Luna awoke at the traditional time, the sunlight through her windows showing the colours of dusk. Learning from her attendant that Celestia was still engaged with the griffon's ambassadorial party and would not be present for their evening meal, Luna decided to skip breakfast and flew to the top of her tower for some privacy.
Standing nonchalantly on the edge of the thick crenellated wall she looked down to the valley beneath Canterlot where Ponyville’s lights were beginning to show against the darkening fields. Dust in the air made shafts of gold from the broken sunlight around the mountain's peak. Luna stood and watched. The sunset was muted but colourful, tending towards a rosy pink. 'If this sunset is any indication of Celly's mood, the negotiations must be at least proceeding amicably.'
Feeling that it was time, Luna kicked off into the air. With her dark wings spread she levitated, wrapped in the silver dew raining from her horn as the moon lifted over the horizon. ‘Few ponies will be watching, and none will care, but that is no reason for not doing one's best. Royal duties should be performed properly and with fitting ceremony.’ So what if Celly could raise the sun drunk or whilst performing ablutions. That was no reason to DO so, no matter how slovenly or casual this era had become.
Settling into a particularly comfortable looking cumulus to rest, Luna rolled onto her back and examined her current situation critically.
‘I really did want to respond in kind to Twilight’s missive, and to all of her thoughtful enquiries in her reports, but any time I tried to put qill to parchment I simply was not able to proceed. Every single time I imagined her reading my letter and becoming horribly disillusioned.'
'I can’t compete with whatever mythical Night Princess Twilight holds fast to in her imagination. Celestia never seems to understand. We are gods to these ponies, we cannot let them see us as flawed, uncertain or afraid if we are to rule them as such. My reputation has already suffered greatly from the return of Nightmare Moon. And of course my last trip to Ponyville.' Luna sighed. Twilight had been instrumental in saving her on both occasions, giving the young mare a front row view of the Night Princess' fears and weaknesses.
'Attempting to take part in the Nightmare Night festival in Ponyville was a terrible mistake. I should have stayed in the castle where nopony could see me.’
‘But then, If I had not had the opportunity to talk so candidly with Twilight, I would not be feeling the way I do now. I guess it is nice after so long alone to finally feel this kind of longing again. Just rather inconvenient. Despite all of Celly’s teasing there is no evidence to suggest that Twilight Sparkle is interested in our royal person in a .. physical manner .. or even that she is interested in mares in general.’
Luna knit her brow in concentration. Here was the real heart of the issue.
‘I cannot afford a to make a mistake in this matter. Twilight Sparkle is Celestia’s personal student, the Element of Magic and a multiple-time saviour of all of ponydom. She is destined to become perhaps the most important mortal pony in Equestria. With so much power at her command she could be groomed to become a great boon to this land or she could grow into a grave problem, perhaps even a threat to the throne. If we are to keep Twilight Sparkle contained I must retain her loyalty and respect as her Princess.’
‘I need to know whether Twilight Sparkle harbours feelings towards my person similar to those I feel for her - and I need to do so in a way that is perfectly safe. No way in Equestria am I ‘dropping-in’ to her bedroom .. although that is a nice thought. Hmmm’
Luna reluctantly dragged herself out of a pleasant lavender daydream to paint the stars. She suddenly felt like making tonight a little special. ‘Not that anypony will notice, of course.’
--c--
The night had been both spectacular and lovely. The stars were pinprick windows onto a celestial splendour forever hidden from mundane eyes. Luna and her sister alone could dwell within that pure whiteness, tempering it for mortal vision lest it blow away their little pony minds with glory. Celestia chose to dim the immortal light to a safe brilliance, staining it gold but bringing it forth in vast quantity to heat Equestria and to unleash a riot of friendly colour on the mortal world.
Luna had thought more of mortal kind's capacity for wonder than her sister. Her lights were wrought of untainted liquid silver, unadulterated by any need to play mother to her subjects or hide from them the consequences of their own actions. By gazing long into her stars you could see the fabric of which the celestial dome itself was made. You could lose yourself in splendour or, if you were weak of heart or purpose, you could lose your mind. Born of her love for newly made ponies in the beginning of the world, It was her greatest gift to mortal kind and her life's work.
And nopony had cared. So she had given them the consequences they deserved.
After dusting the moon and checking on the quicksilver lakes around the lonely but rather lovely obsidian castle where she had spent the years of her exile, Luna had begun to feel bitter again. What point was there to her seat upon the dual throne of Equestria? It seemingly made no difference to her subjects whether she was a living, present goddess or just a myth in children's fairy stories. Her sister's rule alone was seemingly enough to satisfy ponies. A shining perpetual mother figure for a world of stifled foals afraid of the dark.
The Royal Academy were the only ponies who cared about her nights now and they mapped her stars the way one would plot a series of boring mountain ranges on a map in order to lay a road. Dispassionate numbers imprisoned in columns on a page. They wrote letters of complaint every time a star moved or changed index. The stars may have remained unaltered for a thousand years under her sister's disinterested care but that was no reason to kick up a fuss now. Who owned this sky anyway?
Dawn was a few hours away. It was time to make her way back to the castle. Perhaps a quick check on the Everfree Forest was in order. That ancient place was at least amusing. She might find a dragon to chat with who would remember Luna's era as if it were yesterday.
Luna was lost in thought as she flew across the dense forest's treetops towards Canterlot. 'Numbers don't have to be as dry as dead leaves, pressed onto a page. Numbers have a passion all of their own. The thrill of unexpected connectedness, chasing suspected collusions between apparently unconnected sets of data, the thrill of chasing an elusive theorem. Why does nopony understand, why can't I ..'
There was a light on in Ponyville.
Almost invisible against the night sky from which she took her mane the goddess stopped, hovering, mouth open in astonishment. Twilight Sparkle was busy on the library's deck with her telescope. Spike had fallen asleep at her feet on a large pile of written notes.
'It must be four in the morning!'
Luna felt a wave of warmth. It had been unkind of her to assume nopony understood and nopony cared for her work.
Falling apart into a bloom of blue smoke, Luna drifted around the base of the library and up to the deck, behind the oblivious Twilight.
Passing over the sleeping Spike, tendrils of the smoke probed the stack of paper. Several sheets vanished with a tiny 'pop'. Seemingly satisfied, the tendrils rapidly disappeared, curling through the open door into the library itself.
Twilight turned at the sound. "Oh, Spike, you're awake. Could you take down this declination please? Spike?"
The blue smoke wafted through the internal rooms of the library with an air of definite purpose. It paused in Twilight's study, became an interesting shade of russet in Twilight's unruly bedroom and finally exited through a downstairs window.
Perched on a wispy but delightfully smooth alto-cirrus Luna perused her purloined papers. Luna knew Spike's spidery handwriting from the many friendship reports she had read over Celestia's shoulder. Tonight she had selected parchments that showed a very different kind of writing.
No dry columns of dead figures for Twilight. Her hornwriting was rapid and impassioned, tasked with the impossible job of keeping up with Twilight's lightning mind. Huddles of related figures and densely packed notes were spread in groups across the page. Underscored formulae were linked with bold arrows to encircled diagrams captioned with staccato bursts of angular acronyms.
Luna squinted a little at the parchment. What in Equestria had Twilight been writing?
Following the apparent order in which items had been penned, Luna felt a stirring of excitement. Twilight had been performing calculations, trying to determine Equestria's total mass by assigning a estimated mass to periodic comets listed in almanacs and noting their period and deflection. All from the point of view of an observer on the surface of a rotating sphere.
Curious, Luna reached into her magic and played back the creation of the document.
Twilight's hornwriting had started out uncertain, hesitant, there were stops and spots of ink where she had paused to consider what she would write next, almost reluctant to mark the virginal parchment. Then with a quickening rhythm and a growing certainty Twilight had abandoned her reticence, pressing harder and harder with the quill. Leaping from notation to calculation, her lengthening strokes coming faster and faster.
Sensing that she was coming near to a conclusion Twilight had become bold, writing so fast now that globules of ink had flown from the strokes, staining the paper above and below the long, hard descenders of her consonants and the lithe, supple curves of her vowels. Approaching the climax of her argument, she had pressed the quill too hard against the yielding surface, splaying apart the legs of the nib in a most cruel manner before slowing, recovering her composure and finishing with a graceful Q.E.D.
'It is certainly growing very warm in this cloud.' Luna mused. 'Dawn must be approaching.'
Although she felt strangely breathless, Luna was pleased with her discovery.
Twilight understood. Of course Twilight understood.
'Even if there is only one pony who can comprehend the depths of the royal passion, If that pony is Twilight Sparkle, I can keep going.'
Luna took to the air, reluctant to squander such a rich resource of insight, she chose to keep the remainder of Twilight's notes for bedtime reading. For some reason she could not place a hoof on, it felt more appropriate to read them alone, in private and behind a firmly closed door.
Luna's mind was made up. 'I must have her! The very throne of Equestria demands it!'
'In the previous era I would simply have had her bound and delivered to the castle in a pretty bow. I do not think Celestia nor the ponies of this strange new age would look kindly upon such an expression of royal favour.'
As she took wing for Canterlot Luna's face set in a mask of determination. She would need a plan. And possibly a checklist.
A lovely, long checklist.