Tell me, do you hear my song from where you are?
Seven days after the battle of Nightmare Moon and Celestia -
Castle of the Two Pony Sisters courtyard
The cooled embers of the battle seven days past crumple to dust beneath the hooves of a visitor to the forsaken, now empty, castle in the Everfree. All valuables were long gone or hidden after the battle between the princesses, and what remained was unlikely to attract looters or greedy ponies looking for treasure.
As the wind blew through the desolate courtyard, the only signs of life were the quickly recovering plants and the figure making his way to the central section of the soon to be abandoned former palace. His blue grey coat contrasting with the ever present shadows from topiaries that are quickly reverting to a wild state.
A statue stands unbroken in the central garden, one of a dark alicorm mare with a mane made up of galaxies. Her cutie mark has been vandalized by somepony, possibly an angry guard. But the outline of a crescent moon can still be seen underneath the scratches and fractures that will completely disappear into fragments in time. Time shall also remove the finely sculpted stars from her mane, reducing them to lines that seem to belong to another.
The stallion stands beside this monument, his eyes drifting up past the statue itself to the moon that shines its light upon the world. A new scar is visible on it's formerly clear surface, a scar that resembles the face and features of the statue beside him. He can't help but sigh, the beauty of the moon touches his soul as the mare who is depicted in stone beside him had so many times before. He'd seen her so many times, adored her hand crafted night skies above as few others had. The stars were always new, always perfect; and never the same twice.
Until seven days ago, for ever since the night sky had stilled. For her hoof no longer created tapestries of starlight for those who loved the night. Indeed in his lifetime and many after he had passed, the stars would remain the same.
He sat down upon a cold stone bench, marred by burn marks from the fire seven days before. His hoof reaches out to touch the statue, as droplets of liquid sorrow rain from his eyes. Tears shed for all she had endured, all she had created, and all that he and others would never see again. For despite what she thought, there had been ponies who loved her and the tapestry she wove. Those who appreciated her protecting their dreams, and who would stay up late to see her Night.
He was one of them, an unnamed stallion in history that time would forget. A songwriter and ballad maker, a singer and musician. One who had always loved her from afar, but never been able to tell her. Now it was too late.
She had fallen to the Nightmare, and few would remember all the wonders she wrought as history took its toll. He had heard and seen the signs of the edits of known history already. All traces of that lady of the night being erased from history for reasons unknown. Just days after she had fallen and been sent to the skies above. He knew deep in his heart that many of his ballads of her artwork in the heavens above would be lost. If he was lucky they would be sealed away, but forgotten all the same.
So now he was here, where it all ended and began seven days ago. Here to present to the beautiful lost princess what he had intended to be given in private. His feelings given sound, her art given a song; and possibly her mind given light to weather the darkness.
Using his horn he removes his lyre from his back, carefully placing it at an angle and resting it upon his shoulder. Eyes gazing upwards past the statue to the moon, his own dark purple mane drifting in the breeze he begins to sing.
"Tell me, can you hear me from where you are?
So far out among the stars.
Can you hear my heart is breaking, thinking of you stuck up there."
He leans against the statue eyes fixated on the mare whose head is burned into the moon.
"Why did you fall so far, many of us loved your art.
You were to us the light in the night I swear.
Tell me, why couldn't you stay strong, I know that that they were wrong;
But my night lady we still love you, even after that day."
His eyes begin to fill with tears as he belts out the next verse to the mare in the moon.
"You were the perfect star, never close but never far.
I remember forever my lady, you saving our dreams from the monsters and soon; I hope you hear my song up there.
Now as you gaze across the sky, from the moon with your eyes;
can you perhaps still see us Luna, watching you from way down here.
Or do you prefer to cross the stars, to galaxies so far away that no pain can hurt you out there."
The tears continue to flow as he gazes at the clouds moving to cover the moon, and continues on.
"You were, the light that guarded our hearts. The eternal shining star;
Luna if we knew before that day, to your court we would have strayed.
But my night lady, we could not stop staring at stars; your tapestry of art.
There might have been a way, but your heart was already closed that day.
But I know that we won't give up, we will keep your dream alive.
I promise you this today, we will never forget you like they may.
Your memory will be kept alive across time, not forgotten and I swear to you my lady my song will light the way."
He lowers his head to wipe tears from his eyes while looking longingly at the mare in the moon, as the cloud begin to cover her visage from sight.
"Every night I will sing of your name, so you can't let yourself fade away.
I love you Luna, I wish you had stayed."
The song over, the stallion stands still and stares at the moon until the clouds cover it completely. Using his silver magic he pulls out a bound book from his saddlebags, casting a spell that will live on long after he is gone. He pulls out a loose stone in the base of the statue of the mare of the moon, and slides the book in before putting the stone back in place. Casting a spell that will only activate if the lady he has loved from afar comes here some day, he gets up and begins to walk away.
Remembering his lyre, he grabs it and placed it upon his back. Through the clouds the moonlight shines down in streaks, lighting his way out of the castle and the forest. As he reaches the gate he glances up once more, seeing the moon through the barrier above.
"I love you Luna, I wish I had told you sooner. Here is hoping thou can hear me up there."
He turns his attention back to earth, following the path the moonlight lit for him. A part of him swearing she was walking back beside him.
Author's Note
Sometimes we do not see those who support and love us till it is too late. - Glen Gorewood
After Luna's return, Castle of the Two Sisters
Princess Luna in her diminutive younger form stares up at the ancient statue of herself. Time has worn away the features, but she knows at one time her visage was evident. The courtyard around her is overgrown and alive. Crickets sing a tune as night birds carry a song of their own across the skies.
From here she can see her Moon above, her prison for so long when she was Nightmare Moon. While she was trapped up there, she had heard nothing but the sounds of the space around her moon and beyond. However she remembered a sound, one from shortly after her banishment. A tune of love and mourning from some creature below, one that had promised a light in the darkness. Many time she had sung it in her prison, and though other ballads had somehow reached her for a short time one day they had all stopped.
In her madness she had thought that Celestia, her sister, had killed the one who had sung to her. The one with the power to bring music to the moon, from wherever he had been. Now she knew better, but still she wondered why the music had stopped. Why had her light that could reach her in the sky disappeared?
But even after that voice had gone, one song had always reminded her that his intent and love was pure. Whoever that stallion had been, he had hoped to ease her pain and give her a light in the darkness of her madness and the moon. She hummed the tune before the statue of herself in the moonlit courtyard, wondering who he had been.
Luna could have tried to sing the song aloud, but she feared doing so would ruin the memory of his voice singing to her while she was trapped up there. Ceasing her hum to appreciate the light of her stars above her, she wondered aloud; "I wonder why you stopped singing down here."
As the words leave her lips a glow grows from the base of the statue. The princess of the night turns and stares at the silver magic that ripples the stone around it loose. Seeing the edges of a hidden space in the glow, Luna uses her magic to remove the long sealed away stone. It's seal opened, the glow intensifies before fading away. A long held protection and preservation spell unlocking for the one whom the caster had loved alone.
Reaching inside with her magic, Luna levitates out a bag filled with what feels like many scrolls and books. Teleporting them away to her room for later, she looks into the hidden space once again. Her eye catches sight of a tome far in the back recesses of the hidden nook. Carefully removing it from its resting place of over a thousand years, she looks it over; and almost misses the note falling to the ground after being displaced from the book itself.
Catching it in her magic, she reads it to herself.
Tears begin to fall from Luna's eyes as the answer to her question concerning her light has been answered. For within the note are the final words of an unknown stallion lost to time, lamenting his inability to continue to sing for her. A ballad writer whose life's work is now hers, kept safe by his magic long after he was gone. A singer and a musician who had loved the moon with all his heart and soul, but never managed to tell her before it was far too late.
Her light who sang to her as long as he lived, his words reaching the moon from Equestria so far below her. A stallion whose song had planted the seed of hope the elements of harmony would use to free her from the Nightmare. Whose last words were as pure as his songs had been.
"My lovely moon, I must leave soon.
Remember the light I promised for you.
My heart and my soul, I give now to the moon.
The works of a lifetime is all I can do.
My lady Luna I never forgot, the promise I made you on this very spot.
My love I'm sorry I can't continue on, for I am a mere mortal with the gift of song.
The pale horse is coming, my time is done.
You'll always have my heart, my Luna my love."
At the end of the note was the only hint of his name. A hoof drawn cutie mark of a lyre's shadow on a full moon. The signature of the unknown stallion, who had loved the mare in the moon with all his heart. Whose song had bridged the great space to comfort her in her prison above; and who to his dying day had sung to his beloved Princess Luna from far below the stars.
Luna stares at the note as tears fall from fresh from her eyes, droplets of crystal spiraling towards the ancient stone ground at her hooves.
In a voice tinged with sorrow and mourning, one that only those who have found the truth of that which they have lost but never realized that they had till it is far too late can truly use; she speaks softly to one long gone.
"You were real, and thou loved us even after we were banished to the moon..."
Another tear drops from Luna's eyes.
"Thou sang to us for all thine life each night.."
The tears touch the ground with the sound of breaking glass.
"Yet though thou loved us truly, we will never know.."
Her watery eyes look down at the letters upon the page, written by hoof so long ago with forms reminiscent of sheer music turned into letters, that sing those last words into her heart and soul.
"I... do not even know your name."
And now centuries later in the very spot where he had sung to her seven days after her banishment, Luna weeps for one whose name is unknown. One who loved her truly even after her fall, and whose song she will always recall. As she cries beneath her beloved moon she hold close to her chest that weathered tome. Whose title is embossed in silver inlays and a star map of a night sky from a thousand years past.
The name of the tome glows in the moonlight, as if filled with the very life and soul of the one who crafted and wrote it so long ago.
"Drops of Luna"'
The gift that one stallion had desired to present over a thousand years ago to his beloved moon. A work of love and appreciation, a ballad for the Princess whose art and life stole his heart and soul. For the love that would cause him to spend his life singing each night to Luna sealed away in her Moon, till the last of his breathe left his body. The princess who only now, after being freed from the Nightmare over a thousand years later; holds that gift in her hooves.
And as the tear drops continue to fall from Luna's eyes, she mourns the one whose name she shall never know. The stallion whose love she felt so keenly from afar, but whose face she can never hold. Whose voice she can remember so clearly, but can never put a face to. She cries for the one who loved her truly without fail till he passed so long ago, and mourns what could have been but never will be.
She stays under the moonlight sky and cries the truest of tears for that stallion with no name.
The unknown Bard who loved the Moon, whose passing was centuries too soon.
Author's Note
So this story idea is my first try at a sorrowful romance style tale. The idea came to me while listening to Drops of Jupiter, and I went with it.
The stallion is unknown because his works were devoted to the moon and Luna. Celestia removing and hiding all traces of her sister meant most of his works ended up lost or sealed away. He left his beloved Princess to whom he never confessed all his remaining work, hidden within a statue where he had first sung to her after she was sealed in the moon so long ago.
His gift to her was all the ballads and songs he had ever created. Though he had wished he could be there upon Luna's return, being a mortal he passed away long ago and was fated to never see her in the flesh again.
All that remains is his work, his love for Luna who remembers his voice from her time among the stars; and his cutie mark.
He is the stallion with no name who loved the moon.
The unknown Bard of the Moon.
