� Let there be Night �
♪ Some nice ambience to listen to throughout the story... Click here ♪Also click this one. Yes, both at the same time. More of the music. It goes very well.I'm really disappointed with this story. I don't feel like I paint the pictures or emotions very well, but whatever. Here it is. /)♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀
I raise Her night from this high keep
to bring my subjects peaceful sleep.
I spread my wings and bask in bliss,
wrapped in this gentle, loving kiss.
This moon is mine
and she will shine;
'Tis a beauty I've no need to miss.
Luna's lips moved. but no sound escaped them as she silently recited the words that had seemed to carry her for so very long. On the very night she was transformed into a full Nightmare, she wrote a poem about the moon... Something that she felt that only she could truly understand. To Equestria, it was simply a beacon of light, destined to be ignored. Like me...To her, it was a source of inspiration and, even before being sent to the moon, like a home. She mouthed the words of her second poem. Bitterness, guilt, and longing seemed to mingle in her heart and make her feel sick.
Why, oh why
when day turns nigh'
must my subjects turn in and rest?
Might I be the only one
who seems to find it fun
to see Her beams at their shining best?
Surely these ponies know
the argent, silver glow
of something bright and lunar.
'Til tonight, I never knew
the deeds and wrongs I'd have to do
to make them wake up sooner!
An icy gale tore through the deafening downpour that fell from the blackest kind of storm clouds, and an even icier duet of tear drops clouded her vision. I didn't want to hurt anypony... I love my sister, but I wanted them to love me, too.
From her balcony, even Luna's flawless alicorn eyes couldn't see the streets of the majestic city of Canterlot so many leagues below. The rain was so copious and so incessant that it seemed as though it would never stop. Luna rose to her hooves and closed her eyes, her head drooping ever so slightly. Rain will always end... It always does.
Although Luna's horn did not shimmer with its deep-blue aura, her magic kept the torrential rains from pouring down upon her. She shifted her gaze to a random spot in the rain clouds and willed them to part. As they did so, silvery beams of the moon's silvery luminescence shone through and onto the balcony where she stood. A joy that she could not recall experiencing when apart from her moon gave a kind of warmth to her heart, and then seemed to migrate to her mind. She smiled. The moon never stops... 'Tis always where I leave it, willing to lend ear to anything my heart has to say. The hole through which the moonlight seeped sealed shut, leaving Luna and the balcony in darkness once again. The only light came from a deep azure spark that always hovered silently above the bed that she slept in. The brilliance of its shining light always waxed and waned with that of the moons, and it infatuated Luna. It gave the room and the parchment on which she wrote a comfortable glow that made her feel truly at home. It's lovely.
Luna let out a soft sigh as she turned and cantered leisurely back into her bedchambers. As she did so, the rain began to fall on the balcony that had remained perfectly dry up until that point. Her hoofsteps echoed in the smooth, stone room, and the sound made her feel nostalgic. Even though she had already been home in Canterlot for a full lunar cycle, the simple things of a regular life still felt so dear to her after being apart from them for so very long.
Now that the moon was high in its perch above the clouds, Luna had no other obligations or responsibilities to her subjects. She still wished to take up her end of the burden in ruling equestria at some point or another, her sister insisted that she try and adjust to today's society and allowing her to do everything herself. While Luna was a little dissappointed by her sister's words, she wasn't hurt. She was just being right. I suppose nopony wants to be scared on Hearts and Hooves day or Hearth's Warming Eve...
As Luna approached the bed on which she liked to write her thoughts, she heard a particular sequence of hoofsteps from the corridor outside of her bedchamber. She knew it to be that of Celestia, her sister. During her time in the moon, she would still be in tune with the moon's cycle well enough to know when it would be morning or dawn back down in Equestria. She grimaced just a little as she recalled each of those mornings, waiting for the sound of her early rising sister to come and wake her.
"Little sister? Are you well?" Celestia's voice carried from the arched doorway where she stopped and smiled at her younger sister.
"Yes."
These awkward silences had become somewhat customary between the royal sisters since her return to Equestria, and they didn't talk as much as Luna would have liked to. Luna wasn't angry at Celestia for what she did to her. She was just thankful that she had somepony she could talk to that wasn't going to point at her or run away from her. Nopony would have guessed that after Nightmare Night, Luna had become incredibly introvert and refused to speak to anypony but her sister. She felt really close to her, and she hoped that Celestia hadn't forgotten how close they were. The mares who would normally have been catering to her got the message that she didn't like to be bothered. They seem to hide from me as if possessed by fright... Maybe that's what I'll write about tonight. With a chuckle, she then thought, That rhymed, too!
Luna jumped a little at the sound of her sister's voice, who had crossed the threshold of the bedchamber while she was lost in thought. "Luna... These silences between us must stop. I know it must be-" Celestia stopped suddenly, for the look her younger sister returned gave her pause... And a touch of a kind of nostalgia she had never felt before. She hasn't smiled like this for so, so long... Indeed, she was smiling. With no warning to speak of, Luna stepped closer and gave Celestia's cheek a touch with her own.
"Celly...?" Luna was sure that her older sister could see her cheeks turning red beneath the deep blue fur on her cheeks, and perhaps her ears.
Celestia could say nothing. After an entire month of their silent report, she didn't quite know how to handle Luna anymore, and it made her feel uncomfortable. She doesn't seem to dwell on our differences at all. "Luna?"
"Doth thou remember the bond we shared before my transformation? I can see it in thine eyes. Thou must miss that as much as I..." Another tear was welling up in Luna's eye, as well as Celestia's own. "Thou might not see, what with how little I've spoken, but I wanted thou to know that I've not lost sight of that." With that, she turned away from Celestia and let her head hang.
This time it was Celestia who came to her sister's side. "If it's any consolation, I just-"
"Shh... I know why thou came to speak... But thou hath no need, sister." Still not looking up to Celestia, her horn began to shimmer ever so slightly. Celestia marveled as the blue beacon that was kept above Luna's bed bobbed almost happily down in front of her and stopped. Luna turned and spoke. "It was only days before my escape that I wrote this poem, sister. It has been nowhere but my heart 'til now, and now thou should have it." In the time it took Celestia to blink, the beacon shrunk into nothingness and, in its place, hovered a folded parchment woven of pure magic.
"Luna, I didn't know-"
"Celly!" Luna looked at her sister, feeling her cheeks burning more than ever. "If you've not the courtesy to read it, perhaps thou would do so whilst we... cuddle... Like we used to?" Luna couldn't bear to look at her big sister anymore, and she simply looked at the silky assortment of blankets and down pillows that adorned her royal bed.
"I'd like that." Once the two sisters lay where they were going to, Celestia embracing Luna from behind, she opened the gift from her little sister.
"Well? Won't you open it?"
Celestia couldn't help but laugh. "You always were really pushy, weren't you?" Her question was met with silence. She rolled her eyes and her horn flared. She adjusted herself to tighten the embrace around Luna, who hummed happily. The parchment read:
I missed you.
"That's-" Luna interrupted her with a chuckle that seemed far too high pitched for a mare of her stature. Soon, it developed into somewhat more of a cackle, an unsettling noise that Celestia was all too familiar with. She laughed, too.
"Luna, you silly filly, that's not a poem! Why did-" The incessant laughter continued, so she gave up and nuzzled her little sister's mane with her nose as she laughed away. She always had the strangest sense of humor, Celestia thought with a smile.
When the laughter finally faded, Luna just said, "Thou know as well as I that I'm not understood well by our subjects, and perhaps that's why they-" More laughter ensued, and Celestia simply rolled her eyes and held her sister tighter. "Perhaps that's why they push me away the way they do."
"Sister, they'll adjust to you in time. Until then, I hope my company is enough to keep your spirits up." Luna tilted her head back and looked at her sister with an expression of contentment and happiness that Celestia had longed for. She put a hoof to her big sister's lips briefly.
"Sister, will thou stay with me this night? Perhaps in the morn, we'll peruse what I've written since my return." She lay her head to rest once more, her left ear pricked up, waiting for an answer. She jumped again and gave a playful shriek as something wet touched her ear. "Celly! I hate that! I always did, you know it!" Still, she couldn't conceal how the affection conveyed by Celestia's gesture truly hit home. This time, Celestia laughed.
"I know, sister... I do."
The two goddesses lay there in a sisterly embrace, listening to each other's breathing and the sound of the rain on the balcony outside. After a moment, Celestia whispered in her little sister's ear in a tone of pure love:
As of now, I rule over billions.
To this day, I've watched over trillions.
Many have came and gone,
but here I am, living on.
You are the only one.
I've gone to sleep many times, and yea, I cried
as the ponies I loved grew old an died.
Many have came and gone,
but here I am, living on.
Still, you are the only one.
Each morning I rise to raise the day
as Night's grasp dies and fades away.
I'll never let you go,
this I hope you know,
for you are my only one.
Few may love you
and many may shove you,
but with me, you need not fear.
At my side
you need not hide
your sorrows or your tears,
because:
Many have come and gone,
but here I am, living on,
and still you are my only one.
You are more than just my moon;
You are my life.
You are my Sun.
Neither sister said anything, for there was nothing left to be said. Celestia lay her head down beside her sister and join her in a peaceful slumber that they had not shared for over one thousand years.
