Learning to Love

by PaxusJKL

Rating: everyone
Tags: Sad, Slice of Life
Length: 4703

God seeks not to create a follower, but an equal. A story of the chaotic creation of life.

I molded you with my own two hooves. Made you into the goddess you are today. Sheltered, protected and kept you safe. We laughed, we loved and we learned together. But you taught me everything good in this world. Do you even remember? No…of course not…

Hope you guys like this one. I GUARANTEE it's not generic! You guys we're right. The whole immortal thing is SO overdone! But as a smart pony once said… It's all in the presentation!

Hopefully makes you think about how it all really started.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-04-08 12:04:01 UTC

Learning to Love (1st Edition)

Learning to Love (1st Edition)

Where there is love there is life.

Mahatma Gandhi

Hey there! PaxusJKL here with another nice story for you! It's slightly longer than I usually write, but I feel like its a nice story. It was certainly fun to write!

Lets get a few things straight here! Yes, the whole immortal blues thing has been done a million times before, but never like this! You wanted something different? WELL here ya go!

Have fun guys :)

Love ya! <3

Note: Big thanks to Doxkid, who generously offered me a list of spelling and logic errors! For that I am eternally grateful!

~~~~~

There was really nothing new. The trees blew in the wind just like they always had. The mountains jutted up to the sky just like I told them to so long ago. The animals lived and died just like I created them to. The wind blew where it pleased, carrying water around the land.

I'd seen it all before. I'd been watching the same thing for longer than I cared to remember.

It was fun at first. Taking nothing and forming it into something so initially...beautiful. For the first millennium or so it was actually fun. It started quite simply, to be honest.

It's hard to put things into terms you would understand and I really do apologize for not being able to explain it. Knowing you, I'm sure you would love to know.

To put it simply, I took part of myself and used it to form a planet. It sounds strange when you put it that way, but it's the only way I know how.

Anyway.

My first trillions of years were spent trying to get everything perfect. I really can't tell you the frustration of trying to create a decent atmosphere, but needless to say it was EXCRUCIATINGLY difficult. Every time I would try to warm up the atmosphere I would end up putting that one volcano to close to something and it would just mess everything up entirely.

Sooner or later the entire planet was really just a mess of volcanoes and ice shelves that were constantly shifting around the planets continents. It was truly and completely a mess. It was like watching two lovers argue constantly, one striking forward with heat and fury, while the other simply sat coldly and took it.

Of course, this was back when I was using fusion to heat the planet internally. It was chaotic.

Eventually after many billions of years I discovered that there was a better way of heating a planet than setting a gigantic nuclear reactor in its center. A star.

It used the same concept as my original idea, but it put it at a slightly safer distance. Of course, this meant that I had to make it several times bigger, but that was okay. I spun a star and set it alight far far from the planet. The right distance was hard to find, but none the less I continued my work.

If I placed the star to close to the planet it would melt and destroy everything I had worked towards (which at that point was nothing more than a ball of rock, so it was no real loss, HOWEVER it was still frustrating) and if I placed it too far away, than the planet would simply float away into the blackness.

In the midst of solving this problem I discovered something important. By giving the planet a little push, it would safely and equally orbit around the star! This was an amazing contraption to me, as I had never really had a way to measure time until now.

I called each of it's rotations a year. Well, actually I called it something else, but you understand the word 'year' at your age right?

Well, either way,, I went to work on solving my heating problem.

After another couple billion years, I came across a valuable piece of information. If I combined several different types of gasses, I could make an effective insulator for the planet which also had some unintended side affects such as keeping out most of the deadly star-rays, for example.

I realized that the climate on the planet was stable, and also realized that its center was quite literally molten rock and metal. I really just dismissed this, the past trillion years had exhausted me. After all, creating a solar system was a meticulous task.

The planet looked nice and all, but it really lacked something. Color. It was truly just a dead mass of stone and dirt with some hills and mountains. So I went to work trying to form a being to populate this dead world.

Life. Think of that word. It's really more complex than you think. I found it to be quite difficult to create something so...active.

I'm not even going to go into the first steps of how I designed life, it's much too boring and technical for you to understand, you're much too small still.

I will however, start by telling you how I made the first 'plant'. It was what you would call a 'moss', or at least an early form of it. I tried to design it to live on sunlight alone, but that proved to be very difficult. It needed something else, something also very plentiful, but closer.

I came up with the idea after about a billion years to be honest. It really didn't take that long. Water!

Again, water was a really simple idea, just two element's mixed together to form something stable. I always got a kick out of the fact that if you take the two elements separately and burn them, they explode, but if you pour them COMBINED on fire, it douses it completely!

But I digress. There was the whole fiasco of trying to evenly distribute water over the planet easily, but it turned out that if I flooded the planet with water, and then raised some portions of land, the sunlight and other forms of heat boiled the water and distributed it naturally. I didn't even mean to do it either, it just kind of happened!

When it was all said and done, the world was covered in...grass (as you would call it)!

It was colorful yes, a nice mixture of blue and green, but it was still lacking something. Variety maybe?

Yes. Grass was boring, it was all the same, and usually ended up over-populating the planet and killing itself. Useful huh?

Well, I added variety, oh did I EVER add variety!

Oh you would have been so excited to see this. Billions of years I spent making other plants! I just took the basic cells from grass and (after adding SOME modifications) pressed them into other forms of plants. It was strange really, taking pieces of the plants and making other from them, but I imagined they would feel the same way that I felt when I made the star from a part of myself, happy to be giving life to everything around it!

Of course, to keep the plants from, (quite nearly literally) battling each other for territory until they died, I gave them specific spots they could grow. Specific heats and moisture levels. Except for grass. Grass had the right to be anywhere. I mean, it didn't have a downside. Oh, and flowers too! I took flowers as a beautiful opportunity to add more colors than just green.

I thought I had done it, I really did, but as time went on I saw a strange pattern. The plants would literally grow themselves to extinction.

I needed something MORE. Something that ate plants, but also released a useable byproduct back into the environment.

Creatures. Something living and breathing.

Obviously I made them breath oxygen, considering that it was a crucial part of our insulating atmosphere, but at the same time every single plant on the planet created it as a byproduct. I thought it was strange, building a creature that survived on something else's waste, but that's OK, because the creatures would excrete carbon dioxide, which is exactly what plants needed to survive.

The first prototypes were... strange...to say the least...

The first creature I ever created? Bald, grey with seven limbs. It was quite ugly and it also, disappointingly, wasn't capable of any thought but 'food'. It eventually died due to its inability to think of "sleep" or "excrete". Not saddening in the least. I know that may seem harsh to you, but back then I didn't have the ability to get connected to something so...deeply...

Anyways, I discovered a simpler way of creating animals. Evolution! Yes, by programming each individual animal cell with the urge to better itself, I managed to created cells that would 'diverge' from their counterparts and fulfill different functions.

As single cell organisms multiplied and upgraded themselves, they began to band together, creating larger and larger organisms.

I'm not going to get into the messy gritty details, but I spent several trillion years just watching these small creatures battle it out below me! Some ate plants, some ate other animals, some ate rocks even! Well, not rock's, but mineral deposits, gems. You call them Dragons.

As a couple of species differed from the rest, learning how to speak and build tools and other devices to help better their lives, a very sudden and strange fact hit me. I didn't know what talking was. I had never...communicated...before. It was strange really, seeing them all gab away with their gills or lips, all emotion and thought. I considered it almost disgusting really.

I mean, there were creatures here with had brains that would melt if they tried to comprehend what I knew, and here they were, doing something I had never experienced before. It was insulting to say the least.

So, there began a quest that I would not soon forget or dismiss as another one of my pointless experiments. I needed something to talk to. After all, I couldn't just go down and abduct one of these...monsters! I needed to build something WORTHY of talking to me.

That proved difficult.

My first thought was to simply take a copy of MY mind and give it lips. Bad idea.

It wouldn't shut up! It would go ON and ON about how I was the inferior one and that it was the true creator of the universe, about how everything else was disgusting and stupid, just a creation of its own, nothing more.

I'm not going to tell you what I did with it.

But the brain-lip's speech had struck a chord within me.

How could I hope of having a conversation if I sounded as repulsive as...that thing? I needed something. I needed something deep and full of meaning to this empty universe.

I needed emotion.

I needed you.

I needed something that lived just as those creatures down there, learning to love and speak and laugh, and you were the result.

And unlike every other stupid creature I had made with my own will, you were perfect.

Apart from the star and the planet itself, I had taken everything from something I had already woven. The star had all the chemicals I needed, and the planet itself had all of the elements I needed. With those two sources, I created everything from something. The cells, the plants, everything.

Except you.

I took you directly from myself, weaving your very form like a loom from my heart.

I didn't want something that would see me as a god, or something that would fear me as being more powerful, I wanted, no, needed something just like me.

I started with your hooves, weaving my strength and ability into them with precision and care, making sure that every fiber of your being was in place as I went. I didn't make you from cells, or chemicals or elements, only myself. Pure strands of the creator of the planet. Perfection itself.

As I went up your form, I took more care, smoothing the curves of your front and hind legs down to the perfect width and feel, making sure that anyone looking at you would immediately consider you a god. They came out wonderfully, wider near the bottom, thinner and more elegant near your body.

Your body itself wasn't hard, yet I took an unexplainable amount of care with it. I spun a rough form or threads, something like a ball of infinitely dense spaghetti, and molded it like clay, giving you a strong but soft chest, thinning it out near your hind-side with a flank that any creature would die for (considering that the creatures of the planet seemed to have a thing for flanks or 'butts').

After perfectly weaving your neck into place, a glorious extension of your already beautiful body, I began to think very hard. How could I improve on an already perfect design?

Eyes? No.

Ears? No.

Mane? ...

I was overcome with excitement as I wove a gorgeous flowing mane, just like mine, into your head. It looked wonderful! Like silk falling from your head, multiple shades and echoes floating through it.

I repeated the process for your tail, giving it the same aural feel as your mane. They fit perfectly together.

As I added the finishing touches to your face, I stepped back, admiring my creation. The creation that would lead me to emotion.

I scolded myself as I spun a small swirled cone on your forehead and wove a small pair of wings to your shoulder. I almost forgot!

After looking you over and over, watching for imperfections or problems. There was only one imperfection.

Your soul.

As I reached deep inside you, pushing past the fabric of your skin with my magic, feeling through your insides, I located your soul, a small ball of energy that I placed inside you to give you life. Feeling the energy from myself flow down my forehoof and into your body, I felt some of my divine powers drain ever-so-slightly. Just a blip in my soul, a road-bump. But you felt it, I know you did.

Your soul lit up like it was on fire, glowing through your hide like a blaze of radiation.

You opened your eyes.

That was the first time you ever looked at me.

Your mother.

Your maker.

I know that you had yet to teach me any emotion's at all... but something felt, different inside me, like something had not only crossed FROM my soul, but INTO it.

From that point on, I can only describe it as the happiest years of my life.

=

We didn't know what to do really. I had no way of talking to you, and you had no way of talking to me. So much to say but no way of releasing it.

I had hoped that I could have just tossed you down to the planet below, letting you figure everything out on your own immortal time, but some strange feeling inside me stopped me, like it would be a waste of perfectly good years. So we went down together, not knowing what to do, not knowing what we would learn or what we would discover. An adventure.

I had never truly taken time to appreciate my creation, but now, seeing you examine and observe everything you possibly could in this strange new world, I felt the need to follow your example. You smelled a flower, I smelled a flower. You ate some grass. I ate some grass. It actually didn't taste that bad.

As you seemed to catalog everything in reach, I felt as though I had failed for a brief moment. I created an exact copy of me. Something so technical and scientific that I couldn't possibly have it learn emotions. I felt yet another new emotion at that point. Disappointment.

So much disappointment. My eternal soul longed for something so much deeper than what I could create myself, and I had yet to find a way to fulfill that hole in my heart.

But as I looked up and saw you cautiously approach that creature-child, seeing you eye it suspiciously, I thought the child would run away, screaming to it's mother figure. Yet you surprised me once more.

The child held up something to you. Fruit, or something of the form. An apple if I remember correctly.

You ate it from it's hand cautiously, your lips brushing over it's palm. It let out a series of high-pitched squeaks, like a demented monkey. You recoiled at first, frightened by its behavior, but I saw that look in your eyes. That look of deep curiosity.

As the creature continued to 'laugh' and 'smile', I sensed you pick up on its behavior, your mouth curling up slowly as you grew accustomed to it. It was a strange feeling to both of us, but soon enough you laughed with the creature, smiling and feeling the warmth flow through your body. I chuckled a bit, but laughing was hard for me, although it felt very nice.

From that day on, everything was sealed.

We traveled around the planet, village to village, species to species, learning language after language, emotion after emotion.

It was so wonderful to experience that with you. I really find it hard to put words to the magnificent journey we had over those years. Soon we spoke, laughed, danced, frolicked and made merriment all around, in both the boundless blackness of space and the solid stone of the earth below.

So you remember that night when we sat on the mountain top, simply resting our souls together? That feeling that we had, like some deep emotional bond was forming and we couldn't do anything to stop it? I remember that night.

I felt my eyes drift to sleep for just a moment, simply enjoying the time we spent together, when suddenly I was awoken by a bright blue light. Opening my eyes, I discovered (to my amazement and awe) a massive white orb sitting in the sky majestically, throwing a pale blue light over the landscape. Villages amassed, singing to this new found wonder sitting in their night sky. You lied next to me, looking over at me childishly.

"Luna!" You said to me, quoting a widely used language of the planet-creatures.

From that point on, I knew who you were. Not just what, but who.

I gave you a great responsibility, a job and an honor. I gave you dominion over the night sky. Do you remember when I did that? You were so happy, you gathered up your own energy and quite literally burst with joy, launching new stars far and wide across the galaxy like a newborn child playing with its toys. It was so pretty Luna. So beautiful. I regret to this day that I didn't shed a tear for your glorious creation.

We were so happy together Luna. I loved you like a mother would her child. But something inside of me was wrong and I knew it. Despite my best efforts, I knew that I would never truly have emotions like you. Ironically it made me feel an emotion that I had been experiencing much more lately. Sadness.

You were so...energetic and happy... it was depressing in a sense, knowing I couldn't have what you had, but at the same time, I was happy for you, because you seemed to be the perfect little emotional little being I had tried to create. I felt like my mission was changing. Like I was beginning to care for your happiness more than I was caring for my own emotions.

It wasn't a bad feeling. I felt motherly and...emotional...

But then something happened. You learned a whole new emotion. Grief.

You don't remember the village, but I do. A small cluster of huts and tents inhabited by a race of sentient furry creatures nestled in between two mountains.

You loved the furry ones.

I remember we spent a lot of time there, playing and socializing with them, making as many friends as we could. The food was delicious too! Succulent leaves they called 'Eucalyptus' in their tongue. We had so much fun there.

But one day, when we went to visit again, everything was gone. Burned to the ground by some passing horde of bandits and raiders hundreds of years ago. Ganwed on skeletons and overgrown ruins were the only thing that remained from the conflict.

I saw your face tighten in pain as you beheld this scene, mine staying completely stoic. I had witnessed this a million times before. Tribe fights tribe. Beast kills beast. One side eventually wins.

They lost.

That was the first time I ever saw you cry. Large tears of pain and sadness flowed down your face as I tried to pull you away from the scene.

You learned another emotion that day.

Anger.

Pushing me away you ran into the forest, trying to hide from me and my confusion. You didn't know that I followed you that day, deep into the forest, back to the hill you would always played on million's of years ago.

I heard you praying that night. Praying to some god that the creatures of the planet had created. You truly gave into your desperation enough to look for something bigger than us, bigger than the two lords of this universe. It was insulting...but the key word of this situation would be desperate..

You prayed naively, because no matter how equal I made you to me, your only a child inside. Age isn't determined by the number of years your body has survived, it's determined by how many things you have experienced. You were still a tender little child, your body over millions of years old, but your experiences limited to what we chose to see. But there was no hiding that tragedy from you.

You prayed to 'God' that he would never let anyone die again, and that he would bring your friends back to play with you. You prayed that if he couldn't bring them back, that when you died, you would see them again.

At that very moment, I realized something needed to change.

You were immortal. You would never die. You would live to see generation after generation of your friends die and pass on.

I couldn't do that to you. I couldn't put you through pain like that. It was that weird instinct inside me that kept me from keeping you immortal.

As I watched you grieve your lost friends, I formulated a plan. A plan that involved death and suffering not only for mortals, but for us as well.

I would always be immortal, there was nothing I could do about that, but you, you could be saved.

As you cried, I floated up behind you, embracing you softly and tenderly. You embraced my limbs that wrapped around you and nestled your face into the crook of my foreleg. I whispered a soft 'goodnight' to you, and let you fall into sleep.

As you slept, I brought you to the safety of the stars, far away from the world I was about to change.

As I floated high above the planet, I closed my eyes and felt my spirit ignite, the classic feeling of overwhelming power overtaking me. Soon, when it felt ready, I released the energy onto the planet below.

Villages disappeared, sentient life disintegrated. Cities were obliterated without leaving a clue as to what happened.

I had to give you a clean slate. A new world to start on, with me at your side. Soon the planet was just as it was before anything evolved; the wind blew and clouds moved. Your giant grey monument still sat in the sky majestically.

The loss of life would have been staggering to you, but I knew what I had to do.

I returned to your floating form and reached inside your mind, wiping away your memories and experiences, but leaving your emotions and feelings intact. That's what I needed from you. Your emotions. Your heart. Your soul.

I felt my soul connect to yours, sucking away massive amounts of your ability and magic, making your mortal. Long living, but mortal.

You shrunk in size, your body blurring as it reduced itself and transformed itself into a younger version of you.

Finally. Everything was ready.

However, something seemed empty. I felt as though there should be some sort of symbolism to all this; something that could be with you wherever you went, but seemed natural.

I had one more brilliant idea before I retired my duties as sole ruler of this universe.

I painted your body blue. A deep majestic blue that matched the night sky. Inversely, I painted myself bright and colorful, like the sun and its light. I drew a small sun on my flanks, also designing a crescent moon on yours. Giving your tail and mane the image of the night sky itself, complete with stars, I painted mine dull rainbow, like a spectrum of color.

It was sad Luna... knowing that when you awoke, you would believe I was your sister, knowing that you wouldn't remember anything from our trillions of years together...

I will admit I was surprised that I cried during that moment. A single tear...

But regardless of my emotions, my silent need to be regarded as who I truly am to you... I'm very interested in seeing what we can do together here, on this blank canvas.

As sisters.

You'll never read this. You'll never know the truth. As sad as that is, I know it's for the better. You will live millions of years, you WILL see your friends die, but on your last legs, I know that you won't die alone. I know that you will have friends that will be there for you. You will have friends. Friends like I could never have.

I will never die.

But I can at least see the happiness on your face when you finally get to.

I love you Luna. More than you can ever know.

~~Celestia~~

Celestia put her pen down and let a small tear drop onto the table.

"Big Sister! Big Sister!" Came a happy scream from another room in their small cottage, "Look what I made!"

A small young Luna bounded through the door holding a small grey creature with her magic.

"What is it Luna?" Celestia said with a laugh, expecting it to be similar to the creature she first made when she was experimenting with life.

Luna shoved the blob closer to her big sister.

"I built it like me!" Luna said giddily, showing off her creation.

Celestia gasped as she beheld her sisters creation.

The small creature was about the size of Celestia's hoof, with four limbs and a mane and tail, just like she and Luna both had. It looked up at her with beautiful blue eyes and yawned, tired already. However, it was wingless, and didn't have a horn.

Celestia felt a feeling she had felt every day of her life since Luna had been made. Pride. Not for herself, but for her daughter.

Celestia nuzzled her sister affectionately.

"I love you Big Sister." Luna said, nuzzling her back.

"I love you too Luna." Celestia smiled as Luna pulled away, a massive smile on her face.

They talked about what they could do with such a beautiful creature. Making it bigger, giving it magic, or wings. As they sat and talked about this small creature, Celestia's heart felt warmer than it ever had before.

= = =

Phew... I might release a shortened version really. Edit: Screw that... I might add a couple more chapters! Edit2: well, unless you guys don't like it :/ then just let me know and I'll move on.

I liked writing this one. I really did.

Kinda gave me a whole new perspective on Luna and Celestia.

Anyways! Time to head to bed!

I hope you guys liked it! Have a great one!

<3 Love you guys! (I mean, if I could create a universe for you guys, I would!) <3