Every Night is a Night of Nightmares

Every Night is a Night of Nightmares

by the parasprite

Chapter 1: This system does not exist to serve you

Sweet Dreams

Sweet dreams are made of this

Who am I to disagree?

Travel the world and the seven seas

Everybody’s looking for something

Some of them want to use you

Some of them want to get used by you

Some of them want to abuse you

Some of them want to be abused

Twilight Sparkle glared at the morsel of bread that had been placed in front of her. It was clearly stale; so much that she figured she'd probably break one or more of her teeth if she bit down on it with too much force. This and a plate of some kind of gruel-like stew were her meal for the day. There was something blue on the side of the bread that might or might not have been mold.

This would be unhealthy even if it hadn’t gone bad, she thought. A meal like this can’t possibly contain even half the nutrients required to maintain a pony’s physical body.

She didn’t say any of that out loud, though, because she knew the jailor who’d brought her food was probably still hanging around in the corridor outside with his fellow guards. They liked to taunt Twilight sometimes; to come to her door and mock her; and she didn’t feel like inviting their unpleasant comments tonight. Or today, or whatever the proper time was—there was no window in Twilight’s cell, so she’d lost track of the number of days she’d been imprisoned. It had to have been at least several weeks.

The little enclosure in which she sat was about the size of a standard closet, and stank of old bones and rancid water. Twilight was sure it hadn’t been used since the griffon wars, so she avoided touching anything that looked organic if she could help it. The unicorn herself was unwashed, smelled of filth, and looked more like a homeless street pony than Princess Celestia’s personal student now. Her mane, which had begun to grow out a lot longer than she liked, was matted and tangled and greasy, and she’d probably eventually have to cut large portions of it away because of all the knots. Her time was almost completely split between sleeping and… sleeping, as there was little else to do.

With a despondent sigh, she recalled the events that had led her to this point.

As the personal student of Princess Celestia, she had been sent to a small town called Ponyville to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration by her mentor. This coincided with Twilight’s discovery of a prophecy foretelling the return of ‘The Mare in the Moon’, otherwise known as Nightmare Moon; an insane alicorn bent on making the night last forever. When it was time for Princess Celestia to raise the sun in front of the whole town, the pony who appeared on the balcony was not the Princess but Nightmare. She’d declared herself the new ruler of Equestria and then vanished into the continuing night.

Twilight had set off into the Everfree Forest that bordered Ponyville to find the Elements of Harmony; ancient magical artifacts used to defeat Nightmare the first time around. She was accompanied (to her mild annoyance) by several Ponyvillians: Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity. Together, they had made their way through the Everfree, which was surprisingly lacking in dangerous beasts and obstacles for a place that (according to Dash) nopony had ever come out of alive.

Getting to the old castle where the Elements were allegedly contained was a matter of walking for several hours and having the two pegasi fly them over a river and a chasm, nothing more. It was all so terribly ironic: Twilight had expected to have to search for a long time to find the Elements of Harmony, or to fight her way past legions of monsters to get to them. In the end, it wasn’t finding or getting to them that was the problem, but the fact that they were nothing more than lifeless ornaments made of stone. Nightmare Moon had been quite real, but the knowledge of whatever had defeated her, if it wasn’t Princess Celestia herself, had apparently been lost to time. Since the stones were too heavy to lift, even with magic, Twilight and her companions had left them behind. They were probably useless anyway, she thought; probably just some decoration left over from ages past. The six mares had wasted their time on a pointless quest.

The unicorn had planned to have Spike contact Shining Armor when she returned to Ponyville (and now she was berating herself for not having done so earlier). Perhaps, she had thought, they could have found some other way of stopping Nightmare. But that hadn’t worked out, as they’d simply walked right into an army of strange, chimeric ponies with leathery wings who wore armor bearing Nightmare’s cutie mark, oblivious to the danger until it was too late. Twilight still didn’t know what they were, where they came from, or why they seemed so inequine. Talking to one was like talking to a mindless puppet.

Before she knew it, Twilight was pinned to the ground by several of these ponies, and a gold ring had been fitted over her horn to keep her from using magic. It was the last time she saw the others, as she (and, presumably, they) had been blindfolded and gagged, then dragged away to who-knew-where. Her best guess was that Nightmare had commandeered Canterlot Castle for her own use.

That first night, they had beaten her and asked her questions: Who she was, how she had known about Nightmare Moon, where she had gone and why, what she knew about the Royal Guard, she knew about the alicorns. Twilight didn’t know how long she’d lasted, having been in too much distress for her brain to record a normal sense of time with her memories of the event. She’d never been so much as kicked before and didn’t have any idea how else to deal with abuse like that, besides to comply with her torturers’ demands. So she told them whatever they wanted to know: She was Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia. She had read about Nightmare Moon in a foal’s storybook once. She wanted to retrieve the Elements of Harmony, but couldn’t because they weren’t real. Her brother was captain of the Royal Guard. Princess Cadance used to foalsit her.

And they seemed to just discard her after that, locking her away in her cell and leaving her to rot. She hadn’t been out of her cell since that night, and nopony had come except on rare occasions when they gave her food and water, and made fun of her. Sometimes there were noises outside in the hallway, and sometimes there were rumbling sounds up above, but for the most part there was just solitude. So far, she had heard nothing about her family, Spike, or the other ponies she was arrested with, or indeed anything at all about what was going on outside her little world. Granted, there wasn’t much chance for her to overhear information in her lonely cell, but it seemed unfair of her captors to keep her so in the dark. Any bit of information to relieve her worry would have been a blessing.

The unicorn picked up the chunk of stale bread and made an effort to break off a piece from the end that wasn’t covered with mold. It was so dried-out that it hardly tasted like anything at all when she tried chewing it up. Sighing, she put it down and looked at the pasty substance on her plate, not trusting that it was even safe to eat at all. But she had nothing else, and she didn’t want to starve to death. She moved the plate a bit closer so she could sniff it. The smell was absolutely nauseating, but she forced herself to take a bite from the mashed-up mound of whatever it was and chew it slowly.

The door suddenly opened and slammed against the wall behind it just as Twilight swallowed, causing her to choke on her food even as she whipped her head to the right to see who had entered. At first, she expected the usual bat-winged, empty-eyed visitors, but the pony who came in was most certainly not one of those. This one was a dull blue earth pony with a rather thin and frail-looking frame who was, for some reason, wearing a dirty cloth sack with eyeholes and a mouth cut out of it over her head like a mask. A razor-straight greyish-blue mane flowed out from the bottom of the bag and down her back.

“Up,” said the earth pony sharply. She made an accompanying ‘come here’ gesture with her hoof as she spoke. “Come on. Hmm, lazy. Lulamoon. Get her up.”

A powder-blue magical aura snaked around through the doorway and picked up the still coughing lavender mare. By the time Twilight balanced herself, it had dropped her heavily and carelessly onto her hooves and switched to holding her around the neck like a leash. Twilight was jerked through the doorway by this magic leash until she was in the hall, facing the other unicorn, who was the same colour as her aura. She had a magic wand for a cutie mark, and also wore a scarecrow-like mask with a hole in the top for her horn to protrude out of.

“You are coming with us,” the blue earth pony ordered, marching past Twilight.

“W-what’s going on?” Twilight croaked. Lulamoon’s magic was a little too tight around her throat for comfort. “Where are y-you taking me?”

“Court. You do the crime, you must do the time. You confessed to the crime. Now you’re going to do the time. Your name has also come up in another investigation, you naughty filly. Her Majesty has deemed your case worthy of her interest, mmhm.”

Twilight had no choice but to follow the earth pony and her silent unicorn friend once the latter started moving, tugging the powder-blue leash along after her. They led her down a couple of dark, dirty hallways lined with doors like the one she’d been imprisoned behind, until they reached a door which led to a room with a table and some chairs in it. This one was actually lit by a lamp hanging from the ceiling.

“That’s your chair.” The earth pony waved at the whole room, not bothering to specify which chair she was actually speaking of.

Lulamoon shoved Twilight into the chair on the far side of the room from the door, then twisted her forelegs around the back of the chair and bound them there with magic. The captive unicorn was in no state to resist such treatment after her imprisonment.

Sitting down across from Twilight with her back to the door, the earth pony casually produced a folder full of papers from within her own tail, set it down on the table, opened it, and began leafing through the contents. Twilight gaped openly at this, bewildered. Some unicorns hid things in their manes with magic, and some pegasi put things between their feathers, but the folder had materialized from a space it could not possibly have fit inside.

“H-how did you do that?” she asked.

“Family secret.” The mare didn’t even look up as she said this, and when she was finished, she extracted a fountain pen from her tail as well. She began writing on one of the pages in the folder.

“But—but that completely defies reality in about a dozen different ways!” Twilight protested. “Earth ponies don’t have the magic needed to create pocket dimensions! And besides, pocket dimensions don’t work like—”

“Shut up.”

The next few moments passed in silence while the earth pony wrote things and Twilight bit her lip, not wanting to trigger a repeat of her first night as a captive. When the dull blue mare finally spoke again, it was without pausing in her writing or looking up at Twilight.

“Twilight Sparkle, yes?”

“Y-yes,” said Twilight.

“Mm. Sparkle. Very naughty. You’ve been accused of treason.”

Twilight started badly. All remaining thoughts of pocket dimensions were chased from her mind by those words. “T-treason? Why?”

“You’re Celestia’s student. Been in on her plans. Not looking good for you, hmm.”

“What plans are you talking about, exactly?” demanded Twilight.

“Not a good position to take. Not good at all. Better to tell the truth about the alicorns. Mmhm. Truth is truth.”

“I am telling the truth,” Twilight insisted. “I don’t know what plans you’re talking about. I think there’s been a huge misunderstanding here, and if you’d just explain what you mean, I’m certain I could clear it up.”

“Mmhmm.”

Words suddenly appeared just inches in front of Twilight’s face, written in Lulamoon’s powder-blue magic. The bound unicorn was too startled to read them at first, but then took them in, line by line:

‘BLINKIE IS RIGHT.

THE GREAT AND POWERFUL

TRIXIE KNOWS FIRST HOOF

THAT IT IS NEVER A GOOD

IDEA TO LIE TO THE ALL

MIGHTY NIGHTMARE MOON.’

“‘Almighty’ and ‘firsthoof’ are both single words,” Twilight said with a scowl, unable to contain her irritation at Lulamoon’s poor Equestrian. Lulamoon’s response to this was to tighten the bindings around Twilight’s limbs until they dug painfully into her flesh and the latter unicorn’s eyes brimmed with tears.

“You and five ponies were arrested while plotting to overthrow Her Majesty,” said Blinkie without looking up. “Correct, yes?”

“I d-don’t—I-I already told the guards—”

“Correct, yes?” the earth pony repeated in the exact same tone of voice.

“I was trying to defend Equestria! We all were!”

“Mmhm. They all said that when I spoke to them, too.”

The heavy silence that followed left no doubt in Twilight’s mind that Blinkie and her cohorts had probably charged the other five mares with the same ‘crimes’. Treason was not punishable by torture or death in Equestria, but Twilight knew it had historically been so in many less advanced civilizations...

“A-are they… okay?” she asked. “They w-weren’t hurt… were they?”

“Don’t know. Jailbreak about, hmm, a week ago. Led by somepony… Shining Armor.”

For the first time in two weeks, Twilight smiled. Knowing that Shining and the ponies she’d accidentally dragged into this mess (well, they’d made her drag them into it, but that wasn’t the point) were safe was the best news she could have gotten besides hearing that the sun had risen.

“Skipped your cell. Don’t know why,” Blinkie added blandly, violently deflating Twilight’s little bubble of relief.

“W-what?”

“The attackers skipped your cell. Didn’t open the door to let you out. Hm. Maybe he didn’t know you were there. Knew where all the others were, though. Hmm, what a mystery.”

Obviously, Shining hadn’t known she was there—her BBBFF wouldn’t ever leave her to rot like that. Twilight wondered if Nightmare Moon had had her removed from the record for some reason, maybe hoping to prevent her from being saved... although the point of that seemed a little lost, knowing what was about to happen to her.

‘MAYBE’, Trixie wrote, ‘HE HEARD ABOUT WHAT SHE DID WITH CELESTIA. MAYBE HE DIDN’T WANT TO ASSOCIATE WITH HER ANYMORE.’

“Would explain it.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight demanded, frustrated.

“This,” the earth pony finally said, putting her pen down and glancing up at her. “Your name has turned up repeatedly in the investigation of Celestia’s pseudo-alicorn program. You are charged with high treason against both Equestria and the equine race, attempted genocide, conspiracy to commit crimes against equinity, and—”

“What?” Twilight cried. “What are you t-talking about? Pseudo-alicorns? G-genocide?”

“—conspiracy to commit crimes against the laws of magic and nature. The public wants you dead. You will be led upstairs to stand trial before Her Majesty in five minutes.”

Just like that, Blinkie went back to writing.

“B-but I’m not… I didn’t… I never—” Twilight kept trying to piece together what Blinkie was talking about, and couldn’t. Neither as a truth nor a blatant lie did it make sense; there was simply too much missing. “I-I don’t unders-stand a-any of this!”

“Of course you don’t,” Blinkie cut in primly, still not looking up. “You never will.”

“W-what do you mean…?”

“You’re a rich brat who has been cushioned from suffering all your life. You do not know pain, and you do not know fear. Mmhm. This is real life, Sparkle. You’re ill-prepared.”

She finally made eye contact with Twilight, who could see the condescending smile even behind the mask. It just made the unicorn feel even more degraded and confused; she was being talked down to by a pony who not only sounded younger than her, but was wearing a cloth bag over her head and looked like a scarecrow.

“When Her Majesty speaks to you, I would advise you to remember something,” said the filly, closing up her folder and sliding it back into her mask. Twilight didn’t ask about it this time. “This system does not exist to serve you. You are not special anymore. You are a nopony. Just like the rest of us.”

Twilight felt completely silly listening to Blinkie, who couldn’t have been older than fourteen or fifteen, but there was something about the steel-blue pony’s cold, detached demeanor that either scared or baffled her into doing so. It was like interacting with a clockwork machine: Nightmare gave it orders, and it carried them out to the letter, without deviation or emotion.

Rather like the new system itself, she soon discovered.

Blinkie had not been far off at all.

Though she insisted that she already knew the general layout of Canterlot Castle, Twilight was blindfolded on the way up from the dungeons. Trixie Lulamoon was an unpleasant guide, constantly jerking the magic leash and making her stumble. It was a relief when they finally reached the huge doors of what had once been Princess Celestia’s throne room—until the blindfold was removed.

The castle, which had been bright and inviting in its aura the last time Twilight was in it, had changed. It seemed far more jagged and eerie now, as if Nightmare Moon’s essence had pervaded it and opened it to the frightening wonder of the night sky. The guards in front of the doors were the same ugly bat-ponies that had attacked the library the night of her return.

“Blinkatanya Pie. Trixabelle Lulamoon. Twilight Sparkle. Criminal proceedings. Ten fifty-five PM,” Blinkie, succinct as ever, said to the guard whom Twilight assumed was in charge.

“We shall now search the prisoner,” replied the guard. His voice was low and almost without emotion, except for a just a hint of aggression. “Stand aside.”

“Mmhm. Do as you will. But no violations. Her Majesty was clear on that.”

Twilight spent the next thirty seconds being poked, prodded, and otherwise invaded by a pair of guards, who even felt through her tangled, filthy mane to check whether she was hiding a weapon in it. Finding nothing, they nodded at the two sackheads, and Twilight was pulled up against the wall with Blinkie and Trixie to wait for their turn.

They didn’t have to wait long. With a rusty creak that Twilight suspected hadn’t been there in Celestia’s time—though, having never actually attended court with Celestia, she’d rarely been in the throne room, and so couldn’t be entirely sure—one of the huge double doors swung open just enough to allow a quintet of black-and-yellow-clad flyers to file through. Three were pegasi, one was some kind of insectoid, and one was a massive, vicious-looking griffon. All were wearing hoods and masks.

“…might have fled to Cloudsdale,” the leader, a dark-maned stallion, was saying quietly. “He wouldn’t expect us to search there. We all know the golems aren’t very intelligent, and the Shadowbolts haven’t much of a presence in that city…”

“Dickheads can’t walk on clouds,” said the griffon. Twilight wrinkled her nose at the blatant tribalism.

“Dashh nogh truhe,” exclaimed one of the mares, who was halfway through biting into an apple when she spoke. She swallowed thickly and added, “Dad used to use a spell to walk on clouds when he visited me at flight camp.”

They passed right by Twilight, not noticing—or not acknowledging—the shadowed unicorn or her captors, and continued on down the hall.

“Good thing he got out of the last encounter with his horn, then, right?” the rearmost pegasus, a mare barely out of fillyhood with a gamboge mane, cackled. “Gilda’s still got his freakin’ eyeball, though.”

“I heard griffs fry them like eggs,” said the one with the apple. “Is it true, G?”

“I’ll get a hot plate and show you how we do it,” the griffon promised. “I’ll show you what else we do once we get ahold of the rest of him, too.”

Their laughter echoed through the hall as they disappeared down it, leaving an appalled Twilight to wonder just what had happened in the time she’d been locked in the dungeon. She’d never imagined ponies could be so blasé about things like murder and cannibalism. A terrible thought suddenly occurred to her: what if they decided to murder her? What if the penalty for treason really was now death, and Nightmare Moon had brought her up to make an example of her?

Twilight felt Trixie tug on the leash, and panicked. “No, no, I don’t want to go in there! I don’t want to die!”

She tried to run; tried to resist the other unicorn’s pull; but the leash seemed to have its own force of gravity, and only moved in the direction Trixie wanted it to. Twilight pushed at the ring around her horn, but that still wouldn’t budge, either. As a desperate, last ditch attempt to save herself, she started trying to snap her own horn off, hoping the spot below the ring would still be long enough to channel some magic.

A sudden sting on her cheek brought the unicorn back to reality, even as her hooves were wrenched away from her horn and bound behind her back. The masked face of Blinkatanya Pie looked down at her.

“Pull yourself together,” said Blinkie flatly.

Still shaking, Twilight took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “I-I’m sorry… I’m… I just… don’t want to die…”

“It is unlikely,” the earth pony replied. “You are not a likely candidate for public execution. You are simply too pathetic, and therefore subject to too much sympathy from bleeding-hearts and other such types.”

With a sharp jerk, the lavender mare was levitated off her hooves by Trixie and carried after the two masked ponies through the doors.

The royal court was, at its heart, the same as it had been before: a massive room large enough to hold the nobles and their delegates on either side of a red carpet leading up to the throne. But the room was nearly empty now, save for the bat-winged guards who lurked in the shadows, barely visible. Huge, frightening statues of gargoyles had taken up posts along the walls; some of these seemed to move their eyes and leer at Twilight when they thought she wasn’t looking. All was lit by soft moonlight, as though the moon were shining directly above.

At the end of the red carpet, upon Princess Celestia’s massive throne, sat Nightmare Moon. The alicorn was even taller than Celestia, Twilight realized with appropriate awe. Instead of her battle armor, she now wore gleaming black-and-silver regalia, much like Celestia’s had been, and a black cloak draped across one side of her body. With her matted mane and filthy coat, Twilight suddenly felt like an insect before what seemed to be a living incarnation of absolute power.

But, remembering the raving mare who’d first appeared upon the balcony in Ponyville, the unicorn knew it was merely an illusion; a façade of competence put on by an insane mare who wanted to plunge the world into eternal night because of a disagreement with her sister. Nightmare Moon was nothing like Princess Celestia—she wasn’t worthy of respect or admiration, and certainly not worthy of groveling. If she was going to go, Twilight decided, she would hold her head up and go with the dignity Princess Celestia had taught her to carry herself with.

With a soft thump, she was deposited on the small circle before the throne where ponies had once stood and received kindness from Princess Celestia. Twilight could feel the slitted blue pupils boring into the top of her head as she got up, trembling all over, but she steeled herself and gazed back defiantly into them.

A long silence passed as the two of them stared at each other, unblinking, until Twilight finally reached the limit of her ability to withstand the reptilian gaze and had to look away. Nightmare smiled, showing a set of teeth that were pointed instead of flattened. A predator’s teeth, made for tearing and ripping flesh.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she said. She spoke softly and calmly, though her voice echoed in the silent chamber nonetheless. “You are the filly who challenged me in Ponyville on the night I returned from my exile, are you not?”

“Yes,” replied Twilight, looking back up at her.

“You are my sister’s student, are you not?”

“Yes, I am.” She held her head high and smiled without thinking, still proud of herself after so many years. “And as her student, I feel it is my duty to tell you that she’s going to raise the sun any moment now, and you’re going to be banished back to the moon.”

“It’s quite presumptuous of you to address me as an equal,” Nightmare commented lightly. “One would almost think, from the way you act, that you didn’t respect my crown as much as I suspect you venerate Celestia’s. Do you simply see me as a lesser ruler, or did my sister fail to teach you the proper protocol for interacting with your betters?”

“You aren’t the rightful ruler of Equestria,” the unicorn told her, “so I cannot bring myself to recognize your crown without feeling as if I’m lying. And Princess Celestia taught me never to lie.”

“Well-played, little filly… but what makes her any more the rightful ruler of this land than I?”

“She didn’t try to plunge Equestria into eternal night.”

Nightmare showed Twilight another disconcertingly toothy smile. “Sometimes extreme measures are necessary to accomplish extreme goals, Twilight. You can’t believe Celestia always talked down ponies who challenged her… divinity.”

The alicorn coughed slightly; a surprisingly equine gesture, although it seemed more a means of preventing Twilight from speaking than anything else.

“How old are you, Twilight? How long has Celestia been teaching you?”

The unicorn fidgeted nervously under her unrelenting gaze, but managed to maintain her confident posture. “I’m nineteen years old.”

“And how long has she been teaching you?”

“I became her student when I was eight.”

“Did my sister teach you powerful magic, Twilight?” asked Nightmare, leaning forward with a sick little smile on her face. “Did she teach you how she made the sun? How the heavens work, and how the earth was formed?”

“Sh-she d-didn’t teach me those things… But she taught me a lot of amazing magic… Well, it was m-more how to control my magic, and then I learned all the spells on my own…” Twilight almost smiled wistfully before remembering where she was. The memories had, at the very least, helped to strengthen her resolve.

“Charming,” said Nightmare, sounding mildly amused. She sat back again, the smile dropping off her face. “Twilight Amanda Sparkle… you have been charged with high treason against the Republic of Equestria; conspiring with the great criminal Celestia to oppress and murder innocent ponies; conspiring to commit crimes against nature, magic, and the very foundations of equinity. Do tell me… how dost thou plead?”

“I can neither plead nor defend myself if I don’t even know what supposed crimes I’m being tried for!” protested Twilight. “If you can’t explain them to me, then I have no choice but to conclude that—that they’re just made-up charges!”

“I believe you know what you did, Twilight... and even if you didn’t, I have no real obligation to explain it to you. The world does not revolve around you, little unicorn.”

This system does not exist to serve you. Blinkie’s words echoed in Twilight’s head.

“There’s no such place as the Republic of Equestria,” she declared. “I cannot enter a plea for a crime against an entity which does not legally exist. This ‘world’ is illegitimate, unfair, and—”

“Do not try my patience, child—that was a clever act in the beginning, but it’s beginning to grow old. You have committed acts heinous enough to shock an entire nation, and yet you stand before me, the pony whose task it is to decide your fate, and mock me… I should throw you outside and let the mass of ponies demanding your prompt execution have their way with you. It wouldn’t be quick or pretty, believe you me.”

By the time she was finished, Twilight had backed up several steps and lost quite a bit of her confident posture.

“You should be thankful to have a trial at all,” Nightmare continued. “As I said, the commonponies wanted nothing more than to skin you alive for your betrayal! It was only by my grace that you were allowed this chance, so I would suggest you appreciate that grace as best you can, rather than taking cheap shots at me whenever possible.”

Her voice echoed off the walls, and eventually died away into nothing. Twilight didn’t trust herself to speak; she wanted desperately to point out that Nightmare had also probably been the one to strip ponies of the right to due process in the first place, but didn’t want to further anger the dark goddess.

“They don’t want me dead,” she said, stunned. “Why would anypony want me d-d… You’re lying.”

The alicorn’s face remained impassive and completely indifferent. “Do you really want to find out if I’m lying? Because I’m beginning to think it would save me the trouble of dealing with your backtalk if you did.”

Once upon a time, Twilight would have called her on it. She would have said yes, because she knew ponies wouldn’t do such absurd things as demand each other’s murder. But once upon a time, Twilight had never been beaten within an inch of her life before, or heard four pegasi and a griffon talking about eating a stallion’s eyeball. She had never been starved in an underground cell or seen the whole world she’d grown up in transformed into a sick perversion of what it had been.

“N-no…” the unicorn finally squeaked out. “No… I don’t.”

Nightmare replied in the very opposite tone: deliberate, cold, and sharp. “Then. How. Do. You. Plead?”

“…Not guilty…? B-because I d-don’t even kno—”

“Not guilty, then,” the alicorn announced to the mostly empty chamber. “Tell me, Twilight Sparkle, what do you know of alicorns?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Alicorns represent a divine union of the three pony tribes: the horn of a unicorn, the wings of a pegasus, and the strength of an earth pony. They’re immortal and eternal. Each alicorn rules a particular attribute of our world. Princess Celestia is the oldest and wisest alicorn, because she controls the life-giving sun.”

“And why does Princess Celestia rule Equestria?”

“Because she’s the oldest and wisest alicorn,” Twilight repeated.

“And if another alicorn is born?” inquired Nightmare, leering nastily. Twilight had a feeling she was being led into a trap, but couldn’t see it, hard as she tried. “Would they rule alongside her?”

“...of course...”

“Then why,” the dark goddess asked, “do you not recognize my rule? I am an alicorn. I rule the night. I am the sister of Celestia, who fled when she found that I had learned of her plan. Or did she teach you to recognize only her as the supreme being of the universe?”

“You all keep talking about a plan! What plan? I don’t know of any plan!” shouted Twilight, frustrated. Nightmare’s leer transformed into a look of delight upon hearing these words.

“You really don’t know... She really never told you, did she?”

“Know what?”

“Why, your destiny, little filly... the one Celestia planned and architected for you.” Nightmare let out a little chuckle. “Oh, this is rich...”

She suddenly dissolved into a thick, starry midnight-blue mist that poured down the steps of the throne to reform beside Twilight, who was grabbed and spun around so she was facing toward the door with Nightmare.  “My golems were ordered to search her chambers and interrogate those who worked closely with her… and they disc—”

“Th-those ponies with bat wings… they’re golems?” the unicorn blurted out. “Inanimate matter made sentient? That’s—”

“Do not interrupt me,” said Nightmare. Although her voice was soft, there was an underlying note of menace within it that made Twilight shudder and shrink back in fear. She was immediately dragged right back over again, forced to sit beside the cloaked alicorn.

“While investigating the Princess’s staff,” the dark mare continued, “my golems found numerous references to a previously unknown book written by Starswirl the Bearded, which was hidden from me by my sister for the purposes of an unknown project involving the selection of a unicorn to be transformed into an alicorn. A replacement sister for her after losing me, you see. Can you imagine such a betrayal… to find out that my sister considers me not only unlovable but replaceable?”

“I… I’m s…You can’t be… She wouldn’t do that,” Twilight said at last. “She wouldn’t. Princess Celestia is the kindest pony I’ve ever met!”

“Those words have been spoken of many terrible tyrants throughout history, Twilight. In my anger, I had my newly recruited Shadowbolts arrest those involved and interrogate them… and they found things that disgusted me. Celestia already believed she was a goddess, I think, and that she had the right to decide the fate of Equestria… to create more alicorns… to create a master race of alicorns to rule over the lesser ponies.”

“What?” said Twilight. “What are you ta-alking a-about?”

“You, Twilight… she made you her student because she wanted you to help her breed this master race. Princess Sparkle… the Alicorn of Friendship. That was to be your title in the New Order.”

Make some friends, Twilight. Like Blinkie’s statement, the words echoed again and again in her head, bouncing off the inside of her skull and only getting louder every time.

“She had you watched, you must understand, ever since you became her student,” continued Nightmare softly, sitting beside Twilight, who wondered for a moment how she could even stand the smell of a pony who hadn’t been washed in so long. “My golems found logs and diaries… my Shadowbolts extracted information… my loyal servants found magic… proving that she had every possible moment of your life recorded in the finest detail possible to judge with a microscope.”

“E-ev… every… moment…?”

Nightmare nodded, her face stretching into a horrible smile. “Yes, my little pony, I am afraid so… If you wish to see the most invasive violations for yourself, I will show you them.”

“Sh-she… b-b-but… no… I-I…” Twilight whimpered. “Everything?”

“Everything,” repeated Nightmare cruelly. As she spoke these words, her horn lit up, and her eyes glowed white.

The world of Nightmare’s dark palace vanished around Twilight, and the unicorn was drawn into a completely different one—an overload of little flashes of memories of her.

There she was at age eight, doing her secret hoofshake with Cadance; there she was again at age eight, urinating into the toilet on what looked to be the same day, if the grass stains on her hooves were any indication. There she was at twelve, wearing her school uniform and doing her homework; and again, also probably on the same day, washing her marehood in the bathtub a little more vigorously than she normally would have—it was the first and last time she ever experimented with masturbation. At fifteen, making a few cuts on the inside of her foreleg because she saw all the other fillies doing it—she’d never figured out how Celestia had knew about that, as she’d healed them immediately, ashamed of herself. At eighteen, borrowing one of Moondancer’s saddles and wearing it in front of the mirror, and hearing her own thoughts about how she wished she was prettier and more desirable. From thirteen onward; reading saucy novels in the library and imagining herself in place of the damsel in distress; now hearing her own voice thinking thoughts that were no longer hers alone.

“Oh, dear Faust!” she screamed, horrified, as she finally jerked out of the vision. “Get out, get out, get out—Get out of my head!”

She looked to Nightmare with wide eyes, silently pleading for some indication that the things she had just seen were false; that they were a lie; that they had been ripped from her head and replayed before her; but she saw only the wide, twisted grin of a vindicated sadist looking back at her. Sitting down, the unicorn put her hooves over her mouth and began to hyperventilate, rocking back and forth a little on her rear as she did. One of Nightmare’s huge wings brushed softly against her cheek.

“Poor Twilight Sparkle,” murmured the dark alicorn. “All alone... lied to by her friends, her family, and her loving mentor...”

“That’s not true and you know it!” Twilight snarled, shoving the wing away. “That was a lie; it was all a lie, you’re lying, you got those from my head—Stay out of my head!”

“Oh, Twilight, I don’t need to look into your head to see everything. Celestia compiled the most intimate moments of your life into neat little programs for me. I wonder if she would ever have told you, had you become an alicorn in the end.”

“I like being a unicorn! I like being me! I don’t want to be an alicorn! I would never—”

“Would she have given you a choice?” Nightmare raised her eyebrows.

“Of course she would! She always gives ponies a choice!”

Nightmare laughed softly, as though playing a game she was thoroughly enjoying. “Like the choice she gave you, before monitoring your every move? Oh, Twilight... Those who spoke of you did so as though you were some kind of genius, and yet now I’m finding myself severely disappointed. You seem... quite subpar. I imagine you must have been a very poor student.”

Unwilling to listen to any more of Nightmare’s taunts, Twilight pushed her ears down with her hooves and curled up into a ball on the cold floor. Even through this, she could hear the alicorn’s laughter, and the awful words directed at her.

“The most terrible thing about it is how many of her own subjects she would have murdered to accomplish your transformation. I have heard and read of her plans—to unleash the demons of Tartarus upon Equestria to test you. To release the insane, all-powerful god chimera that she and I took the throne from ten thousand years ago, merely to see if the friendship she had arranged from just days after you came to her attention could be broken...”

“Shut up,” Twilight repeated miserably.

“Ah, and the changelings... fascinating creatures. They feed on love, and in my time made up the bulk of the employees of the world’s oldest profession. Show them love, and they will show you devotion beyond measure. And my sister intended to wipe them out, merely for the sake of testing you once again. She wanted to destroy an entire race just for you, Twilight. Just for you! Genocide, little filly, in your name.

“...You seem so insistent that Celestia always gives ponies choices. Therefore, I can only conclude that you were involved in her conspiracy by choice; that you chose to take part in her plan to deceive the three tribes of Equestria and murder millions... and so, Twilight Sparkle, I find you guilty on all charges and sentence you to be released from my castle.”

“To be... what?” Twilight was so stunned by Nightmare’s bizarre verdict that she almost forgot to be upset for a moment. She looked up at the alicorn. “R-released?”

“Why, yes,” said Nightmare innocently. “Twilight, didn’t I tell you... the ponies of Equestria want you back so very badly. You denied the truth of it earlier, believing that nopony would want to harm you... because, I am sure, you are just so likable.”

Twilight felt her gorge rising, realizing what Nightmare meant. “You’re bluffing...”

“There’s no need to bluff a threat I intend to carry out,” Nightmare told her. “Come, Twilight. Let us begin the march to the scaffold.”

She got up, and her midnight-blue magic surrounded Twilight’s hooves at the same time. The unicorn found herself stumbling along beside Nightmare like a demented puppet, completely unable to control the movements of her own legs.

“They don’t really want me dead,” whispered Twilight as they passed through the two gigantic main doors. “They don’t have any reason to! Why would they believe anything you say?”

There was a small balcony on the lower part of the castle where Princess Celestia sometimes made speeches to gathered crowds in the city’s street below. These speeches had usually accompanied small events that didn’t merit the use of a full-sized parade ground, though Twilight had occasionally been allowed to come out there with her when the Princess simply wanted to say good morning to her subjects. Now Nightmare Moon brushed her wing across Twilight’s mane before making the unicorn puppet-walk through the doorway onto this same balcony.

“They will believe me, my little nopony,” Nightmare crooned, “because I am the great savior of Equestria.”

The sun, now an unnaturally dull red-orange in colour, hung in the sky over them all in a position that indicated it was around four in the afternoon. It bathed the world in an eerie glow that didn’t seem quite right; it was far too dim, far too weak. An aura of confinement rolled off it, like it was being held there by force, though Twilight couldn’t tell what, exactly, made it seem that way.

But if the sun was in the sky, and it was no longer night, then where was Princess Celestia? Why was Nightmare Moon still able to hold power over the land? Twilight turned her head to glance at Nightmare, eyes wide and confused. The black alicorn was completely unperturbed by the sight, gazing upon it as though it were something to be proud of—a great accomplishment; a feat of ages.

It wasn’t Celestia’s sun hanging in the sky, Twilight realized, but Nightmare Moon’s.

“But—I-I thought—you—I thought you—wanted e-eternal night—” the smaller mare stammered, unable to comprehend this sudden change in Nightmare Moon’s behavior. “You said—at the Summer—you said—that the night—”

“—will last forever,” finished Nightmare. She gestured grandly at the terrible sun, which increasingly reminded Twilight of orange juice mixed with horse blood. “And last forever it shall! Behold: eternal night!”

“But it’s not—that’s not night—”

The dark mare smiled a horrible, noxious smile and leaned close to Twilight’s ear to whisper, “...I am the night, Twilight Sparkle. And I shall last forever.”

“This is impossible... o-only Celes—Princess Celestia can raise the sun...” But Twilight couldn’t keep her eyes off the bleeding, hurting sun.

“I raised the sun,” explained Nightmare triumphantly. “Without me, this world would be dying, and the ponies of Equestria know it. They know that when Celestia’s terrible plan was discovered, she refused to raise the sun. Perhaps she intended to kill all but the alicorns, or perhaps she simply lost her mind. I do not know. But when this world was all but lost, I, Nightmare Moon, took the sun in my magic and raised it myself!”

“That’s not true—Princess Celestia is—she—she’s the most—powerful—and the w-wisest—j-just—shut up—” After wiping her eyes, Twilight pushed her ears down against her head again. “Just shut up... I won’t listen to any more of th-this... I w-won’t...”

“Then we have nothing more to talk about.”

Nightmare reared up and slammed one forehoof onto the stone ledge with such force that it produced an earsplitting crack and a shower of sparks. She remained there, levered up in such a way that she looked like some kind of great statue or monument. Twilight, who had screamed in terror when the explosion happened right next to her head, cowered pathetically beside her, afraid of being hit by more sparks if her other hoof came down.

“My little ponies!” the alicorn boomed. Twilight was almost blown away by the sheer floor-shaking volume of Nightmare’s greeting. She had no doubt everypony from Canterlot to Stalliongrad had probably heard it. “I present to you: the sister of the traitorous murderer Shining Armor; the student and accomplice of the lying maniac Celestia; the unicorn who was to decide who your friends would be and who your enemies would be, and for whom countless innocents would die! My little ponies, I present to you: Twilight Sparkle!”

Her magical grip wrapped around Twilight again and dragged the flailing, helpless unicorn into the air, to dangle her several meters over the curious ponies gathered around the town square. Quite a few of them had come out to see what was going on, it seemed. That; or Nightmare’s Royal Canterlot Voice was just so commanding that they were drawn to it by some subtle magic within. When they saw Twilight, their expressions changed to ones of hatred.

“Killer!” somepony shouted.

Another added an equally cruel, “You and Celestia can burn in the sun together!”

“W-what?” stammered Twilight, horrified. Something hit her hard in the side of the head. She caught a glimpse of a rock of reasonable size, still trailing wisps of a sickly green aura, falling away beneath her. “No! No, she’s lying! Princess Celestia would never—”

“Save it! We know the truth!”

“Come down here, you coward! Get what’s coming to you!”

Tears started to fall from Twilight’s eyes, and when she tried to wipe them away, somepony or other pinned her hooves behind her back with a flash of green magic. Another rock smashed into her stomach, making her vomit onto the ponies below.

“Agent of Discord!” screamed a mare.

“Why do you all hate me?” Twilight sobbed. “What did I do?”

“She wonders what she did,” Nightmare’s Royal Canterlot Voice thundered over the roar of the mob. “She wonders, and yet she will not look for the truth! For you, Twilight Sparkle; for your ascension, Celestia would have opened the gates of Tartarus; freed the father of hatred and lies; and thrown us into war with an innocent race—all to prepare your coming!”

Yet another rock hit Twilight. This time, it hit her in the horn, and she cried out in pain. This was absolutely barbaric. What had happened to Equestria? How could it had become so monstrous a place in such a short time?

“This system,” called a vaguely familiar voice from a rooftop not far from where Twilight was hanging, “does not exist to serve you.”

Twilight turned her head and looked at the source, which turned out to be a dusty blue earth pony—easily recognizable as Blinkie Pie even with, or because of, the mask—sitting with her hind legs dangling off the edge of the roof.Though her face was not visible because of the scarecrow-like bag over her head, Twilight had a feeling she was smiling unpleasantly behind it.

“Mm, you’re a pony non grata,” Blinkie said as a second well-aimed rock connected with Twilight’s horn and the unicorn screamed. “Best lose the attitude. Her Majesty might not feel like holding you much longer. Hmm. Not good to fall in, no.”

“B-but this i-isn’t r-r-right...” bawled Twilight. “It’s all wro-ong...”

“Life is what it is. You’re ill-prepared, yes you are. Best lose the attitude fast, mmhm.”

Somepony levitated an egg into Twilight’s face. By the time she’d shook the stuff out of her eyes so she could see again, Blinkie had simply vanished into thin air, leaving Twilight completely, utterly alone with the crowd.

There wasn’t a single friendly face there; all were twisted into visages of hatred and scorn. So many green eyes full of hatred. They really did want her dead. Nightmare really had convinced them that Princess Celestia was going to do all those terrible things. It didn’t matter whether she really was going to those things do them. The world believed it. And now they all wanted her dead because of it; wanted to bash her head in with rocks and snap her horn and tear her insides out.

A braver pony might have stood up for what was right. A braver mare would have allowed herself to be martyred in the name of Celestia. A braver pony would have paid the ultimate price for her belief in the sun goddess’s innocence. But Twilight was not that a brave mare, and she knew it. She was a coward who wept in terror, fearful of the inequine death that awaited her below. And when she began to slowly descend toward the mob of angry faces, she just couldn’t keep clinging to the knowledge that it was a worthy sacrifice for Celestia, who might or might not have spied on her all her life and plotted to kill millions to mutate her into a chimera.

“Alright!” she finally screeched. “Alright, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, you were right! Th-they want—they want to kill me! Y-you made your p-point!”

“I’m not making a point, Twilight Sparkle.” Nightmare’s cool, unconcerned voice echoed down from the balcony. “I’m doing as I said I would; letting you free into the streets of Canterlot.”

“But they’ll kill me! You can’t let them d-do that! It’s wrong!”

“I give my ponies what they want,” the alicorn crooned.

“Well, I want to live!” Twilight cried. “I-I don’t want to die!”

Her eyes widened in horror as a broken bottle whizzed by, its jagged edges shining in the red sun’s rays.

“Beg,” said Nightmare. Her voice came in soft and close, as though she were speaking right into Twilight’s ear. “Beg for your life, little nopony.”

Twilight stopped moving down. She was just out of reach of the crowd, looking down upon them with her hooves bound behind her back. Now she was close enough that they were throwing all kinds of things at her: bottles, rocks, sticks, nails, rotting food, even a brick that (mercifully) missed her.

Watching the spot where the brick had fallen, she started, “I... I humbly beg y—”

The brick-thrower from made an encore appearance just then, hitting her in the side of the head hard enough to make a bap sound. She screamed, now completely disoriented and feeling airsick, and her brain feeling like it was vibrating the way a struck gong would have done. Any sense of dignity she’d hoped to cling to was lost at that moment.

“Please spare me!” she finally sobbed. “Please! Please, please, I’m sorry! Oh, please—”

“Are you, now,” inquired Nightmare.

“Yes! I don’t w-w-want to die! Please spare me!”

Nightmare didn’t stop lowering her, although there was a noticeable purr in her voice she next spoke. “...I think you’re missing two words. Have you still no respect for my crown?”

“Wha-at-t—I-I mean—I’m s-sorry... Your H-Highness... P-please d-d-don’t let th-them kill m-me! P-please s-s-spare me... Your Majesty...”

A bottle smashed against her horn, and then Nightmare started to slowly levitate her back up, to the crowd’s apparent dismay. None of their other projectiles managed to find their marks, though several came close. The green magic holding her hooves captive lost its range just before she got to the balcony.

“I pardon you,” said Nightmare coolly, dropping Twilight onto the balcony.

The battered unicorn’s trembling legs almost gave out beneath her. A huge wing gathered her up and herded her against the seated Nightmare’s side, pressing her close against her warm coat. Twilight clung tightly to her, wide-eyed and still shaking after her terrifying ordeal, and continued to cry softly; much more so than her frantic sobs down below, now that she was no longer in immediate danger. With the alicorn’s huge, muscular leg on one side and her massive wing on the other, she felt almost like she had when she’d been a filly and Princess Celestia had comforted her after she’d had a bad dream.

Nightmare smelled like the night, somehow; Twilight had no idea what the night sky smelled like until then, but she knew instinctively that that was it. Some part of her wondered just how she’d ended up crying in the wings of the Mare in the Moon, but another part cared little for anything but the comfort they afforded. As for Nightmare herself, she sat with her cloak waving slightly in the wind, looking silently out over the darkening city of Canterlot for what seemed like hours.

“Come,” she eventually said. “We’re going inside.”

And she shooed Twilight back into the castle, even as the last of the mob dissipated, and its insectoid instigators released their captives from their hold. A few bottles and rocks with traces of changeling and unicorn magic on them were all that remained beneath the balcony, in the end.