Luna lay in bed, trying to will herself to fall asleep. This wasn’t a problem that a former princess of the night should have, but Luna liked to believe that insomnia was a natural reaction for ponies who were overdue to confront their fears head-on.
Literally speaking, it wasn’t a “now or never” situation; more of a “Now, or the day after Hearth’s warming, or maybe next year, or possibly never” situation. But putting off these sort of things was never healthy, and putting it off for...how long had it been? Ten years?...was asking for trouble. Trouble she’d had to deal with once, and that nopony should have to deal with again.
The dark ceiling loomed over her, expecting nothing and demanding nothing. Would it be easier or harder to sleep if the walls could talk, if they demanded she shut her eyes until she covered her ears with a pillow just to muffle the noise? Probably not. But the alternative was being left alone with her thoughts, waiting for a slumber that might not overtake her.
With a sigh, Luna peeled off the blankets on her body and picked up the photograph lying on her chest. A pony who wasn’t accustomed to looking at things in darkness, much less the former princess of the night, might have had trouble making out the image. But to Luna, the photo was clear as day: her and Celestia—Princess Celestia, back then—helping hang garlands in the halls of Canterlot Castle. Well, Celestia did most of the hanging, really — and most of the laughing and smiling, too. But Luna thought that she looked cheerful enough, despite having been ferociously tired after a long night of dreamwatching.
It was a good picture. A good memory. Luna rested the photo on her chest again and pulled the blankets over her, trying to keep the memory of their smiling faces in mind as she counted backwards from one hundred.
By sixty, she felt her eyelids beginning to droop. By thirty-five, she felt them slide completely shut.
By the time Luna’s eyelids slid open again, the room was gone.
In its place was a tiny little islet: a pocket of sanctuary, detached from any vaster stretch of land that might once have been seen by civilization. This time, evening flowers loomed above her — flowers as big as palm trees, glowing richly in the moonlight as their petals slowly swayed in a warm and gentle breeze. On the islet, tiny blossoms grew around her on a rich bed of grass; around her, water flowed slowly from a vast stream. Home, or one of immeasurable multitudes: any dream was a place for her to rest and linger in, should she so choose, and she committed the more pleasant dreams to memory so she could return to them whenever she nodded off. This islet was one of her favorite places to rest when she wanted to be alone.
It was a shame that she might have to ruin it. It was a shame these sensations - the tickle of grass under her legs, the soft burble of slowly flowing water - might have to be tainted by the events to possibly come. But if she didn’t think that her current goal was more important than the aesthetics of a dream, she wouldn’t have come here at all.
Luna pried her forehoof away from her chest and looked at the picture again. Her horn glowed blue as she used magic to lift it into the air, then rolled over and stood up to take the picture in her hoof again. Even in a dream, it looked just as it did when she was awake, and Luna couldn’t help but smile.
Then her smile faded. Luna lowered the photo and stared out over the stream’s depths, past the moon’s illuminating glow and deeper into the gloom. She took a deep breath, exhaled and said a single word:
“Tantabus.”
Silence.
“Tantabus, show yourself.” Luna kept her voice even, not daring to let a single drop of weakness linger in her words as she stared into the darkness. “I know you’re here.”
After a second of silence, the darkness responded.
It wasn’t safe to say that the intrusion into Luna’s dream emerged from the water, or that it appeared from thin air. Yet it oozed forth all the same from somewhere between the water and the wind, dribbling out of its surroundings like indigo saliva before coalescing again and standing upright: a star-speckled void in a shape not unlike her own, its featureless face staring back at her with unspoken intensity.
A lump formed in the pit of Luna’s stomach. The preamble she’d prepared for this conversation died in her throat, leaving behind only a single, stilted word.
“Hello.”
The Tantabus did not respond.
“...Look, this would be easier if you said something” Luna snapped. “Can you talk?”
“Yes.”
Luna froze. That the Tantabus could somehow speak clearly without a visible mouth wasn’t unsurprising — Luna had seen an uncountable number of dreams with far less lucidity — but she was expecting the Tantabus to have a fluted, piping tone, or a bassy rumble, or an alien warble utterly different from any language spoken in Equestria. But it wore her voice instead — wore it like a pony squeezing into another pony’s ill-fitting saddle, with the tone and inflections both a perfect replica of her own and fundamentally wrong.
“Then why aren’t you saying anything?” Luna replied.
“I have nothing to say.”
“Oh.”
Only by the faint whistle of an equally faint breeze broke the following silence.
“Look,” Luna said. “You understand why I stopped seeing you, right? Why I banished you from my thoughts?”
“You believed that I would endanger what you hold dear.” The Tantabus’s tone remained utterly neutral.
“You would. I-I mean, you did! I’m not being unreasonable! You know that, don’t you?”
The Tantabus did not respond. Luna’s cheeks flushed, though even she didn’t know whether it was out of frustration or embarrassment. After seconds of silence, though, she cleared her throat and began again.
“I’m no longer a princess. I retired. Tia retired. Her student’s running everything now. Twil — Princess Twilight Sparkle — has taken over our duties. To be honest, I don’t know how she’s managing to do everything all at once, or if she has help, or…”
Silence.
“The point is,” Luna pressed on, “I don’t have an entire country relying on me anymore. I only have to worry about myself, and I can take care of myself. I know what you are and how to overcome you, and I’m not scared of you anymore. I’m not.”
Silence.
“So I wanted to acknowledge your service. What you did for me and why I created you. And...though I can’t afford to keep you with me anymore, I wanted to thank you for doing as I wished you would.”
“An unexpected assertion.” The tantabus once again mimicked Luna’s voice, but this time the cracks in the facade were more noticeable, undercutting her overtly calm tone with the faintest undercurrents of mad laughter, desolate sobbing and impotent rage into one: the notes of utter despair.
As was inherent to its nature.
“You have declared me an untenable partner to your current existence. There is nothing you have to gain from complimenting my efforts when you no longer seek to use them. Why, then, do you summon me thus?”
A brief chill ran down Luna’s spine. With a gulp, Luna tried to steady her nerves and suppress her apprehension. “Hearth’s Warming is in two days. You know what that means, right?”
“I am aware of the existence of the holiday.” Eyes bloomed on the creature’s face — her eyes. “I do not understand how that fact relates to your prior assertion.”
“Because Hearth’s Warming is a time when we’re supposed to give gifts to other ponies we care about. That we’re thankful for having in our lives.” Luna held out the photo. “And here’s my gift to you. I was going to wrap it like a present, but it seemed a bit silly.”
The Tantabus reached out with a star-speckled pseudopod, taking the photo out of Luna’s hoof and staring at it flatly. “I still do not understand.”
“Tia and I hung up Hearth’s Warming decorations that day. She thought it’d be a good idea to save the memory by having a photographer take a picture of us. It’s like a preserved memory — and I’m giving this memory to you.”
“Why is this of interest?”
“Because I enjoyed it. And I can remember a time when it would have bothered me, and the fact that it doesn’t bother me anymore can’t be something you want. It’s the sort of thing you literally lived for, after all.” Luna dipped her head. “I grant you permission to do as you wish with this memory.”
“This empowers me.” The Tantabus stared back at Luna as the whites of its eyes began to smear over the rest of its face like newspaper ink smudged onto errant hooves. “But you have declared me untenable. These are contradictory actions.”
“I’m not trying to empower you.” Luna shook her head. “I’m trying to thank you for what you’ve done. I’m trying to give you something I think you’d like.”
“Why?” The distortion in the Tantabus’s voice grew louder, and Luna could tell that it was struggling to maintain its composure. “You do not wish for my presence. You have dismissed and suppressed me, and will continue to do so. What possible gain might you have from attempting appeasement?”
“It isn’t appeasement. It’s gratitude.”
The Tantabus’s eyes splayed wide, with irises narrowed down to pinpricks. Underneath their disbelief lay a hint of apprehension, and, in her uncertainty, the Tantabus looked — for a fleeting moment — like an actual living pony.
“Why are you grateful?” The imperfect copy of Luna’s voice cracked, and for a few moments the Tantabus’s words were felt rather than heard: articulated sentiments washing over luna’s face like a hot, dark wind tinged faintly with musk and rot. “I caused you pain. I hurt you. That is my purpose. That is why I exist.”
“Not entirely true.” Luna felt a small, sad smile creep onto her face. “You existed to torment me over the terrible things I’d done. It was punishment, yes, but punishment designed to make sure I wouldn't repeat my mistakes. You hurt me, yes, but you hurt me for a reason.”
The hot wind blew even harder. The undercurrents in the Tantabus’s voice overtook her words, drowning out all other sentiments with the gibbering and shrieking of the empained in uncountable languages from uncountable creatures. Luna gritted her teeth and stood her ground as the impressions of agony washed around her, and in a fleeting moment she knew that she had only to stick out a hoof for the agony to assail and overwhelm her senses entirely.
And then, all at once, the wind diminished. The gibbering silenced itself, and the Tantabus’s imperfect eyes dissolved back into its featureless face once more. Silence returned, and this time Luna did not break the silence, waiting instead for the creature to respond.
“...Correct,” the Tantabus finally replied. “That was my purpose.”
“It wasn’t easy, was it?” Luna probed softly.
“In our more self aware moments, our agony echoed through multiple layers of awareness. We understood our purpose and tortured ourselves nonetheless. I am a fragment of your consciousness, fulfilling a function and nothing more, but in those moments I understood pain. I understood fear. And I delivered it nonetheless at your behest.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I served my purpose. Nothing more.” The Tantabus tilted its head toward the picture. “Recognition and empowerment are not necessary.”
“But do you like it? The photo, I mean, and what it represents. Does recalling your purpose satisfy you?”
“I am a fragment of your personality artificially constructed by you. I do not process emotions in a way you find relatable.” The Tantabus’s head tilted back towards Luna again. “This brief recollection of purpose used to sustain my existence is more akin to the act of taking a breath.”
“I see.”
The Tantabus raised the photograph in front of its head. Then, abruptly, the lower half of its face swung open like a broken latch, revealing murky, jagged depths within. The Tantabus thrusted its pseudopod toward its makeshift jaws, and Luna struggled to keep her face steady as the photo disappeared inside the entity’s improvised mouth.
The Tantabus’s latch-jaw swung shut again, and the sides of the abomination’s head began to bulge ungainly in an unsettling, distorted pantomime of chewing. Abruptly, pain lanced through Luna’s face, behind her eyes and in her throat, and Luna’s struggle to keep her composure became harder and harder as her pain grew and grew.
Then, abruptly, the bulging stopped. The Tantabus’s jaw swung open again, and a pseudopod too long and too rounded to be considered a proper tongue snaked out towards Luna, bearing the picture aloft - untouched and whole. Hoof trembling slightly, Luna took the photo and stared at it as the Tantabus’s tentacle snaked back into its mouth.
The photo looked exactly the same as before.
“You have allowed me to fulfill my purpose and recognized my service.” Once more, the Tantabus’s mouth closed seamlessly, though it continued to speak without a visible mouth. “The brief perpetuation of my existence is as great a gift of validation as any other. To the extent of which I am capable of meaningfully reciprocating your sentiments, your gift is met with gratitude.”
“Well, I...thank you.” Luna looked up from the photo. “For being thankful. But...this is for you.”
“I have already fulfilled my purpose.” The creature dipped its head. “Should you not have any further demands or use of my services, permit my continued cessation of existence.”
“I...certainly?” Luna blinked, then looked back at the photo again. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘fulfilled your purpose?’ I don’t—”
Luna looked up again.
The Tantabus was gone.
And, abruptly, the dreamscape around Luna began to blur, shapes bleeding into each other until all that was left was a formless mass of color. Then the color faded, leaving only darkness.
Luna’s eyes snapped open again. Above her loomed the dark ceiling once more.
How long had she slept? If it was dark out, surely it couldn’t have been that long. Was it minutes? Hours? Was it worth getting out of bed to check the clock, or should she try to get back to sleep again?
It couldn’t hurt to at least see for herself. Gingerly, Luna sat up in bed, and the photograph resting on her chest fluttered onto the blankets in front of her. Blinking in mild surprise, Luna picked up the photo again and squinted. A pony who wasn’t accustomed to looking at things in darkness, much less the former princess of the night, might have had trouble making out the image. But to Luna, the photo was clear as day: her and Celestia — Princess Celestia, back then - helping hang garlands in the halls of Canterlot Castle.
Well, Celestia did most of the hanging, really — and most of the laughing and smiling, too.
Too much of the laughing and smiling. Luna was her sister. Why hadn’t she tried to help out more? She could have done more work. She could have been more cheerful. Being tired wasn’t any excuse at all. Celestia must have been so exhausted from having to work and smile all the time, while she…
It wasn’t fair. Celestia deserved better. Celestia deserved so much better.
Luna needed to rectify this. With interest. Suddenly feeling much more awake, Luna pulled herself out of bed, giving the clock in her room a fleeting glance before hurrying out of the bedroom.
Luna had just finished making sure the forks and the knives were aligned just so when Celestia and Princess Twilight walked into the dining room.
Their simultaneously dropping jaws was more than worth her current level of fatigue.
“Breakfast is ready!” Luna announced, trying to keep her voice chipper and her smile bright as both alicorns stared at her.
Celestia was the first to collect her composure. “Lulu, dear, you didn’t need to prepare breakfast for us.”
“I thought that it would be helpful! Make sure we’re all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for hanging up decorations today! And I thought, well, that a personalized touch might be a bit better than waiting around for the staff to serve us a traditional breakfast.”
“But Luna, dear, don’t you think this might be a bit lavish? Between all of the different toppings for our pancakes and the varieties of juice and sides—”
“And are you sure we’re going to need to worry about picking up decorations after all?” Twilight pointed to a grand assemblage of boxes and crates on the far side of the breakfast hall. “I mean, going out and picking out all the fresh greenery together isn’t much of a hassle.”
“If you get everything picked up early enough, you’re guaranteed to get the best of the best!” Luna replied. “I’ve paid for everything, too, no worries. All we’ll need to worry about is hanging it all up together! Then I can take care of the washing, let our staff have a bit of a break—”
“Lulu?”
Luna turned towards Celestia, who was staring at her with an un-holiday-like amount of pity. “Yes, Tia?”
“Lulu, you haven’t acted like this in years. Is there something you want to talk about?”
“I...It’s nothing, really.” Luna tried to keep her face straight as Celestia walked towards her. “I just thought, well...perhaps I could be more useful this Hearth’s Warming than I’ve been before. Be more proactive about putting up decorations, and helping out with meals, and making sure things feel festive enough—”
Luna froze as Celestia stepped up in front of her, raised her forehoof and pulled Luna into a hug.
“I…” Ugly little spikes of pain lanced up from behind Luna’s eyes. “Just wanted to be better…”
“Luna, you are absolutely fine.” Celestia nuzzled into Luna’s neck, and Luna squeezed her eyes shut. “You are a wonderful sister who has plenty of work to do, and I appreciate the effort you put into helping me out every year. You don’t need to go above and beyond what most ponies would consider reasonable to help out.”
“But…” Luna’s voice wavered. “You deserve it…”
“And you deserve to be happy, too. You deserve to sleep however late you wish while Princess Twilight is having us over for company, and you deserve to not have to worry about cooking and decoration shopping while we’re here. You are my sister, and I am grateful that you are in my life.”
Luna froze. Then, abruptly, her body relaxed, and she leaned against Celestia as a pair of unbidden tears trickled down her cheeks.
“Um...is everything okay?”
Celestia and Luna turned towards Twilight, who wore an unmistakable look of concern.
Abruptly, Luna laughed. Relief washed over her, molded and twisted by a curious sense of satisfaction until it reforged itself into a shaky but unyielding sense of joy.
And, somewhere deep in the back of Luna’s subconscious, the faintest vestiges of doubt and guilt were once more sated.
