I wonder, as I dangle here, heart racing and mouth dry, whether I have ever told you the story of how I came to move the moon? Of course, sister, it’s a story you know well. Perhaps better than I do. But I wonder whether I have ever told it to you personally.
Because no story is ever totally the same between who tells it. What is a story without that which only they who lived it can add? Their fears, their insecurities, their blood and mind and secret things woven into the words, that they might allow another to live in their skin if only for a second.
I pull myself onto the ledge gradually, gritting my teeth and blinking saline perspiration from my eyes. The thought occurs that I have made no plans for what I should do if I were to fall. I could, of course, simply use my wings. But the thought of using such magics in a place like this feels blasphemous.
Should someone gain what I hope to gain if they are not prepared to toil? Would my cowardice rule me, and I would float on these wings? Like a leaf caught on some errant breeze? Or would I have the honour enough to be smashed on the rocks below, and have to slowly reknit my ruined form in agony and misery both?
But the thought resolves itself without need for such pressured introspection, as I am able to pull myself to safety without my wings. However, I still ponder whether I have cheated you for overcoming without the pain of either falling or knowing how unworthy I am.
No, I don’t think I ever told you the story myself, sister. I feel like I owe you that much.
But the problem is that there isn’t really much to tell, to be honest. I could tell you that I climbed a tower, and that I struggled climbing that tower. But is that really a story worth telling? Is it worth saying how I pulled myself, stubbornly refusing to light horn or stretch wing, to some far calling force just because of some foolish conception of pride?
Because that’s not really the story, is it?
Celestia had controlled the sun for years before I too could reach out to the heavens. We had wandered the land for longer than I could remember, revelling in the joy of being nomads without responsibility. But when we finally came of age, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years behind us, and decided to settle as regents, she lit up one day in the palace gardens.
It was like a supernova. I thought I was going to die. I confess I dream about it often. Hundreds of life-ages behind me and not once had I ever thought that lift would end. But then, in that moment, there was something intoxicating about the reminder that maybe not even we had escaped mortality.
But then the lights dimmed, and her mane was a flurry of colours, her limbs longer and more slender, and her flank adorned with the sun that she had always loved since the moment we came into this world.
And doesn’t that make sense?
Ponies have always loved the sun, and they have always loved my sister too. It’s effortless. The sun is the lifegiver, the mother, banisher of fear and cold. The sun doesn’t need to try. Long ago it had earned the right to its inheritance. The love and dedication of all who wander the earth. It just shone, and ponies worshipped it because it deserved to be worshipped.
Just like Celestia.
I take a breath, and begin to scale the final part of the tower. The very last precipice before I could see it all. The wall is rough, uneven; it mattes my coat and nicks my skin, leaving tiny poems written in god’s papercuts. I push through it. I leave horn unlit and wing unstretched. I snarl.
I toil.
Where Celestia’s divinity was always god-given, heaven-sent, mine came through toil. And I am ashamed to admit I resented her once. I had to work at being godlike. Every shine was something I learned from her, every light I brought to the world felt just like her reflecting off me. But only a fool scorns the sun for shining, or tries to ape that shine so she too can be sun-like. Some mortal mare stealing fire from the heavens to bolster herself.
Was it any wonder that I ended up loving you, sister? With your second-hand light from the sun and your guard over the dark and cold? Your watch of the times where ponies flee and hide. Every moment of love you experience is from toil. From the agony of tempting out some intrepid traveler to bathe and play in your silver tendrils, in the hopes they might realise that borrowed lights can be just as sweet.
So that is why I won’t tell you the story of my climbing a tower, sister moon. Whether it be then or now. Because if anyone knows toil, it is you, and you need no further tales of foolish mortal mares and their misguided jealousy of the sun. That is why instead, I will tell you the real reason I came to reach out to you. The real reason I made the climb in the first place.
Because I was never given the night. I came to love you through toil. When my other sister would shine in the day, I would look out at you when everyone else was sleeping. And soon, did I come out into those palace gardens where Celestia once shone so hard, and bask in the lights you work so hard to comfort us all with at night.
I shake off my regalia, the metal makes it harder to climb. I push myself further to the top. My belly is cut, my hooves are worn and bleeding. I am so close now.
I came to love you, sister moon, because you understood me. I could fly up to the top of this place with barely a thought. But what would give me the right now? What would have given me the right then? I had toiled my whole life to shine even a tenth of what my sister can. So too did you always struggle. So what right did I have to destroy that bond between us and use what was heaven sent to steal that view?
Because that is the truth of it, sister. I never ascended this place in search of any godhood, nor for the mastery of your arc in the sky. I only climbed, revelling in the toil we shared, because I saw that there was a tower. And I love you so much, sister moon, that all I wanted was to be closer to you. So that maybe I could reach out and caress your face as Celestia does mine?
I climbed this tower, thousands of years ago, simply for a gaze of the view. The majesty of my new form and power imbued was simply a consolation prize. Because nothing could compare to the view.
And whatever happens when I finally reach the top again, I will make my peace. Even if I stay lesser, a stunted version of a mare who came to truly earn that godhood and sisterhood with someone who can really understand, then that will be just fine.
After I was sent away to slumber in your arms, I always thought that Celestia would have inherited the power to guide you through the aether. But it turns out, she never did. You simply carried on, as if I were still pushing you. I wonder whether you did that for her, to comfort her with some borrowed after-light of my presence, that the memory of happy times could still safeguard her dreams as I did once?
I wonder whether, instead, you did it for me?
She told ponies it was her who moved the moon after they forgot me. She did that so they wouldn’t think I stole you when I came back. That they wouldn’t think me trespassing on their moon. I laughed when she told me, and kissed away the tears that had begun to decorate her perfect coat.
How like the sun, to think such things? Her shine is beautiful, overwhelming, I sometimes wonder whether it blocks her view.
Because I know, sister, that most of the ponies here are simple, shallow creatures. And they wouldn’t care what happens to the guard of the times where they hide in their homes. And anyone who did? Anyone who had come to love you as I do, sister, to bathe in your borrowed silver lights?
I knew they’d understand that no mare could simply steal you away.
They’d know it could only be a mare who had to work at it.
I finally pull myself to the top of the tower and, like all those years ago, I barely notice myself change. I could care less for the subtle glow of white and silver as I grow, as my mane deepens and is flecked with the symphony of shimmers from a billion galaxies, as my limbs become slender and graceful. I barely even notice the tug of your presence, as I can finally guide your dance through the sky again.
None of this seems material compared to the view. How I can count every crater and ocean of shade on your beautiful face. How I can see the sheer infinite wonder of the sea you float in. A sea I sail but can never truly fathom.
My re-earned godhood is a distant star compared to the full majesty of the moon, and I care so little for it right now. I only care that I’m closer to you again, that your borrowed lights could light my way to become something better than I was before. That the fire of my love for you, sister, could burn so brightly that it might incinerate myself and tower both.
But, of course, it is a willing burn.
I sit, and drink in the sights. A part of me hopes that you enjoyed my story, dear sister. But, as I said, I think you knew it all already. I think you likely knew it better than I could ever fathom myself.
But the biggest part of me simply hopes you don’t mind if I stay a little while longer, sister moon, and enjoy the view once again.
