Priest’s Conviction, part 1
She ran down the overgrown path, finding footholds and avoiding protruding roots out of pure muscle memory. She could barely see the shadowy forest around her as her lungs burned and stung to provide her aching body the oxygen to keep running. She didn’t dare looking behind her, nor did she need to, as she knew exactly what chased her. She knew exactly what would happen if it were to catch her and that certainty brought her no comfort. Being forced to see and feel your body being torn apart was not something that lost its shock value after a few times.
Stumbling on a root stretching across the path she had not encountered before, Luna felt jaws snap above her, as her clumsiness saved her from another painful faux death. The beast pursuing her barreled past her and tackled her body out of the safety of the path, sending her tumbling through the old decaying trees around her. Dead plant matter showered down all around her, the floating particles disturbed menacingly by the great beast chasing her snapping blindly at the air in search of her.
Struggling to stand and stay as quiet as possible, Luna got back to her hooves and started to trot away from the insane beast. The beast was far too busy attacking the forest around it to hear her stumble away and toward a speck of light peeking through the trees. She had seen this speck of light before, but had not been able to reach it before the beast caught her.
Luna could see that the light beyond the trees was the porchlight of a small hunting cabin and with a breath of relief she saw a shadow of someone moving inside. She was about to step into the small clearing the cabin had been built on, when she realized the forest had fallen deathly silent yet again. The beast was searching for her again, stalking her from some unseen shadow.
Rushing through the exposing clearing, she hurriedly knocked on the door of the cabin, as hard as she dared, knowing how acute the beast’s hearing was. “Please, help us! We are chased by a terrible beast!” Luna pleaded in a desperate whisper through the oaken door. To her immense relief she could hear the occupant of the small cabin move toward the door in response.
“Password.” A voice stated through the door, sounding almost bored, despite her distress.
“Wh- what? We are in mortal peril! You are to allow us both aid and shelter, if ye dare call yourself a -”
“Still waiting on that password, your rudeness.” The voice cut her off, a smidgen of mirth tinting the voice.
“Ye can’t be serious!” Luna hissed and slammed a hoof on the door. She regretted making so much noise in her current situation immediately, but simply decided to huddle closer to the door nonetheless, as it was her only hope. “Why do you refuse me entry?”
“Well, I find myself lacking one itty-bitty password. That fearsome thing is still out there, it would be a shame to see you die such a meaningless death, again.” The voice beyond the door chuckled darkly and Luna could see the shadow move away from the door. “Well, I guess there’s no helping it.”
“We know why you desire this word and we are -” Luna was interrupted by a low growl cutting through the still night like a well-sharpened blade through unwilling meat. She knew exactly what she would see if she dared a glance behind herself, she knew exactly what would happen and how long it would take her mind to be overcome by the trauma and the scenario would start all over again.
She didn’t know what would happen if she uttered that itty-bitty password, before the beast lunged at her. This uncertainty was the only glimmer of hope she could see and despite her better judgment, she clung to that light.
“Aliquam Molestus Mendax!” Luna rattled out the three words she had bound the human spirit with. She could hear the lock on the hunting cabin open and the door open slightly. She saw a hand nudge the door open, before a black barrel of a an old and heavy revolver poked out. She could hear the mechanisms in the finely crafted thing shift and tense as the the hand holding it tightened their grip. She heard one final metallic click and saw a distorted flicker of light racing out from the barrel.
Luna’s eyes shot open as the phantom pain erupted in a spot right above her right eye. She flailed wildly under her covers and both tore her bedsheets and tangled her wings in them further. She paused as soon as she realized Smuggler had only jettisoned her to the waking world, he had not actually shot her in the head.
“Annoying Orange Liar? I understand that you were under a bit of stress, but you could have done more than assign a random color to what you felt about me.” Luna could feel a weight settle on her bed, as Smuggler talked. She untangled herself from the bedsheets with an aggressive burst of magic and turned to face the mental projection.
“How did you do it? How did you trap me in my own dream?” Luna asked harshly, leaning towards the human wearing a bright red suit and a sunhat made out of thick leather. The outfit was both improbable and eye-catching, a trait that almost all of the human’s projections shared, as making her stare incredulously at something nopony else could see made her seem insane and Smuggler took great pleasure in making her at least seem insane.
“What makes you think I did? It was your dream, your fear and insecurities manifesting in whatever was chasing you and we both know you don’t like forests that much.” The man smiled as he leaned back on the bed, his sunhat flopping down on her sheets with a wet slap. The annoying projection crossed his legs and stretched his arms around in her tousled sheets.
“Dreams do not reset when you die in them!” Luna slammed a hand on her bed in frustration, an unintended burst of magic making the whole bed creak from the force. She could hear a spring snap with a loud metallic note that clung in the air. The man laying on her bed only gave her a level look and raised one finger carefully.
“Well, if you say so.” Smuggler quipped and his projection disappeared with a pop.
“Come back here!”
“I am under no obligation to answer your inane questions. I think you have to hold court in a few hours, so decide if you can still sleep on that broken bed.” Luna could hear her teeth grind against each other in frustration. From the position of her sister’s sun, she’d only been able to get a scant two hours of sleep. Dealing with the contagious hyper-activity of Smuggler’s mind and the dull pressure of Priest’s power had made it nearly impossible for her to get tired. This had been the first time in two weeks that she’d felt the compulsion to sleep and even that was ruined by Smuggler’s tricks.
Deciding not to bother with trying to sleep in her current state of mind, Luna rolled off her bed and walked over to her dresser, stumbling only slightly. She didn’t feel groggy, nor did she show any outward signs of the lethargy you would associate with chronic insomnia. She was not denied sleep from a chemical imbalance in her reworked brain, but by the continued balance that refused to change.
Priest’s power had returned Fenrir to his prime and made him marginally stronger, not to mention the heightened regenerative rate the wolf had demonstrated after the altercation with the dragon. In contrast; Priest’s power had not only turned Luna into a hybrid of her human form in Fenrir’s mindscape, but had also locked her into that exact form.
Priest kept her fit, burning away all excess calories she ingested in a rather literal way. The castle chef’s had actually started changing up her desserts to see if they could get different colors out of the volatile display her hair performed whenever she decided to indulge herself. She had actually come close to starting a fire when she chugged a pint of frosting as a dare issued by one of her guards.
Priest also kept her infuriatingly calm, as he quickly sprang to smooth over all chemical and hormonal imbalances that she incurred in her life. Unsurprisingly, everything Smuggler did was exempt from this, for a time. If she stubbed her toe on something, she only felt a slight twinge of pain, rather than the howling swearing marathons Smuggler had shown her. If someone other than Smuggler infuriated her, she could only feel tired pity for their efforts at aggravating her, rather than the absolute hatred she felt for Smuggler at times.
She had actually tried cutting off her hand with a cleaver to prove Smuggler wrong, after he’d jeered at her about how Priest was affecting her body. She remembered the cleaver coming down, but the instant the blade touched her skin, all of her senses cut out. After an undetermined amount of time she woke up to see the cleaver embedded into a marble pillar next to her balcony door and her hand still attached. Every time she tried to pull the cleaver out of the pillar, either her magic fizzled out, or her grip loosened.
“I don’t know how long I can take this…” Luna muttered as she picked out clothes she’d be comfortable wearing. Smuggler’s projection appeared in the full-body mirror placed on the door.
“I bet I could wear you down in about 2 months, if I’d be aiming to make you catatonic. It’d take a week or so more, if I wanted to make you an aggressor.” Luna touched a purple gown in the dresser and Smuggler changed his projection to resemble what she would look like wearing it. Smuggler had started doing this after Luna had taken more and more time to pick out what she should wear on each night. Not only did her human body bring with it the taboo of nudity, the clothes brought a whole mess of things she could be insecure over.
“There are times you should just lie to my face, Smuggler.” Luna moved her hand to a black coat. Smuggler shifted his projection accordingly, adding accessories he knew she owned and had worn with it before. She thought it was a little too intimidating of a look to wear to court, so she moved on, hovering her hand over her collection of clothes.
“What would that achieve? It’s not like you’re going to start trusting me all of a sudden.” A dark green cardigan and a blue flowing dress, maybe. A bit too colorful for the night court, she decided.
“You jumped through the Veil, while I was fixing it! You put our whole reality in danger!” Luna snapped and pointed at her animated reflection. Smuggler waved a hand dismissively and snorted using her voice.
“I was only gone for an hour or something, let it go already.”
“It was three hours on this side, not counting how long it was on the other side! Celestia had to send Soldier after you!” Luna huffed and pulled out a midnight blue dress out. She’d worn it several times and it was well on its way on becoming her favorite piece of clothing.
“He caused more damage than I ever could have, so good job on that. Did you know he actually burned down the whole of Ponyville and helped Changelings take over their Equestria? cuz he totally did!” Smuggler appeared next to her and showed her pictures detailing Soldier doing just that. His projection looked singed and green blood spattered his arms and face, like he had just come back from battling changelings in Ponyville’s charred remains.
“Oh, shut up! You know, just because Soldier can’t give his side of the story doesn’t mean you can keep changing yours.” Luna shot back, as she pulled her dress on. She needed to grab some breakfast and try and ignore whatever Smuggler would do to try and unnerve her. Kamos had been forced to let her back into political matters, despite Smuggler and Priest “compromising” her judgment. Celestia and Kamos had agreed to keep the existence of the three human spirits a secret for the time being.
“You know that will never happen.” Smuggler kept his projection out, calmly walking on the wall as Luna walked down the spiraling stairs of her tower. “Celestia shouldn’t have sent him after me if it took that much out of her.”
“Wait, you actually admit to caring about someone else but yourself? You big softie, you!” Luna sneered in a hushed voice as she sat down on table in the small dining area at the foot of her tower. The setting sun cast long shadows through the open balcony doors and Smuggler adjusted his projection to actually have a shadow after Luna noticed the lack of it.
“Do not confuse my wonder at the lack of self-preservation you ponies continuously demonstrate as actual care for your wellbeing. I’ll admit that Soldier appearing over there was an exciting surprise, though.” Smuggler stayed quiet as the servants set her breakfast in front of her. She grabbed the glass of orange juice, knowing that Smuggler was waiting for something.
“The angry sex that followed was amazing!” Smuggler whispered in her ear in a conspiratorial tone. She had known he would try to make her do a spit-take, she’d known it and had steeled herself for whatever disturbing thing he’d say, or so she had thought. She was caught off-guard by the sudden lewd lie and choked on the little sip of orange juice she’d taken. Smuggler talked directly into her mind to be heard over her coughing. “You made the mistake of bracing for one thing, all I had to do was any other thing.”
“I hate you!” Luna wheezed out, in the middle of her coughing and a blushing case of the giggles. Priest’s presence made it hard for her to feel surprised in a way that would actually make a normal pony laugh, so seeing as Smuggler’s attempts at comedy were exempt from that, her reactions tended to be exaggerated.
“Shut up and eat your cereal.” Smuggler sighed and his projection disappeared with a high-pitched beep. At least he wasn’t making the air flash a brilliant green every time he did it anymore, but him not being consistent with it was more annoying in a way. Luna looked down at the bowl of cereal in front of her. There were fresh berries mixed with the slightly roasted corn flakes. It smelled and looked heavenly...
She started humming to herself and her oatmeal was delicious. No, she wasn’t being petty, she just didn’t want Smuggler to be right.
“Will you really be alright to hold court tonight, Luna?” Luna looked up from finishing her oatmeal and saw one of her night guard taking off their helmet, revealing Kamos’ striped face. His eyes bored into her, most likely to determine if she was the one in control of her actions. Smuggler had been able circumvent her control during the first few days he’d been in her, but Luna had learnt how to stop him from doing it soon after that. She didn’t fault Kamos for being cautious, but having just a little faith wasn’t too much to ask.
“He is a pain, but we have come to an understanding about this, Kamos. Tampering with my royal duties will make you that much more adamant in forcefully extracting him, so he has agreed to not hinder me.” She could see how Kamos clenched his jaw as his eyes darted down to her body for a moment. She could hear Smuggler snickering in the back of her mind at something.
“Yes, I will have to hold court in this form. We’ve concluded that Priest has little control over his power and the effects it has on me. Until a safe way of extracting him is devised, any attempt at transforming into a pony would just be undone almost instantly. The process is not pretty, but it is consistent.” Luna shuddered as she remembered the time she had actually used magic to transform back into an alicorn. The experience cemented the fact that Priest really did have total control over her body, which fortunately also applied to her pain receptors. Imagining what it would have actually felt like to have her skin melt and her bones liquify as Priest reassembled her body into the form he’d chosen chilled her to the bone.
“I have read the report.” Kamos glided his eyes over the room, before settling on the general area where Smuggler’s projection was floating in the air and reading a book Luna remembered reading a month ago. His access to her memories and the information in them was something Luna had hesitated on admitting to Kamos, but the zebra had ultimately taken her out of quarantine as Smuggler had no access to her magic, nor had he been able to affect her actions for weeks after their interview with him. Smuggler found the zebra’s ability to sense his projection interesting, but the novelty of trying to get a reaction out of the stoic zebra had run thin within a few days.
“The story we fed to the public is that you are in the form you are in because of your involvement in the research of exobiology at Canterlot university. You’re making a point of presenting a viable alien body by living in that form.” Kamos nodded to a guard and Luna was presented with a folder detailing the phony research team and their goals. Smuggler floated over to her and glanced at the information with interest. Luna could see his projection freeze and flicker as the numbers were processed and the needed connections were made.
“Eh, it should fool most of them. It does make you look like you don’t understand the scientific method, but I doubt most of the faculty in that place are any wiser to the idea.” Smuggler floated over the table, where he proceeded to draw iridescent dicks in the space between her and Kamos, glancing at both of them for any reaction. Luna could feel her face heating up slightly, but Kamos stayed stoic as ever.
“This should work.” Is all Luna said as she set the documents down. The guard that had procured them picked the folder up again and left the room after a nod to Kamos. Smuggler continued to tiredly float around the room, legs crossed and reading a week-old newspaper.
“You are scheduled to hold court 2 hours from now. I sincerely hope it goes well, Luna.” Kamos stated in his reassuring monotone and bowed to her before leaving the room, melding into the mold of her other guards as he donned the borrowed helmet.
“Two whole hours, huh… Wanna watch a movie? Most fall into the 90 minute margin, so we have the time.” Smuggler flipped in the air to land on the spine of the chair next to her, resting his incorporeal legs on the table as he juggled what he’d called his “universal remote” from hand to hand.
“What did you have in mind?” Luna wearily asked, knowing that the alternative would be going over every embarrassing thought and memory of hers Smuggler could find.
“Don’t worry, it’s a kids film, a classic actually. Real heartwarming and all.” A rectangle of static appeared above the table as Smuggler pressed a button on his device. “I present unto you, The Lion King.”
90 minutes later and Luna was walking toward the balcony where she and Celestia did their thing with their respective celestial bodies. She wasn’t sure if she should be angry at Smuggler for forcing her through such a heart wrenchingly tragic death scene, or simply enjoy the movie as a whole.
It was miles from the other “family movie” Smuggler had shown her, The Land Before Time. It was strange how many of the entertainment Smuggler claimed to be directed at families actually axed off one or more of the parents in tragic ways.
“I find it hard to believe that those movies were intended for children. Why would your kind put their young through something like that willingly?” Luna muttered as she turned a corner and the guards following her couldn’t see her talking to herself.
“Well, I don’t have a definite answer for that, but I think a big reason would be the fact that children are sociopaths.” Smuggler absently answered, while floating in her peripheral and reading something. Luna gave the spirit an angry look when it was obvious that he was not intending to elaborate on that.
“Please, explain that statement.” Luna seethed, knowing that he was more than aware of her frustration with him.
“Humans are born with little to no empathy for others. There are some core survival instincts hardwired into us, like trusting your parents implicitly, not eating your siblings, both fearing and respecting cats, et cetera. Unlike you guys, we either grow into or learn empathy from others. The death of a parent is a horrible thing to anyone, but it’s one of the few tragic things little children can empathize with honestly and immediately.” Smuggler explained, before going back to reading Luna’s diary. She didn’t have the energy to feel indignant about this nonchalant violation of her privacy, deciding to process what Smuggler had revealed instead.
“That is why it is used so often in the movies you show me; to make the child watching feel empathy for the protagonist.” Luna paused to think about this revelation of Smuggler’s culture. “That is evil!”
“No, that is Disney. I don’t blame you for confusing the two, though.” Smuggler chuckled and fell into step next to her. His projection was wearing a bright green onesie with an orange safari hat. He kept up with her brisk space by sliding along the marble floors with his socks, as if he were ice-skating. Luna only gave him a tired annoyed look, which made Smuggler grin even wider. She walked through the halls in silence, while Smuggler’s projection kept racing circles around her, humming a song from the movie he’d just shown her.
“Not to distract you from controlling thousands of tons of rock floating above this planet, but if we say Celestia is Mufasa, then what does that make you?” Smuggler’s smirk disappeared and he gave Luna a curious look, before she could feel him retreating to the back of her mind. Not directly distracting her from moving the moon was one of the conditions he had agreed to in exchange for the freedom to manifest at will at any other time. He continued to find ways to distract her in other ways, regardless.
“Good evening, Luna.” Celestia serenely greeted as Luna walked over to sit across her on the table. Celestia was drinking chamomile tea and an unicorn maid poured Luna a cup of coffee as she sat down. Luna stole a glance at her sister as she sipped her no doubt expensive coffee. Celestia looked tired, more so than a day of ruling their kingdom and raising the sun should have any right to.
“Good evening, sister.” She noted that Celestia’s mane moved slower than usual and that there were nearly indistinguishable dark bags under her eyes. Luna let the silence stretch out between them, not knowing if she should pursue the matter or not. She set down her cup and opened her mouth, but froze in place before any words could escape her as Celestia looked up to address her.
“Luna, what is it?” Celestia asked, frowning at Luna’s sudden look of shock. Luna couldn’t form words at first, managing only to motion toward her own right eye. Celestia’s horn glowed brightly and a small mirror materialized in front of her. She stared at her own reflection, using a hoof to move her mane out of the way of her right eye. Her left eye was the iridescent magenta it had always been, but her right eye was a harsh glowing blue.
“Oh…” Celestia breathed out in mild surprise, as she continued to stare at her own reflection. Celestia didn’t seem any more distressed on the outside, but Luna could feel the imbalance in her sister’s magic as her eyes closed and the sun diarch took a number of deep and controlled breaths. Luna could feel the subtle shift in the air between them as Celestia focused her magic internally.
Celestia’s ever-moving mane slowly ground to a halt and the colors displayed in it wavered and melded together as her coat started taking on a pure white glow. Luna had watched her sister do this countless of times, usually when she needed to make sure her vast reservoirs of magic would stay under control before a tiresome meeting, but this time something was wrong. Celestia’s mane shone a brilliant gold and most of her coat radiated an intense white light, but on a spot over her heart there was a mass of bright blue.
The unnerving mass of light pulsated and shifted continuously, seeping out and melding with the pure light around it. Luna watched the blue light recede and grow brighter at the same time, until there was a harsh contrast between the spot of intense blue against the pure light her sister radiated. Celestia opened her eyes and let out a tired breath, both her mane and eyes reurning to their usual color, but the signs of fatigue becoming more apparent.
“How bad is it?” Luna stated as Celestia leaned on the table separating them ever so slightly. “This is not something we can ignore, sister.”
“I feel like a guest in my own body.” Celestia quietly confessed, her head shifting so that her eyes were obscured by her mane. Luna didn’t know if she did this out of exhaustion, or from a need to hide her eyes. “Do you know what happens when I sleep? When I let my guard down to that degree?”
“I have seen no need to visit your dreams, sister.” Luna carefully stated, not liking the unhinged tone her sister’s voice carried. Celestia gave a harsh cackle at Luna’s answer, pushing herself off from leaning on the table between them.
“My dreams are not the problem, my dreams are just fine, they’re a respite from all of this, if anything! It’s the waking up that’s the problem!” Celestia almost screamed at Luna, setting her hooves on the table, with her teacup clattering on the table between them as her concentration failed. “I can’t stop him, or push him away, he lets me back in when he notices I’m aware and I don’t know why!”
The shadows suddenly stretched onto the walls as the sun flashed brighter, reacting to its avatar’s distress. Luna was the Princess of the night, so there were few little things that could truly frighten her, but seeing her sister so thoroughly afraid was one of those things. Luna knew the magnitude of power her sister possessed and what could happen if she ever lost control, but as destructive that could have been to ponies around her, that was not the thing she was afraid of.
“You fear he is controlling your actions regardless. You fear what he might do if he would choose to force his will upon you. You fear what he would be capable of doing.” Luna stated in a tone she tried to make as comforting and calm as she could. The fact she no longer felt afraid made it easier to sound calm, but the fact she was only capable of feeling slightly irritated at her sister’s flamboyant antics made it hard to sound compassionate. Fear and compassion were chemical imbalances not paramount to her survival, after all.
“I understand your worry and I understand why the loss of control is so frightening to you. I must remind you that we are talking about a man that gave up his tattered soul to save your life, so not only is keeping you safe something he has quite literally given his soul for, it’s probably the only thing left in whatever he has been reduced to.” Luna finished, giving Celestia a reassuring smile, before sipping her coffee, lest it get cold. Celestia stood there, her forelegs on the table and a look of shock frozen on her face.
“Which one are you?” Celestia asked, narrowing her eyes at Luna. Luna went over what she’d just said to calm Celestia down and realized it was a little too cold for the Luna Celestia knew, before Smuggler and Priest.
“It is still me, sister.” Luna stated, setting her beverage down. She tried to force herself to feel frightened of the obvious change in her behaviour, but found it hard to feel the need. “Priest’s power makes it hard to feel anything and Smuggler makes it easy to reason things out. Whatever they are not affecting goes through the path of least resistance.”
Celestia stared at Luna for a moment longer, the subtle shifts in the air between them revealing the presence of magic probing her mind superficially. Eventually Celestia let out another sigh and sat back down.
“The Artificial Body Project has met with some difficulties. They’re struggling on finding a way to bond the vine to the skeletal frame without relying on magic.” Celestia explained, picking up her tea with her magic again.
“They’re still holding out hope for the vines? I thought they moved onto using the synthesized muscle fibers. It took me days to fine-tune the formula so they could use it.” Luna sipped at her coffee again, puzzling over what possible excuse the university ponies had to ignore the magic she had given them.
“They can’t start crafting the muscles without another skeletal frame, so they’re stuck either waiting for it to be completed, or completing their original project. Besides, the university lacks the facilities to house a mass of live red vines that size. They decided to finish it to serve as a proof of concept.” Celestia finished her tea and set the cup down on the tray between them, grabbing a chocolate chip cookie in her magic. “We’re going to get some less than favorable letters about what I did with the sun just now.”
“I just hope the nobles don’t think I’m trying to dethrone you again. Being forced to deal with some panicky noble pledging their allegiance for the Lunar Republic again would be annoying. I did tell you how that happened after my stint up above, right?” Luna quirked a brow and downed her coffee with a smirk, as Celestia took a bite out of her frisbee of a cookie with a furrowed brow of her own.
“I’m sure that’s the furthest thing from their minds when you hold court as you are.” Celestia pondered, glancing down at Luna’s dark-skinned body. The overall frame was similar to their human counterparts in the mirror universe, but the similarities ended at the number of limbs and bipedal stature. Luna’s skin was a smooth mocha brown evenly, except for her lips where it made way for a healthy red, rather than the light blue on lighter shades of purple her counterpart in the other world had. Luna stood about as tall as Celestia was, but rather than the gangly sprout her otherworldly counterpart had been, Luna’s frame was filled out with corded muscle and rounded out by a miniscule layer of fat.
As a healer Celestia, along with any of the other healers who had examined her, would say Luna was the picture of health when it came to the species she had transformed into. As a sister Celestia would move heaven and earth to make sure Smuggler and Priest were the first spirits to be transferred into artificial bodies. Celestia had lived far too long protecting Luna to believe Smuggler and Priest were not having an adverse effect on her, no matter how healthy she looked or acted. It was not like Luna could hold that sentiment against Celestia with a clear conscience, but she would still make sure Soldier was the first to be transferred out. The damage his mere presence had done to her sister’s nerves was obvious and to let it continue was not an option.
“Let’s go and assure your survival to the populace, so that I can get to freaking out the nobles.” Luna stated, energetic from the very temporary rush of energy caffeine still offered her. She stood up and walked over to the balcony that was especially reserved for their little ceremony at that point. Luna walked over to the railing and waved to the swollen crowd below, drawing both surprised murmurs and frightened gasps out of them. She could hear the collective sigh of relief when her annoyed sister stepped up next to her, strenuously working her jaw to finish her oversized cookie without spraying crumbs everywhere. Luna heard a guard snicker, but the crowd of ponies and a few concerned dignitaries of other species below couldn’t make out Celestia’s puffed out cheeks.
“I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I DEFINITELY LEARNT NOT TO SNEAK UP ON MY SISTER WHILE SHE’S ENJOYING HER TEA!” Luna yelled out at the crowd in full Canterlot Voice, spreading her arms wide and giving the crowd a radiant smile to gather their attention. “I’M SURE YOU KNOW WHAT WE ARE HERE TO DO, SO LET’S GET TO IT!”
With that statement, Luna lowered her hands and bright spots of light came to life on the tips of her fingers, along with the usual glowing of her horn. Celestia lit up her horn as well and started to move her sun along its determined route while keeping her eyes on Luna’s performance. Celestia matched the speed she lowered the sun to Luna’s hands rising up, ultimately leaving the night diarch stretching her hands out toward the moon in the sky in a welcoming gesture.
Luna turned to her sister with a radiant smile, feeling an unknown weight lifting from her mind. Even with the spirits inside her and the patchwork of magic Soldier’s last act had left her, she could still raise the moon, she could still be herself, she could still stand beside her sister as an equal. She wiped the tears threatening to fall from her eyes and turned to embrace her sister in relief.
“Long live the king.” Smuggler whispered as his projection appeared leaning on the railing next to the two sisters. She paused halfway to crossing the distance and hugging her sister, realizing how easy it would be to push Celestia off the balcony and direct her fall in a way that would snap her neck and leave little to no evidence. She knew it was a grim fantasy that would never happen, but no amount of hindsight stopped her from averting her gaze from her supportive sister and excusing herself with downcast eyes and a mumbled excuse.
“In my defence, you had just raised the moon, so I had every right to come out.” Luna clenched her hands into fists as she walked, fighting the arcane energy she was itching to unload. Four words were all it took for the human to completely shatter her relief and bring a mindful of doubt and self-loathing in its place. Some part of Luna’s mind noted that Smuggler had been setting this up for hours and she should have seen it coming.
“Come on, don’t think I’m some manipulative genius at this! Your insecurities and social ineptitudes are fucking obvious. It doesn’t take a great mind to poke at those and gloat when you overreact, all it takes is the will to hurt you a little.” Smuggler kept pace with her with an uncharacteristically serious tone in his voice. Luna glanced back at the spirit and was surprised to see several pieces of paper floating in front of his projection, rather than some shocking thing to push her further into an emotional outburst. His projection flickered and jerked in its movements as he went over whatever information he’d scrounged from her mind.
“I’ve been going over the ponies that will most likely come to see you at court and I have some suggestions in how to deal with them. I can go over them now, or just act as an assistant of sorts when they come up to you. I’d appreciate if you glanced at Celestia’s court records and tax records going back about a decade, so I would have that to deduce their intent.” Smuggler reached out his hand and the scrolls, papers and other documents arranged themselves into a indigo blue folder. He tapped the folder against his other hand and smirked at her.
“Besides, answering their question before they even open their mouth will make you look both clairvoyant and all business. When word gets around, ponies will not come to you without having something more than an emotional appeal, sidestepping a lot of future annoyance.” Smuggler hopped an inch of the ground and a skateboard popped into existence below him, letting him roll around next to her without bothering with walking.
“Why?” Luna asked, wondering what kind of an ulterior motive Smuggler had. He had not shown any shred of interest in government, or helping her in any way, so she was beyond suspicious.
“I’m bored.” Smuggler stated and waved a hand to bring up pictures of each instance he had been able to push her into an emotional breakdown. “One can keep annoying and embarrassing a petty pony princess of the night only for so long. Sooner or later it starts getting old. Helping you with your job is far more of a challenge than breaking you at this point, so I’d rather busy myself with that.”
“You are a despicable man.” Luna answered almost on autopilot, unable to recount the times she’d come to that conclusion. Smuggler was the last person you would want to spend every hour of your day with, even his ability to process and store information was not enough to make his presence bearable. In some cases it only made it worse, as he was sure to remind her of each embarrassing moment he could dig out of her frayed mind.
“So you keep telling me. That does not change the fact I can memorize any and all documents you read in the next hour and cross reference them to give you insight into the motives of anypony that comes to plead their case.” Smuggler gave her a small smile and his projection disappeared with no discernable sound. She really didn’t want to admit it, or rely on the human’s help in any way, but if he could really give her instant access to the records of the crown after only skimming them, it would be well worth the risk of trusting his capabilities.
“Script, I want you to retrieve the royal Canterlot tax records of the five years, along with Celestia’s court records. I will be reviewing them along with my normal duties.” Her royal scribe gave her a strange look and then glanced at the lunar guards around them. “Yes, you can take as many guards to help you that you deem necessary. You are the one I trust to make sense of the filing system in the archives and bring me what I ask.”
The scribe nodded and motioned for three of the guards around Luna to follow her into the dreaded depths of the royal court records. Luna failed to comprehend why so many of her guards seemed so eager to assist the mare on these dreary quests into retrieving wasted stationary. She had been worried that the constant back and forth when she struggled to catch up on a thousand years of legislation would overwork the mare, so she had begun sending guards to assist her in carrying the piles of paper out.
“The fact she came back all smiles and walking funny… doesn’t seem funny to you?” Smuggler’s voice asked in an incredulous tone. Luna opened her mouth to answer, but seemingly Smuggler was in no mood to wait for her to voice her opinion, “Yeah, I don’t know what I was expecting. Let’s get court out of the way and then we can watch Event Horizon.”
The night court had alway been a dull affair, both in the months and years after her return and in the old times. Most ponies were asleep and content by the time her time came about. She knew better than to blame ponies for their natural behavioral cycles by this point, but that didn’t change the fact that most of the ponies that stayed up late long enough to come to her were either desperate, or simply nobles trying to gain her favor. Neither of these were particularly uplifting or challenging. Most nights her court was devoid of anyone with a valid case for the night court, so her request for reading material was not so strange.
“I would have thought you transforming into a whole other species would have made some ponies curious.You know, dignitaries from other nations asking if being human meant you didn’t represent ponies anymore, asshole nobles accusing you of being Nightmare Moon, things like that. I would love for things like that to happen to you.” Luna turned a page on the massive tome of archived tax records resting in front of her, passing her gaze on the numbers and words on each page. As long as she saw the numbers and words clearly, Smuggler could easily extract the information at a later date.
“Yeah, you don’t have to say it. Ponies will sleep on the revelation and then go bother your sister with their concerns in the morning, as they have learnt to do in the last millennia. The dignitaries are waiting for you to take the first step, before making their own move. All perfectly predictable and therefore boring.” Smuggler’s projection leaned on her throne and slid down to sit down leaning on it with a sigh. Luna turned a page, scanning numbers, words and dates systemically. Smuggler stayed quiet for 2 glorious minutes ass she worked, before his projection stood up suddenly. Luna looked up from her tome of soul-crushing boredom and saw that there was a small group of ponies walking up to the throne.
“The two in front are Silver Seal and Caring Heart, they paid their taxes on time up until two years ago, when they filed for an exemption in account of the deteriorating health of one Golden Sprout, citing the expense of his care and medicine. Celestia approved the exemption and threw in appointments to court physicians with no added cost.” Smuggler rattled out as the ponies were still making their way to the throne. Smuggler waved a hand and the documents he had cited the information from appeared floating in front of her.
“You can do nothing more for them, send them away.” She scanned the documents for details Smuggler had left out. Her eyes were drawn to the court transcript, as it detailed the relation of the ponies in question, revealing Golden Sprout to be the son of the two ponies, rather than an elderly relative, as she had assumed. He had been eight years old when they had petitioned for their exemption. She could only assume he was still alive if the parents would come to her for something.
“How is Golden Sprout doing?” Luna asked before the stallion could open his mouth. She closed the tome of archived tax records and set it aside, maintaining eye contact with the confused stallion. Luna turned her gaze to Caring Heart as a morbid thought struck her. “For the record, the practice of necromancy cannot bring back the deceased, but I hope that is not relevant here.”
“Your highness, we never dreamed you would know of our son’s condition. We did not…” The mare bowed deeply and swallowed whatever she was going to say with obvious difficulty. Caring Heart raised her head again and set her jaw before continuing. This was obviously something she had rehearsed thousands of times in her mind, so Luna fought back the urge to answer the inevitable question before it left the mare’s lips.
“Do you know of any magic that could save our son? You are…” Again, the mare clenched her jaw and swallowed whatever she was going to say with a pained expression. “Please, if there is anything…”
“There is not.” Luna answered, arranging her facial features to convey sympathy. The facial expression felt more natural than any had for weeks, so Luna took that as a sign that her soul had not fully shriveled into nothing quite yet. “I hold no magic that could save your child. I am sorry.”
“We understand, your highness. We thank you for your time.” The stallion finally found his voice and started to lead his openly crying wife out of the throne room. Smuggler made his presence known by stepping out and starting to play a melancholic violin piece just as the two ponies turned away.
“Halt!” Luna shouted in a voice a notch more aggressive than she had intended, but she blamed that entirely on Smuggler’s insistence on playing his comically small violin. The two ponies froze and apprehensively turned around as Luna stood up from her throne and started walking toward the pair. “We hold no magic to save your son from the inevitable, but that does not mean we will not lend our aid to those who ask for it.”
“We can give Golden Sprout peace during our night and grant him understanding and kindness where confusion and hostility would normally take root. His sickness does not have to take anything else away from him.” Luna made it to the two nervous ponies and she kneeled down to be on their level.
“Your pain is not something I would wish upon anypony, but it is a pain I am intimately familiar with. We know how it seems to dampen the color and joy of the world, but we have learnt that it is not the world that deprives you of them, it is the stubborn refusal to not seek them out. Do not spend the time you have together in tears and sullen acceptance, give your child as many happy memories to take with him as you can.” Luna reached out and set a hand on the mother’s neck in a comforting manner. The mare flinched and went rigid at the touch, but ultimately met Luna’s eyes.
“We are most gracious for your help, your highness.” The mare said through a clenched jaw and seething eyes. Luna could see seas of hurt and great continents of anger in those eyes, but she could not blame the mare for wanting to lash out at the world for taking her child away. The husband seemed more afraid and concerned, but Luna didn’t know if it was because of the real chance of his wife attacking royalty, or their dying son. Luna retracted her hand and averted her gaze, briefly wondering what was appropriate to say in this situation.
“We regret that we cannot do more.” Luna muttered and started walking toward her throne. She knew she had done something wrong in this interaction and continuing to interact with the grieving couple would only make things worse. She really shouldn’t have tried to console anypony in her condition. She should have sent the ponies away, as Smuggler had suggested and save both of them the emotional turmoil. She flapped her wings and spun in the air to land on the throne with a thump. She opened the book she had been scanning and went back to work on memorizing the tax records of her subjects. That was at least something she could do.
“So, this might sound weird, but could you smile for me real quick?” Smuggler said as he stepped in front of her. Luna saw no harm in complying with the request before questioning the human about it. She could feel the left side of her face quirking upwards, but she could only feel a cold numbness on the right side. She opened her mouth to ask what was happening, but her tongue did not move the way she directed it and she slumped on her throne as the cold numbness spread down to her chest.
“Whu… ui doed fr moh!” The tome of tax records fell to the ground with a loud thump as the hands holding it up went lax. Her body refused to listen to her and the cold numbness spreading along her body was starting to be replaced by flashes of hot and cold pain washing over her body like a strobe light. A flash of normal and sudden pain on her left shoulder made her realize she was looking up at the high marble ceiling of the throne room, though it was hard to make out with the way her field of vision rattled around as her body convulsed.
“Don’t you pin this on me! Anything to do with maintaining your bootylicious body is Priest’s job… Who seems to have stepped out at some point. Huh, I did not know he could do that.” Smuggler sounded like he was pleasantly surprised at this turn of events that was causing Luna unspeakable agony. She would be angry at the human if it weren’t for the aforementioned indescribable pain wracking her body.
“Well, at least we’ll have time to watch the director’s cut of Event Horizon, you know, with your impending coma and all? You’re gonna like it; it’s a documentary about humanity’s first and last attempt at faster than light travel.”