Remembering to See

by IsabellaAmoreSirenix

Insomnia on a Noonday Melody

“What do you mean you still haven’t found anything?” Celestia asked. Her eyes swept over the dozens of books, scrolls, and astrology charts, all scattered haphazardly throughout Starswirl’s private study, as if a hurricane had suddenly raged through, leaving nothing but a sea of parchment and ink in its wake. All of it had to be evidence of research, of progress, right?

“I meant exactly what I said, Princess Celestia,” Starswirl answered simply, not taking his eyes off the papers on his writing desk. “Regretfully, the Mage Council has been unable to form any sort of hypothesis on how to bring Princess Luna back to Equestria.”

“But it’s been three weeks!” Celestia protested. “How can you still not have results?”

Starswirl sighed and looked up at the princess. “We have formed several theories based on what little data we were able to gather, but none of them have yet to pass a preliminary phase of testing. After all, we’re still trying to figure out exactly what occurred that night.”

“The Elements of Harmony sent Luna to the moon,” Celestia said impatiently. “There’s nothing else to figure out.”

Starswirl raised an eyebrow. "Did they? As far as we are aware, the Elements of Harmony have no sentience. Their power must be activated and directed by the user, a fact to which you yourself have attested."

"How dare you," Celestia demanded in a dangerously low voice, her blood boiling and rising to the surface. "How dare you suggest that I willed my sister to be banished to such a horrible, horrible place! Despite anything between us, I still loved her! I still love her now! I would never send her away, never!"

Starswirl only watched her emotional outburst with his trademark indifference. "I am not insinuating anything, Your Highness," he answered calmly. "I am simply looking at the situation based on what I know."

"To Tartarus with what you know!" she screamed. "You know nothing; you said as much yourself!"

"Do not suggest such ineptitude from me," Starswirl ordered, his eyes narrowed into a scowl. "We are gathering information. We have knowledge, just not completely. Do not put words into my mouth, princess, for there may be no room left for the truth."

That reprimand seemed to sober her. "How can you not understand her banishment?" she asked in a quieter voice. "I gave you my testimony of what happened."

“Of which we are grateful, but you have only given us the what, not the how or why. The nature of her banishment is what the Mage Council is grappling with,” Starswirl replied. “On the night of Princess Luna’s banishment, the Elements of Harmony acted in a way that nopony predicted. You should not have been able to wield all six Elements by yourself, princess; the overload of magic should have killed you if you tried. The only reason you were able to wield three safely is due to you being an alicorn, a perfect, harmonious blending of all three pony tribes.”

Celestia internally groaned. She had heard this all before. “I don’t have time for repetition,” she declared testily.

“Neither do I, Princess Celestia,” Starswirl retorted, standing up from his chair. His Mage cloak skimmed the carpeted floor, causing his golden bells at the hem to rattle dully as he opened the door with an almost mocking bow. “I do not have any new information, no matter how many times a week you continue to come demanding it, but if you truly desire better results, then perhaps it would be wise for you to leave me to my work.” He jerked his bell-brimmed hat towards the door.

Celestia cast her eyes down in shame under Starswirl’s steely gaze, one that didn’t quite mask the dark circles under his eyes. She glanced back at the messy workplace, this time with a pang of guilt. He worked under Luna’s command for most of the time, didn’t he? Maybe I’m not the only pony who lost her that day.

“Starswirl?” Celestia asked tentatively just as he began to retreat into the depths of his personal library and his own thoughts. The quiet vulnerability in her voice was enough to make him stop and turn around to look directly into her eyes.

“Yes, Celestia?” he asked, his tone not quite as curt as before.

She pawed at the ground in a rare display of hesitation. “I understand that you don't have such extensive information, and there is no way of you knowing for sure, but in your opinion... do you think Luna’s okay on the moon? That is to say, do you think the Elements hurt her? Is she safe by herself? Is she cold or hungry or afraid? I hope she doesn’t feel too lonely, even though she probably is. Maybe she misses me, I don’t know.” Looking down, she added in a whisper, “I just want her to come home.”

Starswirl’s bright blue eyes were calculating, evaluating the somber princess, until he finally looked away in resignation. “Sit down, Celestia,” he ordered quietly as he returned to his desk.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” she said as she cautiously lowered herself onto the velvet-cushioned seat.

“I haven’t liked the sound of it for three weeks,” Starswirl replied, “but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s three weeks overdue.” He let out a tired sigh. “Princess Celestia, while I can assure you that the Mage Council will continue to look for a solution for as long as you command it, I… I believe it is time that you face the true reality of this situation.

“If there have ever been two things the Mage Council has been unable to comprehend in the field of magic, they are the Elements of Harmony and alicorns. Both are extremely powerful and complex forces, and both were discovered within this generation. And now we are presented with a situation that involves both enigmas colliding in such an unprecedented manner that Faust knows how many theories concerning the two have been utterly shattered because of it. That is the scope of the challenge that Princess Luna’s banishment left us. Thus, as much as we are working to uncover the mystery and bring about her return, we will not have a solution ready for you in days, princess. I even doubt months or years will cover the time will take. And even if a plausible theory is formed, putting into action a project of such magnitude will most likely span several generations of mages. Unless blessed with a miracle of a breakthrough, I believe that is the time frame you are faced with, princess.”

Celestia listened to every word Starswirl said. Then she played it over and over again, syllable by syllable in her head, until the nonsense words had been branded into her mind and heart. For that was what they were to her. Utterly incomprehensible nonsense. Like the music that haunted her day and night, she knew every word, yet she didn’t understand at all. Since when did ‘Luna,’ ‘return,’ and ‘several generations’ go together? What did they mean?

“Well, alright then.” She almost couldn’t recognize that calm, collected voice as hers. There wasn’t even a single break in her words.

She lifted a delicate hoof to her eye. There were no tears. Maybe she was too tired to care about crying, about anything ever again. Her whole body felt numb, like she had been encased in ice. But that was fine with her. It meant she wouldn’t have to feel the pain.

“Should we say around three hundred years for the sake of optimism?” Celestia said with a laugh. She wanted to cry from how bitter and cruel it sounded.

Starswirl nodded solemnly, his eyes softened in pity. “I’m so sorry, princess.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she answered with the hollowness of a dull bell. “You were right to tell me.” There it was. No crying, no screaming, no denial. Just acceptance.

Celestia bowed her head, letting her pink mane swirl around her like a curtain, concealing her from the world that had managed to flip itself upside down in less than a minute. She thought back to what she had said earlier, all her worries about Luna’s wellbeing. How shallow and daft those concerns seemed now.

How will Luna cope up there, in complete isolation for hundreds of years? What will happen to her after all that time? Will she still be the sister I love? Will she still hate me for what I did, what I had to do? Will she lose her mind with loneliness and not remember me at all? Will she even remember my name? Will she think that I forgot her, left her behind to be all alone?

Earlier that day, Celestia had believed there could only be two options that could from this crisis. Either her sister would come back as Luna or as Nightmare Moon. But now, realizing just how naïve that notion had been, she came to understand that there was an all too real and terrifying third option.

Luna could not come back at all.

Unwillingly, Celestia found herself getting up and walking towards the door. A distant part of her wanted to scream, to do something, anything other than calmly walk out as if nothing had happened at all. It wanted to fight for that sliver of a chance, that cruel, illogical hope that held her heart by a fragile thread only to be sliced to pieces by reality, but the chains of grief that weighed on her heart kept it silent. So her gait remained steady, and her eyes clearer than the sunniest day. If a stranger had seen her then, he or she would have thought she was perfectly at peace with the world.

Oh, how wrong that was.

Celestia let the haunting music fill her head, silencing her thoughts.

---

“How could you tell her such a thing?!”

Starswirl winced as Rose Petal caught the attention of yet another pair of royal guards, this time with her impossibly high screeching that left his eardrums ringing. How she didn't manage to break the sound barrier, he didn't know. Just another trait he chalked up to the enigma of mares. “Honestly, you make it out to be like I told her Princess Luna had been condemned to Tartarus. I simply told her the truth; she had to find out some time.”

“Yes, but not like that!” Rose Petal screeched, shaking her head in disbelief at his tactlessness. Just another puzzling thing about stallions. “Not now, not at a time like this!”

“You didn’t see her when she was getting ready to leave,” Starswirl said in his defense. “The way she was talking about Princess Luna not getting too cold at night, that she wasn’t too scared about being by herself; she sounded like an overprotective mare worrying about her filly’s first week away at camp!”

“She’s in denial,” she stated simply. “It’s a part of the grieving process. She needs time to come to terms with that night, and you pushing her won’t make her any readier. You have to wait until the time is right.”

“Is the time ever right?” Starswirl asked fiercely as they ascended the spiral staircase of the Solar Tower. “Are any of us ever truly ready to face something like that? Do you think the families of those drafted into the military were ready to hear about such tragedy? Were you ready to learn that Starlight Willow was killed in the Lunar Rebellion?”

Rose Petal winced at the name. “No,” she whispered, the little word catching in her throat. “No, I wasn’t.”

Starswirl watched in shock as Rose Petal hid her face behind her turquoise mane, her emotions indicated only by a few subdued, hiccupping sobs. “I… I’m sorry,” he apologized, turning away as he mentally kicked himself. “That was tactless.”

“Yes,” she agreed with a little smile as she wiped away the forming tears. “Yes it was. I can see now why you spend all your time cooped up in your tower.”

“Well, apparently I wasn’t safe up there today, not with what happened with the princess. But still, I don’t take back the things I said to her. I want her to prepare her heart so she can endure all the hardship that will befall her, but how can she when she doesn’t even fully grasp what’s happening?”

“I understand, but still, I wish you didn’t have to take away her hope,” Rose Petal replied. “She might have made it through with that. It was the only thing she was relying on. You shouldn’t have taken that away from her or anypony, not now or ever.”

“Even when that hope is based on a lie?” asked Starswirl, his eyes narrowed. “As much as you believe an invisible rope is there for you to cling to, if it doesn’t exist, it won’t keep you from falling off the cliff.”

“But it makes you feel better,” she said, more to herself than to Starswirl, as she gazed forlornly out onto the horizon. “You can just keep imagining invisible ropes holding you up so you don’t have to know how far you’re falling. Sometimes things are just better left unsaid; it’s easier that way. Sometimes it’s the only way you can be happy.”

“Then you don’t think I made the right decision, do you?” Starswirl asked. It wasn’t harsh or defensive, merely a soft-spoken plea for direction.

Just then, a loud, wounded wailing sounded from within Celestia’s chambers.

Rose Petal turned to look at Starswirl with her piercing green eyes. “I suppose I’ll find out.”

---

“RRRAAAAAAHHHH!”

Rose Petal jumped back out of the doorway as a priceless porcelain vase from Saddle Arabia went flying through the air, only to shatter as it hit the nearest wall.

“Princess!” she cried, her eyes wide with shock. The bedroom was in shambles, with tapestries torn down, books tossed off their shelves, and shards of pottery lying in seas of orange and yellow. Meanwhile, Philomena had long since given up on placating her mistress in favor of cowering on her perch in the darkest corner. And Celestia was sitting in the midst of the chaos, writing in a crazed frenzy at her desk, and every so often she would add to the disaster by throwing anything within her range.

“Rose!” Celestia exclaimed with a start, looking around at the havoc she had caused. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’ll fix everything later, but I need to get this accursed music out of my head!”

Rose Petal took that as a sign of sanity, so she cautiously advanced, taking care to not step on any jagged pieces of glass, until she was looking directly over Celestia’s shoulder.

Whatever the princess was writing, it definitely wasn’t in any language Rose Petal recognized, although it did consist of the Equestrian alphabet. She watched as Celestia wrote at breakneck speed, her quill jerking to the next line almost mechanically. She wrote without the slightest pause to think, creating a continuous line of scrawled hoofwriting. Despite it being nonsensical gibberish, the princess’ eyes narrowed in utmost concentration as she read the words, only to grow frustrated and throw something again.

Finally, Celestia threw the quill down and massaged her weary eyes with her hooves. “This is what I don’t understand, Rose,” she said with an exasperated sigh as she levitated the parchment for her maid to see. “I keep hearing this in my head over and over all day and night, and… oh, it’s hard to explain exactly why, but there’s this split second where I can understand every word, but the moment I do a double-take and really think about it like now, the meaning just slips away like sand, and I can’t remember it at all, but whatever it means, it’s driving me insane, and… and… I just can’t.”

“Princess,” Rose Petal began with a soft, sad kind of pity, “this doesn’t have anything to do with what Grand Mage Starswirl told you about your sister, does it?”

“No, just no,” Celestia cried, growing agitated again. “Please, just… don’t even mention that for now. It’s bad enough having to worry about this mess; I don’t think I can deal with both at the same time. I already feel like my head is going to melt down.”

Rose Petal nodded. “I understand, but if I may, I don’t believe torturing yourself over such a phantom melody is helping any.”

“I know, but it’s just… this is the only thing I can do,” Celestia said. “I feel so powerless right now. I couldn’t save Luna, I don’t know if I can save Equestria, and I’m certainly not saving myself by this point. My mind is one of the few things of worth that I can control, and the music along with it. Perhaps I believe it can save Luna, and perhaps I don’t, but either way I need to try something. That’s... that's the cruel thing about hope. It feeds off desperation. As reality grows ever more apparent, hope will make the fantasies of madmares seem as limitless as the sea. It only makes our dreams burn brighter as the door swings shut, plays with our hearts like a puppet master, and when the door finally closes, it just takes that heart and crushes it.”

“It is not a weakness to hope, princess,” Rose Petal said.

Celestia closed her eyes, hiding her heart filled with sorrow. “It is when a fragile lifeline is your only salvation.”

Rose Petal wanted to cry as she watched the young princess struggle to regain composure against the rising tidal wave of tears behind her eyes. Celestia wasn’t the only pony to feel powerless as Rose stood by, unable to give any sort of comfort. She gently laid a reassuring hoof on Celestia’s shoulder, as if her touch could impart all the strength and peace that she so desperately wished she could give.

“I’m fine, Rose,” Celestia murmured soothingly, her magenta eyes smiling up at her. “I’m sorry I got off track. Was there something you wished to tell me?”

No, I can’t do it, Rose Petal wanted to cry as she watched the young princess look up at her, with absolutely no idea why Rose was here, just like every other day. Perhaps it was mental regression, or maybe it was the hope against reason that today Rose would give any answer other than the one that caused her such heartbreak. It’s too cruel, she lamented, tears veiling her green eyes in a dull mist. Too horribly cruel.

“It… It’s time for you to raise the moon.”

---

Head bent to the ground, Celestia made her silent procession out onto the balcony. Although, it wasn’t silent in the regular sense, what with the lonely whistling of the wind, only to be broken by the murmuring conversations of last-minute stragglers in the streets below. But Celestia was deaf to it all, the numbness of earlier spreading to encompass all her senses, sealing them off from the world. She hardly registered the soft pitter-patter of her hooves against the white marble as the curtains parted to reveal the Solar Balcony and the horizon beyond.

The late afternoon wind whipped at Celestia’s face, sending her pink mane into a chaotic frenzy, yet her expression remained perfectly serene, almost as if it had been molded there permanently. She kept her gaze focused in front of her for the most part, although she did sneak a few swift glances behind her, where Rose Petal and five other maids were waiting. Through the curtain of pink shielding her face, she looked side to side at the six guards, three pegasi and three unicorns, stationed on the balcony. She felt their tense gazes locked on her as she stopped at center stage, raised her head, and prepared to perform her part.

From her high perch, she could see the ponies of Canterlot milling about town in the last flicker of daylight. How distant they all felt to her, like being surrounded by aliens, even though the only truly alienated and out of place pony was herself. Not quite a goddess but not quite a pony, leaving her trapped in the middle with nowhere to go.

Celestia looked up to the very peaks of the mountaintops, where the sun hovered just out of reach of their razor-sharp tips. She glared down the burnt, angry-red eye that sent scalding waves of pain over her like water boiled in the hellfire of vice. Sloth and gluttony were its sins, a bloated visage that took up far too much space in the sky, but most of all, it was too prideful, far too prideful. How pretentious it was, how horrid an abomination it was, as it abided sedentary in the heavens in solitude, as if it was the sovereign of it all. Well, Celestia would prove it wrong.

With a swipe of magic, she sent its ugly head crashing onto the mountain spikes below.

Celestia watched in satisfaction as the crimson stain gave way to swirling indigos and purples. Now came the hardest part. Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth to bite back a cry, the sun princess began to channel magic into her ivory horn. The air felt charged with electricity, magic sent flowing in broad, sweeping currents across the sky. For this reason, it was said that twilight was the perfect time for powerful spell casting, as unicorns could actually pick up tiny fragments of the princess’ own magic.

That magic now reached out to cradle the moon from its resting place below the horizon and prepare it for its ascent. Celestia felt her whole body trembling as she touched that cold, aloof presence of the moon, the aura that mixed with her tears to form the bitter sorrow that made her think of the pony she had lost.

I miss you, Luna, Celestia wanted to cry out. I miss all those little, beautiful things about you. The things I never noticed, the things I took for granted. Like today, I kept thinking you would use the Organ to the Outside to suddenly appear in Day Court right next to me, as if you never left. I always loved it when you did, even if I didn’t show it. I wish I never yelled at you for doing that back home. I… I wish I could take back so many things.

Why am I just now starting to realize how wrong I was? You were never useless, Luna, because then why do I need you so desperately now? Please, Luna, I can’t do this by myself, not without you. I’m already breaking apart after three weeks; what will I be like in thirty years? Three hundred? Three thousand years without you? Please don’t make me find out. I would give my life just to see you one more time. Just for a second, I want you to light up my life.

Now I can only see grey, because you were the colors of my life, Luna. Red was the paper heart, signed in crayon, that you gave to me on your first Hearts and Hooves Day, the day you first said you loved me. Orange was the ribbon I tied in your mane for your first Grand Galloping Gala, the one you wanted to keep because it looked like my sunset. Yellow was the halo that lit up your eyes when you saw me raise the sun for the first time. Green was the bunch of grass you got stuck in your mane when I chased you around the castle gardens on our first day in Castle Everfree. Blue was the blanket with moons and stars that you dragged with you when you wanted to sleep in my room on the first night we were given separate chambers. And purple… purple was the sky at twilight when you and I shifted the heavens together for the first time, the night I never appreciated until now.

So many firsts, but I suppose they’re all over now. Everything’s over. It’s all different, it’s all changed with you gone. I know it’s no good to close my eyes either, because then I’ll hear or smell or taste something else that reminds me of you. How… How do you do it? How are you in my entire world, inside my heart, and then gone the moment I look away? How are you somewhere, everywhere, and then nowhere at all?

Celestia raised her eyes to see her sister’s beloved moon now hanging in the sky. The image of Mare in the Moon looked down upon the sun princess accusingly, its hollow crater eyes brimming with tears of starlight.

“No!” Celestia screamed, gripping the balcony railing to steady herself as tears blinded her vision. Sister, I don’t want to be alone, the grieving moon seemed to whisper. Sister, why didn’t you save me? “I’m sorry, Luna!” she howled, the volume burning her throat raw. “I’m sorry!”

“Stop,” she murmured, covering her ears as the music in her head took a sharp crescendo, like driving a spike through her skull. “Just make it stop.”

And suddenly she was in her dream again, with fires blazing up around her and cries of fear echoing in the streets. Celestia swayed from vertigo as she looked down from her balcony, down, down, down into the darkness where Luna had fallen.

“If you truly wanted to save me, all you needed to do was catch me before I fell.”

This was it. This was her chance to save her. With a loud cry, Celestia hurled herself off the balcony, only to then be immediately caught by the six guards stationed there for this exact occurrence. She kicked and trashed wildly in their grasp as they forcefully dragged her away from the edge.

“No!” she cried, biting and kicking and screaming as her guards hauled her into her chambers. “Let me go, let me go! She’s falling!”

Celestia’s eyes were wide in horror as the maids quickly pulled in the curtains, cutting off all view of the moon above. “Luna, I’m sorry!” she screamed, tears streaming from her eyes. “Don’t leave, don’t leave me!”

Celestia still fought valiantly for her freedom, even as the guards pinned her struggling body down to her bed. Her randomly fired spells were countered, her flapping wings were pushed to the sides of her body, and her kicking hooves impeded by ones of even greater strength. Meanwhile, her maids and attendants did their best to calm her down against her wailing and screaming by casting soothing spells or simply whispering comforting words. Finally, Celestia surrendered and fell asleep, her silk blanket damped with tears.

That was it. The storm had blown over. Everypony’s tense muscles relaxed as their adrenaline dipped down, leaving them all at ease yet a little worn out. Then, with sighs of relief all around, the ponies one by one trotted out of the room, closing the door to shroud the event in secret from the world for yet another night.

Finally, only Rose Petal was left, with only a slightly guilty conscience and a certain piece of parchment pressed against her hooves.