguing for a silent minute with her chest piece, and looked around again. She still couldn’t hear anything, but she attributed that to the isolation of the clearing. Surely, the revelries in Ponyville dwarfed anything that the town had had in the past.
“It’s almost midnight,” she said confidently. “Almost time for my grand entrance.”
“5…”
“4…”
“3…”
“2…”
“1!”
With a maniacal laughter, Luna summoned up swirling clouds of darkness around herself and launched herself into the air above Ponyville.
“INSIGNIFICANT PONIES OF PONYVILLE!” she boomed with the Royal Canterlot Voice, “IT IS WE, NIGHTMARE MOON, YOUR RULER IN DARKNESS ETERNAL. WE COME TO THIS SMALL VILLAGE ASKING ONLY ONE-“
Silence. Abruptly, Luna stopped flying, letting the darkness dissipate back into the shadows it was summoned from. There were no bonfires in the town, no festivities in the streets, no costumed foals prancing about, and no laughing citizens enjoying the holiday.
It didn’t stop there. There wasn’t a single light glowing from any house, a single voice to be heard. There wasn’t a pony in sight.
It was literally as silent as the grave.
Darkness seemed to flow like a river through the streets of Ponyville, obscuring anything Luna could have seen from the air. It was like a dense liquid, clinging to the ground and dirtying everything it touched.
Thoroughly confused and shaken, Luna lighted at the edge of Ponyville, where the darkness was the thinnest. Conjuring a glow at the end of her horn, she began to make her way to the town square. “If anything happened to the residents of the town, the evidence will be there,” she muttered. “Plus, my guards should be near the Library, which sits on one of the corners of the square.”
The sound of her hooves against the cold cobblestones of the street was enough to put Luna’s nerves on edge. It was the only sound that pierced the silence surrounding the ghost town, and it echoed off of all the buildings, resounding in Luna’s ears. It was as if armies of ponies were all marching towards the town square.
A small part of Luna wanted to turn tail and run. Run as far away from this place as possible, go back to her room in Canterlot, and hide there forever. But a larger part of her knew that she had an obligation to all residents of Equestria, and there was no way that she was going to run out on them now, when they needed her the most.
CREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK...
Sugarcube Corner, unlit and unoccupied, is creepy on the best of days. Tonight, with the wind causing the sign to creak and the inky blackness that clung to the ground, it was enough to make Luna stare straight ahead and nearly gallop past the place.
“We’re here…” Luna said, glancing around the Town Square. “If anything happened to these ponies, it would be here…” she increased the glow emanating from her horn to cover the entire square, and came face to face with a screaming statue.
The statue itself was of a pony. It had four legs, head, tail, mane, two ears, and everything that a pony needs to be called a pony. That wasn’t what scared Luna about it the most. The statue had been carved into a grotesque pose, where the head was twisted at an impossible angle from the body so the eyes were closer to the ground than the mouth. The teeth within it’s mouth were filed down to sharp points, and the entire thing looked as if it had been crawling towards Luna before she looked at it.
As the light continued to dispel the darkness, more and more disturbing statues came into sight. One looked as if it was slithering across the ground on it’s belly, like a snake. One appeared to be coiling its legs, as if it were going to spring. One was sitting firmly on the ground, its eyes fixated on the exact spot where Luna was standing.
Luna was speechless. She had to blink several times just to confirm that-
Did that statue just move?!
Luna peered at the statue that was posed like a snake. Surely enough, on of its legs was in a slightly different position than it was before.
“…l-u….n-a…”
“What?!” the princess involuntarily answered to her name.
“…don’t blink…lu-na….”
“Why?! What happens if we blink?! Answer me!”
The only answer came in the form of a cackle, floating on the breeze. All around her, the statues began to animate, their heads and legs shrieking with the sound of stone grinding against stone. They began to crawl, drag, and otherwise creep towards Luna.
Nononononowehavetogetoutofhereohhelpmeplease
Luna would have ran if she could. She would have stretched her wings and shot off the ground, leaving the earth and going straight to her moon, where she had control of everything. As she tried to do this, she found that her legs were once again unresponsive, and her wings drooped to the ground as if infused with lead.
And she was sinking.
The blackness had pooled around her, and she was sinking into its. She could feel the shadow devouring her energy, her will, and she lost hope. She gave up trying to flee, fight, or resist. She hung her head, tears flowing from her eyes, and slowly let the darkness pull her in…
…she was falling, forever falling, into an unforgiving abyss. Memories of betrayal, hatred, and anger rose unbidden to the surface. And the pain was immense…
…the sound of static filled her ears, pierced only by the familiar laughter. Always the laughter…
…it stopped being terrifying after a while. Stopped hurting, stopped caring, whatever. All she wanted to do…
…was…
SCREAM!
~*~*~*~*~
“Luna!”
Princess Luna bolted upright in her bed, covered in cold sweat and shaking from horn to hoof. A very worried looking Celestia rushed in through the door to Luna’s room.
“You were screaming in your sleep, are you okay? You’re covered in sweat!”
A single tear fell from Luna’s eye as she flew into her sister’s hooves. “It was just a dream…just a dream…”
Surprised, Celestia pulled her younger sister into an embrace. “That’s right, Lu’. Just a dream. You’re alright…”
Still crying, Luna opened an eye and caught a glimpse of her mirror. She could see herself in her sister’s arms, a big pile of blue blubbery mess. But that wasn’t the only thing on her mirror. Written beneath her image, in small red letters, was a question.
Or was it?
Softly, Luna could hear Celestia let out that familiar cackle.
