Can You Ever Leave the Moon?
Part 1
By: Saboba42
The following is a non-profit fan-fiction. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all associated characters and settings are the property of Hasbro. Please support the official release.
"Eep! Celestia, if you're going to ride this ridiculous contraption everywhere, could you at least put in padded seats?"
The deep purple alicorn struggled to recollect herself to a passably seated position on her older sister's royal carriage as it trundled through the shady Everfree Forest. This was harder than it seemed - if a wheel hit so much as a pebble, the whole platform was jolted violently.
"Dearest sister, has so much come between us that you won't call me "'Tia" anymore?" Celestia looked hurt.
Luna looked down dejectedly at the white enamel of the carriage floor.
"Is trying to cover your world in eternal darkness and subjecting everypony to slow, agonizing starvation something between us?" she asked from the side of her mouth.
The white alicorn's aurora-like mane visibly slumped against her neck. She thought for a minute before leaning down to put her muzzle by Luna's ear.
"That was what Nightmare Moon wanted, not Princess Luna. You know that," she said softly. Luna soothed the plethora of emotions that came unbidden to her mind by snuggling into her sister's side. "Besides, little sister" Celestia continued gently, "the world is less for every creature thrown out of it – good or ill – and I for one want the greatest world there can be."
As they talked, the gloom overhead began to give way. Flecks of sunshine filtered through the canopy.
"Your majesties, we are about to arrive in Ponyville," one of the white draft-pegasi called out from in front. As he said this, a bubblegum-pink pony appeared before them from somewhere off-screen.
"And you know what that means," she squeaked, "A PARTY!"
From her saddlebags, a cloud of confetti and streamers exploded into the air.
My Little Pony
My Little Pony
AaaaaaAAAAH…
*theme song*
Several hundred equines in various pastel colors joyously met the royal carriage at the entrance to the town. Luna's stomach churned at the sight of the crowd. What would they think of the pony who had that very morning locked their Sun goddess away and doused the world in eternal night? The carriage slowed to a stop, and the Moon goddess's heart seemed to stop with it.
As they exited the carriage, everypony bowed low at the sight of Celestia. This did not comfort Luna – they were her sister's subjects after all. Suddenly, she felt something leafy swish over her head. The purple alicorn looked down with wide eyes to find a collar of roses about her neck – and not the thorny kind either. Two young pegasi so tiny they resembled cherubs had joyfully bestowed it on her.
The whole thing put Luna in a state of shock. The roses were the first living, sweet smelling thing she had encountered in a thousand years. It was as if the earth had gathered her into a tender embrace, shutting out the lunar ice. But the main source of her shock was the fact that it was given freely of Ponyville's own accord – the ponies she thought would have her strung up on sight.
While the purple alicorn struggled to comprehend what was happening, Celestia bid her subjects to rise and begin the Summer Sun Celebration in earnest. There was a round of whoops and the air was filled with an enthusiastic drumroll of stomping hooves. Celestia trotted forward to join the festivities, but noticed her sister was still rooted with a thousand mile stare. It took a few stiff nudges to bring Luna back to reality. The purple alicorn gave a sheepish smile and trotted off with her sister into the colorful crowd.
Though it had been an eternity since Luna had interacted with other ponies, she found mingling to be much less daunting than it should have been. True, Celestia did her best to drop hints to everypony when things became too much for her, but Luna felt as if deep down there was something giving her the strength to get back on her hooves. She talked, laughed, and even played a few rounds of pin the tail on the pony, all the while reveling in her newfound attention – more than she could ever remember getting.
However, in the back of her mind, this onslaught of attention worried the purple alicorn. Perhaps the ponies had the same theory that Celestia did – Nightmare Moon brought the night, not Luna. Perhaps the common pony had even forgotten the two were one and the same. Still, nopony had ever paid her this much notice even before she had become the Nightmare. Why were they doing so now?
As she was pondering this, an enthusiastic bubblegum pink pony came bouncing through the crowd and stopped directly in front of Luna. She stood still for a second, staring at the purple alicorn, then took a huge gasp. It looked as if she were about to run off, but then she fell flat on face.
"Oh I must be loco in the cocoa," she squeaked, "we can't have Luna's super awesome extra special welcome back from the Moon surprise party in the middle of the Summer Sun Celebration, because then it would be, like, a party within a party, and that's just silly."
This idea seemed to give the pink pony pause. In a flash, she slipped a familiar looking silver top from Hammerspace and set it spinning in midair, studying it closely. It began to wobble, but before it righted itself or came to a stop, she seemed to be satisfied and the top vanished as soon as it had come. The pony's attention returned to Luna.
"So are ya havin' fun? Areyaareyaareya?" she asked bouncing up and down. Before Luna could answer, the pony went on: "Because you have to be having fun, it's a party, duh, and everyone knows parties are totally tons and boatloads and oodles of fun, and Pinkie Pie throws the bestest most parties Equestria has ever seen!"
Luna stared dumbfounded at Pinkie – it was her only response.
"So, you were on the Moon for a thousand years, did you find any cheese?"
The purple alicorn was trapped in Pinkie's wall of nonsense for several chaotic moments more before Celestia noticed her plight and mentioned to the exuberant pony that she smelled something burning. Pinkie gasped and said something about spinach puffs before bolting away at ludicrous speeds.
It took a few minutes for the auditory overload to wear off, but when it did, things began to fall into place in Luna's mind. Had Pinkie really been talking to her? She was pretty sure she could have walked away and the cascade of loquacion would have continued unabated. The purple alicorn began carefully studying her conversations. After a while, she came to a dreadful conclusion.
"'Tia," Luna whispered to her sister, "could we talk a minute… alone?"
When she saw the look in Luna's eyes, Celestia politely excused herself from her conversation and motioned for her sister to follow. They found a back alley where the noise of the party was not as deafening. Celestia came to a stop and sat down next to a certain tall blue police box which went unnoticed.
"What is wrong, Luna?" the snow white alicorn asked in a concerned tone of voice.
"Do you ever feel like those ponies aren't really talking to you?" Luna asked, ears back, "Like they're talking through you?"
"Yes," Celestia said gently, "that is the burden we carry as heads of state. We have to keep up appearances and that leads to everypony else thinking they have to do the same. They do not mean any harm. That is just the way things are, little sister."
"I… I guess I understand," the purple alicorn sighed, head down.
"If it makes you feel any better, it is hard on me too," Celestia offered. "But so long as we have each other, we can deal with it together."
Luna glanced into her sister's eyes and nodded. The two were quiet for a moment before heading back up the alley into the crowds.
This time, instead of mingling, Luna stuck to Celestia's side, quietly watching her sister. After a time, she began to notice something unsettling. It was a tremor – barely enough to see, but unmistakably there in everypony around Celestia. This warranted investigation. Luna quietly backed up a ways and discretely called upon her magic to fade away. She reappeared some distance away behind a currently abandoned apple cart.
The purple alicorn crawled under the cart and settled beneath the wheels where she could watch her sister through the spokes. Her suspicions were confirmed – it was as if there was an energy field around the white alicorn. Outside the field, ponies were acting like ponies and looked to be having quite a good time. Inside the field, everypony seemed on edge and maybe just a little bit fearful.
Luna let her head sink down and trembled. The strength to continue mingling was still there, but she suddenly felt estranged to it. She was convinced that no one really saw Luna – they only saw a Moon princess before whom they felt obliged to keep up appearances. The attention she had craved now seemed tainted forever. She quietly wiggled out from under the cart, turned down an alley, and faded away.
The dejected purple alicorn stomped through the Everfree Forest, her periwinkle mane in a frizzed mess of anger. Despite the horrors that lurked in the murky darkness beneath the canopy, it was the only place Luna felt like going – somewhere dark, silent, and forbiddingly alone.
A thousand years had gotten her accustomed to the crushing loneliness of the Moon. She could deal with that. What she could not deal with was being forgiven and taken back into the fold, only to be surrounded by a sea of distant patronization.
It just… wasn't fair. She wished the Elements of Harmony had thrown her back to the Moon – for good this time. At least then her fantasies of life with other ponies would still be intact. Now they lay ruined by the realization that at the very least her status had put an infinite gulf between herself and the love she craved, and at worst love itself was just an appearance.
Sticky hot anger rose in Luna's gut. It was not the greedy indignation of Nightmare Moon – the purple alicorn had just seen firsthoof that power was placated, not loved. Instead, she felt the just, longing, rage of a ravenous stomach created in a world of wax food.
The princess was so focused on her thoughts that she did not notice a hoof-sized rock in the trail before her. The first warning she got was her muzzle firmly planted in the ground. When the shock wore off the disheveled alicorn rose shaking to her hooves. She saw what had tripped her up and gave it a firm buck, pleased to have something to focus her anger on. The rock soared far off the path, but Luna felt it had not gone far enough to adequately express her rage. She charged after the stone bucking it again and again. Eventually, her horn blazed purple-red and with a mighty surge of magic the stone was catapulted into space so fast that it became a shooting star going the opposite direction. The purple alicorn was left panting in the middle of the forest burning with the satisfaction of a rage well done.
However, as her passion began to wane, Luna found herself completely lost. She had left the path far behind and the canopy was too thick to fly through. She considered blasting a hole through the leaves, but realized even if she could fly out, there was nowhere she wanted to go, nopony she wanted to be with. She even felt a bit of animosity towards her sister for selfishly wishing her back into this empty world. If only she could go back to the Moon…
The alicorn hung her head, and in doing so she got a muzzle-full of moss. The wet squishy coolness made her jump, eyes wide. The Moon did not have moss. Then she remembered the roses and how good it felt to have air flowing through her mane. One thought lead to another and soon Luna stood perfectly still, soaking in her surroundings for the first time in what felt like forever.
She was in a forest of gnarled trees and rampant undergrowth. The canopy was so thick that any light coming down was deep green. Even in the middle of the day there was a bit of mist swirling about. It was summer, so the undergrowth was all green with few flowers to break up the color. The slightly warm air was thick and musty with the smell of leaves both newly grown and rotting. There was little wind. Her hooves were cushioned by cool fuzzy moss. While on the Moon the empty smothering silence pressed in on one's eardrums, the silence of the woods felt more like a comfortable lull in conversation.
The more of the sights and smells the alicorn took in, the more she decided the place was better than the Moon. At last, her mind was made up. She would stay here, maybe move further up and further in, but the forest would be her home. No more would she long foolishly for those ponies' attention… or friendship… or… love.
As the thoughts flashed through her mind, Luna's heart flooded again with pain and longing for the impossible. The alicorn flopped over and wiggled up against a tree, tears pouring down her cheeks.