Love and Darkness

by Ashen Heart

Chapter one: Grief

The snow seemed to sparkle from the dim glow of the setting sun. Sobbing reverberated from one of the princess’s bedchambers. Slowly Princess Celestia walks by Luna’s bedroom. Hearing her little sister’s sobs she quietly comes in and sits on Luna’s bed beside her.

“What’s wrong, Luna?” she asks concerned.

“S-she’s gone and I’ll n-never see her a-again,” Luna says between sobs.

“Who is ‘she’?”

“Who do you think?! The first snowfall of the year, the one who gave us calm winters, my dearest friend, and the only pony who ever appreciated my night?!” Luna cries out in frustration.

“oh.” mumbles Celestia as a silence falls between the two. The only sound is that of Luna’s silent tears. Celestia wraps a wing around her sister, pulling her closer, and hugs Luna.

“I n-never got the c-chance to say how much I r-regretted saying those n-nasty things to her. I didn’t even g-get the chance to say g-goodbye before she was gone,” Luna says, sniffling trying to calm down.

“It’s okay Luna. She’s probably in Heaven right now, not wanting you to be upset about the past. She’d want you to move on. She’s forgiven you Luna.” Celestia says trying to comfort her sister.

“You don’t know that Tia! Just leave me be!” Luna lashes out.

“If that’s what you want,” Celestia says and leaves the room.

~The next day~

“Come on Nyx, you’re going to be late if you don’t hurry,” Twilight exclaims trying to get Nyx ready for school. Meanwhile Nyx is running around grabbing pencils, paper, markers, and her Cutie Mark Crusader cape.

“Don’t rush me, I’m going as fast as I can,” she yells at twilight who is downstairs waiting with the door open.

“Obviously not fast enough if I’m still down here waiting,”

“I’m coming, I’m coming. Jeez,” finally after another five minutes nyx comes rushing down the stairs, her stuff falling out along the way, and runs out the door.

“Nyx your loosing all the stuff you grabbed, you might as well have grabbed nothing at all,” Twilight lectures as she’s picking up the stuff Nyx dropped.

“Well if someone wasn’t rushing me I would’ve been able to put my things in my bag,” Nyx calls back still running towards school.

“Hey where do u think ur going missy?” Twilight says annoyed.

“Uh to school, duh,” says Nyx sarcastically.

“You’re not leaving without me, so either come back here and help me get ur stuff or wait,” Twilight says in her motherly voice.

“Ugh hurry up,” frets Nyx while she’s prancing around impatiently.

“Now you know how I felt, don’t you?” Twilight says back. Finally done picking up the rest of Nyx’s stuff, she heads out the door to catch up with Nyx. As soon as she closed the door, a burp is heard from inside along with a fiery green light. Spike comes running out the door and tries to catch up with Twilight.

“Twilight! Wait! There’s- a letter- from Celestia,” he says between pants. Twilight grabs the letter from Spike and begins reading it.
To my dearest, most faithful student, Twilight,

I wish to let you know, I am troubled by my sister’s behavior of late. She locks herself away all day in her room and only comes out to rise the moon. I am worried about her, I fear she may go deeper and deeper into her depression and I’d hate to see this happen to her again. She regrets what she said in the past and how she left things with Snowdrop.

~Princess Celestia

Twilight then slips the letter away and hurries Nyx along so she won’t be late.At the same time making a mental note to write a letter to Princess Celestia when she had a moment. As Twilight and Nyx approach the school, 4 fillies run at Nyx tackling her to the ground.

“HI NYX!” shout the Cutie Mark Crusaders all at once.

“Hey girls,” Nyx says laughing and tries to get up.

RING!

All the little fillies and foals run inside for class to begin.

“Hey class, today we’ll be talking about snowflakes and how they came about,” Cheerilee says excitedly. Groans are heard across the room. “Come on class, don’t be like that. It’ll be fun”

“We talk about this every year,” Diamond Tiara says, with a dramatic sigh.

“Yea we already know this story,” Silver Spoon replies.

“It’s not a story class. This actually happened. This is the history of Equestria,” Cheerilee says, trying to enthuse the class.

“Doesn’t take away from the fact we’ve heard it every year,” Diamond mumbles under her breath in frustration

“Anyways, we have a new student that hasn’t heard it yet,” Cheerilee responds. Both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon glare at Nyx. “So let’s begin since we’ve already had quite the delay. Now a long time ago, before Luna turned into Nightmare Moon and Celestia became the sole ruler of Equestria, winters were harsh and full of blizzards. Not even the pegasi could control the weather. Right before spring would come the princesses would choose a school to present a gift, something they created to represent the season.
This year it was one of the Cloudsdale’s schools that got chosen. In it everyone paired off, excited that they got to present something to the princesses themselves. But there was one quiet filly in the back who wasn’t so excited for this. She sat in the back, hearing everyone pairing up and coming up with different ideas. No one came to her. No one wanted to pair up with her. Silently she walked out of class at the end of the day with her head low.

The night before the project’s were due, the filly still didn’t have anything to present to the princess’s. She sits outside her house on a cloud in a depression. She felt as if she had nothing that would ever be worthy enough to present to the princesses. She hangs her head low and sits quietly. Slowly she begins to hear something. A small quiet twinkling. She remembered how her mother had told her when she was little about how the stars twinkled if you listened close enough. Suddenly she hears something drop. It was similar to the twinkling of the stars but she knew that it wasn’t a star. She reached out and grabbed what had dropped and realized that it was ice.

The next day her class had gone to the celebration of spring. Running in late with her mom behind her, the filly calls out for them to wait saying she had something to present too. She showed them a piece of ice. The other fillies and foals began teasing her, but Princess Luna had urged her to continue. After she presents her piece of ice, calling it a snowflake, the princess asks to see it. Princess Luna asked for her name, and the filly said her name was Snowdrop. After some thought and consideration Princess Luna and Princess Luna decided to make the snowflake a permanent part of winter. After that the winter’s calmed down and the pegasi were able to control them. Everypony believing that the snowflake is what calmed down and pleased winter.” Cheerilee turns around facing the class once again, and sees that over half of them are asleep or fake sleeping. She grabbed a ruler and slapped it on her desk. The students all jump at the loud noise. “Class dismissed for recess,” Cheerilee proclaims sternly. All the students grab their coats, snow boots, and hats, running outside to play in the snow.

“What are we gonna do today?” asks Sweetie Bell

“I don’t know what chu wanna do today scoots?” asks Apple Bloom

“Ain’t much we can do,” says Scootaloo sighing.

“We could go on the swings?” suggested Nyx.

“Awright,” Apple Bloom says as they all head to the swings. The C.M.C. start chatting away when they got there. Meanwhile Nyx was going back and forth on the swings. She couldn’t shake the feeling she had heard the name Snowdrop before. She just couldn’t remember where she would’ve heard it. Eventually the others start to notice her silent behavior.

“Ya okay o’er there, Nyx?” asks Apple Bloom.

“Yea, I just can’t help feeling I’ve heard that name before,”

“Whose name?” asks Sweetie Bell.

“Snowdrop,” replies Nyx.

“Ah don’t fret it, Nyx. Miss. Cheerilee has that same lecture every year,” says Apple Bloom

“This is my first year here,” Nyx reminds her.

“I still wouldn’t worry about it too much. It was probably in a book you read at some point,” says Sweetie Bell. Nyx thinks for a moment and says, “I don’t remember any books that would’ve mentioned her.”

“Maybe Twilight mentioned it at some point?” asks Scootaloo. Nyx then remembered that Twilight had been talking about it this morning. That letter from Princess Celestia had said Luna was upset about her. At that point the school bell rang, signalling the little fillies to go inside. Cheerilee finished off the day by talking about mathematics and some more tidbits of Equestrian history. Finally the bell rang for the end of the day. Nyx bolted home.

At the castle, Twilight was putting away a few books that she had read over the weekend. Suddenly there was a loud bang as the door swung open. Nyx could be heard calling out for Twilight. Twilight sighs and turns the corner to see what Nyx was yelling about.

“Mom! Mom! Moooo- oh you’re right there,” Nyx says

“Yes, I am. Which means you didn’t have to yell.” Twilight scolds.

“Can I see that letter from Princess Celestia?” Nyx asks, ignoring Twilight’s scolding.

“What letter?” asks Twilight.

“The letter from this morning” Nyx replies.

“Why do you need to see that?” asks Twilight, clearly confused by the request.

“Because Miss. Cheerilee was talking about Snowdrop in class and I want to see what the letter said about Snowdrop,”

“I guess you can see it, but I don’t know what your teacher talking about Snowdrop has to do with Luna be upset.” Twilight pulls out letter, and hands it to Nyx so she can read it.

“We got to go help Princess Luna,”

“I don’t know Nyx, that’d require closing the library, making sure there’s no royal duties I have to take care off, and you still have school,” Twilight says rambling off a list of reasons they couldn’t go.

“Could we go this weekend then? We close the library on weekends, you don’t have anything planned for this weekend, and I won’t have school.” Nyx pleas, Twilight sighs in regards to her pleading.

“I guess we can make a trip this weekend,” Twilight says.

Author's Note:

This is my first story I hope you like it.