Letters from the Moon

by IsabellaAmoreSirenix

Useless Things

Black. Cold. Desolate. Empty. Shadowy. Lightless.

All were words to describe darkness, and despite what ponies believed, Celestia was no stranger to this. After all, it was only in the darkest hours that the light of her sun could fully shine. Of course, she also had found great beauty and comfort in her sister’s night of shadows. However, the sun princess didn’t think even all the shadows in Equestria combined could convey the absolute darkness that pervaded the dark side of the moon. It was almost a physical force, one that gouged out her eyes and slid like wraiths over her coat. The melancholy wind hissed their songs of lies and grief and madness as it wrapped around and choked her, blocking off Celestia’s terrified scream as the darkness paralyzed her and left her blind.

This isn’t Luna’s power, Celestia realized in horror as she continued to drown in unyielding darkness. This is the power of Nightmare Moon.

Oh, how could I have been so foolish?! she cursed. Of course she wanted to bring me here, far away from the Elements of Harmony, just to kill me! To think I thought Harmony had cured her, to think I thought she had changed…

A pair of midnight-black hooves wrapped around her neck, throttling her further as the evil darkness continued to snake around her with its icy chill of death. As she felt her consciousness slipping away, the pounding of her frantic heart became unbearably loud, drowning out the distant screams of a voice she once knew, with the darkness chanting all the while:

Trespasser, backstabber, traitor to our Lady—

“SILENCE!” Luna commanded, her Royal Canterlot Voice ringing with deafening strength throughout the silent moonscape. “Leave us in peace, dark creatures of Our soul!”

With a hum of magical energy, the world was instantly bathed in a dim indigo light, revealing a horde of shadow wraiths, demons of smoke and shadow with eyes like tunnels and hearts of ice, making them a formidable force to be reckoned with. However, at the presence of light, the wraiths howled in agony at the brightness, shielded their eyes, and fled in terror from the dome of light surrounding the two sisters.

At once, the evil darkness was lifted. Twinkling patterns of stars were now visible, the atmosphere was no longer an empty vacuum, and Celestia’s trembling knees finally gave way as she collapsed.

“Sister, sister!” Luna cried.

Celestia turned around to see that it was indeed Luna, not Nightmare Moon, who had her hooves wrapped around her neck and was shaking her worriedly.

Of course it was her. How could it not be? No wonder Luna believed she was a monster; Celestia thought the very same thing. Celestia’s somber eyes fell downward in shame. That hadn’t been the first time she had failed to trust her sister.

---

“She… she really said that about me?” Celestia asked, biting her lip to keep from crying.

“I’m afraid so, princess,” answered Lady Diamonds as she levitated her teacup to take another sip.

“But why? I thought Shining Starlight was my friend!” Celestia cried. The newly crowned princess had been looking forward to casual tea with her friend on the gazebo in Everfree Gardens, not to receiving such terrible news as this.

“Until she was able to get you to lend money from the Royal Treasury to pay for that villa in Canterbury, sure,” said the noblemare nonchalantly, readjusting her floppy summer hat to rest on her softly curled teal mane. She daintily sipped her tea and looked out to the gardens. “I must say, Saddle Arabians know how to make heavenly tea, princess.”

“Sunshine, this is important!” Celestia demanded. “What else did she say about me?”

“Well, nothing outright, of course, at least not in public,” Sunshine answered, stressing the last three words that Celestia knew meant a whole bunch of gossip. Not all that discreetly, she glanced left and right, making sure there were no eavesdroppers before leaning in and saying, “but word is that she’s supporting Princess Luna instead of you.”

Celestia raised her eyebrows in confusion. “Wait, so what’s the difference? Luna and I rule together. Sure, Starlight may not like me, but she still supports the monarchy, so what’s the problem?”

Sunshine nearly choked on her tea. “Princess, this is a severe problem for you politically! Shining Starlight isn’t the only pony who thinks this. If Princess Luna were to try and undermine you, with the public approval, she’d have no trouble overthrowing you!”

But Celestia only burst out laughing. “A conspiracy theory, Sunshine? Truly? How amusing! I knew you could crack a joke if you tried!” Celestia’s merriment faltered upon noticing her friend’s completely stoic expression. “You… you don’t honestly believe that, do you? Luna is my own sister; she’d never do something like that!”

“You should never be too complacent,” Sunshine chided. “Even blood bonds can be broken.”

“But Luna’s so docile,” Celestia protested. "She's never had so much as a quarrel with me."

“Exactly,” Sunshine agreed triumphantly, flashing Celestia a cunning smile. “That means she’ll be easier to control. She already looks up to you, so just keep that up. Make an arrangement without telling her here, an executive veto there, and you’ll have made sure power leans towards you. Little things can go all long way. As a friend, take my advice on this, princess.”

“I’ll take advice from ponies who treat me like a friend,” Celestia answered, furrowing her brow in irritation. “I thought I asked you to call me Celestia.”

“I’m calling you Princess to remind you that you are one, and you need to start acting like one,” Sunshine replied, her words like a blunt axe. “You’ve more than proven your ability to fight off outside threats, but now you need to figure out how to fight the battles at home. Your enemies aren’t going to be black and white like Discord or Sombra; they’ll be much more deceptive, hiding like changelings in plain sight. Politics is a dangerous war, princess, and a hardened heart is much harder to stab than a soft one. If you’re not ready, they’ll just chop up yours and throw Equestria into an anarchy once again.”

The new princess was lost for words. “I… well… you didn’t have to be so cold about it.”

“Being cold-hearted is the only thing that helped me survive the heated politics of Everfree City,” Sunshine Diamonds said with her usual air of indifference. “I’m not saying to be heartless to your sister, but… don’t be too trusting, either. You have to be able to hold your own. Don’t be afraid to be firm or commanding or distant; that’s how all leaders are. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.”

Celestia’s eyes widened. Sunshine had more experience in these kinds of things than she did. She was so new at this; she couldn’t afford to make a mistake. She wouldn’t even risk that sort of failure, not for the sake of her little ponies. “Are you really sure?” Celestia asked, her breathy voice on the verge of admiration for the sophisticated, confident mare.

“Of course I am,” Sunshine replied with a knowing smile. “Never forget, Celestia, that you can never trust any pony in this world, not when they can leave you. Encase your heart in ice so they can’t take a piece of it when they go. Remember that the only pony you can ever rely on is yourself.”

---

“Sister, are you alright?” Luna demanded in concern, snapping Celestia out of the memory.

Back in reality, the sun princess jerked her head as if to shake out all thoughts of Sunshine Diamonds. She wondered what Sunshine would think of her now, defenseless on enemy territory and trusting her formerly evil sister with her life. “Y-Yes, I believe so,” Celestia answered as she stood up and looked around the now deserted moonscape, devoid of the shadows that had just assaulted her. “What were those things?”

Luna hung her head in shame. “Creatures of the Nightmare Dreamscape,” she replied. “Remnants of my evil power. Forgive Us, please; We did not intend them to be here.”

“How long have they existed here?” Celestia inquired.

“A thousand years,” Luna answered simply.

“How did I never learn of them before?”

At this, Luna shot her sister a scathing, bitter look. “It is truly amazing, how ponies never notice things that turn their backs on the sun. All the darkness, all the pain, it all gets brushed aside, as if it never existed at all. It is a deadly curse, for perhaps those most desperate to hide need only require the luminance of day. You should know that better than anypony. But come now. What We have to show you can only be seen in your light.”

With a heavy sigh of submission, Celestia nodded and fell in step behind Luna as she led them through the grey sea of endless dust and ashes. While the moon was still enveloped in darkness, the pale luminance of Luna’s horn allowed them to see the path ahead reasonably enough.

As they walked along in silence, Celestia couldn’t help but notice a subtle change in Luna compared to back home. Luna was no longer clumsily bumping into ponies or meekly hiding behind Celestia or gazing out to the horizon with a wistful look in her eyes. No, this Luna’s eyes were filled with a confidence and determination that only came with purpose. Her delicate hooves glided over the uneven terrain as she held her head high, her fast-returning ethereal mane making her look all the more majestic. She was one with the moon, was in her element once more, and while melancholy still clung to her eyes, it was overpowered with a sense of belonging.

Meanwhile, the sun princess took in what little sights of this strange moon she could see and pondered what it must have been like for Luna to live in such a desolate place for so long. To remain in such absolute isolation must have been such a torturous existence, and Celestia wondered if Luna had ever gone mad with loneliness.

That happened long before she went to the moon, Celestia, a spiteful voice inside her head hissed. You only made it worse.

“Luna,” Celestia murmured tentatively, “if you don’t mind me asking, I… I just wanted to know… that is, if it’s alright…”

“Speak up, sister,” the younger princess commanded, her voice gentle yet strangely distant. “We told you before; We want to unveil the truth of our exile to you. No matter how painful the memory, it will be divulged to you.”

“But do you even have concrete memories of this place?” Celestia asked. “What could you have possibly done here that would have been worth remembering?”

“Many things,” Luna answered, gazing listlessly out to the unseen horizon. “Mostly We just wandered and thought about millions of things not worth mentioning, but there were other events too, meaningless things We devised to not just kill time, but to slay the eternal battlefield of empty centuries. For a while, We were obsessed with counting, though We could never bear to count the time. At one point, We believe We had numbered over 152 million stars in the sky and at least nine thousand craters on the moon. Then, when We were tired of that, We switched over to mathematics. We probably devised at least five hundred new theorems just in Our head, though We have forgotten most of them. We liked numbers. They were orderly, logical. They helped keep Us sane.

“Of course, it didn’t do all that much when faced with utter madness brought on by solitude. When We weren’t devising impossible schemes to exact revenge on you, We would often scream death threats to you in Our madness. Of course, it wasn’t as though We wouldn’t have liked to be dead as well. We tried everything, from continuously running across the moon to the point of exhaustion, to ramming Ourselves repeatedly against a crater wall, but you know it takes more than that to kill an alicorn. We remember once digging a ten-meter hole in the moon and burying Ourselves alive for decades. It was the insanity of standing at the station in wait for a carriage that would never come. It came to the point where We wanted to kill Ourselves just for the sake of having something to do. We didn’t really care about anything anymore.

“We think the only reason why We lived was that We cared about you. In hate or love, you mattered to Us. You were the mare that made Us cry.”

---

“Stop here,” Luna said after a while, so quietly that it would have been inaudible if not spoken in a completely silent world. Wordlessly, Celestia halted to a standstill next to her sister, and together the two alicorn goddesses that brought life to the planet stood alone, the triumphant survivors against the backdrop of a world of death and darkness.

As minutes passed and the moon continued to turn on its axis, Celestia was able to see her sun slowly creep over the horizon, staining the sky pastel pinks and oranges before dramatically rising as a blazing of fiery gold that smiled down on the alicorn sisters with boundless light and love that shattered the darkness.

And for the first time in her life, Celestia was completely overcome with the magnificent beauty of her sun, so lovely and wonderful and perfect that it almost brought tears to her eyes. Celestia tilted her head upward to meet its glowing, shining face, risen not by her own power, but by a natural, cosmic rhythm that was old as time and mysterious in its boundless wonder. She spread her soft feather wings wide as if to catch the power of those sunbeams and fly away, far beyond the cold, horrible moon and—

“Look down, Celestia,” Luna prodded, looking at her now enraptured sister with a combination of exasperation and resentment.

Coming back to her senses once more, Celestia abashedly folded her wing and pried her eyes away from the sun. She took several steading breaths, implementing the calming technique she had once taught her niece Cadence, and braced herself for the gut-wrenching shock she knew could only await her now.

Celestia looked down to the ground and gasped.

The moon was covered in words.

Now aided by the light of the sun, Celestia could see the flat grey expanse of the moon was entirely obscured by words, like a child trying to cram a thousand sentences on a single page. Some letters were jagged trenches ten feet wide, while others were minute scrapes no longer than a hair’s breadth. Many words were jumbled and overlapped onto others, at times forming a scribbling mess of incoherency. The styles ranged from Luna’s elegant calligraphy to messy scrawls, marking her rapid descent into madness.

“Well, go on then,” Luna said, averting her eyes in favor of looking out towards the dark side of the moon behind her. “You wanted the truth, did you not? Read them.”

Celestia knelt down to the moondust and traced her hoof in wonder over the numerous grooves in the rockbed, presumably from Luna scraping her hoof into the surface, like a filly drawing pictures in the sand with a stick. Some messages were horribly illegible, but the phrases Celestia could read were even worse. ‘It is so very, very cold, to live in the shadow of the sun, as it draws away my life, my hope, my spirit. When does the taking stop? What of when I have no more to give, when my head is on a stake and my heart crushed in her hoof?’

Then a few meters away, in messier writing: ‘I can feel the sun burning me, my blood leaking onto the ground. I know she waits behind me, but I dare not look, even as my blood drains into her eyes and stains them crimson with her sin. I cannot, for no one can behold the face of Death and live. For she is my Destroyer, who has killed all that I ever was.’

Then even later, the words scribbled hastily in her insanity: ‘I think I may have died today. Or yesterday. Or a thousand years ago. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps all I have seen and felt has been but a mere second on the bridge between the worlds. I don’t believe I’ll ever know. All I do know is before I ever die, I’ll have to kill her first. Celestia – I can hardly bear to write the name – will rue the day she ever thought to challenge me.’

“A thousand years in isolation gave Us… a lot to think about,” Luna said as she warily watched her sister reading.

“Luna,” Celestia cried, “what is this?”

“You asked of the correlation between Us and Nightmare Moon,” Luna explained. “In actuality, we are the same pony. She is merely a magnification of Our insanity, Our rage and jealousy so intense that it drove Our mind into chaos, the very opposite of the harmonious being We were. How We wish We could tell you that Our mistakes were brought about by a possession or an evil curse, but to do so would be a lie, an excuse to push the burden of guilt away from Us, where blame truly belongs. Our failure was nothing but Our own.”

“And… and these words?” Celestia asked, waving a hoof at the dreary landscape.

“Perhaps twisted from Our insanity, but every word and emotion engraved here was true at the time it was written. What you see before you are the scars of Our heart.”

Eyes now blurred with tears, Celestia was impulsively brought back to those words, those awful, accusatory words screaming the unbearable truth in her ears. Every account of hate or vengeance also carried with it a weight of guilt and shame for Celestia. All of this pain traced its origin straight back to her. At heart, she was the only one to blame. How was she supposed to live with that?

“We… I brought you here for a reason, Celestia,” Luna began. “When you told me that you were going to spare my life, I knew that for whatever reason, you had gone too soft on me. I brought you here to remind you of the monster I always was, and probably still am. I am a threat to you, Celestia. I doubt that will ever change.”

Luna closed her eyes and sighed. “Which is why… why I’m choosing to stay here,” she announced, her face scrunched up in pain, as if the very words themselves were tearing her insides apart. “On the moon. Away from Equestria. Away from you.”

“And before you start,” Luna added as Celestia started to get up and protest, “please, you need to remember what I did all those years ago. I’m still capable of doing all those horrible things again. I won’t allow myself to hurt anyone else. Trust me, the world is a better place without me. Equestria’s ponies will be safer without me in their lives. It… It’ll be easy for you,” Luna said, smiling as tears streamed down her face. “All you have to do is let me go, like you did all those years ago, and it’ll be like… like I was never there at all.”

“No,” the elder sister declared. “You know I’ll never do that, Luna. As much as I tried, I was never able to move past what happened—“

“But you already have!” Luna insisted. “Everypony moved on a long time ago, didn’t they? I’ve seen the beautiful, amazing kingdom you’ve created without me, Sister, but that’s just the point. You were able to reach far beyond either of our dreams all by yourself. Me being on the moon… it d-didn’t r-really matter, did it? I was gone, and nopony ever really cared. You all were able to carry on without me. You… you were able to leave me behind.”

At this, the lunar princess broke down in tears. “And I… I don’t want you to feel like you have to wait for me, either. Everything’s already changed too much. I don’t want to go running after you, trying to keep up with it all, all the thousands and millions of precious moments of life that I missed and can never get back. I don’t belong in your world anymore. I never did. The only place left for me is on the moon. No one will have to remember me here.”

Celestia’s red-rimmed eyes widened. The Luna she remembered never would have had the courage or the heart to make that kind of sacrifice. Celestia doubted she herself would have been able to, even now. Her exile had changed her; she was no longer the little filly Celestia knew. She had grown up so much, so beautifully, and Celestia hadn’t even realized it until now. Maybe Luna wasn’t the only pony left behind.

“Do you really think I have the strength to do that?” Celestia wondered aloud. “I’m sorry, Luna, but if you do, you’re overestimating me. I was never able to let go of my memories of you, even if I had truly wanted to. I—“

“No,” Luna murmured. “Just stop, sister. Don’t try to sugarcoat things to make me feel better. I am fully aware of what I intend to do.”

“Well, apparently you’re not aware, because I’ll never let you do it,” Celestia retaliated. “I’m not going to leave you here in this Faust-forsaken land to wither away! Can’t you see, Luna? You belong in Equestria, you’re needed there—“

“But I’m not!” Luna screamed. “Don’t you understand? I never belonged there! The reason ponies didn’t love my night is because they didn’t need it. They didn’t need me. You didn’t need me.”

---

“Ingenious, princess!” praised Apple Harvest, Celestia’s head advisor. “Why, with your new proposal, we’ll be able to nearly triple Canterlot’s yearly income! This new festival of yours—“

“Let’s call it the Summer Sun Celebration, shall we?” Celestia suggested, barely able to contain her satisfied grin.

“The Summer Sun Celebration,” Apple Harvest amended, “will bring in enormous revenue for the city, saving it from bankruptcy! Your insight has saved us once again, princess!”

Celestia pretended to seem abashed by the compliment, when inside, she was glowing with smug pride. “Oh, you always say that, Harvest.”

“And every time it’s true,” Apple Harvest replied with jovial sincerity. “Equestria could not be a finer country under you and your sister.”

Celestia’s kind eyes briefly darkened at the mention of Luna, but per usual, she hid it underneath her practiced serenity. “Thank you, Harvest. That’s very kind of you to say. I am sure my… sister—“ The princess grimaced, as if the word itself was sour. “—would appreciate your words.”

“Speaking of which, where is the esteemed Princess Luna today, if I might ask?” the caramel Earth pony asked upon noticing the absence of one of Equestria’s alicorns.

That was a good question. Judging by the nighttime sky, Luna should have joined them hours ago. Celestia herself hadn’t seen Luna since that morning, during their little… disagreement. ‘She’s probably moping around and doing nothing to help me, like always,’ Celestia thought disdainfully. “She is merely under the weather, I believe,” she said aloud instead. “If my presence is no longer needed her, I shall be on my way to check on her. In the meantime, please inform Canterlot of my proposition. We’ll most likely arrange for it to be held within the next few days, during the summer solstice.”

“Oh, and one more thing, princess,” Apple Harvest called as Celestia was just about to leave the council room. “What should be done about the meteor shower Princess Luna suggested for tomorrow night? With the sheer magnitude of the Summer Sun Celebration, we’ll need all our finest weather pegasi to arrange the perfect conditions in Canterlot. There won’t be enough left to handle Luna’s event.”

The sun princess screeched to a stop. That was right. She had promised Luna that a while back, hadn’t she? She remembered how Luna had been so overjoyed that she nearly squeezed all the air out of her lungs with a grateful hug before preceding to eagerly jump around the throne room until she banged her leg, and even then she wore the most heartwarming smile. She had been so overwhelming happy then. Luna would be absolutely devastated by this change.

“Are you absolutely sure we can’t do both?” Celestia nearly pleaded.

“No, I’m sorry, but I don't think we can,” Apple Harvest answered. “You’ll just have to choose, Princess Celestia.”

Celestia internally sighed. There was that title again, a constant reminder of the pony she had to be. She may have been the princess, but really she was nothing more than a servant for her little ponies. And as princess, she would have to sacrifice things for their sake, just as Luna would have to learn to do if she wanted to keep her own title. Besides, it was just a silly meteor shower; it could always be rescheduled. It was nothing in comparison to this, an event that would save the revenue of an entire city. Like she said earlier, Equestria had no time for pretty spectacles. In the end, they were nothing but a troublesome hassle to her, just like her sister.

“Then cancel the meteor shower,” Celestia commanded, her voice hardened in ice. “I have no need for useless things.”

---

Back in the present, Celestia sighed. She’s right. That’s all I used to think of her.

“But it’s alright, you know?” Luna continued, genuinely smiling through her breaking face and bitter tears. “I get it now. I was nothing but a bother to you. I did nothing but distract you and hinder you and hold you back from the mare you were supposed to be. I tried so hard to make you proud, but it was never enough, I suppose. You would always be ashamed of me, and in turn, I would always drag you down. That’s natural, isn’t it? We can’t all be heroes. We can’t all have a purpose. Somepony has to take the fall. And as much as I wish I didn’t have to be your weakness, I realize now that it’s all I’m really good for. I suppose all I can hope for is that once I get out of your life, you’ll finally be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Luna…” Celestia whispered, frozen in place in shock. She raised a trembling hoof to reach out to her sister, to find some way to reason with her, but the broken look in Luna’s eyes said it all. She had already decided.

Luna conjured a navy-blue orb of magic and handed it to Celestia. “Here’s my magic to let you go home. It’s all I have left to give you.”

Then without another word, before Celestia could even say another word, Luna turned and flew away, farther and farther, until she was swallowed up by the darkness of the moon.

Celestia was crushed. Luna had left again, and this time, she had no hope of getting her back. Collapsing into a sobbing mess, the sun princess fell to the ground, where Luna’s parting words now lay written before her.

I’m so sorry, Celestia.

Comments

[TheMyth]

derpicdn.net/img/2013/8/21/406082/large.png

[EternityFlame]

[IsabellaAmoreSirenix]

3503436 You've just found the cover for my next fanfic.
3503458 Glad this is living up to the Sad tag!

[Fluid Apple]

“I’m not going to leave you here in this Faust-forsaken land to wither away!

Did...,Celestia just break the fourth wall?

[angelic_song]

I cried so hard. Like you have no idea! How hard I cried

[Evelyn]

This fanfic is amazing, I think that it's the first I have seen in which Luna and Nightmare Moon are not two different people

[Yubella]

All were words to describe darkness, and despite what ponies believed, Celestia was no stranger to this. After all, it was only in the darkest hours that the light of her sun could fully shine. Of course, she also had found great beauty and comfort in her sister’s night of shadows. However, the sun princess didn’t think even all the shadows in Equestria combined could convey the absolute darkness that pervaded the dark side of the moon. It was almost a physical force, one that gouged out her eyes and slid like wraiths over her coat. The melancholy wind hissed their songs of lies and grief and madness as it wrapped around and choked her, blocking off Celestia’s terrified scream as the darkness paralyzed her and left her blind.

I'm sure Alicorns need to breath as I've seen Celestia strangled before. And you need to be able to breathe to feel lack of air