1000 years alone on the moon was bound to take its toll.
Princess Luna discusses the nature of life, death, immortality, fear, love and loneliness with a palace guard who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The dulled echo of Luna’s pacing sounded throughout the expanses of her chambers, unbroken by the coldness of the night air or the furnishings with which the room was so lavishly bestowed.
She had wanted it to be low key, she had said. Nothing fancy, not even anything at all. But Celestia had insisted that her birthday should be celebrated in a manner most becoming of her regal status, and Luna had not the heart to tell her not to.
And so, she had endured the vast banquette, making idle niceties with the various diplomats, advisers and other generally uninteresting individuals with whom it had been deemed appropriate she should spend the evening. Though she remembered the entire event as little more than a blur, Luna felt drained and longed for the warmth and isolation of her bedchamber.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Luna completed her what seemed like millionth cycle around the room and stared again intently at the fault that had developed in her plans for an early nights slumber. A bright green box roughly two hooves square sat next to the foot of her bed, its glossy green surface standing at stark contrast to the much darker, and in her opinion calming tones of her standard décor. Across the top of the offending cube in long looping printing was scrawled “To my favorite sister” in an almost blindingly sliver ink which seemed to provide its own source of illumination.
“Not even a card?” Luna pondered to herself. Still, she reasoned, it was nice that Celestia was making the effort, and it couldn’t be that easy to find a card with “Happy 1023rd Birthday” inscribed on its cover. She should just open it, she continued, after all, her sister had gifted herself 1000 years with which to scourer the land for the most perfect of gifts. There was no sense in delaying it any longer; it had just been a little off-putting that rather than presenting it to her personally, her one and only present had just been placed here for her to find. Such an action had given her plenty to mull over, and mull over it she did, as she had had so much practice at that sort of thing.
Her train of thought slowly derailed until she became lost in the almost darkness of her room again, her mind virtually empty. She mentally pulled herself back; she was well and truly over thinking this. Mulling session concluded, she picked up the box with her soft blue glow and sat it on the edge of her bed, all the while peeling back the surprising numerous layers of wrapping that encompassed it.
As the last sheet fell away, Luna stared transfixed into her father’s hard ivory eyes. Yet somehow, even in marble form the warmth and kindness he always seemed to emote appeared as plain as day. Beside his imposing form stood her mother, her features unmistakable even after a thousand years of forgotten memories. From the tip of her ornately carved horn to the end of her flowing tail, every detail was immaculate, perfect in the manner with which it conveyed her unsurpassable beauty. The pair stood together atop a placard which read “We will always be together” in carefully inscribed lettering.
Between the legs of her exquisitely detailed parents, Luna could see the likeness of two little fillies. Celestia at the age of four was standing center right, trying her very best to mimic the pose so effortlessly displayed by her sire, yet looking strangely unwieldy in the attempt. Luna chuckled softly under her breath, trying to draw any comparison between the skittish and awkward filly depicted in the statue and the all powerful, all knowing Celestia of the present.
These thoughts aside, Luna stared quizzically at herself. It was odd, of that there was no doubt, to see a version of yourself scrubbed clean from the memory of the living. Though over a thousand years separated the two instances of her form, Luna had no difficult recognizing her own features and flaws, and the loving yet slightly hurt demeanor of her young eyes.
It was truly a beautiful object to behold, and Luna made a mental note to thank her sister for the gift in the morning. An aura of dark blue enveloped the figures and started to lift the assembly toward a high shelf on the wall.
As it drifted lazily through the air, Luna studied her younger self yet further. Looking upward toward her mothers unacknowledgeing face, Luna could see the first signs of hurt in her own expertly caved eyes, the first signs of her own descent into the dark pit of jealousy and madness that would result in her untimely exile. In her time spent alone wandering the darkened expanses of her prison, Luna had often wondered when first her deeper feelings had begun to show, and here is was, after a millennia of searching represented in a block of soulless stone.
Suddenly she felt very alone. She would never have a chance to repent the sins of her past, never have a foal of her own to guide though the dark as her own parents had failed so spectacularly to do. She would never experience the affections she had tried so desperately to bestow upon her parents, while they lavished her older sister with the attention she so desperately craved. She didn’t hate them, she never could, but deep in their cold stone eyes she could see the creators of the monster she had become. This single simple object though given with the best of intentions represented everything that shaped who she was, and everything she could never obtain in the future.
Slamming her glowing teal eyes shut, tears on the verge of pouring forth, Luna flung the statue across the expense of her chamber into the cold granite wall where is exploded into thousands upon thousands of sparkling shards with a crash that was far too loud for the modestly dimensioned room.
BANG!!
The door of the chamber caved inward, a shower of fragments indicating where the lock had sheered free of its post. Standing rigid in the doorway with a look of fear and determination stretched across his features stood the pegasus stallion whom Luna had passed outside the door what seemed like hours ago.
“Princess” the exacerbated guard almost shouted, “Are you alright? I feared the worst”. Sworn from an early age to protect their charge by any and all means, the royal guards were second to none in terms of raw size and speed, though could perhaps be faulted for an excess of paranoia. Despite all this, and his many years of arduous training, Silver Ash found that none of his previous experiences had prepared him for what he saw following his spectacular entrance.
Slumped in the dead centre of the room sobbed Princess Luna, her back arched and shivering with the convolutions of her torment. Her head turned and pointed a slightly open and very upset looking eye in his direction. “Nooo”, she barely managed to get out, before the realization of how she must look began to set in. Shaking her shoulders quickly to try and gain some composure, Luna climbed to her feet and turned to face him. “Hae- hmm”, she coughed, “I mean no…….thank you, we are quite alright” a fraction of her royal voice returning as though some kind of fallback setting. “We are most appreciative of your concern, but be assured we are in no need of your assistance. Please return to your post, this mess will be taken care of”. Luna gestured vaguely around the room in the hopes that the intruder would soon leave and she could continue to wallow in self pity.
Silver Ash just stood there, his mind trying to put together what was going. He was a warrior, not a psychologist, trained to fight and defend whatever his duty called upon him to defend, not understand what might be going on in somepony’s head. But it took no training to tell him that what he saw was not all right. A battle raged fiercely between the parts of him that were attempting to follow a direct order from his highest commander, and a reasoning that it was his sworn duty to discover the cause for Luna’s obvious distress. The result of this was a slow backward step toward the door as a barely together Luna frowned intently at him.
Pausing for only a second, ready to retreat should the need arise he softly began to speak. “Umm, Pri-“ was all that escaped his lips before Luna’s concentration was broken and she slumped slightly. “….what’s the point….” she mumbled as she began to drag her hooves toward a small chair by a desk on the far wall.
He would leave, yes, that’s what he would do, he would go and find his commanding officer and tell him what had transpired. It was clear that Luna was in no physical danger and would be fine to be left to her own devices while he sought assistance. His plan formed, Silver Ash turned to leave through the remains of the door through which he had entered.
As he walked out with his proper and dignified stride it became oddly apparent that despite going through the motions his exit was not actually taking place. He let out a barely audible gasp as he discovered the reason for his lack of motion. The floor to which he was tied so solidly to just seconds before now hung just out of his reach, a slight blue glow enveloping the lower half of his legs. Slowly, he wafted slowly back across the chamber without a sound, so unsure of his own ability to judge the situation that he dare not speak.
Luna dropped him roughly on the hard floor in front of the chair in which she had situated herself, her horn already hard at work with a bottle of some kind of brownish liquid which she had acquired from within the desk. Two glasses were dully and messily filled, indicative of the monarch’s lack of concern about the situation at hoof. Extending one to the dumbfounded guard, Luna cocked her head to one side and said in a voice strangely reminiscent of a child’s, “Please….good sir….join us for a drink…”.
No sooner had these words left her lips than Silver found himself thrust roughly upon the chair opposite the brooding royal; it’s luxuriously appointed upholstery torn beyond repair by the jagged edges of his bat-esque armor, his wings bent painfully askew. He gazed at her, wondering if he had perhaps made a mistake in entering in the first place, and how he was going to explain what had happened here when he was questioned later. She was clearly shaken up about something significant, and as a royal guard, he steeled himself that whatever had to be done to placate Luna and return her to a state of calm, he would do.
Luna’s eyes darted back and forth between the guard she was effectively holding captive and the glass she was offering him. In the back of her mind, a little voice she thought had been executed by her former self eons ago questioned what she was doing. “SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!!!!!” the greater part of her screamed in response, unsure as it was of its own motivations. The glass began to shake, then fell as her mind turned its energies inward onto itself, in a bid to hold a coherent train of thought.
His reflexes like lightning, Silver caught the glass less than an instant later, its contents preserved intact despite their unforgiving treatment. “Yes, your maje-” the guardstallion replied, before appending “Luna” to the end. A breach in standard protocol, and possibly a sign of disrespect, but given the situation what seemed like an appropriate response to Luna’s seemingly innocent if slightly disconcerting proposition.
Luna’s though process stopped. “He’s going to stay” wafted through her, quelling all the doubts that she had been experiencing about her actions. She released her enchanting grasp on her no longer captive, but willing guest and began to rapidly empty her own glass. Its contents burned her as she swallowed, but in her disheveled mental state she scarcely noticed. She placed the empty vessel back atop the desk significantly softer than she would have done moments before and cleared her throat.
“Do you know who we are, Silver Ash?” Luna began whimsically, staring off into space.
“Certainly, your majesty, you are Luna, caretaker of the moon, sister to the rightful ruler of all Equestira, former pris…” Silver recited off dictatorially, the information having been driven through his head ever since he was pulled from Celestia’s guard to serve her sibling. Through the haze of this automatic recollection the guardstallions disengaged mind picked up on something else. “ ….wait? You know my name??” Silver abruptly interjected into his own words in a slightly higher pitch than may have been strictly appropriate.
“Indeed…” Luna sighed to herself, “We have learned the names of everypony within this castle and as many beyond as possible, from the lowliest cook to the highest aristocrat”. Her face bore a slightly bemused expression, as though she was tallying off all the titles in some deep and inaccessible section of her mind.
“But why?” came the almost startled reply. “There is no need for you to be troubled by such things, and though it is most honoring to know that a mare of your status regard all who serve her in such high esteem, it seems strangely wasteful of your time to peruse such knowledge”.
Luna eyed him with a mixture of sorrow and jealousy. He could never understand what she felt, they were just too vastly different. And she hated that, hated herself for how different she was, and longed for what he had, an implied understanding about the nature of things. “We were imprisoned, alone, for a thousand years. We never in that time saw another face, only our own in the mirror, and our own name, we were all there was, for almost our entire life. Just Luna Luna Luna. The world that we had loved faded to become our own legend, nothing but a decayed figment of our own imagination. Nothing was real, and though our body survived the solitude we are unsure that our mind did. There is only so long that hope can sustain us before it to succumbs to the madness, just the mind screaming its own name, trapped in its certainty that it is all that is and ever was.”
“It is for no reason other than this that we remember thy names…” she trailed off, a single tear rolling down the matted blue fur of her cheek. Silver sat tense in his chair letting what she had said hang in the air unobstructed. He was notoriously ill-equipped to deal with what one might call deep and meaningful conversations and had therefore tried to avoid them whenever he could. Almost in spite of himself his head flicked at the only escape route the chamber presented.
Luna reacted instantly, and virtually every lose object in the room, not least impressive of which were the bed and several wardrobes rocketed to pile in front of the doorway. “No”, she said quietly but with a hint of malice. “For too long we have listened, heeding the advice of others only to suffer the cruelest turns of fate for our ignorance. So now, we shall just talk, you and us, then you will be free to go if you so chose. We are through fighting, and through bargaining. This is how it will be, because this is what we want. You asked if you could be of assistance. And this, is your assistance”.
Luna straightened herself up and once again grasped the glass of brown liquid which Silver had set aside. “Now” she continued, “it was our request that you share with us a drink, and though ours is gone, still yours remains”. The empty glass on the desk was duly refilled and Silver found his own placed gently back into his hoof. Though polite pony society had long since abandoned dining utensils better suited to their physiology, the actually process of evolving relatively simple ways in which to use these more civilized of appliances had yet to be adopted, and thus the simple task of drinking from a glass presented a difficult set of challengers for the non-magically endowed pegasus.
Luna raised her own glass to her lips and sipped lightly, all the while watching as Silver tried rather sheepishly to drink from his own. Eventually his experimentation found a position which allowed relatively easy drinking, and he took a gulp which emptied the glass of half its contents. Luna knew that any form of alcohol was strictly forbidden to the guards, so the desire to see how he would react to something he had never tried kept her gaze unbroken. It took a mere second for the realization of the mistake he had made to make itself apparent, and Silver doubled over coughing heavily, his throat burning like Celestia’s Sun.
Luna almost chocked on her own mouthful, bursting out laughing in a way that would have been almost inappropriate had her first glass not been starting to take effect. The sight of the seconds before proper and upstanding guard standing knees bent, dry reaching on her chamber floor was almost too much to bare. “Maybe…” her internal monolog began, “this would be quite fun after all”.
Silver stared intently at the single flagstone directly in front of his eyes. Though the burning had now left his neck, he had felt it continue down to his stomach where it was having a bizarre, if not entirely unpleasant effect. To about the closest his mind could reason, it was rather like being on the edge of sleep whilst remaining entirely awake. Through sheer force of will, Silver forced the two images of the stone slab he could see back together and almost leaped backward into the chair he had fallen from. “This is no way to behave in front of you charge, boy” his mind’s eye conjured an image of his commanding officer aggressively shouting before the likeness gradually surcame to the mists of his consciousness. Looking across at the charge in question, Silver took in the broad smile that now adorned her features. It was the first time in the almost two years he had spent in her presence that he recalled her looking so…..pleasant.
Grabbing the now spilled glass from the floor and swinging his foreleg around in a wide arc, Silver delivered a line which in his own mind neatly glossed over the last minute or so, but in which Luna detected what might have been the slightest hint of suave, “Now then, your highness, just where were we?”.
“Well”, Luna started in a tone reflective of her own diminishing mental state, “do you know who we are? Though you have made it abundantly clear that you know the, ahh, ….well….textbook version…..what do you actually know, the stallion buried under all that armor.”
The guardspony shuffled uncomfortably, suddenly becoming aware of how heavy the thick plates covering the greater portion of his body actually were. “I’m not sure it’s my place ma’am, this whole situation has me feeling somewhat out of my depth".
The moon goddess sighed exasperatingly, just what was it she would have to do to get through to this one? A dim aura of blue surrounded Silvers head, and the royal seal that festooned his helmet detached and clattered to the ground. “There; you are relieved of all duties for the period of this night, and are free to speak and act freely, such is the decree of we, Luna”, she said with increasing speed and volume. “And as you know, such an order far outstrips any which you may or may not have previously received”. Silver almost dared protest, reasoning some kind of flimsy argument along the lines of service and duty and what not, but the relaxing effect of the drink convinced him that he should just play this one by ear. “NOW SPEAK” Luna barked, and so it began.
Authors note: This is the first story that I have put even the slightest thought into writing, and so I know it’s far from perfect, and any experienced authors among you would be cringing right about now. So just do us a favor and don’t judge me too harshly.
Also, on the off chance that someone is actually reading this, rest assured the story will always continue, but by no means will it be updated in a regular manner. I’m juggling work, university, family and friends, and sleep whenever I can find the time, so each new section will be done at the earliest possible convenience.
Throughout the course of his duties duly spent casting a watchful gaze over the princess and her general wellbeing, Silver had never really taken the time to think to any great depth on her intimate personality and quirks; there was simply not the time to indulge in such musings in his pre-concluded existence. Despite this, he liked to think of himself as rather adapt a stringing together a sentence or two, and maybe, just maybe, that would be enough to bring this whole series of events under control. Bolstered by the substances of dubious origin currently introducing themselves to his various bodily functions, Luna’s guest launched headlong into the fray, his brain only one word ahead of his mouth.
“Luna. You are Luna. A mare who once long ago did something that threatened to tear the very world apart. You are the only sister of our monarch, the loving and gracious (added automatically, though perhaps not quite befitting the context, excises caution in future) Celestia, and therefore heir to the throne of Equestria. After your spectacular return from a 1000 year forced hiatus almost three cycles hence, you resumed your former duty as guardian and custodian of the moon, and are responsibly for its daily rise and fall. You have shown yourself to be supremely adaptable to reintegration into your former life, and have served without compare proudly since that time.”
Panting heavily to catch his breath after such a bout of dialog, Silver cautiously considered every tiny detail of his company’s expression. Whether it was a steeled sense of resolve or just a tipsy confidence that fired through his veins, he sat fully ready for whatever it was that came next. Luna’s features softened as though another wave of sadness was forthcoming, then refortified as a deeper resolve presented to make itself heard.
“That is true” came back a toneless, emotionless response in a voice that could have cleaved glass. “All true, and yet……somehow quite wrong”. So this is what they thought of her. She was a curiosity to them, nothing more than a darkened figure to be recorded in forgotten school books and reference material. Vague instances of hope wafted through her mind “He’s just a guard, that’s all that he is obliged to know, the others see who we really are”. “No”, something else retorted, “If he who has followed us so closely does not know, it is foolish to assume that any others do…”. Luna cowered inwardly, finally accepting what she had given to only suspect for so long. “Well”, she concluded, after more than her fair share of lifetimes, she was going to do something about that.
Despite the slight lack of stability in her stance, the sight of Luna’s overbearing form towering over him suddenly made Silver feel very small. In the instant it took her to throw herself from her chair and across the distance between them, the sickle faceted and impossibly black attire of Nightmare Moon had evaporated into existence upon her expanding form. Silver shrunk back as the demigod’s muzzle, only inches from his ear whispered the most obvious thing in the world at this very instant. Her words like ice and daggers, in a voice that was evil in every way. “Are….you….afraid?”
Fear was not something royal guards’ were permitted to feel, years of duty saw quite effectively to that. They had crossed the emptiest’s of wastes, climbed the highest peaks, faced the greatest foes and were the first and last word in the direst of circumstances. The instinct had been all but removed, as the protection of one’s charge trumped any thoughts as selfish as personal preservation. Despite this, for one immeasurable instant, an infinitesimally snippet of a fraction of a second, Silver’s entire body froze. He didn’t need to answer her. She knew that regardless of all reason or logic, he feared her.
“What does it feel like…?” came an innocent filly-like question, far softer than the possibly killing blow Silver was expecting. Slowly he turned his head to look at Nightmare Moon, finding her far closer than he had initially believed. Her eyes were wide and unblinking saucers of white and blue against her dark fur, and the tip of her nose less than an inch from his own. Thoughts of how inappropriate this might look to any intruders were pushed aside as he realized just how easily she could have ended him had his connotations of the seconds before been more accurate.
“Tell us, what does it feel like” the imposing mare repeated, cooing. “E..e..excuse me…?” Silver whispered in a stammer. “We can see it in your eyes, that thing you call fear. We have seen it before, more times than seconds you have lived, in the eyes of more than you could ever believe have existed. They feared us to, just as you do, they shouted, they ran and in the end they simply froze. Now we will ask you one last time. What is it like to feel fear?”
“Surly you know, highness” the perplexed guardstallions breathed softly, unsure whether he should make any motion to increase or decrease the distance between them. “How can we know??” the softening form of Nightmare Moon replied, her voice shuddering slightly as the tension in her stance faded and she lowered herself to be seated on the ground. Though her armor and size still gave no doubt as to her identity, all mullings of evil her form inspired seemingly dissolved, being replaced by nothing but the hurt in her eyes. “We have never once felt fear, we are unsure if we even can. We have inspired so much, and yet cannot even understand what is supposable all we are known for in this age.”
This admission was untrue, it had to be. Everypony felt fear; it was simply a fact of life. But the more Silver Ash ran it through his head, the less certain he became. After all, what did she have to fear? She is an immortal god, his reasoning suggested, gifted with more power than any and all other creatures combined. Only another Ailcorn could ever hope to match her, and as far as he knew, there was only a handful left. There was simply nothing to threaten her and the world could be bent to her whim with a thought. But there had to be more to it than that. Nopony could possibly be so sure of their own abilities as to be devoid of the emotion itself, and besides, there would always be things you could never control.
“You spent a millennia alone, you must have been afraid in that place, just you and eternity?” queried Silver, leaning fractionally closer almost in spite of himself. Luna inhaled sharply, “You just don’t get it, we knew you would never get it, could never understand what we meant” she growled, raising her voice with each successive word. “We cannot be afraid of such things, whether it is the way that all of our kind lives, or if there is indeed just something wrong with us, we do not know. But even in the darkest hours there was nothing but the seething anger of the injustices that had been done, or the pain of loneliness.”
Hoping that a topic which he had been sworn from ever addressing would not break the barley tangible threads that seemed to be tethering Luna’s composure, Silver’s probing continued, his sense of duty and honor being overridden by simply curiosity. “But when your sister came to bestow your banishment, you must have feared her wrath, you must have known what she was capable of?” This struck a chord, though perhaps not the one its initiator had intended. “Ha…” Luna giggled with just the slightest hint of sarcasm. “Do you remember back when you were a young stallion, barely more than a colt, and felt you were invincible? We thought we knew exactly what little high and mighty Celestia was capable of. We had trained against her, and fought alongside her. We knew she was coming for us, and we were more than ready. Oh, we would never have done any permanent damage of course…” the princess trailed off in such a way as to suggest that in the heat of the moment all those years ago this might not have strictly been the complete truth. “When it happened, there was no time for fear. Our confidence was absolute, bolstered by the pure certainty that our actions were justified.”
Losing herself in the flow of her disjointed monolog as much for her own benefit as Silver’s, Luna began to break away from the topics she had intended, her tone becoming almost pleading as though willing herself correct. “You cannot possibly know how it felt; we were young and full of desire to change the world. To be given the power to do anything, the energy of a living god. And then to be told we could never use it, that we must be as our sister, and just do what we must. Perhaps we were too young to understand, or perhaps that’s just who we are, or rather, what we became…”
Snapping her eyes shut, Luna tried rather apparently to return to her previous musings. “It happened instantly. We have always tried to remain resolute in our belief that we knew it coming, but that is a lie. Celestia acted fast, impossibly fast, and thus our years of solitude commenced. But no, there was never fear, just the burning hatred that instead of simply ending us, she had banished us to a hundred lifetimes of mere existence. And for that, for that fact alone, we never feared what was to come.”
Silver sat dumbfounded, slowly studying the gently curves of Luna’s face and muzzle. She had truly never been afraid of anything, never once faulted in her conviction or been scared of the consequences of her actions. Even now, the words she spoke would have in any other situation been tantamount to high treason, and yet, there was no care in her voice, no attempt to shield her thoughts from prying ears. And yet she wanted to know, she wanted it so sincerely. It tore her up inside, that regardless of how she tried to interact with her subjects; she could never truly understand them.
An idea, a stupid, idiotic, worst possible idea began to form in the back of Silver’s racing mind. “No”, every shred of sensibility he possessed sternly interjected, “NONONONONONONO”. The competing force came in the form of the second glass of this strange brownish liquid he had been consuming, almost without noticing. In the end, the second won out, and his marginally intoxicated mind began to assemble that terrible idea into an unworkable plan. He turned; retrieving Luna’s discarded glass from where it lay on the floor, her shimmering gaze following his every move. As he slowly began to refill them from the half empty bottle, those same sensibilities commented sarcastically, “oh well, at least if it goes wrong, you won’t feel a thing...”. Glasses filled, Silver gently replaced the bottle in its upright position, took one long deep breath, then lunged at Luna.