McPoodle Kibble #4: Luna's Confession · 5:52am Dec 20th, 2015
This is something I tossed off after “Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?”, tying it into the world of “Parade Coverage” and At the Inn of the Prancing Pony. As it’s rather self-serving, I’ll just bury it here with the other fragments.
“Tia, can I ask you something?”
“Of course, Sister. You can ask me anything.”
“And you won’t get mad?”
A raised eyebrow was Celestia’s reply.
Luna had waited for several days for this moment, until she had found a time to speak with her sister for at least an hour without anypony else interrupting them. Well, strictly speaking, it was Night Court, and anypony that wanted could come in to present their problems to the Princess of the Night. But Luna had a good feel for the ebb and flow of ponies in her night, and was fairly confident that the unlocked doors of the court would not be disturbed.
“It’s about Princess Twilight,” Luna said, lightly tapping her forehooves together. “About what you had originally planned for her.” She was sitting in the primary throne, looking down slightly at Celestia in the secondary throne, the one she normally sat in when she visited the Day Court. It was a situation that always gave Luna a little extra confidence.
Celestia waited a few moments, to see if her sister would get more specific. “You haven’t said anything particularly inflammatory so far,” she said with a gentle smile.
Luna sighed. “Tia, you plan things. I know this. Over multiple mortal generations if necessary.”
Celestia said nothing, merely pursing her lips slightly and looking away.
“So when it came to Twilight, when you saw that you’d need a new bearer of the Element of Magic to face me—”
“To face Nightmare Moon,” Celestia swiftly corrected her.
“To face my alter ego,” Luna said with a roll of her eyes. “Why did you make her a scientist?”
“Why...?” Celestia was taken aback. “Well. I wasn’t expecting that question.”
“But it was your choice to make,” Luna pressed. “The Bearer of Magic never had to be a scientist. She could have been a mystic, or, well, she could have been more like you. But you made her a scientist.”
“I...I did not make her anything,” Celestia protested, rearing back a little at the accusation so that her forehooves lightly tapped at the cushion of her throne. “I always give our little ponies a choice. Twilight Sparkle chose to be a scientist.”
“Yes,” Luna said wearily, “I know well the matter of the choices you give other ponies. If it was utterly foreign to her character, then Twilight Sparkle would not have become a scientist. But if there was the slightest hint of curiosity or wonder at the natural order, then you would have done everything in your devious mind to encourage it, all while making it seem like it was her idea all along.”
Celestia responded to this accusation by smiling so brightly that her cheeks dimpled.
“Only you would consider ‘devious’ to be a complement,” Luna said with a laugh.
“Only we, Sister. Only we.” Celestia waited a moment until both of their laughter had died down. “So yes, I’ll admit it—I encouraged young Twilight to branch out from the study of magic into science as well. Was that all you wanted to know?”
Luna’s response to the admission was to stare intently into her sibling’s eyes. Celestia found her expression nearly impossible to read: it was intense, but was it angry, or sad?
Luna leaned into the space between the two diarchs, bringing her lips up to Celestia’s ear. “Was it...?” Luna whispered, her voice cracking. She darted her eyes around, her teeth unconsciously bared, as she reached out with her magic to be absolutely certain that this conversation was not being overheard. Finally, she gathered the courage to continue. “Was it Perspic...?” Her voice caught. With a sigh, she drew herself up, looking forward instead of at her sister. “Perspicacity,” she said in a normal tone of voice. “Did you mean for Twilight Sparkle to remind me of Perspicacity?” She slowly turned her head to see and hear Celestia’s answer.
The Princess of the Day was frozen in place, even her enchanted mane seeming afraid to move more than a gentle stirring.
“Tia?” Luna asked in concern.
“How could I possibly answer that question?” Celestia responded in a voice just above a whisper. “What could I possibly say that would keep you from...?”
Luna raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Keep me from...what, precisely? Blowing up your nice new castle?”
“It’s not that new,” Celestia mumbled under her breath.
“I am not a...a powder keg,” Luna said with a pout, “and it puts me out when you and others treat me like that. I just want to know...well, first of all, if you knew about me and Perspicacity. I mean, you did know, didn’t you? I never managed to keep any secrets from you.”
“You kept Nightmare Moon from me,” Celestia said in a deadpan.
“OK, one secret.”
“I didn’t know about Perspicacity,” Celestia said, reaching out to pick up one of Luna’s hooves. “And nopony told me. It wasn’t until a century ago that it finally occurred to me: you never said his name. From the moment of his disappearance, all the way through to your banishment, you never spoke his name aloud. I even remember times he came up in conversation, but you always found a way to use nothing but pronouns, like you knew that just saying his name out loud would reveal everything.”
Luna chuckled weakly as she took back her hoof. “Which I just did right now. So Twilight—?”
“Twilight’s scientific leaning was not based on Perspicacity,” said Celestia. “No, you can thank Voltaire for that.”
“Your pet human?” Luna said with a knowing smile.
Celestia rolled her eyes in frustration—this wasn’t the first time Luna had applied that particular nickname to the philosopher. She decided to continue on without acknowledging the jest. “At one point he confided to me that his greatest mistake was driving the love of his life away from him, a human woman named Émile. In his own mind, he was single-hoofedly responsible for her premature death, although I’m sure he was exaggerating. He was probably also exaggerating when he described her to me, but she sounded like the most remarkable human to have ever lived, a scientist and author living far before her time. He did such a good job of describing her virtues that, well...”
“You recreated her in the form of a purple pony,” Luna said, deadpan.
“You make that sound like it’s a bad thing,” Celestia said innocently. “I think...” She spent several seconds to be absolutely sure of herself. “Yes, I’m certain that Princess Twilight is happy with her life, that she has no reason to regret who she is. I mean, every parent has a tremendous degree of control over what their child grows into and for better or for worse, I was an extra parent for Twilight. I have my regrets, certainly, over how she thinks more highly of me than of her birth parents some of the time, and of how she used to fear my wrath for her tiniest mistakes, but I think overall I did the best I possibly could under the circumstances. I ‘made’ a mare that lives happily in the world, is a boon rather than a threat to Equestria with that incredible magical talent of hers, who delivered my sister back to me after I lost her to my foolishness so long ago, and who eventually ascended into full princesshood. Is it wrong that I shaped her into a pony I enjoyed having as a friend, student and now equal?” She looked over at her sister, taking both forehooves this time. “Is it wrong that I assure my own happiness from time to time, just so long as I hurt no pony in the process?”
Luna looked away, taking back her hooves in the process. “Sister, I have a confession to make.”
This of course was precisely the direction Celestia had been hoping to direct the conversation from the very beginning, thanks to a timely letter from Princess Twilight. “Yes...?” she asked, her voice precisely tuned between curiosity and faux-surprise.
“I...created a magical construct,” Luna began, her eyes fixed on the edge of the cushion she was seated upon. “One designed to live and feed in the realm of dreams. I called it the Tantabus...”
. . .
“So you forgive me?” Luna asked nervously at the end of her tale.
Celestia rose from her throne and crossed to face her sister. “Of course I forgive you,” she said, embracing her sister in a tight hug. “The more important thing is that you forgave yourself.”
“And you’re not mad that I never told you my true feelings?”
Celestia sighed, pulling back to face her sister. “Luna, I know who you are. And I know that secrets are very important to you. So I understand that there are some things you will never tell me, or anypony, no matter how much they might tie up your insides.”
“Well...alright,” Luna said with a hesitant smile. “So long as we understand one another.”
“I’m only a little disappointed.”
“You are?”
“Yes, but not about the Tantabus.”
Luna looked at Celestia with a confused expression. “About what?”
“About the fact that you snuck Perspicacity into your pet human’s First Contact story before confiding in me. Did you think I wouldn’t browse the human internet for myself from time to time like every other pony?”
“I...how...he’s not my pet human!”
Haha! Pet Human :p