You can only run from your nightmares for so long. Luna knew that better than anypony else. She was Nightmare Moon, after all. The spectre of those thousands of years of loneliness hung over her, pressing against the edges of her mind. Most days, medication and meditation did enough to keep those memories at bay. Others? It was a miracle she could leave her bed at all. If she wasn’t a princess, if the rising of the moon and the movement of the tides didn’t rest on a flick of her horn, it was hard to say for certain whether she would still be here at all.

Then again, if she wasn't a princess, this never would have been a problem. Her imprisonment, her cruelty upon release, her eventual defeat at the hooves of a group of ponies who she now counted among her friends… Regular ponies didn’t need to worry about this kind of thing. That was another nightmare of hers—being just a normal pony in an extraordinary circumstance, left completely powerless. It was hard to tell which was worse.

Tonight was standard, really. She awoke to find her hooves longer tangled in her sheets, instead contending with the harsh cold of the moons’ surface. There was no atmosphere here, no sound or warmth to soothe her bones. It was a wonder that she was able to survive at all. Nightmare Moon dominated the horizon, her body massive in size as she stretched languidly across the pale rock. Luna could see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, her eyes closed as if sleeping. She didn’t remember sleeping when she was Nightmare Moon.

The scene would be peaceful if it wasn’t for the thick scars that danced across the Nightmare’s chest. They were rough pictograms, as if some prehistoric pony had come across a new spot for cave painting. It was old Equestrian in design, recounting her fall from grace as the youngest of the twin Princesses. It was a tale she was intimately familiar with. So odd to find that your only noteworthy appearance in history textbooks was as a villain in your sisters story.

Her attention was wrested away from her idle thoughts as the skin just below Nightmare’s coat began to writhe. She could see a horned pony press against their fleshy prison and Luna squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation. She was used to gore at this point but that didn’t mean she was keen on seeing any more of it.

See it she would as her eyes wrenched open just as straining skin began to split and part. Like a flower blossoming, the pony in front of her emerged wet with gore. They stumbled into the open space, a wicked grin on their face. Shaking the worst of the viscera off they stood to their full height, a good few heads taller than Luna. Against the lifeless gray of the moon the pony was a stark contrast, all deep blues and near-blacks.

“Nightmare.”

“Luna, darling. How long has it been since we’ve talked?”

“I believe a month or so. Your entrances usually aren’t so theatrical. Have you grown lonely without me?” She no longer feared Nightmare Moon, for Nightmare Moon no longer existed in this world. This was a figment, a construction of her guilty mind intended to torture her. Unlike the Tantabus, it had no power here or anywhere else. Still, it was hard not to feel nervous around her.

“Lonely? Darling, I never got lonely. Not even over a thousand empty, achingly long years. Not like you did. Do you remember that? The way you used to cower in your little sanctuary, the one place I could never reach?” Luna rolled her eyes. She knew the Nightmare, knew her feelings well. The loneliness bit them both harder than they’d like to admit.

“Why do you think I’m here standing in front of you, you daft bitch? OF COURSE I REMEMBER!” Did Nightmare shirk at her voice? Well… Good. She was tired of being antagonized by her own mind. She pressed a hoof against her head and closed her eyes in an attempt to gather her thoughts. “Just. What do you want? Can’t I just appreciate the view?”

“What, my corpse behind me? You see my dead body enough in your other nightmares so I was thinking a change of pace might be nice.” The scene around them shifted. The massive body of Nightmare Moon in front of her warped and changed, bending itself into deep red stage curtains. The moon faded away and her hooves found themselves on solid oak flooring now. To her left were two stools and a small table, a tinny gramophone playing one of her favorite songs just out of tune.

“This is new. I’ve never done a stage show before.” Luna looked away from the stage itself into where she half-expected rows of seats to be. Instead she was met by an inky black void, an endless emptiness yawning in front of her. Typical.

“You’ve progressed so well with hiding from your feelings that you’ve forced us to get much more creative with our torment.” Her and Nightmare were sitting now, the gramophone between them still squawking out its awkward song.

“Torment?” Luna gestured around to the empty theater and threw her head back in laughter. It was hollow, devoid of joy. Just like this miserable display she was being subjected to. “This is torment to you? Nightmare, you sweet fool, we have not had stage fright for a millennia. You’re going to have to try harder.”

“Do you think you’re doing a good job fooling them?”

“What?” Luna snapped her head back to Nightmare, scowling.

“Your friends. Do you truly think they’re buying your whole charade?” Nightmare Moon’s voice lacked any of its typical venom. Indeed her whole demeanor was bereft of any of her trademark aggression. She reminded Luna an awful lot of herself like this.

“There is no charade, Nightmare. I am me around them and they accept me as I am. That is all, nothing more and nothing less. This is the nature of friendship. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Would I not? I’ve lived in your little head for your entire life, from the moment the moons’ image graced your flanks. I’ve been with you every step of the way, through all your ups and downs. Is that not friendship? Do I not understand us?”

“There is [i]not[/i] an us! There never was. You were a thief, a craven animal that lodged itself into the head of a filly that didn’t know any better. Do not speak of us as friends, monster.”

“It’s never going to leave you. You know this, right? The fear, the sting of failure, the desire for more—it’s a part of you. Just as [i]I[/] am a part of you. Hiding won’t make it go away.”

Luna scoffed and her nostrils flared. This was ridiculous. “I’m not hiding from anything. Here I am, sitting in front of the singular source of my woes, and she claims that I’m hiding! That I’m trying to run away from my problems!”

It was only in the heavy pause that followed that Luna realized the music had stopped playing. She would take even its’ shaky attempts at recreating a familiar song over this. She could hear her heart hammering in her chest. What was she afraid of? “Am I wrong? Is there not some iota of truth in the words I speak? If there weren’t, why would you be feeling the way you are now?”

Luna sighed, waving dismissively at Nightmare like a fly on a summer afternoon. She concentrated on her magic and pulled the dream in around her, dragging herself into the waking world. “We’re done talking here, Nightmare.”



She was back in bed, safe and sound. No Nightmare Moon, no empty stage, no uncomfortable questions. Just the sleeping body of Twilight Sparkle. Luna thought it thrilling when they first eloped. The scandal of it all! Their relationship didn’t even make the tabloids. Nowadays that sort of concern seemed silly to her but she was so desperate to be admired or even noticed by her public that she would do anything catch their eye but sometimes… sometimes that wasn’t the path life had chosen for you.

She had been noticed by the ponies that mattered most to her and that was enough. Luna gave Twilight one last squeeze before pulling herself out of bed. Twilight grumbled in her sleep at the sudden departure of warmth from her grasp but she would get over it in time. Luna made her way to the window to gaze upon her work. Strange, she didn’t remember the moon being full tonight…

“Oh sweet summer skies.”

Luna wanted to scream, she wanted to howl in wordless anguish. Hanging in the night sky, in place of the beautiful moon, was the gutted corpse of Nightmare Moon. Did she have to be so cliche? Did she have to make it so hard to run? Luna growled in frustration and the aging stone railing beneath her front hooves began to crumble. She whirled around, startled to find Twilight standing there.

This wasn’t the real Twilight. “Luna, dearest, is something wrong?”

“It’s—it’s just a dream, dear. Just another lousy nightmare. Let’s go back to bed so I can forget this ever happened.” Luna trudged towards the comfort of her covers, stopping in her tracks at the edge of her bed.

Splayed out in all her visceral glory was Princess Twilight Sparkle. She had been rent from throat to loin by magic and she was—there was so much of her and—Luna couldn’t help but vomit. She spat in contempt as the wave of disgust passed over her. Twilight’s eyes flickered to life in response and a familiar smile found its way onto her muzzle.

“It almost seems that you care for her, little fang. Don’t you feel wrong lying to her?” To hear that voice coming from the dead body of her loved one was almost enough to drive Luna to rampage. Almost.

“Get. Out. Of. My. Head.” Luna trembled, her body seething with a thousand years of rage at her captor. Body wearer. Crown stealer. [i]Nightmare[/i].

The bloodied head of her love cackled with violent glee. “Me? Get out of [i]your[/i] head? You put me here! Like you put us on the moon! Like you almost put your sister in the grave! Like you—”

Luna smashed the bed into splinters with pure magical fury. Nay, less than splinters. The bed was nearly wiped clean from the dreamscape in the responding magical blast. Luna roared, deep and primal against the flames that were starting to consume her room. She roared still as the flames grew closer, threatening to envelop her. She only stopped roaring when a deep blue hoof wrenched her from her nightmare.



There they were, at the end of it all. At least this is what her sickly mind thought the end would look like. The skyline looked beautiful on fire, all twisted metal stretching upwards. The earth screamed in torment. She stood in Canterlot, in the spot where her and Celestia would have lived. Instead there was nothing but scorched earth and patches of worn rubble. She didn’t care to know which future this was. They all ended the same after all. The death of Harmony, the ascendancy of some other Element, the rebirth of Harmony through Strife, the suppression of all Elements that oppose Harmony—she had memories of it all.

“It’s hard, isn’t it? Coming face to face with the type of destruction your kind is capable of wreaking? To confront the reality of y—”

“Can you shut up? Please. Just for a moment.” She was talking to a deck of playing cards. It wasn’t the most outrageous thing she had to deal with tonight but it was certainly an odd choice of form. The faces on the cards rolled their eyes.

Luna was content to let the carnage sing to her for a few minutes, soaking in the desolation of the scene around her. It carried an odd peace with it. It was different than the moon or a stage or a dead lover. This was a reality somewhere. The moon, her physical presence on it, was never real. She had never set hoof on stage since she was a filly. Twilight would die by other means, the oracles assured her of that much. Her death would serve a far greater purpose than some angsty scene lit by only the pale light of the night.

“How are you okay with any of this? You seem so at peace. We don’t like it.” The voice in the cards was confused, upset. Stupid.

“Yes, well, you’re going to have to get used to it.  I am more at peace than I have been in centuries and someday—” Luna turned to face the table where the cards sat, hardly sparing a glance at Nightmare Moon “someday I will leave you behind.”

Nightmare Moon snorted, incredulous at such a statement. She seemed to doubt that anypony could ever live without her presence. “You jest, surely! You call this recovery?” Nightmare gestured around them, at the death and destruction ostensibly caused by her own hooves. “This is not recovery, Luna. This is more of the same.”

Luna sighed, leaning her head back to stare blankly into the smog-choked air. Having conversations with herself grew to be so tiresome. “That’s what recovery is. It’s getting better, little by little, in ways that you can’t recognize until you look back many moons later. I am better. I’m getting better every day. I will not stop for anything because I want this. I deserve to want this.”

Nightmare Moon scoffed, rising from her spread-leg position in the chair to sit beside Luna. They admired the vista in silence for what felt like years, letting the wail of a dying planet soothe their battered minds. “Do you think I could ever get better?”

Luna turned to herself and smiled, the first smile she would wear tonight. “I think we already have.”