A few months after Nightmare Moon's return
Silly, I have to tell you a story. It’s not something that I want to be known, especially by the fillies that saved me, the Elements, but it’s one that I just need to share with somepony.
It was about two years or so after you had stuck me up on the…
OK, OK, I get it…
I know you’re sorry…
Stop it! I know! But I did not precisely help matters, did I? Just because I was right about the direction you were taking the whole ruling thin…besides what I really wanted was for the ponies to stop paying so much attention to you so that we could spend more time together.
Well, no, you’re not going to get away from me now! Especially when I’m literally under your wing most of the time. At least in private. I just wish you didn’t do so many public things so we could spend more time together.
Ah, well, you know, me and the public…I don’t think that’s a very good match. Not at all. Nope.
Would you…what are you doing with my tail? Hey!
Haha, well you shouldn’t have tried blowing on my tail if you didn’t want a mouthful of tail hair! Serves you right! But I can see that you’re bored with my story, so I guess I’ll just…
And how do I know you’ll behave yourself?
OK, I guess if you really aren’t bored, I can tell you the story. I suppose.
I am not being mean! And this is why you need to spend less time with your subjects! You always end up having to pretend you’re some infallible mother figure for them, and one day you’ll snap! If they knew you like I know you, sissy.
Hah! I guess we’re both horrible god-figures. Wouldn’t it be funny if ponies found out that in most mythologies in the multiverse the sun and moon are lovers trying to catch eachother?
Oh, your blush is such an adorable shade of red! Reminds me of the time when you dyed your coat pink and sung out to anypony who would listen – how did it go? – Ah yes, “Aren’t my wings pretty?”
…
Well, I wouldn’t say you were so much not in a proper state of mind as you were high as a kite.
…
OK, higher than a kite. But that’s just in the literal sense.
Anyway, my story!
It had been about two years since I had been banished by a pony that shall not be named.
Yeah, yeah.
So I’m just hanging out on the moon, wondering how I could ever have such a horrible si…
Cough.
…working on equations for entering un-phased space and getting back down here and showing the ponies who is boss, when out of nowhere a tiny filly – practically a foal – shows up.
Now this is the dusk area of the moon. So I wasn’t in a position to see colour. I think she might have been pink…yes, pink like you used to dye yourself when you tried to pretend you were mom.
No, I’m not holding that against you. Not specifically that, anyway. Just think of it as a tool to be brought out at strategic times to discombobulate you.
Look it up in a dictionary. I’ll wait.
Well, yes, I did go over the less used words in Equestrian while I was bored out of my mind on the moon. Only so much time can be taken up with crazy schemes to take over.
Anyway, where was…ah, right. So this probably pink little filly comes up to me, and she starts talking and hopping around. All over my equations. Equations which had taken over a year to write out. And I can’t hear her because this is the moon and a virtual vacuum, so sound doesn’t travel. Did you know that, sissy, sound only travels through substances?
Well, yes, I suppose if sound did travel through vacuum we’d hear the roaring of the sun all the time. I guess I never did think of that. Good point.
Anyway.
She’s hopping around, pleased with herself as can be, and I’m becoming more and more incredulous. Months of work erased. I try to catch her with my magic but she’s too elusive. Out of frustration, I yell, and stomp my hooves, and try to scare her. And she looks at me, and you know what she does? She laughs. Just laughs.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
I can’t hear it but I can see it. Then she starts mimicking me. Starts growling. And hopping around even more. Or I think it was growling. She made a face like it.
I’m at a loss. What can I do? The thought goes through my mind that she’s an illusion. That my mind has warped and I’m crazy…
OK, crazier. Not that you were particularly sane last millennium. Sending your little sister to the moon when what she needs is counselling. A lot of it. Although apparently psychotherapy through rainbow depowering also works. Who knew, right?
Yeah, that does sound naughty, now that I think about it.
OK, OK. Well, I really don’t know what to do. But then the filly stops, yawns, and starts shivering. Her face gets all droopy, and she stumbles toward me, like as if she’s expecting me to catch her. Yeah, me, Emo Moon.
Yeah, it took a thousand years, but I can laugh at it now.
And there she is. She collapses right beside me, and it’s only now that I think that maybe, just maybe, the filly needs oxygen and warmth to survive. Real or not, a filly I would’ve at best ignored a few years before became my only concern.
Thoughts of escape left my mind as I lay myself beside her, checking her pulse. I was surprised she was warmer than you a day after you’ve been on a cake binge.
Oh, you can use the “have to feed the fires of the sun” excuse with your dieticians and personal fitness trainers, but don’t think I’m fooled for a minute. If you really needed to feed the sun you’d eat more baked beans.
…
For the gas.
…
Oh, stop looking at me like that. And I’d like to note that it was I, over a thousand years ago, that invented the face-hoof. I should likely be getting royalties every time somepony does it. Or at least anytime you do it.
Heh, royalties.
Anyway, so I lay down beside the young filly, thinking what magic I could summon to produce air for her. But I just barely make out a rumbling coming from her little tummy, as if she was purring. At first worried, I very slowly realize that she’s snoring. It took me a while because my primary example of snoring was from some great white oaf who shook the castle every time she went to bed.
Hey, no poking with magic! No, there’s no way you managed to twist your rear hoof around like that! And I thought you were going to behave yourself.
Fine. Just don’t do it again.
So this filly is sleeping. And I decide that I could use a bit of shuteye myself.
As I lay my head down near hers, a calm and peace that I hadn't felt since we were fillies comes upon me. A serenity that even now, sitting under you wing, eludes me.
What, no. When I woke up she was gone. All that was left was a wet stain on my haunch and her memory.
Yes, yes. It might have been tears. At the time, however, I put two and two together and rolled around in moon dust. I didn't even try to smell it first.
What? No I didn't have time to look for her. The next thing I know is that there are four stars surrounding me and bringing me back down to Equestria. For all I know she’s still up there.
Well no, I don’t think she is. But how about we wait a few more months? That wet stain was way too big for crying.