//------------------------------//
// Chapter 17: The Education of Luna 
// Story: On Getting to the Bottom of this "Equestrian" Business 
// by McPoodle 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 17: The Education of Luna


June 27, 1985.
Zero minus 1 day.




Let me regale you with a series of concentric place names: Massachusetts, Boston, Beacon Hill, and the corner of John Hancock Avenue and Mount Vernon Place—it was in this spot that the subject of this Education was born. All of these are places of power, places of American history. And now a family to receive this child, a family that doesn’t even need to be named, as merely the titles earned by its members are enough: One was author of the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, later first Vice President and second President of these United States. Another was the key diplomat behind the Treaty of Ghent, true author of the ‘Monroe Doctrine’—the greatest Secretary of State in American history and later the U.S. Representative who fought more than any other for the end of slavery…the fact that he was also America’s sixth President is merely an afterthought in the biography of this great man. From these two descended innumerable diplomats, including one who single-handedly kept Great Britain out of America’s Civil War, thereby saving the cause of freedom. From this family of eminently great men descended one who had all the weight of destiny prepared well before birth, a destiny that was wrenched into uselessness by the accident of gender, for Luna was born a girl instead of a boy.

Her father was one who knew well the weight of suffering, losing his mother and sister at an early age, and watching his beloved wife pass in the pangs of childbirth. This man had only a limited amount of love to give, and after these losses, all that was left was spent on the family’s first and primary love: that of America. Luna eventually came to understand this fact, that there would be none who would ever truly love her, and that there were those like her father who couldn’t even bear to look at her because her physical resemblance to the departed Dusky Flyer. Neither love nor friendship were meant for one such as Luna. Her duty was to witness the world and someday, perhaps at the crucial moment, apply the weight of her bent and broken destiny upon the fate of millions.



So began The Education of Luna [Adams], as the highly-pretentious memoir written between 1916 and 1918 was titled. Celestia knew that there was no chance that she was going to read the whole thing before she ran out of time with her sister.

Speaking of which, the last two days had been spent by Celestia running her throat raw telling Luna each and every secret of the Faith that she could remember, with but one exception: the knowledge of what was going to happen to Luna in about twelve hours. On this subject she was split: would knowing what would happen make Luna better able to fight it, or would the long string of failures cause her to give up from the start?

So instead she had focused on Princess Luna’s experience, how she had made the decision to invite the Nightmare into herself to become strong enough to overthrow her sister, only to be horrified at seeing the literal meaning of the terms she agreed to: the deaths of innocents, the terrorizing of the populace, now trapped in a body that she couldn’t control.

Celestia presented this explanation as fact, when she knew it was only the weak speculation of Princess Celestia centuries after the fact, when she could finally bear to think about what happened in something resembling an objective point of view. It was the perspective chosen because it offered hope that Princess Luna might one day be freed from the Nightmare, instead of the all-too-likely alternative, that Princess Luna had become Nightmare Moon, irreversibly, and that this inescapable fate was the one prescribed for all of the human Lunas, until the end of time.

Celestia excused herself from Luna’s presence, saying that she needed to rest her throat while she read a good book. She was of course skimming the book rather than reading it, looking for ways that the historical Luna differed from her sister, and what mistakes she made that might be avoided this time.

After trying her best to skim through the words of the long-dead Luna [Adams], Celestia despaired of ever extracting anything of value in less than a day. Here is an example, a passage that delighted in using as many words as possible to say “I got a chronic sickness as a child, and ended up weak, scrawny and introverted”:




As a means of variation from a normal type, sickness in childhood ought to have a certain value not to be classed under any fitness or unfitness of natural selection; and especially scarlet fever affected girls seriously, both physically and in character, though they might through life puzzle themselves to decide whether it had fitted or unfitted them for success; but this fever of young Luna took greater and greater importance in her eyes, from the point of view of education, the longer she lived. At first, the effect was physical. She fell behind her contemporaries two or three inches in height, and proportionally in bone and weight. Her character and processes of mind seemed to share in this fining-down process of scale. She was not good in any form of physical confrontation, and her nerves were even more delicate than girls’ nerves were thought to be. She exaggerated these weaknesses as she grew older. The habit of doubt; of distrusting her own judgment and of totally rejecting the judgment of the world; the tendency to regard every question as open; the hesitation to act except as a choice of evils; the shirking of responsibility; the love of line, form, quality; the horror of ennui; the passion for companionship and the inability to actually make friends—all these are well-known qualities of New England character in no way peculiar to individuals but in this instance they seemed to be stimulated by the fever, and poor Luna could never make up her mind whether, on the whole, the change of character was morbid or healthy, good or bad for her purpose. Her fellow women were the type; she was the variation.



Slowly, agonizingly, Celestia pieced together the story of a girl who wanted friendship, but was too shy and too nocturnal in her habits to ever make friends. Most of her attempts to approach others were so incredibly tentative that the targets of her affection probably didn’t even know that she existed at the end of the endeavor. And all the while her father became more and more famous, and more and more distant.

Celestia checked the clock, to see that it was time for Luna’s dinner. Her meal was usually left on a table outside her door, to be eaten at her leisure. Seeing that it was still there and uneaten, Celestia snuck over with a small vial containing a blue liquid and poured it into Luna’s iced milk, stirring it around until the color faded. She then snuck back into her room just before Luna’s door opened. Celestia waited breathlessly in her room until she heard the sounds of loud snoring coming from next door, then let out a breath of relief.

Having a few hours left before midnight, Celestia skipped ahead in Luna [Adams]’ journal. The War had started, and her father, now a U.S. Senator, bent all his efforts to keep his country neutral. He was visiting a munitions factory with her when she was struck by the stark efficiency of the plant. Here, she realized, was the future: greater and greater industrialization, resulting in the men and women of power becoming the great decision-makers, while the faceless masses became ever more anonymous and replaceable, like the parts in the assembly line. She watched as a machine ripped the leg off of a mechanic, and the machine was not even stopped, the bullets being packaged now coated in a thin sheen of human blood. So ended the continuous narrative that began with the account of her birth on page 1.

In the series of journal entries that followed, Luna [Adams] became increasingly bitter, seeking out stories of the atrocities of World War I to feed her growing conviction that humanity was diseased and no longer worthy of rule over planet Earth. And then suddenly with the turning of the page, the neat lines of typewritten text were replaced with a reproduction of Luna’s own delicate and immaculate handwriting, just before it disintegrated:




…and so the young men of America are packaged neatly together for their journey to the killing fields of Europe, there to hunt and kill like their primitive

I

My mark!

what is   ?



stay 
out

 nooooo




I

At last, I am in control again! This world advances so very quickly. Already I can see the opportunity I have long awaited, to strike and sever! With one stroke, I can feed on so much suffering! Farewell, journal, farewell forever. But know this, feeble survivors, that your doom was the work of I, the Nightmare. Your weak and pitiful day has finally reached its end, and THE NIGHT of eternal suffering and pain



WILL 
LAST
 
FOREVER!!




The final paragraphs were more etched into the page than written, the paper visibly ripped by the force of the pen’s nub. It was also a completely different style of handwriting. But what Celestia saw most clearly was a mind—cynical but still at heart hopeful—being obliterated by pure evil.

There was a knock at Celestia’s bedroom door. “What is it?!” she asked, allowing too much of her frustration to leak into her words.

“It’s…it’s your little Butterfly, Mistress Celestia,” a terrified voice replied.

With a huff and a roll of her eyes, Celestia got up and opened the door. “What is it?” she demanded.

“I was…I was wondering, if…”

“Spit it out!”

Butterfly handed over the envelope she had been holding and ran away in tears.

Celestia gesticulated to the heavens. “I don’t have time for this!” she exclaimed. Then she looked at the envelope, addressed from the same university library that had sent her the diary, and quickly ripped it open.

A cover letter explained that the packet of paper contained within was found inserted into the Education of Luna [Adams] that had been sent to her. At first, the packet had been thrown away, but a day later the librarian had reconsidered and decided to send it along, having recognized the author as an alumni of the school and a famous psychologist. Celestia recognized it as the man who had signed Luna [Adams] into Danvers’ mental institution on March 5, 1918.




I never knew Luna when she was sane, so I am immensely grateful to have this volume to see what she once was.

The Luna I was most acquainted with was a bloodthirsty monster with the single-minded obsession of killing or maiming as many people as she possibly could. Even in a straightjacket, she was capable of beating or scratching up any poor soul who came into contact with her unknowing of her true nature. She exhibited a strength and cunning that I would have thought completely foreign to a member of her illustrious family. She also seemed able to ignore the incredible pain that must have accompanied the damage to her corneas that she exhibited on being admitted to Danvers, damage that of course she never allowed us to treat properly.

The only exception to this behavior that I could induce came when she was introduced to an environment of pitch darkness. Under those conditions, she would show a remarkable change of character, wailing in misery about all of those she had hurt in daylight, and apparently convinced that she had exterminated the majority of the human race immediately prior to her commitment. Indeed, under these circumstances the danger was not that she would harm others, but herself.

Under the pressures of having to deal with Luna’s two personalities, it was eventually decided to keep her in darkness permanently. Unfortunately, adequate care was not taken in ensuring her safety, and in 1921 she deliberately choked herself to death on a chicken bone—a slip up even more egregious considering that she was supposed to be on a strictly vegetarian diet. For this mistake, I will never forgive myself—we had progressed quite far in my treatment of her condition (via yelling through the door), and she had finally accepted that she had not in fact wiped out the majority of humanity. It was the combination of the mistake with the chicken bone combined with her learning that one of the attendants she had attacked by daylight years earlier had finally died of an infection brought on by her wound that led to her successful suicide.

I have never encountered another patient with the peculiar combination of symptoms displayed by Luna, but I hope to write up an anonymous account in the near future that will allow some mental health worker to eventually succeed where I have failed.



After some thought, Celestia got up and tracked down Butterfly, who was hiding behind the washing machine.

“Butterfly!” she ordered.

“Y…yes, Mistress?”

“I need the key to Luna’s room. Her very life depends on it.”

“I…but Mistress…did you call Father Delver to get his permission?”

“We have no time—the last night has already begun! Please, Butterfly—I’ll accept total responsibility.”

“…You said her life was on the line?”


& & &


Celestia got the key from Butterfly. She set up a chair beside Luna’s bedroom where Butterfly, bundled in blankets, could get a few hours sleep until Celestia needed her for the next part of her plan.

Celestia used the key to open Luna’s door and stepped inside, illuminating the room with her own inner glow. She saw her sister sprawled across the bed, the window pulled open. Celestia closed and locked the window then swung the closet door open after confirming that the bedroom key also worked on it. After making sure there was a clear path from bed to closet, she arranged Luna’s limbs to make room on the bed, and lay down beside her, carefully wrapping her arms around Luna’s torso.

“Please let this work!” she prayed to the Princess, and then began her vigil.

But her hours of intense book-reading finally took their toll, and she was sound asleep within the next ten minutes.





Late that night in Frankfurt, West Germany, Pan Am Flight 103 set off for its long flight to Detroit, U.S.A., with stopovers planned in London and New York City. Secured within its cargo hold were the Soviet Union’s “two little things” that Gaddafi had asked for: a fully armed nuclear warhead, and the top-secret shielding that would make that warhead impossible for ordinary inspections to detect. Together, the “gadget” was indistinguishable from a casket.

A few hours later, Air Force One took off from an undisclosed location. Its destination was a small town in Belgium named Casteau, the chosen location from which the Able Archer ’85 exercise was being coordinated.

The intersection of the flight paths of these two aircraft was scheduled to occur at 7 am local time, over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie. This would be the precise place and time that the Atomic Age…and indeed, humanity itself, was fated to meet its end.