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// Interlude: She Who Waits 
// Story: Deathless 
// by Gaudior 
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"Still, sister? Truly?"

Celestia looked up, stirred from her reverie, and smiled fondly at Luna as she approached. "Oh, Luna. Forgive me, but it isn't what you think."

Celestia had awakened early, and instead of going back to sleep, she'd decided to wander the Royal Gardens. As usual, when her mind wandered, her hooves did too, and she'd found herself arriving at a very particular corner of the Canterlot gardens: four ancient statues, one larger and more prominent, the other three slightly smaller, all proud and defiant.  Satisfied, she'd curled up in the grass at the base the largest statue as she waited for the dawn.

"So thou, in fact, are not still pining for thy long-lost love?" Luna asked, gesturing to the life-sized armored pegasus statue atop the pedestal Celestia had chosen to rest under.

"No, I'm not," Celestia said, rolling her eyes, getting to her feet and shaking off the morning dew. "I did for a long time, you know. He's even the reason I began taking apprentices, remember?"

"Indeed," Luna replies, her eyes narrowed. "A practice We never did approve of."

"Good thing I did it anyway, hmm? It was one of those apprentices who brought you back to me."

Luna's expression softened, and she allowed a low, throaty chuckle. "A fair point, sister. But we were speaking of thee. And thine."

"Really, Luna, it's nothing like that. While you were gone, it was hard sometimes," Celestia said, her gaze far away. "You’d always known me so well, and without you I -- well, I occasionally lacked perspective. The only one I’d ever trusted as much as you was Hurricane, so, without you to talk to... sometimes I'd come here. It cleared my head, talking to him. After a time it became a comfortable habit."

Luna peered up at the weathered statue, noticing as if for the first time the majestic arc of the pegasus's wings. "The artist captured the Commander and his officers well. This is a fitting tribute for their sacrifice."

"Indeed," Celestia replied, a faint smile on her lips.

"And 'tis sheer coincidence that thou hast rejected every suitor in the intervening millennia, no doubt," Luna said, slyly giving her sister a sidelong glance.

Feigning indignance, Celestia stuck her tongue out at her sister and blew a raspberry before chuckling. "You've caught me, Luna. At this very moment, Twilight Sparkle is coming to show me how to turn rock statues into real living beings!"

Luna's eyes widened for a moment before Celestia began giggling at her. "Laugh, sister mine," she said, chuckling a bit herself, "but there is aught We would believe that mare incapable of."

"Be nice," Celestia said, smirking. "She is one of us now."

"Another of thy more questionable decisions," Luna said, but this time she was the first to grin. "And where hast Our perilously powerful peer been these last evenings? We have noted that a number of sleepers in Ponyville are far more peaceful than usual, and she herself has been absent from Our own nocturnal travels. We are forced to wonder where Twilight might have taken her mischief of late, and what experiment has kept her so sleepless."

"You know, I haven't heard from her recently. Let's get her up for tea," Celestia said, conjuring an ink-laden quill and a parchment scroll. Quickly penning a missive, she sealed it and sent it along, a brief flash of green fire confirming it had reached Twilight’s right-hand dragonling, Spike.

Luna glanced up at the statue of Hurricane before looking back to her sister. "So truly, then, thy heart aches for him no longer? Thy search for his aura has ceased at last?"

"I... didn't quite say that," Celestia replied evasively. "I searched for his aura, for echoes of his soul, for years -- you were still there for some of it, as I recall.”

“Thou dost recall correctly,” Luna replied, clearing her throat. “Our hall of mirrors was once a legendary crossroads between the worlds, ‘til the day you sealed it off for your own ends.  And, lest we forget, the new portal to Tartarus you personally and foolishly evoked after sealing off all the others --”

“I know, Luna. I was desperate, and doubly so after I lost you. At any rate, I never found him. And with you gone and Equestria in need, the luxury of pining for a lost love was… simply not something I could afford anymore.  I had to… I had to let him go."

Luna watched her sister closely but remained silent, nodding once.

"Of course I miss him," Celestia finally said, allowing a small, sad smile. "But I accepted what must be a long, long time ago. He is a fond, bittersweet memory now. Nothing more."

"We find this appropriate," Luna said. "He was, in truth, a rough-hewn but singular pony, and had he not been thine -- but that to one side.  If honoring him is thy desire, then thy own happiness should be a greater priority.  He would not have wished to see thee alone for so long."

“I’ve taken lovers since then,” Celestia said, though an edge of irritation had crept into her voice.

“But never again a Consort.”

Celestia glanced away, a little guiltily. “It’s not against Equestrian law to want to be independent.”

Luna frowned. “Surely thou cans’t not--”

Not unexpectedly, a green flash of fire lit up between the sisters, and a parchment scroll, reconstituted in flame, wafted into Celestia's waiting telekinetic field. Thankful for the interruption, Celestia began scanning the letter, and as she did she read the high points aloud to Luna. "You're right, she's not in Ponyville."

"Dreamers do not lie," joked Luna, but she stopped her laughter when she saw Celestia's expression had grown concerned. "Sister?"

"She left her castle in Ponyville two mornings ago. No notes to anyone. Spike thought she'd come here."

"’Tis not her fashion, to leave so without much ado.  We mislike the sound of this."

Celestia looked up, her brows furrowed, "Sulfur. Spike says the castle stank of sulfur the morning she disappeared.  He says he thought he might have had too much pizza the night before," Celestia continued, stifling a small chuckle, “but he concedes that the sheer volume of the… odor… makes it unlikely that it was all his fault.”

"The dragon has always been a gastric terror," Luna mused, frowning.  “It took months to purge the stench from Twilight’s old chambers.”

Celestia allowed herself a light chuckle this time, but her face fell as she considered the problem further.  "Spike’s eating habits aside, Twilight’s still missing.  And now I’m concerned, because if there was a magical operation in her castle which produced the stink of sulfur..."

Luna's eyes widened. "Cerberus has not left his post since the debacle with Tirek, sister.  Surely you don’t think --"

"I don’t want to, but we don’t dare assume anything,” Celestia murmured, gazing up into the pre-dawn sky. “For now, keep this between us. It's dawn, and I have my duty to perform. But afterwards, we're going to find Discord and have him help us get to the bottom of this."