Gaze Turned Skyward

"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small." -Neil Armstrong

I like to go back to the moon sometimes, not because I feel like punishing myself, but because I enjoy the silence. The peace. It's calming. I lay in my crater, the one I spent one thousand years in: it gave a fabulous view of the planet as well. I sat here for all those years...watching each day pass, watching each continent, ocean, and island drift passed me in an endless loop. Each day, week, year, decade, and century passed by seamlessly, the planet below not even showing any sign of exhaustion.

It made me think. When I was down there, a goddess among ponies, I felt bigger than the world. I could move the moon with no effort, I could sentence ponies to their death with just a few words....but up here..I was so small. The solid white rock below my hooves felt as though it would swallow me whole, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I felt powerless here, and I liked it.

This space, filled with so many mysteries and wonder, even to me. It enthralled me, illuminated my thoughts to possibilities of a bright future of discovery and intellectual enlightenment. I could raise my hoof, and blot out the whole planet below, most would think me a giant, I thought myself a speck in this world. My problems, my whole existence, could be blotted out by a hoof, by a single movement. It brought a feeling of immense insignificance upon me every time I thought about it.

That was why I often came up here. To remind me that, no matter how bad my problems seemed, no matter how big they were to me....the universe could not be bothered to notice me more than I could not be bothered to notice the problems of an ant or a speck of dust.

I realize that few, maybe no ponies after me, will be able to feel this way. No pony will ever be in my position and see the world the way I see it....and it saddens me. I try to convince my sister that it would be beneficial to fund studies for arcane spells that would aid in space travel, or even help normal ponies go to the moon....and she denies me. She says it serves no purpose and it would cost too much.

I can explain the way I feel all day, but explanation can only do so much. The only way to truly understand...is to see. Is to explore. But the spirit of exploration is stifled, choked by ignorance and fear.

My hoofprints stain the dirt of this place, forever imprinted on the physical memory of the pristine dust and rocks that may never see the likes of other ponies, or it will, but only after I am long gone and incapable of seeing what I helped accomplish.

I disobeyed my sister the other day, though. I brought her student up here with me, protected her with an ancient spell, one only Tia and I know, one that would be dangerous if in the wrong hooves. Twilight Sparkle, the first time she visited the moon, was in awe. She wanted to study everything: the rocks, the dust, the gravity, and the stars above. She did not want to look at the earth, though. She tossed the visage of the seemingly tiny planet away as if it was a book she had read a thousand times over. All I felt was sadness for a strange reason. I had always wanted to bring another being up here and marvel at the moon with them, but now...something was different. She was focusing on where she was, not where she had been and the drive and years of planning that let her arrive here.

It was a hollow feeling. But I forgave her, it takes time to appreciate the past in order to see the future. After all, in my mind, just her being here was a small step for a pony, but a giant leap for ponykind.

I brought Twilight Sparkle up to the moon for over 20 years, then she got tired of it. She became bored with the same landscape, the same thing every time. She wanted to go to the purgatory between the planet and the moon, she wanted to take a step back, reverse the progress I pushed for.

So...for the next 20 years, I took her to the empty space over the earth, She sent a few lifeless projections of her form beyond the moon, where they did what they were programmed to do..but they lacked the curiosity and wonder of real ponies, of true minds. It was a hollow gesture, it mocked my work and my life, it only served to sadden me further. Because I expected, by the end of the century, we would have achieved so much more: Bringing other ponies up, starting true research on the moon and trying to expand our borders into space, but my sister was fine with letting just her student up there. Twilight's mind lacked the true wonder that was needed to appreciate the space, not scientific ones that only seek to gain technologies for the planet below for closed minds.

Perhaps...my work was ahead of its time. perhaps ponies are not ready to expand, to closed minded to see the sky as marvelous and ready for our touch. Perhaps its better that I part from this world, so that my teachings may be remembered fondly and looked upon as something all ponies to aspire to.

I know what I want to be remembered by, I know what I want on my headstone when my life finally passes.

"It is said that she was steward to the stars, but she did not grace them with her presence. They graced her and illuminated all of ponykind with their divine presence. May the stars hold the future, and may the future hold prosperity."

I felt like I needed to write something for Neil Armstrong...even if this isn't good, it's something. The world lost a hero, may we complete his vision of man spreading to the stars and thriving.