//------------------------------// // A Reflection of Oneself // Story: Luna's Reflection // by Listener //------------------------------// “Go away.” Those same words she had said over and over to herself. It never worked. For over nine centuries it had never worked. She always came back. For how can one make herself go away? How can one separate oneself from themselves? How can you make an entire part of you, no matter how much you hate that part, just disappear? You can’t. Sometimes, just sometimes, it worked, and she would feel part of herself leave. But then, that part would come back. It would come back the moment her doubts and worries came. It would come back, yes. But when it did, she would be harder to resist. Harder to control. Her doubts of her... sister were her fuel. And the more time she spent on the moon, the more and more she would feel the all too familiar rage at ... Celestia. Oh, for the love of -. Wait. Who does a god curse? Who does a fallen god curse? But that doesn’t matter now. What does matter, if anything matters at all in the dark, gray, cold, and altogether barren landscape that she found herself in. That she had been in for the nine centuries. Even then, even now, she felt the anger that she had harboured for far too long. Anger over the stupidest of reasons. She could see that now. But that didn’t mean that she was going to forgive her sister. She was ready, yet she was not ready. She was torn. Torn in between.   In between what though? You can’t be torn in between yourself, can you? That was a question that she had been asking herself almost a millennia. How can there be two thoughts in one head? One that felt one way, and another a completely different way? How can one be so divided. It would drive anypony mad.                  And it had. Mad? She was not mad! But. But there was always that nagging feeling in her mind. No... It was more than a nagging feeling. It was almost consuming at times, while just a dormant, idle thought at times. It ebbed and flowed. And right now, it was all. All she could think about. About how she had been betrayed by her sister!                  Betrayed.         No. She wasn’t betrayed. She had been defeated. She was in the wrong in this matter. She had done something wrong. She was sure of it. She tried to remember. She knew this, but memory was such a delicate area. So many things that she wished she could remember. So many things that she wished she could forget. Usually the two were mixed up together. You couldn’t have one without the other.         Without the other.         But the other was driving her mad. She was driving herself mad. Some days, she could believe that she was two separate people. On those days, she could actually blame the other for her mistakes. For being jealous of her sister. For being so incredibly stupid and as ignorant as to believe that she could do a better job than her sister. But mostly, she knew they were one and the same. Two sides of one coin in one body. It couldn’t last. She would die before letting the other win.         Letting the other win.         What other? She was the only one to blame. There was no one else! She was the only to blame. Only her. How could this had happened? In all her time alone, with nothing to do but think, she still had no answer. Glancing up at the world she used to call home, she started to cry. Everything that she had loved. Everything that she had known was gone. Gone from her. Never to be reclaimed. Just gone. Always hanging right above her head. It seemed so close, and yet she, better than anypony else, knew how immeasurably far away it was.         How far was home. Did she even have a home?         Far away it was. Indeed. It was far away. But in the time she had been here she had learned of other immeasurable things. The distance from here to there. How far away was home? What was home? A place where you grow up? A place where you live?         No.         A home requires something that she wasn’t entirely sure that she had anymore. Did she have any friends? Did she ever have any friends? Everything that her sister did earned her respect, but everything she did was shunned. Everything that she did earned her no respect. It only earned her fear! Everything! Everything that her sister had, she wanted. She needed. Craved.  But she had none of it!         None!         She started to breath deeply, hoping to calm herself. Which side of herself, she couldn’t tell. Which scared her. There used to be a line. Albeit a thin line, but it was there. And it was blurred. With only her thoughts to keep her company, she had crept in, and stayed. Every now and then, she would take over, and she would rant and rave at the planet above, until she managed to yank back control. Control from who? There was no one to take control from. It was her. All her. No one else was here.         Here.         There was a concept that she hadn’t thought about in a while. Here. Looking around, she saw nothing. Her hoof-steps, her imprints on the moon. Her moon. That’s where she was. Her moon. Her moon, an old place to escape to. A place to come to in times of hurt. A place to call her own, where nopony else could come. A place of solitude. A place of peace in the ever raging storm. Maybe that’s where this all came from. Too much time alone? Too much time in the coldness of nowhere? Or something else? Was there something wrong with her? She didn’t want to believe that , but there was always that possibility. And perhaps, being on the moon, alone, was only making things worse? Her moon.         A moon.                  No longer her moon. She no longer had control of it.         A moon.         Her prison.         But never her home.