Luna smiled to herself as she walked slowly up and down the aisles of her night garden. Her pale roses were blooming beautifully, their milky white faces turned up towards the stars, the wolfsbane and nightshade growing thick and green at their base. All around, her little moonblossoms spread over the rolling lawns, their lovely petals opening one by one as the moon climbed higher.
Luna loved her garden, almost as much as she loved her night sky. With Twilight Sparkle managing the moon itself, Luna had been able to spend more time than ever wandering the dreamscape and putting her stars back into their proper order after her immeasurably long absence. She had even found time for a few new hobbies. Her paintings were improving almost nightly, and her garden was growing more lovely with every passing sunset.
She raised her head to the sky once more, scanning the dark clouds with her perfect night vision. Celestia had sent word to say she would be working late this evening, but Luna expected her any minute now. She had cookies waiting in the oven, so that the minute Celestia landed, she would have her favourite sweet treats ready for her.
When Celestia baked, she always produced milk chocolate cookies, but when Luna was the one in charge of the Castle’s enormous and recently repaired kitchen, she favoured dark, rich cookies, almost black, studded with white chocolate chips so tiny they almost looked like stars in a midnight sky. They melted most wonderfully on the tongue.
Luna completed two more laps of her little rose garden, snipping off a wilting bloom here, a thorny branch there. Finally, she selected five of her finest white roses, and several moonblossoms to form a counterpoint, and wrapped their stalks with black ribbon. There! A perfect centrepiece for the table as they ate their midnight meal.
She glanced up one last time, and there she saw Celestia’s pale form, grey in the darkness rather than its usual radiant white, descending rapidly towards the Castle’s tallest spire, where Luna habitually watched the stars pass overhead from her balcony.
The bouquet held carefully in her magic, Luna spread her wings and flew silently upwards to join her sister.
Later, as they both delicately wiped the dark crumbs of chocolate cookies from their mouths — much more visible on Celestia’s pale muzzle, Luna noted with amusement — Celestia produced several thick files from her gold-tooled leather saddlebags and placed them on the table between the two sisters.
“What are these?” Luna asked, sending a a quick flash of magic to brighten the candles already burning with her cold blue flame. She knew Celestia preferred to read in stronger light.
“Clients,” Celestia replied. “The ones I’ve been working most closely with over recent weeks.”
Luna nodded. This was unusual; Celestia rarely involved Luna in her matchmaking work, just as Luna seldom invited Celestia to accompany her on her visits to Shady Hollows, the little batpony settlement where Luna’s word was still law.
“And what can I help you with?”
Celestia sighed. “You know I’ve no talent for scrying or seeing the future, Lu. That’s always been your forte. I was hoping — as my resident astrologer — you might be able to give me a helping hoof with these more troublesome clients.”
Luna resisted the urge to giggle, but a smile played around the edges of her mouth regardless. “I haven’t your skill in matching ponies, sister.”
“Of course not,” Celestia accepted the homage with a toss of her lustrous mane. “But you outmatch me by far in knowledge of the stars and their whispers of what is yet to come. And I think you might actually get better results cold, not having seen these ponies before.” She pouted slightly. “Please, sister. Some of them are proving quite the headache.”
Luna laughed in earnest now, but nodded her acceptance. She had never intended to refuse her sister aid; she never liked to refuse her sister anything. “Of course, Celly. I would be glad to help.”
Celestia breathed a sigh of relief and opened the folder. She spread out ten or twelve photographs on the table. “Alright. Just look at their faces, and tell me what you think.”
Luna looked down at the brightly coloured array before her. All young ponies, their smiles bright, their manes freshly washed. All had wanted to look their best before their photos had been taken. Luna shut her eyes and let her hooves hover over the photos. She tried to listen to the whispers that she always heard buzzing at the very base of her brain; the voices of her oldest friends, the stars.
Their soft tones hissed and hummed in her ears, growing stronger with every heartbeat now they knew that she was reaching out for them.
An answer came to her suddenly. “This one,” she said, reaching blindly for a photo and tapping her hoof on it. “And this one.” She could see flashes of pale silver, the sketchy shapes the stars often showed her when she reached out to them. Two shapes, side by side, facing the years. And two smaller shapes skipping behind them.
“Yes?” Celestia breathed.
“My friends whisper — they tell me that these two will have a strong relationship. The little one with the ponytail is destined to have…I think…twin foals. But I can’t be sure.”
Celestia scooped the photos out from under Luna’s hooves. “Lustre Dawn and Little Cheese,” she murmured. “Just as I hoped.” She paused. “Though that gaggle of geriatric unicorn grandparents will not be best pleased. Ah well; Raven can answer their letters.”
Luna paid little attention to her sister’s words. She was focused inwardly, on the gentle susurration of her silver chorus.
Celestia pressed her hoof over Luna’s own. “What else, sister? What do you see?”
Raising a wing for silence, Luna let the sibilance of her distant friends fill her mind. Just as she had done so often during her solitude on the Moon, when she had lived more in their distant visions than she had in her own dark present. She saw a new shape, sketched in the stardust, pushing everypony away from itself. Until finally, one shape was able to overcome those defences and win through, able to weather the violence even as the first pony still fought against it.
“This one,” she placed her free hoof onto the photo that the stars hissed was right. “She is…most hardheaded. Very stubborn. She will be hard for you to find a match for. I can’t be sure, but I think the stars are saying…any mate she has will have to be subservient to her; worship the ground she walks on. Even if she was to slap them, they would have to accept it. Or perhaps my friends are saying you must find somepony strong enough to accept her blows and ignore them. I can’t say for certain.”
“Yes,” Celestia’s tone was bitter. “That sums up Cozy Glow perfectly. Hardheaded, stubborn, and if we’re being honest, an unrepentant renegade.” She pressed Luna’s hoof again. “Can you see who it is she’s with?”
But the murmurs of Luna’s heavenly companions were fading, until they dipped back to their normal base level, an almost inaudible undertone at the back of her mind. She sighed and opened her eyes once more. “I’m sorry, sister, I cannot. That is all the stars and I can offer tonight.”
“Of course,” Celestia said regretfully. “Of course. But thank you, Luna. What you’ve given me is more help than I ever expected.”
“What will you do?” Luna asked, amused. It was funny to watch just how invested her sister became in her little pet projects.
Celestia numbered items off on her hooves. “Well, firstly, I know now to move ahead with Lustre Dawn and Little Cheese. I can encourage them, help them take the next step. With Cozy Glow…the shyest and most ‘subservient’ client I have — that was the word you used — is probably Rose Bloom. But I hate to subject her to Cozy Glow’s attentions. I’m not sure she could take it.”
“Rose Bloom?” Luna asked.
The name was not familiar to her, but that was the way of mortals; they bred like rabbits, and it was hard to keep up. One had barely managed to learn the names of a generation before they were preceded by the next. Twilight Sparkle and her friends were an exception, of course. Luna could never forget her saviours. But the majority of Celestia’s little ponies — for they were still mostly hers — tended to blur into one brightly coloured mass for Luna. She guarded their dreams, and knew their unconscious minds, but there were no names there. In the waking realm she contented herself with her batponies.
Celestia pushed one of the photos toward her. A pale yellow face stared back at her, slightly too long in the snout to be a pony, with elongated, donkey-like ears and large fangs. A long pink mane hung over the face, streaked with black, and lion paws could just be seen peeking into the photograph’s edge. Dragon wings curved up behind the body. Despite the outlandish appearance of the creature, its face wore a timid, almost tender expression. Luna couldn’t begin to guess what manner of creature this was. Some sort of curious hybrid, perhaps.
“Discord and Fluttershy’s daughter,” Celestia supplied. “Half pony, half draconequus. I acknowledge that she looks…quite fearsome, but she’s as timid as a little kitten underneath all that.”
“And you think she is the match for Cozy Glow?” Luna said doubtfully. She pictured the terrifying little filly that had wielded Grogar’s Bell all those years ago, and used it to suck the magic of moon and sun from herself and Celestia.
Celestia shrugged. “I think she is the only pony I currently have likely to accept a slap from the pony she loves and still care about them, which is the criteria you set. Rose Bloom also has links to Equestrian royalty through Twilight, which is important to Cozy Glow’s family. And if it turns out that she has any latent chaos powers and the backbone to use them, she’ll be able to fulfil your other requirement of being strong enough to overcome Cozy Glow if needed.”
“But what makes you think Cozy Glow is the right match for Rose Bloom?” Luna pressed.
Celestia shrugged. “Honestly, sister, the poor little thing was so shy I could hardly get anything out of her. I don’t know what her preferences are.”
Luna mirrored her sister’s shrug, her mind already wandering back to the next constellation she had planned; a majestic dragon with wings outspread, belching starfire into the void. It would take her decades to manoeuvre the stars into the correct positions, but she felt the anticipation quickening her blood already. Anyway, Celestia always knew best when it came to these affairs of pony hearts. Luna knew that she shouldn’t interfere.