AN:-

I first started writing this back in 2014. It was posted on FIMFiction. Real life happened. I intend to finish this. That's all.

Prologue: Welcome to the Moon (And it's Dark Side)

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria lived a librarian turned princess.

But this is not her story.

Half the time I wonder what it would have been like if I never went to the moon... You know what? It happened so I'll just leave it at that.

Because despite the voices, the random things that happened and well, Blueblood. I wouldn't have it any other way.

You want to know why? Well, I'd best show you. Oh and sorry, but my pensieve only shows things in grayscale.

Princess Luna strode over to a cupboard. She started to open it when a thought seemed to occur to her.

Okay there are a few things you need to know before we go into any of this...

Don't laugh.

I was only a little filly back then. So I called myself Woona.

You're laughing...

Stop laughing! Or I'll not let you look in the pensieve!

The sight of the Princess pouting snaps you out of your laughing fit as the massive amounts of cuteness radiating from her stops you from thinking of anything else

Thank you.

Now, it's a rather involved memory, and you'll occasionally hear an overarching narrator – that's normal. I added it for your viewing enjoyment. You'll also see dreams and daydream, as well as... Well, hear them.

You know how some people have an inner narration? My inner decision making process sounds like a thousand people all clamouring for me to do different things. And then I choose the most general consensus out of all of them.

Yes.

I know that I'm stalling.

Fine.

Here's the first memory...

You, the viewer watch as the Princess of the Night gathered a pool of silver out from her head. Her magic gently encased the memory in a royal blue glow as she carried it over to the pensieve. The pensieve the alicorn poured the memory into was odd. It looked like it was made from seaweed for one. And it was interwoven with several different things: - there was this feather that crackled with energy, what looked like a strand of changeling hair and this beautiful glowing flower interlocked in the weave of the basket-like pensieve. Then you notice that she was, in fact, waiting for you to follow her. Embarrassed you quickly make your way over to her and duck your head in.

Yes, we are on the moon. You do know I did come here from time to time before I got banished right? It is my territory after all.

And no, Tia does not visit the sun. That's stupid – it's a giant ball of gas! Where would she stand?

Alright. See that over there?

That's me as I was – Princess Woona. Be overcome with my cuteness at that age. I know I am, and well, it's me.

True enough, you the viewer see an extremely cute little alicorn filly standing on the surface of the moon looking about in confusion.

Now, I'm going to stop talking. Things are about to get good.

Woona looked about the moon in confusion. How did she get here? Why was she here? Why couldn't she remember? The little filly wondered what she was going to do when the random thought of retrieving her own hooves popped into her mind.

Which was rather silly actually – she was wearing her hooves.

She shrugged and continued looking about the moonscape wondering what she could do now. Tapping her hooves against the ground she recalled how Tia told her about how the thingie that kept all ponies from flying off into space was weaker on the moon. For a second Woona wondered if she should hop across the moon in a happy fashion even as a sudden tingle came over her cute little body.

She might never 'boing' as high ever again.

So she crouched low to the 'ground' and sprang up with all the might in her little hooves.

And kept going.

Up and up and up and up and forever into space...

Woona shook her head briskly to clear her mind of the waking-dream.

"Whoa, that'll be a bad end. And then I'll need to respawn..."

After all, that tingle she felt just now was the strength of her sheer cuteness keeping her tethered on the moon – even she understood that. And with that Woona sat down to meditate. Something reminded her that she had not done her magic workout that day – and when she didn't, strange things tended to happen. Strange things always happened when she didn't raise the moon. Tia always insisted that she did so, so she did.

Strangely, Woona found that it was a lot easier to lift the moon when she was on it. It didn't take quite as much out of her as usual, but, hey Tia wasn't around to make her continue. Which was how little Woona decided to slack off. Just for the day, raising the moon was hard work after all, especially when you were on the moon.

Anyway, playtime!

And since Woona was alone, she could do anything. Anything at all. Like... Being alone in a hardboiled manner! (She always secretly wanted to do that. Tia wouldn't let her.)

There was a reason why Tia said things happen when Woona didn't use enough magic.

As Woona draped herself back against well, nothing (kicking back in a sufficiently badass manner); a chair materialized, along with a rather fashionable fedora (if she did say so herself). She suddenly felt like ingesting lots of coffee and hardboiled eggs (which was a little silly, Tia would never allow her near the coffee – her sister claimed she was hyper enough). A number of witty quips and sarcastic one-liners sprung into her mind (most of which would have made Tia shake her head and say 'precocious child...'), and she felt like keeping an eye out for any suspicious-looking dames.

"You have gained 30 Hardboiled Points."

A robotic sounding voice echoed through the recesses of space as a hoof-size number thirty (which for some reason was wearing a hat) drifted onto the ground next to her chair.

Woona shrugged and walked away from her chair of hardboiled-ness. As much as she enjoyed it, stargazing sounded brilliant right now for some reason. The stars glinted in the filly's teal eyes as she looked happily at them. Then what looked like a duplicate of herself zoomed past, screaming.

"Wait. What?" Woona said incredulously as she shook her head to rid herself of the image.

It didn't work.

Thinking that checking the Hardboiled Points Leaderboards would help her take her mind of things, she used a bit of her magic to it bring up. She knew that seeing herself in the first rank would...

Seriously?

I mean seriously?

Oh come on! How in Equestria did this Blueblood guy beat her in Hardboiled-ness? Thirty Hardboiled points was as high as anypony can get! And how were you supposed to get a tenth of a point? It didn't make any sense.

Pouting, she slouched onto the fine 'dirt' of the moon. Running her hoof in patterns until she realised what she was drawing.

Tia and her. Together.

And for the first time since Woona randomly woke up on the celestial body she was responsible for, she felt utterly alone.

You look over at the Princess as she retrieved the memory from her pensieve. Another memory gently swirls about within her magic as you adjust back to the world outside the pensieve. Colours seem more vivid than ever. The grayscale sure did a number on your eyes. (For a moment you wonder if that is truly how Winona saw the world.) You try to subtly wipe at the barely there tears, but of course the Princess noticed. You never get away with anything.

Are you alright? You seemed troubled.

You shake your head briskly and tell her about the last scene you watched before being pulled out of the pensieve.

Ah, yes, that. Do you want to continue?

Yes?

Okay then...

I promise you that it will get better. I will not spoil the story for you but I will tell you this, every story has it's highs and lows. Points in which you rejoice with the characters and points in which you cry with them. That (and a good plot - no pun intended) is what makes a good story great. With that, are you ready to dive back in?

As you nod at her, she poured her memory into the pensieve. Breathing deeply, you re-immerse yourself in the story.

Woona stared at her picture and drew up her resolve. She was not going to let herself think about that, after all, she was in the middle of a mystery! And first things first in any mystery is to scan your surroundings. In particular for other lifeforms. So Woona donned her trusty scouter to scan the moon for other lifeforms. However, she seemed to have forgotten the first principle of scouters, which is that you must never operate it under zero-gravity. (You see, the lack of gravity causes fluctuations in the mechanisms, which sometimes can cause weird things to happen to the device.) As there's currently no gravity on the moon, Woona's trusty scouter gave up the ghost - plainly put, it was rendered useless. (Yes, Woona here was forcibly reminded that the 'thingie' Tia told her about was in fact, gravity.)

"Oh well."

Woona sighed as she looked at her now broken scouter - mentally planning the small moon funeral she would give the formerly trusty device, before shrugging - it was not as if she was going to find anything else on her level of cuteness here. But just to make sure, she scanned her surroundings again - this time with her eyes. (Scouter device rendered useless remember?)

During her observation of her surroundings, Woona noted that there was a copious amount of moon expanse, an improbable chair (probably made by her magic - she thinks), her badass hat, and her 30 hardboiled saw absolutely nothing else. And she was rather annoyed at the voices that claimed:-

"Hey look up there! The Woona that launched herself into deep space!"

or

"Can you see the non-existent pumpkin? You can see that right?"

Did those threads not know of the words 'absolutely nothing else'? It seemed not. Quickly, Woona squashed those particular voices in her decision making process, it wouldn't do to have a couple of crazies helping her make the big decisions in life. Although, she might not be able to squash all of them... She gave an equivalent of a mental shrug and decided to deal with any ramifications later.

Still, any hero (or heroine in little Woona's case) needs to have that one pre-journey heroic decision moment - or more simply put, the moment in which they pose (rather badass-ly). One of the threads of her decision-making process suggested she put on the badass hat to do so. So, Woona did. Woona's badass hat caused the pose to come out extremely rugged. (Woona resolutely ignored any thread that cried out that she was using the non-existent pumpkin to strike said pose - when would they get that it was not there?) Any low-life criminal scum hanging about had better watch their ne'er-do-well backs while Woona's on the case ('Yes, yes they better watch their backs' Woona thought).

As the little princess did this, the very same robotic voice that announced the arrival of her hatted (yes she went there, HAT-TED) thirty hardboiled points re-appeared to say

"You gain 10 Hardboiled Points."

The ten Hardboiled Points floated down to the (Woona decided for the sake of simplicity that she would use Equestrian landscape lingo from now on. Trying to say the moon equivalent was too confusing to do at all times - she was after all only a little filly) ground. There was brief flash, the inexplicable announcer then telling her

"Congratulations! Your 30 Hardboiled Points have evolved into a... 40 Hardboiled Points!"

Despite wondering if the inexplicable announcer knew that she knew basic maths Woona was pleased. She smirked

"Eat it, Blueblood! Um, whoever you are. Wherever you are."

But enough dilly-dallying! Woona knew she had to begin her hero's quest. She needed to get the ball rolling. She needed to start figuring out why she was here! She needed to... MOON HER ENEMIES!

Wait. No. No.

Woona shook her head as the thought of using the moon to CRUSH. THEM. ALL appeared in her mind. Firmly, she squashed that particular thread as well, because hey - that would be another bad end. The next thread suggested she explore the dark side of the moon - that seemed sensible enough, and it would help her start her hero's quest so...

Woona ended her hardboiled antics for the time being and took a quick jaunt down over to the dark side of the moon. Which certainly lived up to it's name. It was, well, dark. So dark that she couldn't see a thing around her. She couldn't even admire her own dainty little hooves. It was just that dark.

In retrospect, Woona thought, this outcome should have been obvious.