//------------------------------//
// Love, Luna, Letters, and Something Else 
// Story: The L Word 
// by Ice Star 
//------------------------------//

I knocked on the door three more times, boredly noting that my golden-shod forehoof contrasted with the darker colors of the Lunar Wing.

"Luna!" I called, and my tail swished. A lot of ponies felt uncomfortable here, but I didn't. Even if I was one shade of pastel colors after the next, the cool and less-traveled wing of the castle never made me feel the slightest bit uneasy — my friend lived here.

I rapped the office door again — well, one of them. Auntie and Luna had multiple places scattered throughout the castle that could be considered offices and studies. It was hard to think of Luna as an 'Auntie' too since she and I were close in age, if you sliced all the her-being-a-deathless-god away... and we just felt like friends. 

So friends we were. Princess Celestia was 'Auntie' because when she adopted me, it was just her, alone as the only known Alicorn in Equestria.

Because friends seriously take this long to open a door. Sheesh.

"C'mon, Luna! Princess duties can't be that exciting." My feathers rustle a little, and I hold the crumpled letter I've been clutching in my aura a little tighter. "I really need to talk to you."

"About what?" a voice behind me said, and I totally didn’t squeak and jump a little at the suddenness of it.

"Aii!" I jumped around really subtly and looked Luna in her calm turquoise eyes. She watched me with a look that was more owl-like than pony-like.

Why was she always so sneaky? And how?

I folded my wings neatly — my pegasus instinct had them spring from my sides, ready for flight — I looked at Luna and offered to my friend what so few ponies did: an earnest friendly smile and a happy wave of a forehoof.

"Hiii~!" I cooed cheerfully, dulling my horn and slipping my letter under a wing before pulling Luna into a quick hug.

She responded like a fence post: awkwardly and stiffly standing there, but accepting the gesture anyway. The day Luna really hugs somepony other than her giving Auntie sisterly rib-crushing tackles would be the day Tartarus freezes over, I swear. She's either all-in or all-out with affection. She's not even that aloof or anything — Luna's warm, in a weird way. Eventually, however, she breaks away from the hug and takes a few steps away. Luna cocked her head to the side, and her thick mane billowed around her. I've kind of always wanted to touch it and wind my hooves in the locks because it's freakin' psychedelic, yo.

"Did you need anything, Cady?" Luna eyes the letter tucked under my wing. My nickname still sounds strange when she says it, but her voice is also so... rich and unusual. I bet Luna would be wonderful at singing, really singing, but the only thing I've heard out of her are a few drinking songs in dialects I can't wrap my head around... and not just because a drunken goddess sang them!

I nodded, accepting the Luna equivalent of 'Hello, and how have you been?' since we hadn't seen one another as often as we would have if I still lived in Canterlot. Every little train ride to see Auntie felt like just a bit of an adventure now that the air of settling in at the Crystal Empire was approaching. 

I didn't really like it... was familiarity supposed to feel so stifling?

But, Shiny understood. He had family here, too. Princess Celestia was my Auntie, but it was Luna who was the batty one. That's how I knew she'd be perfect to talk to... well, that and something else.

I pointed a forehoof at her door, not wondering where all her stealth teleportation took her. She clearly wasn't in that office when I was knocking. "Could we talk in there?"

Shrugging a touch flippantly, Luna lit her horn, twisted the door handle, and walked in first, beckoning me into her shadowy office once she was inside.



...



Soft werelights of a faint bluish color were floating about lazily about the deep indigo ceiling of the room. They almost made her coat look light in comparison; the inky hue was meant to imitate the night sky on the darkest of stormy days, I think.

The lights were beautiful, and Luna smiled as I stared at them. Each one wasn't exactly like a star of a firefly or... I really don't know what they were. Those were the only comparisons I could think of, and I guess you have to have been like Luna, who has seen so much of the world... and really been places, lived through adventures to know something more about these lights... and just what they could look like.

A few blue feathers brush my back and into my mane gently. Luna doesn't look at me. She doesn't even see my eyes, but she understands something.

I sank into a sturdy, but comfortable chair, and Luna quietly takes her seat at a large desk. Her horn still glows as she idly moves a few baubles around on the surface of the dark hardwood, which holds a strange warmth to it. Everything about Luna has that kind of quality, and I find myself noticing it at the oddest of times. 

I breathed in a little, and the desk still smells as fresh as the day Luna got it, when she oversaw the furnishings and decorations of the new Lunar Wing.

Luna's blue-green eyes are utterly calm about looking through me, all while her magic is picking at the petals of sunflowers that sit cheerily in a clean glass vase. I don't need to guess who gave them to Luna, the sight of an orange ribbon tying the stems together is just another dead give-away. I watch as the curls of the silky strands brush against the poetry books that the vase was placed upon. What kind of niece would I be if I didn't know my Auntie's favorite color? Those books are a wholly Luna-thing, just like the buffalo dream catchers that rest in the shady corners of the walls. Other than what I know she picked out for herself, the other furnishings are gifts for a newly returned goddess.

"And what is it that appears to be the problem?" she asks coolly, her gaze pointed like a lance at a target straight at my letter.

I gulp and focus on the swords mounted on the walls behind her. With how elegant and silvery this particular pair looks, I can't help but think of jewelry rather than a weapon. Anyway, why wouldn't I? Luna loved weapons and spellcraft like most mares liked jewelry. Even Twilight was a jewel-covered noblemare in distress when compared to how little Luna cared about this sorta thing.

Ugh, I had to learn the hard way that mare-talk fell flat on her nearly all the time.

I didn't say anything. I just gave a tired sigh and whipped out my letter with a flick of soft blue aura, and it was right in front of Luna a moment later.

She glanced at it, mane waving with a slow and steady curiosity, the same one that shone in her eyes. Luna may be new around here, but even she can guess what might be inside.

Ponies all over Equestria wrote to the Princess of Love. In that way, I was the most public of the princesses. No staff filtered my letters and my position in government was flexible. As part of my ideas on how to contribute to Equestria, I made myself only a letter away for ponies in need — something that both Luna and Auntie neither did or could realistically do. If some schoolcolt or filly had a crush they couldn't bear to tell anypony else, they told me. When ponies needed help coming out to a friend, family member, or lover, they wrote to me. Ponies with marital woes would write to me. Ponies preparing for marriage had my name on their mind.

Everywhere in Equestria were ponies who loved and had to deal with that — unrequited love, requited love, feelings of attraction to that special somepony, and in the case of a very small sect, someponies — and they had a Princess of Love to help them.

Because of what I meant to all these ponies, I'd held tearful confessions, cutesy cards, and some of the most romantic letters in my hooves. For every mare who loved a stallion, there was a mare who loved mares, or even a mare who liked both... and the other way around. I managed to help ponies through their problems the best I could.

Every one of their letters was something really great. Even a foal writing to me about a goofy playground crush in big crayons on a construction paper card was meaningful and made me smile!

Then...

Luna heard me sigh again, and with a completely stoic expression — which was a bit unusual for her, not that Luna was any smiling ray of sunshine — had her horn aglow and was starting to withdraw the letter I had received.

I hated this letter.

I hated all the letters just like it.

If I were a nastier pony, I think I'd hate the ponies that write them. Instead, I'm just frustrated by the audacity and existence of these... types. Yes, that's the word I'm searching for. Getting these letters is a degrading experience... and so is the knowledge that ponies like this exist in the first place.

Luna's eyes scan the page carefully. For the first few paragraphs, she reads the letter with her emotions contained. Her eyes are filled with a light I can't describe. It isn't happy — far from it — and she doesn't look like her usual spirited self, but there's something in her eyes.

I'm not sure if it's a good something this time.

Then she stomachs the opening, as brief as it was. Or perhaps she's already a little past that. Trying to guess the speed she reads is hard. Auntie has always been able to read, like, some sort of machine, I think. I have seen her sign paperwork that she's read entirely before I have made it past the first paragraph! I'm sure that she would manage to put Twilight to shame too!

Luna recoils, disgust strong, steely, and clear within her eyes. "By the Acheron's waters! What foul mind has wrought such a letter and thought this fit to send to you!"

"Ugh, yes!" I flail my forehooves about in hopes that the gesture conveys something about how annoyed I am. "Every word of these is just the worst!"

"These..." she repeated, blinking. "You have been sent more? There have been multiple instances where perverted filth dribbled out by minds warped by the monster of lust have been delivered to you?"

I nodded quickly. "Never when I was a teenaged princess, of course... but once I turned sixteen and was of age? They were packed among all the regular letters. Somepony out there writes to me asking for advice on a first date, and then the next letter I pick up and open is some garbage like... like..." 

I didn't know what else to say... or what I could. I was already more frustrated and angry over a letter — and all the ones like it — than I ever had been before. Calling something 'garbage' was one of the worst things I've said to anypony... even if it was true.

"This piece of unacceptable filth?" Luna supplied quickly.

I nodded again. "...Let's go with that," I mumbled.

Luna's ear flicked. "Is there something wrong?"

"Yeah..." I managed, very surprised to hear how quiet my own voice sounded. "Every time I get a letter like this, I feel less and less like the Princess of Love... and depending on just how bad they can be, I doubt whether I really want this, or if acknowledging these kinds of letters would be endorsing these kinds of behaviors."

"Why is that?" Luna asked, her voice low.

I rubbed a forehoof against the area right below my horn and gave a frustrated groan. "Because I'm the Princess of Love. I help ponies with heartbreaking and heartfelt things alike. Acceptance and rejection are totally things that I've enjoyed helping ponies with... and the feeling of working with somepony, even if it might be somepony I've never met face to face. Being able to communicate with our subjects is so personal."

Bringing my hoof back down to rest with its twin, I pretended I could sink into the chair and vanish for a little while. It was relaxing. "These letters aren't personal. They're just gross. I think about how in every city and town, there is one to a dozen ponies who think that this should be a letter, that they are entitled to write these things, and that maybe 'no' doesn't mean 'no' — or a hundred other icky things that they decide to write their names on and mail to me. Then they decide to call this 'love' when it's the farthest thing from that."

Luna scoffs — it's a gesture that Auntie would find rude, but her younger sister did so freely. She was always liberal with her emotions in a way I wish I could be. "This is most certainly not love."

"Ugh, you're telling me. When will it occur to everypony that I'm the Princess of Love and not the Princess of Lust?"

Luna laughs, but it isn't a happy laugh. "I cannot say I am experienced in the former, but I have never felt the latter. They are more often than not, like two great peaks of stone with a whole gorge ripped between them, and rarely any bridge to connect either side that is remotely sensible in construction, are they not?"

Luna looks confused, but a dumb old smile slips across my face. "Yes, Luna, that's pretty accurate. And can you remind me to let you describe things more?"

"Aye? That I shall do, though I must ask: why bring this to me?"

"I like your advice. You also have a far different perspective on these things, and Auntie wouldn't understand. C'mon, we both know this is the closest thing I could probably ever get you to do to mare-talk. Oh, and since you're my only asexual friend, I sorta just had to see your face. Sorry 'bout that."

Another shrug from my friend. "Understood... yet, what is it that you do with such letters?"

"Send them back unanswered and let the angry replies pile up..."

A determined half-scowl crossed Luna's face. "Simply unacceptable, Cady."

I swallow quickly. "O-oh?"

She draws a forehoof along the wooden edge of her desk, looking up at the ceiling, past all the maps of everywhere I haven't been on the walls, illuminated by firefly lanterns. Hanging from that dark ceiling, among all her werelights were a few model airships — not zeppelins, but more common varieties of ships — and Luna looked at them like most ponies look to the stars.

"Yes, this must be remedied. Perhaps a reply would be in order?"

"Um."

"To the Brazen Pervert Who has Written to Me: 

Your tact is non-existent and courtesy is utterly extinct. I am certain a therapist could aid you greatly if you desired to stop by for a few visits. I beg you, please exit the basement that you have confined yourself to. See the sunshine and the moonlight? Are they not wondrous things? Please, breath in and out deeply a few times. Accept that these desires of yours will never come true. Purchase some ice cream with whatever portion of mother's funds you are able to spare. I hear that cookie dough is an excellent flavor, though butterscotch drizzled in caramel and doused with an appropriate amount of rum is divine! Look within a mirror every morning and tell yourself that yes, perhaps meaningful employment and acceptable social interaction is in your future. Eat more ice cream. 

Sincerely, Your Princess Luna. 

Of course, I am debating whether or not to include my full title, sparing no royal style. 'Tis quite lengthy. I am afraid that the mere sight of it would make this simpering fool envious and quite self-conscious in the areas he likely is lacking if the sheer energy of this letter is anything to go by."

I breathed in.

Then, I breathed out. "Oooookay... that's, ah, very direct. Yah, yah... care to explain how this will work for me...?"

Luna smiled a happy-go-lucky smile upon me. "Isn't it just? I am sure it will suffice as a first draft. Merely swap out my name and style for your own, and your preferred flavor of ice cream. Make no haste in mailing such a reply!" 

Biting my lip, I dared speak against this weird goddess. "So, um, isn't this maybe a little bit rude?"

Luna laughed merrily, waving a hoof. "Oh, no, not at all! This fool sent you an assault of the visual sort with this most loathsome letter; you must end this onslaught or mail-terror by replying to one depraved bastard at a time!"

I blinked. "Wow. Gotcha. So, um, is that new dreamwalking thing going okay?"

Luna smiled at me, replying after a moment. "It is."

I blinked again and nodded a little.

Luna looked confused now. "Is something the matter?"

Oh. Right. She actually wanted me to write a reply. "No, no. Nothing at all. Got a pen?" I paused and eyed the envelope that sat all by its lonesome, address and name in plain print. "And an envelope? Stamps? Oh, and paper too?"

"Aye, would that be all? No grand enchantments you wish to lay upon your letter?" Luna shoots me a skeptical look and fishes out the supplies I need before passing them to me.

Lighting my horn, I lifted the pen, keeping my breathing steady as I wrote the most scathing thing I could:




Dear Friend,

I was very surprised to see this.

Sincerely, 

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza of Equestria

P.S. Please don't write to me again.

P.P.S Was that too mean?

P.P.P.S Sorry!

P.P.P.P.S Sorry for apologizing in my letter!

P.P.P.P.P.S I'm super-duper serious about the not writing in the future part, though.




With that said — or written — I quickly sealed everything in its proper envelope, scrawling the addresses and names needed in quick hornwriting, still as careful as can be to not let Luna see.

Luna's eyes stared through me in that owlish way of hers again. "Were you able to transcribe everything accordingly?"

I nodded, flipping the paper around to present the front of the envelope. "It's ready!" I said, hoping that I sounded excited and wasn't trembling in fear too obviously.

Luna was very quick about picking up the letter in her own magic, and with a flash, it was gone. Truly gone. Sent. On its way. Oh, gods...

Resting her head atop two folded forehooves, Luna peers at me with a gaze of cool concern. "Cadance, as private as written correspondence may be, there is still something of the utmost importance I must ask you..." When she speaks again, her voice is softer, "...May I pry a bit?"

"S-sure...!"

"What did you put down as the best flavor of ice cream?"