When the Moon Cries

The day started out like any other. Normal. Or at least as normal as it can get for the Princess of the Night. The younger, less important sister of Celestia. The forgotten one. The one constantly hidden in the comfort of the shadows.

Yep, in case you’re wondering--I know you are--that sad, sad, pony is me.

“I’m glad you’ve decided to have lunch with me, Luna. I know it’s very hard to find time, what with your duties, little sister.”

Midday. My sister and I were enjoying a meal together, on the veranda outside her bedroom, which overlooked all of Canterlot and the hills of Equestria beyond. The curtains of the room behind us billowed in the wind, bringing forth a comfortable breeze that blew its tendrils through my mane. Celestia’s own mane was haloed by her iridescent sun as it lay dormant,for the time being, above us. Her cutie mark caught the rays of light, resulting in the sparkle of her brand as she shifted her flank to make herself comfortable.

With her steadfast alicorn magic, she levitated the teapot for me and filled my cup with Chamomile and Lavender three-quarters full, exactly the way I liked it. The Royal Canterlot Guard, standing so stoically behind us, started toward us, keen on helping Celestia, but she brushed him away with a quick raise of a forehoof.

“Thank you, Shining Steel,” my sister said to the sturdy white unicorn, who nodded, “But your services are not needed at this moment. I can pour this tea for my dear younger sister myself.”

There we go again. Dear younger sister. You’d think for a second there she actually cared about me. She doesn’t.

See, my sister is built like a puzzle, but a fairly easy puzzle, like a puzzle of a rainbow that even the youngest of filly can categorize by merely glancing at it. The filly can sort the pieces into sections by color, red, orange, yellow and so on and so forth, until there are six neat little piles containing six neat little colors. Celestia has many sides to her, and each side, in this case, would signify a different color. Red for the duty she feels she owes to Equestria. Orange for the love she feels for our late mother and father--details not worth delving into. Yellow for the pride she still bestows after rejecting the hands of pretty much every stallion in all of Canterlot. It can go on for ages. And finally, you get me, the sacrificial pawn in the grand plan of my sister’s  to make sure everypony else is happy. Purple. All of those colors create the rainbow, a dazzling display of beauty, and, on the surface, the embodiment of Princess Celestia.

You can tell I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. About her. After all, she is related to me, and like it or not, we are sisters.

“That unicorn is going to be great someday.” Celestia said, after Shining Steel, the insistent guard who had tried helping Celestia pour my tea, had left. He did have a nice view, at least flank-wise, but his face was pudgy and squished, kind of like my sister’s  when I do something rash, like decide not to raise the moon and go to one of the Royal Banquet’s instead. He also had a hoof that was slightly bigger than the other three, and although I usually didn’t notice superficial details, it was highly annoying.

“Maybe I’ll have him lead the Royal Guard. He could start a legacy. Just imagine, the grandson of Shining Steel that will command the Royal Guard, the stallion that will do great things under my reign.” Celestia pondered, daintily placing a scone in her mouth, suspending it in the air with her aura. I did the same, although my magic was not as seasoned as hers. As days had gone by, I had developed some more advanced powers. I was an alicorn, after all, and my sister and I played a big role in the keeping of Equestria. It was our destiny, if you must. I sighed.

“You’re getting better, Luna.” Celestia remarked, after taking a sip of the glorious concoction known as Camomile and Lavender, glancing fondly at the hills beyond. Those hills contained another world, a world with much less duty and fulfillment. If only, for one day, I could be a commonpony, not someone with such a high and mighty position such as myself.

Celestia’s baby sister. Oh, so important.

“Getting better? Whatever do you mean by that? How am I getting better?” I asked, looking at her quizzically. What more did she want from me? Honestly.

“Quite frankly,  you are getting better at everything. Your magic is stronger, your figure”--here I couldn’t help myself, I had to blush--”your demeanor. You’re growing up to become like me, Luna.” she said in her soft drawl, complete with a small giggle.

I hardened. I didn’t want to be anything like her. I had seen every shade of every color there was of her, and as you got deeper and deeper, you started to dislike her more and more.

Not that I liked her in the first place. A terrible thing to say, considering we are flesh and blood and I am her younger sister. If I voiced my general dislike for her I would be immediately ostracized and Celestia would brainwash some wonderful stallion like Shining Steel to raise the moon in my place.

“Is something the matter Luna? You’ve just received my highest praise.” again, with another glance out onto the horizon like it had something she loved, something she wanted. She knew nothing of the feeling to want to get out of this life.

She enjoyed it.

She enjoyed expatriating ponies who supposedly did wrong. She enjoyed ruling over this country with a cloaked iron fist. She loved being in charge. She loved controlling me, she loved forcing me oh-so-sweetly into raising the moon each night. She loved power, and she loved every single terrible, sadistic, aspect of her job as leader of the seemingly perfect land known as Equestria.

As this realization dawned on me, exactly as her pitiful sun did every morning, something inside of me snapped.

“You know what, sister? I must go. I have some things I need to do.” I said suddenly, bolting out of my seat, chair legs scraping on tile, as I sprinted through her bedroom and out the door, startling the Guards waiting faithfully outside. Shining Steel looked on with a single raised eyebrow, but said nothing as my hooves clopped against the hard floor of the hallway and echoed like the unheard shouts in a hollow tree trunk. I heard Celestia call after me, but, naturally, I ignored it. She was nothing. In my one great time of inspiration, I suddenly had an idea, a way to stop Celestia once and for all. An old mare’s tale I remember from so long ago, a time with an ageless Shaman known as Two Bits. Two Bits had been my one constant memory from the journey as I accompanied Celestia on her supposed destiny to become the Princess, the ruler of Canterlot and beyond. The zebra Shaman had told me the stories, the stories that I would soon discover to be the truth, of the two sisters who were meant to rule over Equestria. The big, strong, sister, the guardian of the sun, keeper of day, the time when everypony played and basked in the sister’s glory. The small, younger, sister, the guardian of the moon, the time when everypony slept after a long day of living in the sun. The lesser. The unimportant younger sister. Never to be loved by anypony. These legends were the truth.

I now realize Two Bits was trying to tell me something. At the time, I was merely a filly, and dense to add to that, and I had no idea that this would someday be my future.

I needed to find Nightmare’s Mask.

The mask that would give me power beyond belief, power enough to overthrow my sister. Power that would rival even Discord’s, the evil demon who had embodied a menagerie of different creatures, only to become one big disgusting web of entangled animal parts. Even with the combined magic of  the Elements of Harmony, Celestia, me, the majority of the unicorn branch of the Royal Guard,  and every scholar at Celestia’s academy, we were barely able to defeat him.

Think, Luna. What did Two Bits say about Nightmare’s Mask? I asked myself, sifting through my memory as I ran to the Canterlot Archives to conduct some quick research that could help me ring a bell about the Mask’s location.

‘Lunar Princess,  you must think.

Don’t go to the well and take a drink.

For the Mask, and the power deep within thee,

Will soon become your destiny.’

Why did this passage suddenly come to me? Was this something that Two Bits had said to me?

Yes. It was.

And I now knew where to look. With a skid, I quickly changed directions, away from library wing. With a skip in my step and the certainty that the riddle from so long ago held a secret that I could possess,  I galloped down the stairs into the atrium courtyard. If only I could remember the location of the well...

Oh. Right. It was in the little garden directly below Celestia’s room.

Just wonderful.

I slowed down to a trot, my hooves making no noise against the sod as I searched for the grove where I knew the wishing well would be, surrounded by flowers and trees and chirping birds.

And that would be the place where I would gain unfathomable power.

I approached the stone walkway leading up to the well, gingerly walking over the gravel as to avoid the attention of the guards. Even if they did see me, they would pay no mind. Nobody has time for little Princess Luna. Only big, mighty  Princess Celestia.

This is it, I thought, my heart quickening as it jumped into my throat, This is the place where I can finally stop Celestia and expose her for what she really is.

I peered into the well, mane line sweating ever so slightly in anticipation. I quickly wiped the sweat away with a forehoof, exhaling heavily. What I saw in the reflection startled me, but filled me with a sense of euphoria I can only compare to achieving a certain greatness not usually achieved on a normal day.

She was me, but she was not me. With bright, shining white eyes, like two closed windows, and a glowing, rippling mane that was almost opaque like Celestia’s, she was gorgeous. With a determined, scornful look on her face, she mirrored exactly how I felt inside, all of the conflicting parts of my being.  But the best part was the Mask.

Of course. The Mask.

Hello. said a voice in my head, a voice that was mine but not quite mine. It was richer, stronger, rejuvenated. I am Nightmare Moon. I am you, Princess Luna, and you are me.

Hi, me. I replied. Then I realized how foolish I sounded. I cleared my throat.

Hello, Nightmare Moon. I was wondering if you could help me defeat my sister.

Of course, dear Luna. Who could turn down a challenge? Stick your head into the well, and the answer you seek will be near.

The Mask? This version of me was wearing the Mask, so the Mask must be inside the well. The Mask that would grant me the only desire I had: to expose Celestia as the tyrant she really was. Then, just maybe, I would stop being so bitter.

I stuck my head into the pool, sending a ripple across the small diameter of the pool, and it felt mordantly like apple bobbing. Through my blurred vision, I could just make out the large Mask sleeping gently on the bottom of the shallow well, about half a foot down and seemingly dry. I could feel its magic entrancing me, shocking me, calling for me. I wanted it. And it wanted me. This Mask was meant to be mine.

It’s intricate designs were easier to make out as I brought it closer to my face, levitating it with my own magic, which had miraculously found a way to work, even though my horn was submerged. The mask was a pale baby blue, almost the tone of my fur, and was etched with swirls and curlicues of all shapes and sizes. Just by looking at it, I could tell it would fit my head perfectly, as if it had been molded just for me.

I automatically felt at ease in its presence, and suddenly the lack of oxygen around me was no longer a factor to an untimely death. This was mine. The Nightmare’s Mask belonged to me.

It was my destiny.

Levitating the mask carefully in my magical encasing, I gently lifted my head out of the water, my mane fully dry and my heart filled with glee.

Nightmare Moon, I thought to her as I glanced at my reflection, I am ready to merge with you. I am ready to make my sister pay for her acts. I gently placed the mask down on the rim of the well, making sure it had no chance of slipping and falling, because if it did I would be...well...royally screwed.

Very well then, Luna. Just beware of the consequences. Nightmare Moon said, staring at me again with those soulless white orbs.

What consequences? Nopony ever mentioned anything about consequences. In the heat of the moment, in the midst of yet another of my rash decisions, I guess I had forgotten to think about consequences. I’m not that type of mare.

I sighed. Just follow through with it. I want revenge for everything she’s ever done.

Very well then, she said, a hint of something almost bittersweet in her thought speak voice, Put on the mask, Princess of the Night. And become me.

I snared the Mask in my magical force and placed it upon my head. And then, in a flash of white, everything changed.

I was no longer me anymore. I was Nightmare Moon. Keeper of Nightmare’s Mask, root of all evil. The side of me that I was scared of.

Everything around me was different.

My perspective. I no longer wanted to be in this garden, no longer wanted to appreciate it’s beauty, didn’t give a buck about how the flowers were tended to and which were hydrangeas and which were tulips and which were roses. I wanted blood. More specifically, my sister’s.

My body. My coat was a dense ebony, as dark as night and as dark as my soul. My eyes were that same glowing white, my mane now clear. It cascaded down my back like a waterfall, barely catching the slight breeze.

My senses. I could taste the wind on my tongue. I could hear the heartbeat of the Royal Guards manning the castle as they protected Celestia from any harm. I could smell blood. It filled me with a particular craving. I wanted that blood. That blood from my sister. The blood pulsing through her veins at this very moment. I wanted to defeat her, and I wanted to rule Equestria.

Me, Nightmare Moon.

Focusing all of my magical energy on the mental image of the Royal Princess’s bedroom, I quickly teleported with a flash of white hot energy, tainted with black.

“Celestia!” I called, vehemence evidence in my tone as the words were spit from my mouth,  “Come out, sister.”

Celestia must have been oblivious to it.

“Yes, Luna?” she replied, trotting into the room from the veranda where we ate lunch only a few hours ago, and it was obvious she was still admiring her handiwork as her sun retreated over the hills. The setting sun bask an orange glow around the room, a color so similar to the darker red of the blood I could hear pumping through every pony in this mansion with a quick thump-thump.

“Hel--” her expression quickly shifted as she saw who I was. Who I had always been, but only needed the power of Nightmare’s Mask to reveal.

These were my true colors.

“Silence.” I whispered, as I curled my imaginary sliver of magic wire around her throat, and she instantly started choking as I worked the spell that could be the death of my sister as I so wished. This was an advanced Dark Magic spell, a spell I had no idea how to perform before I became my new self. The object of the spell was to trap your victim in your aura and strangle them to death as they struggled to get free.

She immediately started wheezing, poor thing, choked on her own spit as her eyes bugged out of her head, her front hooves frantically reaching for her neck.

“Now... Celestia. You belong to me.” I cooed, as I pulled her in closer with my Dark Magic, to a point where our snouts were almost touching and I could see the pleading desperation in her eyes.

I released the magic.

“No...no...y--you--you’re not Luna. You’re Nightmare Moon. Oh, Two Bits warned me about this, and I should have listened to that batty old zebra when I had the chance.” she said, mumbling the last part to herself. She was still visibly frightened, and I was a little concerned with whether or not she was going to scream, and then the Royal Guards would come prancing in and that would ruin any chance for me to torture her.

“Two Bits? What do you know about Two Bits?” I jabbed my horn into her side as

she collapsed onto the ground, eyes glistening with pathetic tears.  She curled up at the foot of her canopy bed, expecting me to feel remorse and sorrow for the pony who single-handedly ruined me.

“Tw--Two Bits was a zebra Shaman from when we first started out our journey, my quest to become Princess,” she stammered, gulping. I leaned in closer, a still angry expression on my face.

“She predicted something like this would happen, but I didn’t want to listen. ‘Not Luna,’ I said to Two Bits, ‘Not my filly sister Luna.’” she glanced at me, fearful, with those same wide eyes.

Oh, how heartbreaking.

“Yeah, well, too bad, Celestia”--I spit her name out with such scorn I could have killed her with just my words--”because I’m not your dear younger sister Luna anymore. I am Nightmare Moon.”

I activated the Dark Magic again, this time choosing a more intense spell that was sure to make her squeal and yet again work to slowly end her life.

This was the skull-splitting spell, where the pony wielding the Dark Magic literally splits the skull of the victim, very slowly and very painfully. I could smell the blood now, smell it as it wafted throughout the room, the rich, beautiful aroma. The thin, horizontal line that was becoming a steady stream of red just below the top of her mane, that was what I had been waiting for.

“Stop! Don’t do this!” she writhed in pain and tried to scream, but my magic went into overdrive and activated the choking spell, which shut her up.

More blood, more now, I wanted more. I wanted it to pool out from her head, to glide it’s way down her mane, taint her silky white fur that had never been touched by the devil.

I wanted it. I wanted to see her in pain. I wanted to see her expression as her last moments arrived. Finally, I had the power, and I was going to overthrow my sister and lead Equestria. I was going to make the common ponies love me. I wasn’t going to be insignificant, only a pawn used to raise the moon. I was going to be the ruler.

The horizontal line was halfway across her head now, and it was getting thicker and thicker. Blood poured from the wound and landed on her beautiful lashes, blood trickled into her mouth as she pleaded silently for mercy, and she finally lay down on her side in submission, the cutie mark emblazoned on her flank slowly getting dimmer as the life was drained out of her.

I released the choking spell. Yet again.

She was genuinely crying now, crying for herself, crying for me, crying for who knows what. The blood was everywhere now, it was hardening into her fur, slowly drying into black.

The macabre sight was one for sore eyes.

“Please...please...what did I ever do?” she sobbed, pleading and pleading and pleading. So much begging. Wasn’t she the ruler of Equestria, all-knowing and problem solving? Couldn’t she figure some things out for herself, if she really did deserve that title?

“Everything, big sister. Everything.” I said, kicking a hoof into her side, making her cry out in pain. I couldn’t wait for that one last spell, the last spell that would finish her off once and for all, that would banish her to the land of Discord and Sombra and all the demons we had conquered along the way, right  where she belonged.

And then my sister’s tears stopped. Suddenly, like someone had somehow controlled a tsunami and gotten the crashing waves to stop in their maelstrom of pain. Something flashed across her face. What was it? Acceptance? It was calming, it was kind, and it was something that was always there but had not been to the surface for a while.

It was love.

She relaxed, and a serene expression overruled the previous fear and dying tears from less than a minute ago.

“Luna. I know you’re in there. And I’m only doing this because I love you, and I always will.” with quaking legs, she got up onto all fours, rising above me, and even as my true self, I was still two or three heads shorter than she was.

“See you...when we can meet again.” she smiled at me weakly, eyes downcast as she braced herself for something, hunched as if a heavy anvil was balanced precariously on her shoulders.

But what was it?

I put myself in a fighting position, four hooves staggered and horn pointed directly at Celestia, wings flared. I wanted to finish her off. I needed to. I was Nightmare Moon, and this was my destiny. Magic coursed through my body and flew into my horn as I prepared to unleash my final, most powerful attack.

“I call forth...the Elements of Harmony!” my big sister looked at me with unbearably pained eyes, but they held confidence in them. She was uncertain, but at the same time, so, so certain.

The Elements flew in from the room adjacent to us at her will, carouseling in a  glowing, levitating, hula hoop around Celestia: Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, Laughter, Kindness, and, finally, Magic. Six different colors, as simple as the colors of my sister. The shades, the multifarious sides of her.

Was I the same? Did I have many sides to me as well, many fronts that I had to maintain in order to survive in this world? Was I not so different from my sister?

I could feel them around me, the Elements, I could feel the small dents they had made in my soul slowly flatten themselves out. There were still fragments of these Six powers  left in our bodies after my sister and I had merged with them to defeat Discord. My sister was sacrificing her pieces in order to extract mine.

In order to save me, she had disbanded the Elements of Harmony from our bodies. She was going to cut us off completely, from the small power we had left.

She had severed a bond.

“Now, with the complete power of the Elements, I banish you, Nightmare Moon, to the moon!” she yelled, the jewels of the Elements in their heightened power that she now possessed coiling its way around my body, trapping me.

“Celestia!” I screamed, I could feel my end coming. Each moment was a reminder I had failed.

“No! Don’t do this!” I flailed around, but the charm of the Elements of Harmony held fast and I could not find a way to get free, even when I tried activating the Dark Magic. With each moment I was getting trapped more and more in the magic, each second was an inch deeper in the quicksand.

“I’m sorry, dear younger sister.” she said. She was caked in blood, covered in filth, and tear-stained, but when I looked at her a dam broke. She was Celestia, my one and only friend over the years, the one that I had promised I would never misbehave for, that I would never do anything rash or headstrong for.

It had been me. It had been me the entire time. I had been the one that had been doing wrong, I was the one who had been hurting my own sister with every passing day. I had been mean, I had been cruel, and I had been bitter. And I had taken it out all on her, I had lashed out and falsely accused her of being somebody she was not. She was not the simple yet unsolvable puzzle. I was. And now,  I had broken a promise, a promise made at the height of fillyhood, a promise to make decisions by myself, and I had fulfilled my own destiny.

This was my punishment.

Tears fell from my eyes as I accepted my fate.

“I love you, Celestia.” I cried, as I was pulled farther and farther away, the wind whipping so hard I thought my words had been blown away. The room was being sucked out of my vision, and I knew I wouldn’t see my sister’s bedroom, or any of Equestria, for a very, very long time. I tried to memorize it.

“I love you too, Luna.” it came out in barely more than a whisper, a sad, heartbroken whisper that just made it into my ears over the roar of the wind as I was sucked away from the world I had come to know.

And in that moment, I knew I would have my sister at my side with me. Always.