Disclaimer: Darth Annihilator does not own My Little Pony, that franchise is the property of Hasbro and Lauren Faust, nether of which include a fanfiction author named Darth Annihilator

Storyteller: Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her Alicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies. But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night. One fateful day, the younger Alicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness: Nightmare Moon.

[Lightning crack], "Excuse me…" [BANG!] "There, that should quieten the storm for now…"

Storyteller: She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night. Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom: the Elements of Harmony. Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister, and banished her permanently in the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since…

The year is 511, Lunar Age. This means that it has been 511 years since the Turn of the New Age, which occurs every 1000 years. The Age is named after the Alicorn Princess Luna, as she transformed into the being known as Nightmare Moon just a few days before the Turn of the New Age and thus her sister, Princess Celestia, named the age after her as a sign of respect and a warning to other ponies about the dangers of jealousy, or so the story goes.

In fact, the story of Princess Luna's fall that we know today isn't even the original version, it is the amended version that Princess Celestia released around about 300-400 Lunar Age to hide the complexity and darkness of the true story… and her mistakes. Truth be told, the ones that came before it wasn't accurate either, though those stories were created by ponies forming their own ideas on what happened that night, the REAL truth is only known by three ponies.
But why? Why would she do this? Why would the truth be masked?
Truthfully it was done for a multitude of reasons but the two main ones are:

1) The first is that Ponies have not seen such violence since the Founding Days, war has become almost akin to a myth used to scare young fillies and colts into behaving. As a result: Ponies are childlike, conflicts can be resolved with the simplest of apologies. To know that their rulers once almost destroyed Equestia would cause panic among the ponies, fearing that their rulers may do so again.

2) The other is linked in with the first. Everypony knows that after Luna's imprisonment, all ruling was placed upon Celestia; though the ponies are a peaceful and childlike race, there are always those who wish to disturb that peace for their own gain, especially during the time after Luna's imprisonment where Celestia was at her most vulnerable. Greedy nobles would seek to oust her from her position and seize Equestria's throne for themselves, all for "the greater good" of course, thus they'd use the truth to stir up rebellion against Celestia, I'd imagine that the century after Luna's fall would've seen particularly violent actions such as rioting. Even if this did not happen, her subjects would've lose faith in her and ignored her laws and policies, making Equestria crumble from within…

So what is the true story then? Well, I'll tell you…
Over a thousand years ago, the land of Equestria was (and technically still is) a diarchy with the head of states being two Alicorn sisters. The elder was a truly beautiful mare by the name of Celestia, she was a pony with a coat so white, it was said that looking at it was like pointing a mirror at white light or a star, with a flowing mane that seemed to always blow in a gentle, non-existent breeze. I personally thought it looked like an aurora;
The younger was a stunning midnight blue lass by the name of Luna, looking at her was like looking at the night sky: her coat was the colour of the night sky and her mane was similar to Celestia's only instead of looking at an aurora, you were looking at a river of stars in the night sky. (A/N: Descriptions aren't my strong point as you can most likely see here, so any help with those would be welcomed)

What none but the princesses know is, there was a third player in the events that led up to this night: Dark Saber, the Alicorn guardian of the two sisters and best friend to both. This stallion had a black coat and a blood red mane and – whereas Celestia and Luna had immense power and could notably move the sun and moon respectively – Dark Saber was well acquainted with all branches of magic, favouring illusion over all the others; he had to be, in order to adequately protect the princesses.

Anyway, I'm digressing.

Luna became jealous of how their subjects never seemed to appreciate her beautiful night that she put all her time and effort into planning then making. She did this to the point where every night was like a snowflake: unique from all the others. It seemed that they played all day then ignored her night and slept instead; Slowly her rage consumed her until Dark Saber noticed and began to spend most of his available time with her, resulting in them becoming closer and closer until they were like brother and sister, but still the fact remained that no-one but Dark Saber and Celestia appreciated her night.
Celestia became jealous of how beautiful Luna could make her night, Luna could make every aspect of it unique whereas Celestia couldn't change anything in her day to any noticeable degree. She also witnessed the growing closeness between Dark Saber and Luna which only served to increase her jealousy as she wanted to be his closest friend and maybe even more than that.

This resulted in tensions growing between the pair, often causing arguments which Dark Saber diffused and calmed them both until one day, when Dark Saber was away gem hunting, an argument broke out; it was the worst one yet, both sides saying cutting words which never should have been said, leaving deep scars on both sisters' hearts which have yet to heal to this day.
The argument came to blows, both sisters attempting to wound the other in their anger until the transformation happened…

Dark Saber returned to witness Luna turning from the kind-hearted mare he knew into the being consumed by hatred and jealousy: Nightmare Moon. Immediately he and Celestia (who by then had realized her mistakes) leapt into action, attacking Nightmare with all they had, desperate to bring Luna back but all they tried failed.
You see, it was night time, the time when Celestia's immense power was at its minimum while Nightmare's was at its maximum; Nightmare also knew all of Dark Saber's abilities and how to counter them, forcing them to take drastic action.

Dark Saber lured her away to a pre-prepared runic array that could nullify a pony's powers and immobilize them while Celestia retrieved the most powerful artefacts they had at their disposal: The Elements of Harmony.
Their plan was to separate Luna and Nightmare and permanently seal Nightmare in the moon and – long story short – their plan worked… sort of: Nightmare was immobilized by the array and banished by the Elements, sadly Luna was banished too as Nightmare took Luna with her.

So, Celestia took up the duty of the night and the moon and her relationship with Dark Saber got more and more strained until she and him had a fight due to both being consumed by anger and grief, resulting in him being exiled from her sight.

How do I know this?
Well please allow me to introduce myself: my name is Dark Saber, former guardian of the princesses of Equestria, the former best friend of Celestia and the former brother of Luna. I write this journal in hopes that the pony who reads it will understand the truth about the princesses… and myself to an extent I suppose.

"Well now, that was a dramatic finish. You'd think this journal was the prologue to a great story or something instead of the ramblings of an old Alicorn…"

Well, greetings and salutations Bronies, Pegasisters and those who just randomly clicked on this fic. My name is Darth and I will be your author for this story...

Dark: Yeesh, you're acting as if you haven't been working on this story for over a year now and why are you talking like a bus conductor or something?

Hey! I'm trying to be polite and greet new readers, you know, welcome them to the site and my story.

Dark:Yeah... sure you are...

Whatever, ignore him. Anyway, my previous readers should notice that this prologue looks a little different to the original one, that's because it's been revised after a friend of mine named fate of the agarwaen pointed out a couple of issues with it (thanks for that, by the way), so I rewrote it and tried to correct them, please let me know what you think of the new prologue.

Dark: Yeah, he really needs all the help he can get...

And what was that supposed to mean?

Dark: What do you think it meant?

Well I think...

Slick: Urgh, could you two bicker later and just get this conversation finished please?

Dark: What're you doing here? Shouldn't you be with Inferna?

Slick: She sent me to shut the two of you up.

Right, well Slick has a point, I won't take up any more of your time. Please leave me some feedback i.e. as a review or a PM or just a follow/favourite, it all helps me to keep this fic going; usual rules apply with reviewing/PMing: please give me your feedback in a polite and comprehensible manner, flames will be ignored or deleted. Other than that, I hope you enjoy reading the fic...

Slick: He certainly enjoys writing it, though mine hasn't received any updates recently...

I'm getting to that, I intend to update them all soon.

Dark: Well I look forward to it...

ANYWAY, Until next time...

Dark: Farewell readers.

Slick: See you all later.

Darth Annihilator - out.