//------------------------------// // Chapter Six Luna // Story: A Chance Meeting of Two Moons // by Evilhumour //------------------------------// Chapter Six - Luna Solaris looked down at the mare who was blinking up at him who was no longer yelling at him, just panting a bit as she tried to think things through. He recognized the face from Arty’s dream realm and dear Faust, they looked so much alike and what the bucking Tartarus was he thinking in making out with her sister like that! “Sire?” Steel Barricade said, taking a step into the room, forcing him to turn his head around to stare at her. “What, what is going on here‽” “I di-“ He turned to his- what did he even call Luna? His sister from another universe? Oh Faust, that didn’t help things, knowing how much Arty liked her! “Luna, are you okay?” “Okay‽” she snapped, placing a hoof on his chest, “OKAY‽” She stood up on her hooves which he numbly noticed had swirling pattern socks over them, and she was starting to pick things up in her magical aura. “After what you and my sister did‽” She started to throw several objects at him now; Arty’s crown and helmet hit the floor in front of his skidding hooves, his torc hitting him square in the chest. Solaris was no greenhoof when it came to a mare’s scorn in the morning, and he was already running out of the room when she started to yell at him to get out. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Steel Barricade wrap her arms around the lunar princess? as Arty’s nightstand went sailing over his head, crashing into the floor. Oh buck him, this was bad. Solaris sat in his study room, the massive amount of paperwork still on the floor after shoving it off in a fit of pithy rage. His mind continued to go over what he did in Arty’s dream realm, trying to comprehend what he did. He’d… kissed that mare. Celestial? Celecerine? He couldn’t remember; he just saw how hurt his brother looked, how betrayed he looked, oh Faust why. He had promised Mother and Father, he promised himself, oh Faust he promised Arty that he would never do anything to hurt his brother. Yet time and time again, he did something to hurt his brother; opening his mouth to the ponies cheering their victory over Eris, and Arty’s feelings were stomped into the ground due to him taking in the praises too much; doing something nice for his little brother’s birthday, and his self-esteem, self-respect, and pride he had were gone and he’d gained a humiliating fear; try to give him some space after that fuckup, and Arty believed that no one cared about him and his night and tried to bring Eternal Night as Nighterror Knight; promising to behave himself when meeting the first mare Arty had ever shown some interest in since the fuckup, and he broke his word less than minute in and bucking humiliated his brother in the one place that Artemis had complete control over. And these were only the worst moments he had majorly messed up; knowing there must have been thousands of other times he did something stupid that hurt his brother. That’s all he ever did, hurt hurt hurt. He should have been banished to the moon, not Arty. He did not know how long he sat crying at his desk, but it was suddenly cut off when the chair was yanked away, slamming his head into the wood, his crown and helmet rolling to the side. He turned his head to see a furious draconequus glaring at him. “YOU BUCKING PIG!” Eris yelled at him, slapping him across the face. “I KNOW YOU ARE STUPID, BUT I DIDN’T EXPECT THIS AMOUNT OF STUPIDITY!” She grabbed a thick tome and started to hit him across the head with it, causing the stallion to yelp out in pain, trying to scoot away from her. “I MAY BE THE EMBODIMENT OF CHAOS BUT EVEN I WOULDN’T DO THAT!” She continued to scream at him, kicking his stomach a few times and then grabbed him by his mane. “DO YOU EVEN HAVE ANY IDEA OF HOW HURTFUL THAT WAS‽” “YES!” he bellowed back in the Royal Canterlot Voice, glaring at her, tears still going down his face. “I bucked it up, just like I do everything when I try to help my brother! Every time I try to help him, I end up hurting him in some new way!” Her grip on his ethereal mane loosened up, her eyes opening wide in surprise. “I- he’s the only family I have left and nothing I ever do… Oh Faust,” he sobbed, leaning into his old foe turned friend’s chest, letting out his shame at his countless failures for the one pony he loved above all. He felt her rub his back, but he continued to cry, feeling so ashamed of everything he had done in the last thousand years, all those years he could have been firmer, make sure Arty’s return would have been seen as something good, that blasted festival should have been banned the first year instead of turning the celebration of Nightterror Knight’s fall into a bucking child’s festival! How could he have been that selfish, that weak for his brother! “Why, why do I only hurt him?” She just held him, rubbing his back out of some reflex. Eris had come in here to beat up Sunbutt for hurting little Lulu, but now she was stuck in this awkward situation. Oh, what would her Butterscotch do?… Besides this emotion thing. After a few minutes of just sitting there, Solaris pulled away from the draconequus. “E-Eris, I’m going to do the right thing for once,” he took a breath to steady himself. “I’m going to send for the only ponies that have ever helped my brother and then…” He trailed off, clearly afraid to lose this train of thought. “Y- you go do that Sunbutt,” Eris blinked, floating away from the stallion as he started to write out a letter, the feather shaking in his magical aura. “I’m going to see if Lulu and the gals found any more ice cream.” Dusk Shine yawned contently, glad to be at Sugarcube Corner and out of his new treehouse although he still missed the old Golden Oaks library. Not to say he didn’t enjoy his new crystal treehouse-palace of Friendship, but it was a palace, not a library. He was a scholar through and through, and he was still doing his best to regain the lost books so all his friends in Ponyville could enjoy reading again. Take one of his best friends Rainbow Blitz for example; nose buried deep inside the latest Dashing Dare novel, so much that he didn’t notice Elusive was making great progress on fixing his mane, getting all the colours to flow the right way. Turning his attention away from the inevitable fight that was sure to come, he looked across the table to see that Bubble Berry was eating another cupcake; how that stallion had not keeled over from any illness was beyond him, just like Berry Sense. Fighting back the eye twitch that came after he had tried to learn Berry Sense, he saw Applejack enjoying a simple slice of pie, talking with Butterscotch about the local timberwolves, seeing if anything could be done about them. “Heya guys, mind making some room?” Six heads turned to see Barbara, or Barbs as she liked to be called, had come back from the washroom, a bit crestfallen to see her seat next to Elusive was taken by the bouncing pink earth pony that was Bubble Berry. “Sure thing squirt,” Applejack smiled, tipping his stetson hat as he pushed inwards next to the other earth pony on the booth. “Saved ya a slice from this greedy creature.” He jabbed a hoof into Bubble Berry’s side, causing the party pony to gasp playfully. “You eat one too many slices and you never let it go, do you?” he huffed, rolling his eyes. “It was an entire cake BB.” Rainbow Blitz shuddered from his book, still bit traumatized by how his old friend ate the entire cake in one bite. “A double layer cake.” He put his book down, with the page open to keep his spot and damaging the spine! No! It would be bad to fix it, Dusk told himself. “You know our Bubble Berry, if he gets hungry enough, then nothing under Solaris’s sun can stop him.” Elusive’s laughter was carried out by everypony, causing a bit of a yelp of pain from the two ponies with naturally born wings as Dusk’s new wings were far stronger than a normal pegasi’s, and he still hadn’t learned how to not flair his wings when laughing. “Oi egghead, are you ever going to let me teach you how to use these wings of yours?” Rainbow Blitz spat out a feather, trying to push the wing back to the side. “Blitz, I’ve been busy getting all the darn paperwork to get books back to Ponyville done, including that Dashing Dare novel you are bending the spine out of place on right now, plus I have to deal with a ton of other work now that I am a Prince.” He sighed, trying to enjoy this outing his friends had forced him on. “Besides, Prince,” he pushed a hoof into the table to correct himself, causing a dent as he had yet to learn to control his newfound earth pony strength either. ”I mean, Solaris is always sending me some new work, trying to get me used to my new title.” He paused for a moment, biting into a cupcake with some thought on his head. “Or some new threat has happened and he wants us to head to Canterlot right away.” The daredevil pony just sighed and rolled his eyes. “Oh come on, when was the last-” Burp All of their eyes turned to a new message sitting on the table, and then to Dusk as he picked it up and started to read it. Applejack thought he could catch some of the words, as his friend did mouth the words as he read, but the frown and then smirk told him everything he needed to know. “Well guess where we’re going?” Dusk Shine said with a grin, with the ponies leaving the booth to make haste for Dusk to teleport them. Blitz sighed, facehoofing for tempting fate, and then blinked as he looked into the polished table. “Elusive, you brushed my mane again!” “RAINBOWBLITZNOSONICRAINBOOMSINSIDEBUILDINGS!” Dusk shouted, terrified as he grabbed his angry friend’s tail with his magic. “Do you remember what happened last time?” The prismatic pony blinked, and blushed. “Oh yeah,” rubbing his neck as he shook his head to re-ruffle his mane. “Sorry about that barn AJ.” Solaris watched the letter fly off into the sky with a sigh. Calling in his former student Dusk Shine and his friends was the right call. Even though he had ruined Dusk when he was practically raising him as his own son, the stallion had proven to do something right for Arty, freeing him from that monster Nightterror Knight, and doing so much to save his country and his fat plot time and time again. He sighed, trying to recall more of his failures when his latest came into his study room. She looked stunning; his guards and Eris had apparently given her a makeover after raiding all the ice cream within two city blocks from the castle. Her ethereal mane and tail were combed perfectly and blowing exquisitely; her coat was rubbed and polished until it seemed to sparkle with its own stars, and her eyes were focused on him. “Solaris.” “Luna,” he muttered numbly, his shame rebounded as he saw this beautiful mare, wondering how he could have ever hurt her? He was resigned to the fact he would always hurt his brother: no matter what he did, Arty was always hurt so it was about time he accepted his fate. “I understand that Eris talked to you, and while I am greatly bothered to say that any action of a draconequus is right, I am glad to hear what she told me is correct.” Luna took a step forward, forcing him to stare at her, seeing Arty in her face, although it was bit off. “You believe that you are a creature that can only hurt your brother.” She stopped until she was practically nose to nose to him. “You may be many things, Solaris, but from what I have observed, while you are a pony that deeply cares for his brother with four left hooves when trying to help, you are certainly no monster.” She placed a hoof on his mouth when he tried to protest, unlike Arty who would just bowl him over by continuing to talk as if he hadn’t said anything. It was unnerving how easy that worked for Arty as Solaris always found himself tongue tied when he tried it. “I have known heartless creatures and monsters, and they lack what you have. Love. No monster without a heart would be in this much despair if they did not truly love the pony that they had hurt.” She sighed, looking sad herself again. “I suppose it would have been nice to be loved once…” Solaris stopped her with a hoof over her mouth. “Luna, I am willing to bet anything you once had the Element of Honesty, correct?” She gave him a weak nod. “Then why did you just lie?” He didn’t let her answer, on a roll now. “Luna, you do not know how much it meant to see Arty out of his armor and that close to a mare.” He looked to the floor, wondering how much he should tell. “Long ago, I hurt him badly. To the point that I thought it would take another millennia or so for him to be comfortable enough to be without his regalia when there was another mare in the room.” He leaned down to nuzzle her, his shame of what had happened that night still fresh in his soul. As long as he lived, he would never forgive himself for doing that to Arty. “He cares deeply for you if he could do that just seeing you once, and that means love in my eyes.” He chuckled a bit, ruffling her mane out of some instinctual sibling reflex. She huffed, rolling her eyes at his actions, trying to swat away his hooves. “And you got everypony to take care of you; I’ve not seen that much devotion since the Royal Wedding when they swarmed Gleaming Shield to make sure she was just perfect.” He laughed, pulling her into a hug with a wing. She giggled at this, seeming to be in better spirits already. “Tartarus, you got Eris to go to your side without any arm twisting from Butterscotch.” He smiled, lifting her head up. She was smiling warmly back at him, clearly holding back some laughter and trying to be still annoyed at him. “Need I say more?” “Solaris, if I said yes, you would never cease if my assessment of you is correct,” Luna rolled her eyes, taking a step back from him. “You are an incorrigible goof with a heart of gold with a tendency to act before thinking and certainly no monster.” She tapped her chin, as if in thought. “Well, maybe a monster that devours the helpless cakes and sweets.” She tapped her hoof on his chest. He laughed at that, pulling her into another hug with his arm. She squawked, and then giggled as she tried to escape his hold. He was confident now; he could fix his relationship with Arty, make things right. For everything he did to his little brother and he knew that meant making sure his marefriend was happy. And she was. For once everything was just fi- “Solaris, I’m here like you as-Who is that‽” He blinked, looking to see Dusk Shine and the rest of his friends pour into his study room, with low hanging jaws, seeing him hold the lunar princess close to him. BUCK!