Full Circle

by Sotharan


Part I: Moon of Remorse || Chapter 9: A Kindred Heart

The next afternoon Luna came home early. She set her bag and purse down on a small end table near the entrance to the townhouse and greeted Sunset and Applejack, who were diligently working on schoolwork. She greeted them. “Hello, girls. Getting anything done?”
Applejack looked up and waved jauntily. “Well hi there, Vice Principal Luna! Yes, we are making progress. Sunset’s a big help – Ah think just being her friend is going to raise my GPA a half a point at least!”
Behind her on the couch, Sunset smiled wanly. She looked even more exhausted than usual, in spite of the fact that she had slept the entire night without a nightmare. Luna frowned a bit for a second, then smiled at Applejack. “I’m so glad to hear it, Applejack. Do you think you two are at a good stopping point? I have something I’d like to discuss with Sunset, and, well, I’d like to keep it between just the two of us for now. Would you be ok going home a bit early?”
Applejack half rose. “Uh, no. No, that’d be fine. We just finished chemistry – Ah can head on home.” She quickly packed up her books and grabbed her back pack and her overnight bag. “Well, see you later, Sunset!” she said with a smile.
Sunset returned the smile as best she could. Applejack headed out the door.
Luna came over to the chair Applejack had vacated and sat down. “I can see how tired you are, sweetheart. So, how about we turn the tables a little? This time, I will tell you my story. It is time you learned you aren’t alone, and that you can come back from this. Ok? Do you think you have enough energy to just listen?”
“I think I can manage that,” Sunset rasped.
“Ok.” Luna took a deep breath. “Sunset…what I am about to tell you…it’s as personal as what you’ve told us. And it involved Celestia. I…”
“You don’t have to worry, Luna. This will stay between us, I promise.”
“It’s also…not easy to tell. So, please bear with me if I get…emotional.”
Sunset smiled at Luna compassionately, though she didn’t consciously realize she was doing it. Luna noted this and logged it in her brain for future reference.
“All right. Here goes. So. Celestia and I are sisters, as you know, and we’re about 2 years apart. You have probably noticed that Celestia is an exceptional person. In fact, she is almost perfect. Sometimes almost nauseatingly so,” Luna began with a wry smirk and a wink.
Sunset tried to keep from returning Luna’s smile, but couldn’t quite manage it.
“I see that you know what I mean. And this has been true for her entire life. I, on the other hand, was a late bloomer. On top of that, Celestia tends to be a rule-follower, and I tend to be rule-tester. So, our childhood was…tense.”
Sunset listened intently, having a fair idea where this was going already.
“Now our parents were very fair and loving toward both of us, but the bottom line was that as we grew up Celestia’s achievements and popularity piled up, and mine were comparably modest. Added to this was the fact that we were only two years apart in school too, so I was never ‘Luna’, I was always ‘Celestia’s less remarkable little sister’.”
Sunset was nodding.
Luna continued. “It was in high school that it all came to a head. Celestia was everything I wasn’t – captain of the volleyball team and the cheerleading squad, Student Council president, A+ honor student with a near-perfect GPA. She was popular, beautiful, kind, and had plenty of attention from boys. I was like a shadow of her. And, when she was a senior and I was a sophomore, I allowed my bitterness to overflow.”
Sunset felt her heart sink as Luna’s face filled with pain.
“The worst thing was that I thought she was ignoring me on purpose. She didn’t have any time for her little sister – a near social outcast struggling with her grades, who didn’t have any leadership roles in any school groups, and who certainly didn’t have a boyfriend.” Luna sniffed and wiped away a tear. With a herculean effort, Sunset lunged for the tissue box and threw it to Luna. Luna caught it gratefully, but Sunset fell off the couch with a grunt.
Luna shot to her feet. “Sunset!”
“I’m ok! I think…”
Luna stumbled around the coffee table and carefully helped Sunset back onto the couch, then sat down next to her. “How about I sit next to you? Might be safer,” she teased.
Sunset chuckled. “Might be…”
“Ok. Where was I? Ah yes. Well. I started to do what any sixteen year old does when they think they are being ignored or not taken seriously. I started to act out. It was to get attention – I understand that now – but at the time I thought I was “finding myself” and “developing my own identity”. Luna snorted. “Not that there isn’t a place for those things, but…anyway. I started to dress in all these dark clothes – I guess you’d call it “goth” nowadays. I started hanging out with, well, frankly, delinquents, and I started calling myself “Nightmare Moon,” if you can believe that.”
“Wow, seriously?” Sunset exclaimed unexpectedly.
Luna was startled; she hadn’t expected such a dramatic response. “Uh, yes…”
“No, no, listen!” Sunset was shaking her head in amazement. “Back in Equestria – Princess Celestia’s younger sister – your counterpart, Princess Luna – she and Celestia had a bad falling out. Luna joined herself to another entity to become more powerful so she could challenge Celestia. When she did that, her appearance changed and she started to call herself “Nightmare Moon!”
Luna boggled. She blinked a few times. “Ohhhhhhkaaaayyyy…”
“This is really starting to mess with my head,” said Sunset with a frown.
Luna was silent for a moment as she digested this information. “Well, I guess I can’t be too surprised at this point. Then – you probably have a pretty good idea where I’m headed with all this.”
“Yes, but I still want to hear you tell it, Luna. You may be like Princess Luna, or tied to her somehow, but you aren’t her. I want to hear it in your own words.”
“Thank you, Sunset. Ok. I’ll continue. Well, I was most jealous of my sister’s popularity, so I decided to hit her where I thought it would hurt the most. Of all her achievements, Tia was most proud of being Student Council President. But, like all presidents, there was a way in the Student Council Rules for her to be impeached and removed from office. So, I started spreading rumors. I even went so far as to plant evidence and get people to testify against her that she had violated school rules. And the evidence against her was just credible enough that it actually came to a trial, in front of the Student Council. But I was no match for her. She found out all the things that I had done, and, at the trial, she systematically produced evidence that not only refuted everything I had trumped up against her, but that proved that I had falsified evidence and blackmailed and intimidated other students.
Sunset’s eyes were very wide. “Wow…that sounds just like…me,” she finished sadly.
“Yes, sweetheart. I really do understand. The end result was that she was exonerated and I was punished with a suspension and detention and other things, on top of being embarrassed in front of the entire school. And my parents were pretty angry too, so I got grounded and told I wouldn’t be allowed to learn to drive until I was 17, and all kinds of other things. Well, Sunset, I got very, very angry.”
Sunset was looking very sad now. She almost didn’t want to hear what was coming next.
Luna took a deep, shaky breath. Sunset reached out and took her hand. “Thanks.” She wiped away another tear. “When Tia got home from school that day, she and I…argued. We…said things…that sisters should never, ever say to each other!” Luna cried for a few moments, then got herself back under control. “I had been…drinking, you see. And then we fought. Physically. And though she was older and bigger, I was pretty strong – I’d started working out when I went goth. I hurt her, Sunset. I hit her so hard in the face that she almost lost vision in her right eye. It ended up recovering fully – don’t worry. Then I stole her car. I didn’t have my driver’s license yet. And there were other things, Sunset. I was into drugs too. Cocaine mostly. I grabbed some before I left. Well, she called the cops on me. I led them on a chase.”
“A chase?” asked Sunset incredulously.
“Yes. A no-kidding police chase. And when they finally caught me, after I wrecked her car, of course, they found a drunk sixteen year old with no license and with plenty of illegal drugs. And I missed hitting a mother and her five year old child by six inches.”
“Oh Luna,” Sunset breathed.
Yes. It was very, very bad. But that wasn’t even the worst part. Tia was so angry, about her eye and the car, and about what had happened at school, that she pressed all charges – including assault and battery. She even tried to get me charged as an adult, though my parents tried to dissuade her from that. By then they had realized that while I clearly needed a lot of discipline, I also needed a lot of love, and they were very concerned that Tia and I would have a permanently damaged relationship. Fortunately, the courts decided I was more troubled than actually evil, and I was charged as a minor. But it was a pretty heavy sentence in the end anyway: 5 years in a minimum security state prison. It didn’t help that I’d already gotten in trouble for drinking underage a few months before. I was very lucky they didn’t try to charge me for dealing drugs – I hadn’t gotten to that yet, fortunately. At the prison, I was housed with other minors, but there were adults on the other cell blocks.”
“Oh, Luna,” Sunset breathed again.
Luna took a deep breath and sighed it out through pursed lips. “Well, here’s where the story starts to get better. Fortunately, it didn’t take too long for Tia to realize that she’d been way too hard on me – at least, as far as she was concerned. She decided she had been ignoring me, and had been excluding me – though it was unintentional. And she felt very, very bad about trying to get me charged as an adult.”
Sunset had wrapped herself around one of Luna’s arms by this point.
“Tia…was wonderful. She started coming to visit me at the prison. Every chance they gave for visitors, she came. Every. One. At first I didn’t want to see her. But the fourth time she came and bawled her eyes out through the glass, I started to believe she was sorry. And I started to be sorry too. It still was a while before I was, well, glad to see her, but over the years things really started to thaw. She went to college nearby so she could keep visiting, which may have harmed her career in the long run. She sent me fun things, and started testifying in my favor at my parole hearings, and when an overzealous prosecutor decided to try to change my conviction to an adult one, which would mean I’d have a permanent criminal record, she testified in my defense, and my conviction was kept a juvenile one.”
“Wow.”
“Yes. That went a long way to healing the rift. About two years into my sentence, largely because of Tia’s love, I’d really started to turn it around. I was doing well in my GED classes and had really good behavior. So, when I’d served exactly 1000 days (here Sunset boggled again), I was released on parole. Mom and Dad came to get me, and Tia came too. Our first hug…lasted a long time.” Luna sniffed again and wiped away some tears. She had to pause to catch her breath.
“Then I had to start working on rebuilding my life. But Tia’s help didn’t stop with my parole. She helped me with community college, and I did so well I got into Canterlot University for my last two years. Then, once I graduated with an education degree – with highest honors, I might add – she helped me get a Master’s Degree and a job. She even helped pay for my education. But those weren’t even the things that meant the most to me.” Now Luna’s eyes were shining with joy. She turned to look directly at Sunset.
“She included me. She introduced me to her friends – any friends I’d had before had long since graduated and left or were still in jail for even worse things than what I’d done. She made sure I was included in everything important in her life and wouldn’t allow anyone to say anything derogatory about me. And the best part was, I knew she wasn’t doing out of guilt – at least not mostly anyway. I knew she really loved me, and I knew she wanted to be a good big sister.”
Now Sunset was wiping tears away. Luna wrapped her suddenly in a full-body hug. “So you see, Sunset,” she murmured, “I know some of what you are going through, and I want to help you the same way Tia helped me. And I want the fact that there is hope for you – for a bright future, for healing, for growing – I want that to sink down deep into your heart. And I won’t take no for an answer,” she teased. “The next few weeks, months, maybe even years may be hard, but it will get better. And you are safe here.”
Sunset returned the hug with what little strength she had. “Thank you. Thank you for telling me all this, Luna. I’d say you have no idea what it means to me that you would share all that, but that’s the whole point, isn’t it? You do understand.”
“I do,” Luna murmured again.
Suddenly Sunset realized something. “You know, I think I just figured something out. Last night, when Celestia was talking to me about all the stuff I told you and her and AJ yesterday, she said that she was pretty sure that Princess Celestia had some regrets too – when it comes to me. When she said that, she became very sad. I think she must have been thinking about you.”
Luna looked concerned and sighed. “She still beats herself up about what happened sometimes. I’ll have to talk to her again. But I understand. Regret never goes away completely, but it doesn’t have to dominate your life, either.”