POV: Luna

I smiled to myself as I hummed a small tune, one from ages ago, back when we were with the Crusaders. It had been a rather pleasant day today, my mind finally cleared up from the clouded confusion that plagued it for the last couple of weeks. I had finally come up with an answer to my problems.

I was going to tell Drak just how I felt about him.

I knew it wasn't a sure fire way to fix everything, and I don't even know if he would be willing to accept my own feelings, let alone return them back to me. However, after thinking about it more after he left for his session with the mind mage, I finally decided that overall it would be worth the risk.

Once I had made that choice, all my other worries seemed to just slip away, as if nothing else mattered but to just tell him how I felt. I even managed to help out with a few of the things Celestia wasn't able to do with ease, seeing how she is busy helping out with Drak.

I look back in my magical grip at the bundle of night lilies that I had, smiling as I give them a small sniff. I know that Drak wouldn't be eating these lilies, despite how tasty they are, but they are also some of the most beautiful night flowers I have ever found during my travels, and I just hoped that he would find them to be lovely as well.

Looking into the bundle carefully I make sure that the note that I wrote for him was still rolled up in there, only lightly hidden among the flowers. Inside I wrote not only a small poem that I made during our Crusader times, but also a confession letter of sorts, telling him about how I have felt all these centuries, and all the feelings I have been going through, along with the conflict of telling him. I pause again in mid step as I debate if I should rewrite it all but then shook my head, continuing to walk down the halls to my room.

I had to get a few more things ready before I felt ready to give it to him, such as getting my room ready for when he returns, but I was feeling confident about the whole thing. The plan is a simple one; just talk to him to get him to relax, then present the lilies to him. As he looks at the flowers I would carefully slide the note up from the center of the stems till he sees it, then let him read it. After that...well, after that it was all up to him.

It was strange really, all the times I felt nervous when I was around him, and yet now, when I was about to admit my own feelings to the pony...er, human that I have fallen for, I finally feel at ease. Perhaps it's what Candence says about those last few minutes that a pony gets relaxed and calm, knowing that all will be well, just cause they say so to themselves. All I had to do now was set some candles in the room like the books say and set up some of that romantic music.

I take the next turn to my room...and stop dead in my tracks, the human in my mind suddenly walking around the other corner. I quickly move the bundle of flowers to my side and tuck it under my wing, doing my best to hid it, not ready to give it to him just yet. As soon as he saw me, he quickened his pace, walking up to me, thankfully it seemed he didn't see the gift I have for him.

I gave him a smile, glad to see him again even with the poor timing, but it soon turns to a frown as I see his expression, the look of hurt on his face, the pain in his eyes. Something was wrong.

I take a few steps and stop in front of him, looking up at his face with worry. "Drak, what is wrong with thou?" I asked him. However, he remains silent, not willing to say a word. "Drakalian, was thy mind mage not able to help thou?"

He remains silent still, once again looking away from making eye contact with me, but I could already tell that he was not happy from the brief look we had. I was about to ask again when he finally spoke up. "Hey Luna. The...the mind mage...he did help." He says softly.

I give a smile upon hearing this. "That's great news then! What was he able to do? Did he manage to figure out why you had amnesia in the first place? Was he able to fully fix it, or did he-" I started to ask before he silences me with a finger to my mouth. My eyes go cross looking at the finger for a moment before looking back at him, even more confused when his expression didn't change.

He removes his finger as he lets out a small sigh, closing his eyes as he seems to focus. "He managed to fix it. My memories should be coming back to me within the next month or two." He tells me.

"Great! Then we should celebrate this momentous occasion!" I tell him. I start to walk to my room, but stop after a few steps, looking back when I realize he wasn't following me.

Looking at him, I could see him looking back at me, but this time, his eyes locked with mine for just a moment. It was very brief, but it was enough to know that he was hurting...and it soon dawns on me just what it was that could be hurting him.

I slowly turn around to face him again. "These memories, they...they were about the war, yes?" I ask, to which he nods. "They weren't pleasant ones were they?" He looks down at the floor now, and I could see his eyes getting a bit more misty, making my heart beat harder with worry. "Please Drak, what's wrong? You can tell me."

He slowly looks up at me for a few more seconds before slowly, softly, he speaks up. I can barely hear it, but it is quiet enough around us that I can manage to make out the words.

"Aryas...Aryas is dead..."

I feel my eyes go wide, hearing the words of his first marefriend and knowing just why he would say those words. If he was talking about her, and that she is dead, then that could only mean the memory that he found, at least one of them, was of her death.

Quickly I lean against him and wrap my forelegs around him, the human quick to return the gesture in kind. I hold him close as I press my head against his own, lightly nuzzling him. I hear him start to slowly tear up, the events of what he went through seeming to be finally hitting him as he starts to tear up. I feel his fingers tighten against my back, and I just squeeze him tighter as I keep him close, letting him express his sadness at his own pace.

Slowly, Drak starts to shake a bit more, but he still doesn't fully cry, just letting his eyes water as he sniffles. He always has a hard time with fully crying, that I remember of him, and it seems that has still yet to change, but I know that deep down, he is very distraught about what he has learned. I decide to remain silent for the moment, not saying a single word as we just stood there, limbs wrapped around each other in a comforting embrace as I hold him close.

After what felt like a few minutes, I feel him slowly calming down enough to stop his shaking, slowly he starts to pull back, and I let him go as I just rest my forelegs around him lightly, leaning back to look at his face. I could see that this time, his eyes were starting to redden, seeing that he was holding his tears back despite himself. I just give him a comforting smile, despite feeling the sadness from him telling me that this was nothing to smile about.

After a few moments of staring at each other, he finally speaks up, but the words catch in his throat as he takes a moment to try again while I wait patiently for him to speak. After a few moments he manages to get it on the second try. "C-Ce...Celestia, said...she said you know...know where he...her grave is..." He says.

I give a small nod, my mind already going to that location of it. "Yes we do. You showed us the place after the...during our travels." I tell him. He looks at me again with the unanswered question, and I just nod. "It's not that far, just a fifteen minute walk from the city's edge."

He nods as we slowly untangle ourselves from the comfort hug. "Ok..." He says softly. Seeing that he was as ready as ever, I start to lead him back down the hall and out of the castle.

---

It takes a good while, but soon we find ourselves walking along the unused rocky pathway, going up one of the cliffs that overlooked the city itself. Looking over the view before us, I would have loved to stand there with him, the two of us just taking in the scenery and enjoying the whole place. In fact this would have been a much better place for my plan than my simple room.

However, that wasn't why we were here.

"Not much farther Drak." I tell him, glancing back to see if he was still following. As before he was looking down, head lowered as he just followed me, shoulder slumped, his whole body screaming of pain now. I give him a comforting smile as I turn facing forward again, looking around for the sign of Aryas' grave. After just a minute of searching, I find it. "Here we are!"

Before I can even motion where it is, the human rushes past me and towards the grave, stumbling a bit as he makes his way forward. I quickly rush to follow, worried that he may hurt himself in his distressed state. Thankfully he manages to make it without tripping and soon we are both standing before the grave.

It's a simple grave, at least in design. There wasn't much in the ways of marking it as any other grave, knowing what he had to go through when he told us about how he buried her here. It was a large stone slab just jutting out only a foot from the soft ground, one of the few spots of soft ground around in this mountainous area, the buried bump of dirt having been grown by a few bits of grass and some flowers as well. On the stone itself was a short inscription carved into the rock of the dead pony that was buried here. While the dates were hard to read with how faded it was, the rest was still legible:

Drak just stands there for the moment, staring at the stone and the lump of dirt before him before slowly sinking to his knees. I watch him as he reads the stone over and over again, not knowing what was going through his head, but knowing that whatever it was, he was in need of a friendly wing.

I start to raise my wing to wrap it around him, to comfort him, when I notice the bundle of flowers slip from under it, just barely catching the flowers before they hit the ground. Pausing, I look at the flowers, holding them in front of me for a few moments as I stand a bit behind the human, so he couldn't see them. I was at a loss now, I had this grand plan to tell him everything about me, about how I felt, and now...

I looked back at the human, seeing him still staring at the grave, not a single muscle moving, yet I can sense just how tense he feels from all of this. I look back at the flowers, and with a silent sigh I place them back under my wing, then step closer to him and use my other wing to wrap it around him.

He doesn't even react to me as I move and sit next to him, wing holding him gently as I look at the grave too. We stayed like that for a good long while, the minutes slowly ticking by, neither of us wanting or willing to say anything. Finally, it was I who broke the icy silence.

"We were all here when you showed us the first time." I told him. Getting no response, I continued. "It was during our travels that the minotaur you fought before tried to challenge you again, and you went to fight him. We managed to convince you to let us come, and it was a chaotic fight when we found him. You...you beat him in the end and avenged her." I told her. I glance over to see if I got anything from that, but again there is nothing but silence. "Afterwards you showed us this. It was just her name on the stone, then Little Light wrote the rest of it there. She was sad too cause-"

"Aryas was Little Light's daughter. I...I remember." I blink as I look back at him, surprised that he remembers this. He stays silent for a bit longer before adding, "I...I can remember...a bit more now. I...it's like picking out things from a very thick and murky pond, I can't see them but...but I can feel them."

I nod in understanding. "Yes, we found out a while before coming here that Little Light and Aryas were related. She was happy to know that her daughter found somepony like you to care for before..." I sigh, looking at the grave as I continued to stare.

We just fall silent for a good long while once again, this time neither of us bothering to move, my wing staying around him for comfort. Drak remained silent for the duration of the time, not willing to say a word, as much as I was unwilling to break the silence for him. As I held him, thoughts of the battle slowly washed back to me, the yelling and screaming of Little Light as she got us to move before we were surrounded by the chaos troopers, the slashes and whistling of weapons as my sister and I, along with our Mentor and Master Indicus swept through the tide of enemies, blades drawn and thrown as we cut them down one by one. The blood washing against our fur, the burnt flesh singeing the air around us, it was truly something out of a nightmare. I shiver, remembering it to be our first true battle with the Crusaders, seeing just what they could do and both my sister and I were so impressed that we decided to join them on the spot.

I gave a small smile at that part of the memory. If I only knew where we would end up just from simply joining them, it still boggles my mind that we used to be something so dark and foreboding, and now we are the two most powerful beings in Equestria...well, almost.

I take a glance at Drak to see if he had changed at all, and as before he was still staring at the stone slab. I just looked at him with worry for a few minutes, thinking if I should speak up before he slowly, shakily brought a hand over and place it on the stone. He stayed silent for a few moments longer before I finally heard him talk. It was soft however, and I barely could hear it, only hearing a few words like "Aryas" and "confused" from it. Not wanting to be disrespectful, I allow him the privacy as I just wait, closing my eyes and resting my head on top of his to better help him.

He doesn't pause his talking as I touch his head, almost like he doesn't notice. He keeps going for a few minutes before falling silent once more, and slowly he wraps his arms around me and pulls me into a deep hug, his face pressing against my chest as I feel his tears start to soak against my fur a bit.

I sigh softly, my own eyes feeling a bit wet as I gently rub his back with a hoof, my wing still wrapped around him. It was at this point that he finally speaks louder, this time towards me.

"Luna. Thank you." He says, his voice muffled by my chest.

I give a small blink of confusion from this. "For what? I just did what is right." I told him.

He stays silent for a few moments before he continues. "Still, no one else...no pony else has helped me with my past as much as you. Even Twilight who tried her best, bless her, couldn't help me as much as you. But you...it just feels like we've known each other for years." At this he gives a sad, forced chuckle. "I guess we have, but at the same time it's like I'm relearning you all over again. You're such a wonderful, kind, and beautiful mare, I...I forgot about all of it until I came here."

I could feel my heart slowly beating a bit harder in my chest, making me wonder if he could feel it. The fact that he was admitting these feelings to me was making me start to blush as well, my hope rising as I wondered if this was it. Perhaps he was falling for me too as I was for him. Maybe I could still salvage this and give him some happiness for today. However, that is all shattered when he says the next words.

"I...I'm happy to have such a great friend as you Luna, and I...I wouldn't want it any other way." He says.

As kind as his words are, they caused my heart to skip a bit, my hope crashing down like a ton of bricks. I felt my heart heavy in my chest as I frowned, yet he couldn't see my reaction thankfully with our current position. I close my eyes and slowly exhale, relaxing myself as much as I was trying to relax him. I just smile then as I keep rubbing his back, giving the top of his head a nuzzle. "Of course Drak. You are a dear friend of ours, and we won't ever want you to lose us."

Slowly, without alerting him, I pulled the small bouquet of flowers from under my wing and hold it in front of me, taking one more look at it, my head swarming with questions. I could tell him just how I feel, that I wish to not only hold him, but to comfort him on all of his days, to have him in my wings, hooves and heart, to embrace him as only lovers could. I wanted him not just as a friend...but as real love.

But I knew, despite all that talk I had to myself before, despite everything my mind was saying to do it now, that I couldn't do it anymore, especially now. Seeing him in such a wreck, so much pain on his face and in his soul, I could tell that he was too vulnerable for such advances. Not only would it most likely worsen his current emotional state, but it may even drive a wedge between us, and that is the last thing that I wanted.

Slowly, with a sad frown, I lower the flowers and hid them back under my wing, keeping them there for the rest of our time as I gently part to look at the human. I could see his eyes were red and swollen a bit, even if he had been silent the entire time, he was still crying in his own way, and it showed in his green eyes. "Drak...perhaps we should head inside. It's getting cold and I...I need to raise the moon as well." I tell him.

Sniffling, he gives a small nod and slowly we stand up, my wing staying around him as I let him rest against me. "Ok Luna." He simply says as we start walking down back towards the city, him giving one last look back at the grave.

As we walked down in silence, I started to try and think of ways to try and make him feel better, and then after a few minutes of pondering a small idea pops into my head. "Drak. I...I don't normally like to talk about it, but I...I could tell you about our...our first battle with you." He stays silent and I just continue. "It is about that minotaur like I said, and...and how you did hold your promise to Aryas."

This caused him to look up at me in surprise. "My promise? B-but...but how do-"

"Again, you told us, the same day you told us about what happened to her." I reminded him, causing him to fall silent. "She wanted you to move on, and yet you had such trouble with it. In fact, I think Little Light said that the reason you joined was cause of that inability to move on from that event."

I give him a few moments to absorb that information before I continue. "Anyways, I...I don't normally like to bring it up cause of all the...bad memories that happened during and around that time. It was the first time we saw you all fight, and while at the time it was nothing, by todays standards..." I close my eyes and suppress a shiver that was about to go up my spine. "Today it would have seem like a slaughter."

He nods slowly in understanding as we walk down the pathway, feeling him stumble a bit as I help him stay steady. "If...if you really want to tell me about it, I...I would like to hear it." I give him a sad, but understanding look as he continues. "I know it must have been painful, knowing just what happened in such a painful time, and having to bring it up must be even worse, but...but I still want to know. I...I have to know. I need to know what happened next, how...how did I live through that...what did I do after that just to survive."

I nod in understanding as I help him reach the bottom of the path, slowly leading us to a more normal road leading to the main streets of Canterlot. "Of course Drak. I'll do anything to help, I promise you." I say. This time I get a genuine smile from him. It was small, and still covered with sadness, but it was a smile nevertheless.

As we walk back onto the streets of Canterlot, I let him rest against me, knowing and already feeling quite a few stares from the others around us as we walked by, but I couldn't give a care for what they were thinking at that time. I was here to help a friend in need, and while I have no idea if we will ever move past friendship, right now it doesn't matter.

Right now, all I want to do is make him smile.

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