Love Thyself (Cinderblox)

Luna walked onto the beach. She came from nowhere, not there one moment and there the next. Dreams worked like that, and she knew dreams better than anyone else. She knew dreams too well. She remembered them, when no other pony could. She knew their beauty, she knew how to make a refuge out of one. She knew how one could get lost in dreams, and never find a way out, and more than anybody she knew how to make it so. She wished she'd remembered sooner. She wished it was easier to be what she was not. Then she shunned those thoughts, and all others like them that had brought her there in the first place.

She looked up at the sky. The stars in alien patterns, beautiful and shifting about like dancers without a song. The Moon shone bright, larger than ever, bigger than even the Sun, pulling the waves and waters at its command. The shoreline had moved. The old marble staircase was halfway submerged, a distance out at sea. The water was churning, but without foam. It moved like shadows. Cold, heavy, filled with all sorts of things beautiful and terrible. Luna was not alone.

But she spoke first, eyes fixated on the sky. "It's no good like that," she said. "There's a storm coming. Sailors won't know their way back if the stars are not where they should be."

Nightmare Moon was next to her. She'd been in the sea a moment before, a sword of darkness stabbed into the ground unmoving among the waves, and then she simply wasn't. She moved as she pleased, and went where she wanted. Right then, she wanted to be around Luna, circling her like a shark. "What of it, dear? We can save them, without a need to hide our work. Let them bask in our glory and us in their gratitude and admiration."

Luna wanted to snap back. To say they'd put them in that danger to begin with. But she said no words, and only a quiet mewl escaped her lips. Her knees felt weak, and she barely stood. The water lapped at her hooves and it all came rushing back to her, eroding her certainty. Would it be so bad if things were different? If she was the hero, and the world was as beautiful as she could make it? Her thoughts were spinning, and so she kept her eyes on her Moon. It was never easy, was it?

"And why are sailors out at sea, anyway? Is it because our land lacks what they need? What do they seek, Luna? Beautiful sights? Food to feed themselves with? The thrill of adventure? We can give it to them. We can give them everything they want. We can give everyone everything they want. They just need to be with us. You just need to be with me. No longer need our work be effaced come the light of dawn. No longer need ponies toil and chase for the happiness they saw, the happiness we showed them, never to find it elsewhere. We can show them a better life, and they will be grateful for it."

"Many a great and beautiful thing has been built by that toiling, and many a dream inspired by the sight of one of those things." She was changing the subject. Taking time. Hiding, praying for a miracle she knew too well wouldn't come. She was scared, and her eyes misty like the sea around and beneath her. "Without them our world would be sterile. An ouroboros of regurgitated assumptions, of ponies wallowing in their own convictions. Nothing would grow in it."

"How can you know that when we've never been allowed to see it through?" Nightmare Moon was whispering against her ear, and circling around her still. Everywhere she might have looked, she would have seen her. So, Luna looked at the Moon. "They are right to fear us. They know the change we could bring. Order is the enemy of change, and it has always been. And you would deny our triumph to claim it brings a cycle? Does the Moon not obey a cycle? Don't the tides? Are we not a pendulum, Luna, two sides of the same thing? Has their hate clouded your mind enough for you to hate yourself as well?"

Waves struck Luna's knees. She would have fallen over in the water, but she kept herself anchored to the light of the Moon in her eyes, the only fixed point in the roiling sea of stars that was the sky. And every word filled her mind with thoughts she could not, should not ignore. There was no running away that wasn't running in circles. So she listened.

"You say every pony would wallow in their own ideas. Why is that bad, Luna? Should ponies suffer the pain and insults others inflict on them? Does anyone truly know what you want better than yourself? Is there anyone better than you at reaching for your happiness, without others to drag you down, when given the means to achieve those goals? The means we can give them, Luna. Is it not a good thing to love yourself?" Nightmare Moon stood in front of her, looking down at her, wings spread to halt the raging wind, eyes glowing brighter than the stars.

And it was true. Every word of it was beautiful. Every promise wonderful. Luna looked into Nightmare Moon's eyes. She stepped forward, stumbled into the water. Nightmare Moon caught her, strong, standing firm among the waves. She held her. She wrapped around her. She was in her, and was her. They kissed, shadows and dreams flowing into Luna. The water rose around them until it touched the sky and the stars poured themselves into it, and the Moon shone above them and all around them was a swirling wall of water and stars.

Luna kissed her, heart beating hard within her chest surrounded by a darkness eating every bit of pain and suffering and worry, a warm nest of happiness and safety. She breathed in the water and the smoke on the air, the smell of distant lands they could bring, of adventure they could give, of freedom. She tasted Nightmare Moon, cold as ice and hot as passion, and every want and desire and every wildest fantasy and fancy came tumbling into her mind and she knew she could give them everything, and she knew they would love her for it.

Luna opened her eyes. She stared into Nightmare Moon. Her body unmoving, unflinching in the storm. Her will unbreakable, her presence commanding. Her mane alone a greater sky than any ever seen over Equestria, and her coat of shadows ever flawless. And a fire in her soul, a longing in her eyes, a determination in her that would make her bend heaven and earth to get what she wanted. And she loved Luna. She truly did. Truly, honestly, she wanted her to be happy. And Luna loved her too. She couldn't not love her, not when she was everything she wanted, everything she thought was beautiful and strong and desirable, everything that would make her happy.

She broke the kiss. Her voice was shaky, but she did not stutter. "Yet, they would all be alone, and all their great works for no one but themselves. Is their happiness worth their loneliness?"

Nightmare Moon smiled, and her wings sank like fangs into Luna's heart, and Luna was filled with all thoughts good and wonderful, and she was happy. "Of course it would be, my dear. For us, and for them. They can always choose, and they will always choose us, when we show them the truth."

"And we would rule over them?"

"Over all those who choose to love us. And love us they will."

Luna gave a quivering sigh, then a deep inhale. "You told me once before. What are you?"

"I am the voice of your heart," Nightmare Moon said. She smiled.

Trembling, tears running down her cheeks, Luna hugged her. "You are, and far too long I've pretended not to hear you." A pause. Another deep breath. "But one lives not for one's self alone. One shouldn't shirk duty for happiness. One mustn't isolate within fantasy and refuse the world, even when it hurts. A pony without peers may as well have never lived, and one whose works are only dreams, however beautiful, has never been a part of history. What we want is not always what's best. And a Princess must not put her own desire over the well being of her subjects and her country.

"And so... you must be silenced."

A lance of moonlight fell from the heavens, and pierced Nightmare Moon's heart. She took a step back, bleeding smoke from her wound and mouth. She looked at Luna. She smiled. "So you can stand on your own, after all."

Then she was gone, and Luna was alone in the desert.