Moonglow
Written by: Thebandbrony
"Hey, watch where you're going! You're gonna hurt somepony-"
The passerby, in a remarkable display of attitude turnaround, saw who he had just bumped into, and immediately dug his face into the dirt. "Your majesty! I'm... Uh-I'm ever so sorry. Please don't kill me."
Unfortunately for the princess of the night, this was a relatively tame response for a pony meeting a royal princess. Specifically her. While her sister Celestia was loved as a benevolent and down to earth ruler, Luna was shunned by even the most compassionate of ponies simply because of her reputation. Being an evil spirit of chaos and destruction can really do a number on one's reputation.
The princess rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to eat you. And if anypony should be apologizing, it should be me." Luna had spent weeks rehearsing this bizarre mutation of speech that was known as modern Equestrian. She much preferred the classic grace of get old tongue, but it didn't exactly help her less than stellar image. So, with regret, she had dropped the civil (if not strikingly loud) tone, replacing it for a much milder, gentler demeanor. Apparently, though, it didn't help one single bit.
"Please, don't hurt me. I have a wife and foals." his knees were audibly knocking, which struck Luna as odd: she had never seen a pony so scared that their knees actually clacked together. She found it almost pitiablely hilarious, and repressed a laugh.
"Relax, fair pony. I don't wish to harm you. I apologize for running into you. I hope I have not inconvenienced you in any way. I hope you have a good evening. Goodbye-"
The pony sped off at a remarkable pace, stirring up a cloud of dust in his wake.
The princess attempted to shrug off the encounter, but it stuck with her. This situation had repeated itself thousands of times since her return from the moon. Only the faces had changed. It disheartened her greatly that her own subjects were so terrified at the sight of their ruler that they fled in fear for their lives. Why didn't they like her like they did Celestia? She had asked her sister several times, only to be answered with cryptic metaphors and shrugs. For all the princess' vast reservoirs of knowledge, she could not think of a single thing that still could possibly frighten ponies so badly. She altered her appearance when in public, taking on a smaller, yet no less regal, form in a Cain effort to ease the nerves of ponies around her. She dropped the old Equestrian dialect, relying instead on the vernacular of wherever she traveled (She still laughed at her attempts to copy the cowboy accent on one of her recent trips to Appleoosa). She had even gone so far ad to drop her royal guard escort. The order was a heinous breach of security, but she was desperate to try. Alas, all of these attempts had failed miserably in one way or another.
She saw several fillies playing in a small playground. She walked over to them, and in the friendliest possible tone, said, "Hello little ones."
At once, they cowered behind a teeter-totter. "Please don't eat us."
That was the last straw. "Eat you?!" Luna snapped, "Who in Celestia's name said I was going to eat you? That's just stupid!" her voice flared with a sharp burst of old Equestrian zeal, causing the fillies to start crying.
"Oh, no. Please don't." Luna pleaded, but it was already too late. The fillies ran away, sobbing as they disappeared over a nearby hill.
She could stand it no longer. One thousand years of soul crushing loneliness on the moon, and when she returns, her subjects could find nothing better to do than cower and hide? The princess of the night could do nothing but retreat behind a grove of oak trees and sob. She was stuck in the midst of some perpetual nightmare she could not end. Her subjects hated her. What kind if ruler was she if her own people couldn't bear the sight of her? She didn't have to answer that question, as she already knew the answer.
She continued to cry for quite some time until she noticed that the sun was beginning to set ok the horizon. She needed to raise the moon.
She didn't want to return to the Canterlot Castle to do it, though. She just wanted to be alone, just like she always had been. "Oh well," she muttered. "Might as well do it here." She stood up, walked around for some time until she found a clearing where she had a clear shot at the moon (she didn't want to harm somepony accidentally), and dug her hooves into the dirt for support. She bowed her head, and a deep blue sphere of magic wrapped itself around the princess with a bright twinkling.
As this was going on, a rather large crowd of ponies had gathered to watch the princess in action. Ad they starred, a beam of magic shot out from Luna's horn, soaring through the air at tremendous speeds until it was lost over the horizon. This commotion caused a baby to start crying.
"Not now," the princess muttered, and materialized a lollipop next to the foal. The crying ceased.
"Good," she said, glad to have that distraction out of her way. Just then, she felt her magic connect with something massive and solid: the moon. Luna channeled all her possible magic in casting the spell that kept the moon moving. As she did this, her mane briefly turned black, and became illuminated with a myriad of intermingling star patterns. This drew a collective "gasp" from her ever-increasing audience.
Her mane returned to its normal hue, and, having completed her spell, she allowed her magic to dissipate harmlessly into the air, turning the once powerful beams of magic into millions of cerulean colored sparks, flitting about in the warm breeze of the evening. As she turned, she noticed the now sizable crowd that had gathered to wary this impromptu feat of magic.
"I'm sorry if I interrupted your day. I'll be going now-"
She was cut off by a flurry of applause that swept through the crowds with vigor. They were cheering... For her?
"Wha... Why are you clapping?" asked the princess, clearly confused by the rapid turn of events.
A young, ashen-grey colt was the first to speak. "That was so cool! You just shot your magic at the moon, and your mane was all sparkly, and... Wow!"
Luna blushed at the complement. "Really, its nothing-"
"Of course it's not nothing!" cried several ponies collectively. "Without night, we would be stuck with nothing but day! All of Equestria would be thrown out of whack! Without you, the world would be pure chaos!"
For the first time all day, the princess genuinely smiled. "But, I thought you were all so scared of me..."
"Oh please! Who would be afraid of a royal princess?"
"I could name a few."
"Look," spoke an older, pink mare. "We may get a tad overactive when we see a royal sister, bit that's just because… well, you're a royal sister! It's not every day you see one of you wandering around here."
At this point, Luna was in the verge of tears. Tears of joy. "So... You don't hate me?"
"Of course not!" the reply was overwhelming. "You are a royal sister, the keeper of the night no less! We love you just as much as we love your sister, Celestia!"
"Wow... Thank you, so very much," was all Luna could mutter before she broke out into tears. The crowd reacted quickly, embracing their leader in a display of collective acceptance and affection.
"I... I was gone for so long," the princess sniffed, "Everypony was so scared of me when I came back. They thought I was going to hurt them... I don't know how that idea even popped into their heads..."
A filly nestling herself against the princess' leg replied, "Aw shucks. Don't matter what those silly fillies say. We love ya, no matter what."
The touching speech overwhelmed Luna. She relaxed, and, with several luminous tears sliding down her face, extended her arms over crowd, embracing them back. It was the least she could do to show her gratitude for showing such kindness to her. "Thank you... For showing me how truly loving you all can be."
She sat there, basking in the newfound love she had found, as the moon rose in the sky, bathing the group in the soft light of their beloved princess' moon.
