Luna let the cold breeze roll over her as she sat beneath the watchful eyes of the twinkling stars. Her beloved moon sat high above her, lighting her aglow with its pale shine. She stared up at it with a flat face. Her eyes were glossy, wide, and empty.
Taking in a deep breath, she slowly let her eyes wander across the stone walls and crumbling spires that surrounded her. Four walls on either side, with vines sprawled on their stone, stood as a testament to the glory that she remembered. Doors in their centers, with flaking blue and gold paint, were broken, falling from their hinges and tilting to either side. Beyond them were the crumbling halls and forgotten rooms, most of which had no ceiling and were also being invaded by the pale rays of moonlight.
The ground around her was green though, with various wildflowers blossoming atop the old marble paths that once cut clear through the gardens from the walls. She sat in the center, surrounded by the chipped, cracked circular pathway that linked the four main paths. The two fountains on either side of her were silent and broken, also overtaken by the spreading plants.
The towers, the doors, and even the bridges or the old castle were all broken and worn. Not even her memory of brighter days would fix that. She hung her head with a long sigh, closing her eyes and slouching.
So here in the gardens, she reveled in what she had left. As her mane drifted in the silent breeze, she bit her lip and took in a weak breath. She looked up at the moon, her face flat once more. The cool air smelled of moss. But to Luna, it smelled of red wine and fancy meals. It smelled of life.
Then the air grew bitter, foul even as the wind scattered her fondest memories, making her eyes slowly shut again. She took in a deep breath, letting the distaste of the wind sting her. She opened her mouth as her head dropped again. Her lips quivered, and a small, shining tear formed in her eye.
She quickly wiped it away with a hoof, sniffling and sitting up tall yet again, her face stiff as the old castle around her.
"Luna?"
She snapped around, jumping to her hooves and getting low. "Sister? W-What are thou doing here?"
Celestia gently set her hoof forward, stepping out from the shattered doorway. She stepped down onto the old path and sauntered forward. "You haven't lowered the moon," she said, her voice soft. "I went to find you, but..."
"I am sorry," Luna said, turning back to the moon and sitting down.
Celestia continued down the pathway, the light clop of her hooves filling the quiet air. "Luna? What's wrong?"
A sneer grew on her face. "It is nothing," she scoffed.
"And you honestly expect me to believe that?" Celestia asked as she sat beside her sister, raising her eyebrow and frowning.
"I expect thou to leave. I shall lower the moon soon."
Celestia looked up to the huge glowing orb, then back down to Luna. She watched as Luna stared up at the dark sky with no emotion on her face. So she too looked back up to the sky. Beyond the huge moon, and between the speckled stars, strips of pink and blue filled the void. Clusters of red stars sparkled in spotted areas, and occasionally, a small meteorite would flash its white, burning tail as it descended from the heavens. "The sky's beautiful tonight. You really outdid yourself, you know."
Luna examined her work with not so much as a nod. "I, um, thou has my thanks."
"Of course. Is this a special occasion?" Celestia asked, still staring up.
"Nay. Tis just... a night. Just a night." Luna let out a long sigh.
Celestia nodded and looked around. "So... why here? This place has been abandoned since... well you know."
"I do." There was silence again. "Tell me sister, dost thou remember?"
"Do I remember? Remember what?" she asked, not looking down but still cocking her head.
Luna licked her dry, cracked lips and paused. "The times when this garden was alive?"
Celestia tossed her head back in though. "It's still alive, in a way. The grass and flowers are all--"
"That is not what I mean."
Celestia sighed, closing her eyes and letting her own mane whip out in the wind. "Yes, I remember very well. Especially the noble's parties in this very garden. Those were some nights."
"Over a thousand years ago, no?" she asked, unmoving.
"Just at, I think. It's been... a while. Luna," she asked in a gentle tone, "what's on your mind? You can tell me anything you know." Celestia gently nudged Luna with her shoulder.
Luna blinked. "I find it believable, I suppose."
There was a short pause.
Celestia breathed in the night air. "One thousand years is a long time," she said, turning back to the sky. "But I'm still here for you. I'm always here for you."
Now, Luna stomped her hoof to the ground, looking away. "You, but whom else? Nopony."
Celestia nuzzled Luna gently. "The whole of Equestria. How's that for a start?"
"Equestria? They have forgotten about me. Tis no surprise." Her voice quieted and she hung her head. "I cannot hold them responsible," Luna said with a sigh. "Besides that, I hardly care."
"They care, you know," her sister said as she draped a wing over Luna's chilled back. Warmth shot up her spine, and she let her muscles relax.
"They care because they must. I and you shall be here forever more, all powerful and eternal. They must care, sister. They haven't a choice. Not a choice to care, live, nor die. Perhaps that is what is best."
In the fluid night, things grew stiff. The quiet grew loud, and the wind grew quiet. Things seemed to lightly spin around the two silent rulers, but eventually, Celestia parted the quiet with her soft voice. "Luna, care to accompany me for a walk?"
She looked up. "To where?"
"Just around. I still remember this place rather well I think." Celestia smiled and stood, stepping out and onto the path before them.
Luna grumbled and stood as well, her mane blowing in front of her face.
The pair walked forward, slipping between a pair of old rusted doors and into a roofless hall that spanned in three directions. They went left, down the tattered, grimy red carpet that still laced the hall alongside the weeds. To their side, broken and shattered windows displayed the garden where they had just been.
"Thou art correct," Luna whispered as they made their way forward. "A thousand years is a long time indeed."
Celestia nodded, her eyes dropping to a soft--almost sad--gaze. "You miss them, right? You miss it all? I don't blame you. I do at times."
Luna kicked up some dust. "I... It is just not fair. I mean not to whine, but... it is not fair. That we should live evermore with no point but to rule others until they leave us..."
"I'm not sure that's it," Celestia said with a smile.
"I believe it is," Luna spat. "Banished for a thousand years, only to return with everything I know gone. And for what, dear sister, should I even care to try to recover from it? To lose everything again? And again?"
"Makes you appreciate what you have while you have it, right?"
Luna sneered and dropped her head. "I wish I had been left to rot on the moon. At least there I was immune to such heartbreak, such feelings. I could have done without this... this..."
"Life?"
Luna's ears perked up. "What?"
They rounded a corner and found themselves in yet another hallway, this one laced with no weeds nor vines--nothing but memories. Memories of when the tattered carpets were knew and bold. Memories of when the paintings on the walls hung straight and were clear. Memories of when ponies would shuffle out of the various rotting doors that they walked past. Memories of a time long ago.
"Life. I said life," Celestia repeated.
Luna scowled. "Thou did not hear me, nay? I am upset because we live forevermore, only to watch as everything else dies. What meaning is it that we should suffer repeatedly? At least on the moon, I did not suffer but from one thing: hate. And, 'Tia, it is far better than grief."
Celestia took the lead, trotting ahead, and then turning into another hallway that was the same as the last. "Because we live forevermore... So then you are upset because you don't understand the meaning of... well, the meaning of life, right?"
"Nay again, sister," she said with a sigh. "It is the meaning of our lives that I question."
"It sounds like they both have the same answer to me," Celestia said. She gave a light nod. Up ahead, at the end of the long, moonlit hallway, a large pair of golden doors stood tall and unscathed, though the surrounding bricks were crumbling just as the rest of the structure. "How about you answer something for me, first. Tell me Luna, what did you feel like on the moon?"
Luna huffed and scrunched her face. "Angry, sad, spiteful--"
"No, what did you feel like? Empty, cold, alone... I imagine a bit like 'death', hmm?"
"I... this hurts, Celestia. It hurts a lot." Luna wiped her eyes, but Celestia could see a small tear trickle down her sister's cheek.
"Nothing hurts forever," she said, looking up at the moon. "Even if it takes a thousand years for the pain to go away."
"One thousand years..." Luna repeated.
Celestia nodded. "A year for a year sounds about right."
Luna huffed. "What art thou even getting at?"
"There's a reason there's no life on the moon," Celestia said, turning back to the double doors ahead. "It's empty up there, cold lonely as I said. There's nothing to do, no one to talk to, nothing to care about. Seems dead, doesn't it?"
Luna nodded, and the two traveled down the hall in silence. Small dust plumes shot up with each step they took on the old, ragged carpet, and the wind would sing as it blew past the shattered glass of the windows. From these broken panes, Luna could see the cliff's edge, and the mist below as it was set alight by her moon.
They stopped at the doors. Celestia looked down to Luna, her face now flat as well. Then, she enveloped the doors in her golden aura, and pushed. A loud creaking echoed through the ruins as the heavy things slid on their hinges, scraping the ground with an awful crunching.
But they soon parted fully, revealing a large rectangular chamber with no roof and broken walls. On either side, several empty windows were silently crumbling. There was no glass in them to refract the moonlight onto the floor, which was a green mess of tangled vines and blooming flowers that flourished atop the old carpeting.
But at the far end, a single circular window stood proudly above a set of two ruined stone thrones. This window--its stained glass still fully intact--displayed the sun and the moon rising at the same time surrounded by nothing but clear glass. It was a clever design--depending on the time, it would either show the sun rising, with the moon vanished from sight thanks to the bright blue aura. Or, at others, it would only display the moon, with the sun vanished in the darkness of the sky above.
Now, the moon glowed a bright silver, just like the real moon overhead, and the rest of the panel was a black mixture of colorful galaxies, twinkling speckles, and falling stars.
"Remember this place?" Celestia asked. Luna only stared and nodded, her eyes never leaving that window. "Seems dead too, doesn't it? But it's not, not like the moon, anyways. See how things are still growing, despite the place being long gone?"
Luna shook her head and rolled her eyes. "'Tia, your ramblings tonight have made no sense whatsoever."
"They do if you think about it," she said with a shrug. "The moon is dead. Completely and utterly dead. It has no life. It's empty. Cold. Lonely."
She stepped forward amongst the mass of weeds and plants. "And now look here. At Equestria. It's alive. It's warm. It's full."
"And?" Luna asked, her eyebrows shooting up.
"And I think that that's what it means. Life."
"Life means to be warm?"
Celestia chuckled. "No, life means to live. The meaning of life is life. See? Simple."
Luna dropped her head and ears. "We live... to live? I'm sorry sister, but that is most certainly crushing."
"No, no, Luna, we live because we live. We make friends. We eat. We laugh, we sing, we giggle and cry. If we didn't, we'd all just be on the moon, alone, cold and... dead."
Luna looked up at the moon, then back at her sister. "And thou art saying that our purpose--to 'live' for the sake of being able to have life--is just what any other pony's is?"
Celestia bit her lip and thought, before replying, "Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying."
There was a pause.
"And what happens when there is no more left? When ponies do not 'live' and thus we are alone again?" Luna drew in a shallow breath with quivering lips. "What happens when the sands of time come for all but us?"
Celestia approached Luna with a smile. She leaned in and nuzzled her gently, affectionately, wrapping her hooves around Luna and pulling their bodies close in a hug.
"Well then I think it'll be time that we finally make up for those thousand years where we both died," she said.
Luna tried to talk, but her lips only fumbled as weak breaths came out. A tear crawled down her cheek, then another, rolling down and landing on her sister's shoulder. They stayed together for a while, letting the shared warmth engulf them. Luna could not stop the steady stream of tears as they flowed from her. She buried her head into her sister, flattened her ears, and gave a weak sob.
Eventually, she looked back up. Celestia was looking down to her with a soft gaze that glowed with empathy, the way a mother looked down to a sobbing filly.
"I'll see you back at the castle?" Celestia asked, pulling away. She gave Luna the warmest smile she could, with soft eyes and a small head tilt.
Luna sniffled, wiping her eyes. "Y-Yes sister, I shall be there."
Celestia backed up, gave her a small nod, then was gone in a brilliant flash of golden light.
Luna took in a deep breath with her quivering lips. Her beloved moon still sat high above her, setting her aglow with its pale shine. She stared up at it with a smile. Her eyes were teary, soft, and full.
