What was she doing there in that garden all alone? The air was frosty and biting. The clouds hung heavily, flushed darkly with snow like fat drunken men, teetering and ready to spill as their heft kept them sluggish and low. With their energy gone, they were hindered to elevate higher.
She sat there on her haunches with her forehooves wrapped around her body, shivering despite herself. She wore a thick coat, white and long, with their insignia on the back and hers on the front pocket. Her pastel rainbow hair billowed slowly, not frozen like the frigid air, but without the warmth of a glittering sunny day.
Luna approached her sister from behind. Her hoofsteps never made a sound; she was as light as a shadow in the night. When her hoof extended to perch on the familiar slope of her sister's shoulder, the day bringer jumped.
That was wrong. Celestia never jumped. Especially when Luna touched her. She knew her sister's touch too well for such a response. No one could move as quietly as Luna, so there could be no one else that could sneak up on her so well. And, to Luna's knowledge there was no one else who knew the spell to enter this section of the garden besides them.
This was Celestia's garden. Not Princess Celestia, Sovereign of the Day, Eternal Vigilant of the Sun, Diarch of Equestria's garden. Just Celestia's. Player of pawjong, eater of cakes, old and tired (though she’d never say it), and currently able to be surprised.
The concern on Luna's face etched darker as she sat next to her sister. How would things play out, tonight? Would they sit in silent reservation? Was all that Celestia needed a warm familiar body to sit with through the nipping air? Or would there be a revelation? Would Luna learn what could so distraught her sanguine sister? Maybe it was that she would have to speak first, question the manner of her sister's solemnity, and remark that she was not one to be taken off guard.
That didn't seem to be the case. The older mare began to speak without as much as a proper acknowledgment to her new company.
"How long?"
"How long what?" Luna replied, raising an eyebrow. She couldn't really expect Luna to answer such a vague question.
"How long did it take for you to stop hating me?" Her eyes swept to the brooding sky and looked for the moon she could not see. Luna followed her gaze knowing with more precision where her burden lie behind the clouds.
"What has brought this on, ‘Tia?"
"That's not the answer to my question?" Her normal attention commanding voice was now reserved and solemn. Her eyes didn't take a break from staring to the sky.
Luna could have made a case that her question would lead to an answer, but it was apparent that her sister was in no mood for roundabouts that evening.
Luna relinquished a sigh. "Years ‘Tia, decades even. There were times when I hated you so much that the only thing preoccupying my mind was the thought of destroying you with my bare hooves. I once wanted nothing more but to bash your head into the stairs of our old throne room, and be the only one that could sit on high.” Luna’s face grew dark with the resurfacing memories.
"But time passed, much much time, and I realized hating you wasn't going to make anything better, and hating you only made me hate myself all the more. There isn't much one can do physically imprisoned besides think, ‘Tia. So I did. I thought, and pondered, and rationalized everything that lead up to where I had been. It took decades to tamper the centuries of hate and jealousy, but slowly and surely I did.
"If anything, I hated the fact that I could not tell you how sorry I was, more than I hated you in the end..."
The wind carried a particularly chilly push. Celestia shivered. Luna hardly noticed, she'd spent enough time away from the warmth of the sun.
"But, you know all this, ‘Tia, so I believe it is my turn to have my question answered. What has brought this on?"
Celestia was being so unresponsive, just looking up at the gloomy underbellies of the sluggish clouds with a pensive expression engraved around her spinel eyes.
Luna waited patiently. There was nothing she could do -not force her to answer- she was the one who had interrupted her sister’s quiet time with inquiries. She noticed the way Celestia bit her lip and kept her face out of full sight.
The motion of the insecure, Luna knew it well. A subtle act meant to offer some trifle hope in shielding away from others’ opinions. And she noticed something else. The jerky bouncing of her leg.
Nervous. Princess Celestia of the Equestrian Realms was nervous. And around her sister, no less. Luna tried to take her sister's hoof in hers, she must have been freezing, but was taken aback as her sister yet again jumped. Something was too wrong to ignore this night.
"’Tia. You are troubled and I really would like to know why. Here you are, clearly uncomfortable in this atmosphere asking questions you already know the answer to- well that in and of itself isn't so different- but you look so forlorn and yet... refuse my comfort."
Had she done something wrong? Pushed her limits maybe? Celestia was crying.
Steady streams of liquid stress poured out of her eyes and down her cheeks already red and puffy from the weather. Luna watched as their eyes slowly met; she could see the depth of sorrow that highlighted the pitiful confusion on her face.
"Lulu," she choked out, "after everything? After all we've been through, and all I've done to you, it only took you decades to forgive me? I sent you to the moon for Equestria’s sake!" Steadily her voice had steadily risen until she was almost shouting in a furious voice, infrequent, but still not out of place. Her shoulders shook and this time it wasn't from the icy outside.
Luna blinked, thrown off by the outburst. "There's enough love between the two of us-"
"Love?! What's wrong with you?! Why don't you hate me?! How could you- how could you find it in your heart to forgive me?" She was standing now and her already raw voice was ablaze. She sniffled as she looked for her proper breath.
"Tia-"
"Whatever sagely advice you feel the need to share, don't." Her tone was harsh and bitter. It could cause whiplash how quickly her emotions had flared. Luna watched as her sister turned her back to her, tightly folding her wings around herself.
Luna felt that somehow, there was more to what her sister needed to say. Another strong gust broke the banks of the clouds, the snow fell in tipsy zigzags.
Before she could open her mouth to ask what it was, Celestia began once again to speak.
"Luna... I'm still angry... At myself for pushing you away, for taking so much from you when we were younger, for not being able to save you sooner-
"’Tia I've already forgiven you-"
"No, Luna! Let me finish…. I'm still furious because of how much I've hurt you, but I'm even more upset because...” Celestia tilted her head as if blinking back tears would gather the words she was afraid of to the back of her throat. “I'm still angry at you."
Celestia was looking at her sister now, shame and rage whirled in a strange combination on her features. Luna started to speak, many times opening and closing her mouth but lacking an accurate reply. Her face drew into a firm scowl. She couldn't have just heard what she thought she did.
"Celestia," she started slowly as she stood, "are you telling me that you don't forgive me?" Her words tiptoed carefully, as though on the edge of a steep fall.
The sun princess laughed a quick huff, mirthless and dry. "Yes. Yes Luna, I haven't forgiven you." Her eyes turned back to the direction of the hidden moon. "I wish I could, but every time I look at you, something in me, I don’t know what, but it just boils over.
Luna blinked in astonishment. "Why? What have I done?"
"What have you done?! Luna! You were Nightmare Moon!" Celestia's eyes were wild as she whirled back to her sister.
It was Luna's turn to blink back tears. "Yes ‘Tia, was! I was Nightmare Moon, and you saw the darkness ripe away from me, you were there, you were even responsible for gathering the new elements of harmony. I just- I don't understand what you could still hold against me?" Luna looked at her sister in disbelief searching with her eyes for the fault in this trick. This had to be an imposter, a changeling or skilled unicorn, because Celestia, her ‘Tia, couldn’t be this cruel.
"Luna, do you know how many lives you took, how many allegiances were broken, how divided the kingdom was because of what you did?!"
"But ‘Tia, I was possessed by that monster-"
"Don't!" Celestia threw a disapproving scowl towards her sister. "Don't you give me that, Luna! You may have been enhanced by darkness, overshadowed at some point, but don't you promote the citizens’ tales. That was you! Nightmare Moon was you. Deep down to the core. That was you!"
The clouds tried to ease their angry bellies by hurling what weighed them down over their barriers of suspension. Clump after clump plummeted onto building mounds of white.
Luna watched her sister through the veil of flurry. A figure she knew so well seemed so distant and distorted.
"You don't forgive me, hmm?" her voice stayed low. "Well then tell me, do you hate me as well?"
What Celestia could scarcely see, she heard in the rasping tremble of her sister’s voice. There was the loneliness and anger her sister was still struggling to overcome.
The sun princess lowered her head, shaking it because Luna wouldn't understand. "I was left to apologize to families. I was left to defend the kingdom. I was left to reunite the citizens and to mourn for the friends that I outlived."
"But ‘Tia-" her voice broke as the tears welled again. "Do you hate me?"
Celestia thought of her sister's old form, and how her flat blue hair and thin frame used to hide behind her when she was afraid. In a moment like this, Luna would be the one with her lip between her teeth and her brow drawn in worry with a slumping posture.
She chanced a glance and saw that that wasn't the case, and in this harsh reality, it was actually she who was afraid and uncomfortable. Luna was sad, clearly they both were, but it was Celestia whose heart was pulling down her sovereignly shoulders.
"I was by myself."
The winds picked up to a spirited howl, competing against Luna. "I hardly see how that's fair. You had people around you. You got to see our friends. You got to sit in a lofty throne, sleep on a downy bed, and go on chariot rides. You got to see your subjects whenever you wanted. ‘Tia, I was on the moon. No, I was imprisoned in the moon. I couldn't move, talk, feel anything!
“Do you know what I had, Celestia? My thoughts. I only had my memories, and my mind. And you know what that means? Hmm? Do you?! Well Celestia, it meant I had to suffer a thousand years of burning abusive comments from the only thing that could think besides me- the darkness you so pointedly believe was me.
“My mind was consumed and I suffered, Celestia. I was imprisoned and maybe not as alone you would think, but you haven't a right to think that you have something above me.
“Do not pretend that you deserve more pity. I fought, not for all of my imprisonment, but for a long time. I fought to forgive you, to regain some sort of sanity long enough to know truly that I had forgiven you!"
Those angry old clouds who spilled their sloshed guts grew more and more unruly. The wind picked up swiftly and heavy dots of flakes flew through the air with a harsh power. Snow fell from the naked trees and winter bushes as quickly as it was replaced by the downpour.
The princesses were rooted to the ground with stubborn rage and hefty feelings of hurt. Their hair whipped aside them like flags amidst a hurricane.
Such cold was no place for a mare of the sun. The princess wanted to retreat to said downy bed. Wanted to move past this moment. She wanted for the storm to pass and for the day to melt the ice. She chose to shiver instead, thinking somewhere in her mind that she deserved punishment.
Celestia shouted to be heard over the wailing unrelenting winds, "Do you see why I wonder how you can forgive me? I know how hard you tried. I know that I'm being unfair, but I can't help it. I was hurt too, not as greatly as you, but enough that I just haven’t found it in myself to get over it."
Only once had Luna ever felt so disappointed in her big sister: the moment before she took the darkness' hoof when she realized Celestia really wouldn’t save her. "You have yet to answer my question! Do you hate me?!"
The sun princess clenched her jaw, as if grinding the answer around until there was nothing, not even dust left to the wind. She opened her mouth but no words found her. Lowering her head was the alternative.
Luna looked over that mare again. There was the mighty sovereign of the day, soul bearer of the sun’s burden, sniffling in the winter storm and clutching her wings to her body in desperate attempt to keep her personal warmth kindled.
Something dark and hurt inside Luna was glad to see her sister suffering, but it was only for a moment before she snuffed it out. Thoughts like those lead down regrettable paths.
The crunching steps of her dark blue boots barely carried in the whipping air. Celestia wanted to withdraw as the faint sound increased in the same way the disappointed figure became clearer. Slowly but surely. The steady sound stopped right in front of Celestia and she was left to behold the darkened eyes of her younger sister. A hard stare pierced Celestia’s and she could see how difficult it was for Luna to even speak to her.
“Let’s continue this inside.” Before the day bearer could protest, a dark blue buzz of energy encircled them. As they flashed into Celestia’s room, specially the study, the flurries that were caught in the teleport settled to the ground leaving wet spots on the wood flooring. With a flair of her horn, Luna brought the fireplace to life and removed their damp coats to the rack by the wardrobe.
“Luna don’t,” Celestia resisted the help although she all but ran to throw her hooves in front of the fireplace in her white carpeted bedroom.
“What? Get comfortable? We might as well, we still have some serious issues to resolve.” Luna promptly made her point by removing their damp boots and sending them to sit near the hanging coats.
“I don’t want to talk to you Luna. I’ve said what I needed to say.” Celestia sounded just as cross as her sister.
Luna observed the way sister's lips were tinted blue, the way the wind managed to tussle her ever drifting hair, the way her teeth chattered and her hooves shivered as she rolled them around in the heat before her. Luna didn’t like what she saw. She wasn’t just cold.
Celestia’s shoulders slumped too much, and around her eyes bagged. Her brow was knit in a tight line of anger and shame or guilt maybe. Celestia was beaten down. Jaded. Luna wanted to feel bad for her; she wanted to feel the urge to make her feel better, but if her sister really hadn’t forgiven her, then what was the point?
Luna paced from the study to the glass door of the balcony in Celestia’s room. The red velvet curtains were thick, but when she willed them back she saw that the clouds were so compressed the new exposure did nothing to brighten the room. She slid them back together -only most of the way- feeling the need to watch the angry vortex of the snow. The remainder of the room’s light fell to the responsibility of the fireplace and the candles scattered across the room.
Luna found her way to a cream armchair that sat by the balcony doors. She folded her hooves into her lap. A ridged and formal action. This was her sister's room. Of all places in Equestria, Luna shouldn't have felt the need for formalities in here, but as it was, that was the case, and she didn't like it.
She wanted to say something, anything that could put an end to this tension, but what?
"Celestia-"
Her sister cut her off, "I really don’t want to talk about this now. I have things to do in the morning-"
Luna stood in aggravation. “And I have things to do tonight, but I can understand that we have contentions that need to be settled. If you would just cooperate-” Luna noticed the way Celestia’s jaws clenched as she kept her gaze on the burning wood in the fireplace.
Walking to her sister, Luna said “Instead of throwing ourselves a pity party, why don’t you pull up a comfortable chair and-
“And what, Luna? I’ve already taken to heart that I'm the in the wrong. I don't need you to keep reminding me."
"You're being stubborn!"
"And you’re being-" Celestia stopped herself with a deep exaggerated breath. She faced the fireplace again, staring into the jumping flame.
"I'm trying to be the bigger pony here, Celestia. I don't want this matter to continue without closure." If she was trying to make the situation any better, she'd failed. Luna was too hurt to mend her tone from sounding condescending and snippy.
"What does it matter to you if you won't even consider my feelings." Her voice was soft, but her words were pronounced with ire.
Luna balked with indignation. "How could you even say that? Of course I'm considering your feelings, but you didn't experience what I did. And after everything, I still put effort into forgiving you-"
The speed that Celestia turned her full attention to Luna was a bit frightening, enough to stop her from talking and take a careful step back.
So infrequently was Celestia furious that Luna could count the times her sister snapped with such rage in her eyes, as if sun itself roared behind them. Silent. Celestia would always go silent. It must have been the act of a talent, Luna thought, a pure talent to garner the reaction it always did.
Spinel eyes blazed into teal ones that wanted to look away from the searing gaze but were trapped. It was in scarce moments like these when the night princess really noticed the difference of height between she and her sister.
“Well," Celestia broke the silence, with a steady low voice that licked like a flame. "What’s better then: to be encased in a prison of the mind or in a prison of the people? To be stripped of your duty for a thousand years, or to be the humble servant of the world around you, having no choice but to bear a mask of apathy- no, of cheer- when your people, our people, parade about the town singing to the high heavens that your best friend in the universe has been banished?"
She took an encroaching step towards Luna, who took one cautious step back.
“Would you rather be cut off from your senses than to be forced by expectation to delight in the songs dedicated to destruction of a princess once revered? I used to wonder if you could hear them sometimes, Luna, and I would think you hated me all the more, because if you could hear them, then maybe you would be able to pick me from the fickle masses."
Hot tears began to slip down Celestia's face. Her tone wavered, but her eyes didn't cease to cut through Luna's resolve.
“Would you rather have spent the last thousand years going to breakfast or the observatory or in the private lands of the garden, only to be bitterly reminded that you were not there!?"
Celestia was in fact yelling now, and it frightened and shamed Luna in a way she couldn’t ever recall feeling. Years of anguish and sadness -a thousand maybe more- were written all over her sister’s face. The cracks of a porcelain mask was crumpling to time and ware. Luna finally understood what her sister meant. She hadn't just been by herself. She had been lonely. Alone.
"Would you rather be dead for a thousand years, or die every day for that long Luna!? Hmm!? Which would you rather-“
Celestia was on her knees now, unable to carry the weight of her own sorrow. Her hooves gripped firmly the plush rug as if it were the only thing keeping her from falling into a deep pit of despair. Luna couldn’t stand to look at the convulsing body that broke out in wracking sobs. Celestia head pressed deeply into the carpet and she could not make a sound other than pitiful hiccups.
Luna placed a hoof on her sister’s shoulder, not knowing any other way to console her in her own state of distress. The night princess knew too well of this pain, this hollow burden that ate at her from the inside. The feeling of isolation. The rage, the neglect, the confusion. Luna knew it all much too well.
Whatever darkness that had been instilled in Celestia’s heart festered over the millennia. She was angry and tangled, only now Luna could see that Celestia had suffered a different kind of solitude.
Luna's tone was apologetic. She had been selfish, blinded by pride in a sick way. Some how she overlooked her sister's suffering to value her own as something greater. "'Tia-"
“No, no, no, don’t you- don’t you dare call me that! Why Luna? Why don’t you hate me? Why didn't you give up on me?"
Luna could barely see as her eyes flood so much, and she was hiccupping and sobbing almost as much as her sister, but she couldn't let those questions fly by as rhetorical. She absolutely had to find a way to piece back together their broken sisterhood.
“Because, no one deserves to be that alone.”
Celestia shook her head. It may have been the only thing she had the mind to do.
“‘Tia, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me! It’s all my fault!” Celestia pounded the ground in anger.
“No 'Tia, it’s not! You are right, you were alone, and sad, and I did hurt a lot of innocent people. 'Tia, I’m not the only one who was affected by Nightmare Moon-"
Celestia shook her head more rigorously, not willing to let Luna accept her portion of the burden.
“Yes, 'Tia, I may have turned into her, but you were left to deal with the aftermath. 'Tia, look at me!” Luna gripped her shoulders, shaking her for attention. Celestia’s head lulled downwards, so Luna ducked her head down as low as she could in search of her sister’s purple eyes behind the veil of disheveled hair.
“We were both affected by terrible decisions and selfish deeds. Regardless of who alienated and disappointed whom, we've been battered emotionally for much too long. I’m sorry, 'Tia, truly. I can see the way our pasts have affected your present, and I am sure that the same goes for me.
“We may be tattered and tired, 'Tia, but please, please-“ Luna broke off into her own tears for a moment only pressing her horn against her sister's as she fought to finish speaking. “Let’s not be broken. Not anymore.”
They stayed there for a long while, crying on the ground with the crowns of their horns crossing. Neither knew how much time had passed. But it was Luna who found the strength to pick them both up.
Wordlessly, Luna lead her sister to the cream and red sheeted bed. She ushered Celestia to sit, then turned around to the direction of the door.
“You should rest. Day will come soon-" As she began to walk away a word- "Wait." -shot through the air, stilling her.
"'Tia?"
The silence that followed filled the room with Celestia’s struggled attempts to find words. "Stay," was the best she could think of, the best she could muster, the best way she could communicate her need with her sister.
Luna understood and turned back around.
The sound of cloth shuffling over one another was the only indication that there was movement on the bed. Celestia took to her spot on the middle of the bed, and for first time in years, well beyond anything either of them cared to count, was the little spoon.
Luna felt Celestia's initial surprise when she draped her forehoof around her middle, but she quickly melted into the warmth against her back. If ever there was a time that Celestia was cuddling- an event entirely too few and far apart as her long life drew on- she was the one who left her back to the cold.
Feeling secure, instead of securing, brought new tears to her eyes. Luna didn't shush her, didn't tell her she didn't need tears. If she had she would have been wrong. A thousand years of buried emotions didn’t dry them up, but only pent them behind a dam patiently waiting with creaks and moans before the rush of release.
They stayed together on that bed in silence until the urge to shift the celestial bodies nudged them to rise. They hadn't slept, but the quiet reprieve rested them well enough. Luna nodded her approval and the moon sunk below the horizon while the stars began to tuck themselves away.
Celestia rose from the mattress, flashing on her coat and boots. Opening the balcony doors she felt the chill of winter's morning puff into the warm room, outing nearby candles and humbling the crackling fireplace. The snow storm had passed taking with it the heavy clouds and vengeful wind. She rose from the balcony, finding her connection with the sun and set the day.
When she didn't return inside immediately, Luna sought her out at the balcony. She saw her sister gazing out into the sparkling view of Canterlot covered in snow, a glittering white canvas that elegantly mingled with the crisp blue sky and its brilliant oranges, pinks, and purples of dawn.
Luna stood next to her and Celestia pressed against her side. Out of such a rough storm had come a sight of peace. There were no words between the sister's for a time, as they reflected on their own thoughts and a resplendent end to rough weather.
