The Pale Moonlight

by TCSNxs

Dear Tia - revised

Dear Tia
By: TCSNxs

How does one start this, dear Tia?
Is there a guide to write these scripts?
Is it a confessional to pompous
titled comrades, saying “Yes, my Lord”?
Do we meet at 9 o’clock sharp
to make rumors with sides of crepes?

No, that won't do at all, dear Tia.
Much like Father and Mother, we
don’t stand on ceremony due our station.
Familial bonds don’t demand courtesy,
and require sniping in royal tones.
We are still of ponykind, are we not?

So this won't have those wraps, dear Tia,
due the trappings of such things.
Now we sleep not as our little ponies
But we still dream in reverie as they.
Forgive the duress as this may cause,
but a question, if indulgence is granted.

Have you lived a nightmare, dear Tia?
Those desperate times for want to wake,
beating hoofs along the blurred edges
of eventide’s thoughts, so gross in scope
and profound to affect daytime’s reality.
Dreams have no meaning in those bonds.

Imagine being confined in that, dear Tia,
while you trot or draw simple breath.
Such was the machine, a dervish of anger,
I was part and parcel of, without escape.
“Our ponies will rejoice in the moonlight,”
the beast told you in supreme arrogance.

Remember Father’s words, dear Tia,
warning of the pride before the fall?
Losing our ability to empathize, to see
through the eyes of another pony,
readies the climate for the fall from grace.
You saw it. You warned. I didn't listen.

Has that battle we waged, dear Tia,
above the Everfree stuck in your mind?
As the flora shook in the storm of war,
you and the Nightmare fought in the rain.
You were glorious, indeed a testament
to Father’s skill and Mother’s patience.

I remember those words, dear Tia.
“Your privations will kill everypony.
You must lower the moon. Now!”
You pleaded, nay demanded the Nightmare.
So confident and sure and caring.
Even as you bled, you still tried for me.

I cringed that the wad, dear Tia,
of saliva so targeted your dignity.
As a final damnation of those things
demanded of us and our little ponies,
the spit tore your aegis of sublimity.
There was no choice but to act.

Do you know what it’s like, dear Tia,
to feel that unerring judgment
from the Elements of Harmony?
Discord and Sombra understood
it keenly as a road straight to perdition,
paved in absolutes and without return.

Your eyes grew bright, dear Tia,
so blinding in their horrible elegance.
Even as the Nightmare yelled defiance.
your baby sister cried in torment.
Perhaps it's metaphor that something so pure
can pass such judgments without remorse.

The world grew opaque, dear Tia.
Oh! There was darkness and rage
and every word in the poet’s arsenal
to describe that eon's night in solitude.
I saw nothing but felt all keenly.
As The Nightmare raged, I mourned.

Your baby sister wept, dear Tia,
for how I wronged you, lost you.
In the moon’s dark protective womb
your little sister wept for everything.
It hardly matters though; nopony sees
the foal’s tears in a hurricane.

But I still felt you dance, dear Tia,
as we did eternally for nature's sake.
It was easy to feel while incorporeal.
You tangoed to the same music
as our parents did before, but a dancer
alone doesn't get the applause they're due.

And I understood one thing, dear Tia.
As you raged against the Nightmare,
you wept for your baby sister to.
Every time you ushered the day
to night and back to the dawn,
I knew your spirit was a broken thing.

They say time heals wounds, dear Tia,
of every sort of violence imaginable.
A dawnless night is an eternal exercise
in patient torment without temporal measure.
But the gaoler’s keys were turning!
The Nightmare, and I, inexorably waited.

I next saw the ruins in the forest, dear Tia,
where each broke upon the other in abandon.
How long had it been? Was I free? Huzzah!
But the hurricane, the Nightmare returned.
In that storm's eye, your sister waited.
I wasn’t afraid anymore, big sister.

Oh, it found you again, dear Tia.
A delicious bit of exquisite irony
for the Nightmare to see you,
a half-finished masterpiece of art,
wishing desperately for completion.
You then knew celestial banishment.

The Nightmare would rekindle, dear Tia,
its dreams for a Kingdom of Night.
But it needed subjects to fear it,
minions to rebuild the shattered
seat of power, and time to feed.
As it raged, your baby sister bled.

As the Nightmare gloated, dear Tia,
one looked without fearful compromise.
That unicorn glared at the beast,
challenging it in ways from storybooks.
When the mare locked onto the daemon,
it knew that look: It was from your eyes.

As the six came for it, dear Tia,
I saved them from its towering rage.
A falling cliff turned to sliding rocks,
a treant’s ambush gave way to song,
a Discord’s Contract with an out clause.
Such was challenge born of torment.

When they arrived, dear Tia,
it was easy to feel the Elements
each embodied. It’s a bitter taste
when that made by our hoof answered
us no more, but these six Bearers
hearkened to Harmony’s sweet call.

As they understood, dear Tia,
the Nightmare felt dread again.
The Elements sparked once more
in judgment of the beast I was part.
The Nightmare yelled defiance again.
and your sister cried, now in deliverance.

Did you know how, dear Tia,
I longed for that prismatic light?
Even if the Elements deemed
the beast’s crimes worthy of a full
final measure, your baby sister
welcomed release from that cyclone.

There was no pain, dear Tia,
when the Nightmare was torn away!
Imagine being shredded bit by bit
only to be pieced whole again, all while
bathing in a spiritual morphine.
Did death really use anesthesia?

Then there was darkness, dear Tia,
before I bathed in your light again.
“Princess Luna, it’s been a thousand
years since I have seen you like this,”
You spoke clear as a bell’s chime
as your sun silhouetted forgiveness.

I wept as you crescendoed, dear Tia,
with tears of joy seeing you again.
“It’s time to put our differences
behind us, little sister. We were
meant to rule together,” you said.
“I’m so sorry!” was all I mustered.

The trip home was surreal, dear Tia,
for these ponies understood nothing.
To be forgiven for crimes, generations
removed from those that danced in the fields?
Even if the mind's cuts were still so fresh,
floral wreaths make effective bandages.

It’s more than a full year removed, dear Tia,
As the cracks mend wounds closing slowly,
but imagine the possibilities now for me!
Music and books and hay fries, oh my!
But midst this time of virginal beginnings,
you still weep as if I'm not privy.

As I watched you slumber, dear Tia,
last night after you wept again, I knew then.
As the last bastion against the raging thunder
that was the Nightmare, you sacrificed all:
Your sister, home, dignity, self-respect,
and most of all, the ability to absolve yourself.

Remember Father's words, dear Tia?
As he warned of pride before the fall,
so too does the heart require absolution,
even if no sins were relished in their doing.
Perhaps it matters not, but otherwise, know this:
Tia, my sister in sunlight, I forgive you.

So in closure of this letter, dear Tia,
perhaps consider advice from a pony
who's been to on that absolute-paved road.
The shadows find home even in sunlight.
and forgiveness requires a solitary giver.
With love, your baby sister Lulu.

Comments

[TCSNxs]

Sup guys.

I've recently gone through a difficult period in my personal life and focused a bit more on poetry as a means to come to terms with decisions I've made. This is one of those end results.

It's funny how we speak such in absolutes, do the right things for the betterment of our lives, and act with honor in accordance with our station as human beings, but we still doubt those choices we made. For what its worth, if you've been in that position, there is nothing wrong with questioning yourself. How are we to measure those choices unless we question? Provided that action is just and pure, it is okay to forgive yourself for doing the right thing.

As always, stay safe.

ONWARD!