Luna hit herself across the face, just as she felt herself dozing off again. She took a deep breath, watching the air become a cloud before her mouth. Maybe she should close the windows?
Just one more line, then she was done. She put the quill beside the ink pot and leaned away from the table, looking at the room. Papers and parchments laid over the carpeted floor and the ceiling was magically augmented to let her see right through it. The sun would soon meet the horizon and then she needed all her strength to pull the moon up. She couldn’t ask Tia to do it, the poor girl had hardly slept ever since the plague had hit Ol’ Pegasus.
Luna would’ve liked to ask her sister, though. Right now, she was working on more important things than the cycle of sun and moon. The alicorn looked at the paper again. Only a few more lines, then it would be finished. She just had to finish the draft and then she only needed to wait.
She called it ‘Manehatten’, a city build on an artificial Island and she was sure it would help the eastern ponies a lot. They could keep the beaches clear and maybe even build a undercity for the seaponies. Tia had wanted to refuse the fleeing creatures’ plight but Luna had managed to sway her in the morning hours, when her elder sister had only been half awake.
She smiled. Manehatten was a chance for everypony, even if it would take a hundred years to finish the project with what technology they currently had. Still, it was better than anything Tia had come up with.
Luna took the quill. Tia was busy with court, every single day they bothered her. It had calmed down since the days they had to clean up the mess Discord had left behind but still, the days had taken their toll on the princess of the sun. Luna could still remember that bold, pink-maned mare that had wanted to take the lord of chaos on her own and had nearly won. That fun-loving, sweet and honest sister.
Luna drew the final lines. Her own well-being was the thing that wasn’t on her mind. Tia’s however? Luna couldn’t help with the court, nopony ever came to her, they were afraid of the dark, even though the stars did their best to lighten up the night. Luna, however, could help with the big things. Already had she invented the plow and built aqueducts for the water supply in the cities.
She knew, however, that no matter what the court claimed, they still would not praise her. Luna sighed, finishing the last notes she looked at the parchment.
“This will work,” she proclaimed proudly, a grin going up on her face. In the beginning she would always run through the palace to jump up and down on Tia’s bed until she woke just to show her the work well done.
Tia needed her sleep, though just as Luna needed to get her ideas to the council. She never called for night meetings, even though it was her right. In the beginning it had raised questions, but the princess had always simply told her subjects that the nights were quiet and their services were not needed.
She stood up. It was time.
Luna walked to the balcony of her tower and looked to the other side, to Celestia’s tower and there she stood. The mane was the last thing that looked truly royal on Celestia, her eyes were red and her cheeks were gaunt. She hasn’t eaten dinner again, Luna thought as she gave her sister a worried look.
“Rest, my sister, I can handle it from here,” she shouted over and gave her sister a smile. In the beginning they had done the ceremony together but Luna could push the sun down now and the moon up. Tia needed her sleep.
The other mare looked at her, for a second Luna thought to see disappointment, but that quickly vanished behind a smile, “I wish you a good night, Luna,” she said and walked as quickly as the royal stride would allow it back into her chambers.
Luna blinked. Was Celestia angry at her? No, that couldn’t be. They cared for each other and Tia worked always so hard, as her younger sister, Luna had to work hard, too. She looked at the horizon. On one side the sun fell behind it and from the other the moon rose.
Luna’s wings flapped and her horn began to glow. She relaxed , closed her eyes and concentrated as well as she could. As everyday, she had underestimated the task. There was a reason they were two. Still, this duty she had to do for Tia and tonight, she’d do her duty for Equestria. Before she was finished, she cast one more spell unto the castle.
As she opened her eyes she was greeted by her faraway friends.
She smiled at the sky, the stars and the moon. Aside from the Nightguards, she was the only pony who understood them. So in a way, because nopony ever looked, this felt sad, too.
But Luna pushed these thoughts and looked at the cold, snow-ridden lands before her. The winter solstice would soon happen and once more, nopony would look. Why did she have so many sad thoughts? The princess sighed and moved back into the tower, gathering up her plans and getting the door.
The guards slept. Luna had never liked the idea of the night guard. They hardly ever saw their families and before the solar ‘Everypony’s got a right to party’-Act, there hadn’t even been proper vacation times for them. Also, she liked the feeling of being the last pony walking awake in the castle.
Tia and the guards, they could all sleep. The night belonged to her and her alone. Nopony ever wanted to look at the sky she would’ve gladly shared but the only ones she could share it with were the guards and most of them were in it for the money. Silver Blade did it because she had to get some extra coin in for her family, Flavius always hid away and slept through the nights as through the days and the others were no better. What did it mean to be a nightguard?
She wondered, maybe some new bardings would raise the morale of the troop and also their status. Maybe...
The princess wandered past her sleeping protectors to the council chambers. Tia had told her a long time ago that even during the hundredth meeting they had hardly gotten anything done, so Luna provided them with stuff to talk about. She laid her plans firmly on Celestia’s side of the table. No, the royal side. It was her place, too.
After that her work for the realm was done. That was all it was nowadays, going through the palace, planting her plans on the table and then walking away. Like always, it was on her way back that she took the palace in. It was all grey and grim, with hundreds of gargoyles outside on the walls.
Canterlot was huge but it wasn’t a home for royalty. It was still the same fortress they had occupied in the days of the rebellion against Discord. She needed to change that. When Celestia would go to check on foreign affairs the next time, she’d send all the servants out to do stuff and paint the whole castle new. That would certainly catch a few looks.
The princess stepped into the courtyard where the royal garden was. It consisted of a carrot field and a patch of flowers. They needed a real gardener, no, a real garden. All this would not do. It depressed her just looking at it, there wasn’t even enough room to plant a tree.
Luna sighed and stopped dead in the middle of the field, the snow touching cold against her hooves.
“Why is the world so depressing?” she asked nopony in particular. There were way too many sad things out there.
One time she had left the vicinity of the castle to look at the village they called part of Canterlot. No, twice she had done it. Once a hundred years ago and once a few months back, at the end of autumn. The first time she had returned to the castle and planned her plans then she had returned to see all her plans fulfilled and a small city had already prospered. It must’ve had about a thousand ponies by then. Sadly, under a bridge she had found one single young colt, covering in the shadows.
For a moment she had hesitated but then she had flown away, panicking. She had immediately sent a guard down there and he got the small colt to the next orphanage, which was in Cloudsdale. Good thing they had both been pegasi or that would’ve ended badly.
Celestia hadn’t been much of a help either.The council had told her that the ‘orphan problem’ had been solved and she had believed them. Luna hated the council, they were decadent and prone to mistakes. She could do their jobs better. If only royalty didn’t fall asleep, too, both she and Tia could rule over this kingdom and lead it into a golden age of prosperity.
She had spend the coming nights planning and writing and building, down in the forest. She had talked with the animals and conferred with the ponies of a small settlement down there. In short, she had prepared for doing what she should have done, her duty to the realm. A simple plan.
She spread her wings.
Luna felt the icy wind across her cheeks, her wings flapping in the dark. The stars guided her. They knew what she wanted to do and they looked on the princess and somehow she knew, they cheered. Her gaze went over the moon, who looked down on the planet below. Sometimes she asked herself how it would be to stand upon it.
A fantasy she still had. Sometimes she dreamed of just looking down on the planet from up there and doing nothing. She just wanted to see everything happen. Luna didn’t know why she felt that that was a good thing. Tia was here and Tia needed her.
Somepony else needed her, too. She landed by the well in the middle of the city. The town looked so deserted at night and only the lanterns shined still. Everypony slept neat and tightly, just as it should be. They needed the rest, because on the morrow they would all work and play beneath the sun again. Luan sighed and started singing a lullaby she had written sometime ago. Her horn began to glisten.
The magic of Celestia and Luna was on a different level than the one unicorns practiced. They could cover larger areas and they could tell ponies their intentions through it. They both thought of it as a manipulation but Luna had only the purest intentions.
From all around they came. Small ponies, fillies and colts. Some were half starved, some looked ill and near dying. They were all levitated towards her. She saw some with missing limbs, some ugly and deformed, probably thrown away like garbage.
The broken and the abandoned they were. Luna smiled at all of them and each of them looked back at her. They all knew where they would go next, still one pony asked: “To where?”
Luna answered, “To where nothing can hurt you anymore, somewhere safe.”
A moment later, with Luna singing her lullaby they soared through the skies. The children danced behind her, through the clouds and beneath the stars. They laughed since they had never felt like this before and only some looked back. The town of Canterlot got farther and farther away and beneath them the forests of Equestria spread out in their white and black glory. The woods were as good as dead during the winter. Most animals slept and the ponies in the settlements didn’t do much either, aside from telling tales about Windigos.
Hearth’s Warming Eve was coming up, too. Luna wanted Tia to attend again, they hadn’t gone together to the pageant in ages.
Her mane glittered the same way the stars did and the black royal attire was shimmering under the moon’s light, too. She had nothing to protect herself from the cold. The children had her love, the love she fuelled her magic with. Using love for magic was an old trick the flutterponies had used and had come in handy during the Rebellion. Now again. Luna smiled.
They flew across the forest into the last remnant of Discords reign. Her childhood home.
The Everfree Palace was a shadow of it’s former self. It hadn’t been used in a while, well, until now. Luna had gathered every soul she knew to be trusted here this night.
There was Tendertwig, who had lived in the Everfree Forest since her birth. Then Grendel, a griffon who she had befriended during her summer studies up in the frozen lands. Not just they, but others had gathered, too. About fifteen ponies and they had fixed the place up, too. They understood the plight of the land.
The children set down and looked at their new home.
Inside there waited a warm hearth, burning. Beds to sleep in and three meals a day. Over the gate stood the sign ‘Lunar Orphanage’. The thing was huge with a giant garden to play in and soon there would be more. The princess wanted to give every child without a home hope for a future.
Luna had written and planned and built over the course of the winter. She wanted to help the children first, then work herself up. This was only temporary, they knew. Canterlot had to grow before it could sustain an orphanage of it’s own. This was well enough. She would do it her way, without politicians interfering. The night belonged to her and her alone and as long as she reigned as princess, the equestrian nights would be the safest of all.
She passed the children on, promising to visit every night, whether she could bring new friends or not.
Luna spread her wings and moved back to Canterlot. The sun would surface again and she would be needed for the ritual. Right now, she had to return to the castle and make new plans.
~The End~
