~ 2 ~
In Where There Is Fear and Some Name-Changes
“Twilight, while I am fine with you performing experiments on your own, and with my… ‘sister’, no less, why did you not come to me when you found Starswirl’s Sphere?” Celestia wore a disappointed frown as she circled the now seated Twilight, who held her head low, and Luna, who continued to silently watch the exchange.
“We didn’t think we needed to, or I didn’t, at least.” Twilight raised her head so that she may finish her thought while looking into her teacher’s eyes. An action that stopped as soon as her eyes fell upon Celestia’s tall, staring form, causing Twilight to lower her head once more. “I didn't think that you'd want us to do anything.”
Luna saw above Twilight’s dejected form the split second of sadness that crossed Celestia’s face, before it faded away with a small sigh.
Twilight could feel herself tremble as the all-powerful sun princess towered above her, making her feel small and inadequate, the guilt of her mistakes seemingly magnified. Her eyes tensed up when she saw the princess lowering down to her.
In the coin slot that was Twilight’s vision, the ruler of all of Equestria no longer glared at her, but in fact had a mischevious glint in her eyes. “Twilight, you know that as long as you have good reasons, I always allow you to work on your projects. While you aren’t my student anymore, as your once teacher I still would like to see how you are continuing your studies, especially now that you have a student of your own.”
Twilight let go a of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She took a few moments to compose herself before smiling at Celestia, thankful for her mentor’s understanding mentality.
Celestia looked back at Luna, still expecting a short muzzle and a smaller body than the stallion sitting in front of the sun princess. “Let’s focus now on the problem. Luna, which sphere was it?”
Luna let his eyes wander around while he mentally scratched his head for an answer. He payed a little too much attention on the details in his room being blue, dark, and a little too sparky for his tastes. In fact he had a thought that his room was a little too… ‘filly-like’.
A short “ahem” from Celestia brought his mind back to the sphere. “Twas a blue sphere, not unlike a painted pearl, and it came with a manuscript in his writing for a new spell that we had not even heard of when he was alive, much less now.”
“Blue sphere, new spell… oh dear,” Celestia suddenly realized. She stood and paced around the chamber, mumbling to herself, and the only word the duo could hear was “Starswirl”.
Celestia finally stopped and looked at Luna. “That must have been an incomplete project, I believe. There were several he did not tell us, remember?”
“So Twilight casted a spell that wasn’t even fully finished? Then what counterspell can be made?!”
“Calm down, Luna,” Celestia ordered, the lunar prince looking with worried eyes at Twilight and his sister. “I’m sure that Twilight, in time, can figure out a counterspell based on how she casted the original spell. She is the brightest mind in magic save us, if she worked on Starswirl’s spells once in order to ascend, she can develop a counterspell for another of Starswirl’s designs.”
“Actually…” Twilight began with a sheepish smile, “the spell is in old Equiish, it might take me months to translate it from its source to work out the counterspell.”
The three alicorns sat in silence as Twilight’s words rang incessantly within their imaginative minds, stirring images of Luna wearing outfits ranging from a knight to a rogue for Twilight, and for Celestia, a scene of Luna entering her chambers wearing tight fitting butler clothes played.
Luna witness himself upon a stage with ponies looking up him with the moon glowing behind his back, like how he had always dreamed when his sister had stolen the spotlight in their youth. Only, he was stepping backwards with tears welling in his eyes as his stallion subjects laughed about checking under the sheets before asking for coffee, and the mares whistling at the tush that just fell off the stage.
“We would be stuck in this form for… months?” Luna’s voice cracked at the end of his sentence that revealed fear that had broken it in the first place.
“Um, yes…. Don’t worry, I will work with Starlight Glimmer to make sure we can make the counterspell as soon as possible!” Twilight tried to calm down an increasingly panicky Luna.
“We do not want to be a stallion! What would our citizens think of us now as we aren’t the embodiment of night!” Luna whined.
“Well…” Celestia suggested, “we can make your look work as a master of the night rather than a mistress.” She raised her horn and lit it blue for a few seconds, before it dissipated.
Immediately, a unicorn with a blue mane and an expertly curled grey wig walked into the room with other ponies behind him, including another unicorn that held a red case with a white cross on it.
“What in the...? Celestia, what have you-” Luna reeled back at the sudden onslaught of ponies suddenly descending around him.
“Twilight, Luna, meet our royal fashion designer for events, so to speak,” Celestia elaborated. The black royal garb around Luna’s neck slid off harshly, Luna realizing it was chaffing on him. In the brief second he gaped, he felt a stick of wood reach into his mouth, the pony with the white cross suitcase using a tongue depressor to inspect his throat. “And he is our new royal physician, as our old physician has just retired a couple days ago.”
“Argh ag ur?” Luna eloquently placed his question. Once the tongue depressor was out, he said again, “Why the physician now, sister?”
“Tch, you’ve been through a magical body change. Who knows what else the change could have done to your body!” the physician scolded him. “Now stay still, you’re more skittish than a colt on his first check-up.”
Luna obeyed, letting the designer take his measurements while the physician performed a check-up on the new prince. Then a rather unpleasant moment happened.
One of the aspects of the check-up involved inspecting the undersides of the patient. Luna, however, was not expecting this.
“WHAT IN BLAZES ARE THOU DOING!?” He yelped when he felt a hoof touching a very particular part of his body.
“It’s standard procedure to check genitalia, your highness,” the physician bluntly stated. “You are not a mare anymore, but it seems you have an amply shaped pair for a stallion.”
Luna looked down and indeed saw the “pair” the physician was talking about. He blushed heavily, making slight gagging sounds as if he couldn’t believe what he had seen.
“Hmm…” the designer hummed while inspecting the measurements and taking notes. “Luna would not suit you as a name anymore, now that I think about it. What would be a colt’s name for a creature of the Night?”
“A… name?” Luna finally spoke after his little episode, although his face was still beet red. “But tis only a temporary change!”
“No matter, your highness. If you wish to still be seen as a ruler to be respected, you must choose a male name while you are seen in this form.” Now the designer had grabbed a sheet of paper and started quickly scribbling.
“Oh, um…” Luna was at a loss for what name he wished to pick. He looked to Celestia for assistance.
“Hmm… How about ‘Artemis’? I seem to recall a legend about another creature of the night with that name,” Celestia suggested.
“Artemis… I suppose it is a sufficient name until we find the counterspell,” the newly-named Artemis accepted.
“Well, Prince Artemis, I would like your opinion on this design for your new royal garb,” the designer said, before flipping the piece of paper in his grasp to show the prince his first sketches.
Instead of a dark harness, the new garb featured a dark coat, with slight extensions on the wings, and the moon insignia was on the front of the coat, in generally the same area where it was on the harness before. Artemis briefly mentally pictured the coat on him, and he thought it would look rather nice on him as a more approachable royal then a royal to be feared.
Perhaps they will appreciate a lunar stallion more than a lunar mare. Perhaps they may love Artemis more than Luna. Luna was Nightmare Moon, Artemis was… Luna who is now past her mistakes.
“Well? Do you like it?” the designer asked.
“Yes, but imaginations can be so attractive. Let us see what the coat may look like in reality before we dare to show our face to the citizens,” Artemis agreed, trying carefully not to sound too excited at the prospect of practically new clothes.
“Then let us come to my quarters, where you can choose the exact color for the coat and the moon insignia,” the designer walked out of the room, with Artemis following behind him.
“I’ll go with you Lu-, uh, Artemis. I can help with some of the measurements,” Twilight followed behind the prince of the night.
Soon, all the ponies left the chamber, leaving only Celestia to stare in their direction.
While she felt a little disheartened that Twilight didn’t think about her when she performed her experiment, she felt a little rush of excitement at the results. A prince of the land might be more welcomed in Equestria, especially by the mares.
And, Celestia had to admit, the coat would look kinda cute on Artemis.