//------------------------------//
// 72. Touch #3 (Luna) 
// Story: Short Shorts 
// by Coranth 
//------------------------------//

"I know this might seem a little embarrassing, Princess... but it's not like that at all. See... some days you'll have are good days, when everything goes right... but then there might be the bad days, days when the nobles give you trouble, days when you get stressed and burned out, or you feel the depression and the loneliness of those thousand years lost... At the end of those days... you can come here. Come rest here on the sofa, take off your tiara and lay your head in my lap. Let me pet you, ruffle your mane and scratch you behind the ears as I tell you... 'Luna, you're a good pony.'" 

And as she looked up at him, swallowing thickly, her eyes shining with unshed tears, her human did indeed do these things; he ruffled her mane, stroked along her neck, scratched her behind the ears and whispered soft nothings into her ears. He didn't care about her past misdeeds at Nightmare Moon, didn't hate or fear her. He instead adored her, through simple touch. Here with him, she didn't need to deal with horrible nobles, fearing commoners, and the weight of her mistakes. Here... she could just be Luna. Just be pony. And it was... it was... A stifled whimper escaped her, then, those tears starting to fall, beyond her control; a release of tension she didn't even know she'd been carrying. 

"Oh, sweetie..." murmured he; then he was lifting her head, brushing away her tears with his thumbs, but so gentle and tender was his touch that more and more tears fell. Raising her head away from his touch, she moved to fall against him gently, her ear pressed to his chest to listen to the beat of his heart. "Where were Thou," whispered she through her tears, "when We most needed Thou, a thousand years past?" He made to stroke the fuzzy ear that wasn't pressed against him as he softly kissed her above the base of her horn; then he was stroking along her sides, rubbing and massaging gently as she whinnied lowly, closing her eyes in bliss...