Luna opened her eyes to the darkness surrounding her. She sat alone in the middle of the void, as she looked around frantically. How did she get there?
She closed her eyes in order to focus, not that there was anything that could distract her in this void. She tried to remember the last thing she was doing before she appeared here.
She was just finishing her nightly duties. Replanting the lavender flowers, preparing the guards for their night shift and getting ready to dream walk. She remembered casting the spell and instead of seeing the corridor of infinite doors to everypony’s dream, she was in this void.
“I don’t understand,” she said out loud. “Did the spell fail?”
“No. It didn’t,” a voice behind her said. It sounded like a whisper said in a speaking volume. It felt hollow and ancient even to Luna.
Luna turned to face the bearer of such a unique voice. Before her she saw a gray alicorn, her mane made of many pale blue strands of varying lengths ending abruptly like a life at its destination. Her bat wings were grand in size, open wide they made her intimidating to look at. Her flank was adorned with a cutie mark of a skull, surrounded by thorny vines. But the thing Luna was fixated the most, were her eyes. She had no eye whites, only darkness illuminated by a white circle like the end of a tunnel.
Luna knew who that was, and the gray alicorn realized it as well.
Her eyes softened as she smiled at Luna. “I'm happy to see you, my child.”
Luna shook her head, her mouth agape. “No, it can’t be…” tears started forming in her eyes. “I’m not ready…”
“No one ever truly is, my child.” The grey alicorn folded her wings and sat down close to her, offering her own body for closure. An offer Luna gladly took as she hugged the alicorn with all her strength and cried down to their chest.
“I had too much to do… so many things to take care of. Why? Why so suddenly? I had no chance to say goodbye!”
“Those blessed with longevity,” the alicorn spoke. “do not have the privilege to leave slowly. Their fire is not able to burn itself out, so it must be extinguished by a tsunami.”
“But why? Why now?” Luna look up at the alicorn, her eyes still full of tears. “Why has my time come now?”
The alicorn shook her head. “It’s not for me to decide when someone comes to me. I already broke the rules by bringing you back, and now came the time to pay what’s due.”
The alicorn wrapped her wing around Luna, its soft membrane warming her up like a blanket on a winter's eve. They both sat like that for what felt like eternity, until the tears ran dry.
Finally, the alicorn broke the silence. “Our reunion does not have to be sad, my child. Tell me, what did you experience with the time I gifted you?”
“Don’t you already know?” Luna asked. “Something about collecting memories?”
“Sometimes it helps to say things out loud,” the alicorn said.
“You didn’t say no,” Luna realized. “So you know about the millennia I wasted.”
“Could you tell me more about it?”
Luna sighed. “There is not much to talk about. I got jealous and lost control of my feelings. My sister was forced to banish me to the moon for one thousand years and when I came back I tried to take control of the whole of Equestria for myself. End of story.”
The alicorn just looked at Luna, her expression unreadable. “There is always more to a story like that.”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint.”
“Hmm.” The alicorn looked down at her from the corner of her eye, then turned away to look across the void. “Do you remember Skyros?”
Luna shook her head. “Barely. I was fifty when it fell.”
“Do you miss it?”
“I miss the idea I have of it.” Luna looked up at the alicorn. “The thing I miss the most is the Moonshine Garden.”
Suddenly the void retreated. In the distance, Luna saw a palace of pale pink marble and gold rising from the void. She witnessed as the darkness surrounding her gave way to dark blue bricks making up the paths around the plants. Flowers bloomed in an instant and the darkness was illuminated by a full moon up above them.
Before Luna’s eyes, the Moonshine garden came into existence. Wide-eyed, she stood up and looked around the place she thought she would never see again. “How did you do that?” she asked the alicorn.
“Those who pass through, bring their memories with them,” the alicorn explained. “even though I may never have been to Skyros myself, it is just as significant to me as it was to everyone who came here.”
“You have never been to Skyros?” Luna asked.
The alicorn smiled. “That pleasure was never meant for me. I was in this realm long before it was founded.”
Luna looked up at the alicorn again. Now realizing that her bat-like wings, and her horn splitting up at the end like a branch was something she never saw on any other alicorn in Skyros. With that, Luna finally realized that the one standing before her was a being far more ancient than the oldest alicorn of Skyros.
This must have been a lonely existence, and Luna knew how it felt all too well. She bit her lips. “Back then,” she hesitated for a moment. The alicorn just watched her intently, waiting for her to continue.
“I felt unappreciated,” Luna continued. “I used everything you taught me, the dream spell, your wisdom. Everything. But no matter how hard I worked, no one ever spoke of me. The nature of my craft made me unable to talk freely with the subjects and every year, this feeling that all my work didn’t affect anyone as much as I hoped grew.” She approached a single Moonbell flower, its petals hanging down like the item it was named after. Those flowers went extinct after the fall of Skyros, since they didn’t grow anywhere else than the Moonshine Garden. They were known for glowing under the moonlight.
“It felt like everyday whenever the sun rose up, everyone forgot that I was there to protect their dreams. That I gave my all for their emotional well-being.” She gently petted the Moonbell.
“I was very foolish back then, and thought that I needed the ponies of Equestria to realize the beauty of the night. I thought that the one thing I needed was for others to treat me like my sister.
“I asked her for permission to make my own country, made for those who worshiped the night just like me. So that I would become their own Celestia. Of course she disapproved. She knew we were unable to do both of our duties alone.” She sighed.
“But I was unable to see that back then. In hindsight, I realize I was different from other alicorns. I tended to be much more emotional than others, making me empathize with the regular ponies more than my peers. This may have blinded me from the real reason why my sister acted the way she did.”
“What did you think was the reason back then?” The alicorn asked.
Luna sat down on a bench, the alicorn followed suit. “I thought she was deliberately keeping me beneath her shadow. Making the ponies forget I existed. I felt jealous, betrayed and worst of all, furious. Those feelings sparked the chain reaction that turned me into Nightmare Moon. They corrupted my magic, which in turn corrupted my heart.” Tears started forming in Luna’s eyes again. “You definitely know the rest.”
The alicorn just looked at her, her lips quivering as she hesitantly wrapped her wing around Luna. They sat like that for a while, watching the moon illuminate the palace in the distance. “It’s true you were different from others,” the alicorn spoke with a soft voice. “But it’s not something bad.” Luna looked up at her and tilted her head in a silent question.
“You alone, were cursed to meet an untimely end even by mortal standards,” the alicorn continued. “I remember the day you appeared here. A young foal who recently underwent the alicorn ceremony, destined to never reach adulthood. I was about to create a garden for you when you asked…”
“What are you doing?” Luna remembered, to which the alicorn nodded.
“You showed interest in my work and offered to make a garden for me. There was no soul that showed greater prowess in shaping a garden like you. So much so that I decided to teach you how to use this talent among the living. I taught you the basics and sent you back every time you failed to master it. I broke so many rules teaching you, I’m surprised I’m still here.”
“You could have died!?” Luna shouted.
“That was a possibility,” the alicorn agreed. “But I knew that you were worth the risk.”
Luna looked down at the bricks under her. She didn’t know how much was at stake when she met the alicorn for the first time and now that she knew, a new wave of guilt overtook her. “Why tell me all this?” She asked.
The alicorn smiled. “You know why the dead are not allowed to mingle with the living?” She continued after Luna shook her head: “because the living are meant to fear death,”
“But… why?”
“Because that way, they will strive to live their lives to the fullest,” the alicorn explained. “This fear, that one day they will be gone pushes them to leave a mark one way or another. Motivating them to evolve and improve.”
“What are you trying to say?” Luna wondered.
The alicorn hugged her tightly. “You are special, Luna. You are special because you are the only alicorn who experienced death and lived in fear of it.” She looked directly into Luna’s eyes. “The reason why you empathize with mortals, why you don’t understand alicorns and why you strived so desperately to leave a lasting mark on those under you, is because you knew deep down that it will all be gone.”
Luna looked at her, mouth agape and eyes wide. “You mean the reason I turned into Nightmare Moon…”
“Was because of me,” the alicorn finished for her. “All because I brought you back when your destiny was to die.”
Tears formed in her eyes. All those years of guilt and confusion, flushed away in an instant. Having a reason for her feelings made her realize that her turning into Nightmare Moon might not have been so sudden after all.
She wiped her tears and smiled at the alicorn. “Thank you, princess Thanoxia,” she said.
Thanoxia smiled back at her. “You finally remembered my name.”
“Yes. It took me a while,” she looked around her at the garden. “What will happen now?”
Thanoxia stood up. “You have two options; I can either send you back to the world of the living as a ghost, you will be able to watch over your loved ones this way.”
Luna nodded, that was a tempting offer. “And the other?”
“You will create a garden you will live in for all eternity. And I will be pleased to help you create it.” Thanoxia answered. “This garden will be an eternal dream tailor made for you, with all of your needs met.”
Luna thought for a moment. Before her talk with Thanoxia, she would have immediately tried to come back. She wanted to make sure her existence left a mark on those that will come after her.
But now? The idea of living in peace for eternity feels very cozy, and much more comfortable in the long run.
“Is there a way to watch over my loved ones while being in the garden?” She asked Thanoxia.
“You can sculpt your garden after a real place in the living world,” she answered. “That way the garden will be bound to it and you would be able to witness everything that can be seen from that place.”
“So if I made my garden to be the moon…”
Thanoxia’s eyes widened. “You would be able to witness everything under the moon’s light,” she said. “But… are you sure? After what you experienced?”
“Yes.” Luna smiled. “It may have been awful back then. But in hindsight? Those years defined me in a special way. Additionally…” she looked directly into Thanoxia’s eyes. “If you can do it for all of eternity, I believe so can I.”
Thanoxia’s eyes filled with tears for the first time in forever. “You don’t have to do this, my child. I do not wish for you to bear the same pain.”
Luna’s horn lit up and the Moonshine Garden around them disappeared. The moon above them got bigger and bigger until it became the very dirt they were walking on. The white sand rose up to form a castle with an observatory in the center of it, with a telescope bound to Equestria so Luna could freely experience and hear everything that was happening in the world of the living. Butlers made of stardust roamed the halls of the castle, bent on making sure every single need of Luna would be taken care of.
Thanoxia looked around, something was different about this garden from countless others she helped to create. It felt like home. “What did you do?” She asked Luna.
Luna turned around and hugged Thanoxia tightly, pressing her cheeks on Thanoxia’s chest. “I made you part of my garden,” She said. “That way you will be able to visit me whenever you can.”
It was Thanoxia’s turn to look at Luna with mouth agape. After countless visitors, there was no one who ever decided to consider this single possibility. This single fact reminded her why she chose to mentor Luna: because of her creativity. “Thank you,” she cried. “This is the greatest gift anyone could’ve ever given me.”
Luna closed her eyes smiling. With a clear view of Equestria and Thanoxia by her side, she knew she was ready to pass on.
“After everything you have done for me,” Luna whispered. “This was the least I could do.”
