Regrets.  It’s fairly safe to assume that everypony has done at least one thing in their life that they regret.  Some regrets are trivial, like forgetting to do laundry.  Others carry heavier consequences, such as failing an important exam or forgetting to feed a pet.  In most cases, regret is caused by a simple little mistake that a pony has made, and the thought of a different outcome weighs heavily on them.  In rarer cases, a pony may feel regret for setting off a chain reaction of bad happenings that echo throughout their lives.

When she had finally regained enough strength to wake up and open her eyes, Princess Luna was greeted by her biggest regret staring at her with large catlike eyes.  The figure she had seen as she fell out of consciousness, a tall black mare with blue armor-like markings on its coat, towered over her collapsed body as she snapped back to the waking world.

Panic flared in the princess’s mind as she suddenly realized what she was seeing.  Leaping to her hooves with hostile determination, she stammered, “Wh-who are you?”  She had to know, to be certain, that she was seeing this pony right.  It wasn’t possible!  It simply couldn’t be true!

“Oh do calm down, little Luna.  Are you not pleased to see me again?”

The voice was oh so familiar.  Too familiar.  It sent shivers up the princess’s spine and filled her with a fear that even Vaermina’s presence couldn’t compare to.  Paralytic, perhaps not, but fear nonetheless.  An otherworldly aura surrounded the mare where her mane should have been, a deep blue color that shimmered like the night sky.  Compared to Luna’s own, it was darker and much less welcoming.

“How long has it been since we last spoke?  One year?  Two?”

Luna snapped, “Silence, you monster!  Whatever sorcery this is, I will not be moved by it!”  She sent a small burst of magic at the mare, hoping it would simply vanish like the rest of Vaermina’s wretched illusions.

The mare took the blast head first, her own horn soaking up the energy like a lightning rod.  She giggled menacingly, “How cute, Luna.  You of all ponies should know that wouldn’t work!”  A bright wave of cyan poured from her horn, washing over the dumbfounded princess, sending her right to the ground without a hint of resistance.

How?  Why?  I don’t understand! Luna cried mentally, any ounce of optimism she’d gained from dispelling the mist melting away like ice.

“What’s a matter?  The nostalgia too much for you?” the mare teased, pacing back and forth in front of the downed pony.  “Just like old times, hmm?  There’s you, lying useless like a paperweight seeking my power, and then there’s me, standing tall and regal as I manifest my magic.  I know I’ve missed this.”

Luna struggled to her hooves under the blanket of the mare’s magic; she could stand, but her energy still hadn’t returned completely from her prior attacks on Vaermina.

“You never were very ambitious, not after our banishment.  All you wanted was to go home, be with…” the mare shuddered, “…Sister.”  She sent a small ball of energy into her current blanket, crushing the princess right back to the ground.  “I can still hear your voice, sobbing in the back of my head, crying for Celestia’s forgiveness,” she condescended.

The princess called forth her admission, “That may be true, and the thought still scares me, but you cannot control me any longer!”  With a surge of confidence and determination, she let loose a bolt of cobalt magic that ripped through the cyan blanket.  In an instant, she was on her hooves and sprinting toward the ghost of her past.

“We’ll see about that!” the mare rebutted, beginning her own sprint.

The two unleashed bursts of magic as they spanned the short distance, one determined to prove her strength and the other certain she could win.  The two attacks met at the midpoint, exploding in a flare of cobalt and cyan, otherworldly sparks swirling around the cloud of light.  When the cloud cleared, the two mares were locked by the horns, butting heads and struggling to overcome the other.

The black mare growled, “We both know you can’t win, child!”

“You know nothing, monster!” Luna asserted as she dug her hind hooves into the marble of the throne room’s floor, pushing ever harder against her counterpart.

The game was beginning to get boring, and so the black mare bucked with her front hooves, spreading her wings and flying into the air to break the headlock.  A burst of magic shot from her horn; it was a cheap shot against an off-guard opponent, tactically sound.  Nonetheless the princess didn’t miss a beat, countering with her own magic as she launched into the air.

The two flew around the room, tackling one another in turn, beams of energy passing by once in a while.  With each collision in the air a thunderous roar echoed throughout the sleeping castle, sometimes shattering windows or disturbing the mist that coated the floors.

The black mare broke her pattern of attacking and tackling and dodging in favor of an all-out strike against the smaller alicorn.  She unleashed an arsenal of magic powers that she had yet to use, each striking from another angle or with impossible speed.  To top off her powers, she rammed forward with her horn, tired of the games and more than ready to put her enemy to rest.

Luna took the blunt force of each magical blast, unable to twist and turn to avoid the fast ones, and too staggered by them to dodge the strong ones.  In one quick barrage of magic, she was on the ground in a battered mess, her vision blurring as her energy began to run dry once more.  The black mare was hurtling toward her with immeasurable joy in her eyes at the prospect of winning.

With what magic she could summon without completely draining herself, the princess conjured a minor magical barrier.  She knew it would most likely be a vain sentiment, but it was all she could think to do.

An unprecedented idea flashed into Luna’s head as the mare’s horn breached the barrier.  The thought of being impaled by her own past sent her mind into overdrive, the world around her practically stopping.  Instead of having her life flash before her eyes as most ponies say, her mind began to rework her magical barrier into a single focused point.  It condensed itself around the mare’s horn, solidifying in one thick block.

Her body had said its peace and her mind had worked out the idea, and so the world regained its normal pace.  Miraculously—for that’s all it could have been—the monster was stopped hard in its flying tracks, her horn trapped by the concentrated magic and her body continuing to fly with momentum.  A single sharp cracking sound thundered throughout the room, followed by the loudest and single most pain-filled screech any pony could have ever heard.  Any glass that hadn’t shattered in the battle had most certainly been broken by the high-frequency waves of noise.

The black mare’s body crashed against the nearest wall, collapsing on the ground in excruciating agony as her entire head throbbed violently.  Floods of pain shot through her body, originating from the severed shard of her horn, any magic she had built up to cast dissipating in chaotic spurts.  She couldn’t even muster up words to cut through the wailing sounds her body insisted she produce.

After her initial reaction of flinching at the snapping sound, Luna smiled widely at the knowledge of having, perhaps temporarily, beaten the monster.  Her magic dot vanished from the air, the sharp half of the broken horn falling to the ground like lead.  Magic surged in its point, waiting for the signal to release that would never come again.  Unfocused by a concentrated mind, the raw magic released itself from the horn, forming a field of harmless energy.  Luna had never seen such a phenomenon, though most ponies probably hadn’t either.

The mare screeched and wailed, her body wanting nothing more than to shut down entirely while the pain kept her mind alert to her surroundings.  In this case, the surroundings included an exhausted princess and a bunch of glass shards, but still she remained alert.  She tried to summon some kind of magic to numb the pain, but anything she conjured fizzled out as it reached the edge of her horn.

Luna pushed herself up, not quite as drained as she had been earlier.  “I’m not as weak as you remember, am I?” she boasted, trotting cautiously toward the field of energy.

“How dare you!” the mare snarled through gritted teeth, between whimpers, of course.

The tip of the princess’s horn lit up with her signature cobalt energy as she leaned down toward the mare’s own lost magic.  Like an electric current, the host-less power leaped from its field onto her horn, using it as a channel with which to enter her body.  As it soaked into her and merged with her own reserves, Luna felt almost fully recharged and ready to tackle whatever other trials she might face.

With a wide grin she turned to face the fallen mare.  I’ve beaten my own past, so I know I can stop Vaermina! she thought with certainty.

“I’m not certain how you came to exist, nor do I care.  The only thing that matters is that you have been beaten again.  And now you shall leave this land!”  Bracing her hooves on the ground, she pooled one last blast of magic into her horn, ready to finish her dark past off once and for all.

”Perhaps I underestimated your powers, girl!” the voice of the demon from before echoed throughout the room.  The floor rippled from the center like a pool of water, the figure of Vaermina emerging from it with a black haze around her.

Luna stopped her attack immediately, knowing that it would only be wasted magic in the demon’s presence.  Instead she scoffed, “Your tricks can’t beat me that easily, monster.”

“Do not pretend you should not be dead!” the demon hissed angrily.  “Your ability to refocus your magic was nothing shy of miraculous, as you are aware.”

“I still defeated her!” Luna insisted, her confidence not waning even in front of the Prince of Nightmares.  “It was a nice trick, and you almost had me beat!”

The demon chuckled darkly, “That was no trick of mine, equine.  It was the Skull’s magic that ripped your inner darkness from you.  The mare is no illusion.  She is a piece of you, as she has always been.”  With a wave of her arm, black clouds billowed from the ground and swallowed the broken mare.  “You created her, and you defeated her.  But her defeat is inconsequential to me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“The shadow of your past did not act according to my will; she acted upon her own instincts as the piece of you that was left behind…  In doing so, she distracted you long enough for me to adequately begin converting your dear subjects to my side!”

In that moment, a thousand screams erupted in Luna’s ears, each filled with paralyzing fear and crushing sorrow.  The voices of innocent fillies and foals echoed louder than any other, children lost in nightmares they didn’t even know they could have.  Parents screamed their children’s names, and children cried for their parents.  So many voices blended together in painful harmony as whatever demons they kept buried surfaced in the illusions of the Daedric Prince.

It was…too much!  The princess’s front hooves instinctively grasped at her head, trying in vain to block the sound of the poor victims’ screams.  She roared in a mixture of pain and anger, “What sort of sick monster are you?!  How can you do this to those innocent ponies?!”

Vaermina giggled, her voice drowning out all of the screams, “They each know my name, that I am responsible for their pain.  In time, they will beg me to rescue them, or they will perish by their own demons.”  With that, she vanished from the room, leaving Luna to listen to the hopelessness of the victims’ words.

On the verge of tears, she fell to the ground, the voices grating against her mind, wearing away at her composure and confidence.  Each innocent voice clawed at her mental conditioning, their fears trying to seek refuge in her own mind.  Even if she could somehow tune the voices out, there was no way she could save all of the dreaming ponies in time.

Too many voices, too many screams!  The pain and sadness is too deep!  Those poor ponies are being tormented, and I can’t save them! her thoughts bounced around, barely audible above the dreams of the ponies calling for help.

Princess Luna’s hooves closed harder over her ears, her spirit breaking just as surely as her mind.  She felt it in her heart, the loneliness that she’d be left with if everypony succumbed to the demon’s tricks.  She understood that if she didn’t act, all of her subjects would suffer, and yet her body wouldn’t respond to her commands.  Once more, she was powerless over her own actions, paralyzed by the machinations of Vaermina.

Silence washed over her.  At that moment when her determination was virtually dead and her hopes shattered, silence washed over her.  The screams went away; the ponies stopped crying.  Warmth radiated around her in the cold eeriness of the sleeping castle.  A voice, much more gentle than Vaermina’s, called to her.

No.  It commanded her.  “Rise, child who would deny the Daedric Prince!”

Its voice surged through her body with energy, smothering every muscle in its warmth.

“Listen not to the voices you cannot save.  Follow those that can carry you further in your fight!  Your power cannot best the demon, but neither can it defeat you!  Follow the voices that need you most, and they shall empower you!”

Without thinking about it, she stood to her hooves, any fear or sadness washed away with the voice’s words.  She didn’t stop to question where it was coming from or to whom it belonged; she listened as it guided her from the bombardment of evil.

”I give you my blessing in this troubling time.  Follow my crest and it shall lead you on your way!”

As the voice faded away, a light radiated from the throne.  There, the source of the light was a red rose engraved on top, shining a brilliant crimson.  Instinctively, Princess Luna approached, placing a cautious hoof over it.  Warm energy pulsated through her once more, and a single familiar voice came to life in her ears.

“Damn you, Vaermina!” Next Chapter: A Burning Kingdom Estimated time remaining: 15 Minutes