There was no use in being quiet anymore. Luna and I’s face were plastered on nearly every respectable newspaper and derogatory tabloid in the country, all of them saying the same thing: ‘Little Moon’. I personally would’ve gone with ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’, but that may have been a little bit too revealing when it came to our private life. Most of the articles in the mainstream media were pretty tame. Sure, there was the overall disapproval, but I expected that from them given my overall approval rating.
The tabloids, on the other hand, were a completely different animal. A lot of them were just blatant attacks on myself and Luna. Many of them claimed that the child was either a hoax just to bring more publicity to Luna and I, or just some kind of sick prank thought up by Luna that was meant to shock everyone. A smaller group of them really pissed me off, like the one that claimed they had an inside source that told them that the baby wasn’t mine, and it was just some random guard’s that I was taking the heat for, or a certain article bluntly calling Luna a slut that would screw anything that had a pulse, or was at least hard. I’d managed to keep that one away from Luna. We didn’t need any more negative publicity and destroying an entire news company wouldn’t necessarily help. Maybe if she destroyed all of them at once so they couldn’t report on it, but that probably wouldn’t work either.
“Do ponies actually believe this garbage?” I asked myself, taking a look through one of the particularly nasty articles. “First off, this is a boldfaced lie; second, I look a lot better than that in swim trunks; third, who the hell would write such terrible things about their government officials?”
I realized my question was stupid the moment I asked myself, especially being from the good ol’ U. S. of A. - where you can say anything you damn well please about anybody and put it in print without any repercussion. As long as it was politically correct, that was. I balled up said tabloid and tried to make it into the garbage can on the other side of the currently empty dining hall, but since I’m about as white as they come it sailed about five feet to the left.
“Of course, why wouldn’t I miss?” I grumbled, taking a sip out of my coffee mug before rising out of my seat to throw the trash away.
Just before I could step away from the table a faint, sapphire glow enveloped the crumpled up wad of paper and gently placed it into the trash can. I sighed to myself, knowing that there was only one pony I knew that had that particular coloring for their magic.
“Evening Luna,” I sighed, plopping back into my seat and sinking as deeply as I could into it, “I thought you’d still be asleep right now.”
“Well I’m not,” she replied with a bit more sass than I was used to hearing come from her, “I could easily say the same for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I turned to face her so I could follow with some sort of witty jab, but when my eyes fell on her I was at a total loss for words.
She was draped in a dark blue, transparent night gown, but she had the common courtesy of wearing a set of panties that managed to cover her up so I would be far less distracted while we tried to hold a conversation. The way the light shined behind her almost made her look like an angel with her hair flowing in that nonexistent wind that always seemed to follow her sister and herself. She was holding a coffee mug in one hand and a paper of her own in the other, hers was probably more tasteful than what I had been reading, but nevertheless it was a way of starting up a new conversation.
“What’s that you’re reading?” I asked pointing to the paper in her hand, hoping that would be enough for her to not ask me what I’d been reading.
“Just today’s issue of The Equestrian,” she answered, looking to the document in question, “it was left at our doorstep by who I assume to be either one of the guards or my sister.”
“Never really seen you read the paper before Luna, why’d you start now?”
“I’ve been reading the papers ever since the disastrous events that unfolded a few years back when I went to visit for Nightmare Night.” Luna replied, taking a seat opposite of me. “I normally read them whilst you are gallivanting through the castle with those… unique guards of mine.”
“Can’t blame a guy for making a few friends can ya?” I shrugged, grabbing my mug to take a drink.
“I suppose not,” Luna rolled her eyes as she took a deep breath.
After a few moments of content silence between us. Luna folded her arms across her chest she began to stare at me as if she was trying to glare into my soul. Now normally I would just laugh this off internally and make some kind of sarcastically dry comment about how cute she looked when she was trying to intimidate me. This time was different though, mainly for the fact of what had happened a few days prior, when her eyes momentarily changed into something that I knew wasn’t my Luna. Though I was affirmed by Celestia that it meant nothing I didn’t really feel like risking something like that happening again, especially on account that hormones do some crazy shit to the sweetest of girls, more so in the pregnant ones.
“Yes dear?” I asked, finally breaking our silence.
“You never answered my question,” Luna replied, furrowing her brow, “I haven’t seen you in the dreamscape for three days straight, I wish to know what troubles you.”
I tried to remain stoic, but the every fiber of my being was screaming that they wish she hadn’t asked that. If it was her sister I was talking to she would’ve smelled blood in the water like a starving shark and just eat me up. Fortunately for me however, Luna was nowhere near Celestia’s level of being able to read people.
“Got a lot on my mind lately…” I said calmly, placing my coffee back on the table, “can’t really sleep if-“
“Like what?” Luna interrupted.
“Excuse me?”
“What’s been on your mind?” Luna elaborated, leaning towards me with a look of both intrigue and concern, “I know you don’t normally approve, but if you could tell me what it is that’s bothering you I could easily go into your mind and-“
“First off I still like to keep my thoughts mine,” I said wagging my finger at her –there are always some things you’d rather keep private, even from your baby mama- “second, it’s just the stuff you’d expect. You know… baby stuff, boy or girl, names, schools, public image, will they accept them, whether or not the nobles will-”
“Nobles?” Luna interrupted, her interest peaked.
“Well yeah, I’m kind of worried about them for when that little guy or gal pops out of you… Well… let’s just say they won’t roll out the red carpet or anything.”
“Are you saying that they would bring harm to our child?” Luna asked, clenching her fists.
I froze, mentally slapping myself across the face for being so damn stupid. Why the hell would I even remotely consider bringing something like that up? In truth I wasn’t actually going there, I was going to ask if they would call him a prince or a bastard, but in hindsight that probably would’ve gone over just as well as what was currently happening. The debate going on inside my head was quickly silenced when out of the corner of my eye I saw Luna looking to her now open palms.
“If they so much as dream of harming ANYTHING I love…” she growled as her eyes shifted from soft blue to a hard teal yet again, “I will personally grind them into-“
“It’s you Luna!” I blurted, stopping her before she said anything crazier, “I can’t sleep because of you!”
With a few quick blinks her eyes turned back to their original state. The look of shock on her face was much more welcome than the one she had seconds earlier, I could’ve sworn that I saw fangs. Just as soon as I had said what needed saying, the room fell silent again. Luna continued to stare at me, much like a toddler that didn’t know what they had done was wrong. I braced myself for a tongue lashing, and not the kind that I found enjoyable.
“Y-you can’t sleep… because of m-me?” I could see her starting to tear up –sometimes I hate how blunt I can be- “You’re scared of me?”
I had to think really hard about what I chose to say, I didn’t want her anymore upset then I had already made her. “Well…” I began, rubbing the back of my head, “it’s not technically you that’s kept me up for the past three days.”
“Then what has?” She asked, getting out of her seat, “what is it about me that has kept you from being by my side while I sleep?”
“Do you remember three days ago?” I asked, “When we went public?”
“It’s hard to forget such a harsh and violent reaction,” Luna nodded, sinking into her seat a bit, “I can understand why you haven’t slept now. The new surge of anger and disdain would be-“
“Like I said before, it wasn’t their reaction that worried me…” I interrupted before she could go further, “it was yours’.”
Luna nearly fell out of her seat, completely shocked that I would say something like that. An odd mix of grunts, high pitched huffs, and half words came out of Luna’s mouth before she finally was able to form a proper sentence. “M-my reaction? They called me a harlot! And seconds later they accosted you!”
“I can deal with the whole ‘sticks and stones’ bullshit Luna,” I replied reaching out for her hands, “but when the woman I love becomes something I KNOW she’s not, even if it’s only for a second, that’s when I get worried.”
Suddenly the room became quiet. Luna was frozen in place, her hands stiff in mine. “What do you mean, ‘becomes something I know she’s not’?”
“You don’t remember?” I asked only to receive a slightly worried head shake from Luna, “you literally did it again five minutes ago…”
“Did what?” Luna asked, her tone growing ever more worried, “What did I do?”
“It started out simple enough,” I began thinking back to a few days ago. “Celestia pointed out that I’d been hurt, you started using your voodoo on me, but not long after you were done with the spell something… changed.”
“What… changed?”
“For starters it was the way you spoke,” I answered, watching her concern grow into fear, “you started talking like a tyrant, like one who’d kill anyone who’d dare question you.”
Luna’s pupils shrank as a trail of sweat flowed from her brow to her chin. “A-anything else?”
“Your eyes,” I said without skipping a beat, “They weren’t like they are now, they were teal, and your pupils went from normal to cat-like. It was like you’d become an entirely different person.”
Luna shot up from her seat, effectively knocking it on the ground. Her hands went to cover her mouth as I saw the first signs of tears welling up in her eyes. I got out of my own seat, in an attempt to reach out to her, but she backed away. Almost in the exact same fashion as she did when she first found out bacon was meat, nearly tripping over herself and all.
“Nonononono,” she murmured through her covered mouth, letting a tear trickle down her face, “no, not again, oh Harmony, please no…”
“Luna, what’s wrong?” I asked, practically jumping over the table to reach her before she backed herself into the wall. “Why are you so upset?”
“S-stay away!” she begged, still backing away. “Please, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay-“
I wrapped her up in my arms before she could finish. She struggled briefly in my arms to break free, but ultimately she succumbed to me and wrapped her own arms around my waist. Still fighting, and failing to fight back the torrent that had filled her eyes.
“I’m not letting go of you,” I whispered, looking her square in the eyes, “not until you tell me what it is that’s gotten you so worked up.”
Luna stared to me in silence for a few seconds, sniffing away the tears that were still trying to fall before she buried her head into my chest and clung to me like a child’s security blanket. “Do you remember when we first met? When you showed me that I was a part of a little girls TV show?”
“Kinda hard to forget that day,” I nodded, thinking back to maybe the third or fourth day I’d known her, “what about it?”
“Do you remember what the story was about?”
“Yeah, you were tired of being shunned and feared by the ponies. So you turned into Night-“
I could feel the blood in my veins freezing. How could I have been so dense not to remember that the instant I saw those eyes? I looked back down to Luna once again; the fear in her eyes reflected my own for a brief moment before I pulled her in tightly once more, gliding my hand up and down her back in an attempt to calm her down.
“It’s alright, babe,” I said softly resting my chin on the top of her head, “everything’s going to be okay.”
“I-I don’t ever want to hurt anyone ever again…” Luna whimpered, nuzzling me like an abandoned puppy, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not going to do either,” I said lifting her chin up so she would look at me, “you want to know why?”
Luna looked up to me with her infamous puppy eyes, but they were desperately holding back a torrent of water rather than convince me to do something I’d normally disagree to. A few moments of silence passed between us as I waited for her to come up with the response herself, but she was just so distraught that all she could do was fight a losing battle against her tears. She finally opened her mouth in an attempt to summon a reply, but I leaned to kiss her before any words were spoken.
The instant our lips touched she released her grip around my waist and slid her hands through my arms and to the back of my neck in an attempt to pull me even closer. I simply kept my hand under her chin, where I soon felt that she was no longer able to hold back the emotions she’d been fighting. We stayed there locked onto one another for close to a minute before we finally parted ways. I sighed with a grin on my face. It had been forever since we kissed like that, since I made sure she knew I was there for her with a simple kiss, it felt great.
A sudden pressure on my chest brought me back to reality. Luna had once again started to bury herself as deeply as possible as she could into me, but this time it felt different. Instead of it feeling like her doing it out of pure need for comfort, she seemed far more at ease and she was simply doing it just because she wanted to. My smile only widened as I wrapped my arms around her once more, resting my chin on the top of her head.
“You’re not her…” I whispered just loud enough so Luna could hear me.
“What?” Luna asked, looking up to me.
“The reason I know you won’t hurt anyone,” I said looking down to her with a smile, “you’re not her.”
“I’m not quite sure I understand,” Luna said lowering her head, “Nightm-She and I are and always have been one in the same.”
“Bullshit,” I stated bluntly, “she’s nothing like you.”
“I wish I could agree with you Aedan…” Luna said looking off into the distance, “but she’s-“
“She’s not the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met,” I interrupted, grabbing her chin so she would look at me, “she’s not the sweetest, kindest and loving person I have ever come to know. She’s not the one that only took three weeks for me to fall so stupidly in love with that I put up with everything from embarrassment to near death experiences just so she could get back home. Finally, she’s NOT the mother of my child… YOU are.” Before she could reply I pressed my lips to hers again, nearly turning her into warm butter in my arms. “Now don’t forget that.”
Luna looked to me in euphoric silence for a few moments before resting her head on my chest yet again, breathing deeply as she did so. “Why are you so good at that?” she whispered, “how come you always know what to say?”
“Call me lucky I guess,” I shrugged; “now we’ve-“
My train of thought was derailed by what felt like a pair of sledgehammers slamming into my temples. Within seconds I was on my knees with my hands pressed hard against my head. I growled in a combination of pain and frustration, it’d been nearly a week since I’d had one of these damn headaches and I really didn’t appreciate one coming on while I was having a rather tender moment with Luna. I didn’t get to have a look at Luna on account that I was so concentrated on the fact that it felt that my brain was growing three sizes without the permission of my skull, but I was sure she was worried given my lover’s premonition.
I fought to raise my arm in her direction, asking silently for some help back to my feet. She did one better though, placing her hand on my head I felt the pain subside within moments. I opened my eyes to see her hand just inches from my face and when I looked up I saw a loving yet concerned smile on her face. Taking her hand I rose back to my feet with a smile of my own and a few questions for my savior.
“I taught myself a few healing spells after that one evening a few months ago,” Luna explained before I could ask, “I thought it would come in handy at some point in time.”
“No kidding,” I groaned, rubbing my temples extensively. “Now I know I don’t have to ask your sister for help with those anymore.”
Luna opened her mouth to reply, but stalled for a moment. The concern in her voice was mostly gone when she did speak again. “Why did you go to my sister for help?”
“Well, Celestia’s always there when I need her,” I answered, shrugging my shoulders, looking at her with a hint of confusion. “You’re never really around when I have them, so I just go to the one readily available.”
Apparently my response wasn’t the right one, because Luna was starting to
frown now. “Aedan, you should have told me about it anyway. If this is something you’ve been dealing with regularly, I should be a part of making it better. I care about you more than anything else, after all.”
“You never seem to be around to show it,” I shot back. “I barely see you at night because of all the work you do, and anytime you’re not working it’s like you’ve vanished somewhere, if you’re not asleep.”
Luna was getting increasingly defensive, folding her arms in front of her chest. “Well, I’m sorry if it takes time to do my job properly! That’s why I need you to talk to me, so I can know when I need to take a break from my work.”
Hard to do when I rarely see you! Was what I wanted to say, but I was trying to minimize the damage as much as possible here, so I opted for a much safer route. “Alright, fine, I get it. ‘Communication skills’ and all that.” I folded my arms across my chest, ready to deliver my own ultimatum. “But if I’m going to bring up small stuff like this when I know it’ll worry you more than it should, you’ll have to do something to make yourself less busy. I’m not going to add my problems to yours with everything you have going on.”
“And what would you propose?” Luna asked, relaxing her posture. Looks like we avoided nuclear war.
After thinking over it a bit, I said, “Why not ask Celestia on how she gets so much free time? I mean-” I finally saw that Luna had tensed up at my suggestion, even more than she was before I gave her that point. “What’s up with you?”
“We shouldn’t be bringing anyone else into this,” she answered. “This is a private matter, and it is one we should deal with ourselves.”
“Well if these past few minutes are any indication of how that’d go...” I retorted, letting the silence hang for a bit while pointing back and forth between us. “I think we’d end up putting the Cold War to shame. I think she’d be able to at least be able to help us out in some way. I mean, after all, she’s been doing this kind of thing for centuries.”
“That is what makes it so difficult for me to rule at nights now! The bureaucracy was fit for a single ruler not that long ago, and it has been slow to adjust. She can’t offer any relevant advice I don’t already know.” Yeah, I definitely stepped on another landmine. She’s getting way more pissed just talking about it.
“Look, you and I both know this is going nowhere,” I said pinching the bridge of my nose. “Celestia actually might be able to help with something, alright? Just do it for me. Please?”
After several moments of staring very pointedly at a wall somewhere behind me, she turned around in a huff. “Fine. I’ll speak with Celestia in the morning about how she governs so it may free up more time in my schedule.”
Luna is terrible at poker. She’s never that formal in talking with me, and anyone with a working eye could see she was angry over something to do with this. With the way she was stomping away, they wouldn’t even need that. I wanted to bring it up, but I figured it was something stupid like pride that I couldn’t change, and I didn’t want to spend the rest of the night arguing here. Mirroring her mood, I followed her back to our room.
There was absolute silence between the two of us on the way back to our room. We were still obviously tense from our argument, and it just seemed to radiate off the two of us. Hell, even some of the hardened guards backed off as we walked past them.
It probably only took us ten minutes for us to get back to the room, but it sure as hell felt longer than that given earlier events. At least Luna had the courtesy of letting me in the room without slamming the door in my face, so I had that going for me. I retired to my corner of the room while Luna headed into the bathroom to get ready for her oh-so-important royal duties.
I sat there in my chair, brooding as I thought about what had transpired earlier. I could hardly believe it went downhill so quickly. All I’d said was that Celestia had been taking care of me whenever I had one of those damn headaches and now we’re both pissed off over something we didn’t even finish! She was busy saying how I needed to be more open with her and everything, while she’s clearly holding out on me on why she’s upset about my solution. It’s clear th-
My thoughts on the matter were halted when I heard the bathroom door open. Wanting a distraction and curious as to why she hadn’t taken long to get ready, I looked over to the door. What I saw made my heart skip a beat.
Luna wasn’t completely dressed yet; the only things she was wearing were her matching set of black lace panties, thigh high stockings, elbow gloves, and high heels, with her negligee draped over her shoulder for good measure. She was obviously ignoring me, because if she hadn’t she would have seen me putting my lower jaw back in place as she walked to the mirror. She stopped right in front of the mirror on her side of the bed, inspecting her figure like I assumed every women did when they were pregnant.
Her body was still in amazing shape, from her deep blue hair that sparkled with tiny stars, all the way to her legs that seemed to go forever. The only thing that seemed out of place was the small bump on the lower half of her gorgeously tan stomach, but that was a given with her in the early stages of her pregnancy. She rubbed the bump for a few moments, sighing, with a slight amount of disappointment evident in her actions.
Without thinking, I made my way to her, letting the force guide me to my destination despite what emotions clouded my thoughts. I was soon standing behind her, looming like a lion ready to strike. She didn’t even know I was there until I put my hands on her hips, which resulted in one of her famously adorable squeaks.
“D-don’t even think about it!” she hissed in an attempt to still seem menacing. “I still have to do my nightly-“
I interrupted her with a kiss that made her body go completely stiff for a good minute. “The night can wait,” I growled, pulling her body into mine.
“H-how dare you kiss me!” she yelled after coming to, adding a quick slap across my face for good measure. “How... dare you.”
Luna suddenly pulled me down to her level to return my kiss, adding some extra tongue behind hers. The instant our lips parted a second time I could see that her eyes were burning with anger and a little something extra, just like mine. Before either of us knew it we were on the bed and all over each other, throwing inhibition to the wind.
She had just gotten my shirt off when three very loud knocks erupted from our door, effectively halting my hands’ advance towards the lower regions of her stomach. We waited awkwardly for a few seconds until we thought whoever was at our door had gotten a clue before we were at it again, but as soon as we started the knocking returned.
“We’re BUSY!” I yelled, with a hint of desperation. I’d hoped that whoever was at the door would get the hint and leave us be, but as usual the cosmos had far different plans.
“Auntie Luna?” a feminine voice from beyond the door called, turning my lover’s eyes into slits, “Auntie Luna it’s-“
“By Harmony,” Luna whispered, “It’s my niece!”