Death is final. That’s what I’ve always been told throughout all the years I’ve ever lived on this rock we call Equestria. Ponies are born to die. It isn’t something many like to hear, but it is the truest damn statement I’ve even been told. Death is the final curtain, and the deathbed, a final bow. Life has no encore, and many times, the audience is thin and resenting. The play itself can be wonderful, terrible, comedic, tragic, but they all end the same way. How do I know all this?
Because I’m the exception to the rule.
I go by many names, all assigned to me by pony after pony as I wandered through the centuries, unchanging, ageless, and numb. To some I am Losna. Others call me Manna. Others in lands long gone called me Coyolxauhqui. Today my name is Princess Luna, but that may change in the next millennia. Names are just as fragile as the bodies they are attached to. Sure, they stay with history, but the only thing that is timeless is time itself.
Death is something so devastating to most ponies. They avoid it, wishing to never perish; despise it, hoping to never see the end; loathe it, never wanting to be the next pony; run from it, never seeing how much of a godsend it is . Were they to learn how immortality fairs, then they would wish death upon themselves as quickly as they could. To me, a life is nothing more than a blink of an eye. It’s just a wink of a star, as it glows just bright enough to stand out from the rest of the sky.. Sure the days go by no faster for me than they do anyone else, but when you know that the pony you’re talking to will perish before you do, a certain indifference eats away at you. Why connect with them if you know you’ll only be hurt in the end?
That’s what I thought when I finally let go twelve years ago. My life was killing me. Every day I would go out and see all of the ponyfolk going about their days with a smile on their face. They traveled around and conversed and made merry, knowing their time on this plane was limited. When my sister and I first took the throne I celebrated with each and every one of them, my days just as merry as those of the ones around me.
Years passed, and I made close friends. I had good times with many of them, even through my duties of controlling the moon and the stars. They always appreciated my work and sometimes I would take a few to stargaze. Their names would forever be in my memories and I would grow old with them, sharing similar lives with them. Or so I had thought.
One of the years, a friend who I have long forgotten the name of perished, poisoned by wild plant in the forest. I went to the funeral, and my heart was shattered. Soon, though, it would mend itself and I was once again merry with my old friends, but then another faded away, old age taking her in her sleep. Another funeral. Another heartbreak. Another mending. Years passed. More and more of my friends left me and soon I was the only one left on this earth.
One can only take so much death before they become jaded and grim. To this day, I don’t know how my sister copes with it. It wouldn’t be long until I became secluded. If I tried to talk to somepony, then I would form a bond that would only be broken with them in a casket, and me in a weeping mess on my bedroom floor, my bed wet with inevitable tears. I asked to be moved to the tower, and my wishes were granted after I explained how it would put me closer to the stars and moon, never letting on in my intentions to lock myself in there. I never left it for years, and the only ponies I ever talked with were nameless, faceless servants and my only sister, Celestia.
Soon enough, my fear and sadness turned to bitter resentment and cold logic. I envied those I saw on the streets every night I went outside to raise the moon. They could die and end it all some day. I was stuck in this damned body that was destined to outlive them all. They became something to hate. My love of life was cracked and splintered, and the liquid love it held had spilled out. Nopony talked to me for years, and I sat in confinement, occupying myself with only the moon and the stars. They became my only friends. They were the only ones I could count on to always be back at my side.
I don’t know how long it took, and I don’t know what first started it, but as the years passed, my bitterness caused a darkness
to slowly take over me. It slowly ate away at me, feeding off my resentment, and my hatred for the ability to live. Celestia seemed to be the only one who took notice of my solitary confinement. She kept visiting me in my room every day.
“Luna,” she would always start after knocking on the door and waiting for a reply that I would never give. “Luna, are you ok in there?”
“I’m fine,” I would always answer, not letting her know that I despised even her for not sharing in the same pain I would feel. That was all that was said, and she would leave me alone until the next day.
For weeks, this continued day in and day out. She would come up to ask me if I was “ok in there.” I would always reply with the same response, not a waver in my voice, not a change in my pitch. She kept visiting, and the bitterness in me grew, in turn feeding the darkness that surrounded me more and more. Finally, she tried to reason with me, suspecting something amiss, but I was already too far gone. She spent an entire day asking, begging, pleading for me to exit my tower, but I ignored her, as she could never know me. I was broken, shattered, unwanted, and she was calm, cool, and collected. We had nothing in common.
She begged, and I responded with naught but silence. This continued for weeks, even with her attempting to get into my room during meal deliveries. I forced her to leave time and time again, never faltering, never showing my emotions, and never raising my voice above the necessary level. Finally, she gave up and left me to my own devices.
I sat in that tower after that and waited for eternity, watching those below with an unbridled hate that never seemed to lower. Their wretched lives were gleeful and perfect in the light of my sister’s daytime. The night and the darkness were my only friends.
Then make it last forever, a voice spoke up one evening as I was raising the moon yet again. Celestia has had it easy for too long. The ponies havealways enjoyed her daytime. That’s why everyone loves her and why they hate you. The darkness in the corner whispered these thoughts in my head, and I believed them. The ponies didn’t like my nights. They all hid from them, and the only way to make them feel what I felt would be to take the light away. The darkness was my only friend, and so too should it only be theirs.
They all need to see what darkness is. They all need to feel your pain. If you must suffer, then so should they the voices told me. I agreed entirely. They didn’t have to suffer. They needed to suffer. I well and truly believed all of that not twelve years ago. I had let my mind waver. I had let the darkness into me, and I had let it decide what must be done. I let it tell me what to do. I let it tell me why to do it.
I let it control me.
Twelve years ago I slipped up, and my only connection to sanity, my only connection to happiness, and my only true friend, I lost that day. The darkness had played me like a fool. The moon became my prison, and the night became my curse. Celestia banished me to the moon twelve years ago, and she had been my jailer ever since. I thought at first being stuck on the moon would be no worse than being confined in a castle, but I found out later how wrong I was.
Some ponies have imagined hell and have written terrible tales about it. A pit of fire beneath the world where the lost souls were damned to suffer for eternity. A wretched place filled with agony and screaming ponies on fire in pain too great to imagine. The place is filled with demons who go around prodding you with pitchforks and laughing at your suffering. The moon does not have any of these, but I believe that it is much, much worse.
Boredom from years of solitude is nothing compared to the other pains of being stuck on the moon for a decade. Immortality does not mean immunity to pain. Hunger and thirst set in almost immediately. My body craved food and my mouth starved of liquid. For weeks, my stomach pains became unbearable, and the want for death to end it was greater than it had ever been. My body refused to let go. I succumbed to eating moon rocks, and the pain of digestion was great, but nothing as bad as that of starvation.
Soon the thirst became unbearable, and I resorted to gnawing at my own limbs to draw the blood from my own veins. It didn’t do much to soothe the pain, but it didn’t worsen it, and it kept my mind busy. Finally, the isolation of not even having a sister to confide in set in. On the moon I truly was alone. The moon was my personal hell. And it would be here that I would spend the rest of my days.
So yes, death is final, and I long for nothing more than for it to take me away, but immortality refuses me that courtesy. I am forever trapped in this living hell, and I can do nothing about it.
