The room was quite spacious, with neutral white walls and large windows that allowed more than enough natural light to brighten it. The small paintings of birds and butterflies that adorned the walls added just enough color to make the room cheerful and inviting.
Princess Luna sighed and walked over to one of the two massive wooden armoires that stood side by side; the armoire on the left was pink, and the one on the right was blue. Luna opened the blue wardrobe and began to look through it. Millions of white gowns hung in countless rows behind the heavy wooden doors, ranging in size from premature newborn to roughly ten years old. Sighing, Luna perused the first row, which contained the smallest gowns. As she levitated each small piece of clothing in front of her to inspect it, Luna prayed silently, blessing the little one to whom it would one day belong. There were plenty of gowns for now, so Luna didn’t feel the need to worry about restocking the wardrobe. With another sigh, she shut the doors and moved on to the pink armoire, where she made sure that all of the beautifully-designed gowns were accounted for, pausing to touch each one lovingly.
A white changing table with a built-in baby bathtub stood on the other side of the room. Luna trotted over to the table and opened the cupboard beneath it, which held an infinite supply of diapers, wipes, foal powder, foal shampoo, swaddling and receiving blankets, burp cloths, washcloths, towels, bottles, formula, and sterling silver rattles. Everything was immaculately stored, organized, and ready to be used.
Luna turned and opened an adjacent door, which led to a walk-in closet full of various stuffed animals, blocks, teething toys, pacifiers, and little musical toys that lit up. She made sure that all the toy boxes were labeled properly, then magically sterilized all of the toys—an activity that her maternal instincts always drove her to do purely out of habit, though it wasn’t really necessary.
After perusing the toys, Luna moved on to a gigantic shelf in the corner, which held the largest imaginable library of books for foals. She smiled when she spotted her daughters’ and granddaughter’s favorite stories among the wide array of books, then sat down in the rocking chair adjacent to the shelf. Luna allowed herself to rest for a few seconds, then opened a hidden door in the wall, which led to an area that she called the Hall of Innocence.
The walls on both sides of the wide hallway were covered in billions of framed paintings of butterflies. Each painting was completely unique and labeled with a name. Luna spoke each name as she passed each picture. She needed to collect her thoughts so that she could be her best self for the countless little ones who would soon find themselves, one by one, in the nursery that Luna had so carefully prepared, where she would personally feed, bathe, dress, change, and cuddle each and every one of them. They would know her love, if only for a moment.
Luna opened another door, which led to a sort of supply closet. She grabbed a stack of receiving blankets and carried them back into the nursery, where she laid each one on the floor and began to fold them. Each blanket was embroidered on the corner with a crescent moon that had wings on either side of it, but some were more personal than others. A few were embroidered with crosses, some had butterflies, others had flowers or lambs, but each and every blanket also had a crescent moon sewn into it, personally made by Luna with actual moonbeams that she had magically turned into fabric. She kept a large box of moonbeams solely for this reason.
The white carpet was soft beneath Luna’s hooves as she magically added a fresh coat of paint to the walls and dusted the crystal chandelier above her. This room had to be spotless at all times; it was used all too frequently. Luna took a deep breath and walked over to the dresser by the door. She opened the bottom drawer and picked up several circular pieces of hardened clay that each boasted four tiny indentations and a different name at the top. It wasn’t until Luna placed her hoof on top of one of the impossibly small hoof prints that her eyes began to water. The princess gingerly set the keepsakes aside and returned to her work, stowing a fresh set of towels under the bathtub before inspecting the carpet to ensure that it looked pristine. Some of her most important work was carried out in this room, so she expected it to look nothing less than perfect at all times, since she never knew when she would have to be there next.
The nursery was both hated and treasured by Luna. The princess wished this place could be used differently, but she knew that wishing would get her nowhere. So many little ones had passed through the two doors of the small room, but none of them had ever been carried by a stranger. Luna was known and loved by all who came into her nursery, and she loved them all just as much, if not more so.
Luna gazed up at the names that graced the walls. She whispered them lovingly, picturing the precious little faces to which each name belonged. No matter where they had originated, all of those foals, at least for a little while, had belonged to her, and she had loved them accordingly. She swallowed hard as she hung the last tiny white gown and folded another set of sheets.
A shockwave jolted Luna from her thoughts, and her ears perked up. She sighed and lit her horn, thankful that she had been in the right place at exactly the right time. The nursery was ready, and hers would be the only loving embrace that the next foal to enter this room might have ever known during his or her time on Earth.
