Either/Or

by Cynewulf

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Celestia, Sad, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 3034

Luna contemplates a deceptively simple choice.

Either a pony is capable of being something, or she is not. Either she is what she should be, or she is not. Either Luna comes back a penitent or a conquering revenant.

Published 2014-03-03 10:50:03 UTC
Last updated 2014-03-03 10:50:03 UTC

Either/Or

The thing that one wishes for most when alone is noise. Sound. Not, perhaps, for cacophony, but rather for the existence of the possibility of sound, of the possibility of possibility, that there was somepony else--something else--that could act without your consent, or at least without you having to move them. Rocks, for instance, do not make satisfying company. Neither does my shadow. Nor do dreams keep one from feeling isolated, whatever personages inhabit them.

The moon is a harsh mistress, this much I’ve really always known. Not unlovely, of course. I will speak of the glories of the night and of the silver lunar seas until I am hoarse and spent, but I have never thought it kind. No, while the night may be kind the moon is not.

It has been a few decades, I think. Perhaps more. Perhaps much less. Defeat made me delirious, then, and I lost track of the hours. I laid face down in the cold lunar dust and waited to die. I did not, of course, die, because my sister knew what she was about. Oh, she knew.

Regardless, I have decided that it is morning. There is no difference here, really, between morning and any other time, for the light side of the moon is stable. This is the place I go to sleep, where I can watch in all directions for signs of coming and going.

Lazily, I lift my head and gaze out over the endless tracks and find them broken by something new. I sigh, knowing already what it will be. Yes, the glow of her majesty--greater than mine own in victory--assaults eyes used to the endless ocean of heaven.

She is here.

Once, when I was younger--not substantially, in years, for what is a decade to an alicorn, if she wish it to pass swiftly?--my sister’s arrival made me furious. I would storm up to her. I would try and fight her. Always she would weave and dodge and the low gravity made our quarrel impossible, for I would lose my footing and sail up into the air until I hit the barrier that would bring me back, and she would be gone.

But eventually I hit her, and I beheld the truth: she is an illusion. Some arcane illusion that I have not the inclination or the spirit in me to disassemble and study. Before my revolt, I would have wanted to know every detail of how it was done. Now I simply wanted her to be gone.

She is coming, and it will be awhile. She appears in the same place each time, walking with the same measured, stately grace that she practiced alongside myself when the world was young. Ah, the World, Ea, the world that is! I see her hang in the void with nothing to support her but the hopes and dreams of a million creatures who ignore the moon I shepherded through the sky.

But while she struts, I believe I will stretch and find breakfast.

My life on this prison’s surface is rather cyclical. I rise, and find that there is food for me in the same place, an outcropping of rock I have named the Tablemount in a fit of whim. Then it is time to make the long journey into Night, to see the castle. If I have nothing to add, no burning desire to build, then I simply lie here. Sometimes Celestia will come to visit me, but other times she does not. If she does not find me here, she will keep walking until she does. Once, I followed her from a distance as she searched the moon over for hours before retiring, but though I frustrated another’s goals I felt no triumph over the tormentor but rather that it was petty to deny my presence.

The promontory is only a moment away, and ah, yes, there is food. Bread and cheese and a bit of wine, my daily meal. It is Celestia’s Meal, I say, and even before the Revolt I would tease that the ascetic Celestia would be happy with such fare forever. As for myself, the wine is nice, and the simplicity becomes pleasant after a while. Give us now our daily meal, Celestia, and we will await thine advent. Yes, that is how it will go.

The moon was familiar before I was exiled. Soon after my sister and I received our mission and our ordination from the Well of the Firmaments, when the world was young, I wondered what the moon must be like. It must be cold, a younger Luna said to herself. It must be lonely. I found it cold, but lonely in a delightful sort of way, when I traveled there. It was hard going. An alicorn born of of the songs of creation is durable and can survive the harsh cold of the void, but it is not pleasant by any means. Yet, I found it wonderful. I loved it. This was my place, my secret place beyond the prying eyes of others, even my sister, though at last I brought her here. She found it distasteful, I know, but said nothing to me then, for I was still in many ways like a child. She remembered our quarrels on the road and perhaps even foresaw my Revolt. I know not.

I can feel it throbbing, humming with life beneath me, for it does live, in it’s own fashion. The moon is an arrant thief, and beneath my hooves is the all the dream aether of Earth, gathered in a roiling sea. Sometimes I go down to “bathe” in it, and experience a little of the dreamwalking I loved. It is not the same, but it is close. All dreams come here at last to rest, after all.

But not right now. She is coming after all.

But that is long off. What to do?

I suppose I will inspect the castle. It has been some time… I am not sure how long. Time moves strangely here, in stops and starts. Has it been decades? Perhaps even a century.

So, without anymore hesitation, I finish my meal and travel towards the dark side of the moon.

Living as I do so close to the edge of night, it is not a long journey, onl a troublesome one. The lack of light makes it hard to keep up with where I am going, even with the eyes that I was given when I first felt the moon singing it’s sweet song when my sister and I were given our domain over the sky. But I manage the rocky terrain that rises and falls rapidly and steeply, flying over the more jagged terrain. I could fly the whole way, I suppose, but flying everywhere makes journeys too fast and then the days are not filled as they should be. Wasting time on the Moon is something of a necessity

But at last I reach the mountain. I have named it Mt. Starswirl, once again in a fit of whimsy. Perhaps it was the way the peak reminded me of his absurd hat. I do miss him. When last I saw him, we were not rulers but only sojourners, and Celestia and did not worry about courts and nobles and keeping the sun and moon and nature in balance. The Song was still in the land, then, and it did much of that itself or with only some help from ponies.

But I am torn from my thoughts of happiness as I take to the sky and overcome the mountain.

The Castle Night below is radiant, as radiant as the night sky from Everfree was, on that fateful night when I gave the ponies in the valley my heart. I exhausted myself to make all the glories of the deep heavens visible… and none of them cared. Or so it seemed. Regardless, the Castle stands in place of their love. I do not need it. I do not need them or their pathetic hopes and feelings. They are small. I am forever, eternal, and I follow a golden path that will bring me back one day.

But for now, I approach the Castle.

It is massive--miles of stone carved by magic--and lit up by magic. A thousand lamps in a hundred halls, begirt five dozen balconies, lighting the way on an unfinished highway of cobblestone carved out of the very rock that goes nowhere.

I sigh and throw open the massive doors.

The hall is awash in celestial glow--tiny galaxies swirl, stars shine, and if I were to look close enough I could find planets singing their own songs. I put much effort into these toys of magic and whim. Years of work, just making things here and there.

I always wanted someone to look.

I am furious because nopony did look. Obviously they are ingrates. Surely.

I enjoy the pleasure of my own company in the gallery-castle for some time, simply wandering the halls of this dark chest of wonders that are only for me. Rooms that are complete replicas of entire town squares, models of cities and lands. A Great Hall where I have carved out the great and terrible lost city of Jannah in miniature and set above it a sun and moon. Dining halls where I have never sat where diamonds pressed by my own magic painstakingly are suspended by spells strong enough to melt the skin off of a pony’s bones. They will be there forever.

It is truly better this way, that things stay the same. That they are controlled. They must do as I wish of them, for I know what is the best. I’ve seen it all, you see. That was always my job, to control the situation. When Discord needed to go, it was I that kept the attack up so that he had no chance to guess our true purposes. The Griffons I made kneel by sheer force, and kept them beneath the hoof. When the pegasi streamed out of Stratopolis to do battle for the cities of the plain I smote them upon the crimson rocks of the Macintosh Hills. I made them do what they should.

But I must return. She is waiting, probably.

It is a short journey back, for I fly from the storied halls to save time on the return.

And of course, there she is, in the place I thought she would be.

I call it the Mirror. Whim cannot help to explain this name, it simply came to me one day.

The Mirror is a vast crater. In honesty, I believe this is where I landed. My memories of my first days here are indistinct at best. It was like falling, but faster. It was like tripping, but harsher, and it felt as if I fell nine days before landing here, face down.

Back then, cursing and spitting and bleeding from defeat, I refused to move. I had not been defeated, I thought. It was an illusion, a mindgame, a bad dream, anything but defeat, anything at all in all the bright and beautiful and terrible night but banishment. To be defeated at last by Celestia was intolerable. I, who had been the stronger of us if not the wiser. I was the Hammer of Equestria! I could not be defeated!

But eventually I sat up and held court with the rocks and the recesses of my mind.

My first meeting with Celestia was rather unpleasant.

Sighing, I land at the crater’s edge and begin the descent. With each step, I kick up loose rocks and dust, and watch as the low gravity struggles to bring them back down to the ground.

It takes some time, but I refuse to fly down. Let her wait. I do not wish to abandon this opportunity, but that does not mean that I am going to give her more satisfaction than she is wont, that bitch.

So when I come down to the bottom, I stand before her and mimic her sitting position.

She smiles at me. Either it is a sad smile or a false show. I dislike both possibilities, both the just and the unjust.

“Well,” I say, and try to hide my surprise at the sound of my own voice. “Sister.”

She seems to sigh, but makes no noise, as it customary.

“Celestia,” I begin, talking as I often do, though she cannot hear me and I cannot hear her. “I have been thinking about what I will do when I go home.”

She cocks her head to one side. I mirror it, only faintly amusing myself. I believe the fun of the gimmick died long ago.

She is only an illusion. Celestia is looking into some mirror or looking glass or pool in Everfree, no doubt. She’s no doubt rebuilt it and removed all signs of me.

“What kind of world will it be, when I figure out how to break free of this prison? Oh, I will figure it out. You may have been the strategist of Ghastly Gulch,” I say, grinning wide, “but I was the hoof in the face of Strategos Fellwing. Maybe one day I’ll just beat at that stupid boundary long enough and it’ll crack.

“Oh, don’t do that, where you look concerned or hurt. I know you didn’t make this prison. It’s not nearly clever enough for you, chessmaster.” I roll my eyes. “It’s the awful ironic sort of drivel I’d expect from something like the Elements. Imprison the lunar princess on the moon, how droll. I suppose it would keep you bound in chains on the sun? Oh…” I step back. “Oh, that’s delightfully awful… well. Sorry, I was distracted.

“But yes. When I get back.

“My revolt was crushed. It was over before you banished me. My loyal followers rounded up and their battle standards burnt.”

Celestia looks down. I wonder at what she could be gazing, for I know I cannot see her side of the mirror.

When she looks up, however, I feel as if something has changed. There is an… odd light in her eyes. I take a step back.

Her image flickers.

As Celestia looks on, I hear her voice--oh, gods that may be how long has it been? The Song alone remembers--speaking, but it speaks without her mouth moving.

“Luna,” it says, “this is a recording. It’s... been over nine hundred years, Luna. I’ve seen what you’ve built and done and… the things you don’t remember. We’ve talked before. You… forget yourself sometimes, here on the moon. You have episodes, you forget--it isn’t important. What is important is that something is… going to happen soon. I’m not sure exactly how, but it will happen. You’ll be free.

“I can’t stop it. I don’t want to stop it. Luna… Oh, Luna, I miss you. It has been so lonely without you. I’ve worked feverishly to break you out, to find a way to talk to you and bring you here and… it just never works. It never works! But that’s all done now… you’re coming back…

“And I don’t know what will happen. I’m begging you, before you’re free, to consider my offer of reconciliation. Luna, we can try and live together in the harmony of old. Sun and Moon, day and night, the old cycles of life. We don’t have to fight. We never did. Maybe we did. I don’t know. I fear you will take the wrong road. I fear you will--”

The image fizzes out. I do not have long to gape at the empty air in dismay before it returns.

“--eustria shall be preserved, even without… I have prepared for your… wonders….signs…”

Not all of her message has arrived, apparently.

“Stars… and you have to choose, Luna… Either… Or…”

I hear a crackling noise and look up.

The stars are moving.

Not all of them. Four of them, four of them growing brighter and--Song sing for me--closer, somehow, and yet I find them not the stars I know. The barrier above my head is visible now, a rainbow of color against the black, struggling as if hard pressed, and the things I thought stars I see are not, but are instead something else. Something Else which I cannot look at for long, but remember only that they are afire and have wild eyes.

And the barrier breaks.

There is howling, the first wind on the Moon since the dawn of time, since the very first wind. It sends the dust and the rocks every which way. Celestia’s image takes a step back in horror or in awe, and I know that I do the same. We both cower before the working out of Harmony’s will.

And then I am free.

I stare up at the Earth that hangs in the balance and think… Either. Or.

I can go back now. I will go back now. I will come back as… what?

I hadn’t thought about it much until now. Angry? Sorry? No--never, ever sorry! I will not bow without a fight. Celestia must prove my superior before I will give up. I cannot be loved, but I can be respected. Either I am respected or I will be feared. Either I will stay here or I will win the day there. I’ll be either a penitent or a conqueror.

I look at that blue marble in the vast expanse, and remember when we were like children, wandering a younger, more musical world. O sister I longed only to understand the world and be understood, I was the last of our kind.

Either. Or. Rationally, penitence is safe. But impulse leads me to rage and beat and fall and perhaps fail again. I will not bow without reason; I cannot ask forgiveness, it has all been too much, and she would never truly give it or offer. Not in person. I cannot even hope for that.

It is time to pay a visit to my forge. The time has come to see how the world has changed since last I walked as a Nightmare to scourge the souls of mares.