Empire of Mercy
Copyright© 2025 by Daelyx Len Auphydas
Chapter 15: Shroud of the Mind
Rainbow Dash has been here before; she knows she has. Not just in her waking hours, but she’d seen this hall just as it is now, strutting down the empty corridors, her only company the shattered panes of stained glass and the howling gale in the shadows beyond. At the end of the hall will be the two animated panes of Wind Rider and Shadow Kicker ... Assuming they aren’t still shattered, anyhow. But she has no intention of walking down to the end of that hall.
What’s going on? Why am I here? She’s in a dream, that much is clear, but that observation itself is disconcerting. She does not usually have lucid dreams, so how is it she is so aware? How is it she remembers being here before so clearly? The moon. Rainbow Dash remembers what Cloud Kicker had told her in Cloudsdale, and her gaze climbs up to the dark shape in the sky. The very fact she can see it is proof this isn’t real, as there is no light radiating from the dark, ominous body hanging far above.
“What do you want!?” Rainbow shouts, standing with her legs widened in a combative stance. Her ribs don’t ache, not here, and in fact she feels as strong as ever. “I know you’re out there!”
“My, Somepony is feeling adventurous tonight.”
The voice feels deafening, striking Rainbow Dash like a sledgehammer, forcing her down to the ground. A burst of pain surges through her, as the voice gives way to amused cackling.
“Our subject remembrest us! Yet they did not heed our warning. Thou hast tasted only a hint of what is to come.”
Before Rainbow Dash’s very eyes, the moon seems to grow, its shape morphing and shifting until it descends to the very earth before her. The pegasus wants to bolt into the air, to try and fly away despite how stupid that would be in the raging stormwinds that bellow all around, but she finds herself firmly rooted in place, beholding the nebulous cloud of darkness and stars before her as it takes on the regal form of an Alicorn, every bit as majestic, and every bit as horrific, as Celestia had been.
The eyes of the being before her slowly open to appraise the pegasus. Deep blue eyes, serpentine in their gaze, lock onto Rainbow Dash’s, long fangs forming a vicious grin like shards of shattered glass only somewhat locking together. Rainbow Dash opens her mouth as if to speak, but chokes on her breath, no words able to spill forth. The air all around her feels frigid, her every muscle taut yet unable to follow her orders to bolt away, do anything to escape from the creature before her.
Yet for all the similarities, there is a distinct difference between it and Celestia. This Thing, this walking darkness in ponish shape, is poised, precise, controlled in a way that Celestia’s fury had not been. Wings spread wide, the Alicorn lifts from the ground without flapping, the full silhouette of the terror becoming visible from the flash of lightning in the forest beyond.
Rainbow Dash instinctively covers her eyes with a hoof, blinded by the intensity of the light. When it fades once more, there is a quite familiar scene playing out. The shadowy entity before her seems ... Somehow distracted, barely even paying attention to the pegasus she is supposedly haunting the dreams of.
Craters, red hot, mark the ground. Standing within it is ... Celestia, but not Celestia as she is, but only as Rainbow Dash remembers her. Blazing with supernatural intensity, a living embodiment of rage and hatred given substance. That dreaded laughter fills the air once more.
“Ha! I see the accursed Sun has not lost its touch. Good, mine victory over them would be sour should they become feeble.”
Rainbow Dash yelps, scurrying backwards and diving off the edge of the rubble pile, whatever rationality she possessed replaced by a pure animal instinct of simply getting away from that thing. The Nightmare simply chuckles and ignites its horn, and the scene around them vanishes into a miasma of star-studded darkness flowing and flickering like nebulous flames.
“BE STILL, Disciple of the Sun. I would have words with you.”
Rainbow Dash is frozen in place, as the alicorn approaches, closing the gap with every deliberate step. This close, Rainbow Dash marks out more of the entity than just the blob of stars and negative space it had seemed to be. Its form is slender, athletic, almost predatorial in disposition, layer in ancient yet finely forged armor in an unfamiliar style, curved and bladed in forms just as elegant as they are cruel. Swallowing and doing her best to put on a defiant face, Rainbow Dash finally manages to work up the nerve to shakily stand up and speak. “Wh-what do you want!? Why are you showing me this?”
“Why am I showing you? Why, Rainbow Dash, surely you must have realized, that it is you who are showing us what you have seen.”
A hoof reaches out, raising Rainbow Dash’s muzzle even as she cringes away, forcing her to look into the alicorn’s eyes, so close now. The constricted serpentine pupils hypnotically hold her enraptured, unable to break free.
“You were warned, Disciple of the Sun, but you were foolish enough not to listen. Did you think you could take our place by the Sun’s side so readily, without suffering the consequences?”
Through the mystic power and majesty that saturates each word, Rainbow Dash can just barely hear a twinge of mortal emotion through it; venom, bitterness, envy ... and perhaps even a smidge of regret?
“First blood has been drawn, my young subject, but it shall not be last. Soon, Equestria shall be awash in it. You should have run when you had the chance.”
The alicorn rears up once more, its form highlighted against the blackness beyond, bloodcurdling laughter echoing from its muzzle. Rainbow Dash gulps, and with all her will, shouts back once more. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“‘Who are we’? My, has our exile been for so long that our beloved subjects do not remember us?”
A hoof places itself upon Rainbow Dash’s shoulder, who remains stock rigid as much as she might have liked to bat it away.
“I am the darkness that blots out the sun. I am the stars you have shunned. I am the princess of night eternal. I am Nightmare Moon, and soon I shall return to reclaim my throne.”
A rush, a nauseating blur, and the scene around the pony and vaguely pony-like entity shifts once more. The black storm clouds dissipate, and it seems as though the hall around them rushes past, leaving the pair of them in a courtyard surrounded by dark trees and the silhouettes of distant mountains. Looming towers encircle them from all around, midnight blue streamers fluttering in the breeze.
“Look upon it, my subject, and see our rightful place. See the glory that should have been mine, and soon, shall be!”
Rainbow Dash’s finds her gaze pulled to the steps leading up from the courtyard, upon which sits a single, elegant throne of carved obsidian, sitting upon the rubble of some manner of fine woodwork.
“Our exile has been long, but soon the traitorous usurper will be destroyed, and you shall all learn to fear the glory of the Night.”
Rainbow Dash rounds on the dark Alicorn, stance widening as she growls at them. “Are you the one behind the attack!? Just to get at my ... Teacher?” Rainbow Dash hesitates before the last word. Should she have said ‘Princess’? ‘Monarch’? Anything else more formal?
The aura around the alicorn, which had almost been oddly amiable a moment ago, turns cold. Nightmare Moon steps before her, spreading her wings and staring deeply into her eyes, the sheer force of her presence forcing Rainbow Dash to fall back onto her haunches, whimpering involuntarily. But before she says anything, the simmering rage in the alicorns eyes dissipates and is replaced with only a vicious smirk.
“You will learn your loyalties are misplaced in good time. For now you should learn well from that traitor, for I shall have need of such servants upon my return.”
Rainbow Dash shuts her eyes tightly, takes in a deep breath, and commits to what is quite possibly the stupidest thing she had done since flying to Canterlot alone. “You’re wrong!” Her voice sounds out of place, weak, frail, compared to the living embodiment of Night before her, but she won’t relent. Images flash through her head, both of the gentle, regal, sometimes oddly casual Celestia she’d known for the past couple of months, and the infernal being of unending rage from yesterday. “Celestia ... Wouldn’t betray anypony! I don’t know how you knew them, and I don’t know what you are, but Celestia isn’t a traitor, and you won’t defeat her!”
Nightmare Moon’s eyes narrow, looking down upon the fledgeling pegasus with an aura of spite and malice. But rather than react with fury, the alicorn’s response is merely somewhat bemused, measured.
“You’ve seen their true form, and still deny the truth? Do you even understand what we are? You are more foolish than I had thought. Very well then, if you have such faith in your dear Sun, ask them yourself, whatever became of your rightful ruler. You will learn, in time.”
Apparently uninterested in any further discourse, the alicorn folds in upon themself, like space had just closed around the starbound shape leaving only blank space where it had been, leaving Rainbow Dash alone.
Gazing off towards the dark horizons, she blinks, slightly startled. She recognizes the shapes of the mountains in the distance, but not from Canterlot. It’s the Canterhorn mountains as viewed from the east, the same view she’d had while flying to Celestia’s court to begin her lessons. Slowly, bit by bit, the world around seems to give way, disappearing fragment by fragment, until all that is left is an infinite expanse basked in an endless Twilight.
When Rainbow Dash awakens, she is still surrounded by Twilight. Off to her left is the dim twilight of early morning, the sun still lingering below the horizon; on her right, of course, is the lavender unicorn commonly known as ‘Twilight’, gazing down at the ground despondently, with a purple dragon clinging tightly to her side.
“Hey.” It’s a very simple statement, about all Rainbow Dash can put together at first with her raspy voice as she is still recovering from her dream, but it’s enough to startle the pony and dragon close to her hospital bed.
Before Twilight can respond, Spike butts in first, hopping up on the bed with tears in his eyes as he wraps his stubby arms as far around Rainbow Dash’s barrel as possible. “R-Raynbuhw D-as!” The tiny dragon blubbers, wailing with the wholly unreserved emotiveness of an infant.
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