Banner image, showing a green cartoon unicorn pony with an indigo and orange mane, wearing a neckerchief and socks, all of them orange. There is text by their side reading: "Hullo! Original Artwork by Lady Lullaby Star, Adapted to Pixelart By Me", followed by a smily

Prologue I: The Day The Moon Fell

~ Luna ~

"Not another step, sister!" We spat with a venom of the greatest ilk. "Did thou really expect us to stand idly by while our precious little ponies all basked in thy oh so glorious sunlight?"

The mental chains that held us back creaked for every word we spoke against her, Our heart pounding with newfound freedom.

"There can only be one princess in Equestria! And that princess"— our hooves rose and we slammed them into the nearby podium, breaking it into a thousand splinters —"WILL BE ME!"

Celestia —the foal— stood frozen in place, watching with mouth agape as cracks ran through the stained glass panes away from our hooves, a burning light from her wretched sun creeping inside.

It soon will be all ours.

~ Celestia ~

The castle trembled from Luna's stomp. Her eyes lacked all warmth, a frosty white replacing their usual teal colour.

My heart threatened to escape my chest, struggling for an explanation to this madness.

You big, foalish, horse, Celestia!

Her empty chair at lunch and the silence in the corridors were but the first drops of the coming storm.

I was blind to Luna's sadness, and failed to give my little sister the love she was due.

The moon rose and eclipsed the summer solstice: the sky was nought but dark.

Magic swirled 'round Luna's body, twisting and bending her in eerie ways. A glint of fear flashed through her eyes, and she was covered in darkness.

Forgive me, Luna.

~ Luna ~

Our muscles bulged and stature towered; a giddy, intoxicating power surging as wildly as a river.

Our wings grew stronger, and our horn lengthened; no feat of magic shall ever be impossible now.

However, the pleasant feelings were nought but fleeting: Control slipped away from us; another being seized the reins. Our body shifted once more; our pupils slit, and fangs grew.

Then it laughed.

'Twas a wicked laugh, most unlike the soft and gentle giggles Tia gave after her silly pranks, like painting our room pink while we slept. Nay, it was dry and bitter; a laugh that would have sent shivers down our spine were we still in control. 'Twas maniacal, deranged; the laugh of our nightmares: the mere memory chilled our bones.

Celestia pleaded, "Luna, I will not fight thee! Thou must lower the moon! 'Tis thy duty!"

Our mouth moved with clear contempt, letting the parasite speak: "Luna? Nay sister, thou art sorely mistaken, for we are Nightmare Moon! We have but one royal duty now: to annihilate thee!"

We thrashed within the confines of our mind, our reflex to breathe unsatisfied. Amidst the panic, regret arose inside us. We never wanted this! To belong, to be respected, to be loved is what we wanted; not to be feared by our little ponies!

The parasite fired a beam through our horn that nearly struck our sister. Thank the stars she jinked it.

Tia flew through the broken stained glass into the moonlit sky, away from our frowning deranged body that had taken chase. "Where dost thou think thou'rt going?"

Its voice was comforting at first: caring and loving as it lent a friendly ear to let us vent. It reminded us of somepony once dear to us; of times gone by. It eased our worries and despair.

'Twas too late for realizing we've been tricked.

Blasts of energy erupted from our horn, searing the air and destroying what has been our home for hundreds of moons. We fought with all our might to stop it, but our desperate attempts were all futile: the parasite had seized full control.

Oh, how it twisted our desires with its sweet and tempting words. "Thou shall be respected; thy night shall be revered," it said.

How foalish were we to believe it.

"Tell us, sister: why is it that now, when all is quiet and at rest, when candles glow and all the world is at its very best, the ponies of Equestria should lock themselves away, to shun our moon and wait instead for thy insipid day?"

Tia looked pained, stung by the acrid words —once, ours too. Any yearning for respect paled in comparison to our desire to comfort her and halt this madness; I ached and wished for her warm embrace.

The parasite kept on with its trite tirade.

"We will not let that happen anymore: all shall know the wonder of our dark and jewelled sky, for the night, shall last, forever: an eternal lullaby!" it uttered as our eyes conspired to watch it strike our dearest sister.

A shriek followed by a massive thud pierced our heart through its core. Any smouldering resentment towards Tia burned away; the fury of the sun focused to that wretched entity instead. Never in a million years we thought we'd end up like this!

The parasite deliberately licked our lips, laughing in a perverse display of glee as it went through the most unequine way to kill Tia in our head.

Enough.

Horrid images were forced through our mind as we charged on and wrestled the parasite for control of our body. It twitched and kicked and twinged and burned 'til we regained our own strength to move.

We flew into the blast zone, frantically looking for Tia. She lay immobile, her breathing but a wheeze.

Sheer panic overworked our poor lungs, tears falling off our eyes. "Stars above, Tia! Thou canst not die like this!" We struggled with the old coot's healing spells as we checked for Tia's pulse.

Good, she was still beating, if only barely.

We snapped her bones to their proper place and cauterized her gaping wound, all in preparation of our next iatriturgic spell; one that would accelerate Tia's healing fractures and scars.

As we laid on the ground nuzzling her barrel, Tia's whispers took refuge in our ears, barely noticeable over the hissing and thrashing parasite within. "Oh Luna, why did it have to come to this?"

Our trickling tears turned into a rushing river. "T-Tia," we whimpered, "I am so sorry for everything… Things would not have reached this point were I not a jealous yearling incapable of speaking with thee about my troubles." Her eyes prayed for a chance to reply, but words kept spilling out of our muzzle. "I cannot keep control for much longer, sister. Use the Elements, Tia; I beg of thee!"

Her eyes were pierced by the sharpness of our plea. "N-No! Lulu, please… I know we can beat the darkness together; we do not need their magic!"

The strand of control we held onto snapped when we were about to respond, giving way for the parasite to speak again. "Thou'rt wrong, sister, thou wilt not have a choice."

The parasite took aim again, but we made it miss with a forceful flap of our right wing, slamming our head into the wall in the process. This gave Tia a precious few seconds to dodge the brunt of its attack, which sent her flying straight into the Elements' vault instead.

Celestia —my dear sister— stood frozen in place, staring blankly at the room's plinth, no doubt a myriad of emotions struggling for dominace inside. She looked down at her hooves and sighed as she made the right choice.

"I'm sorry, Luna. I hope thou canst forgive me for this."

The Elements of Harmony swirled around her, and with a sorrowful gaze, reeking of regret and falling tears, she blasted our body with the power of Harmony.

Although it burned in blinding agony, and the Nightmare made a piercing shriek, peace filled mine aching heart: I will see Tia again.

Author's Note

Hi, thanks for reading this first chapter! As always, any criticism is appreciated, especially about characterization or internal consistency of the narrative.

I tried to go for the British spelling of most things; if you see any inconsistencies with spelling please let me know, since my English knowledge is a hodgepodge of different sources from the internet, as well as what I've learnt in school.

Also I wanted to say that for the effects of this story and all of my main AU, a moon is the equivalent of a month in Equestria, lasting exactly 4 weeks of 6 days each, or 24 days, with a 16 moon long year, and each year has a slight variation in non-week leap and festival days that's between 32 and 45 total days sprinkled throughout the year, giving us between 416 and 429 days in a year.

By the point of this prologue, Celestia and Luna have been ruling Equestria for a little over 33 years.

I've given tentative years for the start of their reign and the main show, these being 176 A.E. (Anno Equestria) for their Defeat of Discord, their subsequent ascension and them being thrown into leadership, 209 A.E. for Luna's banishment (i.e. this Prologue) and 1209 A.E. for FiM parts 1 & 2.

Parts of the dialogue were directly borrowed or inspired by Lullaby for a Princess and The Moon Rises by ponyphonic, which if you haven't listened to yet (or even if you have) you definitely should, they're absolute masterpieces!

Anyway, the Cutie Marks to indicate the current narrator are inspired by Never Alone by SoloBrony, with the Cutie Marks Themselves being from these sources: Princess Luna by HelloxxAlone and Princess Celestia by BlackGryph0n.

Changelog:

  • 29th of April 2023: filled some gaps I felt there were in the narrative.
  • 17th of May 2023: Added a missing word and made a minor edit on the fourth-to-last paragraph.
  • 22nd of July 2023: Changed some words so that the narrative flowed a bit better.
  • 21st of December 2023: Another few changes, Including a few more instances of "show, don't tell," the removal of a doubled "the," and a wee bit of extra details ;3
  • 15th of January 2024: Minor wording and punctuation changes.
  • 16th of January 2024: Some (hopefully) final tweaks to the formatting, punctuation, and the wording; as well as the release of a Spanish version of this chapter in my own website!
  • 10th of April 2024: Fixed some spelling errors, and ported everything to markdown for easier writing and editing.
  • 11th of April 2024: Small formatting changes.
  • 25th of April 2024: Major rewrite to make the prologue more engaging by making the narration less passive.
  • 21st of May, 2024: Continuation of the more active rewrite.
  • 2nd of June, 2024: Finalized General Rewrite, have to pass it through a grammar checker, though.
  • 21st of July 2024: Minor reformatting