The Corona

by TheseWingsOfDarkness

Rating: mature
Tags: Dark, Romance, Adventure
Length: 1230

My take on Nightmare Moon and the events leading to her transformation.

Near the end of the first great alicorn war, a detachment of soldiers loyal to one of the usurpers was sent to do the unthinkable. They were sent to eliminate the rest of the true royal line, who were mere filly and foal at the time. After their victory, the younger usurper starts to hear things. She starts to believe she's insane until the words lead her into something. Something that would darken the skies of equestria. Suddenly the light isn't so soft or bright.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-04-23 09:00:02 UTC

Chapter 1

A bittersweet melody softly drifts off the top of tower. A soft voice hums lowly to the long notes of the lullaby. A small Alicorn sits atop the broken spire, the music emanating from her. Slowly tears begin to drip onto the grey stones. She throws her head up, staring at the broken aurora above her.

Her ears twitch as she makes out hooves pounding up the stairs. The small wooden door is flung open by a unicorn wearing a tunic of the sunrise. The golden threads belayed his rank, that of the elite. He slowly pulls his sword and advances on the defenseless alicorn. His eyes show his discomfort at doing his duty, but his orders were specific.

The steel blade wavers in the air. It falls swiftly, falling onto the pale neck of the young pony. He turns his head, not wanting to acknowledge the reality of his duty to his liege. The sword hits the rough stone, sending sparks flying. He swivels his head back, surprised at the feeling of sword on stone. A dark alicorn, same size as the young one had pushed the other to the side.

“Go. I can buy you time.” She murmurs to her sister, who is wide eyed and in shock. The dark alicorn nuzzles her sister and twines her tail in hers.

“Remember my name, please. Now, go!” she turns to the soldier who recovered his balance and sword.

“You know who I am?” she challenges, protecting her sister.

“Yes.” The white swirl on the black coat left no doubts. “You are the darke one, the main instigator of resistance.” He spits out in disgust.

To his surprise she laughs. “I wish you can see your face. Such fear and shock at a pony less than half your size.” her breath catches as his sword impales her, blood spurting onto her sister, and dripping off the blade. Her bright eyes slowly dim, and she collapses as he pulls his sword out of her still warm corpse.

“N- No. No. NO!” the younger sister, whose coat is splattered with her sisters blood, screams to the night. Her mind seizes the anger and loss, her horn lighting up with a fury. Her eyes glow brighter and brighter. The guard prepares to strike before being frozen on the spot by the force of the magic in front of him. The black alicorns body starts to glow, dissolving into ether as the entire tower starts to shake. The aurora above starts to waver, writhing ions in the sky agitated by the fury below. The young alicorn starts to rise by the force of the magic flowing through her. The aurora bucks and dives, the electromagnetic radiation and plasma smashing through the sky, lighting swaths of forest on fire as it is roughly shoved closer and closer to the filly.

The soldiers eyes go wide as the young princess' flank glows, a violet point starting and spreading outwards, a bright light smashes through his vision as her cutie mark finishes its appearance, the silvery novae of light around the point of no return. The unicorn stabs in blind fear, feeling his blade sink into something. He opens his eyes as the light fades, seeing his sword embedded in her chest, the aurora returning to normal. He shakes in fear and starts to pull his sword out, but the light starts to creep along the blade. He finally recognizes the symbol on her flank and barely has time to shout before the light smashes into existence again.

From the canterlot palace celestia looks towards the everfree forest, the home of her fiercest rivals. The blood of two larger alicorns stains her hooves as she looks out of the windows towards the lone spire. Suddenly a bright light flares into existence and a shockwave smashes through the air. She is smashed into the ground and looks back to see a novae shooting out of the space where the tower once was. Then the rest of the explosion hits, and she flies through the throne room and across the castle. She finally fetches up against the barricade wall. Her sister crashes next to her, smashing down to the ground painfully from above.

“I take it we won?” she asks carefully once the force dissipates. Celestia taps her magic and nods.

“We are the only remaining. We have vanquished the last of them. Luna looks up to see the aurora, once ever present slowly fade into darkness. A word drifts to her ears and she looks around to see where it came from. “Requition.” Celestia shows no sign of hearing it, and so she remains quiet. It takes her addled mind a moment to place the word.

“Requition: n. the act of  retaliation for a wrong.” Luna shivers at the thought, wondering why she had heard the word.

As the weeks passed after the night, and celestia busied herself with repairing the castle and the keep around it, Luna searches the crater. She stares at the naked rock and magma beneath her, where there was once an army and a massive forest. The explosion had left canterlot on the edge of the mountain, barely holding itself on the cliff. No longer was it protected by the cliff, but desperately latched onto it. Luna took flight over the crater, searching for any sign of what caused her to hear the word. She found strange tatters of canvas from the army camped, broken pieces of trees from the forests, but no rock from the tower.

When she flew back one day, she noticed a house falling off canterlot close. She flew beneath the city, noticing what nopony else had seen. The explosion had done more than just blast out massive amounts of earth, but had also weakened the mountain severely. She swiftly soared up to celestia.

“Sister, we have a problem.” She warned, landing gracefully next to her sister.

“This is no time for your jokes, sister. Leave me. I have work to do.”

“Celestia! Canterlot, along with your precious castle, will plunge into the chasm if we do not fix this.” Luna screams at her. Celestia looks up quickly,

“Why didn’t you say so?” she demands in alarm. Luna takes a breath as if to speak before snorting and leaping into flight. She flies down to the massive cracks in the stone, and hovers, waiting for her sister to catch up. Celestia looks at the holes blown through the mountain in disbelief.

“What power…” she trails off, silencing her voice when she realizes that her naïve sister is next to her. She shakes her head.

“We need to fix this….”

“Obviously.” Luna sighs.

“Show some respect for the queen.” Celestia snaps at her sister without thinking. Luna’s eyes go wide and she turns on her heels in the air. Her wings whip through the air and she speeds off. Celestia realizes then what she had said.

“Wait! I- I did not mean it like that! Come back!” her cries fall on deaf ears as Luna soars across equestria, pausing at the outskirts of Cloudsdale. She remembers another victim of this wretched war, one of her few friends. A piece of ice drifts down from a cloud, the snowflake landing on her nose, despite it being late summer. She smiles gently, knowing that somehow, snowdrop is watching over her.