When you once were a fiend, is there a statue of limitations?

[letteropener]

Who: Celestia and Luna (plus anyone else who might wander in?)
What: Investigating the statue of Nightmare Moon
Where: Ponyville
When: Afternoon.
Warnings: Feels?



How did you ask your sister to confront what she once had become, what you once had driven her to become, for the third time?

Was it not enough to have fought Nightmare Moon? Was it not enough to have Nightmare Moon attack yet again?

But nevertheless, here they were -- stepping through the portal to Ponyville, walking the streets of the city to its edge, heading the slightest bit out of it to where the statue stood. Where Luna had been through so much, and been reminded of so much.

All she could do was keep her wings tight to her sides, her attention focused and clear, and -- and be there for her sister, as they approached that clearing.

Comments

[raisethemoon]

Luna, meanwhile, had dismissed her Dream Eaters for this particular trip. Even if they did encounter the Nightmare again, it was nothing she and Celestia together couldn't manage. As they got on, though, she had to admit that she would have appreciated the distraction. Spirits were always an easy thing to have a conversation about - or with, if one does not particularly want to talk to one's sister about certain things at the moment.

She's not even really sure why she doesn't want to speak of it. Who else, if not Celestia? At the very least, she doesn't want to be the one to break the silence. Perhaps she'll feel better once they confirm that the creature is gone for good.

[letteropener]

Yes. This was not a time for the Dream Eaters, who would view the mood as one in need of lightening, in their charming but at the moment, inappropriate ways.

"This is the same statue you used to give the youth of Ponyville a scare when you visited, is it not?" she finally said, when the silence had grown so heavy that she was desperate to cast it off.

[raisethemoon]

"'Tis." Well, that's a simple enough topic, even if she's apparently shifted back to an older dialect. "It was Twilight Sparkle's idea," Luna continues, making more of an effort to speak normally. "It worked far better than I had thought. She is quite clever."

[letteropener]

"I knew she would help you," Celestia said, for a moment all warmth for her student and love for her sister together. "But I do wish, just a little, that they hadn't chosen to remember Nightmare Moon with a statue."

[raisethemoon]

"That would have been preferable," Luna agreed, with just a slight hint of a pout. She'd already had more than long enough to accustom herself to its presence; Celestia could probably imagine her initial reaction to seeing the statue. It was much worse.

[letteropener]

And speaking of that statue... Celestia moved slightly ahead, the better to push into the clearing that held the statue first. She expected it to be either shattered and broken, or whole and unmarked, but she wasn't so sure of either that she was willing to let her sister see it first.

What she feared, she couldn't say, except that she feared it would cause Luna greater pain.