The light blue foal looked lost in her large bed, as she snuggled happily down and reached out for her soft toy opossum. She took a gentle hold of him and crossed her forelegs over her chest, squeezing him tenderly to herself, closing her eyes in the happiness this simple act of togetherness brought.
She reopened her large teal eyes and lovingly turned the white face of her toy opossum to look out with her towards her mother who was putting them to bed.
“Mommy?” she asked.
“Yes, Woona?” she heard those few soft, attentive words flow gently around her like they were caressing her, and she felt happy.
“Mommy, Tia’s very clever and tells me lots of wonderful things, but she doesn’t know anything about the night, because she always goes to bed before the pretty stars come out.
“Tia is a good pony. I am pleased she is being so nice to you” acknowledged her mother, gently stroking her daughter’s mane, seeing a contented smile spread across her face. She leaned forward to give the foal a gentle kiss.
“And one for Tiberius too, please” asked her daughter earnestly, “He doesn’t want to feel left out.”
The loving mare leaned forward and kissed the toy opossum too, watching her daughter’s smile grow wider.
“He says thank you” said Woona, yawning like a kitten as her eyelids started to grow heavy.
“Mommy, why is there a bright star always by the moon?”
“Well, Woona. It’s not so much that the star is by the moon, but the moon is by the star.”
The foal’s tired teal eyes looked puzzled.
“Let me tell you a story” said the mare wistfully, looking lovingly at the image of contentment before her.
“Do you know how old the moon is?”
“No, Mommy.”
“But would you say she’s beautiful?”
“Of course I would. It shines over the night sky and keeps us all safe.”
“It may help to think of the moon as a mare herself; a very wise and beautiful mare.
Woona settled a little more, listening intently although her eyelids were fighting a losing battle to stay open.
“Over the many years she has been with us, she has had many children and she loves them all.”
“Are they the stars, Mommy?”
“You can think of them like that. When they grow up, they make friends of their own and move away to play together; that’s how the youngest groups of stars make new constellations in the night sky.”
Woona pulled her duvet up just a little further, making her eyes look even bigger, and held on tightly to her toy opossum.
“But the one nearest to the moon? It’s always so bright.”
“Yes, she is the moon’s youngest child and the two shine brightly together because they love each other so much.”
“And she won’t leave the little star?”
“Not until she’s old enough to make friends and move away when she’s ready.”
“If the moon never has any more children, then does that mean they will stay together forever?”
“Until there is no more moon” reassured her mother, the dreadful implication of those few poignant words lost on the sleepy little foal.
“I’m your youngest, aren’t I Mommy?” asked Woona.
“Yes you are, my little one.”
“Promise you’ll never leave me, Mommy?”
Her mother knew she couldn’t agree to her foal’s innocent request because she was all too aware that her own time was limited. The cruelty of time would intercede before she was ready, but she gave her answer instead by planting a tender kiss on her foal's forehead.
“The moon must love her daughter very much” said Woona, turning onto her side and holding her toy opossum tightly to her.
“She does, my little one, she does.”
Luna walked slowly across a field in the pre-dawn darkness, her hooves brushing the dew as it started to form on the grass.
She looked up to the constellations, the groups of friends playing together that her mother had told her about all those years ago, and smiled. She regretted she couldn’t remember more about her mother, but one memory that stuck fast was her talk that night. How she wished there had been some way of capturing that moment such that the sands of time would not be free to erode it any further. She remembered her mother as being a very wise and beautiful mare, full of hugs when she needed reassurance and kisses to make her heart soar.
But her mother had been taken away from her too soon.
That one unanswered question still haunted her; ‘promise me you’ll never leave me, Mommy?’
In a way, her mother had never left her. She had shown her foal the deepest love that had endured to support her during times of personal crisis, especially throughout her banishment to the moon. But that had not been how the young Woona had seen it when her mother had died not long after this earliest of her foalhood memories, a memory that she felt drawn back to replay repeatedly through such a bittersweet lens. She had instead felt the cold emptiness of having been abandoned, a response that she now so bitterly regretted.
Luna felt a tear forming in her eye; not for her mother or for herself, but for the innocent and inquisitive foal who would not appreciate until much later the sacrifice that her mother had made for her, and carry instead the sense of desertion that would shape her as she grew to know banishment and isolation.
The fresh tear spilled out of the corner of her eye and fell for the briefest of instants, a glittering jewel freefalling through the darkness, perfect in its twinkling beauty.
A wish falling to the ground.
It landed on the field where it became the youngest of all the glistening dewdrops that weaved together forming a vast, sparkly pageant, as if in competition with the rich tapestry of stars across the night sky above.
Luna turned her head sadly, steering herself back towards the call of her responsibilities as her night drew towards its inevitable close.
Her sad wish was left among a host of new friends until the coming dawn would wipe them all from the memory of the new day.
She walked away.
