Hello, Luna
Today, as with many days, my eyes are wide awake. We are sleepless.
We no longer resent my sister... no more so, that is, than the citizens whom have forgotten us after our absence. We did not expect instantaneous acceptance, but we expected slightly more respect.
Patience, we counsel ourselves. Their love will come.
The love which my sister has reveled in for so long is, perhaps, something that we may someday feel as well. We cannot imagine what has changed in 1000 years, but there is still hope in our heart.
I am still the Princess of the Night; this will never change, nor should we ever hope for it to. It is a simple, yet painful, truth: My responsibilities are my own, just as her responsibilities belong to her. If one of us may be indisposed for a brief time, the other may take her sister’s duties for a brief time, but she has not yet missed any of her duties.
We imagine it is difficult enough for her at this point, allowing me my old responsibilities once more. She has been so utterly alone for so long, with no sister to request additional duties of, that we can understand her difficulties adjusting to a more social lifestyle once again. As a positive, with my shouldering of the night duties once more, she is able to visit our subjects and reassure them with her presence.
We are certainly envious, but we believe we will feel that same love as well someday.
We are finally awakening from the thrall of Nightmare Moon. She has gripped our mind for so long, we had forgotten who we were. Now, we are re-learning our own thoughts and mastering them, standing upon our own shaky hooves to become stronger as a consequence.
My gaze focuses on the window to the outside, where a dark curtain shields my body from the harsh sunlight of the day. I sigh and rise to my hooves, pulling aside the curtain to gaze upon the courtyard of Canterlot Castle.
As expected, the land below bustles with activity. Guards patrol the grounds, ensuring safety for the nobility and townsponies assembled who have business in the castle today. It is a typical day in Canterlot.
In 12 hours, the guards will remain, but in drastically reduced numbers; none but they and perhaps a visiting delegate or two will be outside at night. The ponies are afraid of it.
As they are afraid of me.
They have every right to be afraid. We have never been the easiest pony to get along with. We are not even certain that we should not be afraid of myself. What have we ever done for my subjects?
My sister missed me greatly during our absence; this much, at least, we are thankful for. It is a relief to know that we were missed at all. My sister assures us that there was much discontent following my banishment, but we see no evidence of this. It appears she allowed the populace to paint me as a monster.
There has been talk of this Nightmare Night, a celebration in which ponies dress up in costumes and distribute candy to the foals. Long ago, before even we can remember, it was celebrated as my birthday. We cannot say that this is a disrespect to us; perhaps it is something to be thankful for, to know that there is still reason to celebrate on my birthday.
We wish it still meant something.
And why would it? The princess whose birthday fell on that day abandoned her own subjects for many lifetimes. They've no reason to remember what the occasion may have been for the holiday, only that there is a holiday to observe.
If any should be blamed for this loss of significance, it would be my sister; she spoke of earlier days, those days in which my betrayal still lingered in the thoughts of the populace. They were afraid of me. They did not want my birthday to be an observance.
My sister rejected the request of the populace, instead continuing to observe the day of my birth as it was to be observed. She told me of the holidays she often spent alone, wondering what had become of me. She was forced to make public appearances on Hearth’s Warming Eve for the plays, but Hearth’s Warming was spent beside a cold hearth, the embers long dead, the most important pony in the world crying for her lost sister as if she were no more than a foal.
Similar to her Hearth’s Warming Celebration, she told me of the thousand cakes she baked for me on Nightmare Night. My sister has never been a chef of any note; she knows not how the recipe was imperfect 1000 times, but she chuckles about it in retrospect. Shortly afterward, she tells of the candles she would so carefully arrange, first the number of years since I’d been gone, then, upon no longer having enough surface area on the cake, two solitary candles burning in the center. The flames that still burned within the both of our hearts, she told me, was the symbolism.
She also explained the butchering of her observance, after a fashion.
On one of my birthdays—specifically, my 553rd—Celestia told of the cake she had baked, the candles slowly burning themselves to tiny stubs, and not a single bite being taken of the sweet she’d worked so hard to create.
There, silently grieving, she had been found by a young colt who had lost his parents in a mysterious happening involving a creeping mist from the east which originated from the Zebra Kingdom; he was too young to understand their absence just yet, but he still seeked out my sister on that night, asking her to help him find his parents.
My sister knew none of this colt’s story at the time, but she agreed to help him find his parents. There, she trotted the streets of Canterlot, this small colt at her side, as they went door to door, attempting to find information on this colt’s family. The colt, having originally come by train from Manehattan, had been instructed by his parents to come here and speak to me of them. Very bizarre circumstances, she affirmed to my questioning glance.
After a long night of fruitless searching, the final door on a city block was opened to reveal a geriatric mare with a warm smile and infinite wisdom. Upon hearing the colt’s story, she apologized for not knowing where his parents had gone, but asked if he wanted some sweets to send him on his way. The young colt obviously obliged.
The next morning, a full report of the creeping mist had come in, including the names of the colt’s parents. My sister put him in a boarding home in Canterlot and visited him throughout his life. He slowly came to terms with his loss.
The next year, upon my 554th birthday, the colt once again visited my sister and requested that she help him find his parents. She did not understand, but she went with him all the same. They went down the same street and asked for the colt’s parents. A hoofful were confused, having recognized him from the previous year, and others did not recognize him. Finally, we reached the last door with the geriatric mare.
The same ritual was performed as before; the colt asked if the mare had seen his parents, she shook her head, then she asked if he would like some sweets. He accepted, as before. Then he waited.
The next year, the mare was gone. The colt did not ask where she was, only nodding his head in understanding. He told the young mare who had answered the door that her grandmother used to give him sweets; she hesitated, then brought him several pieces of candy. He thanked her, then told her that if he ever found his parents, he would probably find her grandmother as well, and he would tell her hello for this mare’s sake.
This was most puzzling to my sister, so upon reaching Canterlot Castle once more, she asked what his reasons were for doing this on the same day every year.
The colt replied, “I saw you grieving over two lost ponies when I first met you, Princess, though I didn’t know it at the time. Now that I know, I thought today would be a good day for grieving, and I want to celebrate it with sweets, just like you do. I’ve never eaten a single one she gave me, either.”
Two lost... my sister pondered over the candles for a time. Was she as lost as I? Perhaps.
The next year, some friends the colt had made in school attended the ceremony with him. The young mare had told her neighbors of the event, and they were prepared this year.
Over the years, the group swelled, new young ponies coming in as older ponies decided they were too old to beg for sweets. Still, the same colt stayed, and every year, he asked the same of the young mare at the end of the street.
Eventually, on my 612th birthday since I’d left, the colt departed my sister to join his parents. Her silent prayer was that he find the peace he so desperately desired in death; she knew it was no escape for her, as she was already as lost as they. His premonition of two lost souls held true to my sister.
Celestia knows nothing, however, of what caused the costume-wearing.
Her suffering is nothing that we are so callous as to not understand; my sister missed me, yes.
My frustration is not with Celestia. It is, perhaps, with the ponies we rule over.
Yet, we cannot blame them. After 1,000 years, the least one can expect is that others will forget them. We believe, in some manner, it may even be for the best that they do not remember our betrayal.
Who, then, are we frustrated with? Nightmare Moon, for kidnapping 1,000 years of my life? Perhaps the Night itself, the thing that is as much a part of me as I am of it? That may be it, in part.
No, there is more to it than this. We just cannot put our hoof on it yet.
Me?
Who am I?
Let us... me... divide myself from the Night for a moment. When have we been me?
How strong am I? Can I stand upon my own hooves? What have I to offer Equestria?
Luna has never gotten. She has only given. I am loathe to recall this. Why do I loathe it?
A world in which generosity is squelched, where morals are trampled and excreted upon... this is the world which has been opened to us. All of it is so cruel, so heartless, that we—I, cannot hope to survive.
Or, perhaps I am not attempting to understand enough.
Can I perform my own duties? I am only half a mare; the other half has been given in duty. Without the other half of me, where am I?
Do I love? Do I worry? Do I care?
I do not know.
I will never know.
I do not want to be alone. Of this, I am certain. Even the husk of a mare that I am without my duties is certain of this.
Me. What have I done for me?
I took dreams and made them nightmares. I took day and forced night. I betrayed my own sister, stabbed her in the back and nearly killed her, for my own selfish desires.
My desires?
I am Nightmare Moon.
The realization sends chills up my spine. Nightmare Moon is who I am when I abandon the Night.
But I have bucked the influence of the Night now, have I not? And I am still sane. Not jealous. Not angry. Not contemptible.
Have I changed?
Have we changed?
My relationship with my responsibilities has always been a source of pride for me. For 1000 years, I have been absent, slowly driving myself insane as the co-pilot to a mind which would see my sister die. Why would she ever trust me?
She does, though. She trusts me. Not us. She trusts me, Luna. Not Princess Luna. Luna.
Have I changed?
Mother once told me that finding fault in oneself is the surest method to improve. Inside, I am a broken vase. I have shattered into innumerable pieces, some large and easy to piece together, others tiny and seemingly impossible to fit in. There are faults beyond count, and none have an easy solution.
A broken mare is a mare who may rebuild. No longer do I have anything but my duties.
Do I want more?
I want my birthday. And I no longer wish it to be a joke.
Princess Luna... a joke.
And Luna? Is Luna a joke?
They do not know. Equestria has never met Luna.
Have we ever met Luna?
Have I ever met Luna?
I do not believe I have ever met myself. Now is a good time to start.
I flare my magic briefly, brightening the lights in my room. My royal regalia is absent, clothing worn by a mare of office. I am not Princess Luna. I am only Luna.
There is a mirror affixed to my wall. I approach it, looking apprehensively at myself in the mirror. I smile briefly at the scared mare I see before me. She is as afraid of meeting me as I am.
“Hello, Luna. My name is Luna.”
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Nice story!
4492278
Thank you, kind sir.
4784800
I'm glad I can still surprise people with my rookie writing ability.
5126242
Care to share?
I have no idea what you meant by that.
good story
5128284
I am glad you enjoyed.
5717215
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111127040032/mlp/images/4/4e/Applejack_bad_poker_face_S01E25.png
5717516
I am eagerly awaiting your conclusion of the story.
Well... if you do finish the story.
Curious. this certainly didn't play out like I expected. At times it felt awkward and rambling, other times insightful and fascinating. In the end, I think this is a story that requires a bit more attention than the usual to fully grasp. Although it doesn't seem that Luna has solved all her problems, it does feel like she's finally on the road to a proper recovery, and for that I am pleased.
Expect a review to come out Monday.
5721485
I will hold you to that! I'll address some of the points you made on Friday, I wrote a few on my work computer but won't be back there till Friday.
You Can Has Review
5745738
Thank you for the review. I am definitely taking the advice to heart.
Also, thanks for the reminder. I'll address your points here.
I wasn't aiming for Celestia to be damned; she would be a busy and tired ruler much of the time, with Luna taking the back seat. It's meant to be reminiscent of the way that teenagers look resentfully at their parents, despite their parents having wisdom and knowledge, because the parents are a higher authority that the teenager feels is undeserved. Luna is meant to be empathized with, while simultaneously be seen as overreacting to the situation. Maybe I was going for a little too much with my mediocre skills.
If you're not looking at Luna as resentful and jealous, Celestia's actions can seem damning indeed. You want to empathize with our main protagonist, surely, but is she always right?
This is actually a large struggle of mine. I hate re-using parts of the show because it feels like I'm paying lip service to what everyone can already watch and enjoy, with maybe a few more points of perspective. I do this again later, but I think the viewpoints are different enough to not feel so contrived.
As far as the scene you read here, I did what I could to make sure it was perspectives that couldn't be told in brief moments of animated ponies. I looked closely at what was seen and when in the episode and interpreted their facial expressions and what they may have been feeling, as well as the facial expressions we didn't see.
You don't see Celestia's face at this point in the show, so I took advantage of what wasn't shown and told it. The question is, did her eyes registering pain mean she thought herself better than Luna? Or were these the delusions of a downtrodden little sister looking for justification? That was mostly the point of the lip service to the episode: To get a different perspective in the context of the story being written. I couldn't think of a better way to possibly do this than let the reader have a scene from the show play out in their head and see, not only the parallels, but also the additions.
At least, I think it's a lot better than a scene transition of:
AFTER LUNA WAS BANISHED...
That, however, is me still working on my writing skills.
I will admit that the action in this was in replaying the episode in one's head, not in the narrative itself; if you weren't visualizing what was happening as it had happened in the show, it would fall flat very quickly. The chapter can't stand on its own, and that is definitely a weakness I didn't perceive when writing it.
As far as the high amount of narrative that prevented rising action, that was actually my attempt to make the scene feel less like lip service and more like a different perspective. The chapter's point wasn't just to tell the reader, "This is what happened in the episode," otherwise I'd have linked a video.
Plants are incredibly sensitive to day/night cycles, and the Sun and Moon have been reliably doing what they should for a very long time. Equestria's Moon works a little differently than our own, being a static celestial body unlike Earth's moon, thus the plants would have evolved (or been cultivated) into a predictable pattern that very likely relied on the light of the Moon just as much as that of the Sun.
Earth ponies use magic to grow crops, Sun and Moon require magic in order to work. They likely emit a magic all their own that the crops likewise need. Day and night have been important since before Celestia and Luna were rulers, if the Hearth's Warming events are to be believed. It's not so farfetched an idea that crops are very sensitive to the Sun and Moon.
Just some of the guards in the castle. There would have been glimpses and the like that the guards had; no reason why they wouldn't be able to say that Celestia was fighting an evil-looking black pony.
Sure, on Earth maybe.
I, uh... think I remember seeing a crescent moon at some point in the series; maybe I'm mistaken. I do know it's almost always full, and we've no reason to think that Equestria's lunar cycles are the same as ours. Same with the Sun's cycles; ponies control the seasons, not the Sun's positioning in relation to their planet (because our planet has seasons depending on how the Earth is tilted toward the Sun). We know very little about Equestrian solar/lunar cycles, and based on what we have seen and known, trying to apply our own cycles simply isn't feasible at this point.
The only thing that we are certain changes as far as solar/lunar cycles is the length of day, thanks to the Summer Sun Celebration being held on the longest day of the year. As you can imagine, that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. We're not sure if nights are shorter to compensate, though that is likely. It is fairly accurate, though, to say that the Sun and the Moon being in the sky at the same time could be seen as a very bad thing to the citizens of Equestria, and not for entirely known reasons.
We can also say that, since seasons are brought on by ponies, the supposed differing amounts of sunlight and moonlight would be the difference of seasonal crops. More magic exposure of one type, less magic exposure of another, to encourage different crops to grow. It's a plethora of ideas!
Maybe a little too dense for the typical reader, though. I can't imagine someone whose hobby isn't how Equestria works would think that critically about such things.
Too specific and too detailed, I guess.
When writing that section, I distinctly remember considering it. They could have had their eight chosen unicorns try to overwrite what Celestia and Luna had done, but Princess Platinum had just settled relations. She requested they make a point of their disapproval of the royal dismissal, and they lowered both Sun and Moon. After the Sun was raised by Celestia, Platinum felt their point had been made all the same and preferred not to fight a battle that could not be won.
I wrote: "The unicorns, disliking our royal dismissal of their culture, decided on a more hard-nosed course of action than the pegasi had." The pegasi didn't see fit to lash out; they weren't as political as the unicorns, though they were proud. Their rulers saw the wisdom in not biting the hooves that fed them, as they wouldn't have food supplies for a sustained skirmish. They needed the earth ponies, and they knew better than to use weather warfare.
The unicorns similarly didn't want to harm their food production, just make a point. They didn't intend to keep things down to the point of a crisis, only until it was apparent that they mattered too.
The earth ponies were farmers. They didn't care where the big mares sat, as long as they got the weather and day/night cycles they needed to grow their crops and they weren't taxed to the point that they couldn't provide for and enjoy themselves. They had simpler expectations, and they didn't really see the location of Canterlot as symbolic as the pegasi or unicorns did.
I definitely could have extended that scene somewhat. I guess it didn't seem as important to me when writing it; I'll remember that for the future.
Ponies have good dreams about things that make them happy. When you're trapped for 1000 years in the Moon and have that entire time to watch dreams and see what changes, what causes happier thoughts, what seems more ironic to dream about, what seems more farfetched... she got very, very good at feeling the pulse of Equestria through her dream-walking.
This included the good her sister did, much as she didn't want to admit it in her waking life.
She was alluding to the idea that she has never had a real struggle in her life, and Luna has always been the one to fight. Celestia's entitlement led to the entire acceptance of Nightmare Moon by Luna; she was the catalyst for the entire fight, you could say. And, in her dreams, she is honest with herself, at least.
I hope that helps you feel at least a little bit better about it.
I'm still a little chumpy for a writer, and I was significantly more of a chump at the point that I wrote this.
5746015
This only makes Celestia look worse in my eyes, because it makes it sound like she believes herself superior to Luna rather than an equal, which only further justifies Luna's anger. I absolutely did not get the impression that Luna's anger was unjustified, at least not before her exile. After her exile, yeah, she started sounding like she was exagerrating things in her bitterness and loss, but before her exile her frustrations and fears felt legitimate.
The moments you've point out here aren't what disturbed me about the repeated scenes, it was everything else where you detailed exactly what the Mane 6 were doing throughout the entire journey. You could have summarized those scenes rather than drag them out. Once the Mane 6 finally reached the castle, things finally started to get interesting again, but it took way too long for that to happen. This is a story about Luna and her relationship with Celestia; as such, watching the first episodes play all over again felt like overkill.
Looking at most of your counterarguments, what I'm seeing is a lot of headcanon that never received the attention it needed in the story. A lot of these topics you've covered could have been better referenced in the story, in which case I wouldn't have asked the questions I did. Your explanations about the sun and the moon are particularly off, not because it's a bad theory but because there's absolutely nothing in the story to support it other than 'oh, and the moon's excessive light is killing plants.' It wasn't even close to enough to relate all the headcanon you'd formed about how Equestria's plant life is dependent upon both the moon and the sun in equal measure. Forming theories and ideas is fine and all, but the readers are not going to get any benefit from it if you don't explain said theories. After all, odds are minimal that the readers came to the same ideas you have.
On the other hand, when you did bother to explain things you tended to do it via exposition, and that was a bit frustrating. It's hard to write exposition and not make it sound like it's coming out of a history book or glossary, which is why it's generally better to avoid it. Even so, that can make it very hard to explain... well, anything, so I don't hold it against you.
No worries, though. I still enjoyed the story overall.
5746195
That was what I was going for. It's not that Celestia was in the right with her actions--but she was being a protective older sister, and Luna struggled to come to terms with that, as she'd never been in the position Celestia had. It was Luna's lack of empathy, of seeing her sister's imperfections as a reason not to resent her so greatly... Luna saw a sphere of perfection in her sister because that was how Celestia held herself, and the cracks formed on it weren't big enough for Luna to pay any attention to them. She resented the sphere because she overlooked the cracks.
... I make terrible analogies for this.
Because of Celestia's imperfection, she makes reasonable mistakes, but it frustrates Luna because she doesn't see them as mistakes, she sees them as deliberate snubs and power grabs.
Hmm... I never really considered that, especially when I was writing these chapters.
I'll thoroughly examine my show-paralleled chapters from now on and take the goal of the story into account, as opposed to 1:1 copying of what happens when the character is involved. I can see it being frivolous; I blame my attention to detail for wanting to make sure everything was expressed.
As I think you can tell my now, brevity is not my strong suit, but neither is meaningful exploration.
Seeing your concerns, definitely. I didn't have enough reader empathy when it came to things that weren't obvious based on the show and weren't at least partially explained or even hinted at in the chapters. I could have at least put a little exposition in the author's notes to make sure it didn't break up the story flow (which could have used work as well, based on your feedback), but I didn't add any and just assumed the reader would have all the canon knowledge on-hand and be able to make the same assumptions I had. That's some pretty awful writing on my part.
Your review reflected that. I'm relieved that I gave you a good feeling overall from it. It encourages me to keep trying hard to make more stories in the hopes that they get better over time.
5746278
Which is exactly what it looked like in the story, so in that sense you did a good job.
Excellent! One of my ongoing fears as a reviewer is that I'll intimidate people. I honestly don't expect that to happen to you specifically, but it has happened before.