Luna sleepily lifted her head up before rolling onto her side. The cold, hard stone she used as a bed stopped bothering her centuries ago. With a snort, her eyes roamed over Equis, so far away from her and her moon.

No changes there...so what has awoken us?

If Luna had her way, she would still be asleep. If she had her way after this, she would stare at Equis for the next few hours, and then head over to the dark side of the moon to rest. Maybe for a decade, maybe two.

Luna had just been in the middle of one such long nap, but something had woken her.

It was rare for Luna not to get her way. At least, since she had been banished here.

She focused inward for a second, looking for that little black ball of hatred that rested within her. She quickly found it and confirmed the Nightmare was still listlessly sleeping, as it had been since her...their banishment.

It had probably taken Luna over a hundred years to go through all five stages of grief. Denial being the shortest. It was hard to deny what happened back then from her vantage point way up here.

Acceptance had been the longest so far. At least, she believed it to be. She could still be in depression. She had no way of knowing, much like the passage of time. Luna gave up counting the days and years she had been on the moon long ago. Trying to had been...maddening.

For probably the hundredth time she thanked the powers that be for blessing her with the ability to choose to sleep for such long periods at a time. It was not a gift she had when on Equis, despite what her sister may have said about her sleeping habits. Since learning how to put herself to sleep for so long, Luna would often choose to wake up in a decade, then stay up for a month. Over time, a month was about the limit she could stand to be awake now. She was happy to be free of the Nightmare's influence, to be herself again, but even her developed mind could only hold together for so long. The quiet and isolation would slowly drive anypony mad after all.

If Alicorn's could scar, she would be covered in them by now. The desire to feel anything, the desire to taste something beyond rocks and moon dust. Appealing tastes, scents, they were all just faded memories. Physical pain and pleasure was all she had up here. She had turned to some dark corners since her fall from grace...

With a brief glow of her horn, Luna's magic shot up into the sky again, dissipating a scant hundred yards up as always. Her magic kept her alive, kept her without the need for food, water, heat or air, but whatever held her here still refused to let her magic slip more than a short way from the moon's surface. Her wings were likewise useless. And despite the paltry gravity the moon had, Luna couldn't jump more than a few feet before being pulled right back to the surface again. Her eye slowly looked down to her tiny hoof. She had been bigger than this once, but could no longer remember what she looked like. With a silent sigh, Luna stopped delaying.

What woke us up? she wondered. With a flick of her dainty ear, Luna slowly surveyed the bleak land around her.

Nothing had changed. No meteors were shooting by, nothing had hit the moon to jar her awake. Just the same rocks, the usual hoof prints from one of her week long runs around the moon, the same bleeding blue mare, the-

Luna blinked. Cautiously, she started her search over again.

The rock. The hoof prints. The bleeding blue mare.

Yes her mind concluded. That last one is new.

Luna bit her lip, causing it to bleed. The metallic taste helped her focus. It had been, what? Eight, nine decades since her last hallucination? Was she due for another?

Sluggishly, her eyes registered movement. The blue mare had started squirming around, a look Luna had long since lost the ability to identify on her face. Her left arm struggled less thanks to the dagger in her shoulder while her star covered cape fluttered uselessly on the ground.

Probably horror- Luna's mind added helpfully. Or dying. We are sure there is a look attributed to that as well.

Could hallucinations die though? She'd have to ponder that later.

Luna stood up, shook off what dust she could, and curiously approached the struggling mare. Even if it was a illusion, it was something new.

Deep, teary eyes briefly met Luna's, causing her to stop for a second. They were strange, beautiful even. However, the mare was struggling so much that Luna had a hard time properly getting more than a brief flash of them. She grabbed the blue furred hallucination in her magic and lifted her up, bringing her face to eye level so Luna could see those strange, alluring orbs better.

Wait...hallucination's don't have any weight...

But...she was clearly holding something in her magic. With the struggling ceased, Luna looked back into the strange eyes and realized why they intrigued her so much.

She didn't remember this color. She could see all manner of colors when looking at Equis, but not this one. How could she have hallucinated-

The mare tried to strangle out something in the vacuum she found herself in but failed, and quickly went unconscious in Luna's magical grip while Luna herself came to an amazing epiphany.

S-she's real....she's real!

A brief touch to the blacked out mare's face confirmed a warmth and softness Luna had not felt in an eternity. Luna wanted to dance in happiness.

Huzzah! We are not alone anymore! We are not-

She gave the unconscious mare in her hold a brief shake. The lack of a response caused Luna's eyes to widen in horror. Her horn lit up as she began desperately trying to remember what spells she would need to weave together to keep her new friend alive.

Not that Luna was against befriending a corpse at this point if she had to.

Author's Notes:

This is going to be my first venture into short, bite sized chapters. Not to mention not planning everything out from beginning to end.

I just really needed something simple to do to get back into writing so I can do more of all my major stories. Goal will be to update this weekly, and to keep it between 500 and 2,000 words each chapter.