The Weight
It had been three days and I had never seen Princess Luna in all that time. She wasn't in her room atop the observation tower that the Princesses usually watched the land from. Neither was she in the throne room though I never expected her to be there.
I had spent the nights reading about Equestria and her amazing History instead. Some of it was obscure and hard to find but I now understood that the nation formed into Equestria under the Princess after a harsh winter where three clans co-operated to become one, all races striving for a more liberal world that I could at least respect even if an autocratic system emerged over it.
Besides that I'd read of the traditions and customs of the land that seemed similar in some aspects the Soviet Republic. Thankfully they worshipped no old gods that was something that put everypony on equal terms but then the ponies of the different races seemed to accept the fact that Earth Ponies were the workers and the Farmers, Pegasi the ponies that brought about the weather and Unicorn the ones that made the intricate objects and lifted the hard materials that Earth Ponies struggled to do with their hooves.
This seemed to limit the Earth Ponies a little as they weren't getting good deals by toiling for little money and receiving what seemed like little education as they state themselves "The Plantations need us" from a very early age. Then again I admitted that in my world Earth Ponies also bared the brunt of hard manual labour though Pegasi and Unicorn were worked equally hard to ensure equality.
I disliked also the lack of the trade Unions and strikes that went down in History, mainly because their seemed to be none at all. I had never thought out the ideas of Ponyism that had been Lemming's job and I had seen it as a fair one as I was no intellectual but it had worked well but it seemed this world had no intellectual willing to step forward with these ideas or something similar to them.
Then again I'd read how the new nation of Equestria had immediately tripled in grain growth and how the new systems and policies introduced by the Princess's had made everypony more tolerant towards each other and willing to co-operate as one as long as it was under the eyes of the monarchy.
Prosper and Harmony was the entire common pony needed and I accepted that had the state not been so bad in my world then nopony would have rallied to the Revolution and it would have all fallen to the ashes of History as a small revolt in a simple town.
Reading was never my strong point but I worked through a few books with all the time I had. I was more sober now without having any alcohol in my system for the last 36 hours and regretted all I had done to offend the Capital and the Princesses'. After all this was their home even if it looked like mine and I rarely left my home to go on a rampage, preferring my bed chambers to get drunk silly.
I had tried to find Princess Luna to apologise for my rudeness but I hadn't been able to find her anywhere so I assumed that she was ignoring me. Rightly so I supposed since I was indeed a rude, crude and very unlovable pony.
The day was arriving as I stepped out of the library and nodded respectfully to the regular guard on duty. A normal day guard whose eyes had a first followed me like a hawk but now only viewed me as a normal goer to the library though he kept his guard and showed no respect in those eyes, just a neutral look which seemed to almost judge me without actually doing so.
I trotted back to my bedroom and caught no sign of Luna nearby. I wasn't surprised but when I saw Princess Celestia coming towards me I was curious to ask after I bid her good morning "Will the young Princess Twilight Sparkle be contacting me soon Princess?"
She replied in her bright accent "I have arranged for you to meet her In Ponyville soon Supreme Commander. During the day of course to make it easier for her to study you and ask questions, I suggest you begin to wean yourself off this sleep cycle to one that befits you more." My nose twitched and it sounded almost like she was instilling the night was better than the day that would have hurt Luna's feelings but I ignored that as I was too interested with what the Princess had said.
"Do you mean I will leave the castle and travel to this city and reside instead where the Princess lives?" I asked a little worried as I didn't like even leaving the castle in my own world and didn't feel much like sightseeing at the moment. Princess Celestia shook her head, though she didn't smile. She's been a lot colder towards me since my little drunken stunt but still maintained a polite enough way when she talked to me.
"You will leave with a small guard escort by train and in an hour arrive at Ponyville where you will meet the Elements of Harmony, a powerful magical six besides Princess Twilight whom is also one of them." They seemed a little like an ace and the Princess smiled now, probably knowing what I was thinking without possessing the power to read minds.
"Sweet dreams Supreme Commander" she bid me as she trotted away to raise the sun. I grimaced and tried not to think about my nightmares that had only gotten worse and worse since I had been here. A reason why I always woke up before the night ended was just to escape their horrible faces that seemed more tortured than they had been in reality.
I sighed and trotted back to my lonely room. Despite it being summer it was very cold this morning as the sun rose. I shut the Curtains and began to unbutton my Uniform, which the castle staff had so kindly washed after I'd taken off all the medals and awards. "They did a better job than my staff" I admitted to myself, it looked almost brand new and like it had never been pressed to the cold Canterlot ally floor.
I laid it on the same chair I laid it on every day and climbed on top of the bed. Despite the cold in the room I knew I'd be sweating buckets by the end of the night and besides the cold reminded me of home that was usually raining this time of year and snowing in autumn. I sighed and my head fell against the pillow and I tried not to think about anything at all.
It worked and within minutes the sound of my breathing faded. The horrible thing about dreams is the blind hope you always have in them. My blind hope was always that something knew would come along and I would rest peacefully but not this time, not ever.
The cold grey image began to materialize once more and the harsh red banners began to form. I was in the same position as always, overlooking the crowd from the balcony as the cruel tyrants were marched by the Red Guard to the execution platform. I could never speak or raise my hooves, never look away as the Queen pleaded to let her children go and kill only her husband and herself.
I always looked down in fear as they looked up at me in fear, the soldiers of the line were fearful as well as I looked down at them. They were glad for the Revolution but they never wanted this job, nopony did. Some however, particularly in the crowds looked ahead with smiles or hatred at their old leaders being brought to a bloody justice.
It was slow as the Royal Family was brought onto the stage, Lemming was to my left and Trotsky to the right. Lemming shaking his head with his glasses poised on the edge of his nose, he'd never wanted the Royals dead but under house arrest whilst Trotsky looked ahead with his eyes heavy yet his stance firm, knowing that at least tomorrow would bring about a new start.
I myself as always tried to pull away with that burning hope that I could at least break free and run from my crimes. I began weeping as they were lined up. The King was an Alicorn like Luna and Celestia and not the bent-over, evil looking and hate inciting tyrant I thought of him as but the Father of his children going to die with his head held high as the last King of Equestria.
His children were a mix some Alicorns others just Unicorn. An older stallion with a Uniform, dishevelled like his Father's that stood tall and proud whilst his younger brother, a colt stood in fear with tear streaked eyes. The two young fillies didn't even know what was really about to happen, some sweet lie probably being fed to them but they were still quite distressed and confused.
"Please" I muttered though it was no good in these dreams. Nopony paid attention to me and I couldn't change the outcome of events. Everypony would die and although I held no weapon it was my hoof that threw the order, my voice that yelled the accusations of the crimes against their people.
Were they true? Absolutely but the deaths of fillies and colts was not what I had set out to achieve in the Revolution. Years later I'd call it my Revolution but I was just its face. Lemming was intended to cover the politics and Trotsky the army and how had it ended? In death as all things with me ended. I had destroyed the idea of a utopia where all ponies got their share and were free and replaced it where all ponies got the minimum share and kept their lips sealed tightly.
Was it better than the ways of the King? What pony can say but at least I gave the workers a more or less fair deal at the cost of what little freedom they'd had before the Soviet Republic.
The Captain raised his hoof and brought it down heavily and the firing squad fired. The Queen screamed as she fell but the King was more dignified, silent and quick to fall. The older Prince didn't fall so quickly as his jugular sprayed torrents of blood and he gasped and collapsed against the stands.
I wanted to turn away and begged myself to as I looked at the little colt and fillies but I couldn't and began to weep harder and beg "Please forgive me" as I always did. The lifeless faces of the Monarchs that had destroyed my own family stared up at me in a dead judgement of my character.
They were bad but I was worse, I was evil and they confirmed it. The older Prince died a slower death than he should've his face a bloodied mess, his mouth ajar and his eyes wide with pain in his features. "Oh please no more!" I begged as I watched the next round of ponies, the retainers come on to the stage as the Royals bodies were carted off to cheers from the crowds.
Something was strange now though and suddenly I found that when I pulled away I could move. I looked stunned as my tears ran down my chine and looked at Trotsky and Lemming to see they hadn't moved. I backed away and immediately fell over and cried out in fear as a Royal was standing over me with white eyes and darkness that surrounded him, his crown firmly upon his head.
"Please just kill me" I sobbed and held my hoof over my face in fear but suddenly I was stopped when the mist evaporated and the eyes became constellations and Princess Luna was standing over me. I sniffed and blinked in disbelief at what I was dreaming and could only look down in such shame and pitifulness.
"Why of everypony do you have to j-judge me as well?" I yelled, sobbing as she took a sorrowful step away from me and went towards the balcony that showed the deaths of the King's retainers and generals. A loud bang was heard and she flinched back to me.
She saw the look in my eyes and asked "What's below this balcony?" as if she didn't know already. I didn't answer and she stepped towards it, me grabbing her hoof in panic and pleading "Please Princess I beg of you not to see it please!" She looked back at my pitiful form, sprawled out over the form and swallowed looking sorrowful.
"What is below us Dark Horizon?" she asked me, using my full name and making me sob again. "M-My greatest regret as well as my greatest curse… please don't look or you'll never talk to me ever again" I begged with her, holding her hoof and probably hurting her.
She looked out towards the balcony and heard another sharp crack as generals fell to the revolution and then looked back at me. Her face conflicted with her emotions and she sighed and crouched down, pulling me into a hug and whispering "I am the Keeper of Dreams and if you do not wish me to see then I will not see."
I sobbed into her soft fur as she hugged me as if I was some lost colt, which I always felt like in these dreams. I wasn't sure whether this was real or not but it was painful for me none the less to stoop to this level in front of Princess Luna, the pony who hated me already and now comforted me even if I was dreaming her.
This had never happened in my dreams before and I hoped I'd dream up something like this again as it was comforting and far easier to deal with than when I was glued to the balcony and forced to watch the executions time after time, tortured face after accusing face and finally awaken to a sweat stained bed and teary eyes.
Luna's presence made me feel safer than when I was watching them and I didn't know why I'd dreamed of this but maybe it was because of the kindness she'd shown me before I'd gone and done the stupid train incident that had made me look like a reckless fool.
"I-I'm so sorry Luna, I-I d-d-didn't mean to do what I did" I said speaking about more than drunken bouts and she shushed me and stroked my mane replying "We all make mistakes but we have to learn to accept them and know that the ones we love will forgive us."
I sighed and tried to calm down as more shots were fired and replied "I have no loved ones left to forgive me for what I have done and originally in their name. I am alone in this world as I have always been. Y-You are so lucky to have a sister" I mumbled as I tried to retract my head but she held it there and replied "My sister and I will always be different but you are right that we are family. Would you like to wake up?" she asked as more cheering echoed out and I nodded "Please, nothing would make me happier than to escape this nightmare."
She looked tired as her horn glowed and suddenly I was in awake, sweating and on top of my bed in my room in the castle. I got up and looked around and saw the day setting. "That's not right at all, I sleep until the night unusually and the time the dream lasted it couldn't have been over an hour."
I rubbed my eyes and cracked my neck. "That was one of the worst ones for a while" I thought as I got up. "The fact the Princess was in it is just shameful however" I though as I began to get ready to head back to the library and hopefully lose myself in the books it had there if I couldn't lose myself in the castle's alcohol.
"I'm glad that wasn't the real Luna" I thought, thinking at how pathetic and weak I'd looked. To dream out of the norm never happened for me, once in a few years did I dream slightly different and sometimes I did skip the dream and still sleep restlessly but never had I had a good sleep in centuries.
"Not a good thing when you are making decisions for a country" I thought as I exited my room with my Uniform on and buttoned up tight to my neck. What surprised me was The Princess of the Night standing there with a sorrowful look on her face and a teary look in her eyes that seemed to penetrate what little soul I had.
I straightened up and regained my regal look and coughed to clear my throat before respectfully saying "Good Evening Princess, I hope that you can once more accept my deepest apologies for what my drunken mistakes a few days ago. My actions were disrespectful to Equestria and to you and I regret them deeply with hindsight.
I thought it was good to get that off my chest and figured the Princess might have been feeling a little sad since the event, after all she'd been ignoring me for a while but when she rose up and put her hooves around me in a hug I was more than surprised but shocked and this became fear when she said "I am so very sorry for what happened in your dreams Dark Horizon."
I pulled away from her embrace and stepped back with my mouth agape and sternly ordered "How could you know of my dreams!? What magic have you placed upon me!? What right do you have to pry into my mind like a book you damned Royal freak!?" I yelled in rage as I stepped back into my room.
She looked a little confused and stepped into my room as I began pacing in anger back in forth. She tried to explain "I am the Keeper of Dreams and sensed you asleep and in distress as I was on the return to my own bed chambers and so I entered your dream and saw you in such terrible distress. I comforted you and told you I would not gaze beneath the balcony and instead wiped that dream from your mind and let you have a fast, unhindered sleep."
Her tone seemed one of kindness but the allegations against her were that she stole into my dreams and saw me as a bubbling, nervous wreck on the floor that needed to be scooped up like some common colt with Nightmares of evil spirits snatching away everything dear to him.
"Those are my own dreams about decisions I made with a heavy hoof when I was younger and less experienced and under pressure from the whole of Equestria to perform. You had no right to see me like that, what you did was see a weak pony and that is partly because these Nightmares recur every night and I can't stop them but that doesn't give you a right to watch my dreams like some news reel!"
I was so angry but the Princess continued to be kind and offered "I will no longer enter your dreams if you so wish but I could help you Dark Horizon, I could remove the dream that plagues you, give you peace of mind and help you solve your problems. I do it for many of my citizens every night."
I sighed and rubbed my eyes with my hooves and sat down on the chair by my window. "Princess Luna I beg of you to never enter my dreams again as they really are not a nice place to be. I also beg you never bring up my state to anypony as it would cast me in a terrible light. Above all else I beg that you never have to deal with a pony with my problems because believe me there are thousands and that was only one of the usual dreams I have" I said shamefully.
Princess Luna came over to me and sat down on her haunches. She looked at of the window as the sun went down and closed her eyes, raising the moon and making it night. "Please Dark Horizon you cannot shut your problems away, speaking is sometimes best in these matters, talking about my time as Nightmare Moon to my sister was hard but in the end I felt better. You… mentioned how you had no family left to talk about this so I came to offer my support" she said slowly, trying hard not to be offensive.
I was too distraught to be angry and shook my head saying "Please call me Supreme Commander Princess Luna. I regret deeply you seeing me like that but to tell you what I've done would be like confessing to crimes so foul it would make Cerberus cower from where he stands guard."
Princess Luna closed and opened her eyes slowly and looked out the window and at the rising night sky as the stars materialized. Ponies died under my sister and I. In the beginning many starved, overcome with the harsh winter before them and the unification at first was a mess and hard to get organized but we did it and for a time there was peace until I distanced myself and ruined it all.
"Did you ever try to kill your own family?" Princess Luna asked and I had to shake my head sullenly and admit I'd never done that. "I only wanted to avenge them" I muttered dangerously quiet and trying not to storm out in rage against myself more than Luna.
She put a hoof on my shoulder and asked "Were the Rulers of your Equestria really so vile and wicked? At least tell me what they were like?" I shook my head, not wanting to but finding my lips moving and my brain beginning to formulate sentences.
"King Vitalis was an ass. He was a family man, a noble who understood nothing of court and beyond that his vision reached as far as the Castel Throne room. His scribes and advisors confused him and he stirred up deceit in his own government. When we led the ponies into the city most of the army had joined us after renouncing their oaths."
Princess Luna's eyes seemed eager for me to continue so I went on. "Our economy was in ruin, production was at a low, worker conditions terrible and food supply laughable to other nations and he sat on his throne and requisitioned oats and hay whilst our families starved and he ate like a king.
I put my head into my hooves and continued with my voice a little shakier "Then there was my family and I. We were farmers, living in a small hamlet, no real name given to it and we were accused of stealing land from the king because we tried to grow more on a field adjacent to ours.
My voice got shakier and I wasn't sure if I should continue and asked "If I tell you the next part swear you won't repeat it to anypony?" Princess Luna looked like she was struggling with this too and nodded before I concluded "They arrested my Father for public execution with others in the Capital, the killed my Mother and my sister whilst I was in the fields and burned our house with their bodies still inside… I-I never even got to say goodbye" I quivered as I broke down with the pain of it all, left untouched and locked away for centuries now being told to my greatest enemy and yet my greatest and only friend.
Princess Luna tried to hug me again but I straightened up and shook my head and finished "The messed up thing is after the Revolution I didn't even hunt down their killers and kill them. I probably assimilated them into the new Intelligence services. They slaughtered my Father like a dog at the stands, killed and did Equestria knows what to my Mother and sister and burned down my home and I let those monsters work for me!"
I got angry, standing up and looking at the Princess with menace in my eyes and I saw that look of fear I'd seen in the eyes of so many and after raising my right fore-hoof I slammed it into the mirror, shattering it and feeling the pain as shards went into my hoof and knowing that I deserved worse than this.
Princess Luna gasped in shock and levitated my hoof away from the mirror as if I was about to roll in the shards and exclaimed "What in Celestia's name do you think you are doing?"
I cackled all of a sudden feeling a tremendous weight lifted off my shoulders and replied "I really don't know, but I think I like it."
Just a note that I've noticed some spelling and grammar mistakes in previous chapters and will try and fix them when I get the time.
