//------------------------------// // Preludes and Nocturnes // Story: Luna's Midnight Theatre // by TrollestiaSubject //------------------------------// “Wake up, wake up, we almost arrived. Then I open my eyes to find Celestia using her white fire armor under an early red sky. And then I wake up”. Lyra attention was fully focused in just these simple words, while setting more mirror all around the lake. “So, even you can dream” Lyra said before lifting magically more mirrors from a red wagon pulling cart toy “Of course I can dream, although all my dreams are only past memories.” Whispered Luna like drowning her word in melancholy while flying slowly above the mirrors behind Lyra, and magically adjusting them perfectly, each side and edge together. “Well, we are out of mirrors!” Lyra said a little disappointed with a slight ending sigh. “Then we’re done” Luna said recovering a good mood, landing next to Lyra and contemplating their work. “Hum… We’re done!? What do you mean we’re done? I was expecting some kind of spectacular magic here,” Lyra stated with a confused exprecion. “Don’t you see?” Luna said facing Lyra and holding a modest smile in her face. Then she touched the nearest mirror with just a peck of her decorated hoof, and it waved through the whole lake, making dance all the night sky, and all the galaxies within itself. “woah... whendidyou…-” “When you were helping me” Luna interrupted. “You need to be more confident. That if you want to be my student” Luna said facing Lyra again, this time hanging her head down to Lyra’s eye level. “You could teach any other pony, any smarter pony, a more-apt-with-magic pony.” A grumpy Lyra said. “I know you mean Twilight Sparkle. I have seen in you, I now you see her as a friend much more closely than you really are” “Oh. Yeah? Wait, what!??” Lyra asked with a startled expression. “Don’t worry too much in the fact, that’s a wonderful and necessary skill by itself if you learn what I want to teach you”. Said Luna muzzling Lyra’s mane. “But, I, being your student… doesn’t seems like...-” Lyra said weighing her hooves. “You studied in Canterlot along with Twilight; I saw your grades, I know you can be a great student. I understand that learning magic from a princess can be rather… intimidating. Especially old and forgotten magic, from over one thousand years ago” Luna said trying to keep a calm tone in her voice. “But twilight could learn anything you teach her!” Lyra retorted. “You’ll need more than learn in my ways. I knew you would be a perfect student that night when you wished to my shooting star inspiration for your new song, you need to want that to learn this kind of magic. Twilight learns from books, recalls from rooms in her memory, never had wished for inspiration, she barely holds any wishes within herself, and certainly she doesn’t wish to me”. “Lucky her” said Lyra frowning while eyeing the newly formatted sky in the surface of the lake, just before shook her head back to Luna’s sight “NONO, I DIDN’T MEAN THAT!!” “I know, don’t worry” Luna said before giggle a bit. “This village near is growing, and some ponies had wished a larger reserve of water for their crops, very soon they’ll need it. That’s why we did this”. “But where’s the land? And how deep is the water below?” “That’s for the ponies living here to determinate, if they think it’s deep, then it will be, but if somepony is thinking about determinate before jumping in, well, then it probably won’t be. And an impetuous pony jumping in that very moment could get a surprise. That could be a funny prank played between friends without notice it” Said the princes keeping her sleepy smile. Lyra thought “that’s weird, you’re weird, and I’m leaving”. just like her friend Bon Bon had said to Lyra many times before. And Lyra could well walk away from Luna in that moment, but she didn’t remind from where they had come. Lyra could distinguish; maybe a barn not too far, and the cups of trees behind the lake, and roofs of buildings, back of a near road, in the distance. But the night was covered everything with a mysterious and frightening blanket, and lyra didn’t dare to walk by any other street not marked in the sky. *Besides you just don’t walk away from a princess,* She thought and stood there. “But… isn’t anypony going to notice what we did here? I mean, didn’t we just change the landscape?” “So what if they notice? The landscape changes all the time, my distracted student; you just hadn’t appreciated till now. Maybe you did once, or twice; but your eyes made you drop your realization. In fact you could fine be wishing more of your acts to be appreciated once you grasp a hold on this". “Ahh..what?” “This.” Luna said pointing the lake, or maybe the sky, perhaps the whole universe. “The sky and its reflection are the same thing my student, don’t forget it. The world is made with the same elements repeated once and once again, that’s basic magic information that has been forgotten. I can teach you back how to transform piles of books into towers within cities, or the branches on a forest tree down to useful roads back to dear friends. Learn well, and I will be sending you to bother dragons in their sleep very soon too” said Luna holding both fore hooves on her lips to catch any runaway laughter she could let scape. “Oh, no… I pass. WAIT!”. Shouted Lyra suddenly feeling how the ground didn’t hold her anymore. C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C “What was that Lyra? A nightmare?” Said Bon Bon Holding her head down from the upper bunk bed in which she slept. “No, I. Wait, what!?” A confused semi-slept Lyra answered rubbing softly her own head. “You were having nightmares again”. Retorted Bon Bon going back to her pillow above. “Yeah, sure I was. A very vivid one” she said to a probably already slept Bon Bon. Lyra tried to identify herself apart out from her dream that night, she even went to the kitchen after a while; maybe a drink of water, or a bite on a snack could help distracting her mind, but nothing made the dream feel less real. Nothing had help her calm down; when she returned to her low bunk bed, nothing except the sky through the window that night made her feel less weary. It was a dark, starry and deep sky, somehow illuminating itself with its stars, just like the one on her dreams.