...but will you forgive me?
My Dearest Luna,
It's the 300th year of your banishment and not a day or night has gone by where I haven't thought of my own little sister, my fellow Princess and the dearest thing I have ever had in the world. Every time I raise the moon, I bear your struggle, I move you around our planet but at least I see you in a way, but when I lower your moon, I feel as though I say goodbye until I raise the moon again.
A mortal pony would say 300 years is a long time and more than enough time to get over it, that pony would be wrong, the reason you are on that moon is not your jealously or anger, it is me. It was always me. It was never your fault, and I admit, the cowardly mare I was, I tried blaming it on you, I tried to say you just had to turn into Nightmare Moon, I tried to hate you Luna. But I couldn't, because I knew full well, it was your foolish older sister's fault.
Even as I look up at you, the form you possess, Nightmare Moon, is not a result of your jealously and anger. There are those who don't know the full story and would blame you for it but the truth is: Nightmare Moon is a result of my blindness, my spotlight and ignoring a little sister who needed me most. You are up there for my mistakes, I've lost lives to my mistakes, I've been humiliated thanks to my mistakes, my subjects have suffered thanks to my mistakes but most of all, you have paid for my sins and no decent pony in the world would ever think that's okay.
Ponies call me wise, they do not understand, I am not wise, I'm the foolish mare that was put in charge of raising the Sun and now the Moon. I really wanted to run away you know? To run away from mistakes, to try and forget you, to drown my mistakes under cake and intoxicating liquid, but maybe I do have a shred of decency and wisdom, I knew I couldn't run. No matter how far I would run, my mistakes would follow and become worse with each step.
Every time I look up at your moon, I wonder, do you know you're there? Are you in limbo? Or is Nightmare Moon there, waiting for her revenge? Or maybe my dear precious little sister is there? If so, what does she think of me? Does she hate me? Or maybe by some astronomical chance does she not hate me and that maybe she wants to make amends as I do to you?
If I were you Luna, I wouldn't forgive me, why should I deserve forgiveness? What exactly have I done to deserve your forgiveness? When you needed me, I ignored you, when darkness took you, I didn't try to connect, I protected the kingdom...the kingdom...somepony else would say take the kingdom as well, logical choice isn't it? Very easy, right? For me it wasn't, I wonder what it would have been like if I tried to connect with you Luna?
I remember the first days you were gone, I expected to see you in your room, then I realized...you were gone, I think what remained of my heart was disintegrated into nothingness. You are gone, and you aren't coming back for a while, a long while at that. I wanted to deny it, I tried really hard to try will you back here but I couldn't, I cried for months and months, I didn't talk to anypony, I slid orders under a door and ponies were wondering, what happened to Princess Luna? And what happened to Princess Celestia so much that she refuses to even go outside her bedroom door? You must think me a coward and you would be right, I'm no brave mare, you are the brave mare, little sister, you have always been.
The first century went and I was ready to come out, ponies were beginning to wonder if I existed at all, they never thought once about you, I hated that, because it reminded me of my mistake to you. They called that century the "Century of Depression", a fitting name if ever there was one.
The second century saw a new age of my trying to be strong again, the griffons invaded but they were fools to mess with a mare who's been through so much pain, I didn't even comply with the rules of war, I obliterated all of them in a heat of rage, they surrendered after their king died. After that, ponies saw me once more as their protector, their Princess, their sun.
The century up to now, I swore myself to be the ruler I should have been with you Luna, ponies barely had any memory of you by this point, so I got rid of the history books, I got rid of every record of you. You might look upon this as anger, but I want you Luna, to be remembered not as Nightmare Moon, but as Luna, my sister, so when you come back you can show Equestria that you aren't the just the sister of Celestia, but the Princess of the Night, Luna. I want no events of the past to interfere with how ponies will see their Princess of the Night.
You will come back Luna, I know you will, I don't care how long it takes, I will wait every second, I will bear your burden as long as I need to and I don't care if it hurts because I deserve it, I will be there for when you return, waiting and ready to give you the biggest hug of our lives. In the meantime, I will find new Elements of Harmony to free you from my mistakes, I have already taken on a student, a student I hope to ascend to an Alicorn and take the Elements and find other bearers to also wield the Elements of Harmony and free you.
I promise you Luna, you will always be my little sister, and once you are back, never again will I forget that. You will see a mare that has learned from her foolish mistakes, a mare who will spend time with her sister like the old days and we will be equals in the kingdom as Equestria will learn to see what beauty the Night truly has. I will be there waiting for you with open arms because as ponies say, There is Nothing I cannot Forgive.
But...I know this is my fault. I reckon the you I knew would try to take some of the blame but it was never your fault, it was all my fault. You are suffering for my mistakes, you might say you made some mistakes but they were products of my mistakes and even if you were responsible in some way, I would forgive you in a heartbeat, nay, less than that.
Luna, I look upon the moon, there is one thing ponies know me for and that's forgiveness, I've forgiven our enemies, I've forgiven the nobles and their brash actions, I've forgiven my subjects for thinking less of me and forgetting you. I am a forgiving pony after all but Luna, as they say, There is Nothing I cannot Forgive...
...but will you forgive me?
Your older foolish sister,
Celestia Sol
A Midnight Blue Alicorn sat in a broken castle that was once her old bedroom, she read a letter dated over 700 years ago addressed to her, a tear dropped from the mare's eyes as she whispered...
"I forgive you"
Author's Note
This popped in my head and I just had to write this.
