The Cold Never Bothered Her Anyway
The moon shone brightly from its heavenly throne above the world, surrounded by its servants, one thousand times one thousand stars, dotting the canvas of the midnight sky. It shone all of its magnificent pale light down onto the tall frost-covered peaks of the Northern Equestrian mountains, upon a lonely cloaked figure steadily and slowly making its way along an old and forgotten path up the mountainside. A hundred snowflakes floated and hovered around her, like a lingering group of curious fairies, as she ascended further and further up the mountain path, her hoof prints disappearing behind her as the falling snow quickly filled them in.
Closer towards the top of the mountain now, the figure choose that moment to pause, and throw her head back to remove her hood, to reveal her long and marvelous mane, which one could only described as though it were a part of the very night itself, a star etched into each strand of her hair. Her eyes, beautiful and wide as they were, and the color of ice, expressed a rather concerning sorrowful display, despite the brave small smile her lips formed as she looked to the sky, at the wonders that hung over the world. These lovely wonders that were of her own creation.
Her sapphire-blue eye shadow almost seemed to sparkle like the stars themselves, as a single tear escaped her eye, moistened and filled with all the sadness of a troubled soul. It broke free, trickling so slowly down her cheek, a wet trail left behind as it journeyed down the princess's smooth and silk-like skin, before it hung from her chin for but a moment, falling afterwards from her face, into the snow.
She turned her form around, to look back upon the magnificent kingdom she had left behind so, so many years ago. Back during a time when she had a sister who loved her, who even today loved her still. Back during a time when she was, despite the irony of her being an alicorn, younger and more innocent. It was a time when she, as did her sister, fulfilled an important duty, a sacred obligation to their beloved subjects, to govern the land justly and fairly, and each day bring forth the sun and the moon.
Her sister summoned the warming rays of daylight so that their subjects could laugh and play and live in the freedom of light. When the time came for the sun to leave the world, it was then her purpose to bring forth the moon, and with it the darkness of night and vast constellations and starry lights. The subjects would then with weary spirits return to the safety and comfort of their homes, retreating to their beds where they would close their eyes and drift into a deep slumber, quietly awaiting for the sun to shed its light upon the kingdom once more.
It was a time when all it had taken for the poor Mare of the Moon to become bitter towards the very ponies she loved and cared for deeply, was but a singe thought of doubt. One chillingly will-shattering thought, that taunted her for many a night, and conceived many other thoughts of doubt within her mind. Why do they not walk in the light of the moon as they do in the light of the sun? Why did they not show gratitude for the beauty which she crafted for them all? Why did they shun her midnight canvas so? Why did they not love her night as much as they loved her sister's day?
And so it as that those thoughts came together in her head, and made her into that wretched creature known as Nightmare Moon, and her eventual imprisonment within the very object of her power, the moon itself, sentenced by a reluctant sister who grieved for a loss that nothing could hope to replace, who had, unbeknownst to any pony, had secretly begged for forgiveness for sending her beloved sibling away each night, her prayers made in the light of the very same moon that served as her sister's cage for the past one thousand years.
Princess Luna never thought that she could ever receive a second chance to make right the wrongs of the past, and so it had been nothing short of a miracle, or at least the closest to such a thing as one could hope to get, when her elder sister asked her to return to her side, to once more resume her place upon the two thrones, and become once more and for the rest of her years to come the Lady of the Night. Luna had done much in her time since then to show the ponies she cared for, to show them they need no longer fear her, that the old bedtime stories about her would never have to be feared or told ever again. It was not easy, and she had even doubted herself that she would ever win their trust and forgiveness, but time healed all wounds, as her ancient mother had told her, and so it was in time that they came to hail her as their lovely Princess of the Night again, welcoming her back with open hooves, and with the love and admiration that she had so greatly missed during her confinement.
She had done wrong, and had been forgiven for it. She had betrayed her subject's trust, and had been forgiven for it. Yet still that same thought from all those years ago plagued her mind tonight, spreading like a cancer through the Lady of the Night's consciousness.
Why did they not see her night sky in the same way as she did?
Luna closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. Tonight, she was determined to cast away this thought from her mind once and for all. She was determined to remove this thought, this feeling of unappreciative doubt, before it changed her again, and history's mistakes were repeated a second time. Were that to happen, there was very little chance that a third pardoning would ever happen for her.
Luna opened her beautiful eyes again, now full of strength and will, and she opened her mouth. And from her throat, from her heart, and the core of her very soul and being, she sang aloud to no pony, her audience the stone of the mountain itself, the collection of snowflakes flying in the breeze of the night-time air.
Alone I stand high above this land,
My hooves, buried deep in snow,
Behind me lies a kingdom I rule,
And a castle I call my home
My subjects sleep within their beds,
Each one dreaming the hours by,
Until my sister calls upon her sun,
And no longer need the moon and I
Why do they shun my black canvas so,
When it inspires so many things?
Like the poems the poet writes by moonlight,
And the most perfect of romantic scenes?
I once held doubt, and didn't let it out,
And I lost all that I held dear,
And for a thousand years, I was confined,
In a prison far and close to here
That one mistake, I mustn't again make,
Lest I lose everything just like before,
Life grants us only these two chances,
No pony is worth three or four
And here I am, upon this mountain peak,
Looking for an answer I so desperately seek,
Why do my subjects not see with their eyes,
The beauty that is my midnight skies?"
Princess Luna stood there upon a snow-covered mountain peak, pondering over that question, determined to find an answer so that it may be laid to rest, never to haunt her dreams and trail of thoughts again. All around her, the snow fell in the form of snowflakes, which danced around the lovely alicorn princess, with the magnificent pale light of the moon shining down on her. She would stay here, until the first rays of light heralded the arrival of her elder sibling's dawn, determined to find an answer.
It was very cold for the princess atop that mountain, but when you're the Bringer of the Night, the Mare of the Moon, the Lady of the Stars, the cold never bothers you anyway.
THE END