The centaur was making her way towards what she expected would be an exceptionally awkward conversation, and that was when her life usually managed to render 'awkward' into the default state.
Casual chats with her housemates seldom had the chance to remain so: every liminal species had its own culture, while each gap had found a way to sound individual notes on the orchestra of isolation-created issues. Even the most casual topic could potentially lead into a clash -- especially when they could all feel their host's not-so-distant presence haunting the edges of every dialogue.
Exchanges with Kimihito tended to head down subconscious-blazed paths into thickets of blush-triggering vocabulary, in the hopes that it would make him reach for her hand.
...she could admit that now.
She could have done so many things differently. But she hadn't known how. Cerea hadn't understood anything about relationships and how they began. Not as anything more than words in stories.
Perhaps if she'd just started through trying to be his friend...
But among the very few humans she'd known, he'd still been the easiest to speak with. Ms. Smith saw long speeches as a good chance to catch up on naps. And when it came to those who saw a centaur on the streets, and felt there were things they just had to say -- 'awkward' would have typically represented a rather welcome step up. A human confronted with something different seemed to feel the need to verify it and with Cerea, this frequently started with a finger pointing at her breasts and a fully-direct inquiry of "Are those real?" The exceptionally stupid would add a rather expansive gesture which covered everything from foreshoulders to tail, then repeat the question.
There wasn't all that much of an improvement among ponies, although which torso and limbs were currently being regarded as impossible tended to move up. In particular, any talk with Nightwatch had the chance to delve into levels of skin radiance which biology barely allowed to exist -- but part of the key to caring about each other was for both parties to force themselves into keeping the discussion going anyway. They had to understand each other, and the only way for that to happen was if they -- talked it out.
The girl was carefully making her way through the palace. Making her way towards a promised discussion. 'Awkward' felt as if it might represent the best possible result.
The summons had been delivered in the kitchens, and Cerea had received it with both sufficient lead time to prepare (in a few ways, none of which felt as if they truly mattered) and a note that due to -- well, everything -- the exact moment of their appointment was subject to change. The girl was fully aware that there was, to forge a drastic understatement, rather a lot going on. Multiple investigations were under way and with the exception of anything she might offer up during debriefing, her place was in staying out of them. When it came to mysteries, the only puzzle the household had ever collectively, repeatedly solved was 'Who caused that disaster?' The solution was always close at hand, and hiding the evidence generally meant hiding themselves. Quickly.
She'd dropped by her most recent medical bay to recover her watch, then gone back to the barracks and found Nightwatch was still absent. It had given her the time and isolation required for Too Much Grooming, and she was convinced that none of it had done any good. Not when she was meeting royalty. And...
...Cerea had checked the results in one of the mirrors.
She couldn't really picture her mother as ever having been young. Features unmarked by the etched lines of permanent disapproval.
Perhaps the silver-backed image had been it. Only reversed.
My mother is beautiful...
She'd groomed herself, possibly to excess. (It didn't matter if it was humans or ponies: she would always be at least somewhat unnatural to any spectator. But she could at least be clean.) Long-handled brushes had been deployed. It had taken some time to settle on a hairstyle, and she'd finally just undone the fifth attempt and let everything fall more or less along the center of her upper back. And brushing the mark had been strange, because it hadn't been. The intrusion of bristles had briefly split craters, twisted the hilt, and then it had all come back together again. Normal fur.
Then she'd searched the bathroom, looking for long-abandoned contents in storage cubbies. Eventually, she'd found some ancient caked remnants of what she felt to be fur-blending powder, managed to coax some of it into being a little less solid, applied the mix to the brush, and streaked the brown mix across the mark.
There had been no true sensation at the moment she'd seen the makeup evaporate into curls of vapor: no electric shock from within, or an interior poke telling her not to do that again. It had just... happened.
Sometimes, things just... happened.
She'd picked out clothing: a soft sweater and, despite what Nightwatch would have probably insisted upon, the most covering skirt she could find. Made sure she had plenty of lead time remaining, and set out towards her destination. Cerea was anticipating having to detour a lot, because there was still so much rubble in the hallways. The maintenance department was trying, but... there was so much to do.
The girl had given herself plenty of time to reach the appointment, and barely managed to reach the main floor before a portion was claimed.
The blending of Solar and Lunar staffs meant she'd been spotting a lot of new ponies. Cerea was sure she would have remembered the svelte unicorn who was slowly trotting towards her, picking an uncertain path through the damaged hallway. Because as with Sizzler, the mare's coat seemed to have something of a liquid aspect to it. And technology in the gaps tended to be somewhat behind that in the human world, because power sources were hard to arrange and things which had just become obsolete were easier to acquire.
But even the cheapest pieces could come with their own unexpected price. And when it came to that singular shade of purple, a single glimpse of the hue associated with mimeograph ink found Cerea instinctively trying to hold her breath.
The mare both smelled and looked exhausted, brought to a point where the weight of her own horn was almost too much to bear. Moving slowly, with her head down. It wasn't a good way to avoid every obstacle, and Cerea carefully began to get out of the way.
It wasn't quick enough. The unicorn glimpsed the scant portion of exposed leg, along with a hoof. Glanced up, followed by going much, much further up.
"...oh," the mare softly exhaled, and the girl braced herself for the surge of fear --
-- the unicorn backed up a little. Tried to look at the girl's face, encountered obstacles, and backed up somewhat more.
"I'm..." The unicorn took another breath. "I'm Motife. I -- work in Public Relations."
"Oh," seemed to represent the best of Cerea's efforts and as such, didn't make the upcoming meeting feel any more promising.
"I worked on the one-sheet," the unicorn further clarified. "For a couple of moons."
The girl, who'd just recognized a new aspect of a rewritten reality, winced.
"I'm sorry," was automatically offered, because of course now the whole thing had to be revised all over again --
"I did a lot of the layouts," the unicorn carefully told her. "It meant looking at the same paragraphs. Over and over again. So I've been spending moons reading about you. Every day. And -- all I did was read about you, and..."
The mare looked into Cerea's eyes, just for a moment. Then the gaze started to wander backwards and down. Towards the left hip --
-- the pony took another breath, and her regard was yanked back to the girl's face.
"I read about you every day," the mare quietly said. "And I still don't feel like I know you. The kitchens are still open --" and then there was a light laugh "-- I'm not usually here during Lunar hours. I keep forgetting that the kitchens are always open. Do you want to --"
Both forehooves lightly scraped at the floor. Pebbles of debris skittered away.
"-- go into one?" Motife finished. "Because there's going to be another one-sheet. There has to be. And I thought... maybe we could get a snack together. Talk about your home. I -- feel like I should know more about your home. About you..."
One last breath.
"Please?" the pony asked. And waited.
Cerea, caught in the center of an unexpected olfactory vacuum, tried to chip words out of the ice surrounding her brain.
"I... have a meeting," the centaur finally answered. "I'm on my way there now. I can't. Not tonight."
Motife nodded.
"So another time," the unicorn said. "Since I'll be going Solar and Lunar for a while. I'll drop by the barracks and set something up. Good night, Cerea."
And before the girl could say anything else, the tired willowy form slipped past her, heading towards Syzygy, doors, and so many of the nights to come.
The Princess hadn't been able to promise Cerea that their meeting would pass without interruption: the girl had understood that. But there were ways to make ponies feel any intrusive knock had better be important, and one of them was through choosing exactly the right location.
It still felt like an oddly simple door. The Moonrise and Moonset gates had intricate patterns worked into their surfaces, with weaves of silver forming an ornate frame. This was just a door. Plain, silver-tinged white -- with a very familiar icon set dead-center in the stone. And a alicorn somewhere beyond.
Her bedroom.
It could have just been the Lunar throne room --
-- no. One of the many potentially impossible goals of their talk was to close the imbalance between them. And anything done from a throne was elevated.
The two Guards assigned to watch that door looked at Cerea as she approached. Took her in with steadfast regard, and then mutually stepped aside.
"She's expecting you," a rather weary-seeming Moonstone stated. "Just go in."
"I should knock," Cerea automatically said. "It's polite --"
-- my mother never knocked.
I had to reach Japan before I found out what polite knocking sounded like.
...that was mostly Kimihito. Suu didn't understand knocking, Miia just wanted to reach my body heat, Rachnera thought it defeated the purpose, Lala usually turned up out of nowhere, I could hear Mero's wheelchair approaching before she ever got near the door and you couldn't ever ask Papi to knock...
"-- we're the ones who have to knock," Imbrium countered. "You go in."
The Lunar throne room was a place which ponies could approach, but -- it could take a small, rather visible effort before some of them actually went inside. Under normal circumstances, it had marble, hanging tapestries, artwork and little statues in alcoves. There were lightly-bejeweled decorations about, and silver was everywhere. Put it all together and it created a center of power. Something which spoke to the strength of the mare who held it, while making a few wonder if they dared to step within.
The bedroom, the sanctum of privacy, the heart, was -- plain.
There were multiple bookcases. Two were made of wood, while another four were rather ordinary stone. In the olfactory world, the literary contents announced themselves as ranging in age from Just Published Last Week all the way through There Have To Be Preservative Spells Keeping This From Turning To Dust On The Spot. Cerea could only make out a few scant words along the myriad titles: enough to tell her that the majority was probably fiction. The overloaded shelf directly over the heavily-scratched teak desk was devoted to history.
One corner of that paperwork-strewn desk held an isolated, wood-framed sketch. It was the only piece of artwork in the room, and the soft glow directly told her that multiple protective workings were in effect. The radiance also hampered Cerea's ability to tell just what it was a sketch of: she could just barely distinguish outlines. It took her a moment before she decided that there were six ponies, along with what had to be a single minotaur standing with them. One of the three stallions seemed to be wearing a hat, and the filly at the forward edge of the group was surprisingly small.
The walls were plain. The lone mirror looked as if it hadn't been polished in a while. One lamp felt as if it might have once been the lamp, with every other customer having to wait for the next version to be invented. And the bed was huge, virtual acres of mattress covered by an ocean of rumpled sheets because this was a bed which only got made when the blankets were changed, followed by having the owner unmake it again at top speed -- but almost none of it was being used. A sort of twisting indentation at the left edge told an observer where the lone occupant slept.
The Princess wasn't in that quasi-hollow. She was on the mattress edge closest to the door, belly and barrel flat against those rumpled sheets. Constellations fell in seeming disarray across dark fabrics. Her wings were in the rest position, and the silver-shod forehooves protruded slightly over the edge.
The left one gestured outwards as Cerea entered.
"Close the door," the Princess instructed. The girl did so, and the alicorn nodded.
"I --" Cerea tried, because it was the sort of opening word which almost had to lead into a second syllable, and she was very much hoping to find out what that was.
"I am about to cast a working," the dark mare interrupted. "It is something which affects sound, and ensures the words I speak within this room will not travel beyond it -- at least, not through conduction. It temporarily pauses should I open the door, or address somepony on the outside by name. And I am telling you this so that we both understand that there is privacy here."
"I understand." Which, for the girl, represented a rather rare sentence.
The alicorn's corona ignited. Dark glow projected past Cerea, covered the walls and coated the doors before fading. The Princess nodded to herself, and then looked at the centaur.
"Sit."
The girl automatically reexamined the room.
There was one bench. It went with the desk and while it was alicorn-sized, it was meant for the smaller of the two. Nothing was present for a visitor, which left the floor or the --
-- no.
Cerea carefully approached, tried to use the intensity of royal regard as a guide for just where her hooves were supposed to stop. It left her just in front of that mattress edge: something which would have her in arm's reach of the Princess if she somehow lost all common sense and did something so stupid as move.
She carefully folded her legs, sank down to the thinly-carpeted floor. The combined height of mattress and resting alicorn put them just about on eye level.
The Princess nodded again. Dark eyes briefly roamed across the girl's features, and the alicorn took a slow breath.
"There has been very little time to prepare for this," royalty quietly said. "The scant moments which offered the delusion of making myself ready -- in those seconds, I attempted silent rehearsal. Constructing playlets upon an inner stage, sending myself before a singular phantom audience, and -- watching to see what I might say."
It was... fairly warm, this close to the alicorn. And as the tail-bound stars trembled, Cerea wondered just how much effort was going into making sure it continued to be so.
"For the most part," the dark mare slowly told her, "I witnessed myself fail. Over and over, to the point where I almost wished for something to distract me. So it would stop. A wish which was fulfilled, again and again..."
The alicorn rather visibly looked past Cerea, checking the door. Nothing happened.
"...naturally, until just now," she finished, and the olfactory world told the girl where the sigh hadn't been. "When it comes to belief in what some might term as deities, both Princess Celestia and myself have a certain degree of difficulty. But I do recognize when the world has decided to make a gallop on irony."
It wasn't a full lash of the tail. More of a simple sweep: left to right, then back to center. The movement still allowed Cerea to spot the sheer number of stars which were beginning to dim.
"I told you that I could have wished for a simpler option," the mare said, and her forelegs bent inwards. "I still do. Cerea... it is hard for me to trust." The dark head dipped, looked away. "The last time I put my belief, my hope in another... there was a price."
Every constellation in the mane twisted, dimmed to the point where they were barely visible at all. And Cerea couldn't move.
"One which I... spent quite some time in paying," the alicorn whispered. "And now... to believe that any will keep my secrets, when I have so many... it is hard. Something in me longs for proof. That any I might confide in would have been shown capable of holding her tongue, never to repeat anything I might say in any time other than one of catastrophic need. That she already holds secrets, knows that she must retain them, and..." A tinge of irony worked its way into dropping tones. "...the secret of -- is the proper word 'liminal'? Did the disc -- good. The secret of liminal existence does not count, as something already broken --"
It would take some time before the girl came close to understanding why her own words emerged.
"-- I figured out Sun and Moon."
The alicorn blinked. Cerea, resting against the floor in what was still a rather warm room, froze.
I don't think they kill anyone who realizes what's going on, tried several increasingly-desperate neurons. I'm almost sure they wouldn't --
The mare's left foreleg unfolded. Stretched slightly towards the girl, then went back in. A dark head shook itself twice as eyes blinked away sudden daze.
"I..." the mare whispered. "Moon's craters, I --"
"-- it was just a little while ago," Cerea quickly, frantically interjected. "I haven't told --"
Almost a gasp as all attention focused upon the centaur, words being pushed out on a blast of emotion before any barrier had a chance to block the way, "-- I am sorry! I never thought about it! That you would have to learn about the cycle of our raising and lowering them on your own, for who would ever believe they would need to teach you? Never a part of any citizenship class, because the knowledge is only found among foal questions! Queries answered at the youngest age, and never asked again!" Another surge of breath, and then the alicorn had to forcibly refold her wings. "How little must you truly know? Something which creates even more of an issue in finding a place to start! Do you even know what year it --"
"-- I know they're artificial satellites," the girl cut in. And waited.
She didn't have to wait very long for a response. Fractions of a second and during that scant time, she wasn't entirely sure if she was waiting to die. Or how concerned she was about that possible result. Death lost a certain degree of terror when you had someone waiting to greet you.
There was no thermometer in the room. The sole initial visual indicator in having the bottom drop out of the Celsius scale was in the way Cerea's right arm automatically came up in an attempt to cover the near-instant results.
"...what?" Luna whispered as every star went out. "You... I... what?"
"I'm just from a different place!" Cerea desperately offered, as her fingers became the next things to stiffen and the shiver worked its way to her tongue. "I t-t-t-thought about how it had to w-w-w-work if you were moving them, the only way it c-c-c-could --"
A tiny flare of field touched her lower jaw, pushed it shut.
Slowly, the mare stood up, hooves indenting the mattress. Briefly closed her eyes, and an effort of will reignited every stellar core. Jumped down to the floor, and slowly trotted past Cerea's rapidly-chilling form on her way to the exit.
The corona touched the door. It opened. Two Guards turned, awaiting an order from their Princess.
They got one.
"Alcohol," Luna said.
"Princess?" Moonstone checked. "I'm sorry. Did you say --"
"Alcohol."
"...all right," Imbrium tried to take over. "Did you want any particular vintage --"
"I have but two requirements," the alicorn told them.
"Okay," Moonstone tried as the fast-spreading frost began to coat her armor. "What are they?"
"PLENTIFUL. AND NOW."
Heat-shifting was a pegasus technique and, in the time they waited for the delivery, Luna did very little else. She warmed the air around Cerea first, then she did something which made both sweater and skirt radiate their own heat, and it was only after the centaur had finally stopped shivering (with all exposed skin carefully alicorn-examined for frostbite) that the mare turned her attention to the rest of the room.
She removed frost. She kicked at patches of ice. And every time Cerea tried to speak, another flicker of energy told her to wait.
Eventually, there was a knock. A wheeled cart delivered six bottles and two mugs.
Luna selected the second bottle from the left. A single glance put it at the proper temperature, another opened it, and then her field carefully poured the results.
She looked at Cerea. Then she looked at the other mug.
"Drink."
"I usually don't --" represented the first words the girl had been allowed to say.
"An issue with your biology?"
"No."
"Cultural taboo? That mares do not consume, while your stallions choose to make up for your deficit?"
"No."
"Religious? Personal? Something about being suspended upside-down in a barrel filled with all of the alcohol you have ever spilled, when simply finding such a barrel would take some work and you would need to upend several vineyards before any concerns set in?"
"No --"
"-- drink."
Cerea took three sips. (It mostly tasted like the inside of a well-maintained cask, with hints of cherry.) The alicorn was satisfied.
"Princess --" the centaur carefully tried.
"-- eight minutes," Luna cut her off.
"...Princess?"
"Alcohol," the alicorn firmly stated as she resumed her place upon the mattress, "has an onset time, and I am quite literally not drunk enough for this. Eight minutes."
In the girl's opinion, the mare hadn't actually taken all that much. She had a better idea of pony body mass now and unless Luna was considerably lighter than she looked, the amount which had been swallowed at high speed was just about what was required to take the edge off. Possibly several edges.
Regardless, Cerea shut up.
Eight precisely-measured minutes passed. Luna kept looking at the door, in part because recasting the privacy spell five times required identifying the target. No knocks came, and the empty mugs were finally set on the desk.
"How?" the alicorn finally said. "How did you figure it out?"
Cerea explained. (The wires didn't hiss anywhere near as much as she'd been expecting them to.) And when she finished, nothing about the mare was moving. Not mane or tail, or a single star held within. No tiny shifts of limbs or feathers. No blinking and, for five endless seconds, no breath.
Finally, "You have told no others."
In terms of word choice alone, it sounded like the sort of thing you heard in a bad movie, just before the secret villain struck. It just didn't come across that way.
"Not that they aren't natural," Cerea quietly told the mare. "At the party, before I realized what might be happening... I tried explaining orbital mechanics. For why it couldn't work, with my own sun and moon. But no one understood what I was trying to say. And Fancypants just knows that I realized the two of you were raising and lowering them for the first time on that night, because I had to give him a reason for why I'd been so upset. With everything else that happened, I... guess he just didn't think to tell you. And I didn't tell anyone else, because..."
She had to be honest.
"...part of it is because of everything which happened after that. There wasn't a chance. But the majority was... they all saw it as natural. I thought telling them about my theory would terrify them." Not without irony, "I do enough of that just by existing. And... before I did anything -- I wanted to speak with you first. So I kept quiet."
Slowly, oh so slowly, Luna nodded. The dark eyes closed, and the mare's chin dipped towards the mattress.
"Good," the alicorn breathed. "Good..."
Cerea waited.
"Is that part of why you wished to quit? Having realized what was truly at stake for the first time, and believing you could not execute the duty?"
Her heart hurt.
"...yes."
Luna silently nodded. And in time, her head came up again.
"You have questions," the mare quietly observed. "I... have not rehearsed the answers. I may not possess the answers. And yet, after so much time... I am curious as to what the questions would actually be."
The girl squared two sets of shoulders, and kept her voice soft.
"What happened?"
"There are several possible phase states contained within your query," the mare dryly said. "I am barely dealing with this night: I do not need to bring in quantum. Let us collapse the possibilities into an initial question. What happened that they exist at all?"
Cerea nodded. Luna's eyes closed again.
"We do not know," the alicorn sadly offered. "And they cannot tell us."
There were many things the girl could have said. So much which she might have feared. But everything within her, added to the assistance of three sips, told her to simply listen.
"We have... attempted to work out what we could, from the scant evidence which was available to us," Luna quietly began. "But most of that was the evidence of their existence. They are from the Pre-Discordian era, and -- we presume there was a need for them. But two words help to explain why we know so little, Cerea: Pre-Discordian. A time from which all true history has become lost, and researchers do little more than squabble over their favorite theories. Their best guesswork. Discord took control of the world, and... part of that came when he seized control of them. Our measurements for time became breath and heartbeat. Day and night? They were variables. Sun might appear six times before sleep, or Moon could remain in the sky for four waking cycles. At times, they appeared together. We had eclipses, and... hated ourselves for seeing any beauty within them. He controlled them, and -- they are creations of order. Discord was unable to tap into any natural means of directing them. So it was brute force. It damaged them. Something which became worse over time, and... we do not know how much time passed. We barely know anything of what the world was like before he came and as you might imagine..." The sigh rustled her feathers. "...nor does he. And while he remembers the whole of his life, when it comes to a great deal of what took place while he had control... he was simply not paying attention."
Damaged...
But Sun had yet to go out.
"It was insanity, to try and win back control of our world," Luna whispered. "Insanity. The surest sign that we had fallen to his madness. But... there was nothing else. We went into chaos, and... something happened."
"Something," was the first contribution which the girl had felt capable of making.
'We.'
She's talking about it as if she was there.
The alicorn's lips quirked.
"There is a long tale," she said, "and there is a short one. In the short one -- 'something'. We found our marks. For our era, the first marks. And with myself, and my sibling... we became the living links to Sun and Moon. They were damaged, Cerea -- but it did not reach their most basic functions. They retain the ability to keep the world alive. But they have difficulty in measuring the passage of time. They do not remember what came before. And they both became somewhat possessive -- well, Sun more than Moon. But..."
AIs.
Tales of knightly glory weren't a good place to learn about artificial intelligence. The girl was much more familiar with human stupidity.
"...with the links forged," Luna quietly continued, "we had control. Something Discord was unable to override, while we stood guard. It was the first true victory within the war. And with his influence removed... they began to heal. Slowly. But they could no longer operate themselves. They required partners, and we agreed to be those partners. For as long as was required, until they were whole. Until they once again moved themselves through the sky. And then our duties would end."
...how...
...how long...
"In this era..." The alicorn's tail briefly twisted. "After his escape, Discord seized control anew -- for a short time. We spent most of his escape trying to gain it back, while the Bearers did what was needed to renew his bonds. Our links had not weakened: our monitoring had. He found a temporary way in. But the chaos was brief. From what we were able to determine, any setback was minor. The healing continues. Slowly."
"And the world doesn't know," was a substitute for the real question.
"That they are devices?" Luna said. "Cerea... portions of the world existed in some degree of peace because, over the course of time, they had learned not to think about how -- fragile this is. For there are always those whose contemplations go deeper, and thus delve into fear. That it all relies on us. That, for far too long, it was Princess Celestia and no other. And that if we are lost..."
"There's no one else," had to be said, and no amount of magic would have given the girl warmth.
No heirs.
No names passed down from one generation to the next.
What happened?
...how long...
"None. Cadance -- we have not taught you about Cadance -- the third alicorn, the third of but four -- has tried. She can touch them. She followed my sister's channel to do so, during a time when my sister was all there was. But the mere contact placed her in agony. Princess Celestia had to exclude her from the link before she collapsed. We have not asked Twilight Sparkle to make the attempt, from fear of losing her. Cerea --"
Was there moisture on the mare's eyes?
No. It was already being absorbed by the fur.
"-- we have tried to make a world where they simply accept, without question, that Sun and Moon exist, and we move them. Where the majority give the matter no more thought than that, because the current system holds at its core a seed of unstoppable terror. On the night of the Return, when Sun did not appear for too many hours -- or, on the other side of the world, lingered -- the planet nearly went mad. Some of them are still weighing the consequences of that night. Wondering about that ultimate fragility, because that question now lingers far too close to the surface. And that is why I understand your fear. That terror is part of why we have had so much global turmoil since my Return --"
-- and Luna stopped.
"Another subject of which you have no knowledge," the mare sadly stated. "The one where, for the reasons why it all started -- why my Return had to happen at all -- I could have wished for you never to have learned of the matter. But a distorted version has reached the textbooks. We have yet to figure out how the tale might be corrected for the true. Or... if it should."
Too many answers.
Too many questions
(Too much fear.)
Where do I even start...?
This was what she'd wanted. To know more about Luna.
There might have been some irony in that. To wish into an empty hand, and find herself burdened by sudden weight.
...how long...
It was as good a place to start as any.
"How long?"
The alicorn's tones had gone dry. "A qualifier, perhaps?"
"How long," Cerea softly asked, "have the two of you been doing this?"
And it could be said that the calm, perfectly level answer was nothing more than a number.
"In the most typical measurement? Twelve hundred and seventy-five years."
It could be said. Lies were often spoken aloud.
"Or rather," Luna added as everything within the girl reeled, "somewhat longer than that. We generally count from the end of the war, as that was when time found several more means of reliable quantification. But there was a rather noticeable delay between the manifestation of marks and the final victory. Additionally..." and her eyes closed again. "...the true number only applies to my sibling. I had... abeyance..."
Cerea, floundering within the tempest of inner turmoil, searching for anything to keep her afloat as the storm endlessly surged, seized the only words available.
"What happened?"
The mare's horn ignited. Two more drinks were poured. Both were consumed. And then she spoke.
She did not say everything she could have. There were topics which needed to wait for another night and with others, there might never have been enough time to say it all. But for what she did say, she did not lie. And she said enough.
The motionless girl listened to it all, in shock and horror and fear. And when it finally ended, she did the only thing she ever could have. Without thought, on instinct alone.
"Oh, Luna...!"
The centaur moved.
It took a full ten seconds before she became aware that she'd moved.
"I am trying to decide," considered an oddly calm, half-muffled voice, "if this is comfortable. Or merely disturbing."
And then she was aware of very little else.
You couldn't reach out. You couldn't touch. You certainly couldn't hug a Princess. Cerea, within arm's reach of the mare, had just done all of it. Her arms had gone forward, encircled the mare, and gathered the pony close.
In the more specific definition, Cerea had just pulled Luna into her own bustline.
There had been an automatic tilting added to the action, because there was a horn present and that added a requirement to be really careful about where it wound up. So the mare's head was somewhat sideways. Basic safety. Also, you had to keep the snout clear, because breathing was important. Luna was certainly breathing. So was Cerea, which was why the living pillows kept shifting. Or rather, Cerea was breathing for now, while part of her desperately longed for that condition to end. Immediately and forever, hopefully taking all of the humiliation with it.
You couldn't hug a Princess, and Cerea had just done that. The followup impossibility now concerned exactly how she was supposed to stop.
Her arms weren't cooperating. Maybe that was why ponies stared at them. They knew how stupid arms were.
"I'msorryI'msorryI'm --" and the sheer force of it seemed to jar the left bicep outwards "-- sorrysorrysorry --"
"-- I did not," the mare calmly announced, "say to stop."
Cerea blinked.
"...Princess?"
"One should generally not," royalty stated, "form an opinion without going through the full experience. This is true of many aspects of life. Plays. Dining. Golf. This."
Oddly, the part which Cerea most wanted to disregard was golf. "Princess..."
"I am," the half-muffled voice said, "thinking this over. Comfortable. Or disturbing. Maintain your position, please."
Neither female moved.
"I have reached a decision," Luna announced.
A six-limbed bundle of dread, fully unable to stop thinking about what two of them were still doing, waited.
"It is disturbingly comfortable."
The mare closed her eyes. Softly sighed, and rested a little more weight against unexpected support. The girl simply hugged her.
And Cerea was not afraid.
They'd separated. Hugs were a little like baths that way. Even the best ones had to end sometime.
Luna was off the mattress again, and her field was active. She faced the desk as she resealed the bottle, along with shuffling some papers across the teak. Cerea, still on the floor, was waiting to be dismissed. They'd already had much more time in privacy than the girl had expected, than Luna had likely been expecting, and... she had to go figure out what she'd just done. The consequences of her actions, and everything she now knew.
But that was when the mare turned around.
"A question for you," Luna calmly offered. "If you will answer it."
Cerea, who'd just had more answers than anyone was probably supposed to strictly possess, mostly nodded from a need to balance things out again.
The alicorn stepped forward. Brought her horn within contact range, and looked at the girl.
"A familiar position for us," she noted. "We lack only the forest, and must each deal with the arrival of understanding. But the first time, I was trying to assess what had appeared in my nation. Who you were. And now, knowing what has been gained..."
Her foreknees bent, and the horntip lightly touched Cerea's left shoulder.
"Will you be my knight?" the Princess asked. And did not move.
There was no answer. At least, not on the verbal level.
"The Doctors Bear," Luna finally said, "have yet to fully brief me on centaur biology. However, I am presuming that some portion of your bloodstream needs to be flowing within the deeper parts of your body. Having that much of it going through the skin cannot be healthy. Additionally, as you are new to the possession of a mark -- something where my sister and I are still trying to work out how it appeared at all, but agree that it was earned -- you should be informed that it cannot blush." She straightened. "Something of a pity. A blood Moon is a rare thing, and much more appealing than the name might suggest. And yes, I could have said 'Guard'. That is how it would appear on the majority of the paperwork. But the other term is equally suitable. I believe I was promised an answer?"
The mare's gaze was calm. Patient. Old...
"...I quit," the girl said, shivering in the midst of perfect warmth. "I..."
"-- with all of the recent commotion," the Princess announced, "I did not find an opportunity to file the paperwork for your resignation. In fact, I am entirely certain that you are still being paid. Also that the terms negotiated prior to your seeking out Tirek can be interpreted as a bonus for services rendered. But I am not holding you here, Cerea. If you still wish to leave, you may."
"...I'm not worthy," served as negation's next desperate strike. "I had to accept at the press conference, because it was the only way to keep it all going. As an immigrant. But I didn't know what it meant. What the responsibility was --"
"-- in terms of worthiness," Luna told her, "I have reached my own conclusions. Something which is easier for me than for you, because being outside your skin provides perspective. Respect does not have to be earned every day. Nor does kindness. Some maintenance is required not to lose them, but much of that is basic courtesy. You have had my respect for some time. I am asking for your kindness. To grant me the honor of having you as my knight."
"...I..." was, in some ways, just about all denial had left.
"The duty? You have already performed it: saving the world. Although I would rather the occasion not offer itself a second time, I believe this proves your capacity for doing it again. And..." The smile was there, and then it wasn't. "...should the question be rising in your mind: I am not attempting to keep you in the palace simply because you now hold some of my secrets. You are trusted with them. However..." The mare took a breath. "...Nightwatch is convinced you are staying. That you must stay, as her partner and friend -- "
She stopped, and the dark eyes briefly closed with shame.
"-- no," Luna resumed. "We used that bond against you once before, my sibling and I -- and I think you realize that. Doing so for the sake of the world. But now I will speak for myself. There is a mark, Cerea. What ponies see as a reflection of the soul, and not inaccurately. I realize it will take you some time to think of it that way. But... if you do not wish to see the mark as a symbol of who you truly are in the needs of a moment, when fear and doubt have no time or say -- then... I hope that you might perceive it as a guide to the mare you wish to become. And for Moon to be present, as part of that mark..."
It was easy to perceive it, in the olfactory world. The place where the tears weren't.
"...I would also hope that it shows you wish to remain in my service. That you have... forgiven me."
The girl's hands came up. Covered her face, and muffled the single sob. Went down again.
"I... have magic now," she finally said. "What if there's another Tirek?"
"I have spoken to the Bearers," Luna solemnly stated. "In the event that you are unable to counter a drain, we shall ask Barding to forge you something with an edge. Alternatively, should the new threat have gone beyond a height you can reach, we find a very large rock. Cerea -- will you be my Guard? My knight?"
The girl stood up.
Both foreknees bent. Her upper torso leaned forward. The mare, who didn't move, simply accepted the results.
It wasn't the proper thing to do. Not when viewed from the perspective of old stories. But the characters had to act the same way every time. Eventually, the reader had to make her own path.
Even the best hugs had to end sometime. But you could always start again later.
"Yes."