> Barr|iers
>  by Ice Star
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Bor|ders
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



Dear Luna,

I know you can't hear me but...

It's been a long time since I've talked to you, or could in any way, but I just had to let you know that I still remember you. You must understand that until now, I have barely had any way to acknowledge you, for we had no way to connect all the distance between us. I know that there is no song nor method that can cross the heavens themselves. Luna, you need not worry that I have forgotten you, every memory is fresh in my mind because your absence has allowed me to see things a new light. Your distress has not been lost to me, even though I may have been too late to see it.

I was the worst sister that anypony could ask for, and I have not been able to deny that for centuries, so I will admit it clearly to you here. I should not have had to lose you to know that I wronged you. Even a single mortal lifetime without you has been a torment to me because it was a reminder that I had to lose you to love you, and there is nothing crueler than that. As fillies, I often 'suggested' that you lived out the awful tales that I told, where the paragon of a false purity defeats every immature caricature that my mind could spawn, but now I know what true purity is. Maybe I was just being the bossy older sister and maybe, just maybe, you didn't mind. I can't say I'm proud of that. We grew so much over the years, and I lied and lied telling you that I'd always be by your side but, soon after we found the tribes I was quick to desert you, and why? So that I, who acted like a hunger-mad scavenger desperate for everything the fillyhood you loved deprived me of, would be able to claw away enough power and treasure it like a miser does gold. And what for? Simply to ensure that we wouldn't have to take the throne by force when the time to step up and rule came. I knew we would need to know that the little ponies trusted me enough to follow us back into the light.

You, who bloomed in darkness, were neglected by the only family you had left. All because that silly sister of yours decided to focus all her energy on what she would proclaim to be a renaissance. Your voice was lost, and I merely ushered them into new prejudices that have taken a thousand years to even begin to correct, especially in their attitudes toward you. How could I guide them into the light when I forgot that which was shed by the moon and stars? I let them forget you so much, and when you were spoken of, it was with cruel words that found new ways to demonize you. You, Luna, who couldn't have left me out of your own overly loyal nature but should have deserted my side long ago.

You were always quiet, yet you could hear the worst plights in silence. I who spoke so highly of crowns, but the regalia I forced on you were nothing but glorified chains. Luna, you didn't even bother to hide that you weren't happy. Even after all these years I still can't grasp every bit of your plight. You were honest as always, you were loyal when you should have betrayed me. I want to hear you laugh again.

Nothing is as you left it. They love your stars now. Luna. How much have we discovered about them? There are entire fields of science that have been founded to study the little lights that you cared for, though those are only in their infancy. Poets have tried to capture your moon in vain. It was only after your 'disappearance' that they took notice, and at first, it was only the cruel scars that captured their attention. When I began to undo the old laws and take up what you had left, they started to pay attention to my weaker nights, especially after I ordered them to.

I let you become darkness. Can you still see any light?

Ponies stopped hating each other nearly so much. The hearts and the minds of the mortals have been revived by my hooves. Talent and individuality are truly praised now compared to the world you were taken from. Nopony will call you a demon, mooncalf, or witch. So much has been learned since then, and I believe that we may be on our way to rediscovering every more, if only you were here to see it. All this wonder was at the cost of you, my little star, the one who wondered most of all. As you hang up there in the sky, I have to know, are you still yourself? Do you resent me as I do? Will you hurt me as I could not hurt you, or just as I have? You are still Luna, aren't you? How awful it was down here, having to learn to love for a thousand years while even as a filly, it was you who could fall in love with something that had received nothing but poison from everypony else.

I let you see that venom and just look at what happened.

Luna, this name is like sand on my tongue, for I have spoken it so little. I only remember, but I never see. Am I even worthy to say your name after all I've done? Will the name I dare not speak, this powerful name lost to so many, fit the face of a mare who could stand before me — should the long-dead fortune teller's words prove to be true?

Do my words have even a fraction of the beauty yours did, like when you told me all your stories?

These marks are water. They aren't, but oh, I wish I could allow myself a soft lie right now.

Can I really trust those words that were spoken so long ago? Will you really come back to me on this night? Will Twilight bridge the gap between us? She's so inquisitive, but she can't retain half the curiosity you did. I have faith in her, for I have not laid eyes on you for the longest time, and all I will see is my greatest failure — and everything that should have been. Twilight Sparkle, my Faithful Student will see you with the light of a Spark I once held somewhere in me, if I deserved an Element at all. Even after all these years, I can't bear to do anything with them anymore. They are not dead, but long ago the power they promised died to me, as did what they stood for.

I hope to work on everything we should have fixed from the start of all this. I want to mend every miscommunication of the past with the brave young mare who has been through so much. Will you let me pretend to be the strong one, all so I might hold you in my hooves as you were and tell you that everything is going to be alright? Can we break the barriers between us? In what feels like another life, as some of my ponies who know not what gods like you or I do say, I would have torn each barrier down with fire and fury. I'd have crossed every border between us if I were brave and strong like you are, my little star. That fire is long gone, lingering somewhere in me that even I'm not sure I know how to reach anymore, or how I had to begin with. I am so calm now and I want you to see that. Please try to remember Tia, from before the tribes. Those mistakes will never go away, but I promise that I am not the icy monarch you remember, even if I still bring light I wonder if there is any within me. You will see that I can still be a stern mare, but I am not as I was. 

I am begging with you, that if you have read this far, know that I have changed. I will change into whatever I must, if only so that I can have you again, and so that you may be pleased with the ruler I have become.

My little star, will you allow me one last lie? It is on this sheet of paper peppered with tears and creases as my throat feels like it's swelling that I write of another one of my sins. For a thousand years I have lied to each and every creature to ever ask in order to make them feel safe. I told them with smooth falsehoods that it was I who raised your moon, even when we both know that I did not always have the strength to. You need not tell me but I can feel that with strings of magic it was you who puppeted the moon across the sky each night I was not strong enough; you who made sure all was not the tales of fire from our youngest days that are but distant whispers to these ponies. I merely added a little light to keep you from stumbling along.

As the light of your moon shows, the fortune-teller who whispered such a prophecy to me so long ago was not telling cryptic heresy or offering a hollow consolation. I see the stars align as I run out of paper. You are not lost. You can't be lost. The strings you throw out have anchored onto stars that you have pulled closer and closer with each year and though their positions may change. You will have so many things to learn because even now I find myself mumbling an empty prayer to the gods, though it is us who are the divine. I need it for Equestria, for luck, for Twilight Sparkle, for my little ponies, and of course for you. I pray for every divine but me, though I have only annual contact with the others. I wish that they will welcome you and that you will feel so much less alone. Perhaps soon, you will come to know that the world of fillyhood and the other Alicorns were not totally lost, and that other immortals are still present in controlling this world.

Even if you know not where it is, the shining capital city of Canterlot and its castle will be a dead give away of my location which is why there are none of my royal guards about. My quill is slipping, my heart is racing, and the tears won't stop — as the condition of this letter will prove — I know I'm running out of time. I just want to let you know that no matter what, I love you.

Yours truly, 

Celes-