I Was Dropped From The Moonbeam, And Sailed On Shooting Stars
She stared up at the ceiling, made of marble and clean. No cobwebs, no cracks, nothing out of place. It was perfectly maintained.
Princess Luna sighed, and rolled on the sheets, kicking out her legs. The smooth silk felt like sandpaper to her; a restless itching feeling crept up and down her body as though a horde of fleas had descended upon her and taken up residence in her coat. She hugged the pillow, gritting her teeth, and writhed.
Sitting up in a quick, fluid motion, she heaved a sigh. Luna stared at the wall before her. It too was flawless—and upon it hung lavish decorations: a portrait of the valley below Canterlot, midnight blue curtains flanking the window next to it (they used to be gold, but Luna had replaced them in her first month back), and...
A small, but noticeable, symbol of the sun. Inches from the painting. She cast her weary eyes on the symbol, the very same that composed of her sister’s cutie mark. A faint glow exuded from it, slowly dimming with each passing second.
Luna looked to her side, where a set of beautiful glass door opened out onto a large balcony. It was adorned with a few ancient pots, overflowing with hanging vines and ivy plants. The decorations from her old room in the Everfree Palace, all those years ago...
She got up from her bed, and trotted to the balcony. The sun was still setting, the sky painted with a plethora of pastel pigments; brick reds, husky magentas, stark violets, even a shade of blue that nearly matched her coat color. Behind her, the symbol of the sun continued to dim; upon the sun slipping the horizon, it grew dark.
Luna took a deep breath, and her horn lit. She felt a familiar tug behind her stomach, and on the opposite horizon from where the sun had sunk, the moon began to peak over. A faint buzzing filled her ears; a dull throbbing in her skull—increasing in intensity with each passing moment as the moon rose higher and higher—
Luna’s brow knit, and a small bead of sweat slipped down from her forehead. Her breathing was shallow and labored, and the tug in her stomach felt as though a hooked knife were trying to gut her hollow. The glow from her horn brightened, sharp and electric, her former prison continuing its steady ascent into the sky.
“It’s not easy. You’re doing well.”
Luna would have been startled by this voice at an earlier time, but she had since grown used to these intrusions.
“We understand how difficult it is to raise our moon, fair sister,” Luna spoke through gritted teeth.
“I am only attempting to console you,” Princess Celestia said, a single eyebrow arched. “It’s been quite some time since you’ve had to regularly rise the moon, I know that it took myself a few years before I was fully accustomed to—”
“We art not thou, sister,” Luna said, cursing internally for slipping into fully-fledged Old Equestrian, knowing that in her irritation, she would be stuck talking in it for at least a few hours. “We are quite adept at our own purpose. Thou was to always raise the sun. You chose to do something that thou were not meant to do, and as such, thou has had a considerable effort raising it.” She turned her head slightly to the side to shoot a scowl at Celestia.
Celestia sighed. “Of course, sister.”
Luna turned her head back to face the view from the balcony. “Was that all thou wished to say to us, sister, or is thine daily critique far from over?”
“I did have more to say.”
“Speak, then.”
Celestia shuffled on her hooves. “I was wondering if you were ready for the wedding. Princess Cadance has been waiting for months, you know, and I think that if we’re both—”
“We have an important astronomical event to attend to during the wedding,” Luna said curtly. “We doubt Cadance will miss our presence at the wedding, however, for she hardly knows us.”
Princess Celestia bit her lip, crestfallen. “I... see. Are you certain you cannot make it?”
“Quite.”
There was a moment of awkward silence before Luna spoke again. “Was there anything else thou wished to impart to me, sister?”
Celestia took a deep breath, the corner of her eye twitching slightly. “I was also wondering how well you slept.”
“Poorly, as usual.” Luna focused her gaze on the moon, and bit the inside of her bottom lip, the glow from her horn getting ever brighter as the silvery orb continued on a steady path up into the sky. The deep blue sky was slowly starting to blacken, and with a small pulse from the Night Princess’s horn, stars began to appear in clusters upon the darkest spots.
“Nightmares again?” Celestia asked, her voice a bit softer now. Luna’s entire face was now drenched with sweat, and yet she still felt a chill run through her, reverberating off of the hooked knife in her gut.
“Perhaps,” she grunted, not bothering to look at her sister.
“You know, I could brew you up some belladonna tea,” Celestia said, taking a few tentative steps closer to Luna. “It’s very good for night terror—”
“We UNDERSTAND, sister!” Luna shouted, her voice quivering with rage and frustration as a flurry of cobalt-colored sparks shot up and down her horn. Celestia recoiled as her sister’s legs spread slightly, the hooves scraping against the fine, smooth stone. “We do not CARE for thine treatments, and we do not REQUIRE them. Dreams are our territory, and we may defeat the nightmares as we so please!”
“I’m sorry, Luna,” Celestia said, looking down at the balcony floor. “I was merely wishing to help you with—”
“We do not NEED any of thine help, sister,” Luna said, spinning around so rapidly that her mane, sparkling with stars of its own, whipped the side of her face. “Thou has already done QUITE enough for us!”
“Why won’t you let me help you?” Celestia asked, irritation spiking her voice. “You know, that’s all I seek to do!”
“Thou art fully aware why we do not trust thee!” Luna said, her horn glowing. The aura remained its own brightness—her physical horn was beginning to glow white-hot. “Go bother somepony else, sister!”
“Luna, your horn—”
“I am tired of thou’s constant scrutiny upon me! How thou will meddle in our moon raising, how thou will badger us about our own, personal dreams! Will thou stop at nothing to make sure we are miserable?”
“Luna!” Celestia yelled. “Control yourself!”
Luna’s eye flickered up towards her horn, and she left out a small gasp before a sound like gunshot blasted through the night air. Luna fell backwards, her horn smoking.
Celestia rushed to her sister’s side, her wings flapping slightly as she galloped to land besides Luna. The younger sister lay on her side, eyes clenched shut, her horn no longer glowing, and the aura having disappeared. She no longer felt the hook in her gut—yet she felt as though it had been yanked out rudely and abruptly, dragging a good fair amount of her insides along with it.
“Luna, are you okay? Speak to me!” Celestia cradled her little sister in her hooves. “Breathe! Come on, deep breathes...”
Luna opened her mouth, gaping like a fish out of water, making no noise for a few moments. Celestia held her own breath, right up until she heard a raspy rattle rise from Luna’s chest.
“Oh, thank goodness...” Celestia’s hoof moved to Luna’s hoof, but pulled back almost immediately. It was still scorching, even though most of the smoking had subsided.
“Moon...” Luna gasped. Celestia’s ears perked up, and she held Luna closer to her.
“The moon? Speak, Luna...”
“Is it s-still there?”
Celestia felt her heart jump into her throat, and she quickly turned her head around. The moon was not only there, and fully intact, but it was also steadily rising, just perfectly on pace. “It’s fine, Luna... the moon is fine.”
Luna’s eyes remained shut. “Excellent... now leave us, sister.”
Celestia’s brow furrowed. “Leave...? Sister, you are not speaking clearly! You’re hurt! Please, let me tend to you while a royal physician makes their way here—”
“We said to LEAVE US, sister!” Luna’s voice was hoarse, and nothing like the royal Canterlot boom it had once been like. “We do not need thy help any longer. We want nothing to do with thee right now, nor ever again!”
“Luna!” Celestia gently placed Luna on the ground, her eyes narrowing, her face contorted in a scowl. She opened her mouth to let Luna have a piece of her mind, but stopped when she noticed tears beading out from between Luna’s eyelids. “Luna?”
“P-please, sister... thou has done enough to us...”
“I thought we moved past this, Luna...” Celestia said softly, sitting next to her sister curled up on the floor. “Everything to do with Nightmare Moon—”
“We have tried to move past that,” Luna said, her voice shaking. “But thou still treats us like we are a weakling. Like we are nothing more than that little, jealous foal who was banished all those years ago! We changed, Celestia, we changed all those years on the moon! And we’re different now! We understand so much more now, and we are trying to act like a Princess, not a rambunctious, troublesome, violent foal! Why does thou still treat us like we are nothing more than such?”
Celestia bit her lip, trying to stabilize herself as she was found to be shaking as well. “I-I’m sorry, Luna... I just felt that you needed as much help as you could get, readjusting to Equestria. With your dreams and everything—”
“Our dreams?” Luna’s voice was nothing more than a scratchy whisper, and her eyes shot open, revealing them to be bloodshot and wild. “Does thou wish to know what we dream about, every night?”
Celestia sat there, looking down at her sister, a lump in her throat. “Y-Yes, Luna. Tell me about your dreams.
Luna’s eyes misted over, her voice rising slightly, but her tone staying constant. “We dream that we live in a dark world, surrounded by the void, no stars at night. The forests withered long ago, the ground had been torn in two, with fragments of rock being all that connected the two halves of the shattered planet. We dream of mountains sunk below the sea, with no voices except one underneath, Celestia. It is thy voice, speaking the same thing over and over and over...”
Celestia stared at her sister in a stunned silence, but that did not matter, for Luna had no intention of stopping. “In our dream, you’re alive, sister, but you’re alive and dying. Sometimes we plunge our hooves into thine skull until thou art nothing, and sometimes we are watching thou be crushed by meteors we called from the sky. But we dream never of thou begging for mercy, and we never dream of thy cursing our name...”
Luna took a shaky breath, tears welling up in her eyes before they spilled over, flowing fresh down her cheeks. “Thy voice plays on repeat in our head, Celestia: ‘I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you.’”
She stared up at Celestia, shuddering through labored breaths as a deluge of tears pressed down her face. “How could thou forgive such a monster as us?”
“Oh, Luna...” Celestia gently scooped Luna up into her forelegs, cradling her little sister once more in her hooves. “You are no monster...”
“Thou stopped me from condemning Equestria to a horrendous fate, and all we did was grow bitter in exile!” Luna choked out, closing her eyes once more in bitter frustration. “And every night, we still dream of bringing that to be! How could we be anything but a monster?”
“Luna, you show remorse,” Celestia said, placing a hoof against Luna’s tear-stained cheek. “A monster does not show restraint, or remorse... you would never bring those things to light.”
“How can thou be certain?”
“Because you have told me about them, my dear sister. If you were truly planning on carrying them out... why would you tell the one pony who had stopped you before about what you dreamt? And again, that you feel so terribly about dreaming them... it shows that you do not have the lack of heart to bring about the end of our world. You are no monster, Luna, you are my sister...”
Celestia stopped, her voice giving out for a moment. “A-And my friend, Luna. You are my friend.”
Luna opened a single eye. “Y-Your friend?”
“Yes, Luna,” Celestia said with a sad smile, a few tears of her own glittering in the moonlight as they made paths down her cheeks. “You are my friend, Luna, and it’s about time I started treating you like one. You were right about everything, the way I treat you; I’ve been treating you more like a little sister than an equal, which, in the past few months, you’ve more than proven yourself to be.”
Luna opened both her eyes, looking up at Celestia in awe. “R-Really?”
“Yes. Your remarkable recovery at the hooves of the Elements of Harmony was possible in part due to you. It accessed the part of you that wanted to return from Nightmare Moon, to banish the part of you that only felt jealousy and greed. You worked diligently, and the night you returned from Nightmare Moon, you did not rest. You toiled through the whole night, working on raising the moon, even though you had not done so for a thousand years.”
Celestia gave her sister a watery smile. “I am proud of you, Princess Luna. I am proud to call you both a sister, and a friend.”
Luna lay motionless in Celestia’s hooves for a few moments, before collapsing into sobs, burying her muzzle in Celestia’s chest. the elder sister stroked Luna’s star-dappled mane, gently cooing. “It’s okay, Luna...”
The starlight and the moonlight both shone on them, moonbeams dropping on them as they were sailed to the earth on shooting stars, casting a peaceful, ethereal glow around the two of them.
“I forgive you...”
