A Waltz in the Moonlight

I sat alone in the foyer of the ballroom one night, not one pony had asked me to a dance. Was it out of fear or hatred? Why was I so shunned? I sat on a polished marble bench with intent to retire for the night when a voice, much like my own, called out to me. I looked up to see a shadow, staring back at me, asking me to dance, all was I to do was take its hoof. So weary I was on this night, that I accepted it blindly. I, unlike my sister, thought more upon the past than the future and didn't think of the consequences. She always thought towards the future, like Prometheus. I, her counterpart like Epimethius, only mulled over the past. Even with foresight and hindsight, Pandora still opened her box, and up the darkness sprang without heed for its master, and danced with me.

That night was one of many where I played with fire, danced in it, only to find myself in the end burned.

I waltzed in the moonlight with a dark apparition of myself being my only partner for the night, our night eternal. The music would have brought many together as they would dance intertwined. But for me, the dance with my shadow only served to separate us further as the swaying between us fractured our conjoined existence. This game was one we would continue to play, but not one that would last. Just as your shadow is a lack of light, my shadow was a lack of myself, my soul. What little I had left was leading the dance, with any luck the sway of the music may change and I may once again take back my throne, both literal and figurative.

I inevitably lost my footing in the dance and my partner took the lead. The music began softly and eventually picked up pace before its inevitable crescendo. The song was one of an orchestra with all of the intricacies of any others of its kind. As it ended, it morphed into a dark sonata, both sweet and sickening. My partner, with cruel intent, pretended nothing was wrong and ignored my eye’s tears. While it admitted that it would have preferred another piece, it refused to relinquish control of the melodic sway of the waltz.

I looked into its eyes only to see my reflection, as expected. It always mocked me in this way, displaying what I could only hope to reclaim, always displaying it so close to me, yet always out of reach. It used to be that my reach could extend as far as my eyes could see. So from a lofty height I would look down, only to see that as I climbed my overlook, my shadow would extend, to encompass more than could be imaginable. But my reach exceeded my grasp, I overshot by miles, expecting to control this beast I now dance with.

The height of the position now gave me vertigo. With this realization was another fear in turn: a fear of the outside. But even with these fears, I realized that I could not turn my back on the world. So I allowed my shadow to encompass me, to hide me, and I became a dweller from within the darkness, not to frighten, but to hide myself from this pain. At first the shadow was used for my own cloak, but gradually this dark charade morphed itself into an irremovable mask, and then a tomb. I was buried alive and have suffered from within it’s crypt.

So few came to visit my grave and its aptly named 'headstone'. And those who did visit only sought for themselves and their own plights, seeing my partner as a god. They ignored that their 'god' had engulfed me, so little had my passing meant to them. To look upon the moon was to visit my grave and yet so few did. Only one stayed for the funeral: My other half and my better, by word of the mass. But the sound of knell toned throughout and the procession ended, leaving me in a rounded coffin for the final waltz. The coffin being pulled along by my better only fueled the fire further towards the dance. And so we did, the music was vast and instruments more varied than before, each note either quieter or louder than the last. The symphony sailed by its own wind and carried itself to the two of us. The final songs embraced us as we waltzed, circling, instead now on the moon.

We were still here strung up upon the notes of the melody, me dancing like a marionette before the closing of the curtain. I looked over my partners shoulder, back at the musicians playing the dark melodies within my mind. With certainty I could now say that they were a higher power in the dance, a moving force driving us in a direction. They were emotion. We could not ignore the chords of the strings and the shallow tones of their brass, we could only decide which way to move. I contemplate the possibility of ending the music, but realized it would only end when the dance stopped, and unless we could not continue, the music would sound on.

I thought then to end the waltz. To waltz one needs a partner, without me the music would fall upon deaf ears and leave instead a stillness. I sought to end the partnership, remove myself from it, to end our dance forevermore, but my shadow insisted and my own fears agreed with it, as did my morals. What would she think if I ended it? The question was silenced and the music was redoubled, with full force they played.

Tears returned to my eyes once again and my shadow laughed. It laughed as I suffered. Each leg trembled as I stepped and the music only grew louder, the movements closer together. With each step I realized the actuality of my fate, and how it would only worsen in time.

Eventually my partner shared with me the thought of taking back the stage we had used in a past life, with fear and rage I shook and the arena trembled with the music which drew up sharply, and out shadow fearfully hastened to keep time with the grim elegy.

“We can not let it do this to them! The dance is one thing, but the stage on which it is set is another! We have lost much in this game, but to go back and relive it is too much!”

Being only the rage of one so indentured, these words rang hollow and our dark shade brushed them aside and set our dance on course for the waiting game. Over time I receded within myself, allowing my body to dance without control of our mind, the movements so learned that to move and sway with the notes is to breath.

And breath I did many eons later, without my consent, for I imagined I might never breath again. With our course set upon our aforementioned better, we briefly traded steps in another sort of dance before she fell away. We could no longer fly to close to the sun, for its wrath we had now felt full force. So sorry. Yet my deluded shadow still did not see its wings were made of wax.

It lead the dance further that I could imagine, to a dark place in which it should never have been taken. With the powers of a god we fell upon them, with malice its eyes and sorrow in my own. With the six we played a game that in itself  was another dance of sorts, we played music and supplied a partner, but they refused to take up the stage. So clever they were, so righteous, they would not be misled. One of them however did dance: the purple one as she was known in my mind at the time. When the thunderous roar of the music sounded we swapped partners in a return to the first melody, except when the music ended, my shadow did not return.

~~~~~~~

Still ongoing the music is, emotion is never outside of my mind, it is only quieted to that I might think and remember. My shadow returned again, much later, but in my time spent without, I had learned to dance and now I am in the lead. We dance now to a happier theme, and step in time to the moonlight, not the darkness.

~~~~~~~

Year 4 of the Return

Luna sat in her room mulling deeply, thinking to herself. Beside her rested the sole copy of her diary, rescued from the old castle, once called her home. It was one of the only documents Tia hadn't destroyed; ironically it was probably the most compelling piece of evidence linking her to her time spent with and as The Nightmare. The pages brought back memories. Lately when she was alone she would think back, far, far back. In all honesty it had become hard not to turn her head around and look to the past, it had been one of the only things she was sure about. From her perspective, the thousands of years spent on the moon were all one moment, one song and dance all strung up together like pearls on a delicate necklace, all she had to do was tug on the chain and they would all come at once in single file.

Luna closed the musty leather-bound book with one hoof and sat back down, wondering whether or not she would loose hope again. Several thoughts crossed her mind as she did this, namely: Will it return?

Luna found herself reading the journal more and more recently, as she spent increasing amounts of time in her room doing just that. She was in a bit of a slump as of late. She was finding it increasingly hard to get out of bed in the morning, thinking that she was unwanted, unneeded. So she had reseeded into her her room for the day. Especially for today, there was a festival coming up and she expected her presence to be particularly unwelcome.

Her prior question was left unanswered, as her concentration was broken by the sound of loud hoofsteps ringing against the marbled tile. The tile was another reminder of where she by its difference from the castle of the two sisters. As the clicking grew closer, she realized who was coming, as the the weight of the pony in question could only be her sister.

A loud rapping was heard to her left as the the oak door reverberated in response.

“We art coming. Tis only a moment.”

She opened a drawer on the desk and carelessly swept the book and all of the miscellaneous clutter into the desk drawer in one swift motion before kicking it shut with her back hoof as she turned around.

It was clean the whole time. Nopony will ever think look in the drawer. Mwuhaha!

Childish thoughts such as these running through her mind were a much more common occurrence now, and with them came the childish actions. Much of the darkness had left her thoughts since The Incident and laughter and playfulness became a standard behavior.

The door now opened as she placed the quill back in its inkwell via her magic. She noticed a slight color change lately from her usual dark purple to a much lighter shade of blue, but she hadn't the time to worry about that, ‘Tia was waiting.

“What have I told you about speaking in that archaic voice?” Celestia chided, looking down at the now-shorter alicorn with a face only a mother should be able to use, but on a child.

“That I should do it more often because it displeases you?” she replied, giggling maniacally in response.

Celestia only sighed and rolled her eyes before she retaliated with sarcasm of her own. “Well then I guess there just won’t need to be any cake left for you at the festival...” she paused a moment before asking “You are coming, aren’t you?”

“Fine~," she sighed in defeat "-but if everyone only stares I’m coming home to the castle,”

“They won’t,”

“But if they do-” whined Luna.

“They wont,” she said, in the serious voice only a family member can take when making a promise. Even if it is a promise they know they can’t keep, even if the task is completely out of their control , you know that somehow they are right. Celestia smiled down to her in such a way that all felt right with the world. In this moment Luna decided that it wouldn't return, she had a good feeling about it. The cotton candy also helped sway her opinion about the malevolent force, but for the most part, she was sure of it.

And the story ended on a final note, only waiting to be plucked at the strings.