Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together, and created harmony for all the land.
The alicorn mare closed the book with a sigh. She knew the story by heart, she knew it was true, but it felt like an old ponytale. She peered through the window at the monotonous grey landscape dotted with meteorite craters. She sighed, observing the far, gray disc. She put her eye to the telescope and peered again. Same, gray, dead. Although the cloud cover was gone for half a year. There was life. It wasn't dead.
There had to be life down there. There would be survivors in the Stables.
"Two hundreds years and I still cry like a foal," the alicorn sighed, wiping a tear from her eye with her hoof. "Two hundred and seven next month. Yay me," she muttered sourly, peering at the dead orb again.
Suddenly her body jerked, electrified. A spark of color! A blast of rainbow in the dead wastes... leaving green behind, repairing the land! The Elements of Harmony! She could sense their singing, filling her body with energy and hope! Not only there was life down there, it was active, powerful and brave to wake up the Elements!
No. It was not her time. She lay down and couldn't withhold tears any more. She wanted to return, she wanted to have friends. Another eight hundred years of waiting? Will the ponies even accept her? Or will they make her suffer for sins of her mother and aunt? Another eight hundred years of solitude, and when she's back, she will be irrelevant and useless.
The alicorn lay on the floor of the empty lunar base and cried. Just a long-forgotten, useless war effort project. Not a savior to reintroduce life, but a relic of forgotten past.
Down in the hub of the SPP Littlepip could not understand, why, of all the things, would Princess Celestia be so insistent on getting the space travel program back on track.