My Dearest Luna
We all know hope. We all have our light shining above us in the darkest of nights. We all have that star we dream to hold. But what does the star dream of? When our light is holding us dear what is the hope of our savior? To whom does our angel pray?
I beg you, my angel, to not believe you have no hope of your own. I beg you to see that your light is not just the light to me and so many others, but that our light can shine for you. My light, my life, my love.
Love. Such a powerful world. Such to bring down empires and raise up the lowest of ponies. So terrifying but so beautiful. I still remember the day I first fell in love. The day I saw you.
I was but a colt, still without a clue as to what my mark would be, though I was fast becoming a stallion. My parents, both proud but loving pegasi, had bought me a cheap telescope for my seventeenth birthday. Perhaps they hoped that my love for the night sky would give me my mark, but a cutie mark was the furthest thing from my mind at the time. I still remember the excitement as I drug the telescope up to the top of the roof. It was a cloudless night, your moon shining so bright above, casting the city in a silver glow. It took me so long to set up the stand and focus that my parents had long since stopped calling me down for dinner. I had no plans for anything other than stargazing that night, and no intention to stop for anything as mundane as hayloaf.
And then, as I searched for a star, I saw you. You were sitting alone on the balcony above your tower, your own telescope ignored beside you. No, you were staring down at your hooves, your wings limp at your sides. I could almost see a tear as it rolled down your face, almost hear your soft sobbing. In that moment, my heart sang, and cried. I realized what it meant to love and die, for i felt both. I fell in love, and my heart broke for you.
Oh Luna. . .my beautiful, lovely, lonely Luna. How i hurt for you. I had seen pain before, I had seen tears, and I had even seen you. But in that moment, I felt your pain. I felt your loneliness, your guilt. I cried with you that night, and so many nights since. I fell asleep watching you, and woke to the rising of the sun, still leaning against my telescope.
And so I found my heart. The days and nights that followed were filled with thoughts and dreams of you. Each night I saw your face, each day I daydreamed of spending my time with you. I lived a lifetime together with you, every day. We smiled, we laughed, we danced, we sang, we courted, we loved, we held our foals close as they grew, and we watched as they left our embrace and out into the world. And then we spent our days in our quiet love, content in the life we had together. I admit, such fantasies were foalish and fantastical, and that my time should have been devoted to my studies and my friends. But Luna, how little I needed such things as grades, and my friends were little more than gossipy and snobbish foals. No, when I had even a fantasy of you, my life was full. I was still blank, however, not that cutie marks made a difference to me. But the day I got mine, again comes back to you.
It was after another day at school when I saw the poster. A drawing of you, standing proud and majestic, wings spread and a serene but powerful smile on your face. Your eyes showed such compassion and mercy but burned with the fire of a thousand stars. I felt my heart jump in my chest, my patriotism and loyalty to you igniting the same fire within me. And when I saw the words below you, I knew i had found my place. It was four simple words: Princess Luna Wants You. But those four words held the future and the joy of a young colt within them, a colt who felt as if his Princess herself had asked him to fight for her. And so my wings stretched themselves as wide as they could, speed i had never known before keeping me company as I raced home. To this day I remember flying into our small living room, startling my parents and little sister with the announcement that I would be joining the Night Guard. And with those words, i found my place, sealed with the mark of a shield covering a crescent moon.
Those were the days that would last forever. Filled with the fire and passion and patriotism and my undying love for you. Not even the perfectly practiced insults of my drill instructors could dishearten me. My unit became my second family, but still my eyes stayed upon you. Each day we slept, each night we filled the dark hours with our training, but each dusk found me watching your moon rise in the valley below. The mountain and the city would glow so bright and beautiful, and as your stars shined above, each night I fell in love with your passion and joy and pain and sorrow, that beautiful and haunting tapestry you wove each night.
And when i stood, armor shining in the last of the suns rays, in line with my family, each of us a far cry from the colts that followed your call. Now we stood as stallions, no longer thin and spindly, but lean and fearless, your fire still burning in my soul. When you stepped upon the stage, grace and beauty bowed before you. As you turned and looked out over us, i felt as if you were looking for me, i felt as if you could feel my heart and soul calling out to you.
And then our eyes met. It lasted no longer than a heartbeat, that heartbeat i had dared to look at you. But that heartbeat seemed to last longer than time itself as I lost myself in your aquamarine gaze. Once again, I could see your joy and your pride, but underneath i could see a lonely and sorrowful mare, searching for a way to redeem herself.
And then it was gone. You looked away, back out over the many other stallions and mares beside me. For a second, i felt so worthless. How could I ever dream of loving you, of being anything besides another guard to you when there must be so may clamoring for your favor? Others stronger, smarter, richer, more handsome, better looking. Even the princes of the furthest lands must be fighting amongst themselves for a glimpse of you.
To this day I cannot shake such feelings. I will never sway in my defence of you, of your safety, or your honor. I swore on more than your name when I spoke my vows to your protection. I swore in my soul and my happiness. I will continue to stand for you, even if no others will. But while I may never hold your heart or even your eye, i still love you, my angel, until the end of my days. I write tonight because I could not bear to hold my feelings to myself anymore. And each night when I see you walking alone in the halls, each night when you hide your pain and watch over the land that you feel does not love you, know that I do. Know that as your heart breaks over and over again, mine beats only for you. And though i may never be the one you love, you will always have a friend in me, need you but to ask. For i do not seek your favor as a Princess or pleasure from your beautiful body. I seek your heart, as it is, to heal and hold. And should you never know me as any but your guard, your protector, i could not deny my love for you any more. I love you, Princess Luna, and your broken heart i want nothing more than to see whole again.
And so i sign this letter with all my hopes and dreams, even my heart, sealed within. I am yours, heart, mind, body, and soul. And I pray you find your light, my dearest Luna, because you are more deserving of hope and love than any other.
I am yours forever more,
Sargent Night Walker, 4th Lunar Defence Squadron
I sigh and set down the quill. The day was old now, the night fast approaching. It had taken me since the dawn to write this letter, this letter that could change my life. I stand up, roll up the scroll, and fit it into the chestpiece of my armor, safe and secure. It took no longer than a few minutes to find the mare I was looking for, a maid not much past being a filly. She was Princess Luna's attendant, now awaking to begin her duties.
"Hello, Moonshine." I smiled, and she turned from her conversation with another of her companions. A fellow guard, and off duty Solar Guard that she had become quite taken with. He gives her a quick nuzzle and trots off for his rest, as I give Moonshine a hug.
"Hello, big brother." She grins brightly, and pokes me in the chest. "Not like you to be wandering about looking for your little sis before you go on duty."
"I have a request of you." I produce the scroll and hoof it over to her. She takes it with a wing and frowns, sighing as she looks up at me with those big soulful eyes of hers.
"Night. . ." she begins, but I put a hoof over her mouth.
"I cant live like this anymore. She needs to know, Moony. Just. . .just give her the letter for me. Please." I give my baby sister another quick hug, and trot off to begin my shift. I knew that things would change. But change is good, change is the only thing that makes this world as beautiful as it is. Seasons come and go, ponies live and die. Change is the flower in the spring, giving hope for a better life ahead.
Much like my love for Luna. My hope, for her and for myself, was not a flower to wither and die. It was a monument to span the test of time, rising in the dusk and the dawn to shine a path through the ages. I could only aspire to find that path, and that my beautiful guardian would be there to show me the way. As I took my familiar post beside the large blue double doors to the Moon Princess's room, I knew I was right where I was supposed to be. Standing guard over the mare I loved. And that, should I ever find myself in her heart or not, I would always be there to protect her. Such was more than my duty and my mark, such was the calling and the need of my soul.
I allowed myself a soft smile. Even though things would change, they would change for the better. I could feel it in the stars.