Try Not to Destroy Everything you Love
I am no longer moved. I move, certainly, and move others; but I am not moved. There is no awe, no silent rapture left to catch fire in the light of the new day. As I tread through hock-high grass and stand atop a ridge I once stood upon a lifetime ago, nothing within me moves or changes. Did I expect it to? Did I want it to? These are questions I cannot answer but must ask regardless, questions that pin themselves to my eyelids when I sleep.
I dreamt of this place the day before I found these photographs laying in the dusty corner of an old hope chest. We—the guards and I—had just finished dragging it in after convincing an old collector to part with it. I used my personal funds, of course; no need to involve the kingdoms coffers in an affair of pointless vanity. Most of it was meaningless tat, gifts from creatures who had died centuries ago. Some of it was valuable in the historic sense: a few first and second-edition works that would help the scholars who studied Old Equestria greatly.
The item I found most valuable was a plain oak box. That it survived at all was a testament to the wood it had been hewn from. Inside it were six photographs. Six photographs of me, from varying distances, taken at different places and different times of day. Unremarkable to most but to me they were priceless. Not much of me survived my banishment and to hold these in my magic, these fragile pieces of cardstock, were proof that I ever lived before this age at all.
In my dream this was a more remarkable experience. In my dream I felt at peace, as if I had arrived on home soil after years away. There was an understanding in my dream that I have been chasing my entire life. As the sun crested the horizon and I stood illuminated in its steadily pooling fire I knew myself for the first time in my life.
There was nothing like that here. Just the sound of the wind moving across the rolling hills and shady valleys that stretched out before me. I searched for meaning in the clouds and the wildflowers that clung to the cliff. I found nothing. I did not stay for long. Living with the void forced an understanding of the futile, a powerful urge to cut one's losses.
I would try again tomorrow. I had nothing to lose.
—
I am several things, all at once, all distinct in the form they take in my mind. I am bathed in the pale light of the moon. I am seeing Canterlot from outside its walls at an elevation and distance I rarely experience. I am, if my sight serves me right, roughly eye level with one of the windows in the lower part of our castle. I believe I can see the plume of a guard’s helmet from here but I know my eyes play tricks on me.
I am cold but not unbearably so. It is a pleasant chill, the heat of the summer sun rolling off of my coat and into the cool earth that I sit on. The grass is slightly damp, moondew clinging to the short sweetgrass that covers the hillsides outside of Canterlot. I am grateful for the ability to feel this moment, to have experienced the heat of this season and the relief that comes when the sun is laid to slumber.
Looking out at the moon I become uncomfortably aware of the curvature of the world around me. It is a feeling I can stifle most days but tonight it makes itself known in my mind. I realize my unique perspective may be valuable to some but the reality of our world makes me sick. I was, or believe I was, much happier when I knew less. The moon and I spoke for far too long about far too much for me to ever return to anything approaching that blissful ignorance.
I am, above all else, empty. Did this used to bring me joy? Did this tug at my heartstrings at some point; gazing out upon the towering mountains that were only then starting to foster delicate pony life? I remember the way the little lights they burned to stay warm would flicker from this far. I don’t remember anything else about this moment. I don’t think it would matter if I did.
—
I would be lying if I said that I did not enjoy the occasional quiet walk in the forests of Equestria. Deep in the throes of the night I feel safe and sheltered. Is this how my sister feels, striding into the light of the rising sun? Is this how Twilight feels when she walks into a warm room, the voices of her friends rising to greet her? To mention nothing of Cadance, surrounded always by the splendor of love. Why is it that the moon is such a solitary body?
Why? Why was I destined to orbit, to hang in thrall to the body of another, to act as an imperfect mirror for another's light? What does the moon need a Princess for at all? Love and Friendship are admirable qualities. Beyond admirable! It is upon these two that the whole of pony society is built. It is no wonder that they would have champions, standard bearers to mark to all of ponykind the grand wonders of their aspect.
The sun shines so bright it would only stand to reason that it needs a lens, a carefully carved piece of glass sitting high above it all to focus its idle rays into something with presence beyond meaningless heat and light. The sun is a pivot upon which the whole of our lives revolves. It is the growth and the harvest, it is wake and slumber. It is known to me the way my body tugs at the tides, the way it pulls the fortune of ponies here and there, and none of it feels like it matters.
Even out here, where the moon is my only audience, I do not think she matters. She does not think I matter. We are distant acquaintances. It is not solely in the light of the moon that ponies dream and it is not solely in the dark that the world cools. There is no part of me that requires her presence in my life and yet here she sits, dangling from a gossamer thread in the inky black of space, full and ripe with the promise of endless possibilities.
I have walked on her surface. There is more to see in one square yard of Equestria than there is on the entirety of the moon.
—
I was flying when my mother passed. Or I must have been, at least, as I recall alighting in the castle gardens and being immediately set upon by my sister and her aides, swathed in cloaks of sorrow. I remember being spirited into the room where she died and holding her hoof, her body having gone near completely cold.
I remember feeling bitter with her at first, for a brief moment. I remember being far more bitter at the world that told me my mother could die while I could not. This feeling persisted for far longer than a moment and even now still comes to haunt me at times. It is a difficult feeling to shake. There are a great many injustices in the world; grievous violations of personal autonomy that should not go without swift retribution. Is this not one such violation? Am I not deserved the recompense of dying, of being buried next to the mare who brought me into this world?
To be a princess is to be a tool before anything else. I am the way the moon moves through the world, an avatar of its size and shape. I am not a pony. I once was a pony — a pegasus. That is why I was flying. I was trying to deny the part of me that fostered my unicorn horn. I wanted no part of its parasitism. I considered it a sickly growth that I could outrun if I flew fast enough, a feat I could never accomplish.
I have been flying a lot for these past few days. I stop and rest wherever I can, in whatever town I manage to find in between these sparse locations. The Luna who had her picture taken back then clearly had more time than the Luna now as I have already sacrificed a week to this pilgrimage, an amount of time I fear is already too much. The townsfolk I have met have been nothing but helpful. On one occasion, they directed me to exactly the spot I was looking for in the picture.
I shift my balance and the tip of my wing catches against the jetstream and I begin my descent to a small hill town. I’ve heard good things from two towns over about their beet and potato stew. It is these moments that I’ve come to enjoy more than recreating the photos themselves. It is a pleasant reminder that there’s so much life sewn into the seams of Equestria and all of it is worth cherishing. I allow myself to smile.
—
This one. This bewilders me, which is a greater sum of feeling than any of these braindead errands yet. This picture describes a place some thousands of miles away from any meaningful landmark. Who took these photographs and why? I do not recall the wanderlust that must’ve come over me to convince me to stray so far from the safety of home. A teenager does strange things, I suppose, and stranger still when the teenager knows she will never die.
I think, looking back through millennia of dust, that I remember this moment. I remember feeling small the way I think the ponies do. Small in a way a goddess like me should not and on that day I think something in me changed. I did not want to feel small. I wanted to feel like the moon, a silent and vigilant watcher over the world that light forgets. I wanted to exist in myth and myth alone. In a way, part of me got that wish.
It is always a part. There is never the whole of me that is satisfied. I am too many creatures trying to live too many lives to ever be happy with the outcome fate delivers me. There are times where the night leaves me and my bedroom falls away, when I stare facing the void and nothing else that I consider excising the parts of me that shake off any attempt at contentment. I believed once that somewhere within Equestria there must be a blade sharp enough or a cliffside tall enough to rid me of this burdensome mind. Experience tells me this is not true.
So here I am sitting on a hillside overlooking the mountains that span the western side of Equestria, thinking yet again about a blade wet with the blood of the moon. I am alone. I have been alone every time this thought crossed my mind. For once in my life, however, I am not lonely. I do not strain to think of another pony who thinks positively of me. I am, for all the vile parts of me that writhe and strain against my soul, loved.
I look out at the moonwashed mountainside and feel that maybe the moon and I are closer than I once believed. I hope she thinks the same.
—
The setting sun is behind me and I can feel its rays grasping at the nebulae that stain my mane, trying desperately to pierce the dark veil of swirling starstuff. The warmth is not lost on me even if the rays die before they truly grace my coat. I exalt in this feeling, in the splitting of day by the axehead of the night. The rest of the night exalts with me, the bats and owls and other nocturnal souls stirring as the sun finally dips below the ridgeline.
The Luna in this picture was turned away from the camera as if distracted. I do not know by what, as the shape of this place has scarcely changed in the thousand years spent vacant. I struggle to picture any changes in another thousand years. It’s hard to say, really. Maybe in a thousand years there will be a different Luna, compelled to retrace my steps to try and forge some futile connection between the two.
Time, I have decided, is a bridge. Most ponies work on that bridge day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. They do not realize they are working on the bridge until one day it is built and they can finally walk across. I have no bridge. I have the foundations, the abandoned struts sunk into the mire of the riverbed, but nothing to walk across. I simply woke one day to find myself on the other side, faced with the carcass of a structure I was meant to build.
These pictures. I had hoped they would be fresh planks in this project. I had hoped they would contribute in some way to understanding the mare I used to be. I pictured, as I was flying out here, another me standing on the other end of the bridge. I thought that maybe we could lay the planks together. Together! We could’ve built something grand. The truth is there is no other me working towards anything greater. I did not choose to make this leap but I still must face the consequences.
The moon is waning, a slim crescent in the sky. I appreciate the light that she gives me. It is the torch I point towards the past and it is her rays that illuminate the vast stretches of empty space between memories. Fitting, isn’t it? I was born swathed in the space between stars so it only suits me to lose myself within them.
—
There is no moonlight. There is no breeze, nothing to move me beyond the standstill I have reached. I’m standing here, having traced my hoofsteps through five pictures and now I am faced with the sixth. It is a cottage, light seeping through the door jamb and out of the window. The candlelight cut through the moonless night, proof positive that somepony lived there.
The cottage is empty. I remember it. Differently, but I remember it. I remember more than I would care to admit. I remember standing with rapturous awe as the moon lowered itself to hover scant inches off the ground. She made herself known to me for the first time that night and I knew nothing would ever be the same. I remember the quiet tinge of fear that entered my mother’s eyes as I celebrated the moon mark that emblazoned my flank.
I did not see the fear when I was young, of course. I only saw the soft smile of a loving mother, the stoic care of a solitary mare. Now it is as plain as day. The lens of time obscures much but it has chosen to reveal to me this much at least. I remember her pain and I remember mine starting too. Did I know then? Did any of us know of the burden we would be expected to carry?
How cruel the world must be to saddle a foal with immortality. How cruel the world must be to split apart an already fractured family, to sentence two sisters to watch their mother die as they remain frozen in time. How cruel the world must be to bind one sister to the other’s reflection, to watch as she grows bitter and resentful. How cruel a world to let time continue while she is chained to the emptiness she sought to escape.
How appropriate that I shall meet the emptiness again then. The cottage is empty. The night air is empty. My saddlebags are empty now, overturned to spill six photographs onto the grass. The night is lit for a moment by a brilliant flash of pale blue as they go up in magical smoke. I turn and fly away, satisfied with the emptiness I found.
