Luna's Lacunae

by kudzuhaiku

Chapter 38

“Come on, you can do it, you must improve your concentration, Maeve.” Princess Luna watched as Maeve stood, hands extended, her wand clutched in her left hand. The girl was illuminated by a faint silver blue glow. Some of her frizzy curls were plastered to her face as she sweated.

Much to Luna’s surprise, the large, heavy book that Maeve was suppose to lift didn’t move, but Maeve did. Her feet rose several inches off of the floor and Luna could feel gravity relaxing in the room around her. But the book did not budge—Luna had placed a bit of a spell on it that would cause it to stay rooted to the spot where it had been placed, a prank intended to help instruct Maeve.

Before Maeve could turn the room topsy turvy, Luna said, “Stop.”

The girl dropped several inches, her feet hitting the floor, and she wiped her sweaty brow with her right forearm. Maeve eyeballed the book with a suspicious look and then looked at Luna, again with a suspicious look.

In return, Luna gave Maeve the most innocent look she could muster. Fair was fair after all for stealing puzzle pieces. If one did that, all bets were off. Maeve was learning, growing stronger, and turning into a bunny while she slept. Control had to be established. Luna was willing to use extreme methods to achieve this end.

“Luna?”

“Yes, what is it, Maeve?” Luna tilted her head and looked up into Maeve’s face.

“Now that you’re like my fairy horsemother—”

“Maeve, if you keep calling me that I am going to lock you up in the tallest tower and you will need a prince to come and rescue you.” Luna’s deadpan delivery held no trace of laughter but her eyes had a twinkle of merriment to them.

“How is it that you love Twilight?”

This question again, Luna thought to herself. She sighed and prepared for a different class to take session. Maeve had so many questions, so much curiousity. This issue had been brought up so many times already.

“Males and females were made to fit together… two females…” Maeve’s voice trailed off and her face took on several wrinkles of concentration. “Or even two males…” The girl shook her head as she spoke, trying to put her thoughts together. “So it’s like two puzzle pieces that don’t fit together deciding that they want to be together anyway and somehow make everything fit.”

“Yes Maeve, something like that.” Luna watched as Maeve continued to wrestle with the issue, wondering where Maeve would go with this line of thought this night.

“But it can be more than just two of the same who figure out a way to make things work, right? What about two who are different? How does that work? What if a bird fell in love with a bumblebee?”

Wings rustling at her sides, Luna began to think of a reply, wanting to choose her words with great care and consideration. Luna thought of Twilight and felt her spirit buoyed by the very thought of the cheerful, good natured pony.

“Maeve,” Luna began, “as I have told you… there are different types of love. You can love the physical part of somepony… or somebody, but a far greater love awaits those who love what lies on the inside. You can focus upon a physical attribute and love that, but to love a mind… a personality… to fall in love with somepony elses thoughts, their ideas, their laugh, everything that makes them who and what they are… the outside doesn’t matter as much. Now, there are some concerns if you wish to express physical love”—Luna paused and took a deep breath—“there can be size issues and other factors to take into consideration, but love is possible.”

Maeve nodded and then looked away from Luna. “Am I lovable?”

“Of course you are, you silly girl,” Luna replied right away, “what could possess you to ask such a thing?”

Long ago, Luna had asked that very question as she had tried to face the growing darkness welling up within herself… and with no satisfactory answer to be found, the darkness had found purchase in her heart…

“After what happened… after what my father did to me… I don’t feel desirable. I feel soiled and dirty.” Maeve’s breast rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “I feel like garbage sometimes and who would want to love garbage, who would want to love what he made filthy—”

“Maeve…” Luna rushed forwards and plowed into the girl, causing her to let out a startled gasp. Luna wrapped her wings around Maeve’s middle, and Luna’s face was pressed against Maeve’s stomach. Maeve tried to squirm away from her, but Luna persisted and refused to let go. Maeve’s wand clattered the floor, falling from her fingers.

Unbalanced, Maeve went down to the floor, landing on her backside, but she recovered in the way that only gawky girls can, her legs folding, and she sat down on the floor cross legged. She pulled Luna into her lap, but Luna was also a gawky creature in this circumstance, all legs, wings, and long, slender, graceful neck. After a few moments of fumbling, it was as if Maeve was holding a very large dog in her lap, and she had her forearms around Luna’s barrel, ruffling and rumpling her wings.

Luna could feel Maeve’s face buried against her neck, which meant that Maeve had to be holding her neck and her upper body at an odd angle. She struggled for balance as she sat atop Maeve’s folded legs and hoped that she was not hurting the girl. Luna had no idea what to say, but she knew that she had to try.

“Who could love me after what happened? Why would anyone have anything to do with me? How do I get away from my past?”

Maeve’s words ripped the scab right off of Luna’s heart. Luna too, asked those very same questions. How did one get away from the past? Why would anypony have anything to do with her? How could she be loved, no—how could she be forgiven—after what had taken place?

“I don’t know how to face whatever is ahead… the past hurts so much… how could anybody love me and how can I possibly love anybody else after what happened? I don’t like being touched… every time it happens I think of him and I feel so ashamed”—Maeve let out a gasp and then a sob— “I feel so hurt by everything that has happened that sometimes I don’t think I can get better. I feel like a snotty handkerchief… nobody wants a snotty handkerchief. It’s dirty and disgusting and slimy and nobody would ever want it.”

Luna felt a crushing weight as Maeve let out a wordless wail, Maeve’s words striking home, piercing through her, giving voice to Luna’s own feelings and fears. She squirmed and managed to get one foreleg around Maeve’s neck. She crushed Maeve closer to her, feeling closer to her now than at any moment previous, she could feel her own heart coming close to breaking.

She had asked herself the very same questions, and still did. Luna’s own fears often manifested. She wondered how Twilight could be infatuated with her after what she had done. Luna too, felt soiled and dirty after Nightmare Moon’s violation, and no mistake, it was a violation.

“I don’t even know what I am anymore,” Maeve wailed as she clutched Luna. “I might live forever and that means watching any friend I make die… it makes me not want to make friends… like I just want to hide myself away!”

Gasping, Luna could feel icy claws raking over her heart, she knew that feeling all too well. That had been the beginning—she had pushed everypony away, they would all die, they would all be so short lived, and their passing would bring about so much hurt. Luna felt a crushing pressure around her barrel, but it wasn’t Maeve’s arms that made her ribs feel as though they were breaking.

“I just feel so unlovable,” Maeve said as she squeezed her eyes shut.

Luna’s thoughts turned to Twilight, wishing Twilight was here, and then, Luna’s thoughts went to darker places. Twilight would be short lived… mortal. Unless Twilight did something to achieve immortality, Luna would be forced to watch Twilight grow old… she would be forced to watch Twilight suffer… Luna would be forced to watch the only pony that might ever love her grow old, wither, and die, and with Twilight’s passing… any hope of a happy future would go as well. Luna felt a stabbing pain go through her heart and she thought of Maeve, who might have to endure the very same thing.

The future stretched ahead, an endless thing, and it’s weight threatened to crush Luna, who knew the pain of centuries all too well. An uncountable number of seasons had gone by on parade… so many leaves had fallen in Luna’s life that autumn had almost lost its meaning.

The future somehow seemed even more unbearable when one could not escape the past. Sometimes it seemed that there was no happiness to be had, no respite, no moments of bliss to make the long centuries bearable.

Luna and Maeve both were haunted by their pasts, and Luna knew this all too well. She realised that this was the reason she felt so much kinship with Maeve. She angled her head, twisting around, and pressed the top of her muzzle down onto the top of Maeve’s head. She kissed the girl that she loved so much, the girl that might even understand her own pain more than her sister, Celestia might.

Again, Luna’s thoughts turned to Twilight and the realisation that Twilight had not been turned away or deterred by Luna’s inner darkness. Twilight had seen it as a challenge, and a challenge was something to be conquered, like a difficult puzzle or running a marathon. Luna had tried to send Twilight on her way, but the plucky, pesky purple pony perfectionist persisted.

“Maeve, you might be surprised who will love you,” Luna said in a strangled whisper, “and how far they will go to love you. Some ponies never give up… as much as it hurts, as difficult as it can be, you have to let somepony love you, no matter how much it hurts.” Luna’s words were as sincere as she could muster, she tried to make herself believe in them, she needed to believe in them. “You’re not garbage… you’re not a snotty hanky… you’re a girl that had something bad happen, and it wasn’t your fault… it doesn’t diminish you…”

Luna fell silent, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes. For her, however, it was her fault. She had opened the door and had let Nightmare Moon in. Luna’s heart ached as she wrestled with everything inside of her head and the guilt threatened to topple her.

“How do we get better?” Luna asked, speaking her thoughts aloud.

There was no reply from Maeve, only sobbing, as Maeve rocked back and forth as she sat on the floor, clutching and clinging to Luna. There seemed to be no end in sight for the suffering caused by the past—for Maeve, a suffering she didn’t deserve, and for Luna—a suffering much deserved.

The pair held one another in silence, each one grieving, each one feeling the excruciating pain of a past that had been exceedingly cruel to them, each one of them understanding one another in a way that few could. They lived in parallel to one another, an understanding rooted in misery.

But a shared misery meant a shared solace. Solace meant comfort. And even now, as they both held one another and sobbed, there was comfort. They had each other. If Maeve’s life stretched into centuries or even eons, they would still have one another, they would have their understanding, and that shared misery would root them together. In centuries, it would be an unbreakable bond, a shared strength.

“I wish Twilight was here,” Maeve said between sniffles.

“So do I,” Luna replied, her own heart aching for Twilight’s presence. Twilight would know how to make both of them feel better. Twilight would fix things. Twilight would have sensible, meaningful words that would soothe old hurts and make facing future hurts a bit more bearable.

“I wouldn’t mind having two fairy horsemothers… I think it would make me happy,” Maeve said as she wiped her snotty face against Luna’s fuzzy, but sopping wet neck. “That sounds an awful lot like a happy ending for this messed up fairytale.”

“Yes it does, Maeve, yes it does…”

Author's Note:

Next Sunday there should be another update. MFD is coming out on Sundays too. Should be a chapter of that today.

Comments

[cogwheelbrain]

I'll just summarize my feelings on this story: more please!

[Callos Sombra]

Keep up the good work, had to catch back up with this after I got back to reading the chase

[Raul]

*sigh*