Nightmare Year: The ever closing darkness

Luna watched the scene play over and over in her head a thousand times. She could not deny that she had let her anger consume her, nor could she deny that she attacked her sister. Nightmare only watched, unaffected by Luna’s emotional outburst. Her eyes were red, her cheeks streamed with tears and her heart was ready to collapse.

Nightmare however did something un-expecting. She brought her hoof under Luna’s chin and looked into her eyes.

No anger, nor evil grin was on her face. No emotion what-so-ever was seen on her. Yet Luna didn’t know why yet she just leaned in and began crying on Nightmare’s shoulder.

“Why?!” she half yelled out to her. She looked up at Nightmare Moon. “Why?!”

Nightmare Moon said nothing. Luna just closed her eyes and continued to cry on her chest. Nightmare looked down at her then back at the memories.

Celestia was in fear and shock that the creature before her was her sister.

Nightmare looked down at Celestia.

“For too long we have gone unloved, Celestia!” Her voice as loud as lightning yet filled with lethal venom. “Our subjects only choose to live in thou daylight and rejoice in your arms. But no more, for it is the time of nigh for now! We will show thee all why the night is to be embraced forever!”

More lightning stormed outside. Celestia could do nothing but watch the creature that was once her sister laugh at the horror’s she was creating.

“Lu.. Luna?” asked a terrified Celestia.

Nightmare growled.

“We no longer go by that name, foal! We are Nightmare Moon! And you will soon learn to fear us.”

A bolt of lightning shot from Nightmare’s horn and fired at Celestia. Celestia quickly created a shield, blocking the lightning. She then slowly stood up. She stared at the monster before her.

Celestia knew that this… Nightmare Moon, was not her sister. Merely a demon from Tartarus and had consumed her sister. But she knew that Luna was in there, somewhere.

With knew found confidence in hoping to get her sister back, she rose up to Nightmare.

“Nightmare Moon, I do not know what thou has done with our sister but we demand that thou release her, at once!”

Nightmare Moon only chuckled and landed on the floor.

“Fool! I am Luna! I am the little sister you once knew and loved.”

Celestia shook her head.

“No… you are not. My sister is kind, caring, loving and she would not try to harm me or her subjects. NOT A DEMON!!”

Nightmare lowered her eyes and continued to approach her sister.

“Like it or not Celestia, We are Luna and Luna is Nightmare Moon! And after tonight, the world will rejoice in my night. Though may not care for us as thee did with our subjects but we will show them that we could be equally loved.” She paused. “Not that thou had cared.”

With that, she vanished into mist and the dream ended.

Luna stared, eyes filled with tears and heart filled with sadness. Nightmare Moon sighed and looked down at her.

“You see now… why I showed you all this? You see why I want you to remember all this? You need to remember what we wanted to achieve… to accomplish. To show all of Equestria that we deserve to rule… as much as Celestia and beyond.”

Luna shook her head.

“We should be ruling together, in unisons, rather as a sole ruler.”

“And what did Celestia do while we endured cold, lowliness for a thousand years?!” Nightmare yelled, shoving Luna away from her. “What did she do while we sat there for a millennium? She ruled, she controlled, and she erased us from existence. We were mere… foal stories, nothing mentioning that we were related!”

Nightmare’s anger slowly diminished but remained at bay. With a sigh, a misty image appeared before them. The sun was seen with the moon slowly passing in front of it, causing a Eclipse.

“In a months time,” Nightmare Moon, began. “The moon will pass in front of the sun, causing an eclipse. From here, I will assume control, unless, you take control yourself and remove Celestia from her throne.”

Luna gasped. With fearful and angry tears she stood before Nightmare Moon.

“You can’t mean that! I won’t kill Celestia!”

“I never said anything about killing her.” Stated Nightmare. She continued to keep her eyes on the misty image of the eclipse. “I said to remove her. I don’t wish to fulfill those fearful stories and what not about us being a blood-lust goddess.” She paused. In a blink of an eye, sadness past over her face before returning back to being emotionless.

“When the eclipse happens, we will take matters into our hooves. We remove Celestia from rule and then we take her place. We will cast eternal night, so all can rejoice in it. Whether they want to or not, they will learn to worship us as they did with Celestia. Then… if they worship us like they do with her, then… when will return the day.”

“And… what of my sister?” Luna dared to ask.

Nightmare’s eyes narrowed and a grin grew.

“If Celestia doesn’t try to stop us or intervene with our plans, she will remain… imprisoned. For a thousand years… just like we did.”

Luna cried out and stood towards Nightmare.

“NO! I won’t do it! Celestia didn’t do nothing to cause us our fate. We did it to ourselves. We both deserved to have been imprisoned.”

The room got incredibly cold, colder than she thought was possible, especially if this was a dream.

Nightmare created several tendrils with her mist and they shot after Luna, grabbing her and holding her a few feet in the air.

Nightmare radiated with anger and coldness as she approached Luna.

“You fool! It matters not if you decide to remove her or not. It would have been easier if you’ve done it yourself but… it seems you cannot be trusted. Come the approaching Eclipse, I will arise from you and take control of Equestria. The Elements of Harmony may have gotten rid of my physical form but I still have yours.”

“I won’t let you!” cried Luna, as she struggled against her bonds. “I’ll warn Celestia to stop us! And make sure that we can’t her or anypony else!”

A last of mist struck Luna across the cheek. She gasped then whimpered from the pain of the lash. Nightmare growled and forcibly moved Luna’s face to look at her.

“If you do that, then when I come out, Twilight Sparkle will suffer the consequences!”

This caused Luna to quiet and stared at Nightmare with fear. This caused Nightmare to smirk.

“Ah yes… little Twilight Sparkle. The little mare and her friends who used the Elements of Harmony against us. The mare who so happens to catch your heart and soul. A mare you wish to love and keep close. Yes that Twilight Sparkle.” She dropped her grin and leaned in closer. “If you don’t wish for her to suffer, or to know of what is to come, you will keep your mouth shut.”

Luna remained quiet, defeated and Nightmare slowly released her grips on her. With a more, calmer voice, she continued.

“Luna… I know how much your heart wishes to be with her. I know that your heart aches to be loved… just like I wished for it as well.” An image of a young filly was conjured, showing her to be all black and all alone. This caught Luna's attention. The black little filly was crying, no pony to hear her please. All but one.

“But we cannot accomplish that unless we take what we lost.” As the image quickly dispersed. “A thousand years is much to ask for but we both know that because of your sister, we will never gain those lifetimes of meeting ponies. We will never regain the times we spent with friends, our favorite places, our treasures… our loved ones… that we lost. All of this… because of her.” The last word dripped with venom and hate.

Luna was so quiet, her breathing was almost non-existent.

Nightmare spoke her next words carefully.

“Whether you will accept the role of removing your sister or not, I will take control on the Eclipse. So, unless you wish for your little love mare to disown or to never speak to you again, I suggest you keep your mouth shut.” Her voice then turned to a more calmer tone but remained firm. “Go… spend time with her, enjoy the time you have with your friends and make sure that nopony knows nothing.

“We both want for everypony to know that we deserve to rule as much as Celestia and to be just as praised as her. Don’t you wish… to be worshiped like goddesses like we used to be? Don’t you want for us to be loved?”

The words spoke truth to Luna’s heart but that didn’t make them anymore hurtful than before. She always wished to be loved, to be praised and to feel the love of her subjects.

Celestia was older and much the wiser than Luna. Even when they were young, Mother would praise Celestia more than Luna. It hurt knowing that her oldest sister was considered the wisest and graceful one. The only praise Mother Faust had given her was her beauty matched her own night skies and that she would prosper in her own way.

And yet, Celestia was considered the smart one. The all wise, powerful, graceful and merciful alicorn of all in Equestria. Beauty wise, her own niece, Cadance, was the Alicorn of Love. Yet, not even her first century and she was already a prodigy. She has her own Empire, a loving Husband, a magic of her own and now within a year or so, a foal.

The first Alicorn to have a natural birth for over 5000 years. She was praised, she was loved and… she was youngest of the three. And with what they had planned with Twilight in the future?

How unfair was that?

With that Nightmare Moon ended the vision, whispering the last words, “A month's time, little moon.”

Luna blinked. Her vision returned back to normal and her surroundings became clear once more. She found herself back in her bedroom and standing in the same place.

She looked up at her skies, thinking time has flown by, but reality was… it was only a few minutes rather than hours in the dream. Turning her head back inside, she saw that her servant was slowly rousing from her sleep; and in the perfect moment to see that Luna had slowly risen the moon to its glorious heights.

“Good Evening, Princess Luna.” Yawned Dusty as she removed her covers and rouse from her bed.

With a smile, Princess Luna approached her maid.

“Good Evening, Dusty. I trust you slept well?”

Dusty nodded with a smile.

“Yes Princess.” She stretched her limps and cracked a few bones before turning to the window. “Oh my, did I oversleep?”

Princess Luna shook her head.

“Not at all. You woke just in time, Dusty. Now that your awake, I believe we can begin our duties now.”

With a pleasant nod, the maid put on her, well maid outfit, and began folding her sheets.

A few minutes later, Luna and Dusty had arrived at the meeting room. Though she knew from personal, experiences that she would be attending a quick and short meeting, mostly with the few nobles that had developed a 'Night Owl' persona. However, when she opened the door, she was greeted not by a few nobles, but rather a few of The Night Children, and her two Threshals Guards.

With a surprised look, she approached the table, and caught the gaze of everypony... everybody there.

“Good Evening Princess Luna.” Spoke one of the Night Children.

The Night Children or Many of have come to call them, 'The Nightmare Children', where a colony of ponies who opted to taking the night as there time to work, play, or spend time on, all at night. This is when Luna had became Nightmare Moon a thousand years ago. They were amongst the first to truly accept that Princess Luna was the rightful ruler of Equestria, though few they were. They even became her soldiers, creating the Night-Guards, for her. They took on her appearances, first magically with slit eyes to see in the dark. Changed their bodies to work at nights and sleep in days better, learned Lunar magic. (Back then it being called Dark Magic).

When Luna was consumed, Nightmare Moon took control and had her followers lead the attack against Celestia. In reality, Nightmare Moon would have won, despite small amount of followers, some which included a lot of civilians, had joined her cause to fight.

But... Celestia managed to get a hold of the Elements and banished her without more bloodshed. As a final act of her rule, Celestia exiled the Nightmare Children from Equestria. The ponies left Equestria and scattered throughout the world.

Since Luna's return, the Nightmare Children have resurfaced. In a large continent on the south end of the world, the Nightmare children were growing since their exile a thousand years ago. Luna gained her night-guards back, but with them, was the location of the Night Children nation. Not even Celestia knew of them....

Or maybe she did but didn't do anything about them.

And yet here was four of the Night Children, and even a few of her Threshal Guards. They all were bowing before her... even the nobles. With that she approached the table.

“Greetings, my fellow ponies.” She paused, waiting for them to raise their heads. They didn't. “Rise?” she asked.

They did and was greeted by smiles. One of the stallions, who was dark blue, had navy mane, blue slit eyes and a blue star over a white shield, cutie-mark.

“It is an honor to meet your once again, Princess Luna. We have traveled long and far to get in touch with you.”

Luna blinked. “....I thank you... for coming....”

The stallion bowed again.

“Sorry, my name is Star Shield.” He rose back up and looked back to his fellow followers and pointed at them. “This is my wife, Aurora Green Winds. The others are our two of our ten councilors from Nightlands. Our Senior Councilor is Grey Star and his wife, who is vice Councilor, Ivory Scrolls.”

The first was a earth pony mare, who much like him had a dark blue fur but had a sky blue mane, black slit eyes and a curvy figure that might match the modeling mare, Fleur-de-Lis.

The second was a unicorn stallion. Unlike the others, he was black, almost all around. The few light colors he has was at the tips of his tail which was a bluish tip, grey at the end of his hooves, and his yellowish eyes. His horn was even black, but it reflected a little bit of light. His Cutie-mark was a grey star with odd marking at the edge.

Last was another unicorn, except female. She was different from the rest. She was almost snow white. From the tip of her horn to the end of her tail, she was completely white, which was unusual for a Night Child. Her cutie-mark was a scroll with illegible writings. Other than her white eyes, which Luna assumed was blind, she looked like she was a complete opposite of the Night Children.

They each bowed their heads when called and raised back up. With the intros out of the way, Luna now focused back to Star Shield.

“Thank you... for coming.” She finally spoke. Though uncertain as to how they are all here, she continued to talk with much curiosity in her voice. “Though may I ask why you are here?”

“We have all come here for you, Princess Luna.” stated Star Shield "We wish for you to come and live with us in our home, your Majesty. We wish for you, to come rule us in Nightlands.”

Author's Notes:

I never realized I had finished this, I thought I had done chapter 3 but I guess not and it was just sitting there. I was already preparing to do chapter 4 when I saw that this wasn't don yet, so here it is after a year or so...
I know I suck but inspiration is hard to come by, And I may or may not change the tags or the rating yet because this was to be a clopfic but it changed from its original point so, like let me know if this is good as it is or maybe change it.