Father Time has his way

Honestly, you expected the central and grand library of Manehatten to be... Well, lit better, for starters. Instead, it's all dark corridors of books lit by the odd oil lantern, a few chairs and tables by cindering fireplaces, librarians moving like spectres between the rows upon rows of ancient and modern tomes.

Being taller than most of the bookcases, you could see over them into the endless sea of dark, broken only by small night fires to stand against the omnipresent dark. Which was weird, given it was eleven o'clock during July. It would have been earlier, but you had to work through a hangover and Luna was a late riser.

The two of you grabbed a table near a smouldering fireplace, and as you awkwardly tried to sit down in the too-small chair Luna leaned on the table and turned to you.
”What precisely is your plan for all of this, or do you intend to simply read until you die again?” She asks.

You grunt giving up and deciding to just sit cross-legged on the floor and turn to her. You dropped the pile of old newspapers down on your right and started reading through the first one.
“Right. We are going to check the Newspaper archives. We know that I appeared here fifty-seven years ago or thereabouts, so we'll read the 943 PLB local papers and see if we can find any weird mention of a stallion by the name of Brightsmile appearing from nowhere," You explain. "Celestia's diary mentioned that anything that bore my name changed to... Whatever my name changes to."

"We see. And because your appearance would've been rather noteworthy, and likely reported, reading it back now would make it seem mundane, and confusing as to why it was even a story," Luna explains, nodding her head. She watches you scanning the newspaper from left to right.

She blinks, realising something profound.
"This is going to be absurdly boring, isn't it?" She asks, sighing.

You nod.
"Probably one of the most boring things I have ever done or will ever do."

Luna smiles to herself.
"We are not so certain. We have seen you at the royal court barely standing up straight. Once you adopted the fashion of monocles at the time, only so that you could draw an image of a waking eye upon it and go to sleep. Forgetting, in an instant, that you snore in your sleep," She explains with a smirk. "Or that like most things, you close both eyes in your sleep."

You smirk.
"You watched me sleep?" You retort.

Luna scoffed.
"We are the Princess of the Night. Watching people sleep is half of our duty."

You turn the page, scanning the headlines. Apparently, an unusually large watermelon was considered page 4 news.
"This will go a lot quicker if you help," You mention.

Luna opens her mouth as if to argue, then shrugs and admits your point.
"We suppose. We shall take the latter half of the year, you take the front," Luna orders.

You awaken.
And fuck, does everything fucking hurt.
“Arggh! Son of a!” You scream at the top of your lungs, writhing on the ground.

”What the heck!” Some voice screams, not that you care to notice. For now, you ignore that foreign light voice while your body feels like its being stitched back together, one sinew and muscle at a time. Behind all the pain and the ringing in your ears, you hear the pitter-patter of footsteps and something touch you. The moment that gentle touch reaches out to you the pain seems to leave your body. You realise you are face down on a wooden floor.

You take a few seconds to catch your breath, still twitching and feeling the odd stab of pain in your limbs, but it was nothing to what it felt like just a few seconds before.
“Little help?” You ask.

The touch of... You hesitate to call it a hand, leaves your back and instead grabs one of your arms and weakly tries to heft you up, succeeding only in pulling at your shirt.

You roll your eyes and push your hands against the floor and heave, launching your body off the floor. You stumble back onto your feet and fully take in your surroundings.

Standing before you is a tiny lime green pony, who looks half terrified and half curious at your current state. Its giant eyes boring into your soul. You stand there, in shocked silence, for a few moments. And then the creature opens its mouth.
”What are you?” it asks, its feminine voice full of awe.

You feel rather less awe and rather more shock.
“Holy shit. A talking horse!” You shout.

The pony cocks her head, confused.
”Horse?” it asks, apparently offended by the accusation of being, well, a bigger version of itself.

You step back from the creature, hyperventilating, desperately looking around the shabby, old looking apartment.
“Hey hey hey... Where the fuck am I?”

It took a few minutes for the 'Mare', or 'Gleamshine' as she was apparently called, to calm you down enough to hear her out. From what you could gather in between spouts of hyperventilating and sipping on beer to calm your nerves, you were somewhere called 'Manehatten' in the Country of "Equestria".

Currently, you were shaking on her couch in her creaky wooden apartment apparently near the docks of the city, having appeared as if by magic in her room

”Can I ask you a few questions?” She asks.

You turn to the inquisitive pony, looking up at you with her enormous brown eyes. Honestly, you were the one with a trillion burning questions, like "What the fuck are you?" and "What the fuck?" and variations upon that theme. But she asked first, it'd be rude to interrupt.

“...Sure," you cautiously respond.

”What are you?” She asks, her soft voice full of genuine curiosity.

You sigh as you take another sip of beer to calm yourself down.
“I'm a human being. Do they not have men like me in this place?”

The cute tiny horse shakes her head.

“Well... fuck.”

Keeping your eyes open, after nearly 12 hours inside this dark library, was a rather tall ask. Your stomach grumbled, demanding that you eat. You ignored it. You could skip a few meals if it meant getting to the bottom of this, somehow.

You place that newspaper on the finished pile, looking up to check on Luna while you do so. She is firmly asleep, head down in what you believe is the September 17th edition of the Manehatten Herald. Either it was a particularly boring edition of what you had actually found to be a rather amusing newspaper or even Princesses of the Night needed to sleep.

This wasn't her fight. Her past. Waking her up would be selfish on your part, demanding she sacrifices something to help you.

Even so, you couldn't help but rub the scar on your cheek, left from a slice of an astral tail. Maybe you should get your own back, demand your pound of flesh from her.

Or maybe that was Nightmare moon, and not the sleeping pony who had been basically pressganged into being your chaperone until you died.
Perhaps she thought one thousand years in the moon would be kinder.

Pushing the shadows from your thoughts, you grabbed the next unread newspaper, sighed, and continued to read. April 10th, 943 PLB.
The front-page headline was about a series of bank robberies, the same as the previous day's news. You sighed, scanning quickly, then turned the page.

"Crocodiles in Sewers demand representation on local council, say "At least we aren't the turtle lobby""

"Strange, bizarre normal pony appears in apartment, befuddled scientists amazed by normal pony"

Now that was interesting.

“I think I've found it,” You whisper to yourself, smiling.

Having apparently heard you, Luna drags her head off the table, her horn piercing a fifty-year-old newspaper. She trots tiredly around to your shoulder and exhaustedly places her head on your shoulder to look over it. You gently pull the newspaper off her horn and point to the other one in your hand.
“Right here. A shame I'm relegated to page 3 but...”

You begin to read the article for her, pretty sure she was in no state to read.

Yesterday, a young homeowner by the name of Gleamshine reported to us that a Stallion by the name of Brightsmile suddenly appeared in her room. The Stallion is described as having four hooves, standing at four feet high and is fully capable of speech. Biologists from across Equestria have stated their intent to study the perfectly normal stallion, but he and Gleamshine have requested that he has some time to get used to the city.

The black and white photo was of a young mare beaming happily and a slightly confused Stallion standing next to her. Strangely, the framing of the photo suggested it was taking a photo of a taller figure.

You stared at the image, right into the eyes of that stallion. It was black and white, and very grainy, you could not work out the colour of his eyes, or if it looked like the portrait hanging up at Canterlot.

Luna broke the silence, her right eye turning slightly to look at you.
”Hearing these obviously edited words is a strange experience.”

You nod.
“Tell me about it.”

”So. We know the date you, uh, he? Brightsmile? Your past life...” Luna mumbles, trailing off.

Frowning, you realise the question she wants to ask but isn't.
“Just call him me or Brightsmile, it will make talking about this a lot easier.”

Luna lifts her head off your shoulder and trots back to her own chair.
”We know the date that Brightsmile appeared. How does that help you?” She asks, studying your expression.

You grit your teeth and think on this for a few seconds.
To be honest, this whole trip idea had been just to get...

Wait.
“Do you think this 'Gleamshine' might still be alive?” You ask.

You pass the paper over to Luna, who doesn't look overly amused.
”We don't know. Perhaps. Perhaps not. What does it...”

”We need to find her. Find this place I appeared in over half a century ago," You explain excitedly.

”Right... And why will that help you?” She asks, clearly not following.

“Better than anyone else, even Celestia, if she's alive she'll know enough about me, Or the me as I was when I arrived here," I explained.

Luna looks at you strangely for a moment, a raised eyebrow on her face.
”That only happened to you. The, hmm, "you" you, a few weeks ago. Shouldn't you know the answer to that question yourself?" She asks.

You wince from the question, sigh, and look to her pleadingly.
“Can I ask you something?”

She pauses, then cautiously nods.
”...Perhaps.”

“Are you Nightmare Moon?”
Luna rolls her eyes at the question and a low growl forms in her throat.
”We told you. That was a foul spirit that...” She spits out.

“Is it? That's awfully convenient for you. To fog off your sins onto this malevolent spirit, this demon," You retort.

”And what of you Anonymous? Are you guilty of the crimes of these other lives? Was it you that betrayed us for our sister?” She barks, her eyes beginning to almost glow with hatred.

You laugh bitterly.
“Betrayed you as you sought to plunge the world into eternal darkness? Oh, what a foul crime," you reply, rolling your eyes.

”You betrayed our trust!” She shouts.

“Why did you even ask that of me? What possible reason did you have to ask a normal human to stay out of that conflict?” You ask.

”That was... To mean... Because that was Nightmare Moon. Not us!” She shouts, her voice wavering "We were long gone by that point, a prisoner in our own body!"

“Then how do I know I was really Brightsmile!” You shout. The words left your mouth before you could stop them. Before you could even think about the question you were actually asking.

Silence falls over the library once more, the logs crackling in the fireplace. You blink, running a hand through your hair.

Luna cocks her head.
”What... What do you mean?”

You sigh, then force a pained smile.
“I know I dream of it. Brightsmile. Nergúi or whoever. But I don't... Really know for certain if it's the same Anonymous reborn each time. I don't even know if Anon really existed before I came to this place," You try to explain.

Luna leans forwards slightly, genuine interest and slight confusion replacing her anger.

You swallow something in your throat, then continue.
“Right. So... So I have memories of my time before here right? But they are vague. I could tell you I had a mum and dad. I could tell you perhaps that I speak with an English accent. But I couldn't point out England on a map. Nor tell you the colour of my mother's hair," You explain, wincing as you do so. You hadn't been this honest with anyone.

“I... I don't think I could tell you who Anonymous is. He's a human, male, about 23 years old. But the rest... It's like there's a fog. If I am all these Anonymous' throughout history maybe... Maybe enough of them lived long enough to forget things. And once I start to forget... Maybe there's no way to get that back?" You ask, almost pleading with Luna for an answer, despite knowing for a fact she had none.

The concern grows on Luna's face as she leans slightly closer towards you.
”You don't remember before you came here?” She asks quietly.

“No. I do. I know I had a life before. I remember bits and pieces. A house. Snow. A dinner that I might have missed. But it's... It's like a dream," You reply. You cough slightly. “It's a big reason why I never held on too tight to the whole hallucination explanation for why I am here. Because this place feels more real than the place I think I came from.”

"This isn't a new thing. I think, even before I knew about Nergúi, and Brightsmile, I couldn't remember my past. I just didn't notice that it was all a fog. All gone. Ignored that I had no past, except for snippets," You explain.

The two of you sit there in solemn silence for a few moments.
”I can't remember much before I became Luna. Princess of the night," Luna says quietly. "I haven't much to hold onto in my past. There's a sister I loved once. A crown I bore with as much grace as I could. But the days and nights bleed into one another. I watched ponies live and die, and yet I remained. Lingered here, mostly unchanging."

“Is it that you just want to forget?” You ask. "About ponies who you have outlived? You have watched aged and decay?"

”Is that the case for you?” She asks in return.

The question makes you pause.
“I don't know. I want to remember. I want to know who I am. In this place. And in that... Other place," You say firmly. You hope.

Luna pauses, takes a deep breath, then nods.
”Then so do I. I want to hold onto what I have," She explains.

“Perhaps we shouldn't? Perhaps we should let go and just make new memories? And accept that when the time comes, we will just have to let those go as well?” You ask. "We can't hold onto the past forever. Both you and I are... Immortal, in our own way. You'll be yourself forever, and I'll be... Well, copied, again and again. Is it so bad? To just... Let go?"

For half a heartbeat, Luna considers the question. You can almost see the memories in the glint of her eyes, of those she had outlived, of the thousand years she had missed, of the faces she had forgotten. But she blinks, and the memories seem to fade.

”We owe it to those who remember us to try and hold on," She replies.

“Who really is that, at this point? Cadance remembers Brightsmile, according to Celestia's diary. And Celestia herself? Two people?" You ask.

"Celestia put her trust in us when nopony else did," Luna replied. "She believes we can be a better pony. We... I owe it to her, and myself, to prove her right to do so."

"Hmm."

Luna looks at you for a moment, chewing on something, then opens her mouth.
"Might we ask you a question, Anonymous? Quid pro quo?" She asks.

"Go on?"

"Why don't you... Why... Hmm..."
She pauses, apparently unable to decide how best to phrase her question.
"When we... Nightmare Moon, arrived. She captured you. You were only there because Celestia put you there, correct?" She asks.

"Yes."

"So what Nightmare did to you, that scar, those injuries, showing you your own previous death, that is partially Celestia's fault as well as... Hers?" Luna asks.

"...Yes."

"....Hmm," Luna replies.

"You have further questions, I can tell," You point out.

"Why don't you... You don't hate her? For putting you in danger? For almost trying to make you into Brightsmile again?" Luna asks.

You shake your head, trying to force a cheerful smile.
"Why would I..." You pause.

"I'm... Even before I knew about this reincarnation thing, there's a... calling, in me. The call of the void, or l’appel du vide in... some language I can't even remember the name of. An undeniable urge to fling myself into the way of danger, to seek it out. Something scratching at the back of my mind," You explain, your voice growing more and more excited with every word. "I wasn't afraid. I was... I felt alive."

Luna looks at you with a fearful expression.
"Those... That sounds like suicidal thoughts, Anonymous."

You wave off her concern.
"Hardly. I just don't care if I die. Either then or now."

That does little to console her.
"That's no better. That's actually the same thing, we believe," Luna points out.

"No, no no no," You insist. "I can't hold it against her. Without her putting me there, I'd never know about this. Could you imagine? I'd have lived this whole life not knowing that when I die, I'll get to unknowingly experience it all over again! I get to be here for the rest of my existence! I get to stay here forever! I GET to live, and die, and live, and die over, and over again!" You shout. "Never ceasing! Never stopping! I have no past to tie me down, no future to care about! I am free!"

You pant, catching your breath.

"You're..." She mumbles.

You look down and noticed your hand gripping the edge of the table in a death grip. You peal your hand away, shaking it to get the blood flowing again.
"I think I always knew that this was happening to me. The moment I woke up, just a month or so ago, I think I knew that nothing I did would be remembered. That I will die, and be forgotten, and live again. I can die a thousand times, and I'll just keep coming back. Death means nothing to me. I can be stabbed, gutted by a laser, tortured. And it'll all be forgotten."

Luna stares at you in abject terror for nearly half a minute, watching you simply breathe in and out, staring right back at her.

"If Celestia hadn't put me there, if you hadn't shown up, I'd likely have never truly known about this. I'd be like the rest of them. Living their lives, so sure of their finality. Only able to console themselves that their only immortality will be to be remembered for, at best, maybe 200 years if I was anything special. Now?" You ask smugly.

You squint your right eye, holding back the tear.
"Now?" You ask, curiously. You swallow something as the tear falls, travelling down your scarred cheek. "Now?"

"Anonymous?" Luna asks.

You place your head in your hands, holding it there for a few moments. You aren't going to cry, that's pathetic.
"I can't blame her for doing that. Because it doesn't matter."

Luna grimaces slightly.
"That she put you there? Or your... Or your life?" Luna asks.

"Yeah," You reply. You smack the table loudly. "We have a name of the mare who first saw me. We've got to find out if she's still alive and kicking. Gleamshine. Maybe the city's tax archives?"

You stand up, pushing your chair back as you do so and make to move out of the little corner of the library you had been camping in for the last twelve hours. You felt alive, full of energy and purpose.

Until she spoke.
"What will you do, when you find out?" Luna asks.

You turn to her.
"Huh?"

"When you found out about Brightsmile, what will you do?" Luna asks. She looks perturbed at something for a second, then shakes her head. "Actually, what do you think this will accomplish?"

You look at her like it's obvious.
"I will learn why I am reincarnating, and remember where I came from? Duh?" you reply, as if that wasn't perfectly clear.

"Alright. What happens when you die?" She asks.

"Bit personal?" You ask.

"Who are you, Anonymous? What do you actually want?" Luna asks as she stands up from the chair, her teal eyes boring into you as she looks up.

"Ah. You're trying that on me huh? So you do remember being Nightmare Moon?" You ask.

Luna takes a step forward.
"Why are you here? Why are you throwing your time and energy at remembering who you were? For what gain?" Luna asks firmly. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

You smile at her, but it does not reach your eyes.
"I don't know, Luna. I know what you are asking. Even if I remember who I was, I'll just forget it all over again when I die. If I don't do something, I'll just wake up, screaming in pain, ready to do this all over again. And I don't want to do that again. Whatever it takes."

You pick up the newspapers, putting them into a single large pile, then turn on your feet and head towards the exit.

You can hear that Luna is staying still, watching you leave.
After a long minute, she slowly begins to follow after you.