Chapters After I melt, please leave me be moon
Day and night. Night and day. Honestly, I've given up counting days. The only way I understand time is by the breathing of the moon as it traces its silky fingers across the gauzy sheen of the night. The stars always wink their mischevious eyes at me as though they have a secret. I trace my hoof across the steaming surface of the sun, making a 500th line in the glowing soil. 500 years. That's how long I've been here. The days bled into months that mixed into years and twisted my sanity on this melting wasteland. The sun is beautiful from outside but not in. When I saw the sun rise in Equestria, it was a beautiful glorious pallette of the morning. It signified the start of something new. It began the day and banished the monsters under beds and demons of the dark. It seeped into every corner of shadow and when mixed with the misty veil of the morning, made rainbows. Rainbows that tickled our eyes and tricked you into believing that the sky was the canvas of some divine creature. But here, in the sun, it is nothing but a steaming wasteland. teeming with rejected spirits of the day, rivers flowing of sole lava. Mountains of despair that pile up all of your fears and sadness and mix them into the melting pot known as the sun.
In all of 500 years, I have circumnavigated the sun but never found a friend. The only inhabitants I have found are lonely souls of rejected stars and hideous demons of lava and heat. None of them could make a friend. I could never befriend them either. My life is devoted to the wait. The wait of 1000 years. The awaiting of the sunrise. Around me, beyond the hazy silk of the sun's heat and fear, there is only night. Only blackness filled with orbs of hope that flicker like mine. I can never see much beyond the fifteenth star to the left of the sun because I assume that is where Equestria lies. My home. My old home at least. My life was filled with joy and love. I was worshiped. Here, I lay forgotten under piles of ash. Here, I sit alone. Wasting my life away. My life. My life that seems so useless. I have often thought, why not just go now. There are plenty lava pools to drown in. Plenty of volcanoes to leap in. But no. I can never bring myself to. My destiny here must hold more than a wait.
"Hello". I whisper to the moon as I see it in the void. Its milky light casts shadows on the stars but avoids the sun.
Even the moon has forgotten me. another element of my useless life that has left me to rot. But my life can't be useless. There must be another reason that I'm here. Life is, well duh, confusing. But really, it is. Why do we live if in the end we just, die? Why do we waste so much time creating an ego that in the end will just be forgotten? Why do we waste our precious days lazing around waiting for the world to show us what to do? Why do we even try to make a mark in the world if, in the end, it'll just fade into the haze of the sun? Why do we try so hard to impress when really, no one will ever care? No one will ever care. They'll just pass you off as...showy. Why do we even try, when death is inevitable? Why do we try so hard to avoid it even though we know we can't change it? Why are we even put on the planet, to begin with, if the ride to death is just as miserable as death itself? But, death isn't painful. Just maybe.
I stand up. My hooves are used to the sweltering salt of the sun as I begin to trot to a peak that I have grown accustomed to sitting on.
"Well, if it isn't old reject." A particularly annoying lava demon circled me. I batted him away with my hoof.
"You're just as unwanted as I am", I snapped back.
"Hissss. hmmm." The lava creature laughed a bit at my response and floated away.
His heated presence had brought tears to my eyes and I wiped them away with my hoof. Only to get a cinder in my left eye. I cursed and stomped at the ground.
'Just finish me off now Luna! YOU SHOULD'VE JUST KILLED ME! ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN THIS!" I screamed at the moon as it sunk behind the sun.
I broke down on the coarse soil of the sun. I felt like I could melt. I felt like all of my anger was ripping me apart and stuffing me with the challenges that the sun put me through. I was becoming a puppet. And Nightmare Moon, the puppeteer.
When life gives ya lemons, make lemonade. That's what we used to say in Equestria. But on the sun, it's more like, when life gives ya lemons, squirt them in your eyes so that you don't have to look at this heap of rejection. Yup. That's life in the sun.
"Hello?"
The Silent Graces The Solitude
The small voice startled me. It had been so long since I had heard another voice other than the rasping sultry voices of the demons. About a year ago, the voice in my head turned on me and has hidden away from the heat in a deep bowel of my brain. Now, the sudden notion of some other living creature here made my heart thump. I creep closer.
"Hello," I almost whisper back.
Then, a shadowy figure steps into my line of sight. It has the build of a pony but mutations of a different species set it apart. It is entirely black and it was deep pools of tar for eyes. Its body was dotted with holes and it's thin, flawed wings gave it the appearance of a bug. A changeling. My first thought was to recoil and run, for, in Equestria, Changelings were feared. But, this was no longer Equestria and here, things were different.
"How did you get to here?" I approached it with concern. I could see the fear in its buggy little eyes and it made my heart melt.
"Nightmare Moon." It said, its head facing the molten surface beneath us. I breathed a sigh of sadness.
"What did you do?" I prodded gently. It gulped. I smiled. 500 years on the sun may have tested my sanity, but my kindness would never falter.
"I was caught." It paused. "Our queen was trying to lead a rebellion against Nightmare, and I was caught in the act of poisoning her drink. Us Changelings are the mistresses servants." My smile faltered as I heard it say this.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered. "Luna never was forgiving, but I never thought-" My words got caught in my throat. A conversation this special was something foreign to me after all of these years and I couldn't seem to function. I looked up to see it staring at me strangely. "What." He looked down.
"It's just, no one calls the mistress of the night Luna anymore." I hung my head.
"My sister will never be anything but Luna, no matter what kind of monster she is," I said with a heaving sob and heavy heart.
"You're her- her sister?"
I nodded.
"Princess Celestia?" It breathed in amazement. its fanged mouth opened as it took in my sparkling mane and tail, my regal build, and cutie mark. I could see it trying to bow, but I reached out a tarnished hoof and told it otherwise.
"I'm Alder." It said shyly.
"Well Alder, I haven't talked to anyone like you in 500 years." He smiled at me and then, a quiet thought slipped through my mind. I hadn't had a friend in 500 years, maybe this changeling could change that.
As the two of them walked across the lava-like dirt, Alder trembled at her side as he took in the view. She recognized the feeling. It was the same thing she had felt the first time she had come to the sun. Thankfully, she had gotten better at a repelling spell so she kept the lava demons at bay.
"How long are you here?" Celestia asked. She laughed a bit at the question. When she said it like that, it seemed like the sun was just a vacation spot. Alder gulped.
"Just a few months. Six I think. Thankfully, Chrysalis is very protective over her children so she was somehow able to avoid giving us life sentences. I was the only one caught though." He sighed. "I imagine I'm a disgrace."
"I feel the same thing," I replied with my body stooped over.
"Why?" Alder asked, "You were the epitamy of grace and glory to Equestria when you and your sister ruled in harmony."
"Yes." I sighed. "But I couldn't stop her. I was the one who lost. I led Equestria into whatever state it's in now." A single tear fell down my cheek and sizzled on the surface of the sun. I could see Alder frown.
"I understand." I smiled thankfully.
"Thank you."
"Equestria is in ruin," Alder said, his face falling. "Your sister never raises the sun. The stars never shine."
I think of the stars gossiping in the sky and mocking my defeat. How pleasant it would be to get rid of them.
"Everyone lives in fear of the iron fist of your sister. She is always watching. There are always eyes in the night, even when you think you're alone, you never really are. Everything is overgrown and desolate. There is no beauty in anything. At all." Alder's face falls and it seems as though I can see the faintest traces of sadness in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," I say with a sigh, "I'm so so sorry." My legs give out and I find myself sitting next to Alder with my 500 tallies on my left. "I just wish-"
"I'm sorry too. I'm sorry there's nothing I can do to help." We both sat there in silence.
"Maybe there is," I said, an idea dawning on me suddenly. Alder looked up at me.
"What is it?"
"When you return to Equestria, take me with you."
"What?"
"Take me with you!" I exclaimed.
"But- how?" Alder inquired.
"I know strong enough magic to return home with you! When Luna summons you back, I can use a spell to come with you!" A look of confused excitement crossed Alder's face as the words processed in his buggy head.
"You take your magic for granted," Alder said with a sad smile. "So many young unicorns in Equestria hear legends of the days when you taught fillies magic. They all wish and pray that you could teach them magic." My heart skips a beat and a tear starts to form in my eye.
"I'm so sorry." Is all I can think to say. It's all of I've ever wanted to say and in all of these 500 years, it's all that I could wish to say to the stars and have them tell all of Equestria. But now, the stars didn't shine there either.
"We can try," Alder said. and I smiled.
After 500 years, this was the most amazed I had ever felt.
Could You Spare A Hope Stars
Alder was in marvel. His dark eyes were captured by the small twinkling of the gossiping stars. I sighed inwardly as he followed the trek that they made across the sky every day. Although his kind used to be feared in Equestria, he seemed so peaceful and full of hope for a better day that I couldn't possibly imagine being scared of him. I imagine this had changed though. In Equestria, I assumed that no one cared what you were as long as you sided against Luna. Nightmare Moon, technically. Week after week, we lived our miserable lives in a somewhat companionable silence as Alder watched the stars and I brushed up on my fancy magic. Finally, I asked.
"Alder, why'd you get put on the sun and not in a jail?" Alder's buggy hooves traced incoherent lines in the muck.
"All of Equestria's jails were full." He said. This broke my heart. Luna seemed so lost. A sister that I once loved turned into a vicious monster, and I couldn't stop her. Alder stepped closer to me as tears trickled down my face.
"Now I'm sorry." He said with a frown.
"It's alright," I said with a forced smile. "Soon. Soon we'll return and all will be set right. "
"About that," Alder began, clearly happy to steer the subject away from war-torn Equestria. "How's your spell coming along."
"It's coming along I suppose," I said.
"Well, that's good. Right?"
"Yes," I said, with a far-off look of consideration on my face.
"Is something the matter with it?" Alder asked with genuine concern.
"Well, there is one problem," I said timidly. "There's a side effect." Alder's eyes widened as he took this in.
"What do you mean?"
"Depending on how far the add-on, me, travels, the add-on and the summoned will suffer a time jump."
"A what?" Alder asked, his face contorted with confusion and concern.
"A Time jump," I repeated. "So, if it works, we'll end up in Equestria about 400 so years later than planned."
"FOUR HUNDRED?!" Alder exclaimed with downright terror.
"Yes," I said in a meek, squeaky voice. With that, Alder scurried off into the rising wall of heat and scorn.
Solitude, after four months of being with someone who cared about me, being alone again struck a nerve. Alder had presumably taken some time to think. I understood. It was hard to imagine what he felt after I told him that four hundred years will have passed and he won't have lived a single second of them. I began to sniffle. My tears grew in size as my body heaved up fresh sobs. I cried for Equestria, my home lost to the blindness of a waring monster who once was my sister. I cried for Alder and for his cruel punishment of being exiled to this hellish scene only to be destroyed again by my false hope. I cried for my heart, so lost and torn in this insane asylum called the sun. I cried for my sister, a monster now. A mare who knew so much of the world and beyond, a beautiful and knowing soulmate who would give her life for me. She was a fighter, but not this kind of fighter. No the kind that destroys the hope inside of anyone and smacks them around until they live in fear of everything and are sent to places like this. Places with pits of lava, disgusting creatures of smoke and ash who burn your soul with their harsh remarks and scald your throats as you breathe in their sultry voices. I cry and I cry and I cry. I cry for anyone I ever knew, anyone who ever knew me and anyone who still remembers me. I cry for poor lost souls and hopes turned into devilish monsters and thrown away to rot forever.
The stars move across the sky and my eyes grow tired. Alder is still nowhere to be seen. I lift myself up on my browned hooves and begin to trot away from my spot. My limbs grow wearier as I take in the desolate place before me. I could go search for Alder, but I have a feeling he'll come back. Friends always do. Friends. My knees give out as that word crosses my mind. Here I was four months ago wishing to die and now I know someone who could be my friend. How quickly the tides turn. But not quickly enought for the minds of monsters.
My brain exhausts me and I fall asleep.
If I Find You, Tell Them I'm Sorry
I wake up to see a changeling before me. Alder came back. Friends always do.
Two months slip away as we wait for the day to arrive when Alder will be summoned home.
"Are you glad to be returning?" I asked him one day.
"I suppose I am, except for the whole time jump thing." He said with a frown. I nodded, I knew how hard that had been for him to process.
"Can you tell me-. Can you tell me more about the Changelings?" I inquired slowly. Alder nodded.
"About two years ago, Nightmare Moon arrested a disguised changeling who was working as a servant and executed him. For no reason at all. Just to show her power. Her name was Remedy and she was very close to me and Chrysalis. Nightmare had always discriminated against any non-pony creature like griffons, changelings, and other beasts, but this was just tyrannical. Chrysalis was outraged. She created an underground changeling alliance in hopes that we could overthrow Nightmare. She sent us all out, in disguise, to work in Nightmare's castle. We applied ourselves in every corner of the castle and watched every move she made. We created plans and recruited other beasts. Griffons became our air patrol and they watched her all through Equestria via the sky, we employed many ponies as well. One night, well it's always night so one um." I interjected.
"At some point?" I suggested in a choked voice. My heart had skipped a few beats and I was still recovering from the news of my sister's utter ruthlessness.
"Yes. At some point about last year, we had a meeting and a plan was formed. This was the climax of the movement. But it was also where it began to break. Nightmare had begun to suspect something so she reinforced security and our missions became harder and more taxing. She examined us thoroughly as if willing us to change to our original form. Then, she caught wind of one of our meetings from a traitor named Thimble. He had been offered a deal by a suspicious elite and he gave us away. Many of us escaped. Some disappeared. The ones that were caught, were killed. Then, about a month ago, we were just beginning to regroup when we came up with the poison plan. Just poison everything. We were desperate and we were small. One night, everyone in her castle was asleep and the hundred of us changelings scoured the palace and poisoned everything that we knew was going to her that day. Unfortunately, we all got caught. One reason I was sent here was that the jails were full, the other was because it was your sister herself who caught me. She called me awful foul things and banished me."
My breath clogged in my throat as Alder finished his tale. My heart ached for everyone struggling in Equestria, for all the lives lost at my sister's flawed hoof. I tried to speak but no words came out.
"Your sister," Alder began, "is there any way to fix her?"
"I- I don't know," I said, with defeat at the edges of my voice. "There might be, but only if six ponies harnessed the Elements Of Harmony."
"No one knows where they disappeared to. " Alder said, quite unhelpfully. "But, legend has it, that-"
"Six ponies are destined to find them." I finished. "Was there any hope of that when you left?" Alder shook his head. "Well, maybe 500 years will have changed that," I added. I could see Alder's spirits sink.
"I-"
"I get it." I said, "but this might have to be a sacrifice that we both have to make. Besides, don't Changelings have incredibly long lifespans?" Alder nodded.
"They only die of love deficiency."
"That doesn't sound too promising in the current Equestrian state," I interjected.
"You'd be surprised at how much love between friends there is in that land. That's really the only thing keeping it, and us, alive." Alder said. Then, he leaned his head against my shoulder.
"How are you feeding here?" I inquired.
"Well, you possess an incredible amount of love for your home and hope for your sister. Also, your heart holds a friendly kind of love for me." He said simply.
Although those words came out so easily, they struck me so deeply that I had to wipe a tear from my eye as I watched the stars, my only glimmer of hope, as they winked at me with their sparkling eyes as if they had a secret. Knowing the stars, I'm sure they did. Hope always has its dark sides.
I wasn't sure how we'd know when Alder was being called, but when the time came, we knew for sure. One day, Alder came running out from behind a lava geyser with a strange blue swirl of magic following him. Inside the void, there were only stars. Alder was rushing towards me and had almost reached me before I realized it was happening. As soon as it came to me, I raced to him and grabbed his cut-up hoof in my white one.
"Do we just jump in?" I asked.
"I'm pretty sure," Alder replied with a sad confidence. He bit his lip. "What if you don't make it through?" He asked.
"I'll wait in the space in between until I can come home." Home. I hadn't thought about actually going home until now and the thought almost scared me.
"I'll- I'll miss you," Alder said, a tear in his eye.
"I'll make it," I said. "If not for me or my home then for you. You're the first friend I've had in 500 years, I owe you my sanity." I said, sounding more confident than I felt. With that, we turned around and I concentrated hard as I chanted the words of the spell. Then, we leaped.
As we traveled through the in between, we were only half awake. I seemed in a state of shock as my head perspired from the effort of the spell. I could feel Alder's smaller form wrapped inside of my arms as we bulleted through wherever we were. Then, the cold hit.
When I came to, everything was dark. I could see faint outlines of ponies standing before me and I could only recognize Alder's shape still curled up inside of me as I took it all in. As my vision came into focus, I saw that there were six mares hunched over us. I could feel Alder stirring a slight bit.
"Excuse me?" A small voice piped. And suddenly everything came rushing back to me. The sun, the leap, the travel, the time jump. Then, I registered my surroundings.
On my far left, there was a bouncy bubblegum colored mare with a frizzy mane and a smile. Then, a bolt blue pegasus with a cool rainbow colored mane and questioning magenta eyes. Next, to her, there was a faint yellow pegasus hiding her teal eyes behind a pale pink mane. A lilac unicorn stood next to her with a very pointed and curious expression as she blew some of her straight mane out of her face. A muscular peach colored pony with a cowboy hat was next and on my far right, there was a stylish snowy white mare with a curled purple mane that flowed around her horn. There was something striking about these six but I couldn't tell what.
"You're Princess Celestia." The Lilac unicorn said. I nodded a bit. "Follow us." She added pointedly.
I was soon up on my feet and desperately trying to take it all in.
"Tell us where the Elements are." The bubbly pink one said as we crossed the barren landscape. I could hardly speak for all I could think of was Alder.
Alder was asleep. But he'd come back. Friends always do, and like he said. Friendship kept things alive. Friends always do.
