Rookwood found himself dreaming. This was not a good thing. Below him, there was a swirling vortex, above him was the moon and stars filled the sky. He felt a certain sense of dread and wondered were Luna might be. Lightning crackled in the vortex below. He soared on black wings made of shadowstuff.

“I was hoping we could talk.”

The voice was smooth, silky, and seductive. It practically purred. And it was very much like Luna’s voice, Rookwood realised.

“Bugger off bitch!” Rookwood shouted.

“Perhaps we got off on the wrong hoof. Perhaps, we should have just got off.” Nightmare Moon whispered, her voice all around him, tickling his ears.

Rookwood began to feel the first faint prickle of panic.

“You have so much potential. She will never allow you to achieve all of it you know. You would become a threat to her. To rule over her heart and lord over her with your raw abilities. I have changed my mind after witnessing your… gifts. I would have you rule at my side. Join me. I will show you things she never would. I could show you real power. Like how to feed on others and gain strength.”

Rookwood felt a tickle in his mind… A telltale sign. He flooded his mind with images of Luna. He thought about every perverted act, her every graceful curve, all in the perfect memory of his lusty adolescent brain. He recalled her orgasmic moaning and the feeling of her body pressed against his.

“Oh, you are a clever little pony…” Nightmare Moon hissed.

“So when do we get to the torture.” Rookwood demanded.

“No torture. Not tonight.” Nightmare Moon replied.

“So you are hoping to escape Luna’s notice by not harming me?” Rookwood questioned.

“Oh my, you are a clever pony.” Nightmare Moon chuckled.

“Get bent bitch.” Rookwood said.

“Luna is only using you. Exploiting your coltish lust. She has you in her power now, and will exploit you to try and rid the world of me. And when she is done, she will cast you aside and crush every one of your hopes and dreams.” Nightmare Moon cooed.

“And you wouldn’t?” Rookwood questioned. “Luna carries my foal and wants me around as the father.”

“She told you that, did she? Why would she, an immortal goddess alicorn, need you around as a father? Do tell. Think logically. What purpose would it serve? She knows of my interest in you. And I have seen her dreams as she sees mine. You are bait, to lure me out, and nothing more.” Nightmare Moon said.

“Still better than anything you have planned for me.” Rookwood said.

“Oh poor Rookwood, you have no idea. I can be very generous when it suits me. And you have several things I want. A few of which I would need you alive and well cared for. You… have… peaked… my… interest.” Nightmare Moon’s words trailed off into a lusty moan. “I helped Luna ascend… I could do the same for you. What pleasures we could share.”

“I accept the night, but I reject the darkness!” Rookwood shouted angrily. “And if I have so much potential that I could be a threat to Luna, that means I am a threat to you as well! So go get buggered by priapistic manticore you shadowy bitch! You would never allow a threat to exist against you! To Tartarus with you!”

“Such fire.” Nightmare Moon said in lusty tones, her voice all around him. “You show hints of having a spine. Do you think Luna will tolerate your willful behaviour?”

Rookwood began to focus on Luna intently, thinking back to when he had shadow winked to the bed. He pushed and flexed his will, trying to wink out, to escape.

“It was a mistake to cause you pain. Allow me to make it up by showing you pleasures you can scarcely imagine.” Nightmare Moon said in sultry tones.

“Take your mistakes and shove them up your plothole! Just go drown in a puddle of ursa major spunk you ugly old black nag!” Rookwood screamed.

Nightmare Moon began to laugh, a booming laugh that pained Rookwood’s ears.

“You’re not even fit for glue!” Rookwood shouted.

The vortex below him began to crackle in a terrifying new way, lightning surged and flashed in the clouds. It suddenly became very cold.

“YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME!”

Rookwood collapsed into a cloud of shadow, now beginning to cackle madly himself.

He awoke, muzzle to muzzle with Luna, who was staring into his eyes.

“I saw everything.” Luna said.

“And you just left me there?” Rookwood panted, his body being stabbed with hundreds of white hot needles.

“For the time being.” Luna said, her voice sad. “I would have pulled you out before she hurt you. I had to see how you would react. And you escaped her pocket plane on your own. I am proud of you.”

“I did what?” Rookwood said in disbelief.

“You escaped. You focused on me and returned to me in the waking world. I am truly impressed.” Luna leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on Rookwood’s nose. “I hope you do not believe in anything she told you.”

Rookwood lay silent.

“I have no intentions of throwing you away.” Luna whispered. “I am selfish with my possessions. Ask Celestia. I do not share my toys. Not to say you are my plaything, but I do enjoy playing with you.”

Rookwood felt a burst of heat flood his body.

Luna pulled him closer, into her forelegs. Oddly, Rookwood didn’t feel his usual arousal. It was comforting to just be held. Part of him was still terrified.

“And the things you said…” Luna tittered in the darkness. “Such awful things.”

“I am dreadfully immature.” Rookwood whispered.

“Maybe so, but I like that. I have had a number of noble guards cuff a pony for insulting me, but none so far have resorted to playground insults and schoolyard crudities. I should grant you a knighthood.” Luna giggled.

Rookwood stood in shadow while Luna beckoned him to come hither with a saucy wink. She stood in the sunlight, the late afternoon sun, and Rookwood in a hallway on the other side of the door.

“I haven’t been out in the sunlight since the change.” Rookwood said.

“You’ll be fine. A little uncomfortable maybe, but fine.” Luna promised.

The light pierced Rookwood’s eyes painfully. He squinted through his glasses. He trotted forward to follow Luna.

He crossed the threshold into the sun, stepping into the direct sunlight. It felt odd. Not warm, but stinging. A tingle. The day was chilly… It was winter after all, but usually even on cold winter days the sun felt warm.

There was no warmth.

He stepped through the snow, his hooves crunching on ice crystals, once again in daylight.

Something didn’t feel right. He felt weak and dizzy.

“Should I feel dizzy?” Rookwood said.

“Sometimes the lunar pegasi feel disoriented after being in the dark for several days with no sunlight at all.” Luna said as she trotted around the frozen garden.

Rookwood heard a hissing sizzle followed by a pop. A stabbing pain shot through his back, between his shoulders. It began to spread. He felt like he was being stung by hundreds of bees. He stumbled and cried out.

“Luna!” Celestia cried.

Luna turned and then shrieked.

“Fire!” A guard shouted.

A second later Rookwood was slammed into by an armored pegasus, who bore him down to the ground and began to roll him in the snow. The pain was agonising. There was a loud hissing and steam all around them both.

“Get him inside, hurry!” Celestia shouted. Her faced flashed annoyance for a moment and then her horn flared.

Rookwood found himself indoors, in a dark room, with Celestia standing over him. The guard was there with them, still pinning Rookwood.

“You burst into flames Rookwood.” Celestia explained. Rookwood felt himself lifted into the air and placed down upon a table. He could smell burning hair and flesh.

Luna appeared in the room with a loud pop.

“I have never seen anything like that!” Luna shouted in alarm. “Celestia, he has passed before windows and been awake in the day.”

“But maybe never in direct sunlight sister.” Celestia said, her voice frantic.

Rookwood felt something pressed to his lips. A glass vial.

“Drink.” Celestia commanded.

Rookwood felt the vial lifted as his lips opened, a bitter liquid being poured down his throat. His mind immediately began to distort. He felt his body become light, odd, weird.

“I would have never encouraged you to come outside had I known!” Luna cried.

Rookwood could not reply, his tongue no longer working. He felt himself going numb.

Rookwood felt himself slipping off into comforting cool darkness.

He found himself once again in the dreamscape. He was in a bed. His body ached. He looked around him. He found himself unable to move. He saw a blue leg and he struggled to understand what he was seeing. He saw his muzzle, but it wasn’t his muzzle. Is was slender. Delicate. And blue. He blinked.

He was in Luna’s body. He lay in an uncomfortable bed. It was wet. There was something warm and heavy pressed against his back. Luna’s back.

“Do you grow tired of your sister whoring you out?” A faint voice whispered. “Selling what you have to offer?”

Rookwood struggled to understand what was going on.

“I can help you. Free you. I have seen your dreams. I know what you desire. To be free of your sister’s brilliant light. She has ascended… And look where that has left you. She’s too good to use her body for political favours now… So she uses yours instead. Her own little sister. Left mortal and weak while her sister has rose to ultimate power.”

Rookwood felt Luna’s body heave and there was a faint sigh, a sad sound.

“I can show you how to draw in the essence of the night. To become one with a primordial element just like your sister has. Has she offered to do the same? Has she offered to free you from this drudgery? NO! She has not! She has left you to rot. To shrivel away. To have your body abused and your own hopes and dreams crushed.”

“It is not like that…” Rookwood heard Luna’s voice murmur. It was different. It didn’t have the confidence he was used to hearing. Her imperious tone was not present.

“Why fear the darkness when you can rule over it? Why be a slave to political needs when you could rule over this pathetic mudball floating through the void? I can help you. I want to help you. Your suffering cries have reached my ears. I need your help. I had a body once. No longer. You and I, we can work together.”

“What do you want?” Luna’s voice said. Rookwood could feel the faint words tickle lips not his own and ragged gasps of air flowed through the nostrils he was now using.

“I want what you want. The strength to help the downtrodden. To right wrongs. To lift up those who are oppressed. Like you. Look what your sister has done to you.”

“I chose this.” Rookwood heard Luna gasp faintly. “Nopony forces me.” Rookwood heard an angry hiss from the lips that said the words.

“Perhaps I shall return and we shall speak again.”

Rookwood felt Luna’s body jerk as she awoke. Luna’s body lay gasping, her breathing heavy. He heard a chuckle from behind him as the stallion awoke.

“Woke up feeling frisky, did you?”

Rookwood tried to panic and felt an odd sensation as this body was not his body to panic with. He felt a heavy foreleg wrap around the body he was trapped in, pulling him closer. He felt hot breath on his ears. He felt Luna’s body kick and struggle.

“NO!”

“Oh, I like it when you are playful. Going to make me work for it eh?”

“NO!”

He could feel Luna’s neck contort and twist, saw her muzzle angling down, saw a muscular grey foreleg just before her muzzle… And then Rookwood tasted blood.

Something in his lower back exploded with pain as a knee was sharply driven into the spine he shared with Luna. He kicked his legs and kicked and struggled, feeling a foreleg snake under his body, wrapping around, and both forelegs now pulling him back, crushing him closer.

“NO!”

“How dare you bite me you bitch!”

He felt something stab his backside, thrusting wildly as his body thrashed.

Rookwood’s fear was a living thing now. It tore through his essence and caused no end of psychic trauma. Rage burned through him.

“Hold still and make it easier! Or else!”

Rookwood felt Luna’s body continue to kick and struggle as something continued to thrust and stab and try to find its way inside.

There was a flash of light in the dim room and the smell of ozone. Rookwood felt what he thought was a white hot poker being jammed into his nethers, in between delicate folds of flesh. He heard Luna’s deafening scream and felt her pain. Her body flooded with agony, a searing burning pain between her folds, pressed against the tiny knob of flesh that he was getting to know so well. The burning was relentless.

“Hold still and the burning will go away!”

But Luna could not hold still, not on fire. She writhed and kicked, screaming, shrieking, unable to even plead for mercy because she could form words.

And Rookwood was trapped in this nightmarish scenario with her.

He felt feathers being ripped from the tender flesh of Luna’s wings. The burning sensation continued, growing ever hotter. Pressure was applied to all four hooves, painful horrible pressure, and he felt one crack, causing horrible pain to shoot up the leg he shared with Luna.

And then the burning stopped. No more feathers were being ripped away. The pressure eased off. Luna continued to writhe for several minutes, her body wracked with sobs.

When she was finally mostly still, the two forelegs pulled tight and thrust her downward. Rookwood could feel flesh ripping and tearing. The stallion had not entered into Luna’s marehood, but had ripped her open just under her dock, going in dry, ruining her flesh.

He felt the thrusting and the blinding pain continued for what seemed like hours. And then, it stopped. The stallion pulled out. He felt a hoof press into Luna’s spine and then kick her violently out of the bed, and she tumbled out onto the cold floor.

They lay there, together, gasping for air, writhing in the most horrible pain imaginable while the stallion started laughing.

“Help me.” Rookwood heard Luna say.

“Give me a few minutes to get rested, and I’ll be glad to help you.” The stallion said.

“Please, help me!” Rookwood heard Luna say again.

The stallion continued to laugh, a horrible sound.

And then, something else in the room answered.

“You have called. And I have answered.”

The laughter stopped all too suddenly. The stallion started to scream and Rookwood heard the sounds of rending flesh. Crimson blood began to splatter the walls.

Rookwood heard Luna give a weak laugh.

Rookwood awoke and began to kick and thrash. A strong force held him still. His back still burned. Pain shot through his body.

“Hold still.” Luna commanded. “Rookwood…”

Rookwood froze, waiting.

“I am so sorry. I never intended…” Luna’s voice broke off into a cry.

Luna cried quietly for several minutes as Rookwood waited. He could hear breathing. Somepony else was in the dark room.

“I didn’t mean for you to see that.” Luna said. “I took you inside of my mind. I didn’t want her getting you in your weakened state. I was trying to protect you.”

Rookwoods only reply was his own strangled sobs. Everything on the inside hurt more than any pain he felt on the outside.

“Once inside, you found your way into secret places. I didn’t want you seeing that. She… used me. Violated me just as much as the events that you just saw. She tried to use me to kill my own sister… I was trapped inside and forced to watch. And I couldn’t make her stop. I begged and pleaded and said no so many times…” Luna’s voice trailed away in more cries, anguished cries, cries that became howls.

Rookwood became aware of another set of cries in the darkness as he heard Celestia weeping.