I Want Tomorrow
Dawn breaks.
There is blue in the sky.
Blue. No more black. Finally, colour returns to the land.
I see the moon slowly approaching the horizon. The silhouette on it makes my eyes tear up. Somehow, her face is there, in the moon, staring at me accusingly.
I can't stand it anymore. I tear my eyes away from it all, and just stare at the ground. But even the colour of the grass reminds me that it's all over.
It's finally all over. Nightmare Moon is defeated. Luna... my Luna... is gone.
A voice speaks up behind me. It is warm and soft as the sunlight of this long-awaited morning.
"I am so sorry you had to be a part of this," she says.
I sigh. "I was a part of this from the start, Princess," I say as I turn towards her. "Or is that Queen, now?"
The question brings a pained look over Celestia's face. "No. Never. We kept it like this out of respect for each other. One day, she will come back."
"Will..." I gulp. "Will I see her again?"
"Every night, when I raise the moon, you will see her, as you see her now," Celestia says, looking at the slowly setting moon. "But that is the only consolation I can give you."
I nod. I hadn't expected anything else. "How long, then?" I ask, more out of idle curiosity.
"Ten centuries," the Princess replies, so softly I can barely hear her. The sadness in her voice is unmistakable. Even to her, it must seem like several lifetimes away. I don't envy her for the fact she will see Luna again, though. She will suffer far longer than I will, and we both know it.
I look at the Elements. The beautiful gems are strewn across the destroyed castle's courtyard like discarded toys. I let my gaze pass over them, picking out the ones I brought here. Laughter, Loyalty and Honesty. The smiling sickle moon, and the trustworthy unchanging stars that guide travellers and sailors without ever leading them astray. Luna's elements.
I tear my eyes away from them. Corrupted or not, I still betrayed her. The Element of Loyalty, betrayed by the one she trusted most. Maybe even the only person she still trusted. She never saw it coming. She probably never realized, right up until the moment Celestia used them on her. I shake my head, and tears escape my eyes once again. Her last moments on the planet were probably spent cursing my name. And, most likely, she'll spend many more trapped up there doing the same thing.
Nightmare Moon had hidden her Elements, of course. Though she suspected that Celestia wouldn't be able to sufficiently control them on her own to cleanse the Nightmare from Luna's soul, she knew that she would try nonetheless. But the Elements of Harmony are tricky magic. They favour Balance, and are known to cheat to get what they want. So she took no chances. She told not a soul.
Not a soul... except one. The stallion she loved. The stallion she trusted. The last part of her old life she could not tear herself away from.
Me.
Celestia didn't dare meet me in person. Nightmare Moon was far too focused on her. No, I was approached quietly by her people. They begged me for help. Begged me to try to change Luna's mind. But I knew that something had taken hold of the mare I loved. She was still my Luna, and yet, she wasn't. Deep in the stars, she had found some kind of power, and it had changed her. But despite the change, she still loved me.
And she still trusted me.
I had told Luna that it was wrong, of course. Unnatural. Unicorns had always raised and lowered the moon, even before the Sisters took control. We had legends of the time before Discord. The time before the Regal Sisters took control of a ruined land. Luna tried to convince me, of course. She told me the crops would still grow in her moonlight. She had enough power to make that happen, now. Enough power to defy her sister. I gave in, in the end. I had already lost the day. I didn't want to lose my dear Luna on top of that. But even then, I could see her slip away. The power inside her grew, and Luna would not keep it under control forever.
So I helped Celestia. I was the only one who could. I gave her the Elements. I chose to see the new day. I wanted tomorrow to happen, even if it meant leaving Luna behind. Together, Celestia and I devised a plan. The Elements' power was broken. Nothing could change that. The only way to cleanse Luna was to give them time to find new bearers, who could once again use them at their full power. So Celestia would not attempt to cleanse her. No. She would do something Nightmare Moon would not expect.
I shake my head, trying to dislodge the memories running in my head in endless circles. What's done is done, and though there will not be a single night that I don't wistfully glance up to the moon, I know this chapter of my life is over. The one trapped in the moon is most likely no longer my Luna. I saw it grow before, and in her banishment it will most likely grow further. By the time she comes back, so many lifetimes away, I hope there will still be anything left to cleanse.
I look up to Celestia. "What happens now, my Liege? What happens after these thousand years?"
Celestia gives me a wan smile. "Have faith, my little pony," she says. "The Elements have a will of their own. They will find new Bearers, when the time comes."
"But not you," I say, half asking.
Celestia shakes her head. "Not me." She nodded at the Elements. "Watch... the Elements are in flux. Undecided. Still linked to us, despite us being a broken harmony, they no longer really belong to anyone."
I watch the Elements. The gems seem to grow paler, losing all their colour. The tiara at Celestia's hooves shakes and cracks, and grey dust flows out of the gem. I notice the whole tiara is fading away, slowly turning to dust.
The other Elements aren't disappearing, though. The dust from the Element of Magic swirls around them, moved by an ethereal wind. It clings tightly onto the gems, obscuring them, and, slowly, packing them into grey cocoons. I watch wordlessly for several minutes, as the gems turn into grey balls of stone, each one adorned with its own symbol. The symbols on the stone balls are simple geometric shapes, though. They somehow look infinitely older than the beautiful symbols the gems were before.
"And thus, they hibernate. They wait, like they were waiting when my sister and I first found them, hiding the Element of Magic inside themselves."
She turns to me, an unsure look on her face. "Do you regret it?" she asks.
I shake my head, resolutely. "No. We did what we had to do. It hurts, of course. I wanted her."
Luna's prison has completely disappeared beyond the horizon by now. I look behind me, at the rising sun.
"Now, though, I want a future, for all of us. I want tomorrow."
Author's Note
So, Emerald Flight posted a challenge in The Writer's Group, daring us all to let the Shuffle function of whatever we use to listen to music decide a music piece to serve as main theme for a story, and to choose a genre with two coin flips.
I ended up with the prompt to write a sad fic, and out of an 8500 track playlist, my Shuffle function selected the track Enya - I Want Tomorrow, which (like much of my collection) I hadn't listened to in ages. A quick search for the precise lyrics told me how frighteningly easily it would fit into Equestrian mythology. So I went ahead and wrote it.
[edit]
Wow. Apparently, ObabScribbler did an audio reading of this tale. I'm honoured!
