Every afternoon, as the beautiful tones of colors of the sunset took the lead of the sky, Princess Luna and Princess Celestia used to meet. It was the only good moment in the day, as Celestia’s job was about to finish and Luna’s to start, when they had the opportunity to have a chat.
Three hundred years ago, Celestia waited for her younger sister at sunset. Three hundred years ago, she didn’t come. For the first time in thousands, she didn’t come.
She found her sister later, in her room, crying. She never told her why. Even in the days of today, Princess Celestia still ignores the reason. But she accepts the choice of her sister, who refused to tell her. That night, the floor was covered with tears as the moon reflected in the lake that has become her room. Celestia went next to her, tried to cheer her up, and even if she didn’t know the reason, she did her best to comfort her younger sibling. “Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay,” she told her. But she never knew what will be okay.
Princess Celestia remembers that day better than any other day of her life. She watches the sunset by the palace’s window, remembering every single detail.
Three hundred years ago. Luna stopped crying, swept her tears, and raised her head up to her sister’s ear to ask her a simple, very simple demand. If that would make her happy, Celestia would of done it. And she did, she did it by herself. She did something, that special something that nobody else in the universe knew, nobody except the two mares.
Celestia sighed, remembering that day. She looked sadly over Luna’s room, who locked herself in, once again.
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Today was the day Twilight Sparkle decided she will pay a visit to Celestia. Two years after leaving the castle for Ponyville, she wished to see her old house again, to see what the place has become. She was leaving for two weeks; she wanted to make her teacher a surprise.
All her friends helped her make her dream become reality. Each of them did their part of the job to try making a trolley for their friend to ride to the castle. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy accepted the favor to be the two ponies riding the cart, and the cyan mare was also forced to promise she will go slowly, something she didn’t enjoy much.
“Darling! Look, it’s done!” shouted Rarity to the purple mare, who was reading a book she has found recently in her library and that she never knew existent.
Twilight was too caught up in her lecture to even hear her. Th book was fascinating; it was written by the Princess herself, and has been hidden behind the baby section in the library, probably because it wasn’t something desired to find. The book was called “To Luna”.
Twilight flew through the pages, trying to find something interesting. Though, the only thing there was were random letters stuck together to form impossible words. At the beginning, there was one word per page. Then, the nonexistent words became shorter and shorter, until it was only a letter per page. Twilight noticed the single letters passed as the alphabet backwards, from Z to A. And at the end, one last page. One last blank page. After that, the end cover on what was written, “From Celestia” on pure ink.
Twilight figured out the book was suspicious, each word had to mean something. But, she tried placing the letters in any possible manner, it didn’t do anything. It was still unexplainable words who meant absolutely nothing.
The bookworm mare returned to the blank page. She stared at it for many minutes. There was something, she didn’t knew exactly what, but something telling her the mystery in the book was lying on that blank page. She decided: I will write on it. Maybe that will change something to the book, or whatever.
She took the ink from the shelf near the window. She went back to the blank page and wondered, what could I write? So she came up with the classic idea, writing its own name.
She delicately placed her feather in the bottle of ink, and started writing on the page.
“Twilight Sparkl”
As she went and took some more ink to finish her word, she turned back her head to realize what she wrote was gone. She tilted her head to the bottle of ink with a frown. Another prank from Pinkie and Dash, she thought. she went to her basement to take some fresh ink and filled back her bottle, but as she tried it again, the words disappeared once more.
There was, indeed, something wrong with the page. Because if it wasn’t the ink, it couldn’t be anything else.
“TWILIGHT DARLING!” shouted Rarity once more, now at the foot of her tree house's door. The purple pony sighed and went to open. “Twilight, you HAVE to see this! Your cart is finished! It’s simply gorgeous!” she fantasized.
Twilight came back to reality and forgot about the book for a second. She followed the white unicorn curiously to Fluttershy’s house, where they went to the backyard.
“Oh my,” she said, speechless. “It’s beautiful.”
Fluttershy and a dozen of other birds were placing a crown of flowers all around a beautiful semi-circular piece of wood painted in pink and purple. It had four wheels made of pure metal painted in gold, one on each side, as well as a bar of metal painted in the same color that separated in two directions at the end, to finish with two copper saddles. To one of them was attached an excited Rainbow Dash. “Isn’t it cool?” she asked. “I insisted for the awesome saddles!” she added proudly, head up, with a big grin on her face.
“I’m almost done,” whispered Fluttershy as she attached a load of pink flowers on the crown of leaves. Luckily she finished fast, since her birds gathered up to help her spread the pink spots everywhere. “There,” she shyly said, satisfied.
“Good, do we go now?” asked the cyan mare impatiently. “I’m tired of staying on the ground!”
Twi sighed, asked them to wait for a minute, and ran back to her tree house to grab her book in her mouth. At least I’ll have time checking it during the flight, she thought, bringing the bottle of ink along.
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“Attention, attention. We are taking flight in 5... 4...” Rainbow Dash started the count down as if they were on a rocket that goes in space. Twilight rolled her eyes, thinking that the need of doing that was pointless, but as the cyan pegasus reached “1...” Fluttershy placed herself in a ready-to-blow position, mimicking Dash. Was she playing the game as well?
“...TAKEOFF!” shouted Rainbow Dash the loudest she could, and at those words, the two pegasus ponies flew at full-speed into the air in a diagonal line. Twilight, surprised by that sudden movement, screamed as she kept her book tightly between her hooves for it not to fall down. As they reached the right height, the rainbow mare did a sign to the other flier, signifying they can go straight now. They slowed down as they reached the clouds in the cold high.
“Didn’t you say you will go slowly?!” yelled Twilight, mad. “What if Fluttershy lost balance with you?! We would all be on the ground by now!”
The pegasus simply shrugged like if nothing was. “You kept me too long on the ground,” she used as excuse. It wasn’t enough to convince the earth pony though. “Look, nopony is hurt here. Stop worrying,” she said.
The purple mare sighed. She kept her anger thoughts towards Dash for later a she saw the book she was still holding: “To Luna”.
She opened the book, went at the last page once again. Her eyes frowned as she watched every single part of the page, trying to find something. There was no clue, unfortunately. Wondering how could the ink now work, an idea popped up her head. “Hey, Rainbow Dash, did you and Pinkie put invisible ink in my storage?” she asked. The cyan mare turned around to her, not understanding the question. “What storage? You have storage?” “My ink storage” she explained. “I never knew you had ink storage,” the pegasus said frankly. From her tone, Twilight was sure she was joking. “Maybe Pinkie put some in?” she wondered out loud. “Nope, Pinkie was with me all day,” Rainbow Dash said.
Twilight had now only one answer left: play with the ink. Maybe, just maybe, she might come up with something. She took the ink and tried to write some sort of code that might unseal the secret.
“Luna”.
Nothing. It just slowly faded away.
“Celestia”.
Nothing, once again.
She tried a few more things, before giving up. Then she had another idea. What if there was something written with white ink, or even, invisible ink? she wondered. Only one way was to find out: fill the page with black. From the black, she will surely find the white words somewhere.
She wanted to take the bottle of ink and splash it over the page, but she realized that will only stain the entire book. So she wet her feather into the dark ink and cautiously filled the page with black.
“What are you doing?” laughed Rainbow Dash in front of her. “Coloring your book?”
“No,” relied Twilight, half-annoyed, half-irritated. “I am trying to solve a mystery here.” Rainbow Dash laughed once more. “Yeah, yeah, a biiig mystery,” she joked.
Twilight groaned and got back to her book. She continued filling the page until it was ¾ done. There, in the middle of the page, was lying a simple sentence in white, in the same writing as the cover end.
“For you, the Pool of Tears.”
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“The Pool of Tears...” wondered Twilight out loud as they were about to land on Canterlot. “What does that mean?” “About what?” asked Fluttershy, her first words since the shot off. “I found a book hidden in my library, probably the person who owned it wanted to hide it. It says it was written by Celestia though it’s all weird... I found some hidden words on the last page saying something about a “Pool of Tears”. Do you know anything about it?” she explained. The shy mare thought for a second. “Well...” she risked to share her opinion. “I guess it’s a pool filled with tears,” she proposed.
That only mix Twilight’s thoughts more.
As the two pegasus slowly flowed to touch the ground of the castle, the girls noticed that the sun was already bathing the sky with orange colors. “Oh, my,” whispered Fluttershy, “I never thought we will arrive so late.”
Twilight told her it didn’t matter to her as she let down her first hoof into the cool, smooth tiles of the entry of the palace. “At least we are here,” she said.
While she got up the stairs to the door, followed by her two friends, Twilight was surprised to see some old acquaintances she knew back in time, in the time she hadn’t friends. She smiled at them, waving her purple hoof in the air, leaving them even more doubtful.
“It looks like everypony thinks you’re a weirdo here,” notices Rainbow Dash as she looks at the viewers’ faces. “Yeah... They didn’t knew me much,” sighed Twilight as she waved her hoof to another acquaintance of the past. She then turned away and focused on advancing, as her hoofsteps echoed the silence.
She arrived to the end, to Princess Celestia’s Castle. She was about to knock when she remembered she still had the mysterious book supposedly written by her still on her, and very visible. She hid it back in a pile of other books, because somepony must have hidden it for a reason, she thought. She looked back up at the door, put on her biggest smile, and knocked on the rigid golden and wooden door.
The door slowly creaked open in a soft, innocent sound. Behind it was Celestia, who looked at them for two or three seconds like if they were invisible and then widening her eyes as she saw the mares slowly taken form in her foggy vision. “Surprise!’ Twilight shouted, burst with the happiness of seeing the Princess again. Celestia remained silent for a second, looked at the mares with her eyes still wide open, before greeting them and welcoming them inside. Twilight saw the little expression of insecurity in her voice; the Princess’ eyes were pouched slightly and wet, as if she had just cried only moments ago.
Maybe she lost the book and... but the smart unicorn shook that thought away as quickly as it arrived.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you, Twilight Sparkle, I am sorry. I could have prepared something for you and your friends,” she apologized while turning around to see the two pegasus in the back. “It’s alright,” shrugged the cyan mare. “It is a surprise visit after all,” shyly added Fluttershy.
The alicorn princess trotted into perfect movements as she presented her kingdom’s interior to the two new mares. Twilight was fascinated to see that every single thing, every single color, and every single detail hasn’t changed at all since her departure two years ago. They passed in a corridor leading to the Princess’ throne, and at the exact end of it, as they arrived in the throne room, they saw a dark blue shiny door with the well-known cutie mark of Luna on its middle.
As Fluttershy turned to the right to look at the beautiful door, turned to look at Celestia and whispered, “Um, Princess, may-I ask... Where is Princess Luna?”
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Silence.
A deadly silence, one of those silences you that seem to remain forever and that makes you feel a bit guilty for nothing. One of those silences that you wish to break but that you cannot. One of those silences which stop even the sound of breathing- or air.
Princess Celestia didn’t dare to look at any of the three mare’s faces as she tried to find an excuse. She was staring down, that sadly sorry expression appearing as her eyes pierced the floor, as she seemed to hope to find the answer deep inside the floating earth’s roots. She looked up to the right, identifying the dark blue door with her crummy eyes, before softly creating a fake smile with all her best.
“She... Likes to go on a hill, to watch the sunset before rising the moon,” she lied. She didn’t notice Twilight and Fluttershy had seen clearly through her mask, she did her best not to look at them to notice anything. She looked at the door a bit more, and then smiled for real. Not the fake smile she had before; that one flew away with the breeze passing inside the castle. No: that one was a real, warm smile. She looked sad, sorry, even guilty; but she smiled. “Come, may-I show you the throne room?” asked the white alicorn, her warm smile still on her face. She seemed to have felt better seeing the door. “Alright, I wanna see!” shouted Rainbow Dash.
As they passed next to the door, Twilight quickly approached her ear to the door by curiosity for a second or two only, because she had to follow the group who advanced without caring. As she leaned her ear to hear, she heard something.
She swore she heard somepony crying.
She shook her head as they got out of the corridor entirely. The throne room was a beautiful and luminous room, who left the two pegasus jaw open. Twilight, her, tried to move away the thought she had in her mind. No, the princess can’t imprison somepony in there! she shouted to her mind, making its thoughts shut.
The Princess approached the throne, and placed herself next to it. She knew one of the girls will finish by asking the special question, and Rainbow Dash was the first: “Ohmygosh! Can I sit on it? Can I?” she shouted, excited. “Of course, go ahead,” nodded Celestia. Rainbow Dash sprint to the chair and placed her tail on its soft, puffy cushions. She let out a satisfied hum as she swept in the warmth of the pillow. “Woah, I wish I could sit on this thing forever! It’s so... so awesome!” she let out, tilting her head down to look at the area she was sitting at.
“Oh... I...” started Fluttershy, her cheeks turning pink as she approached the throne very slowly. “I would like to try it too... Well, if you don’t mind, your highness...?” she blushed. Celestia let a smile at her, but it was that fake smile again. She lost the warmth and comfort that Luna’s room gave to her seconds ago. “Of course.”
Rainbow Dash moaned as she slowly slipped off the throne, letting her friend take her comfy spot. She was sad that that moment didn’t last long, but she wasn’t angry onto not letting her friend feel the softness of the area.
The yellow mare got up the small pair of stairs needed to climb to the majestic throne and carefully sat on it, by fear to broke it at any movement. As she felt the softness through her hooves and thighs, she placed her tail end as well. She shifted from left to right into small movements until she was perfectly comfy. “Mmmmm...” she smiled, happy of the sensation. “This is a very soft material. I never saw this before,” admitted Fluttershy as she touched the soft pillow with her right hoof. “It makes good beds and nests for animals,” she thought.
“Yeah, well, I think it makes good nests for me!” shouted Rainbow Dash, certainly not agreeing that people abuse this tissue to give to animals when they could be using it for themselves. “Um... Maybe... You are probably right...” blushed the shy pony as she got off the throne, embarrassed. She never would like to deal with Rainbow Dash- and with nopony else as well.
Then, a silence arrived in the room as the two pegasus ponies turned around to look at the remaining mare: Twilight Sparkle. Celestia followed their eyes, and stopped at the same spot as well. But Twilight didn’t notice; she was staring at the dark violet door, eyes frowned. The tears she heard out of it seconds ago came into her mind as she remembered the mysterious writing in her book: “Pool of Tears”. Tears... Tears... Her mind has stopped on that one word. Was that the “Pool of Tears” that was written about?
“Twi?” asked Rainbow Dash, awakening the purple mare from her thoughts. She looked around, trying to guess what was happening- and what did she miss. “Twilight, my fellow student,” smiled Princess Celestia, “won’t you want to sit on the throne?” she asked.
Twilight’s eyes widened. Her biggest dreams were to become as her teacher in the future, to sit on the throne. And now she had the occasion to do so, and she nearly missed it. She beamed up, approached the throne as she almost shouted, “Yes! I, I would love to!”
She sat on the throne, placed her two hands on the handles on the sides. Unlike the two previous ponies, she didn’t care of the softness and the fabric. She cared about the fact to sit on the throne. She was proud. Proud to sit on Celestia’s chair, head up, glowing smile. Just like a true princess. Her dream has always been to succeed Celestia one day, but she had been too shy to ever ask her teacher about it. But that day, she didn’t need to ask. The alicorn felt it, deep inside the mare, in her heart.
She was so proud she had even forgotten her problems for a while.
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The rest of the visit has gone well.
Since Twilight had forgotten the mysterious room- and book-, Celestia has been flattered by everypony’s normal comportment, and she took the time to relax herself. She was feeling better, remembering her sister was okay, and that Twilight, and maybe her friends as well, could stay for a while. She had missed her favorite student, she enjoyed to see how much she had changed. Twi was more... sociable. She was smiling more often, she was talking with other ponies- but with real conversations, this time. The fillies and colts at Canterlot didn’t recognize her anymore. Celestia, her, was very proud of how much she had helped Twilight.
“Hey, could we stay for a while too?” asked Rainbow Dash as they were returning to the castle. “We have many visitors rooms. You could all stay,” smiled the princess. They went next to the door once again, and while Rainbow Dash beamed up at the idea of sleeping in a royal bed, Twilight bumped into the door knob and frowned at the sight of it. All the mysteries she had forgotten during the day came back, and she looked at her backpack in what was hidden the blank book, the extreme need to take it out flowing around her body. She bit her lower lip, holding herself. There was no way Celestia discovered she had that book in hold, even though Twilight felt a bit guilty from hiding something that seemed so important from her beloved teacher. The purple mare considered the alicorn as her mother, but as many others, she had her own secrets, after all.
“Where are our rooms?” asked Twilight with the same fake smile Celestia was doing a while ago. She was impatient to be finally alone by herself to solve the mystery. The Princess saw her weird face, but did not ask questions, because the mares didn’t ask questions either when she had done as so. She turned her head to another corridor at the parallel end from theirs, at the other side of the throne room. “All the guest rooms are there. You may choose the room you wish to stay in,” Celestia explained. Rainbow Dash was the first to react, flewing her wings open and bursting into the hall. she opened each door, one by one, closing them back if they weren’t interesting. “Nope, nope, nope...” she continued as so until she came at the 4th room at the left side, a beautiful blue door in which the inside had a beautiful white soft bed and the walls were painted in sky blue with a touch of fluffy clouds, like if it was in the air. The floor was the same blue and had a cloud-shape white rug in the middle. It pleased Dash more than she thought. “This one is perfect!” she shouted, falling down on the cuddly blanket of the bed. As she touched it, she immediately fell asleep in one of her well-known naps.
Fluttershy looked around, door by door, but not taking the time to open them. She came by some door who had interesting colors, like pink, orange, or white, and they all seemed nice, but the shy pony couldn’t make a choice. She went back at the start, her mind spinning around the three rooms, not knowing which to choose. And, at the end, a shiny pale green door stood, one that she hasn’t saw before. She opened it to reveal a forest-look, with all kinds of trees of all kinds of shapes were painted on each of the four walls. The bed was made of pure wood, and on it was a blanket made of a giant smooth leaf. She sat on it, looking around to find the wooden floor, and the cute night table which was actually a real stump in what we carved two drawers. “Oh, this one is very pretty,” she decided.
Twilight looked at Celestia, waiting for something, but the Princess just smiled. She wished to get back her old room, but it wasn’t on that corridor she gave them. She awaited for her to give the permission, but she only said, “go ahead, Twilight.”
Twilight approached the path and looked in it. 7 doors were at the left, 7 doors at the right. And one door at the end. She sighed, muttering to herself that she will have to choose one of these, but as she lay her first hoof inside the hallway, the white alicorn told, “Look at the last one.”
And she did as so. She advanced through the corridor, turning to the left, then the right, looking at all the different colors of doors. As she arrived at the end, she took the time to look at the door before getting in.
It was of a beautiful purple color, the same as her coat’s. The doorknob had the pinkish violet of her mane, and on the middle of the door stood a fresh painting of her cutie mark. She gazed at the door. Did Celestia made a room especially for her?
She turned the doorknob and the door slightly creaked as she opened it. Twilight’s eyes widened as she saw the inside.
A giant window was on the front wall, from the ceiling to the floor. To the left, a pale toothpaste color bookcase was filled with books. Actually, toothpaste bookcases were everywhere, and to the right, one was even hanging from the ceiling. Speaking of the right side, a weird machine was standing there, as well as some other books piled up on the floor. There was also an hourglass next to the bizarre machine, who had stopped since it hadn’t been used for too long. A few more books and stuff were here and there, and at the end, there was a little bed into what Twilight used to sleep every night.
M... My room! she thought. They moved my room into here! Oh, I wish Spike was here to see! Then, she remembered. Spike! She left her room, forgetting about the touching gift Celestia made for her. She popped into Rainbow Dash’s cloud room, and shouted so hard that it awoke the cyan mare from her cuddly nap. “DASH! Where is Spike!” she hadn’t even asked the question, it sounded more like an order. An order for the pony to answer. The pegasus muttered a few things Twilight didn’t understand, before looking around and seeing the small dragon had been gone as well. Then, she remembered. “Well... Heheh... Let’ say we... Didn’t tell him that we were leaving...”
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An angry Twilight Sparkle was laying on her bed. She was irritated, very irritated. They forgot Spike at home! And he barely knew how to ask a meal at a restaurant! How’s he gonna live without me? Twilight thought. Not that she knew Spike was going to die, either. She was only worried. The poor little dragon was probably looking for her everywhere. What if he went looking in the Everfree forest...?
No, no, no! Twilight shook that thought away. Spike was probably aware why she left by now... He’ll be angry at her for leaving him at Ponyville when they will come back, that is for sure.
Twilight sighed and let her head fall between her two hooves. She was laying on her belly, in the inverse direction of the normal sleeping position. Her two back hooves were resting on her pillows while she cleared her mind and fell into a nap, her muzzle touching the silk of the bed while her forehead was on her left hoof.
She dreamed of being a Princess.
Princess Sparkle. She was sitting on the throne, on Celestia’s throne. She was an adult mare, her hair flowing into the wind like Celestia’s and her tail so long that it went off the throne and swept down the stairs. She smiled as her giant horn lit up, making tiny stars appear everywhere in the dark sky. A giant purple and green dragon, supposedly Spike, flew with his giant wings above the castle. Her friends came that day. Rainbow Dash was an amazing Wonderbolt, and her adult wings were as big as her body. Fluttershy had smaller wings, but she was flying with them, along with some other birds, and Twilight found out she became a vet. Applejack became a pro cook, and she sold her worldwide-known apple desserts to make few money and pay the Sweet Apple Acres some improvement. Rarity became a fashion model, and she wore a beautiful furry scarf along with a short grayish-white pom-pom dress. Pinkie Pie was almost as small as she was before, she was the smallest of the group. She became a party-maker, she was paid to make extremely awesome parties at people’s houses. She always wore balloons attached to her head- well, almost always.
Twilight was smiling during her dream, when they met once again after a long separation. None of them changed in her dreams, Pinkie was just as crazy as always, Rarity was talking a lot about fashion, Applejack still had her farmer accent and called them “sugarpie”, Fluttershy was still as shy as always and Rainbow Dash kept telling everypony how cool she was and all the cool things she was doing.
She awoke the next day with that same smile on her face, as she got out of the so familiar room and left to the royal dining table.
After all, Spike wouldn’t had much to do here.
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That night before, Princess Celestia smiled successfully as she saw the 3 guests comfortably placed in their beds, sleeping just like babies. She sighed, hoping that Twilight isn’t doubting of something too grave to happen. She saw that the purple unicorn obviously discovered something about the room that was suspicious to her. It was a secret between her sister and her, and it had to remain in the bare hands of the royalty the longest possible.
She slowly went back in front of the midnight blue door, her slight hoofsteps echoing in the giant castle. She took a time to look at the marvelously painted door before opening it and stepping in, making sure she closed it behind her before continuing.
She found Luna, crouched on the floor, circled by a giant half-circular basin. It was filled with transparent liquid, a lot of it, into what the younger Princess added some of her tears. Luna swiped her eye as she heard her big sister enter the room, and paused to salute her with a smile. “Hi, Tia,” she said as the white princess entered the weird-shaped pool made of transparent glass, and sat by her sibling. “Hello,” Celestia replied. “Why are you crying now?” she said, swiping the end of her nose of the youth’s head, near her eye, to swipe another tear. Her sister begun crying once again as she remembered. “It’s Miss Cherilee,” she sobbed. “I went to see her after school two days ago, to congratulate her for her excellent work with the kids. We chatted a bit and became pretty good friends, and today she had to meet me at the sunset, and she didn’t come,” whined the moon goddess. “She said she forgot it,” she added, “But a real friend doesn’t forget that!”
She let her head fall onto her front hooves, crying out loudly. The solar princess reached her hoof to pat the young alicorn’s back. “It’s alright. Maybe she had another reason?” proposed Celestia. “You know, being a teacher is a hard task. Maybe a child’s parents asked her a talk or maybe she had a meeting, who knows. Miss Cherilee cannot cancel those things, Luna. She must have had a good reason to had left a date with a royal princess,” she remarked. And she was right. No pony in Equestria would ever miss that chance. “Yeah, you’re right,” admitted the dark alicorn. She seemed to have calmed down and smiled at her older sister as a sign of thank you.
“Who was it?” she asked. “Who?” “You brought people here. I heard voices outside the room,” the dark blue princess noted. “Oh,” Celestia remembered. “It’s Twilight and two of her friends. They came here to make me a surprise, and they will stay for a while,” the Princess explained. “I see. Is Fluttershy one of them?” Luna asked. “Yes. You could have fun with your pegasus friend,” replied the white alicorn, smiling. Her sister smiled back, getting up from the tears she bathed in. She surprisingly didn’t seem wet at all. “I guess I should go to sleep too,” she noted, looking at the reflection of the bright moon that laid on the water. “Good night, Tia,” she whispered before reaching the door and leaving to her room.
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They joined at the dining room, where a giant table, at least the length of 20 ponies, was at their service. All kinds of fruits, desserts and snacks were laying on thousands of metallic plates, all waiting for somepony to taste them. The first one to react was Rainbow Dash, even though she got in last. The other two mares just stayed there, staring at all the food, while the rainbow mare took a bite of everything on the plates while passing from the left side of the table to the right side, sometimes stopping to take more than a bite. She stopped near the end to look at the two girls, “What are you two waiting for?!”
Twilight Sparkle ran to the chair at the end and went to take the plate in front of the seat. She went the long of the table, picking some things she likes with utensils laying near them and placing an okay amount on her pretty giant plate. “You know,” she turned to Dash, “you could at least have some manners.” The cyan pegasus had just finished all plates, and looked up at her friend to reveal her face covered with all kinds of colors of icing and juice. “You could at least have some manners, blah blah blah,” she mimicked the unicorn meanly, showing that she didn’t care. She stuck out her tongue and licked all around her face, taking the bits of food messing her face up. “That was delicious!’ she shouted, before falling on the floor, a hoof on her full belly.
“I am glad you like it,” said Princess Celestia, entering the dining room. She wore a beaming smile, a real one. She was followed by her younger sister, who was smiling as well, but also looked pretty tired. She had thin pouches under her eyes And she couldn’t stay very straight, but she was feeling very happy and seemed okay. “Hello, girls! I heard you arrived yesterday,” the princess said. “I’m sorry, I was by the mountain, I had a meeting with Miss Cherilee,” she explained, her beam a bit less big. Twilight smiled as she saw that Celestia was right: Luna did go on the hill. Though, she was certain there was somepony in the room, even if it wasn’t her.
She suddenly remembered the room, who made her think of the book. She didn’t go investigate that night! She was supposed to! She could've facehoofed herself, only if she wasn’t in public. She had to figure out what was wrong with the 2 Princesses, what were they hiding. She had to go look inside Luna’s room.
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Twilight finished eating very fast. She wanted to hurry for no reason; the night won’t come faster if she did, and it may even give her more time to wait, since Fluttershy was eating very slowly. She knew all that, of course, but as stubborn as she was, she finished in a flinch. “Mmmm, that was very good, Princess. Thank you for the meal,” she said, swiping her muzzle with a star-decorated napkin. “It was my pleasure,” the Princess replied.
Luna sat on the table, on the chair next to Twilight. The purple mare found it a bit weird, why would the royal Princess sit next to her, when there were at least a hundred other chairs on the royal table? And anyway, why did they need so many chairs? Decoration?
Twilight was still thinking at her book when she noticed that, so she made a quick link between the two. Did they hide other people in there, was Luna’s cutie mark only a sign on it to hide the mystery? Did she hear one of them cry last night, cry because it was uncomfortable? Did they need that many chairs to make them all sit?
As Fluttershy and Luna both finished their slow eating in the same time, all ponies were ready to go. Princess Celestia interrupted Twilight’s thoughts by telling them they are free to leave and visit the city by themselves.
As Celestia asked, Princess Luna guided the three mares till the end of the castle, where she gave them directions of where to find the city of Canterlot. The two pegasus were very excited, never had gone in the marvelous place while there wasn’t an occasion. Twilight, though, didn’t seem very motivated. She had her head in the clouds, imagining all the possibilities of what the mysterious room could hold.
As they arrived there, they were surprised seeing that the place was actually pretty much like any other place once normal. Sure, there was the expensive boutiques, the marvelous gardens and the delicious restaurants, but everything seemed so normal when there wasn’t a party filling the entire city. They went from boutiques to restaurants, stopping by the garden. Rainbow Dash kept making remarks like “Oh wow, this place is so ‘haute-couture’, Rarity would love it”, or “Applejack could easily get a job in this restaurant”. While they visited the parc, Fluttershy was admiring all the sculptures made with the trees that she didn’t have time to notice at the Grand Galloping Gala, and ended up finding a party in the corner of the parc, to what she noticed that Pinkie would really enjoy going there. Indeed, they were missing their friends, and were sorry they didn’t make a bigger cart to fit them all in. Dash And Fluttershy didn’t even think they were going to stay either, but since Celestia was glad to accept them, they didn’t have much choice.
While the two pegasus were thinking of their friends, the unicorn was in completely different thoughts. She came up thinking that she might have been wrong, that the book might not have any link with the room. Because, from all her silly ideas, none of them had a ‘Pool of Tears’ nor anything similar in it. She thought it might make it even more difficult, since she’ll have 2 mysteries to solve in only 2 weeks, from which a day had already sunk.
The day passed in blurs for Twilight, though the pegasus ponies will remember it forever. The unicorn had already been in all the visited places in her youth, so Dash and Fluttershy didn’t really suspect the fact that she didn’t really care. As the hours passed, they had time to visit pretty much everything, as they returned that evening to eat supper at the royal dining room. Twilight took her time eating, half-conscious of the food going into her mouth. She was the last one to finish eating, even after Fluttershy and Luna, who seemed to had had a bright day as well, as Twilight saw from the Princess’ giant smile spread across her face. The sun princess seemed to enjoy her sister’s happiness, for the short moment she was at the dining room table. She told the mares that she will skip dinner, and left in the purple room for less than 3 minutes, which caught Twilight’s attention and brought her back to earth. When the Princess left the room, after that short time, she still had that satisfied smile she had at her entrance. Like if she never went in that room. But Twilight did see her go through that midnight blue door. She knew she had done something in that mysterious place, even for a short moment.
“Whoa, Twilight!” shouted Rainbow Dash at her, making her eyes turn away from the area she was staring. “You act like you just noticed you were eating food!” the pegasus laughed. Twilight noticed that she was talking about: the surprise she had seeing her teacher enter that room along with the nervousness that came upon her afterwards had made her start eating furiously fast, and she was eyes-widened when she saw how much of her giant plate she had eaten during those 10 seconds of thought. She took the last bite of her plate, got up, and bowed at Luna, who stayed and politely waited for Twilight to finish. “I just eat so fast... I think I need to stay calm a bit.” She looked up at the clock, noticing her slow eating had lead it already to late evening. “Well, anyway, it’s bedtime,” she informed the others. Rainbow Dash stretched her front hooves, then staring walking towards her sky-painted bedroom. “Good!” she shouted halfway. “I need sleep, after the long day I had.”
Fluttershy followed the cyan mare, though she stood silent. Luna told good night to Twilight, and went into another hallway, which was weirdly in the opposite way of the room with her respective cutie mark, bringing Twilight’s suspicions even higher. Though, she had to wait, wait until everypony was asleep.
She went silently into her respective bedroom, took a white paper from one of the shelves as she passed next to it, and sat down on her bed. She then put the white sheet on her night table, from which she picked a pencil from one of the drawers. She wrote down her suspicions of the room, and its possible connexion with the book, which she picked up from her bag and read at least a hundred times, but each time, the pages remained blank. She continued writing down every drop of her imagination until midnight. Everypony was asleep, their sweet dreams taking over their minds as they lay comfortably in their beds.
Everypony except Twilight, who put her list and book back in her bag, casted a silence spell to go unnoticed, and left her room on tip hooves down to Luna’s supposedly room.
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“Urgh!” the purple unicorn let out, furious. Why won’t it open?! she thought, turning madly the doorknob from left to right the fastest she could, but the golden object blocked after not even half an inch. Twilight gave up, letting go of the doorknob and sighing, looking at her red hooves who got tired from the effort. She decided to try another way, as she closed her eyes and pointed her horn to the door, making it light up. The doorknob lit in a dim purple light and the door slowly opened with a creak. Twilight looked back up to look at her progress, satisfied.
She pushed the door a bit further, making enough space for her head to pop in the opening. As she was sure that nopony else except her is inside, she opened the door entirely and quickly got in to close it behind her. As she sighed, hoping that nopony saw her nor heard her, she turned around to take a better glimpse of the mysterious room.
The walls were the same color as the door, which gave the impression that the room was darker than it truly was. Almost the entire room was filled by a diagonal glass pane placed in a circular shape. The inside was half-filled with transparent liquid, which reflected the moonlight from the window on the front wall. Twilight slowly approached it and dipped her hoof in it, then cautiously licked the substance from it. Salty, she thought. But it’s not sea water. As she remembered pages and pages of knowledge from deep inside her memory, she passed many of them, trying to remember, what is this liquid? She stopped at one page matching it exactly: body water.
It couldn’t be transpiration, since it didn’t smell anything, and at that huge amount, she would be probably intoxicated by now. It could be only one more thing. Teardrops, she thought. And it made her also think about her book. Was this it? Was this the Pool of Tears?
She looked down into the water, viewing her reflexion, along with her lost expression. She remembered some spells to make water living beings from body water. Was that the Princesses’ plans? Did that pony which she heard crying that night was a slave forced to cry in this pool? Were they trying to reinforce the monster? The purple mare dropped her hoof deep in the water, waiting for it to react. But nothing came. What was wrong.
Twilight was even more and more puzzled. She took out her book, touched the surface with her wet hoof, then waited for an answer, hoping it was a kind of code. Unfortunately, when she opened back her book, she was disappointed to see the blank pages, but this time even worse. The letters on the first pages, the incomprehensible writings, had disappeared. The violet unicorn let out a sound which was a mix of a groan and a sigh. She flipped the pages again and again, wetting them with the salty water.
She was interrupted when she heard hoofsteps outside, slowly approaching the room. Panicked, she let the book fall on the floor, and used a teleportation spell the fastest she could. She ended up in the air, in the middle of her royal bedroom. She fell head-first, making a terrible pain cover her temple. She placed her hoof on her forehead, trying to calm the pain and dizziness that washed her. When it was better, Twilight looked around, making sure she was in the right place, then looked at her bag, delighted to see she hadn’t forgotten it. She decided she had done enough searching that night. She shot the bag on the floor, too dizzy and sleepy to put it at the wrong place, and fell on her bed in a deep sleep of nightmares of what might be the chamber she just got in.
The blank book lay there, burst opened, on the floor of the Pool of Tears.
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That next morning, She woke up dizzily. Her forehead still hurt a bit from the incident last night, but it was okay. She leaned up to sit on her bed, and looked around to realize what a mess she left the room into. Her bag was widely opened in the middle of the room, books scattering out of it. She got up, sighing, as she remembered Spike wasn’t there to clean up all of this mess. She got up, groaning, as she picked up the books- or what seemed to be books from the view of Twi’s crummy eyes- and placed them back in the bag, which she gently hanged on a hook near the entrance door. She Passed through the corridor in blurs, and when she arrived in the dining room, she noticed that there were already 2 figures at the table, and one tall, majestic blob waiting for them to finish.
“Owh, phi, Phithight,” were exactly the alien words that came out of Rainbow Dash’s full mouth. She gulped the whole, waited one or two seconds for it to go down, before saying, “You’re kinda late.”
Twilight looked up, recognizing the word “late”. She was surprised as she looked at the blurry clock on the wall, when she saw that the black numbers on it confirmed her suspicions. “Late?” she repeated vaguely. “Yeah,” replied the cyan pegasus, who already started taking another giant bite out of the carrot salad she was eating. “I’m never late.”
Dash looked up at her friend, surprised by all the neutrality her words contained. She said them brusquely, yet not angrily. From her face, Dash could hardly read Twilight’s emotions. She was staring blankly at the clock. Though, in her eyes could be seen the panic and the guilty that set inside the unicorn’s head. “It’s alright,” said the Princess calmly, noticing Twilight’s expression as well. “You did not delay our schedule.” Twilight seemed to have calmed down a lot by hearing those words, as she sighed of relevance that she wasn’t too late. “Oh, good,” she flatly said, even though her burst of relief seen on her face didn’t show that she cared as less as that.
Everypony lay in silence as Twi sat down with a small plate of food. Dash was staring at Twilight, obviously seeing something was wrong with the bookworm mare. Her weird reaction was a sign, and maybe the multi colored pegasus ignored it at that moment, but it won’t be the only one.
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Twilight knew there was something wrong. As she was eating her plate, she couldn’t see the food she was eating. The dizziness washed her completely, blurring up everything she saw, thought and did. She barely remembered that last night, but she was sure of fallen at least 5 meters down. Twilight, being a unicorn, had already experienced the pain of a spell gone wrong, but never the feeling of falling from a high distance. Though, the purple mare was sure that wasn’t all. The Pool Of Tears... It did something to her. The teleportation side-effects does stipulate loss of wave control, which means that during her teleportation, she might have collected some of the aura of the room inside her. She had studied different auras for a long time in school, so even though her lack of concentration, she was able to find the aura that filled her mind: Cry Aura, an atmosphere of sadness.
Twilight got up from the table, and forced herself to smile at the white blob that probably was the Princess, and to thank her for the food she offered. She wasn’t sure if it was quite what got out of her mouth, but she hoped it was something similar.
Dash was the next one to get up, and they both waited for Fluttershy, who got bluish-red (from Twilight’s vision, of course), excusing herself to take so much time eating, and got up a few seconds after. She then noticed that Luna wasn’t there. “Where is your sister?” she asked shyly to Celestia, to which the Princess answered with a sad frown. “I have no idea. I haven’t seen Luna since this morning,” she said worriedly, looking at the floor. They all stood in silence, until Twilight came up saying, “We go whereing today’re?”
The two pegasus turned at her with an awkward look, not knowing if the unicorn was fooling around or had simply lost her mind. Twilight looked like none of the two, though. She seemed more self-conscious. Head in the clouds. For Rainbow Dash, she even seemed to be lost, in the inside. A weird sign of empathy came up in her mind, by the thought that Twilight had so long awaited to pay a visit to the Princess, and once it happened, she was so lost that she couldn’t act correctly. “Yeah!” she exclaimed, trying to go on the same side as her lavender friend. “I heard there was some sort of carnival today, at the edge of Canterlot?” she asked.
Fluttershy was completely lost, not understanding neither what Twilight said nor the fact that the cyan mare understood it. Celestia, though, understood both. “Yes, indeed, there is. Would you like to visit it?” she asked, to which Dash replied with a cheer.
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Twilight already lived this once. She barely remembers it, but she did already cast a teleportation spell too quickly and messed it up. She remembers how pitiful she looked through her friends’ eyes, how hard it was to talk or think straight. She remembers how Rarity talk for an hour about how she will never cast spells like teleportation because of all the side-effects. She remembers, the anger that filled her all that day, and how fast that day passed. She remembered how at the end, the side-effect faded, and she promised to always take her time doing it so that it never happens again. She wrote a letter to the Princess, saying what happened that day, too. The majestic blob seemed to remember it by the way she acted.
That day, it was almost the same thing. The only difference was that, instead of anger, she felt sad and depressive. The day passed incredibly fast, and in huge blurs. Twilight remembers she had cursed once when she wanted to say “bucket”, because they were playing a game where they had to catch a fish in a bucket attached at the end of a fishing rod. The more the day passed, the more she felt better. A few minutes after noon, Twilight’s dizziness washed away, and the spell was already only half-effective. She was able to do sentences now, with real words, but she still had difficulty pronouncing so she felt like she wore braces every time she opened her mouth. Fluttershy seemed to be very affected by the purple unicorn’s curse, and helped her every time she could. Rainbow Dash thought she talked like a moron and she exactly said ”I don’t understand moron talk”, so Fluttershy was obliged to translate every word of Twilight’s for the cyan mare’s amusement.
A few hours later, that only seemed minutes to Twilight Sparkle, afternoon was coming to an end. Celestia came and picked them up, flying them back to the castle. She seemed glad that Twilight’s status was better, as the mare’s curse was almost over and she may return to normal in maybe a few minutes. And it was right; as Twilight placed her first hoof inside the castle, all the sadness that still poisoned her body vanished. Twilight grinned, what she wasn’t able to do all day, and turned around to the others. “Oh! I think I’m feeling better now!” she cheered. The shy pegasus noticed her usual talking, and got up on her hind hooves to clap for her friend. “Yay!” she whispered happily. “Finally, no more moron talk,” Dash grumbled, though she was a bit sad that her making fun of Twilight had to come to an end this soon. Celestia simply smiled at this revelation, glad for her student to be out of the curse. She knew, from her fillyhood, that curses and side-effects were a very insupportable thing in magic.
They went back to the royal table for dinner, and Twilight was glad to be able to see what she was eating again. Carrot salad, rose sandwich, grape and blueberry muffin... Delicious costful things that the kingdom was one of the rare to own. Fluttershy even talked a bit during dinner, saying she had already made a pie with the same taste as the peach sorbet, and was glad to learn a new fruit when the Princess explained her how it was made. They ate silently for the rest of the time they stood in the royal dining table, but it didn’t seem to bother any of them.
At the end, when everypony was finished, they each thanked the Princess for the wonderful dinner and returned to their rooms. It was already sleep time... Twilight was surprised. Her 2 pegasus friends seemed incredibly tired though, and they looked in the same time so excited. Rainbow Dash collapsed on the ground in halfway to her room, so she and Fluttershy had to carry her, but Fluttershy left as well when she reached her room. Thankfully the yellow mare’s chamber was close to the cyan’s, so Twilight didn’t require much effort. As soon as Dash was comfortable in her fluffy, white bed, Twilight Sparkle noticed how tired she was as well. Even if the day seemed to have lasted only minutes, she had moved a lot and did an incredible effort to stay on her four hooves. She fell like a bomb on her bed, and fell asleep the second after.
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The dim sound of the alarm the unicorn set woke her up at midnight. She got up, now rested but still a bit sleepy. She yawned while stretching her front hooves up in the air, then got off her bed and went to take her bag. She looked inside her bag, checking if she still had everything; she hadn’t checked that morning.
The book, she thought, stopping stopping her searching to look surprisingly at her bag. Where is the book? Twilight started throwing away everything in her bag, clearing it little by little, until it was entirely empty. But, unfortunately, no sign of the book. The lavender mare started panicking. What if I forgot it somewhere? What if someone found it? Overcome by frustration, the purple mare shot out of her room into the hallway... But bumped into somepony else. She she got up, she saw Fluttershy rubbing her head while rising back up to her four hooves. “Fluttershy?” asked Twilight in a whisper. “What the hay are you doing here?” she asked, almost shouting. The yellow pegasus blushed, trying to find her words. “I... Uh... I can’t sleep... I had a n-nightmare...” she babbled. “I was just going to take some water...” The last word was barely audible, but Twilight understood it. She was used to Fluttershy’s whispers.
“What are you two doing?! There’s somepony trying to sleep here, ya know!” came out a voice from behind. Both ponies turned to find a rainbow-colored mare at the door of her room, rubbing her crummy eyes, and in a bad mood. The unicorn opened her mouth to speak but she was interrupted by the sound of a falling metallic object on the other hallway across the room. “There’s somepony else awake, too?!” growled Rainbow Dash, going to check from where came the noise. Twilight followed her, hoping to find her book in the process, and Fluttershy had nowhere to go, so she followed as well.
The sound came from the dark blue door with Luna’s cutie mark on it. Twilight froze as she arrived in front of the room. The room that held so many secrets. The room in hich, now she remembered, she had forgot her book in when she teleported. Anywho is in there must of found it. And there aren’t many possibilities of people that could’ve entered that room at such a late hour.
As soon as Rainbow Dash opened the door, a gasp echoed through the hallway. It came from both three ponies.
Princess Celestia was standing in the middle of the room, head down. We could see a tear falling down on the ceramic floor and getting stuck in between two tiles. In front of her stood the weird circular pool, the moonlight reflecting through it from the window on the wall next to it. In the pool was Princess Luna, the young Princess Luna. But there was a problem, and all three mares found it. The water was up, higher than the midnight blue mare’s ears. She seemed to be sleeping, but the water was straight, and didn’t move at all. She didn’t move at all.
Twilight was the first to move. When she saw the book, right next to the pool, she flew straight to it. There was a paper in it, but she didn’t remove it. She simply opened it. She was surprised to see that there actually was text in it, a lot of text. Rainbow Dash, recognizing the book her friend had at the beginning of their trip, went to join her to read along. Fluttershy went next to the Sun Princess, holding her company as she cried her feelings out.
Twilight opened the mysterious book, took a quick peek at it, and started reading, with the ear of Dash and Flutters concentrated on her.
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Dear Luna,
I hope you never read this. I am sincere. This journal contains the story of your most favourite object in the world, the Pool of Tears. Every single detail of it is written by hand in this expensive journal that I received from one of the greatest notebook factories in Equestria. This was meant to be a present for your last birthday, or maybe your last day. It was meant to make you smile in your last moments. But to be sincere, I hope you never get to read this. I hope you never die. Because I love you, dear sister, and it will melt my heart.
But I am still writing this. Because I put a spell since the very beginning since I bought this book, a powerful spell that decides who will find it on what day. And I bewitched this journal so it will be in your hooves on your last day. And I do not wish you find an empty book. At least, thank goodness, this message will be invisible since that unfortunate day. If anypony finds it, it will stay safe.
So, here is a story, a story that you know by heart, sister. A story that makes you smile. And a story that will keep you smiling even through your death.
This is the story of the Pool Of Tears.
It all started that dark night, when I was waiting for you in front of the window. The place we always used to have a chat before you became Nightmare Moon. I always set the sun, you raise the moon, and we start talking about any subject we can afford while our faces are lightened by the moonlight. But that day, you didn’t come. After I finished my job setting the sun, the moon didn’t take it’s place. The sky was only a dark neon, clear from clouds but dark without a moon. I knew there was something wrong. I looked for you for an hour. I remember, when I found you in one of the many empty room of the castle. In that time, there were many empty ones. But most of them were together. The room you found was between two filled chambers. The throne room and my room. I remember you saying, “You took a lot of time before finding us, sister.” You attempted to smile. But it was missed. Your eyes were crummy and wet. Your expression showed only sadness and sorrow. Around you was a giant puddle of tears, in which reflected the moon from the window behind you. We exchanged a look for a moment, until you let your head fall back down between your hooves and started crying again.
I sat down next to you, stretching one of my majestic wings to cover your back. You seemed to calm down a little by my reconfort. We stood there for an hour, then two, and three. You stopped crying after a while, and when you did, you stared at the floor for a very long time. You looked at the mess you did on the floor. The giant puddle that covered the room. You looked at every single teardrop your eyes could see. And in the end, you turned around to look at me. I smiled at you, and you smiled back. A real smile this time. “What can we do for you?” I asked. I could’ve done anything for you to feel better, Luna. You knew it in that time. And you still know it now. Though, the only thing you asked was a simple, unclear sentence. A sentence I will remember even long after my death.
You leaned your head, tickled my ear with your muzzle, and whispered gently in it, “We want to keep our tears.”
Such a bizarre message it was coming from you. You always were the happy kind of pony that always smiled and never cried. I remember you left the room a short while after that, leaving me thinking. I remembered the time when you told me that you thought you could see the future. That you saw a purple unicorn and I was with her. You asked me, “Do you think she will be your child?” And I started giggling. But in that time, while being in that empty, cold room, I could make sense of your words, and I started to believe them. You wanted to keep your tears from all the times you would cry in the future. And you needed my help to find a way to do as so.
What followed after was an entire week of absence from the world, from you. We didn’t meet at the window anymore. Every evening I used to go in that room, placing objects, decorating the place. Sometimes you came by and you stayed at the door, watching me work. I had been gone for two entire days during that week of work to go in a faraway place where I knew was abundant resources of a special glass that couldn’t break. I worked all the time, sometimes I even forgot to do my job setting the sun, so the bright ball of light set hours later than its supposed time that week. I should’ve been worried by that extreme change to the nature, because debalancing it might cause trouble, but I was too concentrated in my work to even notice. You encouraged me during all my work, and that pleased me. Because if you didn’t show me you truly wanted it, I would’ve never done that much extreme work. I wonder if that thing will serve for something in the future.
At the end, it was done, and you seemed to love it so much. I painted the room in dark pink, your favourite color, the door in your fur color, and I added your cutie mark on both sides of the door, to show that this place was yours. I used the special glass to place an oval pool on the end of the room, and it was large enough to say it covered half of the room space. In it still stood the tears of that night. The ceramic tiles on the floor permitted them to be very visible, and nothing could absorb them. I made the pool in an angle so the moon could reflect on your tears, and you seemed very pleased with that detail. You loved the moon so much. It isn’t for nothing that you created it. You wanted to do something beautiful, something shiny and stunning. And you succeeded. And if it calmed you down to see that white, shiny ball while you cried, it would be worth the effort. And it was. The first day you actually cried in the Pool Of Tears, I told you about the idea with the reflection. Your tears got replaced with a smile, and it made me smile, too. I wish those happy moments could last forever.
Then came the time of Nightmare Moon. I remember your exact words the day I saw you before the unlucky day. You said, “It’s not fair. They don’t even care about our moon. Why do they admire your art so much, but sleep while ours is shown? Why do they prefer looking at something that will hurt their eyes, why can’t they just look at the smoothing light of our moon? Is it because they don’t like it? Is our moon unlikable?” I sighed, patted your back, and looked at the beautiful reflection. “Oh, sister. Of course your art is likable. It is wonderful. But ponies normally sleep when it’s dark, you see,” I tried to explain. But you didn’t listen. You’ve always been so stubborn... But I’ve never seen you that angry before. “Why can’t they sleep over day? Who put this stupid rule of sleeping only the night?” Your eyes widened the second after you spoke. “You make all the rules, don’t you,” you said, staring directly in my eyes. Your expression showed only flames and anger. “You care only about you, don’t you?! What about us?! Why can’t we show our beautiful art? Oh, right! You must be jealous, is that right?” you got up from the puddle, your wings flapping open, trying to look big and menacing. “You are jealous, and that is why you don’t let us show our beauties!” I’ve never been so worried in my life. I got slowly up, trying to reason you, “Luna, no, that’s not-” “Of course it is!” you interrupted. “You want only your sun to be visible! Well we don’t like your sun! We never liked your sun! We hate yellow! We don’t ever want to see the sun again!”
And with those last words, you rushed out the window. You have been absent all that morning, until you showed up for the Summer Sun Celebration, as Nightmare Moon. I argued a lot with you during our fighting for you to stop, but it was useless. I decided to send you to your respective place, that place you loved so much, to let you think a while. But as I was casting the spell, you mouthed one word. One word that I quickly understood as being...
“Tear.”
I quickly undone my spell to cast a new one before it, a spell that would permit that every single tear you shed on the moon to be teleported back here, to your beloved place. To the only place you beloved more than the moon. Then I casted the banishment. Since that day, I’ve been waiting every day, at the hour we used to meet, at the Pool Of Tears. Staring through that powerful glass. The first two weeks, nothing came. You were probably still mad at me. But what followed had made me cry as well. Every day, you cried. At that respective hour. Sometimes at other times as well, but you always, always cried at that hour as well. Because you knew I’d be there. You knew I wold see them. And because you were getting used to let them go only at that exact time.
The first tears you shed were few and lacking. Like if you were just pretending, to make you come back. But that was only for two short days. Those hundred years you stood on that faraway place filled the pool up very quickly. I remember that sometimes I cried in the pool too, in harmony with you. We were reunited during all that century. Even though our distance.
The week before the hundredth day of the thousandth year, you stopped crying. I was lonely, in that dark room, waiting for you. But you didn’t come. The second day, when I saw the result was the same, I knew. You were coming back. I prepared myself, a lot, only to realize it was no use: I couldn’t use the Elements of Harmony. I couldn’t fight you once more. But when I discovered Twilight’s letter, I told myself, ‘maybe the mares with the hearts of Harmony could do it.’ It had to be them. I knew that they existed, but it had to be them, because it was their time. The day the Princess couldn’t fight anymore, they will come to her aid. That was the day. And they did vanquish you and bring back my good old, beloved sister. It was all thanks to the Pool Of Tears. It was all thanks to you. It was all thanks to the future.
That next month that followed was probably the happiest month ever. We sat side by side, in the Pool Of Tears, talking about what happened these last years. But none of us was crying. We were sometimes laughing, sometimes smiling, sometimes doing funny faces, what you told me one day that you loved to do a lot. But never were we sad or teary. Those days were over. We lead place to happiness.
Though the Pool Of Tears’ name doesn’t come from nowhere. The first day you interacted with the other ponies, you went to Fillydelphia. The ponies ran from you, despited you, hated you. You came that afternoon with your heart full of tears. It was the next week. the Nightmare Night day, that you came back with a smile. I knew sending you to Ponyville was a good idea. It made you happier with the other ponies. Since that day, you went to celebrate Nightmare Night every year in that exact place. You seemed so happy every time you returned from it. You never touched the Pool on those days.
Some other dyas you interacted with ponies were more sad though. The last years, Ponyville started welcoming you, so every week, you payed a visit to it. Sometimes some ponies did some little things that normally made someone sad, and you cried a little bit. Sometimes you just got hurt. One day you were doing a race with Rainbow Dash, and you came back with your knee bleeding, but as you were to go in the Pool Of Tears, you stopped. You wouldn’t let anything else than tears touch that place. A bit of blood in that precious area would make you extremely upset, especially knowing that you can’t remove it. So you stood on the throne. You stained it with red. You didn’t cry that day, you just moaned. You insisted so much for all your tears to be in that pool. I didn’t stop you from staining the royal chair, though. I let you do whatever you want. Because I understood you. I had no idea why you did all of this, but I understood you in some way. Because if the Pool was very dear to you, it is just as dear for me. And I won’t let anything touch it.
I haven’t let anypony know about this, for all those years. It seemed so important for you, almost like a secret. You didn’t have to ask me to keep it for me to do so. I kept it, and I will keep it for the rest of my days. I will do it for you. For your life. And I hope you die happily. I hope you don’t tear while reading this, sister. Because I don't want any of your precious bits of water to stay away from the Pool. I love you Luna. And that is why I gave you this room. I gave you this room for you to keep all your happy and sad memories in. For you to be happy. Forever.
For you, the Pool Of Tears.
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Rainbow Dash was tearing up. She swept her tears quickly, but they kept coming back. The energy of the room made it very easy to tear up. She went to see Princess Luna, close to the water. But as she leaned her head forwards to see better through the clear water, she froze with surprize. Fluttershy went to see what made the reaction of her friend, and as seeing it, she did the same. The sun Princess only smiled as she saw her sister.
Twilight turned the last page very slowly, swallowing all she had read. A note was attached to the back cover, written in the midnight blue alicorn’s writing. It said, “Thank you.” with a heart. In the middle of the heart stood a small, wet area. A tear, thought Twilight. She slowly placed the book on the floor where she found it, and went to join the others at the border of the glass. Through the clear water, it was very easy to see Princess Luna’s face. What she saw on it made the purple unicorn speechless.
Luna was smiling.
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The End.
