Vivid was laying on her bed, the bed she'd built the frame for herself. The straw inside had been changed recently but the sheets and home had such a familiar scent.
"Falling asleep on me?" Lemon asked from the bedroom door, voice light with mirth.
"I just may," she sighed. "As comfortable as the royal bed in Equestria, I daresay..."
She hugged her pillow close and sighed into it, feeling the warmth flow across her muzzle.
"I'm glad I grabbed it. The Nail family petitioned for ownership but was denied, thankfully."
Vivid huffed, and rolled onto her stomach, setting the pillow aside. "Of course they'd want to take even this from me."
"Careful now, that anger will not serve you," Lemon cautioned.
"Maybe I don't care if it will serve me, I like being angry at them. The Nail family has never been kind to me."
She stood and hopped off her bed, using her magic to examine her shelves and all the little carvings and statues still on them.
"But you didn't intend to kill their children."
Vivid paused. The question hadn't been asked, or insisted, so directly before.
"No," she admitted, voice low. "I did not intend to kill or even hurt them... I just... was scared. I was so scared of them."
"it's near sunset," Lemon said, resting a hoof on her shoulder. "Get some sleep. In the morning we can figure out what to do. But you should rest in your own bed."
Vivid nodded, and leaned against him.
"Through strange lands I've been, my friend... And I find it strangest to return to what was once ordinary. Even as moonrise becomes sunset, and waking shall be sleeping, I see such distance yawning between this moment and whatever strangeness may come."
Vivid was laying on Luna's bed, with Luna's forelegs wrapped around her. The warm glow of the sun came through heavy curtains, just enough to light the room in gold, as Vivid could only perceive when in one of Luna's dreams, seeing through her mind's eye.
"I miss you."
It was a statement, not a question, and yet it was delicate and prodding from the princess. It almost sounded like weakness.
Vivid might have pounced on that weakness in past years, but she now felt a protective fierceness rise in her. She was entrusted with the heart of a princess. The chance to comfort it should not be ignored.
"And I, like the tides to the moon, ache for you," Vivid whispered.
Luna embraced her a little tighter, but the feeling in a dream was emotional, not physical.
"Where did you run to, my brightness? I cannot find you, even to the shores..."
It was surprising to Vivid that Luna had limits. That there was a distance great enough to hide from her.
"Bitain, my old home," Vibid whispered. "My past... I must settle it, I think. I must settle it to be free of some things."
"Is there anything I can do, anything at all to make this journey easier for you?" Luna asked, voice thin with the sorrow inspired by distance.
Vivid turned and looked into Luna's eyes, the worry there making her wonder why she was so far away. But she didn't have to wonder for long. She knew this was to heal very old wounds.
"Would it be... beyond my rights to ask to be assigned ambassador to Bitain?"
"Not beyond at all, in fact it is nearly already yours," Luna said quickly. "If you send to me a gemstone of any kind, I can use it to return papers to you when the moon next rises. Papers which prove your position." She nuzzled Vivid's cheek and sighed. "Is that... all I can do?"
"For now," Vivid nodded. "For now, that is all. But... your love, that is still the bedrock that is supporting me."
Luna held her close, and gradually the dream faded.
When Vivid woke, she stood and began walking around her home. The sun was rising. It was so odd to be waking up at this time rather than falling asleep. She didn't normally notice the differences. It was warmer during the sunlit hours, but she could fall asleep just as easily when the sun was up as the moon.
She scanned over the things she'd crafted when she was younger, until she finally found what she was looking for. A carved wooden sun with a simple crystal set in the middle.
She surrounded it in her magic, and teleported it away. Then she sighed and walked back into the main room.
Lemon was asleep on the couch, covered in a hoof woven blanket.
She smiled a little, and walked out the back door into the garden, breathing in the smell of the flowers and sweet grasses. Laying down on the grass, she remembered days long past, the simplicity of her life. Growing flowers and grasses to eat, Trading carvings for any food she couldn't grow, or for wool, or anything else.
She'd been called the blind filly, as much as her name, but it had all been so very simple.
She could hear Lemon wake up and check her room before finding her. She liked listening to him walk through the house.
"Couldn't sleep in your bed?" Lemon asked as he stifled a yawn.
"I did. Just woke up a moment ago."
Lemon sat nearby and they shared a comfortable silence for a time.
"It's strange to be out during sunlit hours again," Vivid said, feeling the grass on her cheek.
"The ponies of Equestria either sleep during midday and midnight, or the sleep during the day," Vivid explained. "Farmers typically the first, city dwellers the second. Court is held during the twilight hours, so it makes sense that all would wish to be awake for those times, and for the hours their leader is awake."
"And Princess Luna has made no effort to change her own sleep patterns to be awake during the day," Lemon stated.
Vivid couldn't say he was wrong, exactly. "She controls the moon and stars, and is princess of the night. How could she still do her duty while asleep?"
"She manages to control the sun well enough while asleep," Lemon huffed. "I just don't understand how she expects to interact with the rest of the world when she would be asleep during our hours of waking."
Vivid sat up, and then stood. "We've adapted to fit her style. I don't... I can't imagine her ever being a good leader if she was forced to sleep at night, and I believe we can find ways to make all this work," she insisted. "You haven't met her yet, but... Maybe some day soon you will."
Her horn lit, but surprisingly she wasn't using her magic consciously. It reached out and formed a sphere of light from which a thick scroll appeared, and then dropped to the ground as her magic fizzled out.
"Huh," Vivid said flatly. "That was fast."
"What did you just do?" Lemon asked, peering at the scroll suspiciously.
"I didn't do that, Luna did," she said as she broke the official looking wax seal and unrolled the scroll to find it was much longer than she originally thought.
Moving back inside and to her living room table, she rolled out the full length of the scroll, found it was two long papers and separated them, and found a brass seal for sealing letters, two candles for sealing, a necklace, and pendant that had been hidden inside.
Casting a quick spell, Vivid was able to perceive the ink on the paper, and then she paused. As the color of the ink appeared, so did Lemon. For the first time she was seeing him in color, and he was absurd looking. Without color, he was just another stallion who presented himself well, but his neon yellow coat and red/pink mane was so bright that she found herself staring.
"What, do I have something on me?" he asked, before frowning. "How are you... What are you looking at?"
"You're very... bright," she finally concluded, smiling. "I've never seen your colors before."
"Oh," he ducked his head and blushed. "I'd forgotten that you hadn't seen me before... Must be powerful magic to fix your blindness."
"Not fixed. I have to bypass it briefly to read inked paper, but I don't like it," she sighed. "It's not me. Not who I am. Now, let's see this."
She examined the documents and found about what she expected. One of them was directed to her. It was officially instating her as an ambassador, and explaining the limits of that position when combined with her existing positions.
The second page was directed to the current ruler of Bitain, from Princess Luna.
Vivid sighed. "Looks like going to the court may be too low... We need to go to the capital."
As the nervous stallion and unusually bold mare walked into the castle, they could see that a court was rapidly assembling itself around them. Guards slipping into place as a seneschal stopped them, talking briefly about titles before trotting back to her place by the door. In the distance, they could see a procession ascending the grand stairs and settling in at the top, the queen dressed in an absurd ruffled and billowy dress that took up as much room as the mare herself four times over.
Vivid had a moment of appreciation for Luna's simple tastes and aversion to pomp and ceremony. There were certainly areas in her life where she would be picky and quite the royal, but Vivid was comfortable with rich decorations and a romantic idealization of the roles ponies played in the structure of government if it meant she could wear a simple cloak and count as well dressed.
She'd stopped by a town on the way, a journey of two days, and acquired a new silvered cloak that Lemon assured her looked much more royal than the one she'd worn before which had almost been worn to tatters.
"You think they'll know who I am?" Vivid asked Lemon as they waited for the court session to begin.
"I doubt it," he sighed. "It would take a very long time to find those records, but if you let them know, then it won't take as long. Her Majesty, Queen Victory is quite a stickler for honesty and forthrightness. I'd recommend bringing it up immediately."
Vivid hummed to herself before nudging him with a hoof. "How do you know so much?"
"Thought about being a scribe for the castle, spent a whole year up here," he grumbled. "Didn't make the cut though."
"Presenting Lady Vivid Colour, Ambassador and High mage of Equestria, the land of Alicorns, and her assistant, Lemon Tart!" the seneschal announced loudly, and they walked forward at a calm pace.
"Her Royal Majesty, Queen Victory of the united kingdom of Great Bitain and Ireland presiding."
Both Vivid and Lemon bowed before the queen who leaned forward, looking down her nose at them.
"Greetings, to Equestria, from the great land of Bitain," the queen said quietly, but just loud enough to be heard. "Please present yourselves and your country, which has been but a legend."
Vivid stood proudly, and was glad she'd learned enough about Equestria to present it properly.
"Equestria is more than a land of alicorns in these times, your majesty," Vivid began. "Ruled by Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna, Equestria is a constitutional Monarchy which has expanded to rule the entirety of the Equus continent, though largely settled in the farm-able land. In a census three years ago, the population of Equestria was over twenty million."
There was a soft murmuring throughout the room, and the queen smiled a little, amused.
"Excellent facts, but what are their ponies like, Ms. Colour? You are from Bitain, correct? You have the sound of it."
Vivid knew it would come up, but she didn't yet want to introduce her past to the conversation. Yet, Lemon had said she valued honesty... She hesitated, briefly panicking over whether or not to tell her right then.
"I grew up in Bitain, your Majesty," she confirmed. "Until the age of nineteen when I was exiled to the sea."
Queen Victory raised a single perfect brow. "Interesting. We shall return to that subject later, but the subject at hoof was the nature of the ponies of Equestria I believe."
"Yes, your Majesty," Vivid said, tension fading for a little bit. "The ponies of Equestria are creative, thoughtful, and full of perseverance. They have settled deserts and frozen wastes, and everything in between. They have a habit of befriending those who reside in places they may go, but when they are wronged they have an iron hoof. The griffons were pacified when they attempted an invasion many years ago, and have been settled into a cooperative part of their society."
She paused, standing a little taller.
"I love the ponies of Equestria, your Majesty. They see a potential for a perfect world, and strive for it. I believe they are worth becoming allies of the great nation of Bitain."
"Such a declaration is taken in the best of faith, and it shall be taken under advisement. To Equestria we send our regards and well wishes. In every history we know, the land of alicorns was a place of possibilities and grace. Such things it seems persist," the queen said, it was partly scripted in a way, but genuine enough.
"But now the matter of your past history in Bitain must be addressed," the queen continued. "You were exiled to the sea and such a thing is a serious matter, as it is near enough to the modern capital punishment which we employ to imply a severe crime. What were you convicted of, Vivid Colour?"
"Your majesty, I wish to speak," a voice dripping in malice said from the clustered mares around the queen.
Clearly it hadn't been expected, as the queen twitched in aggravation and frowned while looking to the mare.
"Speak then."
The mare stepped forward and Drew her hood back, revealing Lacquer Nail, mother to the colts that Vivid had run into on that dusty road so many years before.
"Vivid Colour killed my sons," she hissed, eyes locked onto Vivid and full of rage. "And she should be resentenced to death, as the sea failed to do the job."