//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Chatting with Royalty // Story: Sins of the Father // by Robobrony //------------------------------// Chapter 3: Chatting with Royalty After returning to his home from helping Rarity clean up a mess in her workroom, Midnight was about to get to work on a painting for one of his friends. “I think first, I’ll get started with Applejack’s painting.” He levitated a brush ready to dip in some paint when there came a knocking at the door. “Oh come on, why is it that every time I’m about to start work, I get a visitor?” He was a little annoyed by this but also somewhat glad, as it meant he was able to enjoy company after so long. He went to his door and opened it to reveal princess Luna in front of him. He was very surprised by this. “Princess Luna!” He quickly bowed to her. “Good morning Midnight Star, please rise.” Luna instructed. “Uh, good morning your majesty, what brings you by to my humble home?” Luna gave him a warm smile. “You may call me Luna, Midnight.” Midnight gained a shocked expression that the princess was wanting to be addressed so casually. “Uh, as you wish pri- I mean Luna. So why have you come by, not that I’m not pleased that you did.” Luna chuckled. “I came because I was wondering if you would like to take a walk with me so we may talk.” He couldn’t believe it, the princess of the night wanted to just walk and talk with him. “Sure, um, ok, if you want, let’s go then.” Midnight walked out of his house and magically closed the door behind him to begin his walk with Luna. “So pri- uh, I mean, Luna, what exactly did you want to talk to me about?” Luna smiled at Midnight as she began. “I was merely wondering if I could hear a little more about what your father was like before he…..well, changed. If you do not wish to discuss it, I will understand.” Midnight looked at Luna curiously. “No, it’s fine, I don’t mind. It’s just that I do miss him a lot, how he was.” He sighed as he prepared himself. “When I was little, my father and mother were always fun to be around. We had such a great life. We used to go on picnics and enjoy the beautiful days. I remember on occasion, my parents would take me riding down rivers in boats. It was always fun. He always had funny jokes to tell to make me laugh whenever I was down, which didn’t happen very often since I had a good life. Sure I didn’t have any friends at the time, but that was fine, all I needed were my mother and father. I think my favorite memories are when I was little, my father let me stay up late with my mother and we would just watch the stars and moon in the night sky, they were always so beautiful.” Luna looked to Midnight upon the mention of that. “You enjoyed my nights?” “Of course, they were always so beautiful, in fact, it was because of your nights that I was inspired to make my first painting which helped me earn my cutie mark. I made a wonderful painting of the night sky and moon which got a lot of attention that earned me my cutie mark.” Luna was very touched by this. “I…..I had no idea my nights could be so inspirational, I never even thought they could help somepony earn their cutie mark.” “Well, they did help me, and I am eternally grateful to you Luna, I’m glad I have this chance to thank you. The nights you bring are just as beautiful as you are.” Midnight then realized just what he said to a princess. “I mean,….you know, I’m sure I’m not the only pony who thinks that though. I’m sure you have lots of stallions vying for your attention.” Luna blushed at Midnight’s compliment. “Well, not really, as I said before, some of our subjects still sees me as Nightmare moon, thus I don’t have any suiters.” Midnight looked to Luna, surprised. “Really, I find that hard to believe, if I wasn’t just a simple citizen, I certainly would have liked to at least try and see if I could ask you….on a……….date.” Midnight grew nervous as he said this. Luna blushed again. “You would, well, that is most flattering of you, it may interest you to know then that a princess is allowed to see whoever she wishes, even if they are not noble.” “Really, well that is promising, but even so, I doubt some pony as magnificent as you would want to waste your time with a pony like me.” Midnight looked away from Luna. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Did this pony really have a crush on her? Would it really be ok for her to just see if he would be interested in dating her? With the way he spoke about her, it seemed pretty clear that it was so. She thought for a moment. With everything that she had been through, she found the one pony in Equestria she could relate to, his situation wasn’t exactly like hers, but it was very similar. “Actually Midnight, I wouldn’t mind it if you wanted to ask me out on a date……in fact, I think it would be very nice.” Midnight looked to Luna with a very surprised expression. “You…..you would, really, I…..I don’t know what to say.” He paused a moment to let this information sink in. The princess he admired so much was practically asking him to ask her out, or she was asking him out. He finally came to a decision, this was practically a once in a lifetime opportunity, there’s no way he was going to pass it up. “Princess Luna, would you do me the honor of letting me take you out on a date tomorrow night.” They stopped walking for a moment. Luna looked at Midnight Star with a smile. “I would very much like that Midnight Star, I would love to go out with you.” Midnight Star smiled so big, his smile was threatening to tear his face in half. He was actually going to get to take a princess out on a date, and not just any princess, but the princess of the night who he admired so much. “Thank you Luna, I promise to do my best to make a wonderful night of it.” “I’m sure you will.” It was then that a pegasus flying overhead caught Midnight’s attention. It was a grey coated mare with a blonde mane and tail. “Excuse me a moment Luna, there’s a pony I need to speak with real quick. DERPY, HEY DERPY!” He spoke rapidly and shouted out to her. Luna just smiled and waited for Midnight to do what he needed. Derpy heard her name being called, she stopped in mid-are and looked to see who was calling her. She saw Midnight down below. She slowly and hesitantly came down and landed in front of him. She looked at Midnight with a frown and seemed to shy away. “Oh, uh, hey……Midnight was it?” Midnight approached her with a sad smile. “Yeah, hey Derpy, um, were you at the town meeting yesterday?” She looked at him with a strained smile. “Yeah, I was there, why?” “Well, I just want to apologize first for slamming my door in your face when we first met, I felt really bad about it afterwards. I hope you can forgive me for that, and I hope that the fact of who my father was isn’t really too much of an issue, I would very much like it if we could be friends.” Derpy had a real smile on this time, it was a small one, but it was there. “Really, you mean it?” “As long as you want to be, sure.” Derpy’s smile grew more. “Ok, I’d love to be your friend.” “Really, so it doesn’t bother you that my father was Sombra?” Derpy shook her head. “Nah, not really, I know not to judge a pony before you get to know them.” “Thanks Derpy, I really appreciate that. I’ll see you around then right?” He extended his hoof for a shake. Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind. “What are you doing, why would you want to be friends with a klutz like her, look at her, she can’t even see straight. She probably gets the mail mixed up too.” Midnight pulled his hoof back a bit as he looked down, he shook his head to ignore those thoughts and put a smile back on with his hoof extended. Derpy smiled back and extended her hoof out to accept his and shook it to confirm their friendship. “Count on it. Maybe some time later we can meet up for muffins, my treat.” “Is she serious, muffins, is that all she thinks about, just tell her off and ditch her already.” Midnight had no idea where these mean thoughts were coming from, but so he wouldn’t raise any suspicion about them just yet, he ignored it and answered. “Sounds good to me, I can’t wait. See you later then.” Derpy smiled as she waved goodbye. “Ok, later Midnight.” She then flew off. Midnight then turned back around to face Luna. “Sorry about that Luna I-“ He paused a moment when he realized that Luna was gone. “Luna, where are you?” Suddenly, Luna appeared right in front of him, as if she just materialized out of nowhere. “I’m right here Midnight.” Midnight gave a frightened yell. “AAHH, what….how did…….where did you?” Luna cut him off. “Invisibility spell, I figured it was best that I not be seen while you made a new friend.” “Oh, ok then, well, shall we continue with our little chat?” The two continued with their walk through town as they chatted. Luna told Midnight of all that she had been through during her reintegration back into her position as the princess of the night, while Midnight spoke more fondly of how his father and mother lived such happy lives. As they chatted, Luna could see Midnight’s attitude lift and be more positive. Lunch rolled around and the two shared a nice meal together, in a way, this was turning into a date, but neither of them said anything about it. During their lunch, Midnight thought it important to inform Luna about what happened this morning at Rarity’s. Luna grew concerned about the matter but was pleased to learn that she was just fine. Lunch was now over and they figured it was now time to part ways for the day. “Thank you for this little chat Luna, I really enjoyed it, and I feel a little better about waiting to give every other pony a chance to get to know me.” Midnight had a huge smile on his face. Luna returned the smile. “you are welcome Midnight Star, I look forward to our date tomorrow night.” “Me too, until them, my princess of the night." He gave a bow before her before leaving. Luna chuckled at Midnight’s display. She then turned and headed back to the library to inform Twilight of some excellent news. Before Midnight got too far to his home, he was hit with another dizzy spell. “What the, not again……what………….is……this.” He blacked out again. Luna just walked into the library and saw Twilight reading while Spike was busy sweeping the floor. “Greetings Twilight and Spike.” They both dropped what they were doing and looked to Luna. “Hey there Luna.” Spike greeted. “Hello Luna, how was your talk with Midnight?” Luna smiled as she spoke. “Wonderfully, he feels much better about things now, in fact-“ She was about to tell them that she had a date with him when suddenly all the books started flying off the shelves…..litterally. they were flying all around the room like bats. Twilight cried out in fear. “WHAT THE HAY, WHAT’S GOING ON HERE!” Spike cried out as well. “I don’t know?!” Twilight was about to cast a spell to try and stop them but one of them bumped into the back of her head and broke her concentration. “OW!” “Twilight, let me try!” Luna then started to try and cast a spell, but she too was interrupted when a book crashed into her, disrupting her concentration. “AH! What in the name of Tartarous is going on here!” Every time they tried to cast a spell to fix this and make the books stop, they kept getting interrupted by books crashing into them. Suddenly, the books stopped moving and all the pages started getting ripped out on their own, the library started snowing with ripped pages. Twilight cried out. “NO, not the books! What’s going on here?!” Soon, all the books fell to the ground with all the pages ripped out. Twilight just sat there, stunned and sad that all her precious books had been ruined. “I…….I don’t believe it, how could this have happened? Luna, what am I going to do? All my books are destroyed.” Spike looked around at the carnage that lay before him. He nervously picked up a pageless book by the corner to look at it, then just dropped it back down. “Twilight Sparkle, I am so sorry that this happened. But do not worry, I know a spell that can fix this.” Luna informed her. Twilight looked up at Luna with a hopeful smile. “Really, you can use a spell to fix the books?” Luna smiled as she lit her horn up with magic. In a brilliant flash, all the books came back together and were back on their proper shelves. “There we go, all better.” Twilight was impressed with Luna. “WOW, princess, that was amazing, thank you so much for fixing everything.” “Thank you Twilight.” Spike then spoke up. “Yeah, that was amazing, but, how did this happen in the first place, what was all that?” Luna took on a contemplative look. “I don’t know, but perhaps a full investigation is in order, this is not the first time something like this has happened.” “What do you mean Luna?” Luna informed Twilight of what Midnight told her about what happened with Rarity. Back with Midnight, he found himself back in his house in the middle of the living room. “Wh-what, what happened…….how did I get here?” Midnight started to get worried. He was having mysterious black outs and strange negative thoughts that didn’t seem to be his own, what was happening to him, would it go away over time, or get worse, what if it happened during his date with Luna? What is a unicorn to do?