A light.

It was a small pinpoint, a simple speck that may as well have been nothing in the endless darkness of the void, but to a being who'd been robbed of all their senses to see that light, to feel the ice-cold sensation emanating from it. that simple speck of light was everything. It was their entire world. It defined their very existence, and that being—that creature drowning in complete Darkness would've done anything to pull itself further into that tiny mote of light.

Then, as if hearing that poor creature's silent yet desperate plea, that small speck of light began to expand, growing and brightening by the second. The light was so cold, but it was all the creature had, and so, by some unknown instinct, it threw itself into the cold embrace of the light. The Darkness vanished, swept away by the impossibly bright luminescence of the light. It was only when the creature had fully immersed itself in that light that it realized it was not the light of some unseen salvation, but rather the light itself was existence; it was consciousness, it was thought, and it brought with it the promise of a new reality. As the creature's, no... as the alicorn's thoughts and memories began to resurface from the void, and as the light began to fade into the darkness beneath her eyelids, a horrible sense of dread overtook the relief and gratitude she felt for the light.

The alicorn knew, even before she opened her eyes that this wasn't her salvation. She knew this wasn't the world she'd once been an integral part of so long ago. The very air itself was tainted with the scent of madness, and she could feel its influence with each new breath she took. She was powerless to stop that madness as it flowed like smoke through her mouth and nose, filling her lungs and clogging her newly regained thoughts with enticing visions of violence and chaos. She screamed as the sensation of snapping bones and tearing flesh wracked her body.

She was changing—no, something was changing her, and the agony of it was enough to send her back into that all-encompassing Darkness. It certainly would have, had it not been for the memory of a pony the alicorn held close to her heart. Another alicorn, a sister loved and hated in equal measure, the Day to her Night, the Sun to her Moon, the cornerstone of her rage and the focus of her vengeance.

Celestia.

The memory of that mare, that would be her salvation.

Next to the fury and sorrow the changing alicorn felt on behalf of that mare, the pain was nothing. She would endure the agony, she would shove aside all the maddening thoughts, she would accept the changes, no matter how horrific, so long as she could see that mare's face again. She would not fall victim to the cowardly machinations of another again. She'd been caught off guard once, and without knowing the details, she knew it had cost her everything... but never again.

For what felt like an eternity she fought.

She fought the pain, she fought to stay conscious, she fought the madness attempting to cloud her mind, she fought and fought and fought, and finally... there was silence—silence save for the ragged breathing of a creature who was only barely recognizable as an equine in body, but undoubtedly the same pony where it mattered the most. The torment had finally ended, and in that echoing silence came a small chuckle, a chuckle that quickly grew into a loud, braying laugh of victory that, despite her best efforts, still sounded half-mad in the alicorn's own ears. It wasn't entirely an equine laugh, but that was okay, so long as the mare knew who and what she was at heart.

She was no longer the wrathful Princess who would destroy her own sister to become the new Queen of her country, and yet, she hadn't entirely forsaken the dark rage that still simmered within her. With everything that had transpired and having been thrust headlong into a true nightmare the likes of which she'd never seen, the moniker of 'Nightmare Moon' no longer seemed appropriate, so the mare decided to discard it altogether.

She was Luna, and that was good enough.

As the laughter died down and the alicorn finally allowed her eyes to open, the first sight to greet her blurry vision was that of a pitch-black canvas of endless stars—a comforting sight for the creature that had once been, and still was the Princess of the Night, had it not been for the moon. The moon itself was far too pale, like it had been painted onto a literal canvas and given no detail whatsoever. It was an empty, hollow thing, fake in its appearance and partially crumbling at the bottom. The shards of the moon that had broken off looked like they'd been frozen just as they were falling away from what was left.

It was a chilling sight that made Luna's blood run cold.

Unable to stand the blasphemous sight any longer, she shakily rose to the twisted limbs that now passed for her hooves and took in her surroundings. Just as she'd feared, nothing was as it once was. Casting her thoughts back, the last thing she remembered was entering Everfree Castle and her sister's smiling face, but nothing more than that. Where she stood now there was no castle. In fact, there was no forest or anything even close to where she'd been. Luna moved slowly across the dry cracked grey earth of the flat plateau she'd found herself on, as if in a horrified trance. She moved forward until she came to a stop at the edge of the plateau, which dropped off into a steep cliff—the depth of the drop was impossible to measure due to a thick misty teal-colored miasma that stretched out for miles far below the changed mare. The mist was so bright it practically glowed in the relative darkness of the unnatural night.

From out of that glowing miasma rose countless black spires of varying shapes and sizes, though it was impossible to tell their composition from where Luna stood, and both her gaze and mind were elsewhere as it was anyway. Past the featureless plateau, past the nigh endless sea of miasma below, and settled on a distant landmass some hundreds or possibly thousands of kilometers away was what Luna thought was the dark outline of a gargantuan castle, but if that was indeed what it was, it was like no other castle she had ever seen. She couldn't make heads nor tails of it and wasn't even sure if it really was a building at all, but it pulled at her attention nevertheless. She shivered at the sight and eventually gave up trying to decipher its existence after a short while. Instead, she turned to see the world behind her and froze, eyes wide.

Her mouth opened slightly in a soft, rattling gasp and she started trotting further inland, away from the cliff and the sea of miasma. Her trot quickly turned to a gallop, then without thinking she spread her unfamiliar wings and clumsily took to the sky, soaring over more towering black spires that stabbed their way out of the lifeless grey earth. She ignored the fact that there was no wind beneath her wings to keep her aloft, and that, aside from her labored flapping, the world around her was as silent as a grave. All of her focus was on her destination and nothing else. It didn't take her much longer to reach the location she'd seen from the cliffside and soon enough she alighted on the ground below, her landing just as clumsy as her takeoff had been.

She stumbled forward, her mind in a daze of confusion and disbelief at the sight of the radiant crystalline tree sprouting from the ground before her. It was only a mere sapling, no longer large enough to house any of the Elements, but there was no mistaking the shape, the color, and the calming effect of the brilliant glow that surrounded it. Just standing in front of the sapling, Luna could feel a heavy weight she hadn't even known she'd been carrying lift from her mind, and her thoughts grew far clearer than they'd been a moment ago.

''This is... the Tree of Harmony?" Luna muttered. Her voice came out as a rasping growl that carried only a hint of the deep feminine tint it once had, "but... how can that be? What's become of it? Where are the—"

The tree suddenly flashed with a bright white light that made the mare stumble back and cry out in surprise. Her eyes slammed shut and she raised a gnarled hoof to her face to block out the light. After a few seconds, the light died down and Luna blinked a few times before fully opening her eyes and lowering her hoof. Her mouth dropped open in shock at the magical projection of the lavender unicorn mare she'd seen back in Ponyville, though the term 'unicorn' no longer applied. The mare was an alicorn, and not only that but Luna could feel the same calming effect of Harmony coming from the mare as the tree itself. In response to Luna's silent shock, the mare flashed a smile; it was sad and incredibly weary, but reassuring all the same. Then she spoke, her voice just as radiant as the glowing sapling behind her.

Hey, Princess... we need to talk... and I'm pretty sure you're not going to like what I have to say...

Author's Notes:

I have quite a bit to say now that the first story is finished, so rather than put it all here, I put my thoughts in a blog you can find here so check it out if you're interested.