The Other Princess
Princess Celestia looked up from her notes—another briefing on the theft of state secrets employing what she considered criminally excessive exclamation marks—and nodded to a guard.
“Manny, would you please ask Mr. Line to see me at his earliest convenience?”
The guard who was named Flanking Maneuver by parents who really should have known better and who, thus, preferred to be known as ‘Manny,’ snapped off a sharp bow—more of a militant nod, really—wrenched open the door to the royal study, and bounced off Dotted Line who was standing on the threshold with one hoof raised.
“I was just about to knock, Your Majesty,” said Dotted, bowing, “You wanted to see me?”
Celestia merely nodded and motioned him in with her hoof. She had long since[1] given up on trying to understand how her Cabinet Secretaries—the newest one in particular—worked.
[1] Specifically ‘round about 311 when she got up in the middle of the night—several pots of coffee were involved as was, possibly, a certain amount of alcohol—and summoned Lady Sharp Quill. As she waited, excited to have finally defeated the uncanny and possibly preternatural abilities of her civil service staff, she heard a polite cough from her left and a whispered, “Oh, I do say, Your Majesty, this is exciting. Who are we waiting for?”
“Mr. Secretary! So fortunate you happened to be, ah, passing by,” she said, “I wanted to discuss a matter relating to my sister.” Saying ‘my sister’ still felt sweet on the tongue, even months later.
“Your Majesty,” Dotted said noncommittally—but she could see him tense up. Privately she suspected that no laboratory in the world had the chemical sophistication to synthesize something that would relax Dotted Line; still, there were ways.
“Ah, before we begin, cup of tea, Mr. Secretary?”
Of course he said yes. Let Lord Trottingham say what he wanted—empirically quite a lot, it turns out—she ruled with—at worst—a golden hoof.
“Her recovery is progressing well—quite well, and while her—what was the term the Service adopted in the end?”
“Amateur astronomy, Your Majesty.”
“For controlling the Moon?”
“It has to do with tax brackets, Your Majesty.”
“I see. Well, her amateur astronomy work is progressing well, but she has always helped me with governance before—ah—in the past. Helped tremendously, in fact. And she has expressed a desire to help again, but as you may imagine a thousand years is quite a lot of time,” she said, taking a sip of tea to cover for her shudder.
A very long time.
“She may need help,” she continued, “and I cannot possibly provide it—my presence would detract from hers, I fear. I understand this may conflict with your other duties and I would never dream of ordering it, but would you consider helping her all the same? There is nopony else I could trust with the matter.”
Sometimes asking was as bad as ordering but—she hadn’t lied. That was some comfort.
Of course he said yes.
Luna had moved into a tower previously used for storage. For nearly a thousand years everypony assumed that a mirror image of the Princess’ own quarters was built in the palace as part of the free-wheeling, happy-go-lucky approach to such frivolities as ‘planning’ or ‘making sense’ during its construction that famously gave the building such character[2]. Well. Everypony knew better now. Dotted skulked through what was increasingly being known as ‘The Cynthian Tower’ feeling his steps shorten as he reached the top.
[2] Not to mention plumbing not connected to anything in particular, indoor balconies, and at least one migrating room.
Part of it was that he really should listen to Goldie when she went on about exercise and diet. Another part—a big one—was that his hooves were full already, what with the theft of the fleet disposition documents. He had a lot to hide and a lot of ponies to hide it from and it didn’t help that the princess—Princess Celestia, that is—didn’t like lying to her ponies. Or trapping them. And we were all blessed that she was such, a treasure to be sure, but how she imagined a security service might be run without a few secrets was—but that wasn’t the reason he was dragging his feet. Not really.
In truth it was because he did not relish this task. Oh, he’d bite his own tongue off rather than say it, but… How on Epona was he supposed to instruct royalty? Divinity? And the other princess—and he couldn’t think of her as anything else—was… she was like this tower. Familiar and yet, somehow, not.
Shortening though they might have been, his steps eventually brought him to the door of the Princess of the Night. The guard was wearing purple-and-silver sure enough but underneath that Dotted was glad to recognize a familiar face.
“Doleful! Long time no see! How’s the new post?”
Doleful Shade, being a guardspony, remained motionless, yet managed to indicate with the particular nature of the motionlessness that, all things considered, it was all going quite well, really, and the the missus enjoyed the raise the promotion brought which meant she could take a few less shifts.
“Well, that’s certainly good to hear. Look, you are a batpony with his head on straight, what do you think of…” Here Dotted, who, unlike veteran guardsponies, wasn’t an expert in immobile communication, jerked his head towards the door.
Doleful indicated with particularly stiff immobility that, being sworn to the new princess’ service it really couldn’t be his place to comment, but on a personal note, he himself had nothing to complain about.
“Your discretion does you credit, “ said Dotted, nodding. “Well, can’t stay here gabbing, can I? Do give my best to the family.”
With that he rapped his hoof on the door gently, expecting Doleful’s partner—Sinister Spectre, likely as not—to open it and announce him when the door suddenly shot open and he found himself muzzle-to-muzzle with a wild-eyed Luna. He skittered a few steps back in shock and nearly went over backwards.
“How dost thou do that,” she asked, speaking just quietly enough that Dotted largely retained his hearing.
“...I… you… what?”
“We just spake of thee but a moment ago to Guardsmare Sinister! My sister oft speaks of this habit of thine.”
“Ah, sorry Your Majesty. It just happens, I’m afraid,” he replied. Not that you didn’t learn to pay special attention to odd impulses to go and see what the Princess is up to in the middle of the night, of course. And it did help a reputation for efficiency.
Luna remained staring at him for a long moment and then swept back into her study suddenly and then, once she had reached the center, snapped back to face him, and said “Pray, enter, My Lord Line. And forgive u—me my manners. My sister hath a penchant for jest, and I thought the talk of your manner of entrances & exeunts was one of them.”
Dotted entered with a certain amount of care, putting one hoof ahead of another as if he expected the floor to be broken glass. The other princess was… different. Celestia glided. Fast or slow, there was a certainty and sedate pace to her movements. Luna darted, hardly seeming to bother with the intervening space, and there was a harsh suddenness to her movements that made him wary.
She wasn’t Celestia.
The room was still largely bare: papers in piles, books open on all available surfaces with other books used to mark places. A gleaming walnut desk. A few scattered chairs, and cushions. And, on one wall, a threadbare tapestry that Dotted could swear he had seen in the Equestrian National Gallery.
“It’s, uh, perfectly alright, Your Majesty,” said Dotted bowing belatedly, “I understand you wish to take a part in the running of Equestria?”
“Indeed,” said Luna, giving a very vigorous nod, “such was ou—mine role before my banishment, and I am eager to return to it as soon as I am suffered to do so.”
“Well, Your Majesty, the requisite legal details have all been resolved. Your rights and prerogatives broadly match that of your sister with seniority according to the time of day based on the Lex Sororum.”
Luna’s face lit up.
“Ah! Disputationes legum Equine locutae tamen sunt?”
Dotted’s mouth worked soundlessly for a minute or so before he answered, offering a silent internal prayer of thanks for having known and put up with Spinny for as long as he had done.
“Ah, no, Your Majesty, we no longer use Classical Equestrian—Equine, I mean—except for a few terms here and there, I fear. I just used the classical name because, ah, the law was long obsolete before we revived it with your return.”
A shadow passed over Luna’s face.
“Ah. Of course. Apologies, We just thought… well it was ancient even before… Right. Does the Night Court still exist?”
“Oh, yes, Your Majesty, in fact, I thought that meeting a few of the Royal Council and holding a session might just be the—” Dotted stopped when he realized that Luna was no longer in front of him. He turned bewildered to find an impassive Sinister Spectre by the door and a disturbing lack of royalty.
He was about to declare a security of the realm emergency when a booming voice, echoing through the entire length of the tower, nearly knocked him off his hooves.
“Come, My Lord Line! The Council awaits!”
It was considerably later and the moon was peeking through the stained glass and giltwork of the Cynthian Hall. Dotted took another—in theory calming—sip of tea. He sniffed the thermos. Unfortunately, much like the last five times he checked, there still wasn’t any alcohol in it. The fleet disposition papers were an uncomfortable bulge in his saddlebags and he could not prevent a small stab of annoyance that he could not work on them now. But if Princess Celestia was as… old fashioned and overkind as she was, her sister would surely be worse. He suppressed a twinge of irritation. Princess Luna couldn’t help being a thousand years out of date, not the mention help being—
"So, my Lord Line, how did W—I do," Luna asked, with an expression so earnest it was actually painful to behold.
"Well, Your Majesty, it was a... a noble effort. Very, uh, very earnest. A few minor quibbles if I may. Firstly, we no longer draw and quarter ponies. Haven't for nine hundred and some odd years. Secondly, you can't order ponies executed. Equestria hasn't had capital punishment since the reform act of 514, and even if it were reinstated—which given the positions of the Crown Loyalists and the Front Pegasus is actually probably possible—you'd need due process. Thirdly, the usual mode of address for members of the Royal Council is 'my lord' or 'my lady' not 'brief mortals.' Fourthly, we can't declare war on Stalliongrad, it's been a part of Equestria since 344, and fifthly the person you kept addressing as "Lord Privy Seal" is the stenographer. We haven't had a Lord Privy Seal since 889. Sixtly, while I happen to know that it is true that Lord Trottingham’s in dire financial straits and that the Duke of Whitetail is involved with… who you said, those were rather meant to be secrets, and chastising them for not hiding them better—even though it was a rather excellent lecture on OPSEC, Your Majesty—doesn’t really help. But aside from those, ah, trifling matters, it went well, I think."
Luna's hopeful expression didn't so much disappear as drain from her face.
"Oh," she said in a very small voice.
"But those issues should be very simple to resolve, Your Majesty. You were very... regal. Very commanding. Though... on that score..."
"Yes, My Lord Line?"
Dotted winced, not for the first time that night. It was bad enough when ponies called him that today but when she last walked Equestria the titles meant something and according to Dotted and any Northisler born in the last thousand years, what they meant was nothing good.
"The... uh, the Royal Canterlot Voice. Is it necessary?"
"My sister hath said that it is not for informal gatherings and I have heeded her words with great care, but the Night Court was a formal affair, was it not?"
"Yes. Yes. Um. Yes. Agreed. It's just that... with the volume being what it is I think I will have to fill out paperwork to reclassify the Cynthian Hall as a... uh.... as an industrial zone, you see, due to the noise. As per Occupational Health & Safety regulations, codicil six, paragraph 35d, amended 995. Which—uh, which may mean everyone will have to wear hearing protection, eye protection, and hard-hats. And that... well it, it might clash with your regalia for one. Also painting the Lunar Throne in safety orange would probably count as vandalism or treason or polyphiloprogeny or something."
Luna had looked crestfallen before, but now looked entirely devastated. Dotted's heart broke a little at the sight of her and he stuttered into silence.
She tried. She really, really did. It was hard to see when she strutted and shouted and declaimed thunderously but now as she sat crestfallen, the throne seemingly made for a much larger mare, he could see it all too well. She could never be Celestia so she tried for… what? The Great And Terrible Princess of Darkness (but on your side, honest)? A lifetime—a long lifetime—of not fitting in, ever, and of forever falling short of whatever it was that was expected. It sounded like misery. It sounded familiar.
They sat together in the cold echoing chamber for a span of eighty heartbeats studiously looking away when Luna said, quietly.
"What is polyphiloprogeny?"
"No idea. It's mentioned in a bill from 324 as being strictly forbidden in Equestria on pain of summary phythoplasty, but nopony can find what ‘polyphiloprogeny’ actually is. Or was. The law is still on the books since we can't repeal it because we can't debate it because we don't know what it says."
Luna laughed. Her sister's laugh seemed unearthly and brought to mind such things as babbling brooks, or the tinkling of silver bells. Luna's was an echoing belly laugh, and Dotted could swear he heard a trace of a snort as she slapped a silver-shod hoof on the conference table. Hearing it, he found he could smile again.
“It is pleasing to hear,” said Luna, at length, “that the present hath as much difficulties with the past as I do with the present. It’s a hopeful thing, methinks. I have much to learn, My Lord Line, but… surely there’s aught I can do?”
Dotted took a speculative sip of tea.
“Well, Your Majesty, there is always the, ah, informal side of being a diarch of Equestria. Any salon in Canterlot would, of course, welcome you. Your sister tries to attend a few and use the opportunity to mix with the higher echelons of society, provide a gentle steer, as it were, but there’s hardly ever time. And, well, classical culture is always respected and I’m, uh, sure that your, ah, knowledge of Shakespony, say, will allow for a certain flair—”
Luna laughed again. Dotted found he could really get used to the sound.
“Shakespony! That old rascal! Classical culture! Oh, My Lord Line, my sister hath not said that you had such a flair for jesting! I must commend ye, ‘twas excellently said.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“My Lord Line? You are jesting, are you not?”
“Uh, no, Shakespony is, in fact, considered rather the apex of classical culture.”
Luna goggled at him.
“Thou canst not be serious,” she hissed. “Puns and profanity! The vulgar and the venal! Amusing to be sure but… this, to ye all, is high culture?”
“For everypony. Um. Sorry, Your Majesty.”
Luna facehoofed.
“O tempora, o mores,” she muttered, dejectedly.
“We... I did not do well in there, My Lord Line.”
Dotted’s smile turned very brittle. It was considerably worse than that. He glanced around the street but there was nopony to overhear. The courier who waited outside to give him the crucial scouting report was already turning a corner at the far end of the street and the guests of the little soiree they had crashed didn’t leave as much as they had fled.
“Oh, Your Majesty, I’m sure there was friction and, ah, misunderstanding in there but—”
“And it is normal in this time,” Luna said, bitterly, “for guests to leave these salons in tears, is it?”
“Well… not as such, Your Majesty. You may have been a touch… harsh with Lady Baltimare wh—”
“The things she said! About Lady Sparkle no less! About my sister. It is them two I owe my liberty, My Lord Line! I will not hear them slandered,” Luna said, finishing with a hoof-stomp which, Dotted noted in a distant sort of way, pulverized a considerable amount of the flagstone Luna was standing on. A small, irrepressible part of him made several notes and slid them into folders marked ‘road repair,’ and ‘palace finance, misc. monies, royal snit sub-account.’
“Your Majesty,” Dotted began in his most conciliatory tone, “While harsh, ‘pigeon-liver’d froward and unable worm’ was perfectly understandable. And, really, so was ‘poisonous bunch-backed toad.’ The charge laid that Lady Baltimare has in her, ah, ‘no more good faith in her than a stewed prune’ is, based on my data, quite correct—well, uh, spotted. Comparing her to an, uh, easy glove that goes off or on at pleasure was a bit… extreme, but I, uh, certainly see you were quite upset at this point, and again, none can fault you as far as correctness is concerned. I cannot imagine how you managed to ascertain when, with whom, and how but it was quite impressive, though given the reaction it would have perhaps been better if you were, ah, less perceptive. But, uhm… the, ah, duel, Your Majesty?”
“What of it?”
“They are illegal for a start.”
“Balderdash,” said Luna, seething, “they were illegal afore, as well. And give me not moralizing, Lord Line, we weren’t going to hurt her, just prove a point. And she’s a noble, is she not? It’s not like she is unaccustomed to the sight of a bit of blood?”
Luna took one look at Dotted’s face and all the fury drained out of her in an instant.
“My Lord Line?”
“Titles of nobility have nothing to do with military service, Your Majesty. Not anymore. I doubt Lady Baltimare has ever wielded anything more lethal than a salad fork.”
“We challenged to a duel—”
Luna caught herself short. She seemed to sag and shrink until Dotted could not help the feeling that, short as he was, he was looking down at her suddenly frightened face. She seemed… lost. A foal, far, far from home. She looked away.
“Oh, My Lord Line… what a wretched muddle I’ve made. I do not belong here. Not anymore.”
“Your Majesty! That’s not true, there’s just a—”
Dotted’s assurance died on his lips as he saw Luna’s face. She looked at him for a moment, then up for a second, and sighed.
“One cannot even see the stars anymore. My little ponies stay up all night now, I find, and burn lanterns ‘till the sunrise, but they are not mine anymore, are they? Not my little ponies. I do not know them. What are they to me and I to them? Strangers. I might have as well gone to search for a home among the Griffins or the Qilin.”
They stood silent in the street for a long while, Luna inspecting the sky like somepony looking for an old friend in a crowd, and Dotted staring at his own hooves, unsure what to say. The cry of a night-watchmare broke the silence.
“How did you know,” said Dotted, suddenly.
“Pardon,” Luna replied looking, with wide a curious eyes, a bit more like herself for just an instant.
“About Lady Baltimare? Or the Duke of Whitetail? Or… any of it?”
Luna looked puzzled, she stepped back a few feet, and fluffed her wings.
“Wasn’t it obvious?”
“Not to most ponies, Your Majesty.”
“Well, ponies told me, My Lord Line.”
“Oh? Which ones?”
“I could not venture as to their names, but the diverse guests of this salon we just visited were discussing all manner of things. One only needed to listen.”
Dotted blinked.
“You can follow a dozen separate conversations in crowded room,” he asked, disbelief coloring his voice.
“Oh, it is quite a simple thing, My Lord Line. One only need know how to note things properly according to their natures.”
“And the Duke of Whitetail? Lord Trottingham?”
“Some in their words. Some in their silences. The rest in how they moved and stood still. It is still noting things and naught more.”
“You notice a lot of things, Your Majesty,” said Dotted still not quite able to make himself believe.
“A few. A few. Much like I noted the envelope that pony gaveth unto ye just now—to choose an example by chance, of course,” said Luna the gleam in her eyes almost eclipsing her dejection.
“Oh,” said Dotted, suddenly going very, very still, “that. Hah. Well spotted, Your Majesty. Well spotted. Well, you know how it can be. The business of government never stops, after all.”
Luna fixed Dotted with a long, long look, and smiled, thinly. She still looked withdrawn and somehow grey and the smile did not seem to fit on her muzzle.
“So my sister saye—says,” Luna said blandly.
Dotted resisted looking back at the saddlebags where the envelope was and instead smiled.
“The night’s still young—middle-aged at worst. Perhaps given your skill at noting things you might like to see how the actual business of government is conducted?”
The Office of Unified Intelligence was dark, cold, and empty.
This was a surprise.
“Where is everypony,” Dotted asked, shocked, “it’s a security crisis, I’d have expected ponies to be in here at it hammer and tongs. Why, most days we have to kick them—ah. Damn.”
“My Lord Line,” asked Luna, quietly. She was a bit better than on the street but her mien was… subdued. She even spoke softly and Dotted found that hit him the hardest. A voice like hers was made for exuberance or, at the very least, for shouting. Whispers ill-suited it.
“Well… we’ve issues with ponies working at all hours and so to promote—ah, what’s the phrase—work-life balance we have started ejecting people after work hours are done. And I, uh, wasn’t here to rescind the order.”
“So?”
“So, around six a bunch of rather burly guardsponies came in and carted my intelligence analysts away.”
“Ah.”
Dotted’s horn lit up and the lanterns embedded in the ceiling flickered with a greenish flame that was efficient, safe, cold, and—whatever the experts might say—guaranteed to drive you insane with its subtle flicker within an hour. Then again, in the Service, who’d notice?
The office was designed without anything resembling a central plan. It was windowless and managed to seem poky despite being large enough to play hoofball in. The center was a pile of untidily piled-together desks covered in paper and the walls were covered in cork-board and thousands upon thousands of newspaper clippings, notes, photographs, sketches, and what at first blush appeared to be at least one shrunken head[3].
[3] The Tsantsa people of central Yakistan write exclusively in knots braided in the hair of shrunken heads of defeated foes. Of course, once double-entry bookkeeping reached the Tsantsa the supply of foes declined precipitously, and so this was merely an imitation fashioned out of cord and rough canvas. These days the Tsantsa generally save the actual heads for important things like high-end business cards.
“Well,” said Dotted, keeping a close eye on Luna, “here we are. Please feel free to look around and I’ll, make a nice cup of tea.”
“Thank you, My Lord Line.”
Dotted retreated a ways and started fiddling with an emergency tea kit he hid in a cubbyhole in which—annoyingly—somepony had also hidden a crossbow, a bag of bits, and a stack of passports. Spies! Really! Dotted leafed through the passports while he waited for the water to boil and then, as the kettle began to sing, he dumped the whole lot on the floor unceremoniously. He’d have to have a talk with this Lshtshfum Asc’f, whoever he was, about finding better hiding places for his emergency bag.
As he waited for the tea to seep he kept an eye on Luna. She was shuffling past the desks seemingly not paying anything much attention. Then again, she didn’t seem like she was listening to a dozen different conversations earlier either and yet… If she could do this sort of thing at will she might truly be an enormous help in government. Not just feeling useful but—
“This is quite fascinating,” mumbled Luna who had, despite her ambling pace, somehow managed to move out of his line of sight, “I mean obviously, you know it’s this pony named State Secret doing this, yes?”
Dotted dropped his teacup.
“What?!”
“Quite, quite obvious. The payment from Second-and-a-Half Canterlot Mercantile Bank, sayeth here, is exactly the equal of the payment by this Sifter person for the hardwood floor to a shop one of your ponies hath marked as not actually existing, and Sifter doesn’t exist either because he livet...lives at 137 Harmony Avenue, which that map over there says only has 120 numbers in it. Hidden payment. State Secret. It must be.”
“I… how did you… I mean you just glanced at—”
“But the question is how a junior courier gets access to… oh. You gave him the secrets.”
Dotted dropped the teapot as well.
He turned, slowly, to see Luna considerably closer than he expected glaring at him. He suddenly remembered a powdered flagstone and just how hard that would be to replace and yet how easy compared to other things that might also be reduced to powder.
“I… how did… you—,” he fell silent as he was not roughly but irresistibly lifted off his hooves by a dark blue aura.
Luna kept glaring at him and then blinked, slowly, and looked carefully around the room for a long moment while Dotted contemplated calling for help.
“They… are not real secrets. This note,” she said pointing at a piece of paper next to the fireplace where Dotted could swear she never even looked, “says it’s about fleet disposition of… whatever a ‘submarine’ is and how they are in the Coldwater Strait but this map,” she continued, almost dancing with excitement and pointing at a half rolled-up map on a table next to them, “shows the disposition from the same day it was supposed to have been stolen and shows entirely the wrong layout. Nothing near Coldwater!”
She beamed and swung Dotted around as if he was an—immobile and slightly terrified—dancing partner and then, remembering herself, she put him down very, very gently.
“Thou gavest him false secrets,” she declared proudly to Dotted and, given the volume, to most of Canterlot’s population. Dotted fought an urge to shush her, despite his forebrain signaling frantically that this would likely not be survivable. He took a few deep breaths and marshalled his thoughts.
“Yes. I was sure there was a leak of less important sensitive information and I gave different reports to three of our newer recruits and tasked a few personal friends in Sky Reconnaissance to keep an eye on the locations I mentioned. The moment I heard that a Griffin Q-ship was spotted in the straits I knew who my culprit was. How on Epona did you know?,” Dotted asked, stopping himself to add, “Your Majesty.”
Luna grinned.
"The world hath changed, My Lord Line, changed well past my ability to grasp, at least for now. But this, My Lord! This I understand. This is the same, as it ever was. Betrayal and deception. Trickery and illusion. These are mine now and were mine in the past. Oh, I may not know what a submarine is—”
“It’s a ship that travels underwater, Your Majesty.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
“Can a visit on such a device be arranged?”
“For a princess of the realm? Certainly.”
Luna managed to find a way to grin wider.
“Excellent. Perhaps this future isn’t as bad as I feared. Well. I may or may not know about submarines, but ponies lie about them exactly as they did when the world was young. Nihil novi sub luna,” she added with what Dotted could swear was a wink, “This will do for now. Oh, yes. I will be useful. Hah! Spycraft! The oldest profession!"
There was a pause, and Luna blushed.
"Ah, second oldest, I should say."
There was another, longer pause, and she added, thoughtfully, "Well. Third, actually."
Dotted raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Flint-knapper, Mr. Line. Trust me. I was there," she said and then laughed, eyes sparkling.
Coda:
“Mr. Secretary, I know I must be taking you away from important duties but I simply must ask, did you employ my sister as the president of the Office of Unified Intelligence?”
Princess Celestia spared a quick look at Luna who radiated innocence.
“Oh, no, heavens forefend, Your Majesty. I could never legally do such a thing. No, no, I hired L, an entirely mysterious mare whom none of us at OUI know much about as the president. She’s a completely different person than your sister. Wears a little domino mask and everything.”
Celestia turned to face her sister who redoubled her look of cherubic innocence.
“Luna?”
“I myself know little about this ‘L’ though by report she is absolutely brilliant at spycraft and subterfuge. And quite handsome, too, I’m given to understand,” she said, retaining a straight face throughout.
Princess Celestia briefly massaged the base of her horn.
“I see. Is the highly mysterious L close to catching the thief of those documents, then?”
Luna made an expansive gesture with a silver-shod hoof.
“Well! Who among us can possibly know the mind of a mistress of spycraft of such eminence, but I suspect that she can easily get her hooves on whoever it is that has caused the leak. Wouldn’t you agree, My Lord Line?”
Dotted didn’t even blink. He was a professional.
“Quite easily I am sure, Your Majesty. I think he wouldn’t know what hit him.”
“Indeed,” Luna chimed in, “Or her, of course.”
“Of course,” Dotted concurred.
They both looked at Celestia with eyes soaked in innocence and entirely free of guile.
It was a pretty disturbing sight.
“Well. I’m sure we all wish L, then, all the best in this difficult time.”
As Dotted Line and Luna stood to leave—Luna to bed, and Dotted to—it was Monday, wasn’t it?—terrify the cabinet—Princess Celestia motioned to Dotted.
“Mr. Secretary, would you please stay for just a moment more?”
Dotted paused on the threshold and then returned back to Celestia’s desk.
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
Celestia waited for a moment to be sure her sister was out of earshot and, bending her head closer to Dotted’s, whispered.
“Thank you.”
Dotted smiled.
“Always, Your Majesty. Though… if I could ask for your aid over a trifling matter?”
“Certainly, Mr. Secretary. As ever, you need but ask.”
“Could you please make your sister stop calling me ‘My Lord Line?’”
Yep, Dotted thought. Definitely like silver bells. Or a babbling brook.