Author's Note
So I was having one of those really hard days when I was grieving the loss of my daughter, and this just sort of happened. I didn't expect it to balloon to the size it did, but I guess that's just part of the surprise right? Never knowing where it will take you.
A friend of mine pitched the idea of Luna having a foal while being banished to the moon and it passing away, and I thought, "What about Celestia?" I mean, taking care of a baby, ruling a country, that would be a lot to take on, and losing that baby without anyone to rely on to help her grieve would be a huge weight to carry. I felt much the same way she did when I was on my journey of grieving. Her journey does not exactly mirror mine, but the emotions and feelings with grieving do. So I just went with it. It really helped me get out some emotions, even though I cried so much while writing it.
Here's my attempt at venting my emotions.
Eclipse The Sun
A thousand years ago, I was the stronghold of my subjects.
I had defeated and banished my own sister to the moon, and I had let the light live on for them. Everypony expected me to be strong, to be happy. I put on a good show for them. Never once did I let them see my weakness. But every night, when I was alone, weakness poured out of me, bottled up during the day and only released in the darkness where it would never be seen. I would look up at the moon, the shadowy image imprinted on it with the remnants of what was once my sister, and every night I would feel regret for my blindness toward her. Time is said to be a great healer, but I learned some wounds did not close easily. For days, weeks, and months, I was lost in that private wilderness of my grief when darkness closed in, trapped in the whirlpool of my sins against my sister, my regret, my wish to make things right with her. I thought I was alone there. But I was wrong.
A stallion, his name was Comet Tail, came to me one day. At first I thought he was going to be asking for the help of myself as a Princess. It was, after all, my duty to serve my subjects. But he did nothing of the sort. He asked me if I would like to talk sometime. I was intrigued, because no pony ever asked me if I was doing well beyond cursory greetings. I did not know the stallion, at least not by name, but there was something in his eyes that told me he understood what I was going through. So I accepted. He offered to cook for me that night instead of eating in the castle, which was honestly surprising and a refreshing change. I told him I would see him after sunset.
I finished my duties for the day, for a few hours at least, and I think the staff at the castle was somewhat relieved that I was taking time away from the palace. I had, in the past months, mostly confined myself here unless I was on business. I flew to his home rather than taking a chariot, because I wanted to be informal with this visit. I knocked on the door, and he smiled at me, told me to come in.
Comet Tail had a brown colored coat, an orange and yellow mane, and was a unicorn as I had been before alicornhood was bestowed upon me. His eyes, though… They were beautiful pools of yellow, like swimming in lemonade. He apologized to me for the humbleness of his home. I waved it off. This place was much more like a home than the castle ever was. Small touches decorated the place. A painting on a wall, a candle on a shelf, worn and well loved books that weren’t dusty at all like the ones in the library back at the castle. He told me very shortly after that dinner was ready.
Dinner was highly informal- an incredible, welcome, refreshing change from the castle. It was a simple home cooked meal- a casserole of vegetables, a side of hay, some oats sprinkled on top. It was the best meal I had had in such a long time, because it was made with such care and intent behind it, rather than being the work of cooks who did it because they were trying to please me or impress me. This was nothing like that. I commented on his excellent cooking, and he laughed. It was a hobby, he said, nothing he did for a living.
I wondered, in my hapless state, what my own hobbies would be had I had a chance to choose them. Duties kept me busy until the end of the day, and something always seemed to pop up, even when other audiences were cancelled. He spoke to me about things he liked to do, like paint, cook, watch comets, and read. I looked into his eyes and saw the way they lit up with such passion at the subjects he spoke of, and it made me smile. Spending most of my time with ponies who were dispassionate about everything made him a rarity in my eyes. But upon further inspection of those eyes, I saw a deep sadness, one that mirrored my own.
He understood what I saw, I think, because he opened up to me about what had caused it. He had lost his own sister about a year prior. I listened as he spoke of the illness that had plagued her for years, how she had fought hard, but slowly deteriorated, how he had been there for her last moments, and held her after she passed away. He had been in the same endless wilderness that I was lost in now, and wanted to share his experiences with me to help me navigate it better. I was floored, because in all the time since Nightmare Moon’s attack on Equestria, no pony had bothered to recognize that I was grieving for my sister. But he did. He spoke to me on what helped him, what I might face in the coming months, and how speaking about the situation was really helpful in moving forward. I was so touched. I nearly cried.
He asked me about my sister- not Nightmare Moon, but Luna. What she enjoyed doing, what my favorite memories with her were, what made her happy. The fact that he had asked about her, not as a figure, but as a pony, was so overwhelming. Suddenly the bottled up emotions didn’t want to wait for the loneliness of the night in my bedroom- they came out right there. And he gave me a hug, and rubbed my back, and told me that it was okay to grieve. He didn’t treat me like a princess, but like a grieving friend, and I needed that more than I needed the air I breathe. Air could be replaced, but being treated like I was equine, that was a rare sight. To him, I was not a public figure, a princess, somepony to please. I was somepony who needed a reminder that I could feel emotions the same as anypony else. When I stopped crying, I felt better. He told me that if I ever needed somepony to talk to, he would be here. I thanked him profusely, told him I would, and then went home. That was the first time that I didn’t cry myself to sleep at night.
Over time, I kept my word. I came to visit him many times. Talking about my sister as just that- my sister, was a relief. Slowly, I began to feel safe with him. He was a pony I could relax with, joke with, be myself with. With him, I did not have to be a princess. We were friends. A real friend and not a subject was something I had not had since my sister was still herself. Our relationship deepened, but never in any romantic capacity.
That is, until one night.
It was the one year anniversary of Luna’s banishment, and I had had so many nightmares the night before. I made a point of going to his home that night, and he took one look at me, and pulled me into a hug. He let me in as I babbled on about my regret, my fears, my nightmares, my grief. He listened to everything, and then grabbed two mugs of hard apple cider for us to drink. He said he only pulled it out for nights like these. We made a toast to our sisters, and sipped.
We drank.
I hadn’t had alcohol in a very long time. I don’t think he had either, considering how quickly we became inebriated. The night gets foggy for me after that, but I did balance it out with glasses of water to avoid a hard morning. What I do remember was looking over at him, with the sadness in his eyes as he spoke of his own sister, and how I couldn’t stand to see somepony so good hurting so deeply. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it ran deeper than that, but I kissed him.
And the night went on.
I woke up in my own bed the next morning, rather than in his like one might have thought. I think I can recall waking up in the night and realizing I needed to go home. Mercifully, I did not have a headache or vomiting the next day. Life continued on after that. Comet Tail and I still met up, but we never became romantically involved again. I don’t think he even remembered what happened that night, or if he did, never mentioned it out of respect for me.
Things went on as normal until one night, I woke up out of the blue and vomited. I retched until there was nothing left in my stomach. I thought that perhaps I had eaten something bad the night before, thought nothing of it, and went to sleep. The next morning, though, I found something strange. The smell of chocolate chip pancakes made my stomach curdle. I was sickened by the smell, and had to ask the chefs to make me something else to eat. It seemed from that point on, the smell of chocolate made me sick. Other strange symptoms bothered me. A taste in my mouth I could now describe as metallic, a sensitivity to smell that made me able to tell if a pony was sweating from across the room, a need to use the bathroom more often, and back pain and cramping. As they popped up, one by one, they were clues, pieces of a puzzle that I finally fit together.
I was pregnant.
The feelings I had at the realization were an intense cocktail of emotions. I was excited, unnerved, terrified, hopeful, desperate, worried, angry, and self-conscious. I didn’t know what to do with myself in those moments after, but I did know one thing: I had to take care of myself if it wasn’t just me anymore. I wanted so badly to tell Comet Tail but at the same time… I didn’t want to trap him. It was that simple. Were he publicly acknowledged to be a father to my illegitimate child, I could only imagine the horrors that would be bestowed upon him. Constant bombarding with questions, never being alone, being pressured into becoming a ruler. I didn’t want that for him. I wanted him to have a normal life, something I now so desperately longed for for myself.
I did not feel I could tell any pony about this. The only one I told was my doctor so she could tell me what nutrients my body needed, ways to combat my nausea, and to check up on the baby. She was so kind about my situation, and I appreciated that, but I did ask her to swear to secrecy until the baby was born. She promised she would, and I had to trust that.
I still saw Comet Tail in that time, just not nearly as often as I used to. But he didn’t seem to mind. The fact that I was still coming around and resolving whatever grief I had seemed to be enough to suffice him. My grief changed as my pregnancy progressed. My grief before had been over my blindness to my sister’s feelings, that I should have seen her rebellion coming. It transformed later to feeling like I let her down, that I was not being the sister I knew I could be. Comet Tail seemed confused by this sudden transformation, but he didn’t ask questions, because he knew it could change over time. I went home, knowing that I would do better for the child inside of me.
I felt alone in my situation much of the time, with no pony to talk to about what I was going through. But I realized that I wasn’t alone, that the child growing inside of me was experiencing this with me. I talked to it when I had nopony to talk to. My connection to the baby grew, strengthened with the passage of time. In a very odd way, that baby healed me. I realized that I could not have changed my past mistakes with Luna, but I did not have to repeat those mistakes with my foal. This foal was my second chance, to correct my mistakes, to be a better pony, to be a good mother where I was not a good sister, and to give my child the foalhood that for me had not been long enough.
Those first months of pregnancy were hard. I was sick all of the time, and it made ruling very difficult because I thought I would be sick through it all. And my back ached constantly, never mind the need to use the bathroom all of the time. I became so sensitive to smells. If someone used soap from a bathroom and they were standing in the back of the throne room, I could smell it from the front. But none of it mattered, because my pain or discomfort didn't mean a thing to me as long as my baby was taken care of.
The second trimester of my pregnancy exacerbated some of the symptoms, but for the most part they stayed the same. But I felt my foal kick for the first time and… Oh there weren't words for that feeling. Magic doesn't begin to cover it. So I would sing to them and tell them stories or about my day in general. That was around the time when I started getting the nursery ready. I did an architectural spell to add it next to my room, with the door only visible to me for the moment. I added furniture as soon as possible. A wooden cradle, a mobile carved to be suns and moons and stars and comets, a rocking chair to rock my foal in.
The last trimester was the best one. I wasn't hurting as much, and that foal was such an active baby. They used to kick like crazy. Especially when I sang to them. I knew that I was going to meet them soon, and every day was another day closer to that. It was all I wanted.
And eventually, I got it.
I remember waking up that night to the sharp cramping in my stomach, and I asked one of my guards to fetch my doctor. I laid in bed, afraid and panicked, but hopeful. All I wanted was to hold that foal in my hooves, to love it forever. My doctor came in, and kept track of my progress.
The pain was intense- so terrible I felt like I was being torn in half. I was so frightened that I would die from it. I persevered though. It never occurred to me to give up, to pass out from the pain, to scream. I was propelled forward by the intense need to take care of this foal. When it came time to push, I was in agony. A thousand times I might have wished for death, but it never came.
And then, inexplicably, the contractions stopped. The pain was not gone, nor did I expect it to be gone immediately. Twenty hours of labor pains did not just go away in two minutes. A tiny cry pierced the air, and my heart leaped. The doctor cleaned the foal off, and told me that it was a girl. She handed her to me, swaddled in a blanket of suns. The tiny baby girl in my arms had a white coat, but orange hair, and my eyes. I leaned my forehead down to touch her small horn with my own.
“Welcome home, my daughter, my Nova Stream.” I said to her.
She cooed to me, kicked a tiny hoof out and tapped my face. She was so beautiful, so breathtaking. In that moment, I fell in love with her more than I ever had with anypony. This love was so deep, so boundless, so unshakable, that I could have used it to fuel the love of changelings for over five hundred years alone. Every move she made fascinated me. I nursed her, and then she slept for a long while, and so did I, weak and exhausted. I had asked my doctor to alert my staff to the situation about two weeks before I was due to deliver. It was long enough to let the shock wear off, but short enough not to let word spread. That day and in the following ones, my advisors and scribes took my place as ruler while I healed and tended to my daughter.
It was three days after her birth. I had woken up in the night to check on Nova Stream and give her a feeding, and when I went to see her, she was cold. I panicked. I rubbed her chest to try and stimulate her, performed CPR on her to try and resuscitate her.
“Breathe, my Nova. Breathe for Mama, don’t leave Mama alone. Come on, sweetheart. Please… Don’t leave me. Don’t let your light die out. You’ll take mine with you if you do…” I told her.
But nothing worked. My physician speculated that she had just stopped breathing. It wasn’t uncommon in foals. I wanted to scream, but why did it have to be my foal?! But I knew it would do me no good. She was gone. My baby was gone. I cried over her small body for hours, more tears than I have ever cried in my life. To have my still-beating heart ripped from my chest as I tried to make sense of why she was put on this earth for such a short time only to be taken from me. It would never make sense to me, no matter how many years passed. I had to come to terms with the passing of my child in one night, because I had to be back on duty the next day.
I had to wait to night to bury her. It was only her and I there, as the crisp air bit at my nose. The night was black, starless, and lonely. The chill of night was barely there, but I felt like it had reached to my bones. I was cold, so cold, and I could not get warm. I buried her in a small grove I could see only from my room. I wanted her to know that I was watching over her every day, even in death. I promised her that I would always think of her, that I wouldn’t let myself forget those few days of pure bliss I had with her. I buried her, and all I could think of was that this was wrong. Mothers weren’t supposed to bury their children. But I was burying mine. The most precious thing I had ever had, and I had lost it.
Even though it was by no fault of my own, I blamed myself for it. I still do. I kept thinking that something in her cradle might have made her stop breathing. I looked in it that night. The way she was facing, there was a small stuffed bear in there, and I thought maybe that might have caused it. It took me months but I finally entered the room, Pressed that bear as close to my nose as hard as I could, and I could still breathe. It relieved a lot of guilt for me, doing that, and I cried because I did not know how much I was holding onto.
In those first days I was hollow. I was drained of emotion. I did my job, I went to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat. I cried every night, had haunting nightmares of seeing my daughter waking up in that cradle, calling for Mama. I would wake up and go to the nursery, thinking she was there and needed me. She never was. I would go back to sleep again, but the nightmares just kept coming. I felt like I hadn’t slept in years. My grieving wilderness turned into a grieving desert. Everything was bland, it was all the same, and there was no end in sight- just rolling dunes of pain and sorrow. I loved my daughter, and she was everything to me. The hole she left in me could never be filled. But every day, I pressed forward, because I knew she would have wanted me to keep living the life she didn’t get the chance to. That someday, when I saw her in the afterlife, whatever that may hold, she would want to hear stories of the things I did.
I kept on for her, and I was amazed when little things started having meaning again, even though it took a long time. To smell a flower just for pleasure, to enjoy the smell of cooking, to love the feel of a soft blanket. I always kept Nova’s blanket with me. It was my piece of her to keep in this world. I would bury my face in it, and smell her scent. For a heartbeat, it was like she was still there.
You don’t recover from losing a child. You just learn how to live with your new normal. I adapted, I adjusted, but it wasn’t the same as having her there. I would carry her in my heart forever. But I discovered something in that time of darkness, reminded of my sister, of my faults, my failings.
It was possible to eclipse the sun.
