//------------------------------// // Rise of the Moon Ponies // Story: Moon Town // by Starwing //------------------------------// Four months. It's all Luna needs to snap. "Ay, when the moon shines the brightest, There is no place but the tides beneath the clear full moon, Where the glory of thy brilliant light is seen with interest!" Luna stumbled through the crater, singing her lungs out, trying to call out to home. To Celestia. "Those who stand in the way of the night swoon, At the sight of the stars, they tremble with fear, At first they loved us, tonight they only sneer. Now we simply shed a tear..." Luna trips over a moon rock and falls to the ground, then starts sobbing. Nopony loves her night. She spends so much work perfecting it and making it as beautiful as can be, but it's useless. She's all alone. No friends, not even family. That's not what bothers her. She's going to be so bored! She realizes crying would do her no good, so she stands up proud and looks off towards Equestria, before turning her head back to the plain moon she's standing on. "When I return, Tia, I will make sure to give you a thousand years of boredom! With my hoof!" She mutters, hanging her head down and trotting off to nowhere. "What to do, what to do, so much to do! Moon rocks over there, big and small! I can go sliding, hmm... That would hurt too much." Luna just keeps on trotting in no apparent direction while talking to herself. The hard, barren surface of the moon really does a number on hooves, as Luna is already exhausted within an hour. She sees a small crater within a crater. There's a nice collection of two rocks; One big and flat, and one small and curved. Coincidence or not, it's a great spot to rest, compared to the rest of the moon of course. Taking her shoes off, she ies down and gets comfortable on the rocks. She spares one final glance at home before dozing off into a sleep. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nothing had changed, the same old moon she has been living on for the past few months. Her neck is sore from the rock pillow; Other than her being recently refreshed from sleep, nothing had changed at all. Nothing except a pale pony staring at her. She falls off the rock mattress and looks up at the mysterious, pale pony. "GAH! Who-what-why?" Regaining her composure, Luna continues asking questions, this time using the royal Canterlot voice. Usually the royal voice would get answers out of ponies. Why not try it on the moon? "I DEMAND TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE!" Her loud words does nothing to to faze the strange pale pony. He continues staring unnervingly. As if he is watching her soul. The creepy smile that plastered his face disturbs her to a great extent. He stirs, then opens his mouth to utter the most unexpected words Luna has ever heard. "Welcome to the land of grey, the city of twilight, crescent village... or as it is locally known, Moon Town." He shifts his eyes from her face to her mane, searching it thoroughly before his eyes soon widen in realization. "The ruler of the night!" The pale pony starts shouting, seemingly calling out to other ponies, "Princess Luna graces our prescence with a visit! Praise the comets!" Luna knows that everypony knows who she is - but ponies on the moon? How does he know who she is? It makes sense that ponies living on the moon should know who raises the moon, but it's still strange all together. "How are you on the moon? Shouldn't you be in Equestria? I-I wha- HUH?" Luna starts struggling with words, shocked how anypony else could be on the moon with her. She's banished from Equestria, in complete isolation. The only pony that has ever been banished in fact. The fact that there's another living creature up here makes no sense. The pale pony just has a big, manic grin on his face. Luna took the moment of odd silence to inspect him. No mane, no tail, half of his face has a grayish hue to it. His cutie mark is of the moon with several craters lined in a specific patterns, shaping out to be an arrow. The strangest part of him was that he had holes in his hooves. "Princess Luna! I formally invite you to Moon Town, may we be graced by your grandeur?" His smile fades and his expression transforms into foalish pleading eyes with a frown. He starts biting his lip to add to the show. Luna narrows her eyes as if interrogating him. Pleading never works on Luna as she is a master illusionist. She can decipher any form of mendacity if the task need be. "You! You're some kind of anti-changeling aren't you! No wings or horn, no features, aside from the cutie mark, holes in hooves, it all adds up!" The mysterious pony just shoots her a deadpan look. "What the dust is a changeling!? I'm a moon pony if you haven't figured that out already, Princess. And what about my hoof holes? It's not a liability, if that's what your thinking!" His voice started to increase in tone, he's clearly getting frustrated. Luna didn't know a pony that smiles so much could even get mad in any way. "Sorry about the outburst. I sort of dislike changelings. they're so gross, not to mention most of them are pure evil. Ugh, they give me the wiggles." At that notion, Luna shivered. The last thing she needed was changelings to invade her space while trapped on the moon. "Well back to the main point, come visit our town!" He looked around, as if he's nervous that someone is listening in. He stepped closer and cuffed his hooves over his mouth before he turned to Luna's ear and whispered, "We really need the morale. Ponies have been saying that it's been dull recently." "Dull?" "Dull..." "Why so much emphasis on dull, and why are you whispering it?" "Ssshh! Don't say it so much! We thrive on excitement, joy, and suspense. We can't have things get boring around here," He transitioned from a serious tone to a dramatic and happy-go-lucky voice, "But enough of all that mood-killer stuff! We can discuss more of the personal business after the town has met you, and might I say that Shining Star would just love to do things with your mane." The final sentence he voiced sent a disturbing chill through Luna. Somepony doing stuff with her mane? No dice. With his speech finished, the name-less acquaintance took her hoof to pull her outside. "Hey! I need to put my royal shoes on." He replied by staring at her flatly, taking a step back, and waiting. Luna quickly levitated the shoes and pressed each one into the according hoof. Once she was finished, she nodded, and he started beaming again. Then he threw his forelegs into the air and announced with mocking volume, "I shall lead the way, as you probably don't know where our great civilization is. Come Stella, we haven't had visitors in such a long time. "Wait, what? I'm confused, who's Stella?" He turned back to Luna, the same smile on his face as before, but a bit more crooked. "Oh, can't we have fun and change names every now and then? I say Stella suits you just as well as Luna." Luna put a hoof to her mouth and scrunched her face in thought. "Nah... I'm pretty sure I prefer Luna. That's my name, after all." They then start walking off towards the village of his. The stranger was indeed strange, and compared to every pony else, bonkers. The moon, as beautiful as it is from a distance, is a bland place. What else could she do other than follow him to Moon Town? She has a thousand years ahead of her, and she might as well make the most of it. Anything could happen to Luna, and quite frankly, she likes it.