Dear Princess Luna
I’ve been having a recurring dream lately.
I’ve had many before, especially back when I was your sister’s student. I would fall asleep while I was studying, and have nightmares about the very test I was working on. Sometimes it was that I’d forgotten the answers altogether, or that the test was in an unidentifiable language that everyone besides myself could understand. Sometimes, it was that I’d resorted to cheating and been caught, reprimanded by the school and my family alike.
Celestia said I worked too hard for a filly. Maybe she was right.
But this dream isn’t like that. It isn’t frightening like the nightmares you guided me through when you were freed from the moon, but I find myself waking up in tears as though they were. I wonder so often what the delegates and the representatives that travel from all over Equestria would think if they saw me in the state I wake up in.
Maybe it doesn’t matter to them, but it must to you. I know it must.
It’s about my friends. It always is, with these sorts of dreams. Even now that the graveyard holding their bodies has grown into a luscious garden centuries in the making, thinking about how much I miss them makes it feel as though I lost them only yesterday. I understand that your sister only meant to guide me to where I am today, but living to see their descendants use my title rather than my name pains me.
I know you have felt the same. Although you never discussed it in detail, there are days I noticed you and Celestia would take to be silent, staring at the stained glass windows of the castle.
In the dream, all of us are stargazing by the castle of the Grand Galloping Gala, nestled in the grass between the main entrance and the gardens. They are older, perhaps at the middle of their lifespan, but it doesn’t truly matter. The night sky is beautiful, with ribbons of dark violets and navy blues strewn throughout the midnight black, with magenta streaks complimenting the speckles of stars. The moon is dim compared to the rest of the sky, but it holds your silhouette, just as it does now upon your ascension. We aren’t speaking, but we know we’re all together, and that is enough.
I am next to Pinkie Pie. I know this because I can see the frizz of her mane from the corner of my eyes, and hear her gasps of wonder from taking in the view. She was such an easy mare to read, even if it took me so long to realize it. There was spirit in everything she said and did, a bubbling energy that filled the room from the moment she entered. I can tell she wants so badly to point out the constellations overhead, but she remains quiet for us.
For me, perhaps.
One by one, the others begin to leave, citing reasons for their departure and offering sincere farewells. Rarity to finish designing her newest winter line, Applejack and Rainbow Dash to make sure their foals are tucked in, and Fluttershy to tend to a brand new batch of baby squirrels. I don’t see them walk off, nor do I say goodbye as I hear their hoofsteps shuffle through the damp grass. I don’t know why- perhaps I’m so focused on the sky that I can’t bring myself to look away. Perhaps I figure that when morning comes, I will be able to see them again.
How I wish I still had that luxury.
But Pinkie Pie stays, and I remain with her. Vaguely, I am aware that we have somehow moved closer to one another, close enough that I can feel the messy locks of her fur graze my side. It was always funny to me how wonderfully imperfect her fur could be. With all the baking and all the experimentation, patches would always be partially singed, others sticky, and still others matted down in tight curls. Her mane as well, always containing some odd toy or trinket from the day, or some bits of confetti that she hadn’t yet managed to get out. Yet there would still be sections that were soft to the touch, somehow unharmed by the chaos of her lifestyle, especially by her face where her smile shone brightest.
And I loved it, every messy part of it.
I remember extending my wing, stretching it out to its fullest width, and wrapping it around her own side, cradling her within. She giggles and snuggles closer at the signal, resting her snout gently on my shoulder. When I turn my head to face her, our eyes are meeting, hers squinted slightly in amusement.
“I’m not that cold, silly.”
She says it with a laugh, her tone lighthearted and sweet. It’s the truth, because despite the chilling winter wind, she is warm and comforting. The stars are sparkling in her eyes, brighter and clearer than they are in the sky itself.
“Just in case.”
It’s me who speaks this time. I’m smiling, faintly but genuinely, as I fawn over every detail of her face. Bits of her fur are graying, lines of exhaustion have formed underneath her grin, and her eyes don’t hold the same brightness as they did when I first came to Ponyville, but above all, she is beautiful. She is the most gorgeous mare in all of Equestria.
And it’s then that I lean in, and we share a kiss.
It doesn’t last for very long, not more than seconds, but it feels as though it is forever in the moment. It is as though, for the time being, my worries have grown wings like my own and taken to the skies. There is nothing I fear and nothing I worry for, all clouded by affection for the pony I am sharing my life with. I am no longer a princess, but just a pony, for whom nothing else matters. I am at peace.
I lift a hoof and drape it over her, to hold her as though we were young mares again. But I soon find that, as I open my eyes, my arm is resting flat on the grass instead. I lift my head to check the surrounding area, hoping to see where she has gone, but there is only the sound of rustling petals and leaves. Well and truly, she has vanished, and I am fully alone.
It is then that I wake, ill and distraught, to the reminder that the memory was not real. Not only that it was a dream, but that it was one which could never have been.
And I am angry at myself. I am angry for having dreams where we are together, dreams that pretend she did not have a loving husband who she would never have betrayed in such a way. I mentored their child myself, I taught them the magic of friendship and all that came with it in my very school. I watch even still as the generations after them continue to grow.
And it pains me, because in each and every one, I see traces of her.
I see it even in minute details, such as the way one might walk with a joyful leap in their step, or how one describes the senses they have to avoid objects they can’t even detect, or even the cadence of one’s laugh. In eyes, in faces, in expressions, in emotions.
It is undeniable that I loved her. I was stubborn when I first began to harbor such feelings, but when I recall the past, the memories I hold closest to my heart are the ones of her and I. Her energy, her contagious excitement, her soothing positivity when I was at my wits end. The pastries she would bake simply because she knew I would love them, the hugs she gave that always lingered long enough to know that I was safe in her arms.
I have caught myself staring at her in the stained glass window, when we first summoned the Elements of Harmony, as though the glass could understand the amount of joy the pony whose likeness it was crafted from brought to me.
But I did not tell her, never. I am the Princess of Friendship, and I knew better than to disrupt the harmony of a marriage and a family. Cheese Sandwich was a good stallion, and I know by the way she described him to me that they were beyond perfect for each other. Their lives, though short to me and to you, were spent in bliss with one another. There was never a dull moment when they were together, not for us and not for each other.
Perhaps, had I told her, we could have had a moment such as the one in my dreams. Perhaps we could have had a foal that she would read stories to, telling tales with such vigor that even mundane stories sounded wild and free. Perhaps we would have simply lived domestically, and I would have been able to ask how to properly bake a cake the way she did. Perhaps we could have lived her final days in battles of glory, hoof in hoof as we banished the darkest foes to Tartarus.
Or perhaps not.
Perhaps, when her funeral came, I would regret making her feel as though she needed to choose between her family and one of her closest friends. She took choices so drastically seriously, as I once did and still do. It would have torn her up inside, I’m sure, no matter what she decided.
What hurts me most is that I will never know for certain, but while it tears my heart in two, the memory of her beaming smile mends it now.
I almost wish you were here to speak with me. To help me navigate through this dream, to finally find solace within it however it would manifest. But after the thousands upon thousands of years you have ruled for, I can’t say I blame you for wanting to rest. If I feel this way after only centuries, I cannot yet imagine eons of the same. I almost feel as though I should thank you, sometimes, for your ascension. Even with all my studies, neither I nor Cadence could have had the will to raise the sun and moon as you and Celestia once did.
I still think of you when I look at them. I’m sure I always will.
Much like I will still think of her when the dawn turns the sky a rosy, brilliant, beautiful shade of pink.