Don’t Forget Me
Sister, don’t forget me. I know that it has been one thing after another, but, please, don’t forget me. Don’t forget about me. A thousand years and then more have passed since my transgressions. Please, forgive me.
Our subjects fear us. They celebrate the day you banished me. They teach their young to be scared of me. So I am dark, yes. But what is dark but the inverse side of light? If I am treated as your shadow, then perhaps I receive the opposite of their love.
This land is strange to us, to me. A thousand years, while but a blink in our lives, is so long in the scheme of Equestria. Eras have passed. Kingdoms have risen and fallen time and again on the same land, separated not by distance but years. Memory from then has faded into history, history has faded into legend, legend has faded into myth, and myth has bled into culture. Artifacts of that time are so old and forgotten, yet deeply ingrained. But some things never change, or so it seems to us.
Ponies do not love us still. They frolic and live in your day. When night comes, they hide away from the darkness, but to different ends. Before, they went just to sleep. But now, before bed, they have lights, fake little suns, and illuminated artifices; they deny the night with a pale imitation of day. Each night, my stars go unloved, unnoticed. The ponies are still your daytime progeny and are numerous. Where are my children of the night? I do not know; they are so few.
Help me, dear sister. That thing inside me which drove me to evil is not yet gone. It will never be gone. I can feel it. It claws at me and demands indulgence of the worst kind. It whispers poisoned honey in my ear. Start the night early, end the night late, hold the moon high through the day, eclipse the sun.
This thing is part of me. It is no parasite, no spell, no demon, no spirit. Yet we are the source of its feed. It gnaws on those unfulfilled desires within me. Nightmare Moon was monstrous but no monster beyond a gross perversion in a mind left to spoil like a raisin in the sun.
Did you think it all over, finished, with just a quick application of magic to bring me into line?
No, you couldn’t think that, could you, sister? Surely you are wiser. But, alas, perhapsif wisdom comes from experience, you just do not have those experiences of what I felt, of what I still feel.
What is it I feel?
Rejection.
Don’t forget me, sister. Don’t be like all other ponies. Imagine if no ponies came out and enjoyed your day or smiled at your sun. Imagine if they all hid from its sweltering heat and decried how unbearable it made things. Imagine that was all you ever knew. Imagine if your sister, who called herself your equal and promised to share in power, was instead treated like the only princess while you were just a superfluous mare. Imagine all those hours, all that work, all those golden dawns and rosy dusks – all those beams of light and all those rainbows wasted because nopony could be bothered to see or appreciate them. You like your sun, you take pride in it. Would you not feel some envy, some longing for the same adoration showered upon your so-called equal sister? Oh, if only they could see the truly glory of your day – if only the day lasted longer, no, forever, so that all would know its glory and forget all about pesky old night…
Would that not make it wonderful for one day, that the sun did not have to set, that the moon would not rise? Even if the effort were in vain, would it not be a great joy to take that satisfaction owed you? Would it not be marvelous to simply take what you wanted? Would it not be your heart’s desire to lash out at the one who had everything you ever wanted, to just once assert yourself? A thousand years ten thousand moons is long for such things to fester. I have not forgotten, and I do not know if I can truly forgive. And then I apologized to you.
I’ve never hated you; I have only wanted you to be down here, to feel the grueling grind of the years erode away at your good nature, so you may finally understand life in the shadow of the sun. You are like the great trees in whose shade no ferns grow. All those years ago, I was there. I am not there, but I fear my road leads me back into shadow.
So where am I, sister? Where am I in the hearts of our subjects? Where am I in the daily governance of the realm? Where am I in diplomacy? Where am I in your thoughts? You had forgotten about me at some point today, more than once perhaps. You can forget me, but I can’t forget you.
How could I forget the one whose overwhelming splendor drove me to despair? How could I forget the beloved Princess Celestia? How could I forget you, sister, for you are only the most beloved and important in everything. Half the day is night, but all day is your domain.
Don’t forget me, sister. Please. I beg of you. I don’t want to be Nightmare Moon again, but I can feel those drives inside me still. They are not yet defeated, merely suppressed. That problem your neglect created demands your attention. Our ponies forget me, always, unless they are reminded of how they fear me, and even how they despise me.
How have you helped me remain Princess Luna, sister?
When I was restored, it was I who apologized to you, and you offered me naught but your friendship. Why didn’t you offer me sisterhood or love? Have you even truly perhaps extended your forgiveness? It has been years since then, but I may as well be not even a twinkle in your thoughts. A holiday dedicated to fear of me is widely celebrated still – all our subjects grew up hearing only of me as a terrible, flesh-devouring demon. My domain in matters of state is a sinecure in all but name. Even Twilight performs more official duties than myself. I have not even my own castle – it was ours, then it became a ruin. And most grievously, you have kept us from our subjects so they and their ways remain as peculiar to us as we are to them.
I hold no ill will towards you, save what my darker nature demands. I love you. Above all else in this epistle, remember that.
Sister, I know you may ask why I simply do not take these things for myself. It is simple: I am no autocrat – I am a diarch and you are too; we rule and act and decide together. A strange concept, is it not?
Don’t forget me, Celestia. I know not the way to the right path, but I know my path as it is now will lead us only again to tears. Please, let us set truly right what once went wrong before we are again haunted. For Equestria. For yourself. For our ponies. Sister, don’t forget me.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading. This is an idea I've had for a while and wanted to try out. I always thought that Celestia had never really dealt with the core of the issues which lead to Luna becoming Nightmare Moon, so I wanted to write a fic from Luna's perspective detailing how she feels about her treatment since returning from banishment. I hope you enjoyed it. Keep calm and brony on. Support me on Patreon.
