Stars In The Day

by NightInk

Husband To Wife Talks

We appeared in the apartment just like we were supposed to, but as soon as all of us were through I shut the portal and tossed it right back up.

“Um, shouldn’t we be staying here?” Luna asked. “I mean, I thought we were staying out of Equestria for the day.”

“This can take us more places than here and Equestria,” I said softly. “We need to make one more stop. Come on, all of us need to go here.”

Celestia and Luna were confused, but they followed cautiously. When we got to the other side, however, they began to look very concerned. “Adam,” Celestia started. “What manner of place is this?”

Looking at the elaborate street lights and glowing, orange ditches around us, I felt much better. Much safer. “This is a kind of home,” I replied. “I feel at home here as much as when I’m in the apartment or the castle. This is the Crossroads, where the dead come to take their rest.”

If I had been looking at either of them, I’m sure they would have looked very afraid. I could hear it clearly in Luna’s voice when she spoke. “Why are we here? What possible reason could you have for bringing us to such an awful place?”

“Awful? No, this place is wonderful. There is a true peace here. Plus, Discord doesn’t know we have the ability to come here. He may not even know that it exists. This is a safer place than the apartment right now.” I stopped talking and began to walk towards the bench that was in the clearing down the road from us. As we approached, the hooded figure sitting there looked up and waved a little bit. In his hands was a knife, identical to the bone one I wore, and a piece of wood, crafted to look like a fish. He spoke when we got close.

“Hey man, how’s it going?” he asked.

“Not exceptional. That’s why I’ve got company. Discord is back, and I need your help. Celestia is going to be the least safe out of the three of us, seeing as Discord apparently has a thing for her,” I added, giving her a look. She just blushed like it was something she wasn’t interested in talking about. “And this is the safest place I can think of for her. I don’t think Discord even knows about this place. Would you be willing to take her in for the day?”

Celestia got upset, to say the least, and she started to use the royal Canterlot voice to chew me out. “WHAT? THAT’S WHY YOU BROUGHT US HERE? YOU INTENDED TO DITCH ME IN THE LAND OF THE DEAD?!? ARE YOU INSANE?!?”

“Probably,” I said calmly. “Which also means I’ll do well against Discord when my time comes. But in the meantime, you’re staying here. End of discussion. Especially since the portal only lets through people I intend to let through.”

“Ooh,” Luna and Ben said simultaneously. “Girl, you just got told,” Death said, trying not to laugh.

“Tia, please don’t get upset,” Luna said quietly. “But I agree with him. You should stay here.”

Nodding, Ben pitched in his opinion. “Yes, and it will help you learn that you don’t have to be the main fighter in every battle in Equestria. You can trust others.”

A dumbstruck Celestia just stared at us. “Fine,” she said after a while. You two go fight Discord. I’ll stay here. With, Ben, I believe Adam said your name was?”

He nodded. “Aye. It’s a nice place when you get used to it. Lots of people go by. And maybe I’ll introduce you to the new Nightmare Moon.” Luna’s face fell at that.

“Yeah. We need to go though, Luna. Celestia is ok here, and Nightmare Moon is a good pony mow. She won’t cause any harm.”

She nodded reluctantly and I threw the portal into being. As we left, I called out “Have a good time!” to Celestia. The portal closed behind us, and Luna and I were home again.

…

Once we were back in the apartment, Luna let me have it. “All right dear, explain yourself. I agree that Tia is going to be safer there than anywhere else, but there was an easier way to break it to her, and you could have discussed it with us first!”

Raising my hands in self-defense, I started to talk. “Yeah, honey, I get that there were better ways to tell her that we were going to hide her with dead people, but you saw her reaction. We weren’t going to get her there if I had told her ahead of time. Plus, Ben is a nice guy. He just likes company.”

Shaking her head, she gave me a disappointed look. “Honey, if we’re going to make it through this, we need to work together, and that means you need to tell me before you do something, whether it’s stupid or not.”

“Hey! Not everything I do is stupid!” I protested. “I have done a few things right, you know! And last I knew, my innovation was one of the things you liked about me!”

“It is, and don’t make this about our relationship!” she practically growled at me.

“I’m not,” I said, beginning to get angry myself. “But while we need to work together, we also have to remember that things are going to happen on the fly, and there won’t always be time to lay the plan out. I will freely admit that I should have told you before taking us to the Crossroads, but I thought that I was doing right by keeping the Princess, your sister, safe and out of harm’s way. And just to keep you in the loop, I wasn’t going to bring her with us when we went back to Equestria tomorrow!”

“I know that much, but right now I’m not concerned about Celestia! I just want to know what other bright ideas you have involving the fate of my home-world and kingdom!”

Furious, I said the one thing I shouldn’t have said. “Well, it’s not really your kingdom, now is it? Celestia is the princess ponies don’t fear!”

As soon as I finished, we both gasped. I couldn’t believe I had actually just said that. That was way beyond the line of ok-ness. Her eyes welled up with tears and she turned away from me, her mane and tail losing some of their lively, magical wave as what I had said sank in. taking in a shuddering sigh, she spoke very, very softly. “Well, I’m sorry you married the scary, lesser princess. Maybe after all this is over, you’d like to go marry Celestia. Would that make you happy? Maybe satisfy your social standing? Married to the better, smarter, sexier princess? That’s what everyone else thinks anyways. Tia has always been the better one. Had more friends. Been loved more, respected more.”

My legs gave way beneath me, my knees hitting the floor with a sickening thud. I was overcome with what I had done. This felt worse than being dead even did. There was no justification for hurting her like this. I put my hands to my face and began to sob. I won’t even try to stretch the truth. I broke down, openly weeping in front of my wife. Well, behind, since she had turned, but that wasn’t any better. I couldn’t bring myself to talk, or ask the questions I wanted to ask. Did she really think I would rather be with Celestia? Did she really think I had married her because she was a princess? We each stayed there for a while, each sobbing for our own reasons. After a moment, she turned, not regaining any composure, but facing me at least. She sat next to me, but didn’t say anything, just kept crying. I took my hands from my eyes and reached forward, stroking her mane.

I tried to breathe in, but could only cry more. Anyone who came in would have seen a man crumbling before his wife. The words wouldn’t come to my tongue; they just got stuck in my throat. Luna spoke again, this time her voice a little stronger, like she realized I knew how wrong I was.

“What are we going to do after this? If it only takes Discord an hour and a half to bring us to this state, will we last together? We don’t live like other people or ponies. We have millennia to live, but can we live those millennia together?”

I forced myself to take a breath. This was a good question, and I didn’t have to think to answer it. “Yes,” I almost spat out. I had to answer this now, before my head began to work again. That would only complicate this. This was a matter of the heart. “Yes, I want to spend every millennia I possibly can. Every millennia, every year, month, week, down to the seconds. There is no one I would rather be with than you. No one.” My words were coming stronger now that I was talking. “When this is over, nothing will have changed for me. I will still love you with all my heart and soul, and I will want to be with you forever. Discord won’t ever sway me from that, nor will any other villain who comes to Equestria to take what is yours. Because it is yours, just as much as it is Celestias. You’ve fought for it; you’ve been hurt for it. You were willing to accept a dark power to give it what you thought was best for it. You and Celestia stand as equal rulers of it.”

I stood, shakily, and not quite trusting my legs to hold me up. “And returning to the mater of us, you are the only woman for me, in any of the three worlds we’ve been in. In our vows, I said ‘till death do us part’. That wasn‘t entirely accurate. Even death won’t keep me from you for long. Especially if you need me.” As I finished, I held out my bone hand to her, as if reminding her that death didn’t stop me long last time. Looking up at me, she smiled and took my hand.

Standing, she wiped her eyes. “I think we will get past this too. We just need to remember this. We need to remember the love that brought us together. Ok?” I nodded, and could only hug her as tightly as I could. She hugged me back for a while, then pulled back. “Ok, honey, we need to figure out our plan for dealing with Discord. But first, let’s clean this up,” she said with a smile, gesturing at the puddle of tears and snot that now layered our kitchen floor.

…

A few minutes later, we were seated on the couch, soda cans in hand, in our human forms, trying to think of what Discord could possibly be up to this time. He didn’t know Luna very well, so he didn’t have a lot of known weakness to exploit. Really, he didn’t have much on either of us. Without a lot to go on, there wasn’t a lot we could do to prepare, so we ended up turning on the Wii again and playing ‘Smash Bros’ to help calm ourselves down.

As we played, the tension between us died off. We returned to being the happy newlyweds we had been before this had all happened. Each of us still had our own thoughts running through our heads, but we were good. Better than good. We were feeling better about ourselves since our affirmation of dedication and love. After a while, though, Luna brought up another subject that needed to be addressed, but was going to be difficult to address.

“So, when did you want to have kids?”

I dropped my controller and very nearly choked on the drink I had been taking. “Pardon?” I asked breathlessly.

“Kids,” she repeated, pausing the game and putting her own controller down. “I mean, we were going to have them, right?”

“Well, yeah,” I muttered, wiping Mountain Dew from my chin. “But really, with Discord and everything, I hadn’t been thinking about it at this moment.”

She rolled her eyes a bit and said, “Well, no, not this second, but Discord is what I mean. Ever since my return, it seems like Equestria has been plagued with problems that need to be taken care of immediately, and if we have a child it is going to be difficult to handle them like we do now. We won’t be able to just drop everything and go cheat death.”

I thought about it. “I guess, but that comes with our positions. I mean, you are a princess. You have to handle stuff. And I guess I need to help when it’s necessary, but I’d be able to take care of him while you’re doing princess-y things, and I really don’t plan on being dead again.”

She laughed a bit at that. She leaned against me and I took her in my arms. “Yeah, I guess, but I mean, will they grow up safely? What if something really big happens again, like with Nightmare Moon? A child would almost certainly have been hurt, and might have been used against us.”

Brushing a strand of hair from her face, I just said, “Yeah, but I’m not so afraid of having and losing something that I won’t try to have it. That sounds bad, but I mean-”

She shushed me and put a hand to my cheek, rubbing her thumb across the little stubble that was there. “No, I understand. If we wait for a “good” time to have a child, we never will.”

I made a thoughtful face and nodded. “Yeah, sounds right to me. But we shouldn’t worry about it too much until after we’ve dealt with Discord.”

She sighed in agreement and settled into my shoulder. “Yeah. We’ll handle it later. Just don’t die this time,” she giggled, hitting my leg.

I laughed and kissed her, saying, “Yeah, I’ll try my best, but no promises.”

Comments

[RanBro]

“Yeah. We need to go though, Luna. Celestia is ok here, and Nightmare Moon is a good pony mowShe won’t cause any harm.”