//------------------------------// // Solo for Soprano in D Minor, "Queen of the Night" // Story: Celestia XVII // by brokenimage321 //------------------------------// I peered around a column, then tip-hoofed down the hall. Palace security was very good, but I’d had seventeen years to figure out how to dodge them. And, though I was definitely going to feel the lack of sleep tomorrow, at least I hadn’t gotten caught. I snuck to my bedroom, eased open the latch, and slipped inside. I closed the door behind me and sighed— “Good evening, Princess Celestia,” Luna said. “It’s good to see you made it back safely.” I looked up, eyes wide. Loonie sat in my beat-up, overstuffed armchair. The lights were out, but she had lit a small fire in my fireplace; the flames lit half her face in angry, flickering orange light. She didn’t look up at me; instead, she focused her attention on a small cross-stitch she was working on. She had told me once that she cross-stitched to relax. I don’t think it worked; it seemed like she was cross-stitching nearly every time I saw her. Philomena, on her perch by my bed, danced from one foot to the other and squawked nervously. I shot her a quick smile, then started edging towards my bed. “Luna,” I said evenly. “Please bathe before lying down,” Loonie said, again without looking up. “Physical labor tends to make one sweat, and dirtying the sheets is simply rude.” “And taking over my bedroom isn’t?” I snapped. Loonie ignored me, instead making another stitch or two. “You will be pleased to hear,” she said, “that I went to the school dedication myself.” I cocked my head slightly. “So… you were going anyways?” “No,” she said calmly. “As I said, I had other obligations, but I was able to clear my schedule.” She pronounced it shed-yool—which did nothing to make her sound less pompous. “I don’t see what the fuss is about, then,” I said, “if you were able to do it yourself.” Loonie pulled a thread tight, then snipped it with a pair of scissors. “Do not confuse a contingency with acquiescence,” she said evenly. “You still abandoned a Royal Duty of yours, and against my direct orders. In fact, you appear to be have quite the habit of doing so,” she added, “Seeing as, once again, you left the Peytral behind.” I glanced reflexively at the glass case on the mantle. The Peytral lay tastefully on the velvet inside. Someone must have come in to straighten it up. “Mom didn’t wear her regalia all the time, either,” I shot back. “In fact, she left it in the case more often than not—” “Be that as it may,” Luna said, cutting me off, “you, my dear Princess, do not wear it at all.” She jabbed the needle into the cross-stitch again. “Some pique may be justifiable, but your continual refusal to wear your badge of office, even in the face of my repeated requests, smacks of simple defiance. Defiance that I may take it upon myself to correct.” I scowled. “Is that a threat?” I asked. “Of course not,” she replied. “A threat wouldn’t be proper.” Did… did she just sass me? “Princess Luna,” I said, “I’m very tired, and would like to go to bed now. So, if you would kindly vacate my room…?” Loonie glanced up at me, then back down at her work. “No,” she said. I looked sharply at her. “Excuse me?” I snapped. “As your co-Princess,” she said evenly, “I am your equal in terms of social standing. However,” she added, pulling a thread tight, “as you are still technically a child—” “I’m eighteen in March,” I snapped. “Then in March, we shall re-evaluate our relationship,” she said, without skipping a beat. “In any case: I am your senior, both in age and experience. Thus, it is expected that you follow my requests, while the same is not true of the reverse. To this point, I have done so largely out of courtesy,” she said. “However, as you seem to take pleasure in defying me, I have chosen to withdraw that courtesy.” I felt my hackles rising. “Are you—are you serious?” I growled. “I am,” she said. “So—you’re just going to steal my bedroom for your own workspace—because you can?” “I said no such thing,” she replied. “I wished merely—” “Get out!” I howled. “I want to sleep!” Luna glared up at me, and her look nearly froze me to the floor. “The only command of yours I am obligated to follow,” she said, her voice deadly quiet, “is an official Royal Supplication.” Her eyes glittered behind her spectacles. “I assume you remember the protocol for requests to a fellow Princess, Your Highness?” “Yes,” I lied. “Then I would be pleased to hear one,” she said, setting her sewing in her lap and looking expectantly up at me. My lip twitched into a snarl. Loonie just sat there, watching me for what felt like an eternity, her expression growing more and more smug. Finally, she picked up her sewing again. “I had intended to use this visit exclusively to inform you that I am less of an idiot than you seem to think,” she said, re-threading the needle. “However, I suddenly find myself with a row to finish.” I cried out in frustration, then stomped to my bed. I ripped off the comforter, grabbed a pillow, and turned away—then turned back and grabbed my stuffed frog from where he sat by the head of the bed. I marched to the door, tore it open, and slammed it shut behind me, cutting off Loonie’s grin of smug satisfaction. * * * Something nudged me in the side. “Huh?” I mumbled. “Wazzat?” I opened my eyes blearily. One of the guards was standing sheepishly over me. “Sorry, Princess,” he muttered. “But it’s five in the morning. Time to get up.” I stared at him for a second, then nodded. “ ‘Kay,” I said. “Thanks.” I rolled off the couch, wiped the drool off my face, then stretched painfully. The Canterlot Palace reception sofas, spaced more-or-less evenly around the front lobby, had been designed like most such couches: to look luxurious, but carefully crafted to put knots in all the wrong places. We didn’t want to encourage loitering—the sort of pony that spends all day sitting in the lobby of the palace tends to be trouble, after all. Still, the couches were better than the floor, especially on short notice. I wadded my comforter and pillow up together, then stuffed them both under one wing. I grabbed Froggy, misshapen where I’d been clutching him in a death-grip, and tucked him under my other wing. I sighed, then staggered off towards my room. Unless Luna’s assholery had progressed to outright evil, she would have left by now. The guard took a hesitant step forward. “Princess?” he said carefully. “Is… everything alright?” “ ‘S fine,” I said, and kept walking. If he had seen the tears dried on my cheeks, he had been decent enough to keep quiet about them.