The Longest Night

The Longest Night is a 2016 comic written by Roger334. Taking place in the distant past Equestria, the story portrays the events that led Princess Luna to became Nightmare Moon.

Summary
The story starts with Princess Celestia sieging the ruins of the Crystal Empire, King Sombra's last stand. Once the survivors were fled to safety, Celestia decided to enter the castle and fight Sombra herself.

Princess Luna, by hiding inside a chest, managed to enter the city and follow her sister's path through the Crystal Castle ruins. Once inside, the battle between Celestia and Sombra escalated until the Princess of the Sun was defeated. Before the evil King could end the battle, Luna strikes Sombra in the face, enraging him even more. Having no other choice, she fights him.

King Sombra is defeated. In his "dying breath", he cursed the city by casting a spell so powerful that the whole region was about to get consumed by it. Princess Celestia flees the explosion, carrying Luna on her back.

Many months later, trouble arises between the two sisters. Some objects are missing, while others are simply being found in other parts of the palace. One day, a castle maid found Celestia's diary inside Luna's room. After hearing this, the Princess of the Sun decided to talk with her sister. Luna denied the accusations. Having no other choice, Celestia scolded her. The Princess of the Night left in tears.

Inside her room, Luna kept crying until a mysterious foe called her. From among the shadows, an unknown entity offers her a tissue. His name is Discord. Before they could befriend each other, Celestia enters the room. A battle between them starts, but this time their enemy is too powerful. In their moment of need, three magical orbs appear to aid Celestia and Luna in their battle. The first Elements of Harmony are created.

Discord is eventually defeated and turned into stone. Despite her sister's cherish, Luna felt unappreciated. During the duel against Discord, it was Celestia the one who ultimately defeated him. As time went on, the Princess of the Night also started envying her sister's attention from part of the villagers. Her hate for Celestia grew strong until it created an entity born in the shadows. This unnamed creature fueled Luna's evil feelings, making her harbor a deep resentment towards everypony. In the end, Luna accepted to be consumed by it.

The following night, when sunrise was supposed to happen, Celestia ordered her sister to lower the Moon. In that moment Luna morphed into a dark creature right in front of her. This entity had the shape of an adult alicorn, but had a dark magic aura and wore a blue battle armor. Since Celestia refused to fight her, the creature turned against the sleeping villagers of castle town. It was in that moment when the Princess of the Sun accepted the duel.

Old Canterlot was completely destroyed. The citizens fled to the surrounding forests to take shelter from the ongoing battle. The evil foe was too powerful to handle, forcing Celestia to use all her magic. The Princess of the Sun loses the fight. During her exile in the forest, Celestia's despair triggers the creation of another magic orbs, thus creating the Elements of Harmony. After being exposed to them, Celestia reached her adulthood form, increasing her magical powers.

With her new abilities, the final battle between Celestia and Nightmare Moon takes place in the castle ruins of Canterlot. Nightmare Moon is defeated and turned into stone. However, her dark powers allowed her to escape and use her remaining strength to cast one major deadly spell, capable of destroying Equestria. With a heavy heart, Celestia used her final powers to open a portal into space and seal Nightmare Moon away into the Moon. Once the battle was over, the Elements of Harmony turned into stone.

The following one thousand years were spent rebuilding a new capital city in the mountains. Through all those years, Celestia was haunted by her actions that night. In the thousandth day Nightmare Moon returns, starting the events of Season 1. In the end, it is revealed that Luna was just reading her sister's diary and everything was a memory from the past.

Development
According to the author, the development of the story started around May 2013. Originally it was going to be a video titled ''The Darkest Night. ''However, production issues led him to cancel the entire project by July of the same year. Between July 2013 and March 2015, the story was finished.

By winter of 2015, the author started with the production of the comics. It was until October 2016 when all the fourteen comics were finished (seven comics in English/ seven comics in Spanish). Between November and December of that year, he published them on a weekly basis. Before Christmas, all the comics were already available on his DA account.

Trivia

 * LN took 3 1/2 years to make.
 * Nightmare Moon's personality was depicted as a combination of King Sombra's evilness, Discord's insanity and Princess Luna's loneliness.
 * Instead of directly sending Nightmare Moon to her millennial exile, like most fan stories chose to believe, Celestia first turned her into a statue, just like Discord.
 * The first capital city was named Canterlot. However, after the events of LN, the city was too damaged to be repaired. Eventually it was decided to abandon it and build a new one in the mountains. In the future, that region became the Everfree Forest.
 * Despite Princess Luna's transformation, she still had some power over the first Elements of Harmony. When she entered into her exile as Nightmare Moon, the Elements of Harmony lost their power and turned into stone because they've lost one of their masters.
 * When Nightmare Moon returned, she landed at Ponyville because that was the former location of the first capital, Old Canterlot.
 * The decision to use a twilight sky for the final scene had a very particular purpose for the author. Twilight is a moment when day and night stands at the same time. Roger334 used it as a metaphor to represent the equilibrium that reigned in Equestria after Luna reconciled with Celestia and forgave herself.