//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Third Person Limited // Story: A Twilit Moon in Perspective // by Bork42 //------------------------------// There was silence inside the library tree. Luna stared up at Twilight Sparkle, and waited for a response. Twilight was blushing, and had she been capable of thought at the moment, would have noticed that she was blushing more profusely than she had ever blushed before in her entire life. “I . . . I . . . .” Twilight stuttered briefly, and returned to silence. Luna looked down at the floor, tears threatening to form in her eyes. She looked up again and would later be willing to swear that she heard the gears in Twilight’s head realign themselves and begin turning again. “I think I see where the issue is.” Luna stood, blinking. “You’re looking at this from the wrong perspective. You’ve been treating ‘I love Twilight Sparkle’ as a problem to be solved, but it isn’t. It’s a fact, a data point.” Twilight turned and trotted out of her sitting room and into the library proper, motioning behind for Luna to follow. “You know, I was lecturing at the schoolhouse for Career Day recently, and a rather bright young filly asked me a question. She wanted to know the difference between Science and Engineering. I told her that a scientist uncovers facts, and that an engineer uses facts. Which is not to say that you can’t be both, of course.” Twilight and Luna had reached the main room by this point. The latter kept her silence with a small look of confusion on her face; Twilight was shifting the furniture around. “You have acquired a fact: now it’s time for you to do something with it.” Twilight had moved the table and wooden bust of Bucephalus from the room and telekinetically replaced it with a chalkboard. “So. You are in love with Twilight Sparkle.” She wrote this at the top of the board. “I said before that you were looking at this the wrong way, as a problem to be solved, and it isn’t. You need to be thinking in terms of goals or objectives. Knowing this fact to be true, that you are in love with Twilight Sparkle, what goal do you want to realize? Basically, what do you want to happen?” Luna gaped at the unicorn. “We, I’m not really sure what . . . .” “Well, I could throw out some suggestions. Do you want to have a secret affair with her so that nopony ever knows of your love? Maybe you want to make her your Royal Concubine and keep her locked away in your Lunar hareem?” “What! She would never stand for that,” Luna spluttered, “We would never subject her to such indignity!” Twilight had a tiny smile on her face. “Perhaps then a modern relationship between equals? With maybe a wedding and foals in the future?” Luna lost her rage and spoke bashfully. “We, yes. That sounds like exactly what I want.” “Well then! You have an objective now, ‘Form a romantic relationship with Twilight Sparkle.’” Twilight wrote the objective on the chalkboard and underlined it so they would not forget. “But how do We do that? We have been locked away for a thousand years, and even before that thought little on the subject.” Twilight smiled reassuringly at the Princess. “In the modern vernacular, we call the process ‘dating.’ It’s dissimilar from ‘courting,’ which you may remember from years ago, in that it rarely involves business deals or anypony’s parents.” Luna stood, then, gathering her regal poise about her once more. “Teach Us then, of this ‘dating,’ that I may woo the fair maiden Twilight Sparkle!” Twilight’s smile widened, and she began to do what she did best. The two mares stepped out onto the library’s front step, leaving a chalkboard full of facts and diagrams behind them. “So, remember the basics: don’t just tell her, but show her how you feel about her; make sure she knows that you care about her thoughts and feelings; and make the time to be together, no matter how busy either of you are. Just keep these in mind and you’re sure to do well.” “Yes!” Luna’s posture radiated both happiness and determination. “I can do this! I will show Twilight how I feel!” “That’s right Princess! You can do it! Now go, find Twilight Sparkle, tell her that you like her and ask her out on a date!” “I shall!” Luna stepped into the road, unfurling her vast and ebon wings, and took to the dusky sky intent on reaching – “Hold a moment.” Twilight raised a hoof to her muzzle and giggled.