The Moon loomed above its mistress as she descended from her flight. Luna had made a habit of spending some time simply flying recently; soaking in the world she had been starved for the last thousand years.
Unlike Celestia, Luna lived away from the main city of Canterlot. Her sister’s quarters directly overlooked the central plaza, allowing the white mare to observe her ponies as she wished. Luna knew that Celestia liked to wake to the sights and sounds of her subjects, but she would not have chosen such a place to live.
Luna’s rooms hung over the steep north flank of Mount Platinum, the bulk of the castle shielding her from the inquiring eyes of Canterlot. The placement of her chambers also provided a less practical use: from her vantage point the princess could view the untamed northern lands all the way up to the Crystal Mountain Range.
Northern Equestria had few resources other than beauty: there were few large forests as in the south, and the colder climate discouraged farmers. The only land settlement was a tiny pegasi village behind the Foal Mountain by the name of Hollow Shades, the home of Luna’s personal guard.
There were four other settlements in the north, but of them three – Manehatten, Van Hoover and Tall Tale (which was essentially a large suburb of Van Hoover) – were port cities whose main assets relied little on the surrounding land. Cloudsdale frequently visited the north, but only to aid in the production of rainclouds, for the climate in those parts was suited to it.
All in all, the north was a wild land, the plains raw and wind-flattened, and the rivers swift and merciless. Luna had always preferred it to the swamps and desert of the south even before the towns, cities and railroads had begun to crowd Southern Equestria.
And so, in the days when Equestria was young and wild and the castle on the side of a mountain was unfinished, she had claimed the north face as hers so she could gaze at the wilderness and imagine the distant lands over the mountains.
As the alicorn landed on her balcony she wondered how she could ever have lived anywhere else.
Luna’s personal tower was circular, the outside made up of dark stone taken from the old castles of the Unicorn Tribe, as opposed to the lighter colouring of the rest of the castle, which had been mined from Ghastly Gorge over two thousand years before. The balcony’s railing was low to allow for easy landings but was nevertheless intricately sculpted, the metalwork depicting climbing vines and ivy.
The balcony opened up to her bedchambers. The clack of her hooves on the floor echoed, an effect that tended to put others off, though Luna quite enjoyed it. The floors were black marble, veins of white showing through like streaks of lightning in the darkness – she smiled as she thought of the inspiration for that: a pegasus she had known so many years ago that nopony but she and Celestia remembered him. At that thought the smile turned downwards and her eyes left the floor.
Her bed was opposite the balcony, a dark silk covering over a mattress and pillow of black-swan down, the bed large and circular, designed to accommodate her wings so they did not trail the floor as she slept. Luna carefully kicked off her silver shoes and levitated her black-amber crown to its pedestal between two of her bookshelves. She took her sash off of her chest and placed it on one of the bedposts, and wafted herself onto the bed. The princess sighed with contentment as she relaxed into the soft abyss of sleep.
***
The soft stirring of wings and the clink of hooves on stone woke Luna from her ever-light sleep. The alicorn had always been woken incredibly easily, which had forced her to take many short naps throughout day and night. It also served a purpose as an alarm: nopony could take Luna by surprise while she slept.
Luna’s eyes quickly opened, not dulled by sleep, and she was on her hooves with her horn glowing darkly before she realised who stood in her chambers. She relaxed her pose and let her magic flicker away, settling herself down on the bed again.
For a moment neither spoke, staring each other down until the visitor capitulated, no match for the Moon Lady’s gaze. Princess Celestia bowed to her younger sister, the age-old game ending as it always had.
Luna smiled and raised her eyes to the ceiling, where lay a mural of the night sky on the winter solstice. It was almost as old as the room itself, painted by a dear friend whose name was hallowed among artists throughout Equestria.
“Strange how some things never change,” the world-weary mare murmured, half to herself.
“You were always the better sister,” Celestia said as she rose to her hooves – bare, Luna noticed. In fact, Celestia was wearing none of her royal attire. That was another old game, and Luna was glad her sister remembered it even after a millennium had passed.
“I find that doubtful,” Luna argued wrly, rising from the bed to stand before Celestia, “considering my record.” As Celestia made to speak Luna shook her head and continued. “Anyway, in my realm you bow to I, and in your realm I bow to you. There is no how or why, it is simply the way.”
Celestia sighed and shook her head, but nuzzled Luna’s shoulder all the same. “You are always so eloquent Luna,” she said. At that they both chuckled: it had long been joked between them that where Tia was elegant, Luny was eloquent.
“Anyway,” Luna continued, “I did not speak of our little game when I mused that some things do not seem to change.” Celestia raised a brow in surprise, and Luna gestured to the ceiling. The princesses gazed at the artwork, their clouded eyes revealing the depth to which they had fallen into their memories.
“Ah.” Celestia looked away, her eyes no longer clouded with memories but with long-unshed tears. “I understand you now, dear sister.”
“He was an Earth Pony; do you remember that?” Luna asked quietly as her eyes remained fixed on the mural.
“What sort of question is that?” the white mare choked out, half-sobbing and incredulous.
Luna jerked her head downwards, the action seeming to take a tremendous amount of effort, and turned it again towards her sister. “With art that beautiful, most would think him a unicorn using enchanted paints and brushes. Each time I look at it I am reminded that I must forever challenge preconceptions and judgements. Of course,” she added with a slight chuckle, “when I asked him to make it for me I was more interested in the aesthetic side.”
“Oh don’t be modest sister, it has never suited you,” argued Celestia, recovering from her momentary breakdown, “you were a little philosopher then as much as now.”
Luna shook her head wearily, trying in vain to push back a smile, and levitated a book which had fallen from the shelf in front of her. “‘On the Similarities Between the Species of the Genus Equine',” Celestia read from the leather-bound cover as Luna moved it back onto its place on the shelf. She turned her head to Luna. “That was one of yours, was it not?” Luna did not answer, and as she set it down Celestia immediately picked it back up with her magic and kept it in front of her.
Luna frowned slightly but Celestia continued to scan the tome, and murmured absently, “what did I tell you about modesty, Luna?” The lettering on the book was faded, the ink imprinted so many years ago worn away with too many turns of the page. After some careful flicks through the introduction – written by Clover the Clever himself – Celestia made it to the title page. She smiled as she saw the copyright dated with the old system (an incredibly illogical system Celestia had always despised) as about one thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight years before.
“This is a first edition?” Luna nodded. “Do you know how much the Canterlot Library – any library would give for it?” Another nod. “Luna, there were less than one hundred of this edition originally printed–“
“I am aware of that.”
“–and of those all but this one have been lost or destroyed. This would be a priceless addition to any institution.” Celestia stopped, waiting for an interruption or gesture, but Luna simply closed her eyes and stayed silent. The book flipped to the last page and Celestia shook her head. “It is even signed by Clover. Such a kind action would surely ingratiate you with the ponies . . .” Celestia trailed off as Luna slowly shook her head.
“I am aware of this Celestia. Does not the Canterlot library have more than one copy of a later edition?” Celestia made to argue but Luna raised a hoof and continued. “If I gain favour of the populous it will be through my own will, not a paltry gift that is no different to what is already possessed aside from older ink and memories that matter only to I. Do you mean to say you have kept no personal relic that would be treasured by academics throughout and around Equestria? We have lived too long for our memories to matter so little to us.”
Celestia took a step back and lowered her head in shame. In the darkness the streaks of white in the marble caught her eye, and she looked away, feeling sick with regret. She opened her eyes again and faced the mural, again feeling her mind go numb with emotion and memory. She turned again and again, but found herself confronted with memory upon memory: Luna’s amber crown, created by a Zebrican who had died young from an incurable illness; the black-swan down pillow, the original feathers thousands of years past procured from a trip the sisters had taken to Hollow Shades with the first captain of Luna’s guard; the books on the shelves, almost all over one thousand years old, written by loved ones and during fond times.
Finally Celestia broke off with a cry and stared directly at Luna. “This is why I never come here!” she spat out. “We start so cordially as if nothing was wrong, as if half of our lives has been erased, as if nothing horrible happened between us. And then because we evade it so, we are driven to the other half, and we remember all of those we have lost! I cannot stand it anymore!” She turned away and walked towards the balcony, her opulent mane trailing behind her.
Behind her Celestia heard the princess of the night trembling as she lowered herself onto the cold marble floor. She kept her position, not daring to turn back and look at her broken sister to see a mirror of herself.
“I’m sorry, sister,” came the sobbing voice behind her, the queen of composure finally breaking her icy seal. “I’m sorry I have made us this way. My absence caused this, I know; no ponies as close as us should have such a barrier between them for so long. There are so many ponies I – we – have lost. I cannot help myself, sister!” she cried out, “I simply cannot! I hold onto the memories and keep them locked here, and when you come here you are swallowed by my sadness.” A heart-wrenching sob came, but Celestia kept her gaze fixed on the balcony, the ivy eternally climbing upward. “There are too many ponies dead, too many for me to hold onto. We live too long – lives play out like a story, with a start and an end: we have no end and our story is like torture sometimes.”
Celestia felt a tear trailing its way down her nose. She just wanted to leave this hall of memory and bury herself in the present, so she took four steps forward and bounded into the air, titlting her wings to circle around the castle to her quarters. But even as she flew, Celestia heard her sister’s heartbroken words.
“I remember all of them so clearly. We could at least have been allowed to forget.”