As Promised · 4:45am Nov 18th, 2012

I am currently working on A Day With The Wonderbolts, It should be ready for pre-rereading "soon." No specific deadline, I try not to rush myself with this kind of thing, but within 48 hours sounds reasonable. So unless something goes horribly wrong.... Now for that sneak Peak I Promised you guys.

But first let me set the scene. I came up with the idea for this story in one of my psychology classes. We were talking about game theory and the role of "cheating" in society. My professor said something along the lines of "In a world full of cooperators the cheater is king." What he means by this is when everyone always follows the rules, the person who is willing to break them has a huge advantage. So that got me thinking... who is the only pony in Equestria who has been shown to "break the rules" and get away with it? Luna.

What if there was no Night Mare Moon. What if that was a lie that Celestia told everypony to so that she didn't have to tell the truth. That it had been Luna who had started the war of the sun and moon, not some corrupted twisted version of her, or some "thing" that manipulated her into it. What if the elements didn't "fix" Luna because they can't change a ponies soul. What if Luna is just pretending to be nice... waiting for the perfect time to strike.

This is that story. I present to you. Luna Unchained

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Pain, unspeakable pain. Like being awash in a sea of razor blades— slowly being cut apart... broken down... dissolved.

Momentum... resistance, the sensation of flying, or being thrown; Luna couldn’t tell.

Then stillness... silence... and cold.

It was cold on the moon, not the oppressive inescapable dredge of deep winter, or the flesh-searing bone-numbing chill of the high altitude wind. What was left of the goddess could no longer feel that kind of cold; the wave of energy that her sister had channeled at her had taken that privilege away. The same wave had thrown her very soul into its current prison— her new body. That was what the moon had become for the Alicorn spirit, a sort of vessel. Every soul needs an anchor to stay on this plane, a source of power to sustain itself. The moon had always been a source of power for the Luna, now it was all she had. She wasn’t stuck on the moon, she was the moon.

Celestia had known this; it was no accident or convenient happenstance, that the regent of the sun had chained her here, no passing fancy that Luna had landed here. The power of the moon could sustain her life forever... if such a state could be called living. Her prison was made permanent by her reliance on the moon for survival. This proved that Celestia had no intention of letting her go. This was banishment, and she was immortal. But the power that kept the shade of the goddess alive also kept her in pain, because that is what life had become for the Alicorn— pain.

Immortality was, is, and forever will be, a curse, this is never more true than when the immortal is trapped. However the true reason is that when death is forbidden, the passing of the ages leaves its scars on the mind. Time becomes aberrant and foreign when seconds can seem to last for years and years can pass in the blink of an eye. An immortal being measure time not in seconds, days or even years— immortals measure time in memories, and after ages of attrition have left their scars on the mind, only things that haven’t happened before—novel experiences—have the strength to last. All of the similar memories are blended together into an indistinguishable cloud of vague familiarity. To an immortal, living means doing something new, and the longer life lasts, the harder that becomes. It gets especially hard if with a body made of rock....

The first hundred years had passed by quickly. Luna had busied herself with exploring her new home, her new body, the moonscape: the slopes and valleys became her facial features, the craters became her scars, the endless fields of boulders, rocks and dust became her mane. The Alicorn knew them all, had counted them all, had named them all— yes, the first hundred years had passed by quickly. After she had come to know the surface of her moon in more intimate detail than a mortal mind could comprehend, time began to warp and flex, stealing what was left of her vague sense of chronology. Her existence became a state of waiting, broken only by the occasional meteorite, and the year or two of new cataloging that would bring. So Luna came to realize that she wasn’t really alive. There was no way for her to be alive because she was not living— she was just waiting.

Now Luna had only her thoughts, thoughts filled with all the maybe-could-have-been’s and never-would-be’s that an immortal mind could torture itself with. Whilst alone with her thoughts, she found herself doing a lot of thinking. For Luna, thinking was all she had left, her final refuge, but no matter how painful thinking became, no matter how agonizing the warm memories were in contrast to her cold prison, she welcomed the anguish. Feeling Pain was better than feeling nothing. The Alicorn goddess would have done anything to be able to physically feel again, even if it was only to feel as cold has she knew her heart to be. So she waited, and she thought.

Nothing could seem slower than waiting for an event without a time frame— like watching for the tide to come in on an ocean shore that might only be a lake beach. But the goddess knew it would happen, and she knew it would happen soon. Of course, “soon” had been coming for a terribly long time. The light from Celestia’s sun formed the manacles that chained her here, but the day was approaching when that light would be blotted out by her former home, in a lunar eclipse.

But this would not be enough. She still needed a bridge, a means of crossing the depth and emptiness: she needed a push. To that end, Luna had been pulling stars into alignment; for hundreds of years she pulled, and they slowly traversed the cosmos in response. Luna’s stars, Luna’s light. Without a body she could let the light carry her all the way back. They were almost in position now. The next time Celestia’s light was blocked completely she would be free. So Luna waited: she waited as she had to, she waited because it was all she could do, she waited so that she could have her revenge— Luna waited so that she could live again.

That mares and gentle colts is what I call ambition. Welcome to the ride. This one will last a while.

For those of you who won't be in contact with me through the editing process on this one, the first chapter will be posted some time before Christmas, and from then on I would like to post a chapter every one to two weeks.

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