WARNING: THIS CHAPTER IS NOT YET COMPLETED! THE CONTENT PRESENTED WITHIN THIS WRITING IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
For one thousand years, all I felt beneath my hooves was dust and space.
I could feel my stars as they passed under me, no matter how far away they were, but I had forgotten what earth had felt like.
It was strange. It felt like something that didn't belong, but at the same time I welcomed it happily.
The Nightmare had been defeated at the end of my imprisonment and locked away within the depths of my mind. She could never be eradicated unless I were to die, and that was my eternal curse; an Alicorn's curse.
'Tia has one, too, but she's much better about keeping it under control. We don't talk about Corona...
I looked forward to reuniting with my dear, sweet sister to hug her tightly and apologize endlessly for giving into the Nightmare; to talk with her about how to better resist her temptations and pleas, and how to merge back into Equestrian society.
'Tia always had a plan for absolutely everything. I knew full well that few ponies, if any, would know who I was just by my looks.
My identity had been masked as a monster and written as a story to keep all the terrible truths from coming to light so that upon my repentance I may be presented with a clean slate in which I would begin my life over.
Except I never would be able to begin again.
I first realized something was off when I saw nopony around to greet me.
Celestia would have measured her spell to the smallest increment- and I had counted the seconds towards my release. She should have been here to greet me; to welcome me back home after so many years.
I stood in my castle - the one I had built after seceding from Equestria - and painfully acknowledged the wear of one thousand years on the masonry.
A forest had grown up all around the land surrounding the castle, although the trees seemed far stranger than any I had ever seen.
Walls had crumbled and windows lay shattered all around me- revealing a beautiful sight of my wondrous night sky.
I thought, perhaps, she had just been busy, and that any guards she would have sent to greet and escort me must be lost in the forest or something of the like. With that assumption in 'head, I began trotting at a slow pace through the remains of the once great Lunar Throne Room and into the main corridor.
I would have flown, but I was in such a weakened state after one thousand years of battling an inner demon that not even my mane was holding its beautiful illusion of swirling galaxies and twinkling stars.
Despite having personally over watched the construction from near start-to-finish, these hallways and corridors seemed alien to me. This was not the castle I had built; nor one I expected to be presented with after one thousand years of wear and tear...
But alas, there was nary a thing I could do for my dear; my castle...
So, instead, I continued on down the unlit hallways; using the tip of my horn as a dim light to find my way around to the entrance.
