//------------------------------// // Subtlety // Story: Operation TwiLuna // by twilight the scribe //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle, My fellow princess, How goes things in Ponyville, Princess Twilight? I certainly hope you are coping well with your new duties and continuing to study the magic of friendship. However, I feel that you have been away from Canterlot too long, and I do not lie when I say that you are missed here. Why not come back to Canterlot for a day? I’m sure it would be an enjoyable experience returning to your old haunts and visiting your parents again. And who knows? Perhaps you could even help my sister Luna to come out of her room for once! Your Friend, Celestia Celestia had a satisfied smirk as she penned the last words neatly with her phoenix quill. She then used her magic to roll up the scroll and seal it with the traditional red ribbon. She picked up the scroll with her magic and held it up to Philomena, who sent the scroll away in a burst of fire. “There.” She then exited her room and walked to Luna’s room next door. The two Lunar Guards at the door bowed respectfully and stepped aside to allow her entrance. “Oh princess, just a fair warning. She’s not really wanting to speak with anypony at the moment, right Noct?” “Oh, indeed, Shadow, Her highness has been really busy lately.” The other guard replied. Celestia rolled her eyes and pulled the doors open with her magic. “Lulu?” she called. There was a groan from the covers. “It’s too early in the evening ‘Tia. Wake me up at 9” Celestia chuckled and softly poked the form huddled under the blankets with her hoof. “It’s 7:30, Luna. I wake at 6 every morning.” A dark blue head poked from the bed and stuck out her tongue. “That’s because the moon doesn’t need to rise that early. Perks of being the moon princess.” Celestia rolled her eyes and sat on the bed next to her. “Hey Lulu, you’ve been spending far too much time in your room.” “Not true. I go out every night.” “When everypony’s asleep? Luna, you need to meet other ponies and talk to them.” Celestia argued. “Your point?” She muttered, blearily rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Why don’t you join me tomorrow in a walk around Canterlot? We could just walk around and enjoy ourselves. Cadence could take over the court for the day.” She pleaded. Luna sat up and looked at her sister doubtfully. “I don’t know, Tia…” Celestia smirked and played her trump card. “Did I mention Twilight Sparkle would be coming along with us?” Luna’s head shot up at the name. “I might consider it…” Celestia grinned triumphantly. “8 o clock tomorrow morning?” Luna nodded. “I’ll be there.” The final piece was in place. Celestia carefully controlled her emotions until she was out the door and out of Luna’s sight before snickering and pumping her hoof, much to the bemusement of Shadow and Nocturne. Upon noticing them, she flushed. “The two of you did not see anything.” “What was there to see, Highness? Nothing at all.” “Nothing of interest. Utterly unremarkable.” Celestia hurried back to her room, where she immediately tripped over a wire and faceplanted into a pie strategically placed on the floor. “Ouch!” “Dang, I meant that for Cadey. but I suppose this is just as funny!” Discord chuckled, giggling madly as he snapped a photo of the Alicorn of the sun with her face covered in pie. He hurriedly danced out of the way from three quills and an inkpot that launched themselves at him, cackling all the way. Cadence rolled her eyes as she emerged from the closet. She picked up a cloth with her magic and used it to wipe off the mess on her aunt’s face. “So how did it go, Auntie?” Celestia wiped the last traces of pie off her face. Honestly, she would have found it funnier if it had been cake. Tastier too. “It went perfectly, Cadence. Tomorrow, Twilight and Luna will be able to spend the whole day together, alone.” She smiled happily. Discord pulled out a bag of bits. “Want to bet if they kiss tomorrow?” Cadence punched him in the side with her hoof, causing him to pout and stow away the bag. Celestia sighed and rubbed her head. “Well, we’ll see what happens tomorrow.” Discord snapped his fingers, summoning an entire bucket of popcorn. “Good thing I have enough for tomorrow!” Cadence suddenly leaned in. “Wait, about tomorrow. We are following them, right? Celestia frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to be minding the court?” “I thought that was just our cover story!” Cadence protested. Celestia rolled her eyes. “Alright, I was going to be at the court anyway. I suppose you two can trail them, but no inteference, okay? Discord, if I hear anything about some chaos disrupting Canterlot tomorrow, I’ll know where to look and who to fry.” Discord summoned a glowing halo on his head with a click, and a group of confused choircolts suddenly found themselves singing in Celestia’s bedroom. “Who moi?” Celestia gave him a deadpan stare.  Discord shrugged and sent the colts back to wherever they had come from in the first place. “Oh, alright, fine. I won’t cause any major disturbances tomorrow.” Celestia sighed. “Why did I agree to this again?” The next morning, an hour after Celestia had raised the sun, she waited in the gardens of Canterlot. There was a bright pink flash, and Cadence arrived, dressed in a white trench coat, her hair tied up in a bun covered by a flamboyant brown hat. Before Celestia could comment on her strange appearance, there was an even brighter flash, accompanied by sounds of kazoos being blown and whoopee cushions being set off, and Discord appeared in all his glory, wearing a black tuxedo, a dark fedora pulled over his face, stylish sunglasses over his eyes and an elegant moustache on his face. “Cord, Discord. Ex-master of Chaos and disharmony, and current superspy.” He said in a faux British accent. Celestia facehoofed. “I don’t know whether to laugh or groan in despair.” Discord grinned. “Not to worry, Celly, we’ll blend in perfectly. OPERATION TWILUNA is GO!” Cadence glared. “I thought we agreed that was a stupid name!” Suddenly, they all heard the sound of somepony galloping over at a fast speed, and Discord and Cadence immediately teleported to another side of the garden, where they both peeked out from behind hedges, peering over their oversized sunglasses, giggling like foals. Celestia thought they were enjoying themselves just a bit too much. “Princess Celestia!” She was suddenly tackled by a lavender blur wrapping her wings around her. As she quickly regained her orientation, she returned the hug to the alicorn she almost considered a daughter. “Twilight Sparkle! You are certain early.” A slow smile crossed her face. “Did you gallop all the way from the station again?” Twilight flushed. “Yes, Princes - er, Celestia.” She smiled. “I was just so excited!” Celestia chuckled and then slowly ruffled her wings, her face teasing. Twilight noticed, and her eyes widened, before slapping herself with her hoof. “Oh, right. wings. I forgot.” She smiled sheepishly. “Not to worry, Twilight. Now, why don’t you tell me more about your life in Ponyville while we wait for the last member of our party?” She inquired. “I would love to!”Twilight beamed. An hour later, Luna arrived, blearily rubbing some sleep out of her eyes. Celestia didnt miss the way Twilight stiffened when she saw Luna arriving, nor did she miss the way Luna’s eyes lit up when she saw the purple alicorn. She barely repressed a giggle of her own. Perhaps this was a bit fun. The morning started out normally. A quick breakfast at Pony Joe’s, who barely lifted an eyebrow at three of the princesses in Equestria in his shop, and continued with business as usual. That was what Celestia and Luna often loved about the shop, where they were just treated as normal ponies. It was also why the shop had remained despite Blueblood’s constant complaints. They had a leisurely breakfast, talking about anything that came to mind. Twilight and Luna seemed to warm up considerably, and were soon chatting like old friends. She did her best to ignore the two figures huddled at a corner of the shop, who were obviously trying to spy on them over the top of the menus and were snickering at every given moment. Soon, as they exited the shop, they put the next part of the plan into motion. “Aunt Celestia!” Cadence teleported right next to them, thankfully remembering to take off the getup first. “There’s a problem in the Day Court. I need you there just for a moment!” She said in her best panicked tone of voice. “There’s this...pony...that said...stuff...about some thing!” She ad-libbed. Luckily, Luna and Twilight didnt suspect anything yet, and didn’t protest as she quickly took her leave and teleported back to the Day Court, bursting into laughter with Cadence as soon as they arrived. “That was surprisingly fun!” Celestia laughed. Cadence grinned. “I’m off to trail them, alright?” She vanished in a flash of pink. Celestia nodded to the guards to allow the ponies in to petition for their things, still indulging in the occasional mirthful chuckle. The morning went by fast, with most of the request being minor complaints and petitions that were easily solved and dealt with. Requests for farmland, complaints about low security, those were the mundane requests. There were a few ‘interesting’ cases, such as a unicorn asking to become a pegasus, which she had to deny, complaints about carrots which ran around and apples which danced from the market district, observations about bits laughing at their owners, and a particularly weird one about bowling balls stubbornly refusing to go anywhere near the pins no matter how they were thrown. There were also few downright irritating ones, such as Blueblood’s request for a statue built of himself to ‘boost morale’ and ‘increase respect for royalty’ in the town of Ponyville. Another irritating request was the frequent requests for more hours in a day by the Canterlot ponies. She’d usually just refer them to Luna’s night court for that. None of them usually complained again after facing the Royal Canterlot Voice. Finally, evening fell, and Celestia raised her sore rump from the throne to retire to her room. Perhaps she would ask one of her guards to bring her some cake. As she lay on her cushion, eating cake, she heard the sound of hoofbeats returning to the castle. She smiled expectantly and quickly walked out to greet her sister and her former student. They both had glowing smiles on their faces. “Well? How did your day go?” she asked. “You must tell me all about it.” “Oh Princess, it was a wonderful day!” Twilight gushed. “Luna and I had so much fun together!” Celestia leaned forward, eager to hear more. “OH YES, SISTER! YOU WERE RIGHT! TRULY IT WAS A FUN AND RELAXING DAY!!” Luna exclaimed. Seeing Twilight’s deadpan look, she quieted down to her normal tone of voice. “First we went to visit Twilight’s parents, then we had a cup of coffee at a stall. We shopped for some trinkets in the market district, and…” “And then we went to that new bowling alley in Canterlot! Luna was surprisingly good at it, and she kept turning heads by calling out -” “THE FUN HAS BEEN DOUBLED!!” “yes, and after that we spent the rest of the day at - “ “THE BOOKSTORE!” They both exclaimed, then burst into giggles. Celestia could only stare at them, wide-eyes as she tried to take in that overload of information. finally she understood it all and smiled at them. “Sounds like you had a great day! Did anything happen between the two of you?” She asked hopefully. Twilight and Luna exchanged confused looks, then turned back to her, their faces blank. Celestia tried to tamper down her disappointment. “Oh, never mind. forget I asked.” She smiled brightly. Did you take any photos?” “Of course!” After they had pored over the photos of the day, Twilight said her goodbyes and thank yous and returned to Ponyville. Luna nuzzled her sister happily and cantered off to raise the moon. When she was alone, Celestia sighed and groaned. Two bright flashes signaled the return of the ‘spies’, though much more subdued than this morning. “Well, that was a flop,” muttered Cadence glumly, taking off her hat and stowing it away. “They spent half a day in a bookstore! Still, I can’t say I’m really surprised at Twily for that…” “It was BOOOOOORING!” Discord wailed. “The market district and the bowling alley was fun, coz I could make bits jump around and make the goods annoy the customers, and cause the balls to perform dances in the alley, but one glance at me and the librarian chased me out with a stick.” He pulled out a cotton candy cloud and started munching it to cheer himself up. Cadence shrugged, also taking a hoofful of cotton candy. “I suppose being subtle doesn’t do much good with these two. They need a much stronger push for that.” Celestia laughed wryly. “I suppose.” Cadence smiled confidently. “Well tomorrow will be different. As Celestia is my witness, -” “Literally, in this case” Discord pointed out dryly. Cadence glared at him, then continued “II, the Princess of Love, shall get them to admit their feelings to each other by tomorrow night!” Celestia shrugged. “I witnessed it. Let’s see how you do tomorrow.” Discord flipped a thumbs up and teleported off in a flash to annoy the mane six in an attempt to cheer himself up. Cadence’s smile never wavered. “Don’t worry Auntie. What could possibly go wrong?” What indeed? Celestia wondered.