Moonlight In the Woods

by Schattendrache

Ending 3: Aftermath

~One Year Later~

The time in the forest had changed Moonlight, and it wasn’t subtle. After she had returned from the forest and been assailed by the townsfolk, desperate to learn what was hidden behind the wall of leaves and trunks. She had ignored the questions at first, demanding to know where her friends were. The ponies looked at her strangely when she asked this, telling her she had come alone and that the only ponies that even knew she had gone in lived here. They quickly returned to bombarding her with questions, but despite all of their prodding, she was unwilling to tell them what she had seen, only that they were right, she should not have gone in there. She had left the town not long after this and began the long journey towards the town of Stirrup.

When she finally arrived in town, she set about securing herself a job and a home. The job had come quickly, landing a position as an artist for a local design studio, but the house took some time. She initially roomed with a work friend and began saving up for a home. It took several months and some searching, but she was eventually able to find a single story house that she would be comfortable in.

When she had finally moved in, she set about inviting all of the friends that she could think of to a house party. Her friends had been skeptical at first, she received a fair number of messages the following days asking to know what type of prank she was pulling. But nevertheless, all of them had come to the party, a good portion of them even congratulating her on finally taking the initiative towards having a normal life. However, nearly all of them were perplexed as to why this was happening.

Throughout most of the party, Moonlight was asked what had exactly spurred her to get a house and an actual job. She simply gave them all the same answer, ‘I’m just taking a break for now. I just need to get some things in order’. While nopony pressed her on this, it was obvious to anyone that was watching that they didn't entirely believe her. But not wanting to be rude, her friends left it at that.

During the party, however, one pony wasn’t given a proper chance to meet with her, Starcatcher. Throughout the party, he had made several attempts to talk with her, but each time he had started, she quickly came up with an excuse to leave. Eventually, Moonlight felt that she was being rude, that her aversion to talking to him was missguided. So, as she finished talking to a friend about her art, she went to find Starcatcher. She eventually found him chatting with her friend Orchid, the same friend she assumed had told Starcatcher all about why she had missed the party.

Not wanting things to continue to be awkward, when she came up behind Star, she started by apologising for her behaviour. He was quick to forgive, telling her that he had probably been a little too aggressive when trying to say hi. They started out casually, talking about their lives as of late and trading stories of interesting things they had experienced. Inevitably though, the topic of how their last meeting had gone came up, and how she was sorry for having left so suddenly.

However, when he spoke, with each of his responses, the words were ones she had heard before, ones that had been echoing in her ears for months. Words that he should not have known passed his lips and whitened her face. Words that had haunted her dreams almost every night and had refused to go away, despite the best efforts of the princess of the night. Moonlight was quick to leave the conversation after this, not even excusing herself as she dashed to her bathroom.

Moonlight had spent the next half hour looking into her mirror and trying to calm herself down enough to return to the party. After that, the mood of the party had darkened significantly. Moonlight had lost her usual pep and had withdrawn herself, actively avoiding Starcatcher after this, to a point that everyone watching could tell what was going on. When the party finally did wind down and everyone had departed, Moonlight did everything in her power to remain awake, drinking as much coffee as she could and repeating the same line over and over.

“I left the forest, it can’t affect me. This is real.”

She repeated those lines over and over, each time while staring into the steam emanating off the top of a growing number of coffees. When the sun finally crested the horizon and her alarm went off, telling her she should begin to prepare for her workday, Moonlight finally left her couch and, half awake, began the morning ritual she had started when she had first arrived in town.

Moonlight continued this new life of hers; staying in her own house and working a single job day in and day out. Eventually, those days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. In stark contrast to her old self, she made every effort to set aside time to be with her friends as often as possible. To an outside observer, Moonlight was living a perfectly happy life, one that every pony desired to have. But to her friends, the Moonlight they had become friends with had never returned from her last expedition.

The Moonlight they had grown to know was always looking for something new to attempt and always on the move. Though they enjoyed seeing her more often than they had before, her misery and discomfort were constantly plastered across her face. It didn't take them long to deduce that all of this personalization was draining her emotionally. It also didn't take a genius to determine that the reason her behavior had done a one-eighty had to do with something significant having happened to her on her last trip.

For about a month, Moonlights friends were constantly trying to encourage her to open up about this, but Moonlight never would. At first, they had tried asking her both directly and indirectly, but this was only met with avoidance and annoyance. Later, her friends had tried to take her exploring, or even out to try something new. But just like their attempts to get her to open up, this was met with avoidance. Only, this time, Moonlight had lashed out at the last few requests.

To all of Moonlights friends, Moonlight had changed, and not for the better. But of all the ponies that Moonlight had lashed out at, the pony that had been on the receiving end of the worst outbursts was Starcatcher. He had been trying to rekindle their friendship in an attempt to make their interactions less awkward after the mess that was the stargazing incident. But in the months following her buying a house and landing a job, Moonlight had not so subtlety been avoiding him.

Starcatcher figured this out quite quickly, and eventually decided to confront her on what he had done so wrong that she now wanted nothing to do with him. He had come to Stirrup hoping to surprise her at her house, but had caught her heading to the movies with a friend, Rain Catcher, and had instead chosen to talk to her then and there. Unfortunately, this had been a poor decision.

When he trotted over and called out to her, the difference in reactions between Moonlight and Rain Catcher could not have been any starker. While Rain Catcher smiled and greeted him, Moonlight looked as if her every muscle had been pulled taut.

“Hey, Moonlight, I need to talk with you about something important.”

“Not now, me and Rain Catcher were about to catch a movie. Perhaps another time,” Moonlight said, a little faster than would be considered polite.

“Nonsense,” Rain Catcher happily chimed in, “Moonlight and I were just about to have some lunch before we hit the movies. We can always buy food at the theater. Since you came all this way, it must be important.”

Starcatcher looked between Moonlight and Rain Catcher uncertainty, unsure of whether he should ask when Moonlight and him weren’t alone. But seeing no other options based on how distant she had been, he sucked it up. “So, uh, I don't want to sound rude, but I kind of feel like you’re trying to avoid me.” Starcatcher, still not the greatest at conversations, clumsily tried to get to the point as quickly as he could.

“What makes you think that?” The words were a little more pointed than what Starcatcher had been expecting from her.

“Well, you’ve been hanging out with just about everypony you know and... well... I just haven’t been included in that everypony.” Starcatcher had turned his gaze down to his forehooves and was messing with a pebble there.

“Is that it? If you wanted to hang out with me you... you just needed to ask.”

“But that’s the thing, every time I’ve asked you, you tell me you’re busy and maybe next time.”

“Well just send me a letter telling me when you’re available and I’ll see if I can figure out when we can meet.” Moonlight turned away from him and nudged Rain Catcher. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, me and Rain need to get to the theater.”

Starcatcher ran past her and Rain catcher to block them. “Moonlight, please, just tell me what I did to hurt you. I want to be your friend, please, I’m begging you, I want to make things right between us.” Tears were beginning to form around his eyes as he said this.

Seeing that Starcatcher was about to cry, Moonlight wanted to comfort him, but despite her wishes, she couldn’t find her voice. She wanted so desperately to tell him that she was sorry, to reach out and hug him. She yearned to reestablish the friendship they had had before she had taken the train ride.

But she couldn’t. If she hugged him, if she told him she was sorry, if she explained why she had been so distant, it would break her. He was her permanent reminder of her past, a reminder of how much damage she would cause if she went back to her old life. He was a reminder of how selfish she had been, a symbol of how afraid she was to commit, to settle down and enjoy what she already had infront of her.

She could have gone back at any time to apologize, to explain her mistake. But she hadn’t, It took a friend to do it. She knew she had feelings for him, she would even go so far as to say that she felt that he might be the one for her. But her fear had kept her from following through.

Moonlight realised that she had trapped herself in an impossible situation. If she opened up, reciprocated his feelings, or at the very least, allowed him to be a proper friend, every second she would be reminded of her failures, reminded of her shameful past.

Reminded of the Deadwoods.

But if she didn't open up, if she didn't allow Starcatcher to bridge the divide she had placed between them, then she would only bring about the very same pain she had been seeking to avoid. She would be responsible for stabbing Starcatcher in the heart for a second time.

Moonlight couldn't handle this. She couldn't bring herself to make a decision. So, with tears in her eyes, she turned and ran. She didn't know where she was running, but she knew she needed to get away from the pit that was opening up in her stomach. She ran away from the reality she had created with tears streaming down her muzzle and clouding her vision, unable to confront either her past or her present. But most importantly, she was unable to decide her future.

She simply ran away, just as she had always done.

Author's Note:

Ending three. This was an ending of my design depicting a world where the Deadwoods was just a weird forest, but due to Moonlights insecurities, what she saw in there caused her to upend her entire life due to the trauma she experienced.

she is still struggling with remembering what is real and has mostly abandoned searching for her purpose due to what she experienced in the woods

And there we go, the last chapter for the story. Hope you all enjoyed. Should Little Tigress decide that this story is canon for her character, I wonder which of these endings she will decide on (my guess is ending 2 if she wishes to continue with Moonlight being a drifter and ending 3 should she chose to incorporate Stargazer into her lore and keep the friendship going {that or she chooses it and just has the two of them never see each other again}). Well, that will be a question for another day. For now, I must rest.

Update;
I just found out, Little Tigress has an OC fact sheet here, as such, this story is just me didleing around with the information I had for her OC at time of writing. Dang.