Courtship is a funny thing. That’s what Luna would always say, at least. Rarity supposed she agreed at the end of the day. So much dancing, so many silly games; and for what? For a kiss? Was a kiss really worth it? The yearning, the uncertainty, the late nights pacing around your bedroom… as Rarity felt her lips press against Luna’s she decided that yes, it was worth it.
It was more than worth it.
If you had asked her months before the answer would’ve been different. It was hard enough falling in love with her friends whom she’d known for ages. To think that one of the girls wouldn’t love her was now an asinine idea. Still, when she was pondering the question, she could never be sure. Now here she was, pining for a princess. It was a whole new problem.
A problem her lovers tried to solve in their own ways. Advice, plans, schemes; everything they had was brought to bear. None of it was used. She didn’t dare to try anything that Pinkie or Dash suggested, Fluttershy’s methods were too passive, Applejack’s too direct. Twilight was the least useful of the five. That was the greatest surprise, really.
She was the source. There was nopony else that Rarity thought to ask about Luna’s heart except Twilight. Celestia, maybe, but Rarity wasn’t nearly bold enough. Still, if Twilight knew anything she refused to let on. That frustrated Rarity to no end. She did so much for her beloved! Spilled so much of her soul, helped set her up with Fluttershy… despite it all, Rarity couldn’t blame her. Luna had always been a private creature and a secret like that was sacrosanct.
It was at the Gala that Rarity first felt herself really fall. She fell hard. It seemed Luna had tired of idle chatter. Rarity barely spotted her as she fled the scene, retreating through the castle halls. The Gala was attached to a gorgeous garden, perhaps the most vibrant in all of Canterlot, but Luna was headed in the exact opposite direction. Rarity felt compelled to follow.
If Luna knew she was being followed she made no indication. Rarity did find it odd, looking back at that night; the way she seemed to pause for a moment before rounding a corner, leaving just enough time for Rarity to spot her and continue the trail. In hindsight it was clear she was being led, but in the heat of the moment, Rarity felt truly daring.
Her blood sang in the secrecy of the whole ordeal. To stalk a princess through the halls of Canterlot Castle, to be pulled from the hustle and bustle of one of the most exclusive parties in all of Equestria and into the company of the moon herself—it was almost too much to bear.
So it was that she was almost disappointed when the chase came to a close and she found Luna in a small personal garden. It was quiet and simple, terraced layers of lavender, thyme, and morning glory packed densely on the left and right walls. The wall facing the horizon was left open, presenting a perfect view of the crescent moon.
Luna turned at the sound of Rarity approaching and her sheer beauty struck like a lightning bolt. Here, silhouetted by the pale light of the waning moon, surrounded by lush green and gentle purples; Luna was perhaps the most beautiful pony Rarity had ever met. It was with a careful reverence approaching a religious fear that Rarity took the next few steps forward, her mouth agape. Within moments she was standing scant feet from Luna, perfume and sweat from the dance mingling with the thin lavender-scented mountain air.
Rarity struggled to breathe.
“Rarity. What brings you here?” The look in Luna’s eyes said that she knew the answer. The question was just a formality.
Rarity swallowed and willed herself to speak. “I was getting tired of the noise. Wanted to find somewhere quieter.” They both knew the truth, but neither was allowed to speak it. Courtship was a funny thing.
Luna smiled and Rarity felt that bolt of lightning again, shivers running down her spine. “Well, I can only hope my company doesn’t disrupt your journey for solitude.”
Rarity giggled, a quiet and nervous noise, desperately trying not to look Luna in her eyes lest she be truly struck down. “Not in the slightest, Princess.”
Not in the slightest indeed.
Rarity hadn’t fretted over a first date to this degree in years. This sort of thing would terrify anypony, she told herself. She imagined the average Equestrian, cowed in fear at the very idea of a simple audience with the Princesses. Here she was, far beyond such courtly concerns. She was already dating a princess, wasn’t she? Twilight certainly counted — her station had all the pomp and circumstance demanded of it. That was different though, she insisted. She had known Twilight before she was crowned. Luna…
Luna was something else. There were times, in the brief moments of conversation their busy lives afforded them, that she seemed entirely unlike a living pony. She seemed old, older than time itself, with a vast distance in her eyes that Rarity could never hope to parse. Those brief snippets always passed, however, and brought Luna back down from whatever lofty height her nature afforded her.
So it was that Rarity tried her best to steel her nerves when she heard a knock at the door. It was soft but still the sound reverberated through the empty showroom floor. Rarity sucked in a shivering breath, forcing her stomach to settle as she trotted forwards to answer it.
“Princess Luna!” Rarity felt her smile threaten to falter, struggling to keep her mutinuous body from cracking under the pressure. “You’re here just on time. I understand you have a night planned for us?”
“I do.” Her voice was quiet but firm, the declaratory statement hanging in the air for a moment. Luna gestured to her left, beckoning Rarity out into the slowly fading daylight.
Rarity walked forward with equal parts eagerness and tentativity, seemingly unsure of her fate. Outside she saw no carriage, no winged guards, no palatial pomp; just her and her princess in the front lawn of Carousel Boutique. “I was expecting a chariot, I’ll admit.”
Luna shrugged, her face impossible to read. Even in the social dance leading up to this moment, Rarity was never able to get a bead on her. She was as dark and impenetrable as a moonless night, a riddle that only Luna could know the solution to. “I’ll remember to bring the royal entourage next time. I avoid drawing attention to myself, when I can.” Luna shook her head, as if to throw out an errant thought. “I have something I’d like to show you.”
Rarity froze in place for a moment as Luna lifted her wing, beckoning Rarity to take shelter underneath it. It was a familiar gesture, repeated ad infinitum previously by Twilight and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. Here and now it almost felt heavy with meaning, dangerously informal. Still, Rarity was nothing if not polite, so she stepped forward and settled against Luna’s side.
She was warm — surprisingly so. Rarity had always imagined Luna as cooler in temperature and temperament than her sister but tucked underneath Luna’s wing she found that idea challenged. She was warm and soft and smelled just as sweet as she did every time they met, like lavender and ozone and mountain air. In an instant they were gone, her manicured Ponyville lawn replaced with wild grass that crowded around the hem of her dress.
“Where are we?” Rarity felt the nip of cool air at her nose. She cast a glance around and her surroundings yielded no hints. They were up in the mountains, it would seem, with the only sign of civilization being the small diner tucked up against the treeline.
“I found this place while I was… out on princess duties. I thought it would be nice to take you here.” They walked through the entrance together, Luna taking special care to match her stride with Rarity’s. The interior of the diner was warm and rich, immediately conjuring images of her grandmother’s house at Hearths Warming. Luna and Rarity separated, ambling to a booth overlooking the sloping mountains in the distance.
They each pulled out a menu, looking it over in silence. Rarity scarcely had a moment to think before a waitress trotted into view, wearing a big smile and an even bigger mane-do.
“Luna, honey! It’s so nice to see you again. And who’s this pretty mare you brought along with you?” Rarity giggled nervously, suddenly painfully aware of how overdressed she was. Thankfully, she didn’t need to speak, as Luna responded in her soft tenor.
“It’s wonderful to see you again, Honeycomb. This is my date, Rarity.” Luna was smiling, a gentle turning up of the corner of her mouth. She looked at peace here, free from the pressure of her station.
“Oooh, I’ll get out of your manes as quick as I can. Are you ladies ready to order or d’you still need some time?” Honeycomb clutched her notepad close to her chest, her grin undiminished.
Rarity spoke up first, raising a hoof daintily. “Just water for now, if you don’t mind.”
“Water it is.” Honeycomb leveled her pen at Luna, tapping it against her notepad. “Lemme guess… black coffee with a pinch of sugar.”
Luna chuckled, a low gravelly noise that set the butterflies in Rarity’s heart aflutter. “You know me all too well, Honeycomb.”
With a curt nod the waitress was off and Luna focused entirely on Rarity. She was so intense, so total in her focus. Rarity struggled to find anything to say, bathed as she was so completely in the ambiance of this little diner that her brain was left without anything to grab ahold of.
To her relief, Luna spoke first. “Would you like to hear how I first heard about this place?” Rarity nodded emphatically. “Excellent. So, it all started as any good story ought to: I was quite angry with my sister…”
Rarity didn’t know when it happened. It was sometime during the night, certainly, but when would always haunt her. When she closed her eyes, her beloved moon was there next to her, reading a book in the soft yellow light of the lamp on their end table. When her eyes opened again, her moon had fled.
Well and truly fled. Rarity had picked up a spell in her youth while studying with Twilight. It was a seeking spell, something her natural abilities lended themselves well to. It was a similar mental pathway to finding gems but more focused, more real. She held within her mind something she wanted. She visualized it as completely as she could and focused. She thought of the way it smelled, the way it felt, the way it looked in the light and in the dark both.
She held Luna in her mind, the totality of her lover nearly overwhelming her with emotions. Rarity pushed them to the side and cast her spell. Nothing. She focused again, harder this time; nothing. Another attempt, her horn straining in exertion. Nothing. Rarity collapsed to the floor and wailed, a wordless sound of anguish that split the early morning air like an axehead. She didn’t move from her spot on the carpet for an hour. It felt like an eternity, really, lying there sobbing. Still the sun shone as if its dance partner hadn’t disappeared entirely.
She resolved to seek out the only pony who would know what had happened. She would find Twilight Sparkle.
—
Being an Element of Harmony afforded itself a certain level of flagrant disregard for procedure; being the wife of one princess and girlfriend to another even moreso. So it was that there wasn’t a soul in Canterlot Castle who would get in her way as she strode through its hall, her heart burning with equal parts pain and purpose. She would find Twilight and after that she would find Luna.
“Twilight!” Rarity nearly kicked the door off its hinges as she barged in on her lover working on paperwork. Her aide, Daisy Chain, cowered in a seat across from her.
With a gentle nod towards the door, Twilight ushered Daisy out. The door closed behind them and with a flick of her horn the room was soundproofed. Twilight turned her attention then to Rarity, staring her down with careful eyes. “Rarity. Is something wrong?”
“Where is Luna?” Rarity threw decorum out of the window entirely, planting her forehooves on Twilight’s desk, her muzzle just inches away from Twilight’s. Twilight didn’t deserve it, certainly, but Rarity needed something to focus on lest she crumble entirely. “You must feel she’s gone.”
Twilight frowned for a moment, her brow knit with concentration. Her horn lit up in vivid purple, the glow disappearing moments later. Her frown deepened. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“You could,” Rarity growled. “You can. You will.”
“I can’t,” Twilight shook her head, turning her gaze away from Rarity. “Really, I can’t. Not yet.”
“Not yet? Twilight Sparkle, you will tell me where Luna has gone.” Rarity hissed through gritted teeth, her blood boiling. Gone was any trace of sorrow, replaced entirely by white-hot rage. Her horn sparked in time to the beating of her furious heart.
Twilight’s voice was barely a whisper, the sound still nearly deafening in the suffocating silence that permeated the room otherwise. “Just, please. Give me some time.”
Rarity took a step back, blinking the fury from her eyes. Twilight seemed so small here, so scared. It was pathetic, Rarity decided. She was pathetic. They both were. “No.”
“Rarity, I can explain, I just—”
“NO!” They both flinched but Rarity pressed on. “If you want me to deal with this alone then I will, Twilight Sparkle. If I have to do this on my own, I will. Goodbye.”
Rarity turned, threw the door open, and walked out of Twilight’s future.
“Rarity.”
“Twilight.”
The hospital was not where she wanted to meet Twilight. It wasn’t where she wanted to meet anypony, least of all her estranged girlfriend. “I came as soon as I got your letter. You… needed something?”
“Yes.” Rarity sucked in the deepest breath her failing lungs would allow her. She had spent a lot of time thinking about this; about the end of her life. She had a plan once. She planned to have at least one lover survive her; life had handed her two. One left and she threw the other away. “I need your help. I can’t do this alone.”
Twilight nodded, her face impartial. They were both heartbroken, Rarity knew that. Courtship was stupid that way, a wretched endeavor that lead only to pain no matter what one did. “I’m here to help in any way I can.”
I’m sorry. That’s what Rarity wanted to say. I know you just wanted to help. You’ve only ever wanted to help. I was stupid, angry, alone; you only wanted to help. I’m sorry. “I know, Twilight. Can you take me to the Castle?”
“Canterlot? I mean, certainly, but—”
“No no, the Castle of the Twin Sisters. It was where she proposed. It’s a full moon tonight, isn’t it?” Twilight cast a glance outside, the closed blinds betraying the darkening skyline through a sliver of window left visible. It was funny, Rarity thought. Princess Twilight wouldn’t need to look outside to check what time it was. She was the day and the night, the sun and the moon; she was the entire observable cosmos. Still she looked out of the window.
“I can and it is. Will you be okay without the… life support?” Twilight looked worried, some hint of emotion finally breaking through her facade.
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so. But I’d rather be with her than be okay. Do you understand?” Rarity knew she would die. Rarity planned to die, really. Better to pass in the open air with the two mares she once loved the most than alone in her own personal linoleum-lined hell.
Twilight only nodded, surrounding them both in her magic. A crack of light and they were gone, reappearing a second later in the cold night air. Rarity pulled herself to her hooves, her legs shaking in exertion. She was so, so weak. It was only in desperation that she remained standing. Love demanded it.
“Draw down the moon.” Rarity did not ask if it was possible. She did not ask if it was safe. She needed it.
Twilight, still quiet, complied. The moon sank from its spot on the horizon, descending slowly. They sat upon the highest spire of the still-ruined castle. It was open to the world, the gentle slope of Equestria just barely visible. From up here, everything looked so small. So frail. Rarity began to understand a little better why the sisters might’ve built their castle here.
Rarity remembered nights like these. She remembered what the cool night air did for her, the way it calmed her nerves even at the worst of times. She would walk around Ponyville when she was young, marveling at the way the stars twinkled in the night sky like little lanterns. She grew to know their names and even what they were composed of; that information was courtesy of Twilight.
She grew to think of the moon as a friend. As a quiet guide. She grew to depend on its light in the deep dark night of the Equestrian countryside, where a single lamp could barely illuminate the length of the pole it hung upon. It was by the moon's hoof that she learned of the beauty the night could give, of the silent richness it imparted upon the colors of the waking world.
So it was that adulthood brought with it the resurrection of the moon herself; the rebirth of Princess Luna. So it was that the trajectory of their lives would see them meet and fall in love. So it was that the very same gravitational pull that kept them together for that brief but beautiful time would see them eventually part.
Rarity had always imagined herself as a comet. She figured it was her destiny to fly in a graceful arc, burning up for all to see. The idea of a blaze of glory seemed apt. She did not want to die in a hospital room. She didn’t want to get old or infirm at all, really. The world was toothless, however, and allowed so few opportunities to martyr yourself.
The moon looked so beautiful tonight. It was so big and bright, hanging in the night sky like the ripe fruit of some cosmic tree. Rarity reached out and traced the outline of it with her hoof. She felt her lover's cheek, warm and tender. She strained her neck to press a kiss to the air, her lips catching the lips of another. She melted into the feeling, her eyes fluttering closed. Rarity tasted clove and lavender. Luna… Luna tasted like clove and lavender.
The kiss ended and Rarity drew back. When her eyes opened there was nopony there except for Twilight beside her. Still, she felt Luna’s presence as clear as the sky itself. Luna had never left, had she? She had simply changed. She had not always been a pony. It would stand to reason then that she would not always be a pony, either. Rarity allowed herself to smile.
The moon grew closer steadily, Twilight's brow furrowed in concentration. Rarity waited with baited breath as it drew nearer and nearer still. She felt her heart slow as it came to dominate her vision entirely, a massive pale rock. Rarity reached out a hoof and nearly crumpled when it brushed the moon's surface. She leaned up, kissing the moon as gently as she could. It was cold and hard, devoid of any warmth or affection. Rarity thought that was apt as darkness rushed in around her.
In her final moments she swore she saw a pair of blue-green eyes staring back at her, haunting in their familiarity. At least she didn’t die alone.