“Are you certain we're in the right spot?”
Luna sighed for the umpteenth time that day. “This is the direction the map says we should be heading.”
Roseluck rolled her eyes. “That's the same thing you said four hours ago. At this point we're just wandering aimlessly in the Zebra lands... won't they mind us being here?”
“Of course not, my subject. There is no cause for worry.” Luna dismissed her companions protests with a flip of the hoof. “We are, after all, a Princess.”
No doubt. At first Roseluck had feared the meaning of the black bordered envelope when it appeared in her mail slot. But the royal wax crest sealing it, and archaic prose it contained, had left no doubt as to it's sender.
The Princess's horn sent another blue bolt sweeping across the path ahead. Her magic laid the newly felled grass gently to the side, as if she were still pruning the royal shrubbery and not hewing a path through the wilds. “And the Zebras, of all ponies, can appreciate the importance of the Moonflower in curing the Pegasus Pox.”
Roseluck sighed. She'd been wondering why the Princess has chosen her, of all ponies, for this mission the whole week they'd been hoofing it across Equestria. Surely Luna could have have found one of the six heroes to accompany her on this mission: Fluttershy perhaps?
A rustling came from the tall grasses that surrounded them. A lanky Zebra warrior emerged from a tuft of foliage as striped as his coat. He pointed a fearsome spear at the Princess, and grunted unintelligibly. Evidently, Roseluck mused, the border they had passed was not so inconsequential as the Princess had thought.
Luna grunted back in a haughty tone, and the Zebra bowed his head in acknowledgement. Several surrounding tufts of grass rustled nosily, then were still. Roseluck felt her knees weaken. What did all this mean? Were the Zebras expecting Luna? Maybe, contrary to Twilight's assurances, she really was still Nightmare Moon? Roseluck's breath quickened. Did that mean that Zebras were in league with Nightmare Moon? Did they really eat their captives, like the storybooks said?
The Zebra cleared his throat, and only the Princess' magic kept Roseluck from bolting. “An apology is in order; stranger from beyond our border. If your Princess knew not our native tongue; my spear at you I would have flung.”
For some reason, this did little to assuage Rose's fears. She replied, haltingly. “Er... um... I accept your apology. Is there a village nearby? We'd like to rest for a while.”
“No!” Luna stamped her hoof. She shook her head, then spoke more softly. “No, dear. It must be in rhyme. We spoke of this last night, as you'll recall.”
Roseluck snorted. “Why don't you speak to him then?”
“Because he is lower caste.” Luna cleared her throat, and raised her head, as if lecturing to a hall of university students. “They do not speak with their Royalty as casually as we do. A warrior is not permitted to speak to a noble, unless spoken to.”
Roseluck rolled her eyes, then pressed them shut in contemplation. “Long together we did travel. Now our hooves ache... from the gravel.” She cleared her throat, then resumed. “Thus the Princess and I require. A place in which to... retire.”
The Zebra looked at her with surprise, but shook his head in the affirmative, and replied with a soft politeness he had not used before. “Your request gladly will we fulfill. Simply follow me over the hill.”
The exhausted ponies trod onwards, following their new Zebra guide over several more than one hill, and quite a few valleys beside. At the bottom of yet another incline, while their sprightly guide was forging up far ahed of them, the panting compatriots halted to catch their thinning breaths.
“Forgive my earlier... impatience.” Luna manged to gasp out a few words, as she breath finally regained it's normal rhythm. “I have been dealing, I fear\With the Zebras for many a year. In the moment I forgot\that you, my subject, have not.”
Rose snorted. Clearly, the Princess had spent too much time with the Zebras: she was going native. Still, she was beginning to wonder whether all their negotiations had, in fact, been for naught. Why was this trip taking so long? Was their guide leading them to their doom? Wait, where was their guide? Was he abandoning them? Were they about to be ambushed? Her thoughts where drowned out by the beats of her heart that filled her ears. She was too tired to panic now; she'd just have to carry on.
After a moments pause, the two ponies ambled up the hill's steep slope once more. They crested it, and saw the tiny village that awaited them glowing warmly in the savanna twilight.
It was exactly what Rose had expected, and even less. There were mud and straw huts, the kind she'd seen in a picture book when she was a filly, only they weren't laid in a neat circle like they had been in the book. The strong, musky sent of Zebra sweat mixed with smoke assailed her nostrils. She grimaced, and swept her hoof in front of her face. Great, another night sleeping in the mud.
As they ambled down into the village, a crowd of cautious onlookers began to form about the pony pair. They reached the center of collection of rude dwellings, where a great fire was blazing hotly in the dusk. An ancient crone absentmindedly poking at the embers with a stick looked up at them; then lept to her hooves with the agility of a spring foal. Their guide bowed, and excused himself. Soon Luna was entangled in an seemingly unending cycle of hugs, kisses, and excited but unintelligible grunting while Rose sat in the dust, with nothing to do but watch the flames of the fire dance with one another.
At last, when the village's ancients had all greeted the Princess, and the conversation had drifted to other matters, Luna turned to Roseluck, who was by then staring up, half asleep, at the night sky. “My apologies, Rose.” She laid her hoof on her friend's back. “My Zebra friends and I have not seen one another in a thousand years. We had much to discuss.”
“Didn't know they lived that long.” Rose muttered, prodding the ground with her hoof.
“Indeed.” Luna closed her eyes in concentration, and subtly brought the moon closer, so that it's rays fell upon them. “Do you require anything?”
“Nope.” Rose shook her head politely. But her stomach's growling betrayed her.
Luna raised her hoof, and at a Royal Canterlot volume said something in Zebrician which prompted laughter from the eldest of the crones. In turn, the elders clapped her hooves, giving orders which sent servant scrambling and a cheer roiling through the crowd.
Soon wooden bowls appeared in front of Rose, filled with strange fruits. To her surprise, they tasted both sweet and sour. She liked it, and greedily devoured them; hot juices running down her face. The more she ate, the more night blurred, the swirling party a kaleidoscope of color and sound. Her head was a spinning top. She tried to catch it, but it got away from her.
When Rose awoke, she found herself lying in a hut, swinging gently in the cocoon of a soft, warm hammock. Her head was filled with fog, and she struggled to remember where she was.
She winced as the pale moon light fell across her face. Slowly, gently, she turned her aching head, searching for it's source. Across the room, she spied a cabinet filled with an assortment of glistening miniature glass bottles arranged neatly in rows, faded labels peeling and splotched from frequent use. She'd seen bottles like that before... Zercora, in Ponyville! She must have been taken to the Medicine Zebra's hut. The memory of the fruit came flooding back to her. She cursed it, and wished for a hot cup of camomile tea and her rose garden back home.
Slowly, she tottered across the room, looking for a window and drapes so that she could block the source of the light. She found none, only a door. She groaned, and closed her eyes tightly, forcing thought through her unwilling brain. Moonlight... why was that important again? She shook her head; she couldn't recall. Apparently, all it meant was night.
What time was it, anyway? It had seemed late when they had eaten hours before, so it must be very late indeed by now. Early morning? So much for a good nights sleep! Roseluck opened her eyes, and shuffled out the door. Might as well look for the Princess now; let her know that she was alright.
The hut stood on a hillside, an oasis of green plants in a sea of gold. It was parted only by the winding path that led through the grassland to the village, just barely visible in the near distance. These plants... Roseluck now recognized the plump buds that dotted the the hillside. This was all... a flower bed!
The clouds which hung like a skirt about the moon billowed, throwing seeds of shimmering light across the planes. Like sails caught by a sudden breeze, the blooms simultaneously unfurled into plate-sized flowers. The field glimmered white in the moonlight which gave them their name. Roseluck gasped, suddenly fully awake, and wide-eyed surveyed the hill.
“Lovely, aren't they?” A soft, familiar voice emerged from the night behind her.
“Yes, Princess.” Roseluck sighed, casting her eyes up at the moon. It was as beautiful as the flowers. And yet it was a lonely kind of beauty; for unlike the flowers it bloomed alone in the vast dark blue field of the late-night sky. “But if you knew where they were, then why did you bring me?”
“I wanted to share them... with a friend.”