//------------------------------//
// 40 — Feeling Filly IV: Moon Dancing 
// Story: Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

Cadance turned so swiftly, Spike slipped off. He landed solidly on the small lawn as the princess scooped up Twilight's friend in a hug that lifted her off her forehooves. "I'm so so sorry!"

For her part, Moon Dancer looked glassy-eyed, not weepy. She hadn't told her friend Twilight, nor us. I remembered my poor response at my parents' funeral, especially when Princess Celestia, who'd delivered their eulogy and then elevated me to being an earl, hadn't had the common decency to hug me and tell me everything would be okay.

I felt nothing Moon Dancer felt, or how to feel anything at the moment, but wasn't going to traumatize my classmate the way the cursed alicorn had. I hated that I thought I might understand how Celestia felt. I joined in with a half-flanked hug and back pats, and a promise that if she needed an ear she could ask for mine any time. 

"My condolences," Hue and Cry said, bowing her head with her red beret floating beside her in her magic, "Lady Moon Dancer."

I cleared my throat, standing back. "I think it's some sort of protocol for me to say this, and I want it to be me, to be the reigning princess to say it—" Not Celestia. I bowed my head slightly. "I recognize you, Lady Moon Dancer, Duchess of Horseshoe Bay. All of Equestria mourns with you."

Celestia had said that to the new Earl of Grin Having. 

Magnified light-violet eyes regarded me through big clunky black glasses. The unicorn curtseyed. She sniffled, but her voice abandoned her. I told myself I had no choice but to understand. It had to be and could only be about her. 

I turned to the sergeant major and gave her an expectant look.

"It's a possible crime scene, everypony. The dragon stays on the princess' back. Everypony must wear hoofies, and hairnets if you can't tie your mane and tail into a bun. Pegasi must wear wing stockings, so you might ask your guard to stay outside. Don't touch anything. Point if you notice something."

In the vestibule, I recounted putting on slippers, having to explain about my prosthesis and past injury, further telling Spike that my frog was like the underside of his claws feeling wrapped in canvas and not working when he tried to use them.  Upstairs, a constable in blue-gauze hoofies took Hue and Cry aside. Unlike Cadance—who had plenty of reasons to be very nosey about anything to do with the prince—Moon Dancer strolled around, taking in all the business furniture, the albino grass-like carpeting, even counting the colorful bottles of spirits and etched crystal on the wet-bar.

The moment Hue and Cry mounted the stairs, I told her, "This was where I was when I heard a big thump. I nearly galloped upstairs..."

The RMC officer interjected, "Because you had a hunch?"

"Furniture slid. His bodyguards called down it was an icebox, that Mudflats was a klutz, and... something about stomping a bug? I spun up Teleport, but Firefall shouted, 'Incompetents!'"

"Was it her?"

"I'd known her only a day, that evening truthfully... Can't imagine anypony, let alone anypony in Blueblood's unskilled entourage, could've imitated her voice, let alone have put her personality into that single word."

"Had they yet ordered the prince around, like you said earlier?" she asked, jotting notes in unison with Spike.

"No. That came after I chased the glass of apricot cordial that the prince enticed me up to his living space with."

Cadance glanced to the wet bar, then to me.

"What!? An earl needs to know and hold her cider. I've drank since I was six." Watered down. "I like apricot!"

Upstairs, my body warmed. I looked fondly past the small breakfast table to the bedroom, to where I'd led the prince trotting from the study holding him in a long kiss. I remembered being pressed into satin sheets, and relived the flash of magic he projected when I'd been in the tub. I smiled, remembering that the prince didn't care I was wet as he levitated me, legs pedaling in the air, back to the bedroom.

Hue and Cry was halfway up the attic stairway when she said, "This will be a few minutes." She closed the plain white door behind her, leaving a city constable to supervise. Moon Dancer entered the study that held a sofa, two reading chairs, and a glass racetrack coffee table, with other attractions hidden by a half wall.

I caught Moon Dancer staring at the photo of the red-maned mare and foal out front of the Flying Horses Carousel. Her mood seemed weirdly serene. 

"Why didn't you tell us?" I asked quietly, in case she wanted to ignore the question. 

She kept looking at the mahogany breakfront with the arranged frames. "Because," she answered, "I'm happy she died."

"And nopony would understand?" I asked into the silence. 

Moon Dancer blinked at the picture, frozen. Her lips pursed and she breathed hard. Her eyes swept me, noting my hide full of trophies, reevaluating me, before she faced me. As I glanced at the picture, a tear raced down her cheek to hang suspended.  

"She," she said, with a venomous hiss that made me step back, "She ruined my parents' lives! I remember my mother as a mare suddenly crying from the melancholy of missing my father. I remember her fights with the Duke and the Duchess over their control of her life. It likely attracted the windigos that devastated Horseshoe Bay. Mom refused to evacuate, but my great aunt dragged me with her. Had she left me, Mom would've taken shelter, if for no other reason but to keep me safe. 

She'd be alive." 

Moon Dancer stopped, hyperventilating, tears raining down. Sobbing, she whispered, "I'm embarrassed to admit... I'm gleeful. I'm gleeful! When I closed the door behind the messenger... 

I. 

Danced."

I stepped up as she cried, giving her adequate opportunity to tell me not to touch her. I put my hoofie-covered hooves around her shoulders and hugged her fiercely. 

I wasn't the only filly to have had her parents stolen from her. I remembered the windigo storm from when I was nine. Before I had understood the danger Equestria faced, I'd have celebrated Celestia's death "gleefully." Now, I'd be unhappy for the responsibility it saddled me with—but not exactly sad. Ponies had callously ruined my life, multiple times. I sobbed with her, feeling like sisters in all but blood. 

I waved away the others, who I heard stirring nearby. I whispered in her fuzzy ear that she could feel whatever she wanted to feel. I'd keep her secret forever.  

"True friend," was all she replied.

After some time, we cried ourselves out. We sat on the carpet, staring up at the pictures. I was entranced by Blueblood's father. He did resemble Celestia, and though a son of a dragon by his son's own account, the artistry and severe realism mesmerized me. She stared at the carousel mare. 

Moon Dancer asked, "Do you love him?"

I snorted. "The painting of his father is nice—"

"No!" She gave a horse laugh and covered her eyes.  She took a deep breath and calmly said, "The prince.  Do you love him?"

This was from the filly who was gleeful over a relative's passing. Was Moon Dancer's true personality to be brutally honest?  Which is why she was so shy? To hide it? I realized my face had warmed. Had this morning made the papers? How could it have? She'd been in class all day with me. How could— Right! The photo in the Inquisition with my tail pulled aside, revealingly, with Blueblood's hooves all over my body. Other rumors abounded. 

I'd admitted what led up to getting myself ridden as we walked up to the townhouse. Explicitly. 

My face burned as I said, "I wouldn't go that far? I-I've known him...? A couple days? These things take time?"

"Do they?"

He and I had gone from fighting to, well— I coughed —in a few hours. Moon Dancer might be my age, but I'd lived an unrefined life on the streets and grown up so fast. "Attraction isn't love. It's like needing to eat. Everypony needs to. You do it, satisfy the hunger— you get hungry again."

Moon Dancer gave me that annoyed look I realized most normal teenagers gave parents when the oblivious ponies decided way too late to give the talk. I covered my eyes with a fetlock. "Did I—?"

"My great aunt gave me that lecture."

"Embarrassing," we both said in harmony, then looked at the pictures. 

"But," she asked again, "Do you love him?"

"I don't know. Not yet? I like his secret side. I like that he understands what I've been through because he's been through it too? His capacity to make me feel alive and loved, cherished, overpowers my self-doubt. It sets me free from my ghosts. That he looks good and knows how to use his—" I coughed, again, embarrassingly. "He's very athletic. I like that? It-it-it all makes me want to make him feel the same as I do? I-I know I struggle with the friendship thing, but— this may sound cutesy—I feel my heart open simply thinking about him. He makes me want to try my best."

Moon Dancer stood, then walked past me.  As she did so, she whispered, "He deserves to be happy and I won't mind if you're the pony that makes that happen."

My eyes followed her. I thought, What just happened?

I scrambled to my hooves and trotted over. Moon Dancer had greeted our companions, a hoof scratching the back of her head, prevaricating, "She was helping me sort my emotions—"

"Starlight?" asked Cadance. Was that a proud expression?

"—Turns out we both lost our parents, so..."

All eyes went to me, but a movement drew my eyes up the stair. The attic door stood open. A mote of white withdrew. I had no doubt it had watched me. Darkness sucked it away like a ghost. 

My horn lit reflexively. Force, that stupidly inappropriate spell—but, hay, at least unlike Sunset I could cast it reliably for over a year now. I didn't know if Hue and Cry could read my aura, but I knew no non-alicorn other than Twilight actually could. I switched to Illuminate; no way I was going upstairs without some spell prepared. 

"Was the attic door locked?" I asked Hue and Cry. "When you first came here?" My eyes kept flicking to the attic, not the copper coming down the stairs. 

"Was it locked that night—?" she asked in return. 

"I picked the lock." 

That got me looks from everypony, the guard also. Hue and Cry knew. 

I added, "Was it locked when Firefall flew up—?   Was Mudflats —? Well, if she went up there—" I shook myself out. "Not sure why I'm thinking sinister here."

Hue and Cry said, "Only you know the dark corners of your mind. Time to go upstairs and meet my forensics expert."

As I mounted the stairs, the constable blocked the others from following me. I waved off my guards. The doorway opened to a dark space exactly as I remembered. Dust tickled my nose as I looked at the hulking boxes and canvas-covered sofas and chairs fading into shadow. The attic hatchway provided dim light off to my right, and I saw some magenta and yellow horn light from around the corner, coming from stallions who conversed quietly. The stairway landing to the attic was the size of a large wardrobe, so I craned my neck around the doorframe to the right to look into the portion of the attic hidden from view. 

I saw a wane moonlight glow a heartbeat before I saw the monster from whence the glow emanated.