//------------------------------//
// 1: Do You Want to Build a Snowstallion? 
// Story: The Moon Isn't All Bad 
// by Ze Guest 
//------------------------------//

The alarm clock played that song again. Luna wondered why it was that song all the time. Is it a bad song? Absolutely not! She was just curious. Now, it is quite known that you, in fact, cannot hear anything in space due to the lack of atmosphere. But Luna was able to tweak a few things to her advantage. Her home, for example, allows sound to travel. "Another boring day on the boring moon." Luna mumbled to herself as she rubbed the crust out of her eyes.

Now, let's be clear here. Luna was quite fond of the moon. She remembered when she had the ability to make it rise and set. She was very willing to do so. The problem was though, everypony tended to be more appreciative of Celestia's work. Why was that? Sure, Celestia has been in power longer than Luna, but she gave the gift of night to the ponies of Equestria. No pony seemed to care, though. She was aware that ponies go to sleep in the night and had come to terms with it. But the fact that nopony was thankful, well, that's what got on her nerves. 

So she wondered if she could take over Equestria. If she could, she would have changed a few things around. Not too many.  For instance, instead of having ponies wake in the daytime, just make the day cease to exist. On the contrary, night will always be.  But Celestia had other plans. And here is Luna, on the moon, all alone, with Celestia doing her job. And everypony swarming her and thanking her for what she does. Everything Luna didn't get.

Luna didn't want to get out of bed. She certainly didn't have to. She could stay there for the rest of her time in this barren celestial object, which feeds off the sun. Where else would the moon get it's brilliant light? I Got You, Babe was the song that played. Luna flopped over on her bed. 6:00. Why was it set for 6:00? Why was it set at all? Why did she even have an alarm clock? That was a good question. She reached out to tap the snooze button. She hit the off button instead. Way to go. 

Luna lied on the bed for several minuets doing nothing but rethinking her life. She soon realized, though, that just doing that wasn't getting anywhere. She rolled herself out of bed. It took about three seconds to hit the ground. A lot longer than in Equestria. Her hair of black, blue and a little white covered her face. This didn't stop her though. She used some magic of hers to swipe it out of the way.

She staggered up and cracked her neck. She had fallen asleep on it the wrong way. "I would get a new pillow. If I wasn't stranded here." Luna grumbled to herself. Who else was she going to talk to?

Luna wandered on outside. She looked down on the world. You could only see a sliver of it. Most of the world she could see was dark. They were all sleeping right now. Maybe some pony was looking up at her, thinking of her. She was literally staring at half the world as it was. It's hard to believe somepony wasn't thinking about her. But alas, they were probably scared of her. Shuddering in fear as they thought of her plotting another evil plot to take over Equestria. That wasn't what she was up to, though. Just staring at the world, feeling a little dumb that she was here and they were there.

And by the way! What kind of sister sends their own sibling to the moon for a thousand years over a little rebel action? Seriously? Usually when some pony tries to take over Equestria, they're just put away for about three decades and let go. Told not to do it again. The whole thing was more than ridiculous. Luna was just being a little rebellious is all. Everypony is when they're growing up. Thirty years on the moon would be perfectly fine with her. But no, it just had to be a thousand years, hadn't it? Heck! She would be able to learn her lesson by ten years, at most! And to top it off, a barrier was set up to keep Luna from leaving the moon. She never attempted to escape nor even touched the thing. She just knew she would never break it. It had a little blue light in it. Just to remind her she was stuck.

She picked up a rock from the ground and just looked at it. Staring at it. It was just a stupid rock, what significance did it have? Luna, in her anger and self pity, threw the rock away. She watched as it floated for a little while and soon landed on the ground. The rock didn't do enough. A thousand years she had to wait. She had only been here for six months. Six months compared to a thousand years? Well, six months doesn't leave a dent in a thousand years. 'Here I am, moping around. Throwing rocks and drowning in grief. I have a thousand years on this empty plain. I need to do something!' Luna thought to herself.

But what could she possibly do? She's on the moon! Nothing but rocks and dust and herself exist on the moon. She began to find herself reminiscing. She remembered a time when she and Celestia were young. The snow drifted to the ground and covered the whole world in it's white, fluffy glory. She remembered when they were getting all dressed up to go outside. When they finally got outside, they frolicked around and tumbled and threw snowballs and made snow angels and everything like that. Then Celestia came up to her and asked a question. "Would you like to build a snowstallion?" 

The idea of building a snowstallion sounded magnificent. "A snowstallion," Luna said. "Indeed! I would certainly enjoy that!"

Celestia and Luna decided it was in their best interest to see who could build the better snowstallion. A contest! Celestia rolled up two large snow balls and lined them up horizontal to each other. She then rolled a smaller one and plopped it on top of the ball in front. She used her horn to poke two holes to make eyes and drew a mouth making a smile.

Luna observed the Celestia's snowstallion carefully. It was... alright. She could certainly do better than her older sister. She walked over to a spot yet to be touched by hoofs and she went to work. She had the three snowballs in alignment, much like Celestia had her's. But she didn't want it to be the same. No. She would not have this little match end in a tie. Much less a win for her older sister who seemed to triumph her every chance she got. But now, it was time for Luna to win. 

She carefully sculpted the legs. Making quite sure that they were identical to a real stallion's. The legs looked oh so perfect. What else did she need? A tail! She eagerly ran up to a evergreen tree and broke off a branch. Luna made sure it was just the right size to look majestic yet not too lengthy. A cutie-mark is what she needed next! She drew a little star on each side of the snowstallion's flank. Wonderful! Next was the neck. She made sure that the snow was packed enough so it won't fall apart. Now the face. She made the muzzle protrude the way a stallion's would. It was a snowstallion after all. The ears were simple. Almost too simple. 

After about an hour of making the snowstallion, Luna woke up Celestia to see what her opinion was on this flawless structure. Celestia slowly open her eyes. She was overwhelmed with surprise when she saw the finished product. Luna had a smug grin on her face as her sister marveled at the sculpture. She awaited the opinion. "Well..." Celestia began. Luna's ears were ready to intercept a large amount of complements and praises. "Why is he bald?" she asked.

Luna's was quite shocked by what her sister said about her wonderful work of art. "Well, I-uh..."

"And his cutie-mark! It isn't lined up correctly! Just look at it!" Luna's older sister said in utter disgust.

Luna ran over to the snowstallion and looked at his cutie-mark. The two were not, in fact, aligned to perfection. "Yes. I see. But why does it matter?" Luna asked, trying not to have her voice crack as tears welled up in her eyes. She was watching her sister judge her quite harshly. Luna looked back at Celestia's snowstallion. Not even close to her own.

"And why did you use evergreen?" Celestia asked, lifting the tail. 

"Well, I thought I would make for a good tail." Luna whimpered.

"And also, why doesn't he have eyes or a mouth? Now her can't see and he can't talk! I've never seen such a pony with so little features! Why is this?"

Celestia's cruel judgment was too much to handle. Tears started to roll down Luna's cheeks and she hid her face in shame. She couldn't help but cry. She thought she had the best snowstallion in all Equestria. And here was Celestia saying otherwise? Luna heard a warm chuckle and a hoof on her shoulder. Luna peered up to look at her sister's smile. "I was just playing a joke." she said.

Luna lifted her head a little. "You- you were?" she asked, wiping a tear from her eye. 

"Of course," Celestia said. "I would never be so cruel to you. Not ever." (Ha! My, how things change.) "I believe you have won this match. I am sorry I made you cry."

Luna had a smile that only stretched farther across her face. The memory made her quite happy. After her sister's little joke, they were laughing hysterically. Bringing them close to tears. Luna, when the memory had come to an end, wondered if she still had the ability to build those snowstallions. The dust that covered the moon completely was indeed strong enough. Maybe she could.

Luna had bunched up enough moon dust to make a stallion. It wasn't as abundant as the snow on that day so long ago, but there was certainly enough to go around. She carved the legs so they looked like a stallion's own. The cutie-mark, a crescent. Luna made sure that it was perfectly aligned with the other side, even though looks no longer mattered. The neck, the head, she had made a face this time, just for fun. 

She had finally finished. The moon-dust-stallion looked broad and handsome. And perfect, don't forget. She circled around it, observing it. It didn't need to be perfect. She just wanted it to be. The building of the stallion was fun while it lasted, but now what? She could certainly build another one, but she would lose interest after a while. So what would the fun in that be? Luna pondered this. Well, she did have magic. Maybe she could fool around with that?

Luna turned slowly to face the stallion she had made. He stood there motionless. Luna's horn started to glow a dark blue. "What spell shall I cast upon thou?" 

The moon-dust-stallion was speechless. Then again, I did not withhold the ability to speak at all. Just then, Luna got an idea. A spell she could cast. A spell that was rather... embarrassing. She readied her spell and aimed directly at the stallion. She fired. The soundless wave of energy surged towards the target. "Female!" Luna shouted gleefully. The target had lost a lot of it's bulk, it shrunk in size a little and it's muzzle, rounder. She fired again "Male! Female! Male! Female! Male! Female! Ma-"

The dust-stallion had blown up for some reason. Moon dust shot out for miles and formed a tower-like structure of scattered dust. The explosion seemed odd to Luna considering the fact there was no fire within the explosion nor even sound! But space was a vacuum after all. She still wondered how she was able to survive without any sort of gas to breathe.

Luna hung her head and lost all interest in her destroyed creation. The tower still stood and it was going to be there for quite a while, but she just didn't tend to care at this moment in time. Luna shambled away, back to her marvelous home she had build out of the same material as the stallion. It was three stories and was a Modern Victorian style home. 

Luna took one last look at her fruitless attempt to have some fun. The sight brought her to a complete 180 as well as a near heart attack. Her creation had not gone away after all. In fact, not only was it in one piece, Luna had brought it completely to life! The moon-dust-stallion swatted away the debris. Or, at least, as much as he could. Luna looked at him in complete awe. Was it possible that she, Princess Luna the first of Equestria, had brought life to an inanimate object? 

The stallion walked up to Luna and stared up at her. "H-hello?" Luna said.

The stallion raised a hoof in a salute. It was then, that Luna had an idea. An oh so wonderful idea. Luna grew a new smile. This one, more radiant, more confident, more sure of herself. "You," she said to the grey stallion made completely of moon dust. "Your new name is Old Hickory. General Old Hickory."

This idea that Luna had, well, let's just say, fun is imminent.