I had been given leave to explore my new home. Celestia had, presumably, retired for the evening now that the sun was down again. Luna, meanwhile, seemed to be in the middle of her workday in what I understood was “court”. I would have to find a library sometime and work out exactly how this hodgepodge of a government worked. Celestia and Luna seemed to be co-ruling with their sun/moon thing going on. But I hadn’t seen anything so far to suggest that they weren’t individually absolute monarchs. It was a little confusing. If this had been Earth, I would’ve been sure that one would have tried to overthrow the other. I guess that colourful ponies just don’t have struggles like that.

Instead, I had some free time to explore around the castle. When Luna took me outside to look at the city from a distance, I had suspected that there was something magical going on in its construction. Just a bit of walking around the palace had basically confirmed it. Ponies seemed to subscribe to the Seusian design philosophy of just putting stuff in places, surroundings, supports, and verticality be damned. This whole city was one earthquake away from being ousted as the floating island it really was, I was certain of it.

I didn’t find a library in my walking. I suspected this to be a consequence of how gargantuanly expansive this castle really was. To my benefit, I didn’t seem to experience natural sleep. Truthfully, these days, I experienced nothing that could be described as natural, but that’s neither here nor there. I did find a number of interesting locales in my travels though. It was amazing how many mess-halls a palace full of ponies required, though I was happy they were being cared for.

In an otherwise unremarkable hallway, I had found a singular guard stood watch by an unremarkable door. Interested, I had approached and tried to enter. In a good sign, the guard didn’t stop me. Though they had been able to mask any strong reactions to my appearance, my interest in the door did elicit a quizzical look from them. Walking inside, I found out why. It was an empty, barren changing room of lockers for pony gear. On the other side of a room was a metal grated door that led to the training field outside where I could make out the outline of a circular ring of dead, frozen grass. It was where I had been vaporised by Celestia. I scowled, leaving the area to the watchful eye of a still confused guardspony.

A few hours later, my final stop would be at a rather secluded escape one floor up. Opening a stout doorway to the outside, I found myself bombarded with an array of smells, some sweet, some earthly. To my amazement, there was a working botanical garden up here. From various planters, at least a dozen expansive columns of flora spewed out from their confinement. More impressive still, I saw a variety of crystals suspended above the rows of said plants. As chromatic as the ponies of the castle, the crystals seemed to shimmer and glow with magical light. Above huge leaves that seemed like they belonged in a rainforest ‘Folium Everfreetus,’ a light blue crystal seemed to materialise a haze of miniscule water droplets. And, above a series of oddly shaped cacti, a yellow crystal burned with a parching heat.

Wandering for a few minutes, transfixed as I was by the magic working in tandem with the flora, I made it to the end of a full row of plants. Where plant life ended, an overlook of the pony city below began. With a safety railing leaning over the side, one could look at the streets below and the vast expanse of blackness that stretched into the distant countryside. And, to my surprise, I found a rather sullen princess of the night leaning over the railing in front of me. I froze up, wondering if she had teleported in front of me and was waiting to do some dramatic announcement or reveal. A second passed, then two. I realised she was actually just brooding in this garden, as unaware of me as I had been of her a moment ago.

Credit: Irusu

She was leaning over the safety rail, just looking down at the quiet streets below. It was a nice view, but I wasn’t sure what she found quite so interesting. The botanical gardens were cooler, in my opinion.

“Good evening, Princess,” I opened. I was worried that, if I tried to back away at this point, she might hear and see me creeping away from her without saying hello. Conversely, if I got closer without announcing myself, she might be put off by the misshapen monster creeping up on her in the middle of the night. These things were a fragile balance.

Neck cracking, she did a jolting spin of her head at my vocalisation, her eyes shooting open.

“Ah!” Her wings shot wide, “Brian,”–recognizing my lumbering self, she exhaled softly and her wings relaxed–“‘tis thee.”

“I didn’t expect to run into you during my little wander about.” My voice sounded like grating concrete. She fixed me a small smile; it didn’t seem sincere.

“This vista is almost always empty. We usually come out here when we wish to be alone.” Luna sagged, splaying herself loosely over the railing. Stood behind her, I froze. That was a hint if I had ever heard one. I didn’t want to interrupt her alone time.

“Apologies, I will get out of yhour hair then.” Turning away from Luna, I made to head back into the maze that was the botanical garden.

“Wait”–Luna shouted, making me freeze in my tracks–“we did not mean that- apologies. Thou art most welcome to stay with us, Brian.” Oh, I realised. She was really just that bad at interacting with other people. Well, it was nice to know that she and I were still on good terms. These ponies were emotionally charged and seemed to flip between extremes frequently and, honestly, it was becoming a bit more than I could handle.

Strolling over to Luna, I did a little vault over the wall she had chosen to lean on, dangling my legs over the edge towards the cityscape below. Looking down, I could see over the cobblestone streets. Dim lanterns hung, burning into the night. It was a strange contrast to human cities, which would be brightly lit and bustling well into the early hours of the morning. There was always someone booked for a 3AM flight. To my side, Luna turned her head towards me.

“We heard news from young Scootaloo during this evening’s court session.“ Luna began, fondness seeping through her voice at the mention of the little orange pegasus, “She said she was doing well and was curious about the beast that she heard the princesses ‘made friends’ with.” Luna’s horn glowed and a short, colourful letter magicked itself into existence, before poofing away just as suddenly. Murmuring, mostly to herself, Luna noted, “We suppose our sister’s apprentice must be talking to her friends about thine situation.”

I just smiled, nodding at Luna. Rumbling throatily, I commented, “I am glahd she is safe. That thing in the forest was going to kill her, before I killed it. I think it came through one of your ‘holes’ too. It was the same as the others that I fought and definitely not from Equestria.” I absentmindedly kicked out my legs over the drop, thinking about my first moments in Equestria.

“If you speak to her again, tell her”–I faltered, noticing a claw in the corner of my vision–“tell her that I am sorry for scaring her. I just wanted to keep her from harm and I didn’t mean to… I didn’t mean to do what I did to that thing’s body.” Turning my head to the side, I mumbled, “I just don’t have good control over my instincts right now.” Snorting through the nostrils of the antler skull over my face, I turned back to Luna.

“I am not sorry about this Twilight Sparkle though. ‘Scootaloo’ was a child, but the purple unicorn came at me firing spells. She attacked me, then you attacked me, then your sister. I know I’m”– I waved a hand over my body, twisted bones, warped flesh, patches of scraggly fur, and all–“hideous, but I just want the chance to prove myself to people, ponies.” I corrected myself. “I want to show them that I’m not a monster.” Luna nodded at my words.

“Thou hath done well by the ponies around you.” Luna concluded, following a moment of reflection. Glancing at me and then turning back to the city below, as if to check I was still here, she spoke softly, “When Twilight Sparkle did tell us of thee eating the creature that assaulted young Scootaloo in the Everfree Forest, we worried that thou”–she paused again–“wert simply hungry. We are glad that it was not so. It is a noble thing to protect ponies.” She paused, letting the last word hang, “We took an oath to do the same, once.” The moon hung high in the sky; Luna looked up to its dotted surface.

“We art old, Brian. Thou know’st this. But we think thou might not know our story, our failure.” Abruptly, Luna changed tone, as if an experienced storyteller, “Once, in the past, we did covet the attention of all ponies. We were overtaken by jealousy and rage at our sister, convinced as we were that she had stolen the attention we believed we deserved from ponykind. We assumed the name ‘Nightmare Moon’ and threatened to block out the sun, to make Equestria like this”–she panned a hoof over the empty streets–“forever. It was only by our sister’s use of an ancient weapon against us, sealing us in the moon for an entire millennia, that we wert stopped. And, upon our return, that blinding anger was stripped away from us before we could cause any more harm.” She paused, looking down. An aura of defeated resignation consumed her. “Now thou understands what is only spoken behind our back, that we art a monster.”

My eyes widened at this. Luna had led a rebellion against her sister? And she had tried to remove the sun from Equestria? A night demon being banished for a thousand years for trying to remove the day felt like the opening of a pagan myth, instead of the lived experiences of someone standing right in front of me. I had questions, concerns, but Luna seemed to be seriously struggling with herself right now and I really didn’t think it was a good idea to push her away.

“Thine anger at the treatment thou hath suffered this far is with merit, Brian. For misunderstandings surrounding noble deeds, persecution hath faced thee. Next to us, thine acts wert saintly. Thou art far more deserving of forgiveness than we are, regardless of how our sister decides to treat us.”

Luna’s ears folded back against themselves, and she held her head low. Pushing herself off of the rail’s precipice and turning her back to me, she began walking along the side of the overlook, always keeping the city below in sight.

Credit: Venusal

“Most despicable of all,”–Luna fixated on the empty streets–“we hath not changed. We still look out at our subjects and wish that they would see us and they would care about us. But, night after night, our court is empty. Our guards humour our crown, but only because we are our sister’s kin. By candlelight, our ponies sleep. Our own sister treats us as if we are a bird in a cage, to be noticed and cared for, but never free. We art alone.” Luna had started to breathe heavily and her cadence had become snappy, pitched, panicked.

“That yearning, that envy clings tightly to us still. We are still the pony we once were. Every day”– a light ‘plip’ sounded on the ground and, looking to Luna, I saw her watery eyes reflecting the night sky as she shook–“we have to tell ourselves to not feel jealousy towards our sister and to love her dear, but it hurts. You walk it so effortlessly, but this world is not the one we left a thousand years ago. We art even more isolated now than before our sister banished us. And we fear- we fear that will never change.”

“Luna, I’m sure-” I tried to interject, but Luna was determined to keep demeaning herself and spoke as if I wasn’t in the room.

“Our ponies will always know who we art and we know they wilt never forgive us. They will always know of the wickedness inside of us, how we failed our oath to protect them.” She was openly sobbing now, with tears streaming freely down her face and her nose running uncontrollably. She opened her mouth, ready to start speaking again through the tears.

Credit:Lattynskit

Rushing her, I forced my arms around Luna’s barrel and held her tight, her bristling blue fur trying to escape around my arms just as her limbs tried and failed to do as she flailed in my grip. Whatever she had been planning to say was cut off by the modicum of resistance the broken pony in front of me was trying to put up against my hug.

“Don’t talk like that. It’s not selfish to whant people to care about you. You won’t spend the rhest of your life alone.” I growled, “You made me care about you and you’ll find others that like you for who youh are.” I hugged her tighter. Nearly a full minute passed until she stopped fighting it and went limp in my arms. Finally, she had calmed down. A burst of blue magic, which she had thankfully never used to blast me, cleaned up her face and my fur, though she immediately jammed her muzzle back into my body’s patchy fur sections.

“We didst not ask thee to stay here for emotional support,” Luna mumbled into my shoulder, hugging me back, “but we thank you still.”

She was going to be okay. We could give each other second chances.

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