Stripes woke feeling very rested, and possibly a little too satisfied. He had a faint memory of having dreamed of Luna. It hadn't been a fully lucid dream, but something had nearly woken him at one point, some disturbance in the dream, and so he remembered the ending, when he'd climbed atop her fragile and yet strong form and joined himself with her intimately.
He felt his ears flushing at the memory. He needed to not be dreaming those sorts of dreams. At least this time he hadn't dream-assaulted the actual ruler of an entire planet, but still, it was really not a good idea. He climbed out of the bed and stretched. Embarrassment aside, he really did feel good. He noticed that the lights were on in the other room again, and when he opened the door he once more found Rarity there, data pad in hand, smiling cheerfully.
"Good morning!"
He jumped up on a couch and regarded her. "You wait here all night to be here early?"
She laughed, a delighted, cascading giggle. "Oh no, darling. Selene tells me when you start to wake. I do rise early, I've always believed in keeping on top of things in that way. Wine is my evening delight, but coffee is my morning lifeblood. Although speaking of morning food and drink, I'm afraid Luna has canceled her usual breakfast. She sends her deepest apology, but there's been a accident in the spaceyard, and it is the sort of thing that the princess is expected to speak to the media about, and be seen being calm and reassuring in this time of tragedy and so on."
"Am very sorry," said Stripes, instantly grasping the gravity of a situation that would require Luna's immediate presence.
"Yes. I try to not dwell on such things too much. The moon is a safe place, by and large, but life here is nevertheless far more precarious than it is on most planets. We depend utterly on our technology for the very air we breathe here."
Stripes tilted his head. "For air?"
"Yes. The moon is naturally without an atmosphere. That's why the domes over our cities. Some of the more hardscrabble affairs here don't even have domes, they're just dug in, with all the corridors sealed. We have to provide air, and keep it carefully contained, there is no naturally breathable air here."
Stripes' felt his eyes widening in amazement. The humans made the very air itself? That was a wonderful ability indeed.
Misinterpreting his wide-eyed expression, Rarity hastily said, "It really is very safe, there's never been a major dome accident. But out in the spaceyards things are more chaotic, with all sorts of industrial labor going on, ships being built, asteroids being towed in to mine, and so on. Accidents are still rare, but this one has caused several deaths, unfortunately, and people always worry when they're reminded about that kind of thing. So Luna must go and seem reassuring, so that we can all feel that somebody is in charge and that things will be alright."
Stripes nodded. "I understand."
"I can have breakfast served for you here in your room, or you can go down to the day kitchen. They'll be expecting you and a few others to turn up and request their breakfasts, that's fairly usual. I never breakfast, of course, I find my figure benefits from beginning the day without a heavy meal."
Stripes blinked at that.
"Shall I send an order to the kitchen for you to eat here?"
"Ah... No. I go myself." Stripes didn't feel like simply sitting around the room. He had yet to visit the kitchen, and he was curious about how some of the foods he'd tasted were prepared.
Finding the kitchen was simplicity in and of itself. He already knew exactly where it was, for his nose told him every time he passed near it. After Selene had warned him away from it on his first day exploring he had avoided it, not wanting to disrupt the production of his delicious meals, but now, apparently having permission, he cautiously poked his nose in through the broad double doors that led to this strange realm of food.
The scents that hung in the air were a chaotic mixture, almost overwhelming to his sensitive nose, and to go with that chaos was a chaos of sound and motion as what seemed like an army of people, nearly all humans, rushed about to place. As he sat by the door and watched the activity, it became clear that the kitchen had three distinct sections. Nearly in front of him was a hive of busy order, presided over by a human female with a thick braid of straw-yellow hair and bright green eyes. To one side a much larger area was complete chaos, with a tall male who dashed back and forth, exclaiming dramatically in despair, or stroking the long, curling mustache on his upper lip in delight. He fussed and fretted, and seemed particularly concerned with the placing of things on plates, as if the way the food looked as it was carried off was important.
There was no such fussing beneath the female's calmer gaze, and no dramatics either, just a firm correction or a satisfied nod.
The third area was behind the female's domain, and also had a human female in charge. Indeed she seemed to be the sole person working in that space, though she filled it as if there were three of her, bouncing from one thing to the next with manic energy. Her eyes were blue and her hair was a startling shade of vivid pink. He wondered again at the colors. He really should ask at some point why it was that most humans seemed to have a limited range of hair colors, yet a few were so much brighter than the rest.
The fact that Luna had brightly colored hair would have made him suspect it was a matter of status, yet all the various dignitaries and senators and so on had hair in more muted shades, while those he'd seen with bright colors appeared to hold lower-status positions. He'd seen a few humans in the halls in passing with bright hair, and Rarity of course, and now this pink person, whose hair was almost aggressively large as well as bright. Perhaps it was a form of asserting one's self despite low status? That seemed like the sort of thing that Rarity might do.
He shook off that thought and stepped aside as a man rushed out past him, carrying a laden tray. There was a fair bit of traffic in and out as breakfasts were presumably sent elsewhere in the palace. The trays, he noticed, seemed to float at a fixed height and were stabilized somehow, so the kitchen workers weren't so much carrying them really as pushing them along. That seemed quite handy, else some of the larger meals might be difficult to take any distance without spilling.
"Can I help you, sugarcube?"
While he'd been letting his thoughts wander, the woman who ran the calmer portion of the kitchen had come up to him. He blinked at bit at the odd form of address, the translation spell seemed to suggest he'd just been called a foodstuff? That made very little sense.
"Ah. Am here for breakfast."
"Can do. What do you want to eat?"
Stripes frowned faintly. "Am not knowing names, forgive. Me having eaten with Luna, last mornings? Meats, and also..." he managed to pull up the words he needed for the important part, "...also coffee, and much cream."
"Righty-o, I sure as shootin' remember that. It's a right distinctive order. Nice to see a body that appreciates my cooking in such quantity, too." She smiled at him, her eyes twinkling. "Same thing as yesterday?"
"Yes, please."
"It'll be just two shakes. If you want to go elsewhere and wait, just lemme know where to send it. Or you can tuck yourself out of the way and wait over at the table there." She pointed to a long table against one wall, lined with stools, where a handful of other people were sitting, some of them eating, and Stripes nodded. It was too tall for him, and he wasn't at all suited to sit on the narrow stools, but he sat beside it anyway. He could reach it on his hind legs, so he'd be able to eat once the food arrived.
Meanwhile he sat and watched the kitchen. The man with the mustache seemed quite irritable, and Stripes soon noticed that much it was directed at the calm young woman. Their underlings sometimes snapped at each other as well. Meanwhile the pink-haired one continued her flurry of activity without seeming to be bothered by either.
"Hi!"
Stripes nearly jumped out of his fur at the loud greeting behind him. The pink-haired woman who'd been stirring a bowl across the room only seconds before was now standing directly behind him.
"You're the tiger-alien that Luna's supposed to be shacking up with or at least that's what I was told and also told to never repeat to another soul but of course there's this whole debate about if aliens have souls and I mean even if they do have souls you wouldn't say somebody was a soul, they just have them, right?"
"Uh...."
"I'm Pinkie Pie. Nice to meet you!"
Stripes blinked at this swiftly-speaking bundle of energy. "Am Stripes."
"Awesome! Do you like bear claws? That's what I'm making right now. I do all the pastries and Applejack does all the plain cooking and Gustave does the fancy cooking and they do not get along at all because the princess almost always orders from Applejack and even more lately because I guess she's been eating with you and you eat a lot, which makes sense because you're huge, so it's good you don't want Gustave's cooking because it tends to be little tiny fancy pieces and you'd have to eat so many and all the senators and things always get his but Applejack is still very smug at him every time Luna orders one of her specialties, but of course just about everyone orders from me because I do all the desserts including the desserts that are actually breakfast, because a donut is definitely a dessert but people have them for breakfast and that's the same way with bear claws which I need to go stir some more in just a minute and doesn't that sound funny, stirring bear's claws? But of course they're not really anything to do with bears at all. I met a bear once because there's one in the menagerie and Fluttershy says he's very nice but Rainbow Dash said we shouldn't go into his cage because only Fluttershy is crazy-good with animals and we'd probably get mauled which would mean getting clawed and I only like bear claws when they're the kind you eat, not the kind that maybe helps eat you."
She finally paused to take a breath, and Stripes considered trying to interject something, though he had no idea what he could say in response to any of that.
"I have to go finish stirring the batter but it was good to meet you and maybe I'll see you again oh and what's your favorite kind of pastry?"
"Er... Not liking pastry, sorry."
"Gasp! Who doesn't like pastry?"
"Uh. Me?"
Pinkie Pie giggled at that. "Do you like any other kinds of sweet things?"
Stripes tilted his head. "Syrup okay? Sugar cubes not awful. Best thing cream, really."
"Ooo! Okay then! Bye!"
He blinked, and she was gone just as swiftly as she'd come, somehow sprinting through the chaos of the kitchen back to her part of it, where she set about furiously stirring a bowl of some kind of dough.
"Pinkie Pie's a bit like bein' hit between the eyes with a brick o' sugar, sometimes." Applejack's warm laugh pulled Stripes' attention around. She was holding a massive platter, and another kitchen worker had a second. They set the pair on the table. "There's yer breakfast, nice an' hot." She gave the stools a glance, and added, "Can you reach it there? If not I can jus' put it on the floor for ya, we keep it clean enough here to eat off of, but it's on plates anyhow."
"No, can reach. Thank you," said Stripes. Applejack went back to her work, and Stripes, his stomach growling, put his paws up on the table and set about dealing with his breakfast. He ate with a will, more or less inhaling the platters of meat, and pausing now and then to lap up the creamy coffee.
Just as he was finishing a cheery "Hi!" made him nearly jump out of his fur again. It was Pinkie Pie, carrying a bowl. "You said you liked cream and I thought that everybody should have dessert and it's just sad you don't like pastry but this goes on pastry or sometimes inside pastry and it's nearly entirely cream, there's a little sugar and I bet you'll like it so here." She plopped the bowl down in front of him.
Stripes saw it was filled with a kind of white fluff. It smelled of cream but was stiff, standing up in peaks. "What is?"
"Whipped cream! Try it!" Pinkie was practically vibrating in place.
He chuckled at her enthusiasm and lapped up the whipped cream. It tasted of cream and sugar, simply with a strange texture. That meant, of course, that it tasted extremely delicious, and so he'd soon licked the bowl clean, much to Pinkie Pie's obvious delight.
When he left the kitchen, both Applejack and Pinkie Pie called warm farewells, with invitations to return again soon.
Feeling good about his day so far, Stripes bounced down the hall with enough energy to send him nearly into the ceilings in the low gravity. On reaching his rooms, though, he glanced down the hall to where Luna's own rooms were, and his mood sobered. He was having a fine day, but she was somewhere out in space above the moon, dealing with a crisis. Her day was no doubt being anything but good. He found himself wishing there was something he could do about that, but he didn't know what.
Walking more sedately, he went through his rooms and out to the balcony. It was day, both the long day of the moon, and the shorter somehow managed day that kept the plants happy in their dark/light cycle. Birds were chirping in the trees of the garden below, and he heard a faint wisp of a different song floating on the breeze. Stripes recognized the voice as Fluttershy and, acting on sudden impulse, jumped over the balcony into the garden below. The drop felt alarming, but the low gravity made his fall strangely slow and his landing no more than a little jarring. He'd felt a greater impact dropping from a tree less than a quarter of the height back on his homeworld.
He caught a glimpse of fair hair, and followed that and the song to where Fluttershy was cleaning out one of the predatory bird enclosures. She had rubber gloves to her elbows, and a bucket that smelled sharply of rotted meat, and was picking up little bits that the birds had apparently dropped while eating. The birds in question, a pair of enormous golden eagles, sat side by side on their perch and watched her calmly as she worked, though they ruffled up their feathers slightly and one of them let out a clattering alarm call when they saw Stripes.
"It's alright," said Fluttershy in a soothing voice as she continued her work. "He's a friend. You don't have to be worried." The eagles actually smoothed their feathers back down and settled on their perch, somewhat to Stripes' astonishment. He wondered if it was a form of magic. He didn't sense any power from Fluttershy, but then some powers could be very subtle, especially those of the mind or heart.
"I'm almost done here, and then you can help me hose down the bear enclosure, if you like." Fluttershy gave Stripes a warm smile.
"Sound good," he said.
He spent the rest of the day with Fluttershy, finding her company more than pleasant. She even fed him dinner from the supplies for the carnivores, and though he certainly enjoyed the cooked and seasoned meat he'd been having, it was good to have it raw and fresh. Fluttershy explained as he ate that it wasn't really "fresh" at all, it was artificially made, created in near perfect imitation of real animals, for the moon was utterly unsuited to farming. Plant matter was apparently made in much the same way, in great tanks and vats that were the "farms" of the moon.
The night that eventually fell was artificial too, the sun overhead dimming until its light was barely visible, somehow. Fluttershy said her goodnight and left the garden. Stripes yawned and stretched, and was trying to decide if he wanted to take the elevator or jump up to his balcony when he saw the lights come on in Luna's room.
Acting on pure impulse, but unable to resist it, Stripes gathered himself and leaped up to Luna's balcony rather than his own. She had just taken off her jacket, letting it fall to the floor, and flopped down to sit on her bed. She saw Stripes, and her eyes went wide, but then she smiled. "Hello there."
"Hello. You had bad day?"
"Not as bad as it could have been, but it's certainly been very long." She yawned, as if demonstrating just how long it had been.
Stripes jumped up on the bed beside her and reached out, patting her shoulder. "Want could help."
Somewhat to his surprise, Luna leaned against his side. "You do help. It's nice to come home to a friendly face. I'd...forgotten what that was like." She put her cheek against him with a soft sigh. He couldn't resist nuzzling back against her cheek, and a deep purr rumbled from him.
After a moment, though, Luna flopped backwards onto the bed. "Stars above, I'm so tired."
"I go, so you sleep?" offered Stripes.
"I definitely should sleep." Luna looked up at him, and he couldn't read her expression. "You can stay, though, if you like. It was...nice, having my dreams guarded the other night." Her cheeks turned faintly pink.
Stripes blinked down at her for a moment, but he nodded. If she wanted him to stay, he would stay, that went without question. He wanted to stay, truth be told. Her company was always good, even if it still felt a little presumptuous at times for somebody like him to be so casual with somebody like her. The imp in him could never resist playing around, but at a serious moment like this it felt very strange, that she would want his company through the night.
He expected her to make him promise to behave again, as she had before, but she said no such thing, only resettled herself in the bed. He stretched out beside her, and next thing he knew she'd cuddled up against his side.
"Mmm. You're so fuzzy. It's like having the galaxy's nicest teddy bear."
The translation spell rendered the sense of that close enough for him to grasp that she meant something like a child's comfort toy, and he chuckled. "I not bear. But not mind acting like."
"That's good," said Luna. Her voice was heavy with drowsiness and her eyes slid shut. Only moments later she was sound asleep beside him. Stripes carefully put a paw over her, finding himself still purring. It was good to be beside her like this, even if nothing more could ever come of it.
He settled his own head down on the pillow, nuzzling against the top of hers, and closed his eyes, seeking sleep himself. It was some time in coming, but resting beside Luna was good, so he didn't mind. Eventually, though, sleep finally stole over him.
Stripes found himself in the realm of dreams. He hadn't consciously chosen to come here, but he accepted that his mind had probably sought this place out. The dreamscape was different for every empowered dreamer that walked it. He didn't know what Luna saw, but for him it was a forest, made of glowing plants, each plant a dream, and each one shining with the colors of that dream's emotions. Nightmares pulsed in sickly purple and blood red, while more benign dreams came in a rainbow of moods.
Stripes walked through the dream forest until he came to a clearing with a towering tree at its heart. The tree was the dream of a powerful dreamer, pulsing with a thousand rainbow shades, though a gentle blue predominated. He knew it was Luna's dream, and that her own dream realm was likely contained therein.
He hesitated a moment, but only a moment, before stepping forward and reaching a paw out to touch the glowing tree trunk.
Then he was whirled through a rushing elsewhere, a dreamscape of stars and nebulae and shining bubbles, before arriving in a more concrete dream.
Luna was there, as he'd known she would be. She sat on a cloud, as if it were solid, that floated high in a clear blue sky. The color was subtly different than the sky of his home, but it was not entirely unlike. Far, far below was a landscape of green fields and rolling hills, that rose to a mountain spire with an elaborate castle perched halfway up the side. But it was very, very far below, too far to see what manner of people might in habit the castle, for the building itself was hardly larger than a speck, a tiny gleam on the distant mountain's side.
Stripes padded across the soft, fleecy cloud-stuff toward Luna. "Hello."
"Hello there." Luna smiled at him. "It's good to see you here."
He stretched and then sat down on the cloud beside her. "It's good to be here. And also good to be able to speak with you without sounding like a complete primitive."
"I am very sorry about that. I think I've figured out the problem. It has to do with your species' natural aura. Having the spell cast on your person is tangling it in your own magic, you see, and it distorts the output. The input isn't coming from you, so its less effected, which is why you can understand just fine, but the output is significantly disturbed. I think I have a solution, I just need time to implement it. I was going to do that today, but, well..." She shrugged.
"It's fine. There are worse problems. To be honest I've been having a little bit of fun with it. Some of your politicians are far too entertaining to mess with."
"Oh yes! You should hear some of the rumors flying about. Half of them think you're a trained animal that I'm consorting with, and the other half seem to think this is some kind of sneaky power move. It's quite entertaining. I haven't had that much fun in centuries."
Stripes tilted his head to the side. "Would it be rude to ask how old you are?"
"About three thousand years, give or take a bit."
He blinked. "That is very old."
Luna laid back on the cloud and sighed. "Yes. Though after a while it stops feeling like getting older and starts feeling like the same things, passing again and again and again." She smiled then, looking at him. "You are at least something a little different. How are you doing?"
"I'm doing good. I think I've made a friend or two."
"Oh? Friends are good to have."
"They are." He told her about Fluttershy, and counted Rarity as a friend also. He considered and added that some of the cooks seemed friendly, and he might try to get to know them better as well. "I would try to befriend your maintenance people, as I know they would have fascinating things to tell me about how your world's not-magic works, but I'm afraid I've traumatized them all."
Luna laughed. "They'll eventually get over it. But it's good to see you forming connections here."
"What of you, though? Do you have any friends here?"
"It's difficult to make friends with those one has authority over." Luna sighed, her eyes looking up into the sky above, her gaze unfocused, distant. "My sister could always manage it. I never quite learned how."
Stripes didn't ask about the sister this time. Instead he said, "You could meet my friends. Maybe it would be easier, if they were friends of a friend? I don't like the idea of you being alone."
"I have Selene. I have dreams. I have many things to keep me busy."
"I'm sure you do. But you said yourself, friends are good to have."
"That is true." Luna was silent again. The she sighed. "Being a princess is difficult. Certainly the power has its rewards, but it has its downsides as well."
"Why princess?" Stripes finally asked. "You rule the whole of the moon, do you not? Why not queen, then?"
"I..." Luna's eyes went distant again. Finally she said, "Long ago there was a queen. When she died, and my sister and I took her kingdom, we decided to reign as princesses, both to honor her, that she would be queen forever, and so that neither of us would take undue precedent over the other. That...did not quite work out as we'd hoped, but I still can't call myself queen. The queen will always be my mother."
"I'm sorry."
"Her loss is fifteen hundred years gone now, so I can hardly say I haven't gotten over it. Still, there are some things one never forgets."
"Yes. Family ties are strong."
"What of you, do you miss your family?"
Stripes sighed softly. "I cut my ties with them long before coming here. It is a long story, but the short of it is that they were not good people. It is like mourning a death, a little, to mourn the parents you should have had, but did not."
"I understand," said Luna gently.
"If I had not, I might miss them more now. I miss home, but I am glad to be here with you all the same."
Luna nodded. "Selene is still hunting for your homeworld. We have a few leads on the ship that took you, but none are panning out yet. Hopefully one will eventually."
"Thank you." Stripes felt a stab at that. He wanted to go home again, yet going home meant leaving here. Meant leaving Luna.
"And I will fix the language spell. I just have to find the time. I promise."
"Luna..." Stripes reached out and patted her with a paw. "You don't owe me anything. You've done a great deal for me already."
"I know I don't. But I want you to be happy."
"I am happy." Stripes was left thinking that he wanted her to be happy too, and that seemed like a more difficult goal than his own happiness. He was a simple creature. Good food, enough sleep, a few friends, that seemed like more than enough. Luna's difficulties were obviously more complex, and rooted far in the past. Yet he found himself somehow determined to do what he could about them, however he could.