Luna waited on the balcony overlooking the castle courtyard. She watched her guards as they practiced their drills. She watched the staff work at the fringes, vying to avoid being seen. She watched the road leading up to the castle, dry of any travellers or carts, save for one earlier in the morning bringing fresh fruits and vegetables.
“You will catch a tan if you stay there too long, you know.”
Luna looked over to Celestia. Politeness forced a breath into Luna’s lungs, but her mood stole her words. She turned back to the road, letting her emotions simmer below.
“It’s been over a month.” Celestia stood beside her sister, following Luna’s gaze.
Only two weeks, Luna corrected privately.
“Has it?” Luna asked aloud instead. “I had thought it had been but a day.”
A long sigh passed through Celestia. “Luna, please…”
Propriety and image didn’t let the sisters be too close most days. During the waking hours of most ponies, Celestia chatted up nobles and merchants and foreign dignitaries, and she always maintained a polite distance from everypony around her.
Luna was glad she didn’t have to worry about that now as Celestia leaned against her, resting her head atop Luna’s. Though they only had a few years between them, Celestia already towered well above Luna, and privately Luna adored that meant she could hide in her sister’s cherry blossom mane.
“I think we have to accept he might be gone, Lulu.”
Luna shook her head, pressing her eyes and snout into Celestia’s neck. “Stubborn old…” She drew in a breath, steadying her shaky voice. “I refuse to believe that. He must be waylaid somewhere, unable to get word out to us…”
One of Celestia’s wings unfurled, wrapping itself around Luna. “Maybe,” Celestia said, pulling Luna closer to her side, “but do you really believe he could be kept quiet for so long? Maybe mentioning the issue of age is perhaps a little… impolite, but it’s a possibility if he was travelling alone.”
“He wasn’t alone.”
“Pardon?”
With a sigh, Luna pulled herself away from the comforting, radiant warmth of her sister’s neck. “He was travelling with one other at least. A mare named—” The word stuck in her throat, and Luna wasn’t sure how to explain everything she knew, everything that had happened over those nights previously. Stars above, she hadn’t actually thought about the fact she had bared her heart to another pony so willingly until she was confronted with the reality of potentially explaining herself.
She shook, a leg trembling under her as realisation set in. She had tried searching for Somnambula again, trying to find her dreams, but could not find her. Nor could she find Star Swirl’s nor any of the other adventurers’.
“Lulu.“ Celestia adjusted her position, allowing herself to turn toward Luna and using her wing to support the shaking mare’s weight. “Luna, what’s wrong?”
Luna couldn’t answer. Her heart hurt, a moth longing for its flame and convinced it would never find another. The frustration, the sorrow and grief, it all brought her to tears. Thrusting her face back into Celestia’s neck, Luna made a vow to herself.
She wouldn’t find another flame.