Under the Moon
“Go and rest sister. As always, I shall watch over the night.”
Celestia smiled at Luna, although there was a wrinkle of concern in her eyes. “Are you sure you will be alright tonight?”
“I have been guarding the night for years now without a hitch. I will be fine, I promise.”
“I just know how you get this time of year. It’s the anniversary of-”
“I’ll be fine sister. Between us, you are the one who carries the burden. I have seen your nightmares, remember.”
Celestia swallowed, and looked away. “I am always close by, I promise. And I love you with all my heart.” Celestia spread her wings, and with a mighty leap, took to the air. For a moment, she glided on a convenient wind current, before disappearing into an explosion of golden light that rivaled the majesty of the very sun. Luna continued smiling until she was sure her sister was gone, and then allowed a more passive expression to cross her lips. She sat down and brought the telescope close to her face, before peering into it. She did her nightly routine of course. She checked the Everfree Forest, to be sure no shadowy monster or parasitic puffballs were approaching the boarder of Ponyville (something always seemed to be happening in Ponyville.) She looked to Manehattan to be sure the city that never slept was asleep. The citizens of Equestria had been suffering nightmares lately. Luna did not know the reason, but the past month had been filled with interventions. Tonight, it seemed whatever panic had stricken her subjects had passed, and Equestria could once more sleep safe.
That left her utterly bored.
She sighed, and lay down on ground, resting her head on the guardrail and peering out into the sleeping city. A lot had changed in a thousand years, and a lot had remained the same.
Then a dream hit her like a train. A pony had been shocked awake from the depths of sleep, sending a wave of mental backlash in all directions. Luna quickly closed her eyes and focused, scanning the sleeping night for something out of place, and finally caught a disturbance in the dream world emanating from the southern wing of the castle. With an explosion of midnight blue magic, she disappeared from the balcony.
As she appeared in her destination, an engineering workshop, she was forced to duck lest a flying gear collide with her face. For a moment, she believed she was under attack, and stood with her horn sparking, prepared to engage whatever monster had materialized in her home. Instead, she saw a slim earth pony with his back towards her. His hindquarters were up in the air and swaying side to side. He was mumbling to himself and scribbling furiously on a stretch of paper with a pen clenched in his teeth.
“Citizen?” Luna asked, taking a step forward.
“No!” the earth pony screamed, slamming a hoof against the ground. “No, that’s not right. How did it go?” The earth pony rushed to a worktable and began tossing an assortment of gears, wrenches, and hammers over his shoulder, forcing Luna to duck and dodge. At last unearthing an old tattered piece of paper, the earth pony rushed back to his place on the ground. “I almost had it this time! By the moon, I almost had it!”
“Citizen,” Luna said again.
The earth pony’s ears twitched and he turned around. Seeing the princess of the night, he quickly lay on the ground with his head held low. “Forgive me, princess. I did not realize I was in your presence. Is there something you require?”
“Luna,” she said. “I would like it if you called me Luna. May I ask your name?”
The earth pony lifted his head briefly. He had beautiful yellow eyes, which she caught sight of for just a moment, but all too quickly they were shielded by the lid. “I’m Sprocket,” he said. “I’m an engineer from Ponyville. Princess Celestia hired me to make some repairs around the castle. Do you need something repaired, my princess?”
Luna bowed her head. “No… I just… I felt you wake from a deep sleep and was worried. I didn’t mean to bother you. I’m sorry.” She turned to leave.
“Luna,” Sprocket called out. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to offend you. It’s just rather rare I get any visitors to this workshop, let alone a princess. I was having a dream and woke up rather quickly, that is what you felt. It’s a dream I’ve been having since I was little, where I build a perpetual motion device. No muscle power, no magic, no wind. Just… the perfect creation, powered only by itself. I keep having the dream of building it, and in the dream I can see the blueprints, and they all make sense. It’s so clear to me. But then when I wake up, the image is gone from my mind. Poof. I keep thinking if I wake up soon enough, and remember what I just saw, I can do it.”
“Perhaps I can help sometime,” Luna said. “I have the power to enter the dreams of others. I usually use it to ease the nightmares that burden the citizens of Equestria, but perhaps I can enter your dream and help you build the machine. Then when I exit the dream, I will relay what I have learned.”
Sprocket’s eyes lit up like a foal’s at Hearth Warming Day. Luna was almost expecting him to leap into the air and squeal with delight, and was somewhat disappointed when he didn’t. “L-Luna… that would be incredible. By the moon, you could do that?”
“I can try, certainly. But please understand, what you see in dreams does not always translate to the physical world. In dreams, the only limitation is your imagination. It is the strength of dreams, but it is also a source of terror for many.”
“Well, you will be there to protect me, right?”
Luna smiled, and nodded. The earth pony was tall and slim (though of course smaller than Luna.) Coppery fur covered his slender body, though Luna could see the lean muscle just past the fine layer of fur. It was funny how earth stallions seemed to come in two flavors. They were either like Sprocket: slender and lean, or thick bodied and stout. She had to admit; she liked the former just a bit more, and was happy that Pipsqueak was shaping into such a slender stallion. Earth ponies also shared a sort of homely handsome. It was unicorns who were gorgeous, but too often their looks became sickeningly sweet. Earth ponies were different, and she liked that. She found herself staring.
“Would you like to see some of my projects?” Sprocket asked. Luna smiled, and followed him to a corner of the workshop. Biting a large tarp in his teeth, he tugged it down to reveal something akin to a cannon in appearance, though with several wires and sprockets stretching out of its chrome chassis.
“What does this do?” she asked.
“Well… to be honest, I’m not completely sure. It will either amplify whatever magic is put into it, or turn apples into oranges. The blueprints came to me in a dream a week or two ago. So I drew them up, and then got around to building it.”
“It is strange, Sprocket. I do not remember ever seeing your dreams unfold.”
“I don’t sleep at night,” he said casually. “I sleep all day, work all night. I like the night better.”
“W-what about it?” Luna asked.
“Everything. It’s quiet at night. I can hear my thoughts. And the stars and moon are so much better than the sun. You can't stare at the sun, but I can spend hours and hours learning every crevice of the moon. I built a high powered telescope just for that, in fact. And how the stars have changed. They used to be in a grid pattern. It was predictable and boring. But lately, there is so much chaos in the sky. Every single night, the stars are different.” He trotted to another work table and showed off several charts, documenting the stars at the position of the moon. “Every single time, it’s different. It’s amazing! I mean, why wasn’t it al… Princess… are you crying?”
Luna touched a hoof to her eye and looked to the saturation. She giggled nervously. “I’m just happy you enjoy my night so much.” She took a deep breath. “Sprocket, may I share something with you?”
“Of course Luna. I am all ears.”
“Do you know what hurts the most about returning from my exile? It’s the fact that life continued without me. Tia raised the sun and the moon and life just went on. I became a bedtime story. I became a fable… Something that ponies laughed about one night a year and then forgot. I feel awful for… for wishing that the world had ended with my absence but… Does anyone even care that I’ve returned? It has been four years since I have been released from my exile, and there are smiles and sweetness, but this time of year I always must wonder…” She lowered her head. “Then I feel selfish. I feel like a spoiled foal who doesn’t deserve to be remembered.”
“Life goes on,” Sprocket said. “I know you don’t want me to lie to you. Life does go on. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t happy that you are back.”
She smiled. “Yes. I am sorry. This time of year always depresses me. This is the time of year that my sister was forced to banish me to the moon, all those years ago. It is an anniversary that I wish I could forget, and yet it plagues my every thought. My great fear is that the darkness may overtake me again, and the harm and pain I could cause to ponies like you. But I must admit, another fear plagues me. It is the fear that, should Celestia banish me once more, I will be forgotten.”
“Sometimes, you don’t know what you have until you’ve lost it. But sometimes you don’t know what you’ve lost until you have it, and then you don’t ever want to lose it again. You know, deep in your heart, that you will fight for it. And you will kill for it. And you will die for it. I don’t think I could bare it if the night sky went back to the boring grid pattern, every star neatly lined up, exactly X meters apart from every other star. I would die inside if I looked up and the moon was just a lifeless reflection of the sun, instead of something so beautiful and vibrant and unique. I know, I know, I’m an engineer. I should like things neat and orderly, but the thought of it now makes me sick in my belly. I don’t ever want to see that night sky again.”
“I promise, Sprocket, that night shall never return.”
Sprocket arched his back and stretched. “Well, this night is still young. I think I’ll try and figure out what the hay this contraption of mine does. I’m always here if you would like to chat though. It does get lonely in this workshop, sometimes.”
“Thank you, Sprocket. Soon, we should make a date to sleep together. I mean… you sleep and I will enter your dreams, and so I can learn the blueprints for the machine.”
Sprocket nodded, and trotted to the strange cannon in the corner. Luna quietly turned and trotted out the door, gently closing it behind her.
