Clack. Clack. Clack.
The dulled echo of Luna’s pacing sounded throughout the expanses of her chambers, unbroken by the coldness of the night air or the furnishings with which the room was so lavishly bestowed.
She had wanted it to be low key, she had said. Nothing fancy, not even anything at all. But Celestia had insisted that her birthday should be celebrated in a manner most becoming of her regal status, and Luna had not the heart to tell her not to.
And so, she had endured the vast banquette, making idle niceties with the various diplomats, advisers and other generally uninteresting individuals with whom it had been deemed appropriate she should spend the evening. Though she remembered the entire event as little more than a blur, Luna felt drained and longed for the warmth and isolation of her bedchamber.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Luna completed her what seemed like millionth cycle around the room and stared again intently at the fault that had developed in her plans for an early nights slumber. A bright green box roughly two hooves square sat next to the foot of her bed, its glossy green surface standing at stark contrast to the much darker, and in her opinion calming tones of her standard décor. Across the top of the offending cube in long looping printing was scrawled “To my favorite sister” in an almost blindingly sliver ink which seemed to provide its own source of illumination.
“Not even a card?” Luna pondered to herself. Still, she reasoned, it was nice that Celestia was making the effort, and it couldn’t be that easy to find a card with “Happy 1023rd Birthday” inscribed on its cover. She should just open it, she continued, after all, her sister had gifted herself 1000 years with which to scourer the land for the most perfect of gifts. There was no sense in delaying it any longer; it had just been a little off-putting that rather than presenting it to her personally, her one and only present had just been placed here for her to find. Such an action had given her plenty to mull over, and mull over it she did, as she had had so much practice at that sort of thing.
Her train of thought slowly derailed until she became lost in the almost darkness of her room again, her mind virtually empty. She mentally pulled herself back; she was well and truly over thinking this. Mulling session concluded, she picked up the box with her soft blue glow and sat it on the edge of her bed, all the while peeling back the surprising numerous layers of wrapping that encompassed it.
As the last sheet fell away, Luna stared transfixed into her father’s hard ivory eyes. Yet somehow, even in marble form the warmth and kindness he always seemed to emote appeared as plain as day. Beside his imposing form stood her mother, her features unmistakable even after a thousand years of forgotten memories. From the tip of her ornately carved horn to the end of her flowing tail, every detail was immaculate, perfect in the manner with which it conveyed her unsurpassable beauty. The pair stood together atop a placard which read “We will always be together” in carefully inscribed lettering.
Between the legs of her exquisitely detailed parents, Luna could see the likeness of two little fillies. Celestia at the age of four was standing center right, trying her very best to mimic the pose so effortlessly displayed by her sire, yet looking strangely unwieldy in the attempt. Luna chuckled softly under her breath, trying to draw any comparison between the skittish and awkward filly depicted in the statue and the all powerful, all knowing Celestia of the present.
These thoughts aside, Luna stared quizzically at herself. It was odd, of that there was no doubt, to see a version of yourself scrubbed clean from the memory of the living. Though over a thousand years separated the two instances of her form, Luna had no difficult recognizing her own features and flaws, and the loving yet slightly hurt demeanor of her young eyes.
It was truly a beautiful object to behold, and Luna made a mental note to thank her sister for the gift in the morning. An aura of dark blue enveloped the figures and started to lift the assembly toward a high shelf on the wall.
As it drifted lazily through the air, Luna studied her younger self yet further. Looking upward toward her mothers unacknowledgeing face, Luna could see the first signs of hurt in her own expertly caved eyes, the first signs of her own descent into the dark pit of jealousy and madness that would result in her untimely exile. In her time spent alone wandering the darkened expanses of her prison, Luna had often wondered when first her deeper feelings had begun to show, and here is was, after a millennia of searching represented in a block of soulless stone.
Suddenly she felt very alone. She would never have a chance to repent the sins of her past, never have a foal of her own to guide though the dark as her own parents had failed so spectacularly to do. She would never experience the affections she had tried so desperately to bestow upon her parents, while they lavished her older sister with the attention she so desperately craved. She didn’t hate them, she never could, but deep in their cold stone eyes she could see the creators of the monster she had become. This single simple object though given with the best of intentions represented everything that shaped who she was, and everything she could never obtain in the future.
Slamming her glowing teal eyes shut, tears on the verge of pouring forth, Luna flung the statue across the expense of her chamber into the cold granite wall where is exploded into thousands upon thousands of sparkling shards with a crash that was far too loud for the modestly dimensioned room.
BANG!!
The door of the chamber caved inward, a shower of fragments indicating where the lock had sheered free of its post. Standing rigid in the doorway with a look of fear and determination stretched across his features stood the pegasus stallion whom Luna had passed outside the door what seemed like hours ago.
“Princess” the exacerbated guard almost shouted, “Are you alright? I feared the worst”. Sworn from an early age to protect their charge by any and all means, the royal guards were second to none in terms of raw size and speed, though could perhaps be faulted for an excess of paranoia. Despite all this, and his many years of arduous training, Silver Ash found that none of his previous experiences had prepared him for what he saw following his spectacular entrance.
Slumped in the dead centre of the room sobbed Princess Luna, her back arched and shivering with the convolutions of her torment. Her head turned and pointed a slightly open and very upset looking eye in his direction. “Nooo”, she barely managed to get out, before the realization of how she must look began to set in. Shaking her shoulders quickly to try and gain some composure, Luna climbed to her feet and turned to face him. “Hae- hmm”, she coughed, “I mean no…….thank you, we are quite alright” a fraction of her royal voice returning as though some kind of fallback setting. “We are most appreciative of your concern, but be assured we are in no need of your assistance. Please return to your post, this mess will be taken care of”. Luna gestured vaguely around the room in the hopes that the intruder would soon leave and she could continue to wallow in self pity.
Silver Ash just stood there, his mind trying to put together what was going. He was a warrior, not a psychologist, trained to fight and defend whatever his duty called upon him to defend, not understand what might be going on in somepony’s head. But it took no training to tell him that what he saw was not all right. A battle raged fiercely between the parts of him that were attempting to follow a direct order from his highest commander, and a reasoning that it was his sworn duty to discover the cause for Luna’s obvious distress. The result of this was a slow backward step toward the door as a barely together Luna frowned intently at him.
Pausing for only a second, ready to retreat should the need arise he softly began to speak. “Umm, Pri-“ was all that escaped his lips before Luna’s concentration was broken and she slumped slightly. “….what’s the point….” she mumbled as she began to drag her hooves toward a small chair by a desk on the far wall.
He would leave, yes, that’s what he would do, he would go and find his commanding officer and tell him what had transpired. It was clear that Luna was in no physical danger and would be fine to be left to her own devices while he sought assistance. His plan formed, Silver Ash turned to leave through the remains of the door through which he had entered.
As he walked out with his proper and dignified stride it became oddly apparent that despite going through the motions his exit was not actually taking place. He let out a barely audible gasp as he discovered the reason for his lack of motion. The floor to which he was tied so solidly to just seconds before now hung just out of his reach, a slight blue glow enveloping the lower half of his legs. Slowly, he wafted slowly back across the chamber without a sound, so unsure of his own ability to judge the situation that he dare not speak.
Luna dropped him roughly on the hard floor in front of the chair in which she had situated herself, her horn already hard at work with a bottle of some kind of brownish liquid which she had acquired from within the desk. Two glasses were dully and messily filled, indicative of the monarch’s lack of concern about the situation at hoof. Extending one to the dumbfounded guard, Luna cocked her head to one side and said in a voice strangely reminiscent of a child’s, “Please….good sir….join us for a drink…”.
No sooner had these words left her lips than Silver found himself thrust roughly upon the chair opposite the brooding royal; it’s luxuriously appointed upholstery torn beyond repair by the jagged edges of his bat-esque armor, his wings bent painfully askew. He gazed at her, wondering if he had perhaps made a mistake in entering in the first place, and how he was going to explain what had happened here when he was questioned later. She was clearly shaken up about something significant, and as a royal guard, he steeled himself that whatever had to be done to placate Luna and return her to a state of calm, he would do.
Luna’s eyes darted back and forth between the guard she was effectively holding captive and the glass she was offering him. In the back of her mind, a little voice she thought had been executed by her former self eons ago questioned what she was doing. “SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!!!!!” the greater part of her screamed in response, unsure as it was of its own motivations. The glass began to shake, then fell as her mind turned its energies inward onto itself, in a bid to hold a coherent train of thought.
His reflexes like lightning, Silver caught the glass less than an instant later, its contents preserved intact despite their unforgiving treatment. “Yes, your maje-” the guardstallion replied, before appending “Luna” to the end. A breach in standard protocol, and possibly a sign of disrespect, but given the situation what seemed like an appropriate response to Luna’s seemingly innocent if slightly disconcerting proposition.
Luna’s though process stopped. “He’s going to stay” wafted through her, quelling all the doubts that she had been experiencing about her actions. She released her enchanting grasp on her no longer captive, but willing guest and began to rapidly empty her own glass. Its contents burned her as she swallowed, but in her disheveled mental state she scarcely noticed. She placed the empty vessel back atop the desk significantly softer than she would have done moments before and cleared her throat.