Crystal Drift came back to consciousness slowly, piece by piece. The first thing to return to him was, surprisingly, his smell. He smelled dirt, freshly dug. Granted, he was a pegasus and not an earth pony, and his job as a Royal Guard meant he didn’t have a lot to do with earth based activities, but this smell… it was instinctive, everypony knew it at some point in their lives. Also, it was exceedingly strong. As if his nose was almost pressed into the soil itself…

That’s when Crystal Drift’s eyes finally opened. It was night again. How long was the day allowed to reign this time? He was looking at the ground from a low, parallel position he had never achieved before, not even at his worst drinking extravagances. His chin was almost scraping the rough dirt below it.

Sense of touch came immediately after. He was acutely aware that his body lay horizontally straight below him, his limbs positioned straight ahead and… trapped! He was buried. Somepony had buried him all the way up to his neck! He could feel the rocks and ground pressing on him, all around his body, as if he was in a press that started warming up, ready to operate.

Hearing. Somepony was moaning next to him, on his right. He struggled to rotate his head and see. One of his fellow guards, one of his unit. Drift knew him only as Grit. The earth pony refused to share his whole name, though Drift supposed that was because the other half was not something flattering. Grit was slowly coming back to consciousness too. He opened his eyes and he, by instinct or chance, immediately turned his head towards Crystal Drift, looking at him questioningly.

That’s when the laughter erupted out.

Crystal Drift felt the blood in his veins freeze. Grit’s gray coat coloration lightened up as he also realized what was happening. They both turned their heads back forward with some effort to confront the laughing mare.

No, not mare. Monstrosity. Nightmare Moon in the flesh. She had lied down some distance from them, her long, back legs almost sensually laid towards the side. Her coat was black, darker than the night itself, and her ethereal mane whipped all around her. She could be beautiful beyond comparison but Celestia herself if not for her glowing serpentine eyes and the sharp teeth she showed off at every chance.

Right now she let them take a good look at her sharp canines as she spread her mouth wide and laughed, long, hard, and cruelly. Drift and Grit could do nothing but wait.

Her maniacal laughing tapered off to chuckles. Her gaze locked into their eyes, first Drift and then Grit. She kept sniggering all the while.

“Aren’t you fine stallions going to beg for your life?” she asked. Her voice was a provocation. Sensual and sultry, every word dripping with undertones of an entirely different meaning. It pulled at you, until you remembered yourself and looked at her face again.

“What do you want from us?” Drift asked while at the same time Grit was saying, “Guards do not beg.”

The Dark Alicorn slowly rose up, her movements slow and languid. “Oh, guards do beg. You will be begging too in a few minutes,” she promised with a smile that revealed too many teeth for a mouth to contain. “As for what I want from you? Well, what do I need from my sister’s so called “guards”? Nothing. You are useless,” Nightmare Moon discarded their duty as if it was nothing but a dirty rag. “Guards? You do nothing, but stay in the well lit areas of your cities and villages, spending my night huddled around a fire and congratulate yourself on a job well done when nothing comes for you and you don’t have to run and scream for my sister to send help.”

The Walking Nightmare got closer. She smelled like blood. Drift felt sick when she almost pushed her muzzle into his. He didn’t want to touch this thing, didn’t want to smell it.

“There is only one thing you and your ilk were ever good for. Die. Be an obedient little distraction and get yourselves killed like worms while the real work is done by those who can. On second thought, I do need you. I need you to perform your duty.” She smiled at him wickedly. “Die. Die messily, die horribly. That’s what you are here for after all, isn’t it? Delay me with your little deaths.”

“We will stop you. You are not going to win, Nightmare Moon,” Grit vowed gruffly beside Drift. Drift nodded grimly in agreement. The Mare Who Stalks In The Dark would not win.

Nightmare Moon tossed her mane away from her face. She looked bored now. “Unless my sister decides to get off her fat flank and finally do what must be done herself, you little “guards” will keep dying in droves. I honestly have no idea how many of you I’ve killed so far.”

“Hundreds,” Grit answered.

Nightmare harrumphed in disappointment. “Sounds like you don’t know either. I was curious too.”

His fellow guards! Drift couldn’t believe he didn’t think of them until now. He had been stationed here with a unit of sixty guards. Where were the rest of them?

His panic over the welfare of his comrades must have shown on his face because Nightmare Moon answered his unspoken question. “Oh, don’t worry about your friends. They are around. A little bit of them here, some of them there… Depends on where the pieces landed when I unleashed my spell. Trained guards…” the terrifying monstrosity chuckled once more. “You see one single opponent against you and instead of trying to surround me, what do you do? Mass all together, hoping that huddling beneath a magic shield will save you, never considering that I might have already cast my spell where you stand. No wonder you cannot do what you are supposed to do. You simply. Don’t. Have. The killer’s. Instinct.”

Nightmare Moon lied down again, closer to them, halfway between where Drift and Grit were buried. “But enough about that. I’m being sore and cranky about the past,” she laughed. “What’s important is what is gonna happen to you.” Drift exchanged a nervous glance with Grit. “I am going to give you a chance to get everypony out of this cold, hard ground.”

Grit wasn’t taking the bait the evil in front of them dangled, but… Drift was too curious, wanted to get out of this too much. This wasn’t a way for a pegasus to die.

“What would we need to do?” he asked. He could see Grit frowning at him for even considering the idea of doing what Nightmare Moon would ask.

“It’s simple,” she said. “Do this, and I’ll stop. Nopony else has to die again from my hooves. The moon will not force the sun to lower itself again, the nights will become normal again, and the nightmares which plague your people will stop. All you have to do…”

The Carnivorous Pony smiled seductively at them, not allowing her teeth to show. “... is say that you love me. Say that you love me, for everything I ever did. Say that you appreciate my gift of the peaceful night. Say that I am your princess.”

This is what she asked? In return for their lives, they had to say those few words?

There was only one answer. Grit wouldn’t speak up, his set face showed his absolute resolution to spare no more words for The Nightmare. Drift was the one who had to say it.

“Buck yourself, you crazy bitch. You are a monster. You always were a monster. And you will die like one.” She was evil. She always had been. Since time immemorial she showed up in the darkest of nights and behind her came horror and death. The Night belonged to her. Everypony knew where the fear of darkness originated from.

Nightmare Moon’s smile remained but her eyes lost their glint. She rose up once more, towering over them. “And so fades any last hope and my path is set.” She locked eyes with Drift once more. “Your fate is set too!” she snarled.

She moved back to where she had been before, the first time they saw her lying down. She sat down on her haunches, her back turned to them. “I do… have a few more things for you. As someone who is going to die, you deserve this, little “guard”.”

Her horn glowed intensely, bathing everything around in a blue glow. Up in the sky the moon lowered itself. The sun rose quickly as the moon hid beneath the horizon. Princess Celestia was always hasty to take advantage of any respite Nightmare Moon gave them to bring as much warmth and sunlight to Equestria. There had been no slow mornings or lazy afternoons for years now. Only the long, frightful nights and scorching, short days.

“There. You can have my sister’s sun since you adore her so much more. Of course, her love will end up roasting you alive. I think… yes, I think I will let her have a long day for once.” Nightmare Moon smirked evilly. “I’m sure you two will enjoy every moment of it. After all, who needs the coolness and quiet of the night when you can have this?” She turned her face away from them once more.

It had been less than a minute and Drift was already getting too uncomfortable. The ground around him was starting to heat up too. He knew that soon he would feel as if he was being cooked alive.

“I have more for you. If you were a unicorn and bothered to look, you’d see that I have put a silence spell on the two of you.”

“A silence spell? But.. we hear you just fine.” It was a mistake to keep talking to her but Drift was starting to panic.

“Of course you can. I made it so you can hear me and I can hear you in turn. What you could not hear is everything else.” Nightmare’s horn glowed briefly once more.

Crystal Drifts ears were assaulted by shouting, screaming, and crying. It all came behind him, where he could not see.

Nightmare’s magic flared once more. The air in front of Drift and Grit shimmered and solidified until it became a mirrored surface, letting them see what lay behind them.

Crystal Drift felt like an idiot. He was an idiot. It took him too long to consider the fate of his fellow guards, and he never even thought what happened to the people of the village they were stationed in.

They were all behind him, buried like he was. Stallions, mares, and foals. All of them crying, all of them begging.

“Why didn’t you do what she said?”

“I don’t want to die, please, help me, somepony help me!”

“...lestia, hallowed is thy name, great is thy Grace…”

“Mom! I want to go home! Mommy! Help, help!”

“We love you! We love you, just get us out, please!”

“Spare my children, please, they are too young, please!”

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, dig me out, out, out, outoutoutout…”

Grit broke his silence, bellowing at the Nightmare. “We love you! We love your night, you are our princess, and we love you! Get them out, please! Kill us, but spare them, please, I beg you!”

Drift could only cry as he looked at the terrified faces in the mirror. They all… they listened to them while she made her offer. They listened while he sentenced them to this cruel fate. Oh Celestia, what did he do? What did this monster make him do?

“How many?” he managed to whisper. He couldn’t see everypony. Too many were hidden by those in front of them. How many of the villagers did she condemn to this slow death?”

“All of them,” she answered, being able to hear his negligible whisper just fine. “Sixty eight stallions, eighty nine mares, forty two foals. See, if you had told me how many guards I’ve killed, I’d be able to properly keep score now.”

“Let them go. Please, let them go,” he whispered.

“Ah, ah, ah. You made your choice.” Nightmare Moon stared upwards to the sun. “Let’s see if this will convince you now, sister. You cannot hide behind a wall forever. Sooner or later, you have to go into the darkness and hunt down the monsters.”

Nightmare Moon spread her wings and soared into the bright sky, leaving them behind.

Crystal Drift was a strong pegasus and he could always handle any temperature or weather discomfort better than everypony he knew. He kept conscious and heard the cries behind him silence, one by one. The last one to call out was a small filly by the sound of her. She screamed for her father to wake up until she also was silenced.

The guards managed to find them in the end. Crystal Drift survived. Grit did not.

None of the villagers did either.

Twilight shut the book that contained the accounting of that incident’s sole survivor. If this was what Nightmare Moon did, if that’s what Twilight was destined to go after as a bearer of the Elements of Harmony…

She opened up the book once more. There were more written here. Stories of those who survived those years of darkness.

She put the book back into its place and left her room to find her friends. She needed to be around others right now.