//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12: Winter Moonlight 
// Story: From the Ashes 
// by Boltstrike58 
//------------------------------//

Equis, Canterlot 

Princess Luna sat content on the balcony of Canterlot Castle. Celestia had already gone to sleep, having finished her business for the day. The royal night guards were on patrol, covering all possible entrances to the castle. The ponies of Canterlot City had gone to their beds, with the exception of the businesses that stayed open at night for who knows why, and Luna herself was left alone, having arranged the stars and moon into the night sky. 

Contrary to what one would expect, Luna was happy.   

While isolation was an unpleasant experience for her, considering the one-thousand years of it she was forced to endure on the moon, this was a different case. Luna had come a long way from her jealousy that ponies didn't meander about under her night. Since she'd devoted so much more time to being Equestria's Guardian of Dreams, she'd learned just how short-sighted she'd been before. Ponies did appreciate her night, but unlike Luna, who could go for weeks without going to her bed if necessary, they did need to sleep. And the kind thoughts of ponies in their dreams brought her far more happiness than if she'd had Celestia's position.   

With a peaceful sigh, Luna sat down on her knees, igniting her horn. Silver light traveled up the curves of the appendage, and when Luna opened her eyes, she found herself in the familiar location of the Dreamscape. The purple, formless ground stretched out for eternity in all directions, with countless wooden doors springing into existence. 

Here, Luna briefly hesitated. She thought back to the advice Celestia had given her, regarding her ability to help Equestria's extraterrestrial visitors with their personal problems. Luna didn't distrust the Avengers, as they'd given her no reason to, but she hadn't bonded with any of them either. The only one she was even remotely familiar with was Thor, and he was fine. She was left unsure of where to start, even as she mentally felt through the Dreamscape, laying the doors to all the Avengers' dreams in front of her. 

Taking a look at the identical brown portals standing in front of her, arranged in one neat row, Luna considered her options. She finally decided to begin with her usual tactics by merely probing the dreams. Luna understood the need for privacy, and thus didn't actually project herself into a pony's dream unless she felt like she really needed to. Instead, she reached out mentally, allowing her mind to get a general grasp of the dreamer's emotions. She could also modify dreams without actually entering them, but it was less refined that way. 

The reaching arms of Luna's magic placed their fingers into the dreams of the Avengers, and the dark alicorn was assaulted by a flurry of new emotions. There was fear, though most of the team had seemingly mastered the ability to overcome it by that point. Grief emanated from a few, though it felt particularly strong around King T'Challa, who seemed to have lost someone close to him recently. Luna decided to stay away from his for the moment, not wanting to invade his private life.   

One dream intrigued her. While most dreams were generally built around one memory or emotion, this dream was a massive, jumbled mess of various feelings, and multiple memories were being brought to the surface in the process. Luna's mental feelers weren't properly relaying the dream's emotions to her. From the outside, Luna couldn't even be sure whether or not she was looking at a nightmare. This had happened before, and Luna felt sure she could handle it. So she grasped the dream with her mind's grip, and pushed herself in just a bit deeper- 

Hundreds, possibly even thousands of faces, staring at him from all directions, their condemning gazes piercing his body. Why hadn't he been punished— 

	His metallic hand, wrapped around a throat of weak flesh, watching as the life faded from the human eyes— 

	The target, hidden behind a woman with red hair. He fired, knowing the bullet would pass through her— 

	The man with the white hair, looking at him, saying a name that was once his. He brought his fist down on the face, again and again— 

	Sitting alone in a void, cold, as he slept, hoping that in the outside world, he would have given up— 

Luna almost screamed as she mentally leaped out of the Dreamscape, her eyes snapping open. She crumbled to her knees, her breath coming in small gasps of air, as she grappled with what she'd just experienced. 

Luna had dealt with emotionally heavy dreams before, and she was now reminded of her work alongside Equestria's few traumatized war veterans. But this was far, far more turbulent than anything she'd ever encountered in her long life. All she could feel was guilt, self-loathing, fear, and hopelessness. She fought back the urge to burst into tears, reminding herself that these emotions weren't her own, although they felt somehow familiar to her, in a way she couldn't place... 

Luna cast her mind back into the Dreamscape, grabbing the dreams of all the Avengers once more. She sorted through the dreams frantically, looking for the one she'd touched before, but it was gone. Not in the sense that the dream had changed, but there was no longer a dream emitting from that particular person. The only explanation was that the person had awoken. 

Luna cast her gaze across the horizon, towards Ponyville. 



 

Equis, Ponyville 

Bucky sat quietly on the crystal balcony, thankful that there was already a chair placed on it. He couldn't sleep, but he was still exhausted. Lying on his back at least made him feel a little relaxed. 

The dream again. He didn't have it every night, but it popped up pretty frequently. No matter how many times he woke up in a cold sweat, he could never go back to sleep after having it. At least not right away. So, what the hell, let's look at the stars.   

Bucky took in all his surroundings as he stared up at the night sky. Equestria's sky was clearly not Earth's, especially the moon, which didn't have the "Man in the Moon" everybody else swore they could see but Bucky sometimes doubted the existence of. None of the constellations were recognizable. Despite this, there were similarities. The moon seemed to hang in the same place in the sky at this time of night, and Bucky had spent enough sleepless nights to know.   

He felt the smooth, cool crystal floor of the balcony with his bare feet. Instead of relaxing him, it actually made him feel nervous. Since he'd been brought out of stasis and de-programmed, he'd had to get used to casual clothes and beds that weren't derelict again, and progress was slow. He'd been the Winter Soldier for seventy years (though the time spent outside of the cryogenic chamber only amounted to about five), and had been on the run for two more. Having a soft bed, being capable of walking around in public without making himself unrecognizable, and now staying in an entire castle of crystal all felt wrong, somehow. It was as though a hole opened in his chest, constantly allowing guilt and shame into his being, making everything seem hollow and meaningless. 

"Excuse me, Sergeant Barnes?" came a rather soft voice from behind him, follow by the fluttering of a large pair of feathery wings.   

Bucky turned in his seat, finding himself face-to-face with one of the alicorn princesses, floating in the air next to the balcony. Her navy blue coat, accompanied by her starry blue mane, and the crescent moon mark on her flank, reminded him that she'd introduced herself as Princess Luna, Ruler of the Night. Apparently, she controlled the moon itself, bringing it into the sky when the day was over (that was so hard to wrap his head around). 

"Oh, uh, hello, Princess," Bucky stammered, trying to figure out what would be proper for this situation. "Did you need to talk to Steve, or Stark, or—" 

"Actually, Sergeant Barnes," said Luna, trying to keep her voice strong. "I was hoping to speak to you. If it wouldn't be too much trouble...?" 

"Sure, sure," Bucky answered, confused as to why she wanted him out of all Equestria's otherworldly visitors. "That's fine, Princess." He indicated the chair next to him. 

"Thank you, Sergeant Barnes," said Luna, settling into the chair. "And please, call me Luna. No need for formalities here." 

The two sat side-by-side, gazing up at the moonlit black blanket, dotted with silver stars. Luna took a deep breath, wondering exactly how to approach this conversation. Barnes had clearly gone through multiple terrible experiences, and she feared accidentally bringing his trauma to the surface in an attempt to help him. She hoped her indecisiveness wasn't frustrating Barnes. Luckily for her, Bucky's mind was elsewhere, almost forgetting the alicorn was next to him. In an effort to get out of his own head, Bucky broke the silence. 

"So, you're the one that controls the moon on this planet?" he asked, as though this were an everyday question. 

"Oh! Yes! Yes," Luna responded, caught off-guard. "Thor tells me your sun and moon move on their own, by gravitational forces, I think?" 

"Yeah...yeah," Bucky murmured, his heart clearly not in the conversation they were having. 

Luna gritted her teeth. They were getting nowhere. She'd have to take the initiative.   

"Sergeant Barnes," she started, choosing her words carefully, "according to Thor, this concept exists only in fiction on Midgard, but in Equestria, I serve as the Dream Guardian."  

"You serve as what?" Bucky asked, his curiosity piqued. 

"Every night, as our subjects sleep, I travel in the realm of their dreams," Luna explained. "I can interact with the dreams of anyone in the country, even projecting myself inside of those dreams, and alter them. At the moment, that includes..." 

"Oh," Bucky responded, simply. His expression didn't change at all. If he was angry, he was excellent at concealing it. "That's how you knew I was awake." 

"I-I didn't go all the way inside!" Luna insisted, holding up her front hooves. "I don't invade the privacy of anypony unless they're having such mental trauma that I consider it necessary. I just felt the emotions you got from the dream, and saw a couple of images. I'm sorry, but I—" 

Bucky cut her off with a wave of his metal hand. "I should probably apologize to you," he nonchalantly said. "Experiencing any part of that is painful. I'm sorry." He leaned back in his chair, returning his sight to the sky, though his eyes clearly weren't focused on it. 

Luna stared at him, bewildered. Usually, a pony was at least a little angry at her intrusion into their dreams, until she talked them down. Barnes, on the other hand, apparently didn't care. He shrugged off all of the agony he was going through, and dismissed Luna's entry into his mind. It was as though he didn't care about himself at all. 

"Listen, I..." she stumbled over her words. "I wish to help you. Please, can you tell me what happened to you?" 

Bucky sighed, though with resignation, not reluctance. It was as though he had nothing better to do than tell his deepest darkest secrets to someone who was almost a complete stranger to him.   

"Back on Earth, Steve—Captain Rogers—and I fought in the second world war. I fell from a cliff during a mission, and they assumed I was dead. The only reason I managed to survive the fall was because of experiments the enemy—an organization called Hydra—performed on me in captivity. Unfortunately, they'd anticipated that. They found me, bleeding and half-dead." He held up his metal arm. "I have vague memories of them cutting off the real one." Luna gasped in horror. 

"Once they had me, they continued the experiments. They made me a super soldier, the physical equal to Steve. Then they spent years psychologically programming me, brainwashing me, until I was completely under their control. They wiped my memories, and my mind was buried in my brain, becoming their drone. I became the Winter Soldier, the most dangerous assassin in Earth's history. Most people didn't even know I existed. They put me in cryogenic suspension—froze me in ice—between missions so I didn't age, and they could get as much out of me as possible. I was on and off for about seventy years, until after Steve came back." Noticing her look, he elaborated, "Steve fell into the Arctic Ice at the end of the war. He spent the entire seventy year period asleep. 

"Hydra eventually dispatched me to deal with Steve. Once he recognized me, I started to break through some of the programming, and I ran away. Steve eventually took down Hydra, and I basically wandered the planet, my memories returning bit by bit. Steve eventually found me, and Maximoff managed to deprogram the code words they put in me to ensure total obedience." 

Bucky turned back to the princess of night, expecting her to recoil from him in pure horror. She'd scream at him, tell him to get off her planet, maybe even smack him across the face with her hoof, considering how peaceful these ponies seemed to be. He actual reaction did have horror in it, but it wasn't directed at him. Luna's face was filled with sadness, tears threatening to drip from her blue orbs. It wasn't the look of one who'd been betrayed by a close friend, but one who'd just learned of all the agony their friend had gone through, and they'd never suspected. Luna placed her forehoof against her breastplate, breathing heavily. 

"I...I am so....so..." Luna mumbled, seemingly afraid of whatever she would say. "I know this means practically nothing, but I am so sorry. Nopony...no living creature deserves to live through that." 

Bucky was surprised at her reaction, but he paid it no heed. He looked away from her again. Sympathy was another reaction he'd experienced, but it made no difference to him. The next words that came out of his mouth weren't ones that he planned to say, but they tumbled out of their own accord. After all, they'd been marinating in his head for months, and he'd never been able to tell them to anyone.	 

"I keep telling Steve to just leave me," he stated, as though this were an obvious idea, "that I'm not worth saving, that he needs to live his own life. I've done more than enough to warrant it. Hell, back when we fought, I actually put a couple bullets in him." Bucky hung his head at the thought. "He won't listen." 

Luna reached for Bucky's shoulder with her hoof, but drew it back, afraid she'd be patronizing him. She looked down at the crystal floor of the balcony, desperately looking for something to say. A thought occurred to her, and she mentally slapped herself for taking so long to realize it. 

"The truth is, I..." she started, choosing her words very carefully, "it's not exactly like your situation, I readily admit that. But...I think I can relate, perhaps a little." 

Bucky raised his eyebrows. This certainly was not the direction he'd expected this conversation to take. 

Luna elaborated. "Over one-thousand years ago, I grew rather jealous of my sister. In her sun, ponies were happy and active, enjoying all that life had to offer, but they slept through my night. I was indignant. No pony ever seemed to care about the night I put so much work into, or me at all really. I was practically non-existent. Thus, I reached out to shadowy forces...and made a deal. 

"They gave me power, enough to oppose Celestia. They promised ponies would learn to love my night, even if we had to beat that appreciation into them. I didn't think about what I was doing, I just agreed. By the time I'd considered the price, it was too late. I'd become Nightmare Moon. She—I say she, as though she were a completely separate entity, but part of her was definitely my darker desires—refused to lower the moon, promising to Celestia that the night would last forever. She attacked my sister, promising she'd destroy everything we'd built together, building a lunar empire. My sister, unable to help me, was left with no choice. She banished me to the moon for one-thousand years.   

"I don't remember those years very well. I think I spent most of them asleep, as I waited for the seal to break, knowing Celestia couldn't do it again. Once I did return, Twilight Sparkle and her friends were able to use the Elements of Harmony to cleanse the Nightmare from my soul and body." 

Luna turned to Bucky. The man's facial expression hadn't changed much during her story, but it was clear he was listening closely. Luna smiled bitterly, and grew brave enough to place a hoof on the man's shoulder. 

"Like I said, I know it's not the same," she continued, "but we both have pasts of being monsters. And unlike you," she looked down somberly, "I'm responsible for mine. I invited the Nightmare into my being. You never had any choice. While I've come a long way towards dealing with my guilt—thanks, again, to Twilight Sparkle—as far as I'm concerned, I'm still paying off my debt. If you look at us both, I'm far worse by comparison." 

"Did you manage to kill anyone?" Bucky sprung on her, catching her off-guard. Luna shook her head. "Then you're still the better one."   

Bucky pushed Luna's hoof off his shoulder, climbing to his feet, and turning his back to her. Looking at his full figure, Luna thought she could see his back slouch, as though carrying a great burden on his shoulders.   

"Sergeant Barnes, please," she insisted. "You were being controlled by this Hydra. I saw your dreams, you're being torn apart by remorse. You're not the Winter Soldier. Nothing that happened to you was your fault." 

"Steve's told me the same thing. A lot," Bucky replied. "Yeah, I didn't mean to do it. But I still did it. Feeling bad about it doesn't bring back anybody I killed. I couldn't fight them from inside my own head. Couldn't even take back my hand long enough to put a bullet in my screwed-up brain and save some other lives." He looked down at his open palms. "These hands were the ones that killed those people."   

Luna, desperate to soothe him, came up behind him, draping her wing over his shoulders. It was something her mother had done when she and Celestia were upset, using part of one's own body as a blanket. She looked Bucky in the eyes, genuinely sympathetic, her compassion not condescending at all. 

"I don't pretend to be an expert, Sergeant Barnes," she said simply, "but I truly believe you are judging yourself too harshly. Captain Rogers is a good man, and he's trying to help you see that truth. I'd like to do the same. If nothing else, please at least consider me a friend you can come to." 

Bucky looked at her, and finally a genuine smile made it's way onto his face. A small one, certainly, but it brought a bit of peace to Luna. Bucky walked out from under her wing, heading back to his bed for another attempt at sleep. 

"I...I appreciate the thought, I really do. Even if I don't agree," he said simply. "Thanks for being sincere. And Luna?" Luna looked at his back. "Call me Bucky."