I
Fear
The Mare on the Moon: myth from olden pony times. A powerful pony who wanted to rule Equestria, defeated by the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned on the moon. Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal…
Twilight Sparkle read the paragraph again, and another time, and then once more just to make sure she’d read it right. It just didn't make sense. Well, it did, but something about it just bothered her, and she couldn't quite put her hoof on it.
“Spike!” she called out to her number one assistant, who was instantly by her side.
“Yes, Twilight?” he asked. “How may I help?”
Twilight placed her hoof beneath the offending words, motioning where to read. “Tell me what’s wrong with this paragraph.”
Spike read the page, taking in the information and thinking about it a little. “Uh, I dunno. Why are you so worried about it? We defeated Nightmare Moon already, remember?”
“Yeah,” said Twilight, “Right.” But here was something else there, she knew it. Reading over the paragraph again, she still couldn't figure it out, though she knew it would be bothering her until she did.
“Anything else I can help you with, Twilight?” asked Spike expectantly.
“No, not really,” she replied. “But thanks anyway.”
Princess Luna awoke from her slumber suddenly and painfully. Specifically, she awoke the second she made contact with the floor, her right wing folded beneath her at am uncomfortable angle.
“Ow,” she said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “What was that for?”
“You’re late,” replied her sister Celestia, tough she didn’t seem as bothered by it as one might expect. “I thought maybe you were just running behind and would be there soon, but no; an hour later I find you here in bed, snoring away like a-“
“I don’t snore,” denied Luna, getting up slowly and stretching her wings. “And you didn’t have to push me out of the bed.”
Celestia merely rolled her eyes and smiled. “Come on. Moon’s not going to raise itself, you know.”
“Can’t you do it?” wondered Luna as she followed her sister out of the room and down the long castle hallways. “I’m really,” here her speech was interrupted by a loud yawn, “Tired.”
“I can’t see how, considering you’ve done nothing but sleep all day.”
“I could say the same of you, sleeping during the night. Who even does that?”
The sisters shared a hearty laugh before walking up to the balcony, looking out at their equine kingdom.
“I’m so glad to have you back after all these years,” Celestia said, her voice full of sincerity. “You have no idea how hard it was, ruling without you.”
Luna sighed. “I’m ever grateful to be back as well. And…” Luna trailed off. Maybe now was the wrong time to be sharing her thoughts.
“And what…? Is something wrong?” Her sister looked concerned.
“No… No, it’s nothing. All in the past, right?” Luna tried to put on a smile, but wasn’t sure Celestia had fallen for it, so she decided to quickly change the subject. “We should… probably take care of that moon.”
“Yes, right. The moon.”
And so the two sisters began their nightly ritual: Lowering the sun to make room for the moon. As the sun’s rays slowly disappeared over the horizon, the stars began to shine here and there, twinkling in the heavens. In no time at all, the moon was in place, ever so slowly making its way across the sky.
A rush of memories suddenly made their way into Luna’s head. The moon: Barren, lifeless, not a soul in sight. But more jarring than the lifelessness of the moon was the…
Stop, Luna told herself. Bad memories. All in the past.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that
Twilight stopped, her mind at a blank. After staring at the parchment for a little longer, she crumpled it up and threw it away. “I sure hope the others are keeping up on their promises,” she muttered. “I haven’t learned anything about friendship in the past month.”
With a sigh, she retired off to her bed, pulling the covers over herself as she stared longingly up at the moon. It still looked weird to her, without the mare’s face on its surface. She’d gotten so used to it being there all her life, the glowing orb just seemed rather empty without it.
She also couldn’t help but notice how much the stars reminded her of her cutie mark. It was obviously supposed to mimic them to a degree, seeing how star-like shapes are often associated with magic. Twilight sometimes wondered how many different cutie marks there were for each special talent. Surely lots of ponies have the same special talent, but not the same cutie mark. Had anyone ever counted? Twilight thought maybe she ought to look into that sometime soon.
She turned back to the book lying next to her bed. With a sigh, she used her magic to bring it over to her and flipped to the
page she was on.
“Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about everlasting night,” she read aloud, quietly so as not to wake Spike. The whole entry still seemed wrong to her. Sure, it had been almost a year since it had stopped mattering, but it still bugged her.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before sleep overtook her and she drifted off into the dream world.
When Twilight awoke, she was floating in the air, the entire light spectrum floating around her.
“Well that’s certainly not normal,” she observed. “This doesn’t look anything like… Anything. I wonder if…”
It was then that suddenly the colors around her began to shift into the shape of a strange creature. It had the head of an alligator, the ears of a bunny, the shell of a tortoise, the wings of an owl, and the large, furry tail of a cat. When the creature was fully formed, it began barking like a dog.
“What an odd creature,” noted Twilight, “And yet it seems awfully familiar. Almost as if…” Suddenly, she realized why she recognized this creature, and what it was. “Of course! That’s the sign I’ve made to tell myself that I’m dreaming!”
As soon as she said that, everything suddenly came into sharp contrast, the wide array of colors beginning to hurt her eyes.
“So now that I’ve achieved lucid dreaming,” she said to herself, “I should get rid of this awful background.” She decided to start with the familiar, and placed herself in Ponyville. The night sky above looked exactly the same as it had outside her window. The odd dream creature was gone, though she didn’t really need it anymore.
“Oh look, I can see my house from here,” she said. “I should pay myself a visit. Or would I still be there, since I’m dreaming?” Twilight decided she might as well find out, making sure to record all this in her dream journal after she awoke. She calmly trotted over to her house, climbed up to her window, and looked inside, expecting to see herself sound asleep, or at least an empty bed.
She was quite surprised, however, when she found Princess Luna occupying her bedroom.
“Enjoying your dream, Twilight Sparkle?” she asked.
“Um,” replied Twilight, getting over her initial shock. “Well, not exactly, seeing as it’s barely started.”
Luna smiled. “Well, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I sensed something was troubling you. Dreams are my domain, after all. Is anything on your mind?”
It was awfully convenient for Princess Luna to appear in her dreams at this particular time. The lines from the book echoed over her head once more, just as they had over and over again that day. Who better to ask than the Mare on the Moon herself?
Twilight opened her window a bit more before climbing in, leading Luna to where the book lay beside her bed. Using her magic, she brought the book over to them and flipped to the page she’d been staring at before she’d fallen asleep.
“The Mare on the Moon,” she read aloud, keeping an eye on Luna for her reaction. “Myth from olden pony times. A powerful pony who wanted to rule Equestria, defeated by the elements of harmony and imprisoned on the moon. Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about-“
“Yes, eternal night, I know,” interrupted Luna in a rather spiteful tone. “Why are you worried about that? Nightmare Moon is all in the past.”
“That’s just the thing,” said Twilight. “I don’t know why I’m so worried about it. I was just reading over it earlier today when I
noticed how odd that struck me. I just can’t place my hoof on it…”
Luna gently took the book with her own magic and inspected it again, not a hint of emotion betrayed by her face.
“What was it like on the moon, Princess Luna?” asked Twilight. “Was anything… Up there?”
Princess Luna shut the book and shook her head forlornly. “The moon is barren and lifeless, Twilight Sparkle. I wandered there aimlessly for a thousand years, trapped inside my own head; nothing but a blank, rocky expanse as far as the eye can see. But it’s not the moon that worried me most. It was…”
Her voice trailed off, and Twilight was left wondering what it was Luna was about to say. “It was what? What had you so worried? What could have worried you, as Nightmare Moon?”
Luna shut her eyes and sighed. “These are memories I would rather not relive, Twilight Sparkle,” she said abruptly. “And if you value your sanity, you would prefer not to live them either. It’s all in the past. It’s not important anymore. Do not investigate this further, or you will regret it.”
And with that, Luna stormed over to the window and climbed out onto the balcony, opening her wings wide. “Consider this dream over, Twilight Sparkle,” she said as she took off into the night sky.
Twilight awoke three feet from where she had been standing, bewildered and confused to an infuriating degree. She couldn’t understand why Luna had gotten so upset.
“Was it something I said?” she asked herself as she got up, seemingly unable to sleep now.
Despite Luna’s warning, she was now only more curious. Something had obviously angered her, something she didn’t want to remember. She seemed almost afraid of it. Something on the moon. Or, not on the moon. Inside it? The only thing inside the moon would be more rock. Above it? But what could possibly be above…
“On the longest day of the thousandth year,” Twilight recited, “The stars will aid in her escape…”
Stars.
Yes, it definitely had something to do with stars.