Letters from a Princess

She lay, her hooves outstretched before her, staring at the dust of the moon beneath her. It stirred under the gentle force of her breath, floating upwards and eventually settling once more on her forelegs. Like everything else it moved slowly, like each agonizing day as it passed. It had been a week since she’d set hoof on the moon, and 3 days since she’d even bothered to move. No matter where she looked the stars and the moon were all the same—and the same they would remain for the next thousand years.

Her eyes came to focus on a single speck of dust as it floated past her face. It drew her numbed, mindless attention for a few moments, until she once more settled her gaze on the ground beneath her.

Between her hooves was a letter, white as the moon, addressed simply “To: Luna.” She stared at it blankly for several moments before the thought crossed her mind: “Luna is I...”

Still not moving even a single muscle she used her magic to bring the envelope closer to her face. Again many moments passed before she realized she was holding it so close to her face she could hardly see it. Once she held it at a more reasonable distance she focused her eyes once more on her name. Several thoughtless minutes passed, her mind moving slowly as the dust, before she bothered to open it.

“Dear Luna,” read the letter. “My sister...”

Sister?

Celestia.

The name made something click in her mind; something distant, but important. Whatever it was, it urged her to read onward.

“My sister... I can't believe I'm even writing to you. after what you've done... you betrayed us. clearly we are no longer important to you.

“You shall rise and fall with the moon you loved so much, for the next thousand years. I hope when you return you’ll realize...”

Each word struck Luna deeply as her mind came back to full awareness. Her muscles began to tense, as did her grip on the paper, until a jagged crack appeared near its top and slowly began to work its way down. The noise got louder as her pace increased, until the paper came apart in two pieces.

Luna stared at them. Her heart skipped a beat. And before she knew it her magic had torn the letter to shreds. She moved for the first time in 3 days, and found herself beating the shreds into the ground with her hooves. Soon her head joined them, smashing against the ground and scattering the pieces. Her tears as they hit the ground were as loud as the sound of her hooves and the beat of her heart, and came twice as often.

Her cries came in shallow gasps and moans, through clenched teeth, every so often. When at last she had nothing left to strike but the ground she let her face fall to it, and held her hooves over her head, screaming and whimpering as her tears sullied her face and pooled on the white dust beneath her.

There was no comfort for the little princess. No hoof to hold, no voice to hear. Only the sound of her own cries thrown back at her in echoes.

~

Luna’s eyes fluttered open. Her blurred vision revealed nothing of her surroundings, and for a moment she could almost tell herself she was still in her room in the castle, resting in her bed, perhaps waiting for her sister to drop by and play a game. But her bed was not so hard. The air in Canterlot was not so muggy. And Luna was never so truly alone—not like she was now.

Luna had cried herself to sleep. Her eyes were red and dry, and hardly could they move. When at last she could make them obey, she noticed something floating just in front of her right eye. It was a shred of Celestia’s letter, a piece the moon’s weak gravity had not yet grasped hold of. She closed her other eye and managed to focus on it. It read “I love you, Luna.”

Luna tossed the concept about in her head—her thoughts were once again moving slowly. At long last she summoned the will to raise her head. All about her were the floating pieces of the letter. She crawled, pushing past each poison tongued word, black and brilliantly visible against the blinding white surrounding it, until the original envelope lay whole beneath her hooves. She lifted it up, and looked inside. She found a blank piece of paper and a quill within.

Luna stared at it absentmindedly. She had all the tme in the world, after all, to figure out what she aught to write. Though it was perhaps a half an hour before she knew what words to say first.

“I love you too, Celestia."

Her writing paused, and her magical grasp on the quill quivered.

"But you betrayed me.”

She signed the letter with her final tear and folded it back into the envelope.