> Luna Sparkle
>  by Artemis Stonecroft
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Luna Sparkle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Was it just Twilight, or was the moon always a lot bigger whenever she went to Canterlot? Was it that Canterlot always had a large view of the moon and she had never noticed while growing up? No, she thought to herself as she watched the sky grow dark from her bedroom window, the moon had never seemed as big when Celestia was the one who raised it. True, the Princess loved her sister and nopony could imagine how much it hurt to want to see Luna, but couldn’t; would she really have wanted the image of the Mare in the Moon to be so close it would practically guilt-trip her? No, Celestia probably looked at the moon as little as possible so that she might pretend the Nightmare Moon ordeal had never happened…at least up until the moon had to be lowered.
Enough stalling! she thought. Twilight Sparkle knew she had to get back to the speech. Now she was on the dispensing part of speech making, the Princess of Friendship dreaded every moment until the next morning. Why not let Rarity do it in disguise? Because the look on Spike’s face would give everything away.
She was levitating the cards and ready to read them before the mirror, praying that nothing would come through it again. However, as she was prepared to practice, Twilight was stopped by a song coming from outside, being sung by a most beautiful voice.

‘Moon River, wider than a mile,
I’m crossing you in style someday.’

The speech cards dropped to the floor and Twilight was led out onto her balcony by such a wonderful sound. Up on the castle’s topmost tower was Princess Luna raising the moon, singing as she did so. Twilight wondered if anypony else might be noticing her, but she didn’t blame them for it was quite a beautiful sight to see, not of the moon, but the alicorn princess raising it.

‘Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way.
Two drifters, off to see the world,
There’s such a lot of world to see.
We’re after the same rainbow’s end.
Waiting round the bend,
My Huckleberry friend,
Moon River…and……me…’

It was Twilight’s sigh of admiration that gave her away once Luna had stopped singing. Before she knew it, the Princess of the night had glided over to the balcony. ‘What did you think?’ she asked.
‘Oh…um…’ Twilight stuttered, ‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘When you’re singing on a balcony at the highest point of Canterlot, it’s not exactly a private thing.’ Twilight blushed. ‘Something wrong?’
‘It’s this stupid speech, I can’t make a full sentence without getting a word wrong. I was never meant for public speeches. Can’t somepony else do it?’ 
‘I think Rainbow Dash would appreciate it more if you were the one giving the speech. Come on, let’s go over it together, it can’t be that hard.’ Luna summoned the cards with her magic, getting Twilight to face the balustrade of the balcony and do the calming technique Cadence showed her. One card was held out at a time as she read off of them.
Suddenly the words came out as if there hadn’t been a struggle, Twilight was near to channelling Princess Celestia as she read off the cards,

‘Fillies and gentle-colts, thank you all for attending this most joyous occasion. I, like many of you, am one of the many ponies whose life was saved from the Everfree Forest’s tornado by Rainbow Dash. If it were not for this Pegasus’ bravery and loyalty, Ponyville, Canterlot and Cloudsdale would have been put in serious jeopardy. Who knows, the harvest might have failed and many ponies might have been left without a home this winter, but luckily that disaster was averted. We are proud to reward Rainbow Dash with the rank of a Wonderbolt, a role she has aspired to for many, many years.’

Twilight stopped to clear her throat which would be fine during the ceremony as Rainbow Dash would be coming down a long red carpet, followed by the Wonderbolts themselves. Her best friend would then place a medal around her neck.

‘Congratulations, Rainbow Dash, you are now a Wonderbolt. And to show our gratitude for your hard work, all four princesses of Equestria are proved to present to you the Starswirl medallion, the highest ranking medal a pony can bestow.’

With that, Twilight smiled and pretended to clap. Luna raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s it,’ she said.
‘That it?’ she repeated, looking at the cards. ‘That’s it? What was the problem?’
‘I don’t want to let Rainbow down by messing up the speech.’
‘And how come you managed to get it down so well now?’
Twilight blushed again. ‘It was kind of easy because…because you were here to help. After the speech, Rainbow then gives her own words…which I’m pretty sure is going to be fifteen minutes of her going, “Oh, my Gosh! Oh, my Gosh! Oh, my Gosh!” but she earned it.’
Luna nodded in agreement. ‘Well, I’m glad I could help.’ Though she bit her top lip nervously, believing that there wasn’t anything left to talk about. 
That was until Twilight dispensed her appreciation. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to get the speech right without…’ She halted, wondering if this was really what she should say, but the pause seemed awkward, so she finished, ‘Without you.’
‘All I did was hold the cards, Twilight,’ Luna assured her.
‘To be honest, your confidence in me was all the help I needed. I love how—I mean, that’s your best quality: you never hesitate to help somepony. There was that time when Pipsqueak fell in the apple-bobbing barrel and you helped him out before it even looked like he was in danger. And in the Crystal Empire, you were the first to ask if something was wrong.’
‘Oh, stop,’ Luna said sarcastically, though she was the one blushing now.
‘But it’s true, not to mention your dream walking ability.’
‘You needn’t commend me for doing my duty, Twilight.’
‘You should be commended for doing it well.’ Now she was internally panicking as she realised the moment their conversation would end, Luna would leave on her night rounds and Twilight would be on her own again until Spike got back from the doughnut bar – which, less face it, would be another two hours. It dawned upon Twilight Sparkle that very moment…there was a reason she was so reluctant to see Princess Luna depart. It wasn’t like seeing Princess Celestia leave – her withdrawals were necessary because she would inevitably be seen again – it could never be known for certain when Luna and Twilight would cross paths again. Would it be during one of Equestria’s many festivals, or when the next threat from a thousand years ago showed up? Even then their interactions were few and far between and the time they spent together on Nightmare Night was wonderfully unforgettable once Ponyville got over the whole “no-longer-Nightmare-Moon” thing. 
Then there was that moment when she glimpsed into the past and mistook it for the present, believing Luna had betrayed Equestria again: the shock, pain and, for lack of a better term, heartbreak Twilight faced in seeing that transformation could just as well be one of the most painful experiences of her life (outside of having a piano and an anvil fall on her thanks to Derpy Hooves). ‘The question is…’ Luna uttered, turning to look at the view to Ponyville far away, ‘Should I stay where we can talk some more, or should I risk going now and try to seize some time tomorrow?’ 
‘What?’ asked Twilight, finding this utterance particularly random.
Princess Luna sighed, not yet looking at the pony standing on the balcony with her. ‘Is it just me, or do we never see each other enough? This is probably our first conversation since Nightmare Night that lasted longer than five minutes.’
‘That’s how it is,’ Twilight said simply. ‘You have duties, I have duties. I might be in Las Pegasus while you’re all the way up in the Crystal Empire. If you like, all four of us can meet up for Hearth’s Warming Eve, or we can see what Cadence gets up to during Hearts and Hooves Day?’ She came to stand next to the dark blue mare, suddenly noticing there was a forlorn expression on her face.
Luna sighed again, ‘I owe so much to you Twilight. You did what my sister and I could not…you saved me and Equestria from myself and reunited us. On top of that, you let me once again connect with the subjects whose love and affection I so wanted.’ Now that she looked back on it, Twilight found the Royal Canterlot Voice to be hilarious. However, by the tone, she couldn’t help but think that Luna was meaning more than what her words said. ‘If anypony deserved to be an alicorn princess, it’s you. If anypony earned the responsibility to take the magic of three alicorns, including her own, it was undoubtedly you.’
‘I’m flattered,’ came the response. ‘Since when have you thought so highly of me?’
‘I always have!’ Luna instantly confessed, turning her head to look directly into Twilight’s purple eyes. ‘Trust me, it wasn’t because I got back from a thousand years on the moon and was glad to be able to talk to somepony, it was ever since I saw that star on the Tree of Harmony and I knew there was going to be something about that star that would bind me to it forever. Lo and behold, the pony who freed me from the clutches of the Nightmare Forces has that star as her cutie mark. It has been a long time since I last felt this way, but since the day I could call myself Luna again, I have never been more certain about anything!’
‘About what?’ Twilight asked impatiently, just wanting to know what she was talking about. That was when the answer came, but not in the form of words which Luna owned such a vast vocabulary, it was instead proven by a kiss which was more than words could ever say. From the moment the princesses of both the moon and of friendship met, there were absolutely no more doubts between the two of them. 
‘Okay…’ Twilight exhaled once it was over. ‘If that was all it needed, why didn’t we start with that?’
Luna blushed. ‘Because I had no idea if you felt the same way.’
‘Are you kidding? Why wouldn’t I? At least in this case it’s not one of those “I can change them” relationships because we’re already past that stage.’ They both laughed for if you cannot laugh at the past, what can you do? ‘So, should we keep this to ourselves, or…?’
‘Hm,’ said Luna. ‘For once, let’s not involve Celestia in this.’