Sharing the Night

by Cast-Iron Caryatid

Chapter 14

Sharing the Night: Chapter 14

Celestia only read the letter from Twilight once.  She was aware that the typical behavior in such a situation was to read it over and over, perhaps out of denial or a desire to read between the lines, but in this case, the letter was quite clear.  Once was quite enough.  Twilight, at least, had given her that.

Of course, even in the case that it had been longer, disbelief was not an emotion which Celestia typically engaged in, and in spite of recent revelations, she chose to believe this had not changed.  In fact, if she had to guess which vice she would have potentially indulged in given the chance, it would probably have been a hesitation to read the letter fully to begin with.

Perhaps that was the problem, though.  She had tried avoiding the matter entirely, but it did not appear to have worked.  True, a single day was hardly much of a chance, but her earlier behavior and the renewed sting in her heart now were not good signs.  The fact that she felt disappointment meant that she had been holding out some measure of hope, some fantasy where she believed that the sun and the stars could ever share the same sky.

She took a long, slow breath in her nose and let it out her mouth.  Then, she began to make her way to her study.  She would need to sit down and formulate a response.  Perhaps that would put these troublesome feelings to rest once and for all.

Watching the silvery smoke of her letter find its way out of the library, Twilight had one question.  “Why did I do that?”

“What do you mean?” Spike asked, cocking his head as he made his way back over to one of the library’s couches.  “Why wouldn’t you have?”

“It’s Prin—I mean, it’s Celestia,” Twilight told him, having to remind herself how things had changed.  “She was my teacher, she’s her sister, she’s—”

Spike interrupted her before she could finish.  “The only pony you trust who hasn’t bugged you about it in the past?” he said, halfway between sarcasm and confusion.

“That’s just the thing, Spike.  She’s not,” Twilight corrected, panic rising.  “She’s the one who sent Luna here to begin with.  Oh jeez, I’m doing exactly what she wanted, aren’t I?  And now she knows!”

Spike just stared at her.  “And that’s... a bad thing?” he asked.

Twilight had thought that was obvious.  “Isn’t it?”

Spike shrugged.  “Well, she’s on your side, so... not really?”

Wait, what?  “My… side?”

“The side of getting you and Luna together,” Spike clarified, looking at her with uncertainty.  “If you’re in love, then that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Twilight hesitated.  “I… don’t know,” she said, and she didn't.

Spike only looked more confused, even concerned.  “Really?”

“Really!” Twilight assured him with earnest emphasis.  “I—this has literally never happened before.”

“But, it’s love,” Spike said as if that explained everything.  “It’s kind of—by definition—what you want.”

That did make sense, she supposed.  In theory, anyway.  “I know, but…”

“You wrote in the letter that you were okay with it,” Spike reminded her, raising his voice a little himself as he tried to make sense of the situation.

“Might be okay with it, Spike,” Twilight corrected him rather matter-of-factly.  “I might be okay with it.  I’m not… opposed to the idea?”

“Wow.  Romantic,” he remarked.

“I know!” Twilight beamed.  “Just thinking about it makes me—”

“That was sarcasm, Twilight,” Spike said.

Twilight blinked.  “Sarcasm?”

Spike looked like he was beginning to regret this entire conversation for some reason.  “That thing where ponies say the opposite of what they mean because it makes it sound silly in contrast?”

“I know what sarcasm is, Spike!” Twilight insisted and began to pace back and forth nervously.  “Which is why that can not be sarcasm.  I’m being so romantic right now you don’t even know what I could do!  I don’t even know what I could do!”  She turned around to face Spike.  “What do I do?”

“Yeeeah…”  Spike rolled his eyes.  “You know what you need to do?”

“No, I don’t!” Twilight shouted.  “I thought that was clear!”

“First, you need to calm down,” he said.  “Second, do something relaxing.  Take a bath.  Get something to eat.  Nice, uhh, mortal things.  Third, and most importantly…”

“Yes, Spike?” Twilight prompted, making a mental list of his every word.

“Do.  Nothing,” he finished, enunciating slowly.

It took Twilight a moment until she realized what he had said.  “But—huh?”

“Twi, nopony is going to make you ‘woo’ Princess Luna if you don’t want to,” Spike said.  “If the idea freaks you out that much, then it’s probably a sign that you need to step back and let it sort itself out before you do or say anything that you don’t really mean.”

“But… it’s too late for that,” Twilight reminded him.  “Celestia—”

“Will send you a well-meaning but vague and ultimately useless letter suggesting that you skip the wacky hijinks, be open with her and all other the usual platitudes that everypony knows and nopony listens to,” Spike finished for her.

Twilight thought about that for a second until she came to an unfortunate conclusion.  “Ugh, you’re right,” she admitted.  “Stars, you’re right.  Since when are you an expert on—?”

Spike gave Twilight a withering glare.

“Right.  I deserved that,” Twilight acknowledged.  “So…”

“Bath,” Spike reminded her sternly, pointing upstairs like he was directing a misbehaving pet.

“Right,” Twilight said, making her way over to the stairs.  As she reached them, she paused to think.  “Do you do that much?” she asked, turning back to address Spike.  “Step back and reevaluate things with Rarity?”

“Yeah,” he said, dropping his gaze to the wooden floorboards.  “Yeah, I do.”

Twilight was several minutes into her bath when it hit her.  “I feel ridiculous,” she stated aloud to nopony in particular.

The fact of the matter was, she had absolutely no need for a bath.  She’d worked up a bit of a sweat flying to Ponyville, but all it took was a quick remanifestation and she had a new body, fresh and clean as the day that Twilight Sparkle, unicorn, had died and Twilight Sparkle, alicorn, had sprung into being out of the aether.

She slumped back in what she decided was not a bath, since she no need of one, but perhaps the world’s smallest and warmest swimming pool.  Was that true, she wondered?  Was she a wholly different creature than the filly who had grown up under Princess Celestia’s tutelage?  When she was facing Gemini down, she’d emphasized that she was the true alicorn of the stars and that she had always been.  It wasn’t difficult to separate herself from starbeasts, lacking in true sapience as they seemed to be, but what about Gemini?  What about the millions of ponies out there who each of them had a star at the core of their being, granting them cutie marks and the magic to go along with them?

Star Glister had railed at her for being ‘chosen’ in spite of her inadequacies, and she had rejected the idea.  She had to reject the idea, now more than ever, because if she really had been a normal pony to begin with—a pony with its own soul, as well as a piece of star—then what had happened to that soul when her natural body had dissolved into stardust?  Had she, like Gemini, died without noticing it?  Was she continuing on with only momentum to guide her, fueled by stars, but in truth, a fake?

No.  She refused to believe that.

How easy this would be if she had the ability to quantify what makes a soul and measure it, but even if she could, she would also have to go back in time and measure herself.  Pre-cutie-mark, post-cutie-mark and post-manifestation.  That’s the minimum she would need to get any sort of answer.  Any less, and she was just weaving fantasies with hope and faith.

Twilight’s head settled against the edge of the tub, and she closed her eyes.  There was a vast library before her, each book a star.  Most of the books were out of her reach, buried in the earth or off in the Umbra, but there were quite a few that she had with her.

She picked up the story of her life—the star or stars containing her own memories—and paged through it.  She saw herself staring wide-eyed at Princess Celestia, who was raising the sun at the summer sun celebration.  She saw herself watching as four stars converged on the moon, releasing Luna from her long imprisonment.  She saw herself sitting with Celestia on her balcony, learning how to bring out the stars and recreating herself as a being of pure magic.

It was all pointless, as she had no way to measure a soul, but she wanted to believe that they were all the same pony.  It was, perhaps, the only solution that she felt she could live with, so it was the one she would have to choose to believe.  Hope and faith.  Celestia’s tools, which Twilight had once rejected.  She had all the data now that she could ever expect to have, and yet she fell back to wishing for the best.

Idly, she paged back to that middle Twilight, the one looking up at the moon on the night Luna was freed.  If Celestia was right and she had used the stars to free Luna, then… what?  It still wouldn’t prove things one way or the other as far as her soul was concerned.  There was no contortion of logic that could prove things one way or the other.  Either she’d never had a mortal soul to begin with, or it had been lost along the way.

At least, she supposed, there was some consolation to be had.  She wasn’t alone in this, at least.  Whatever the truth was, it no doubt held true for both Celestia and Luna as well, and they’d been doing fine with just the one soul each for all of recorded history.

Well, relatively fine.  There was, of course, the one black mark of Nightmare Moon on their record, but that could not be considered statistically significant, no matter how historically significant.

Twilight remained on the page where she had supposedly freed Luna from her imprisonment, the moment before her frozen in time just before the seal was broken.  Luna would immediately dismiss that the faults of Nightmare Moon were any but her own, and Twilight was inclined to agree.  In fact, if anything, Luna had had one too many souls at the time, with the stars giving her power and stature to match Celestia.

With a groan, she shut the book, flung it aside and sank beneath the surface of the bath.  It was all pointless.  She was the alicorn of the stars.  She had a soul, and that would have to be good enough.  She wasn’t relying on faith, but acting on the best approximation of knowledge that she could arrive at from extrapolating the facts.

As she hung there beneath the surface of the water, her mind drifted back to Luna and she remembered that image of herself staring up at the moon.  What would it have been like to be banished for a thousand years, she wondered—to be locked away in the stars, conscious, but unable to manifest?

Actually, she didn’t have to imagine, she remembered.  She’d fallen asleep and spent a day trapped in the Umbra, herself.  It had been rather relaxing, but day after day, month after month, year after year?  It was a wonder that Luna didn’t resent her moon after all this time.

Suddenly, a thought struck Twilight, and she burst out of the water, gasping for breath.  Luna had been trapped in the Umbra all day for the first time since her banishment.

She was probably not going to be happy about that.

There was still a good hour or so until sunset, so for once in Twilight’s life—and she did her absolute best not to waste any time attempting to quantify that value in spite of the fact—she had ample time to calmly think through a problem.

The first question she asked as she went about drying herself off with one of her old towels was just how upset would Luna be, and how exactly would one go about fixing it?

Twilight wasn’t really happy with the answers she came up with.  She really had no idea how Luna would react.  Twilight liked to think they had become fast friends, if not more, but she had very little to go on in regards to how Luna felt about her own issues.  In fact, she would probably show greater concern over what had happened in her absence, but that would be addressed rather quickly.

Adding to the answers which Twilight did not like was what she could do about it.  She could simply ask Pinkie Pie to do it.  Pinkie Pie would be happy to throw a party for any reason, and a Twilight-Finally-Knows-Everything party wouldn’t be completely unreasonable, since she had left early from the last one.  Luna had even displayed a particular liking for Pinkie’s brand of fun, but… it didn’t sit right with Twilight.  She couldn’t just dump the issue on somepony else.  Not when it was Luna who needed her.

Briefly, she considered whether that meant she wanted Luna all to herself or some similar aberrant behavior typically associated with romance, but she was well-practiced in avoiding such questions—even if it was usually from other ponies—and chose to ignore it.

Speaking of having Luna to herself, did Twilight really have to wait for Luna to return at dusk?  As a matter of fact, she did not.  Not technically, anyway.  She couldn’t demanifest directly to the Umbra, but she’d proved previously that she could move the stars into the Umbra when it housed the day, so the reverse was likely true.  No doubt, this was because the stars had been moonrock lit by the sun to begin with, and it meant that it was possible for her to bring them over, demanifest, and go back to the Umbra where Luna was.

It would only cause concern across all of Equestria if she did it, but after the last several weeks, what was a little more?  Twilight considered it, but no.  Actually, she had a much better idea what to do with the next hour.

“Your Majesty, this is highly irregular.”

Twilight allowed herself to sigh audibly as she climbed the stairs of the Ponyville Palace.  The noblestallion was only one of a herd of ponies following her up to the throne room—most of them reporters—but she didn’t really care right now.

“It’s really not,” she retorted rather sourly.  “Out of four sessions of court, I’ve held one alone, been barely conscious for one, canceled one and fielded most of the last almost entirely on my own.  Statistic significance aside, holding court an hour early without Luna is actually literally par for the course.”

“But Your Majesty,” he pleaded as the group reached the throne room and Twilight began to break away from the pack.  “Surely you of all ponies should understand the necessity of adhering to a schedule.  You can’t seriously expect the rest of the nobility to read about the proceedings in… in a newspaper,” he insisted, not even bothering to hide his disgust from the collected journalists.

Twilight dissolved into stars for a moment to cross the gap that separated the plateau of crystal-coated white stone where the thrones were from its twin, where the assembled ponies remained, and rematerialized facing them.  She didn’t have time to argue, and she had had just about enough of this paradoxical mixture of reverence for her and expectation that she act as they expect.

“Dapper Façade,” she addressed him and took a moment to reflect on the types of names that ponies of the nobility tended to have.  “You all received the same notifications of the change in schedule as the rest of the ponies in this room, ergo anypony who is not here has chosen to not be here, either because they have prior engagements or because it takes them an hour to powder their noses, and I really don’t care which it is.  This session will mainly be a press-release followed by a short Q&A and any other urgent business if there is time.  I will be leaving sharply at dusk, no exceptions.  Herald three will be transcribing the session and should have copies available shortly thereafter.  Is there anything else?”

True to his name, the carnation-colored unicorn's outward calm vanished as he paled.  “Of—of course, Your Majesty,” he stuttered.  “N-nothing else, Your Majesty.”  It was not exactly the response she wanted, but she could not imagine Luna doing any differently—nor any of the alicorns she’d learned of last night, for that matter.  She wasn’t sure if the latter was exactly an endorsement, but she had to work with the role models she had.

“Very well,” she stated as she took a seat on her throne.  “I declare this session of the Night Court to be open.”  The subtle scratching of herald number three echoed Twilight’s words.  “Now, I’m sure most of you have noticed, but the issue of the anomaly above the Everfree forest has been resolved…”

This was going to be a long hour.

My faithful student fellow princess faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,

I find myself at a loss to describe the full breadth of my feelings on receiving your letter, among them no small amounts of relief and pride.  I knew when you first revealed to me your wings, that it was a sign that you were growing up, and now here you are with your own palace, holding your own court and asking for my advice in winning my sister’s hoof in marriage heart.  I fear the day is fast approaching that I will no longer be able to refer to you as my student.  Perhaps that time has already come.

I’m afraid that romance is not my forté, my little pony, and that any advice I give you would be woefully inadequate.  Oh, I am not quite the virginal princess that the reputation which precedes me would suggest, but it is more accurate than you might think.  I have never in my long life truly found love, and to my knowledge, neither has my sister.  I am, in fact, quite envious of my sister the two of you.

Loathe as I am to do so, however, I must caution you.  Be gentle and take things slow.  I cannot say how my sister will react, if she has given up on romance as I have, or if she has any preferences that would interfere.  I do not believe that she would ever hold such feelings against a pony, but with how lethargic she has been since the elements of harmony were used on her, now may simply not be the best time for such a revelation.  I understand that my view of things may be out of date, however, so I trust you to make that call.

I wish you the best of

You have my sincerest

The solar princess sat staring at the draft before her, doing her best to come up with honest encouragement and well-wishes for her student and her sister.  She couldn’t help but feel a little dishonest for some of the misleading phrasing she had used, and yet… it was actually helping her.  She could feel a growing melancholy in her chest like an old friend.

Celestia had written many letters of condolence in the past, and while this letter wasn’t the same thing on the surface, it was, in a way, a similar sort of goodbye.  It helped that it wasn’t just her inconvenient desires she was mourning, but the very real relationship of student and teacher which she had been holding onto.  She had told Twilight that nothing would change in regards to their relationship, but that indulgence, it seemed, was proving to be short-lived.

She was about to take another stab at a closing paragraph, when there was a shuffling at the door.  Remembering that the servants had been tip-hoofing around her earlier, she went to investigate, and sure enough, unlatching the door produced a squawk and a crash.  Opening it fully, she discovered two of the younger staff who had evidently tripped over each other in an attempt to flee her terrible wrath.

Celestia took a deep breath and gave them a melancholy smile.  “Is there anything I can do for you two?” she asked.

The two servants scrambled to their hooves with a “Ma’am!” from the colt and a “Your Majesty!” from the filly.  On closer inspection, the filly seemed to be a maid, and the colt, a librarian.  The two seemed well-acquainted, and held what looked to be an entire conversation in front of her with nothing more than various pleading looks to each other.  Eventually, the colt gave a sigh, rose and stepped forward.

“Princess Celestia.  Ma’am.  Your Highness,” he began, bowing until his nose brushed the marble.  “M-my name is Marble Mark, and I’m one of the ponies working on the… err… the secession of the Royal Canterlot Archives to Libraropolean control.”

Celestia nodded, motioning for him to continue.

“Ah, yes, well, it’s come up that there are certain vaults in the palace that are under the authority of the archive, so I had Rose Dust checking up on them and finding all the paperwork necessary to have them opened for accounting and cleaning.  One of those vaults is the one that holds the Elements of Harmony, among other things.”

Celestia hmmed, considering that for a moment.  “I would like to see a full accounting of the vaults in question, but have no problem hoofing the elements over to Princess Twilight.  Truly, she has more right to them than I.”

“Err, understood, ma’am,” Marble Mark said, giving her the sort of salute that civilians completely unfamiliar with the military are wont to use, holding the pose long past awkwardness.

“Was there something else?” Celestia asked, raising one brow.

“Well, you see, ma’am…” he began, but didn’t seem to have it in him to continue.  “A-actually, Rose Dust should be the one to say it.  She’s the one who saw it, anyway.”

Celestia turned to the maid, who was giving her companion a sour look.  “Saw what, pray tell?”

Rose Dust’s attention snapped instantly back to Celestia.  “W-well, Your Highness, you see, the vault is… I mean, if you look at it the right way, like, with your eyes open, it seems to be sort of… glowing?”

“Your Majesty, am I to understand that Princess Celestia killed this dragon?” one of the reporters asked, clearly doubtful.

“No, of course not,” Twilight said, shaking her head as she took stock of the ponies who had steadily trickled in since she had begun this arduous game of don’t-tell-anypony-you’re-a-god.  It was clear that a good number of them in fact had delayed themselves to powder their noses.  “Not only would Celestia never do such a thing, she could never do such a thing.  The dragon in question was, somewhat literally, older than dirt and well into its fifth life cycle.  Beginning with their fourth life cycle, dragons are, for all intents and purposes, immortal.  I’m going to say that again. They can not be killed by anything but another dragon.  If anypony in the future gets a hold of this transcription and thinks it’d be a good idea to wake up a dragon—don’t.  Just don’t.  Unless you are me, Celestia or Luna, do not try this at home.  If you are me, Celestia or Luna… still don’t try it at home; try it at somepony else’s home—maybe somebirdy or someling else’s home, depending on the current political climate.”

It was then that Twilight realized that everypony in the room was staring at her and nopony was blinking.  Finally, one pony broke the silence. “Right.  If her majesty is finished talking to her future majesty… um…”  He had to check his notes to remember where he was.  “If Princess Celestia didn’t kill the dragon, then what became of it?”

“Excellent question, Cupcake Justice,” Twilight said, scratching her chin with one hoof.  “You should definitely ask her next time you see her.”

“Pardon?” he asked automatically.

“I can’t tell you,” she clarified.

Cupcake Justice’s pencil pressed onto the notepad in front of him, but didn’t move.  “Ah.  Shall I take that to mean that you have been sworn to secrecy on the matter due to the inherent danger of the details?”

Twilight considered this for a moment.  “That’s not a bad idea, actually—though the likelihood is that somepony will notice that they have a new mountain in their backyard, so in the end, kind of impractical.  No, Cupcake Justice, I just haven’t the foggiest what Celestia did with it.”

Cupcake Justice and the rest of the reporters were busy transcribing her answer when there was a commotion from the rear of the crowd.  “Is this some kind of joke to you?” somepony growled.

Twilight sighed as the crowd automatically split away from the dissenter.  Twilight was expecting one of the members of the nobility that she had supposedly spurned but had no such luck.  “Star Glister,” she stated with an enthusiasm like dry talc.  “I’m surprised, and yet… I’m really not.  To what do I owe the pleasure?  I’m rather interested that the guild even lets you near me after last time.”

Star Glister looked uncertain as the crowd evaporated around him, glancing this way and that for support.  Though his voice had echoed through the chamber with such rancor, Twilight wondered if he’d actually meant to be heard.  He apparently decided that the die had been cast, however, and hardened up.  Committed to his course, he marched forward with a heavy gait and scattered a stack of papers on the crystalline floor in front of him.

“Revised plans for the new observatory design if you must know, Your Highness,” he spat.  “Which I am to understand that I will not be presenting to you this fine evening, because you are apparently practicing for your debut as a stand-up comedian.”  The hostility radiated from him like a bonfire, but this time—having faced starbeasts and Gemini in the interim—she was grounded by knowledge of what she was and able to let it simply pass through her.  She had weathered worse.

Calm and composed, she levitated the scattered papers and took her time placing them in order, double checking her work before passing the stack off to herald one.  “Put these on my desk for later,” she stated, before considering for a moment.  “I do have a desk, right?  In an actual office, not the bedroom?”  The herald nodded while Star Glister shook with barely contained rage.  “Right.  Put the papers on my office desk, and leave a note on the bedroom desk letting me know where that is.”

There was a smattering of nervous chuckles from around the room, and when Twilight finally gave Star Glister her attention again, she pondered his reaction for a moment.  “Does it bother you that I have a sense of humor?” she asked, torn between an indignant haughtiness and honest curiosity.

“Your lack of dignity bothers me,” he said, his lips twisting into an unbidden sneer.  “You are a princess of the realm and possibly a living god, so act like it.”

Well, wasn't that just a terrible suggestion all around?  Twilight took a breath and leaned forward in her throne, leaning heavily on one armrest.  With a hint of the Traditional Ponyville Librarian Voice, she uttered one word.  “No.”  Quills all throughout the room stopped silent for a moment, then began scratching furiously in spite of the relative simplicity of the statement.  Star Glister was about to offer a retort when Twilight held up a hoof to silence him.

“You’re right,” she said, taking a deep breath and raising her head to address the crowd as a whole.  Her mind raced, desperately finding words the moment before she needed them, but she was Twilight Sparkle, and if there was one thing she could do in front of a crowd, it was lecture.  “I am a princess, and unlike most of the ponies in this room, I have spent quite a lot of my time coming to an understanding of what that means.

“From a very early age, I was mentored by Princess Celestia.  Ostensibly, the reason for this was for her to teach me to control my magic, but I learned much more than that from her.  History, politics, mathematics—in a way, I was her apprentice in all things.  Though she didn’t know that I would eventually step up to stand beside her as a princess, I don’t believe that she would have done anything differently if she did.

“Of all the things that she has taught me, however, there is one in particular that stands out among the rest.  It was not a spell, a lesson, or some hidden secret of state, yet it took me years before I could really accept it and wrap my head around the concept.  To me, it was the revelation that before she was anything else, Celestia was not just my teacher, but in fact, my friend.  It would be more correct, however, to say that it was the realization that Celestia was, is, and will always be a pony.

“I mean, of course she’s a pony; that should be obvious, shouldn’t it?  But how many ponies here actually know who that pony is?  How many ponies can separate the Princess from Celestia?  It’s hard.  It’s hard because for more than a thousand years, the two have been all but synonymous.  The real Celestia might be a little more open, a little more honest than the princess, but they are, for the most part, one and the same.

“I am not Celestia.  Though she all but raised me, I am my own pony.  I have my own ideas, I make different decisions than her, and I act differently.  I’ll tell you now—the position of princess is one of a public servant.  It’s a position that I naïvely coveted long before it was within my reach, and now that I have it, I will do my earnest best to be the greatest damn government official you’ve ever had.”

Several ponies around the room nodded with approval—though they glanced at each other with uncertainty.

“I will, however, do so on my terms,” she announced, steel in her voice as she leveled a determined gaze from one side of the crowd to the other.

“Yes, you heard me right.  I will not be made to feel guilty about your begrudging reverence. Your worship does not give you the right to dictate how I act and how I live what little life I can scrounge together.”

Silence carried in the wake of her speech, but if anypony thought that Twilight was done, the misunderstanding was dispelled the instant she lurched up out of her crystal throne, eyeing Star Glister directly for a moment before raising her gaze past the crowd.

“As it so happens, you are also right that I am a goddess,” she stated, her voice booming with menace as she looked out past the crowd to the great panoramic windows and the landscape beyond.  “You all saw today what the goddess Celestia is capable of.  The Everfree Forest, scourge of Ponyville for generations, is gone, and there is a crater in its place.  If the events of this morning had happened at night, that job would have passed to Luna or, yes, me.”

In a blur of stars, Twilight shifted across the gap that had separating her from the crowd.  “Is that what you want?” she asked, stepping towards Star Glister as the rest of the crowd spread out into a bubble around them.  “Because the dignity of a goddess might demand reparations in the form of gifts that you are not ready to relinquish.”

Star Glister scoffed, which would have impressed Twilight if she believed he really understood the situation.  Briefly, she asked herself if she was really going to explain it to him, but it was too late now.  It had been too late the moment she’d opened her mouth and admitted to being what she was.  It was fine, though, she told herself.  She needed this.  She needed to set the tone for how the public would see her, and to do that, she needed to show them the ugly alternative.  There was no use getting ahead of herself, though, Star Glister was—ugh—talking.

“Gifts?” he asked.  “By your very existence, you have taken my life’s work and clopped all over it, leaving ponies like me to pick up the pieces.  I have tried—honestly tried—to make the best of the situation with these new observatories, but you know what?  Tartarus take you and your stars!  I am done with them!”

Twilight let out a heavy breath and stepped right up to Star Glister, laying a hoof on his chest.  “Very well,” she said, grim and determined not to falter.  “There are billions of stars in the sky,” she said cryptically, “and more than that buried in the earth.  There are more stars than any single pony can count, but if you wish to be done with them, then there is only one that I think you should know about before you make such a decision.”

She pulled the star out of him.

Star Glister gasped like she had stolen his very breath.  He sagged, his eyes glazed over, and he fell onto his rump, which faded to blank before everyone’s very eyes.  Not a single quill in the room moved, and Star Glister himself made no sound, just staring at the pinprick of light that Twilight now held in her hoof.

“This is your star, Star Glister,” she said, holding it out to him.  He absently reached out for it, but Twilight quickly turned away and started to pace around him, holding it in her magic so that everypony could see it.  “Though it is more accurate to say that is it my star.  It is the source of your magic, your cutie mark and your dreams.  It holds a copy of every last memory you have, as well as those of the pony who had it before you and the pony before that, as far back as recorded history.  When you die, it will pass on to another, and another, and another, until one day it ends up in my library, because that’s what I am.  I am the goddess of stars, and ultimately, every last star is a part of me.”

As she finished speaking, Twilight finished her circuit around Star Glister and turned to face him once again.  “As a goddess, I would be within my right to take this star from you,” she said, making a show of admiring it.  Then, she gently put it back inside him.  “But that’s not who I am.  Like Celestia, like Luna, I may be a goddess, but I am a pony first.  All you have to do for me to be the pony instead of the goddess—all anypony has to do—is treat me like one.”

Suddenly, Twilight shifted and was back on her throne.  “There are ten minutes remaining before dusk,” she announced with a smile and a clap of her hooves.  “Does anypony have questions?”

Celestia was one of the few ponies who could truly appreciate the shining light that shone out from every crack and crevice of the vault door.  She in particular could appreciate it since it was her who had created the door to possess neither crack nor crevice.

In spite of the clearly evident deterioration of the vault, however, the force was not violent or explosive.  Rose Dust had described it as a glow, and that was indeed what it was—a gentle, yet unyielding pressure.  It did not appear to pose a danger to her little ponies, for which she was grateful.  Once in a day was already one too many times to bring the might of the sun to bear on the surface of Equestria.

Dangerous or not, however, it was worrying, and the damage was not a good sign.  She approached the vault door and placed a hoof on it.  It was cool to the touch, and though many of the artifacts in the vault would have made her skin crawl, there was only a warm sense of familiarity.  It seemed likely that the elements of harmony were indeed either the source of the disturbance or, at least, reacting to it.  Anticipating nothing malicious, she decided to open the vault.

The vault had not been originally intended to house the elements of harmony, nor were the elements the only powerful artifacts which the vault contained, which is why contained was indeed the word for it.  While it was not the oldest such vault, nor the youngest, it did hold the unique honor of being the most secure thanks to an odd quirk of its design.  Indeed, unlike the elements of harmony, which were the most recent addition, containment had been an equal concern to protection for the vault’s original contents.

Her horn slid gently into the hole and lit with a pale golden glow, but nothing happened.  Frowning, Celestia redoubled her efforts, but it was futile.  Power was not what was required to unlock the vault; it was keyed to a specific spell-like pattern so that it could be opened by others with the correct information, should the need arise.

Disheartened, Celestia stepped back. letting her horn dip as it slid out of the hole.  There hadn’t been any resistance, just a slight echo of feedback that told her that the spellwork on the door was still present.  Its finer workings, then, must be either damaged or suspended by the incredible magical pressure inside the vault.

“Marble Mark, Rose Dust, I’m going to need some materials,” she announced, but there was no response.  Turning around, she found herself alone because of course she was.

Lips pressed into a tight line, she teleported all the way back to the other end of the hall of stained glass windows and was greeted by the predictable squeaks of little ponies who thought that she was going to banish something.

“Marble Mark,” she said, choosing to simply act as if nothing untoward had happened.  “While Rose Dust is getting me what I need, I want you to bring me the accounting I mentioned for this vault.  I’d like to know what’s inside, and anypony who has had access to it in recent memory.”

“Yes, ma’am.  Of course, ma’am.  Right away, ma’am,” he said, quickly giving his civilian’s-salute and galloping off, no doubt glad to be doing something that took him out of the immediate area for the time being.  Celestia watched him go then turned to address Rose Dust.

Rose Dust, too, watched Marble Mark gallop off—though, she was much less enthusiastic in seeing him go.  She quickly became conscious of Celestia’s eyes on her and snapped back to face her, bowing.  “Whatever you need, I shall provide, Your Majesty.  Though… I am only a maid.  I am not sure—”

“That won’t be a problem, my little pony,” Celestia said with a gentle smile.  “Everything I need, you will find quite easily.  A tea service and a seat cushion, to start with.”

“Your Majesty?” Rose Dust asked, curious.

“I have a feeling that it’s going to be a bit of a wait.”

Twilight lamented that she couldn’t go back to the Everfree Lake and then bring out the stars.  She was relatively certain that Luna would choose to first manifest back at the site of the conflict with the dragon, just in case, and Twilight didn’t want to miss her.  She would just have to take that chance, though, unless she were to wing it, and she didn't have time for that.

The throne room was deathly quiet as Twilight waited for the sun to set, but maybe that wasn’t too surprising.  The reporters had all dashed off the moment she had declared court to be over, eager to get papers in the hooves of ponies before the competition, and after the adamance with which she had declared that she would be leaving exactly at dusk, nopony else had wanted to stay and risk attracting her ire.  In the background, she could hear her heralds shuffling papers, but all else was silent.

Finally, the sun touched the western horizon, and Twilight let the slight push she felt from it direct her in bringing out the night, moving as best she could in tandem with the Moon.  Not for the first time, she wondered how she was going to explain things to Luna—both the distant past and the awkward present—but dismissed it.  Worst case was, it would distract Luna from the day she’d spent unmanifested, which could only be good.

As the last of the sun disappeared completely beneath the horizon and stars began to become visible in the sky, Twilight too, vanished.

The site of the growing Everfree Lake had not changed overmuch since earlier that morning.  Whatever Celestia had done with the dragon, it wasn’t immediately obvious.  Rather than devote any time to looking, however, Twilight instead scanned the sky for Luna.

She didn’t have to wait long for Luna’s arrival, nor was there any real need to actually look for her.  No sooner had Twilight raised her eyes to the sky than her view of the moon was blocked by a dark figure which engulfed her in its wings.  A small part of Twilight was aware that this was one of those things that, in retrospect, some ponies might not see as perfectly innocent, but she leaned into the hug all the same.  The only acknowledgment of her new point of view was a slight blush.

“You are well?” Luna asked, her voice nearly a whisper in Twilight’s mane.  Not trusting her voice, Twilight nodded into Luna’s neck.

The contact lasted only long enough to distract Twilight before the cool night air slipped back in between them.  Still, as Luna turned to survey the landscape and Twilight settled in close next to her, she felt lighter than she had all day—and why shouldn’t she?  She could miss Luna and worry about her without being in love with her.  No, wait, she was overthinking things again.  She  felt lighter because she was lighter; her remanifestation had shed the stars from beneath Equestria that she’d been saturated with.

“It appears that, after carelessly vaporizing me, Tia eventually drove the dragon to a canyon in the south.” Luna stated as the moonlight left her eyes and they faded back to their usual teal.  “If all is well, I suppose we should return to Ponyville for court.”

The shift in tone was jarring, but it was better than some of the things that Twilight had imagined.  Still, she frowned, and a gentle hoof found Luna’s shoulder.  “Hey,” she said, tentative in her approach.  “It’s over.  You can relax now.  Everything is going to be okay.”  Luna stiffened, which Twilight was a sure sign that something was indeed wrong.

“Alas and alack, I think you shall find that the life of a princess is not so simple,” Luna said, shaking her head.  “Unlike in your previous life as a hero of the land, when you are the pony in charge, it is the sad truth that with great deeds comes great paperwork—now come.”

Twilight failed to get a word in before Luna disappeared in a glimmer of moonlight. Rolling her eyes, Twilight followed along, manifesting back in the empty throne room, where she found Luna with a rather perplexed look on her face.

“I took care of it,” Twilight said with a wry smile on her face as she stepped forward, her hooves tapping lightly on the crystal-coated stone.  She was certain now that she’d done the right thing in clearing the evening.  “Well, not the actual paperwork, but I already held court and made an announcement.  It went—erm—well?”

Luna looked lost for a moment then all at once the stiffness drained out of her and she slumped to the floor with… relief?  Twilight really hoped it was relief.  Luna took a breath and craned her neck to look over at Twilight. “Truly?” she asked.

“Well enough?” Twilight answered with a bit of a nervous smile as she knelt down and nuzzled Luna.  “I was very assertive,” she clarified, sounding rather proud of herself.

Luna nuzzled back, but the action seemed… lacking.  It wasn’t ungrateful—the only word that Twilight could come up for it was weary.  “You didn’t yell at them again, did you?” she asked without opening her eyes or abandoning the nuzzle.

It was Twilight that pulled away this time as she scratched the back of her neck with a hoof.  She really didn’t want to get into exactly how court had went, but…  “I’ll have you know that I did nothing of the sort,” she said.  “I did not raise my voice even once when I ripped the star out of that stallion.”

Luna stared listlessly at her for a moment then planted her face on the cold, crystal-coated floor.  “Wonderful,” she mumbled.

“I gave it back, so it’s fine,” Twilight insisted, turning her head so her nose was up in the air.  “But seriously,” she continued, relaxing from her pose.  “It wasn’t what I planned, but I’m done worrying about what they think.  I’m more worried about you,” she said, nudging Luna’s neck with her nose.  “Are you alright?”

Luna’s head didn’t move from its position on the floor.  “Mm’fine,” she mumbled.  “Jus’tired,” she added.

“Oh,” Twilight said as understanding dawned on her.  “I guess you wouldn’t have exactly gotten much sleep.”  Twilight made her way around to Luna’s side and knelt down next to her.  “Here, c’mon,” she said, giving Luna a nudge.  “Let’s get you to bed.”

Without warning, Luna shot to her hooves, wide awake.  “No!  No, it’s fine!” she insisted, though she almost immediately fell back into a slouch.  “We should… we should do something.  Talk or plan or… something…”

Twilight chewed her lip, considering Luna’s reaction.  If Luna’s day in the Umbra was as bad as Twilight thought it might have been, was it possible that she be afraid of nightmares?  Maybe Twilight would have to look into shepherding dreams sooner than expected.  That would have to wait, however.  She needed a simpler solution, for now, and if Luna didn’t want to go to sleep…  “Actually, why don’t we pick up where we left off?” she suggested with only slightly forced cheer.

Luna took a deep breath and let it out.  “With the tale of the alicorns you were speaking of when the dragon attacked?  Very well.”

“Actually,” Twilight said, hopping in front of Luna with a tentative smile.  “I meant the dinner we were on our way to at the end of Winter Wrap-Up.”

The Goldenrod was not exactly an equivalent substitute for the café which Rainbow Dash had prevented Twilight and Luna from entering on that afternoon that now seemed so long ago.  The dark, polished wood and rich golden carpets made the discrepancy very clear from the moment they stepped in the door, and the further in they went, the more of its gilded architecture was revealed.  The wooden floors sprouted into carved archways, sculptures and delicate crystal chandeliers that sparkled gently with just enough light for ponies to eat by.

All in all, it was rather impressive for something that had been a furniture store a month ago, but with no sign to an end of the nobility pouring into Ponyville, places like this were surprisingly high on the priority list for materials and ponypower.  Sourcing both locally and relying on craftsmanship rather than truly ostentatious materials like the ones that the palace was made of had led to this particular establishment getting the jump on the market.  Being the first of such to open, it had at one time been the only place one could come to to be seen by the right people, and it had managed to maintain that status in the face of adversity.

Supposedly, anyway.  That was what herald one had said, and she’d been referencing a file as thick as her hoof at the time, so it had to be true.

“Y-your majesties!” cried the maitre d’ at the desk, a brown-coated earth pony stallion, oddly enough, but then, it was indicative of the workforce of Ponyville, if not the preferences of the restaurant’s target clientele.  The stallion appeared torn, glancing over his shoulder, and then back to Twilight and Luna.  “One moment!” he squeaked and ran off somewhere, leaving the two alicorns standing alone in the entryway.

Twilight had not asked Luna on a date—she just wanted to make that clear.  Like she’d said in the throne room, the two of them had been about to eat when the whole issue surrounding Sinkhole of the Royal Pony Sisters had begun, so what they were doing now was clearly just continuing on with behaviors which she had previously considered normal.  It wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of other good reasons for it, either.  Not only had Luna all but asked for a distraction, but after what had happened at court, it was probably actually a very good idea to be seen in public acting like a normal pony.

None of her justifications, however, changed the fact that Twilight was acutely aware of just how date-like a venue they had ended up in.  She could think about little else as the two of them stood in awkward silence as the maitre d’ returned with another pony—a charcoal gray unicorn mare.

“Princess Luna, Princess Twilight Sparkle, welcome to The Goldenrod.  My name is Swift Virtue, the manager of our fine establishment,” she said, executing a much more graceful bow than the maitre d’.  “It is an honor to have you here, tonight.  If you’ll wait a moment here with me, Solo Step will have a private room prepared for you in just a moment.”

Twilight was ready to tell Swift Virtue that this wasn’t necessary, when she realized that the maitre d’—Solo Step, apparently—was already gone.  She was about to make a sarcastic comment about the treatment to take her mind off of the fact that she was not on a date with Luna when she noticed that Luna was staring at her, rather derailing the derailment.

What was it Luna had said last night about how she had gotten over her anger at Twilight?  ‘My stars needed me, and I answered.’  She had been deeply touched at the time, but now she wondered if there was more to it.  Was it possible that Luna… what?  Loved her?  What did that even mean?  What could physical attraction possibly add to such a sentiment?  Why was it a requirement at all, and what would it even mean if it was true?

Both alicorns started when the maitre d' cleared his throat to get their attention.  “Your majesties,” he said with a stiff-backed bow.  “Your table is ready.”

Wordlessly, Twilight and Luna both nodded and fell into step next to each other as they traversed the rather large, though at this hour, sparsely populated restaurant.  Luna’s presence, her closeness beside Twilight, comforted her, and she told herself that it wasn’t because she wanted to sleep with her.  Well, that is, she did want to sleep with her, but not in any way different than she had been recently, which was what mattered.

As the maitre d’ led them through what appeared to be a scenic route to their table—whether to give them a tour of the establishment or to tour them for  the establishment, she was too distracted to wonder—Twilight let out a sigh.  Maybe she was trying too hard to hold on to the part of her that insisted that she was not attracted to anypony.  The idea, after all, had been to simply proceed as usual and let her feelings make themselves known to her, not to deny them for the sake of normalcy.

Fine, Luna was… attractive.  Twilight could admit that.  She might even be the only pony that Twilight could even feel that way about, but it didn’t necessarily mean that she should want to act on that attraction.  It wasn’t that she was afraid, either—not only that, anyway.

The thing was… this wasn’t some Old Equish tragedy of star-crossed lovers who had to run away together or be forced by fate to live separate, unfulfilled lives as their parents drove them apart.  The more she looked at the situation with her new perspective, the more she realized that everything that ponies claimed love was, she already had.  Everything except the actual physical, or in their case, perhaps metaphysical act.  It was no surprise that Rarity had made the mistakes she had about Twilight and Luna’s relationship…  In fact, she wondered if they could even be called mistakes at all.

It was a good thing the maitre d’ finally saw fit to arrive at their destination, or Twilight might have conspired to imagine that there had already been a wedding and she, too naïve to realize it.

Wait, they had both signed papers to become the joint alicorns-in-residence of Ponyville.

“Are you alright, Twilight?” Luna asked, sounding curious.  “Your eye is twitching.”

After re-composing herself and taking a seat across from Luna, Twilight was ready to latch onto any distraction that could get her mind off of overthinking things, but in spite of that, her mind was stopped dead in its tracks.  She had never anticipated this.

Beverage ordering.

“You drink?” Twilight asked, lowering the menu held in her magic just enough to look at Luna, rather bewildered.

Luna cocked her head in question.  “Of course.  ‘Tis a requirement of pony biology which, while not necessary for us, I quite enjoy.  Is that not why we are here?”

Twilight took a moment to re-parse what she’d said.  “Er, sorry.  What I mean is—you drink alcohol?” she clarified.

The look of confusion didn’t leave Luna’s face.  “I did not misunderstand you,” she said.

Twilight blinked then frowned.  “Alcohol is not a dietary requirement for ponies,” she stated in a flat monotone.  “We are able to make use of the calories, but that’s hardly the whole story.  In some ways it can even be considered a poison.”

Luna tapped her chin with her hoof, considering this.  “I do enjoy shots of nightshade on occasion, but I did not see them on the menu.”

Twilight opened her mouth to respond before her brain caught up.  “Right, immortal.  Okay, you have a point,” she admitted, but still…  “You don’t actually drink nightshade, though, do you?”

Luna hid behind her menu for a moment out of what could only be embarrassment.  “I think it tastes abominable,” she mumbled then checked to see that the waiter had not yet returned.  “Do not tell anypony this, but any time I am seen drinking it, it is actually hemlock and iodine.”

Twilight had no response for that.  None whatsoever.  “So… alcohol!” she announced, not even trying to disguise the change in subject.

“It is not a problem, is it?” Luna asked rather unenthusiastically.

“No!” Twilight yelped.  “No, I just… I… don’t drink?”

At this, Luna looked a little more thoughtful.  “Ah, bad experience?” she asked knowingly.

“Err, no experience,” Twilight admitted.

“Oh!” Luna beamed, brightening up.  “Then you should acquire some.  There is no better time to start than the present.”

Actually, on brief reflection, the perfect time probably would have been two and a half weeks ago.  She didn’t dare mention this to Luna, however, and while Twilight was distracted by her derisive thoughts, the door of their private room clacked open, and the waiter returned to take their orders.  Twilight was about to tell him that water would be fine for her when Luna shushed her with a hoof and exchanged a quick back-and-forth with the waiter using terminology which could have been alchemy for all the sense Twilight could make of it.

Well, except that she would have actually understood alchemy.

Eventually, Luna and the waiter apparently came to an agreement and the latter quickly ducked out of the room.  This time, he was only gone for a moment before he returned with a bottle, the only quality of which she could identify was that it was green.  The liquid inside turned out to be a pale yellow not unlike old parchment, and all too little time had passed before she had a glass of it on the table before her.

“You know,” Twilight said, delaying as she eyed the glass carefully.  “Come to think of it, I don’t think any of the old alicorns drank alcohol.  Actually it might not have been allowed in Utopia at all.”

“Truly?” Luna asked after taking a sip of her wine.  “And how did that work for them?”

Well… but… fine.  “Good point,” she said and picked up the glass.

Alcohol was… interesting; the conversation was not.  It was something, though.  Something to talk about that wasn’t the tangle of uncertain justifications she’d built up since earlier that afternoon.  “So, I had his star in my hoof for, like, a minute at most, and I may have admitted to our communal goddesshood, but like I said, it’s fine.”

Luna was less convinced.  “Are you sure that was wise?” she asked, looking over her glass with half-lidded eyes that Twilight attributed to tiredness.  The fact that she had to specifically make this attribution, however, proved that she was doing poorly at the job of keeping her mind on track.  Clearly it was the alcohol at fault, she decided, and not any unquenchable desire on her part.

One would think that, given her adamancy that the subject did not apply to her, she would be quite experienced at keeping such desires fully quenched, but in fact, the opposite was true.  Much as with alcohol, she had no experience and had never had any reason at all to acquire any.  Come to think of it, she had folded on the one subject easily enough.  Was she being too stubborn on the other?  And which one was to blame for the rising heat in her cheeks as she imagined Luna giving her that look under different circumstances?  Wait, no, not that look, the half-lidded one, not the one knotted in concern.

“Twilight?” Luna prompted, startling her.

Twilight froze for a noticeable moment then took another sip of wine to cover up her inattentiveness.  No, wait, that was probably the exact opposite of what she should be doing.  Too late, she’d done it anyway.  “Wise?” she asked, coughing as she failed to operate the wineglass.  The question was half rhetorical and half just to make sure that she remembered what was going on.  It took her a moment to force her mind back on track.

Right, the things she’d said in court.  She hadn’t planned on any of it.  In fact, she’d specifically set out to avoid the subject, but in the end…  “Probably not,” she admitted, “but you know what?  I don’t care.  I know what it looks like, but it wasn’t about telling them all to clop off, Luna—it was about being honest with them… and myself.  I mean, I get it now.  All the servants, the distance.  It’s necessary.  Celestia could have kept me in Canterlot and taught me how to deal with all… this… but I wanted to be normal.  Well, I’m not normal—and that’s not a complaint.  Not anymore.”

“It’s not?” Luna asked, perking up a bit, but remaining a bit wary in posture.  “That is, I doubt there is anything you could have said that Celestia or I would hold against you, but you’ve made no secret of how hard this has been for you.  You don’t have to pretend—”

“No,” Twilight interrupted without thinking.  “That’s just it—I’m done pretending.  It happened, and I’m not sorry it did,” she insisted, feeling a bit of strength well up inside her as she asserted herself.  “You were able to forgive me, and you had more right than any other pony not to.  It’s about time I got around to forgiving myself.  Standing up for myself is, well, it’s a part of that.”

“Ah.”  Luna let out a heavy breath and shook her head.  In that brief moment, she seemed to channel Celestia’s aura of somewhat gracious understanding.  “A worthy goal, but it is not always that easy, is it?”

Twilight felt her previous confidence deflate, but she was determined.  “Doesn’t matter,” she said, puffing out her cheeks.  “Gonna do it anyway.”

Luna let out a chuckle at that, and though Twilight resisted, the sound of Luna’s voice was infectious.  She quickly gave in and joined with a giggle of her own.

“I’m serious, though,” Twilight said, letting out a wistful sigh after the laughter passed and she had a moment to take her breath.  “When Gemini awoke and suddenly I could feel her down there every night, it was just…  I don’t know how to describe it.  I learned to deal with it, but even so, looking back, even during the day, I’ve just been… myopically focused on this… this problem like it can be solved and—”  Suddenly, she stopped mid-explanation.  Luna’s ears were folded back, and Twilight realized she’d been raising her voice as she went along.  She took a breath, and when that didn’t work, she took another sip of wine.

Conveniently, dinner arrived to fill the silence.  Luna has ordered asparagus and primrose with a mushroom bechamel sauce, and Twilight had surrendered to the dual pressure of figuring out both Prench cuisine and wine pairings, simply asking for the same thing.

Once the waiter had been assured that everything looked lovely, and a bite or two confirmed it, Twilight and Luna were alone once more.  When Twilight spoke again, her statement came as not quite a whisper, but hardly louder than the average Fluttershy.  “There was just the problem, and everything else suffered,” she said, picking up where she’d left off as if no time had passed.

“I realize that I haven’t been the best friend lately,” Twilight said, poking at her food with a fork for a moment before taking a bite.  “And I haven’t even tried to fix the mess I made by ignoring how ponies treated after I became an alicorn,” she continued, leaning back in her chair as she washed the bite down with another sip from her glass, only realizing just then that it was full again.  “But it’s over.  I keep telling myself that.  It’s past time for me to take a step back and get everything else in order.  No, to stop treating it like it’s another problem to be solved.  I just need to… start living again.”

Luna didn’t respond at first.  Instead, she reached for her wine glass with her magic, and Twilight realized that it was the first time she’d actually noticed Luna drinking from it.  Drinking was the word for it, though.  Unlike Twilight’s cautious sips, the Lunar alicorn downed half the glass like it was water, and that specific amount only because it was the bottom half.  “If you figure out the secret to that, Twilight, let me know,” she said with a smirk.

Twilight shook her head and let herself smile.  “It’s just this.  Sitting in peace with someone you can be yourself with, eating good food and having fun, looking forward to tomorrow and hoping that it will be as good as today.”

“That sentence seems to rely on several logical fallacies,” Luna pointed out, gesturing with her empty glass.

“That’s friendship, Luna.”  Also, love, she thought silently to herself.  “That’s life.”

Twilight had been able to make it through dinner without getting into the details of what had happened to the previous alicorns.  Specifically, it was the fact that alicorns in general seemed to either be predisposed to pair up or were the victims of what was most certainly history’s smallest dating pool which she had managed to keep quiet about.

She would have to broach the subject eventually—fairly soon, actually—but she just wanted to sort herself out first.  She supposed that it might not be exactly fair to Luna if only one of them was prepared beforehand, but two bewildered ponies rarely made good decisions when these sorts of things were involved.  Sexy, passionate decisions, maybe, but rarely good ones.

Damn it.

But no, Twilight could not have relied on instinct alone.  Her immediate reaction had not been positive, she reminded herself.  No, she would have said or done something wrong, and that was… that was wrong, obviously.  It would have been the wrong choice, and she would have ruined everything.

Huh.  She wasn’t sure when she had decided that.

She still rejected the idea that physical attraction should enter into it at all, but it was all connected, wasn’t it?  Tonight was good.  Luna had laughed, first at her petulant fit and later as the night went on and she had taken to playacting the various questions from the press in a variety of silly voices that she assured Luna were spot-on.  It was a start, but it had been somewhere into Twilight’s third glass of wine, with Luna coaching her in bleeding only a portion of it off into stardust, when it became clear to her the difference between being close to someone and having them acknowledge that closeness for what it was.

“You are… brooding?” Luna asked as the two walked side-by-side through the moonlit streets of Ponyville.  It was late enough that they had them all to themselves, which was a feat considering they had arrived at the restaurant shortly after dusk.  Neither of them particularly minded the cold, yet neither made any move which would take them from the warmth of the alicorn beside her.  “No, not brooding,” Luna concluded, thoughtful.  “What is that look on your face?”

“I can’t see it, so you’ll have to tell me,” Twilight teased, giving her a nudge with her shoulder as they walked.  “Contentment?  Understanding?  Maybe it’s that look I get when I know that I’m going to wake up tomorrow and freak out, but right now I’m too drunk to care.”

Luna snorted at that.  “You are not drunk, Twilight Sparkle.  Not even close,” she said.  “Allow yourself to finish the bottle some night, and then, maybe.”

“This isn’t the dark ages,” Twilight snarked back with a smile.  “We have ways of purifying water that don’t involve fermentation or distillation.  I believe the bar for being drunk has been set rather lower than you’re used to in this day and age.”

“Nonsense,” Luna insisted wobbling slightly in a way that told Twilight just how little she had utilized her own lessons in bleeding off alcohol.  “The bar for being drunk is over yonder on Hay Street.  I could show you around, if you like.”

Twilight yawned.  “Not tonight, I think.  Probably not ever—and how do you even know that, anyway?  You haven’t been carousing with the locals, have you?”  She made a mock-gasp and nearly tripped doing so.  “What would Celestia say?”

“She would say, ‘pass the rum!’” Luna shouted perhaps a little louder than was necessary in the dead of night, and Twilight winced as she imagined who might overhear such a ridiculous statement.

“Rum?” Twilight asked, doubtful.  “Really?”

Luna considered her answer for a moment, pursing her lips as she tried to remember.  “Well, no, not usually, unless it was me offering.  Scotch or brandy I think were her vices back then, and never in front of anypony, so yes, she would no doubt frown and pout at me behind my back until she gave me goosebumps if she were to know.  In such a situation, she would be advised to stuff it, however.  A princess does not refuse an invitation to drink with the very ponies who are helping her build a palace!”

Twilight gave her a flat look that hid a smirk.  “I am pretty sure she would do exactly that, actually,” she said, one eyebrow raised.

“Well, clearly she is doing it wrong, then, and is a bad princess,” Luna joked, and stuck out her tongue at Twilight, who chuckled at what was, in a way, out of character for the older mare.  It wasn’t, though.  Thinking back to Nightmare Night, Twilight knew that Luna had a lighter side, if she could tease it out.

She came up empty, and the moment passed.  They walked on in silence.

“I wonder if she’s doing alright,” Twilight said, some time later, voicing the only thing that came to mind on the previous subject.  “She seemed a little off when I woke up this afternoon.  I guess ponies did seem pretty freaked out about what she did to the Everfree.  She probably spent all day answering the same kinds of questions I did at court.  Um.  Minus the assertions of goddesshood, I suppose; though, I’m not sure it needed to be said.”

“Celestia is… Celestia,” Luna said, yawning halfway through and leaning her head over Twilight’s neck.  “She will be fine.”

“I know she will.  I just feel bad, I suppose,” Twilight said, automatically leaning back into Luna without thinking.  Her eyes quickly widened as she realized what she was doing, but she promptly decided she didn’t care just this moment, and redoubled her contact with Luna’s warmth.  “She was one of the things that I neglected when I… lost focus.  You know, I don’t even remember when I stopped thinking of her as ‘the Princess?’  There was that conversation when we visited the archives, of course, but in my head, I mean.”

Luna was right, though.  Celestia was Celestia.  Part of the reason that Twilight and Luna could be so cavalier with the Librararchy and all of the changes that were going on in Ponyville was because the two of them weren’t the entire face of the nation.  Celestia was the rock that Equestria was built on.  She would handle things while they learned to stand on their own.  Together, but on their own.

“And what about you?” Twilight asked, suspecting the mood was right to broach this subject now.  “Will you be alright?  You were stuck in the Umbra all day, and now you’re traumatised and stuff.  I wanted to distract you.  Have I succeeded?”

“Twilight… you are a wonderful distraction, but I am not like you, remember?” she said, glancing skyward.  “Whether I am manifest or not, I am always the moon, and I sleep in the Umbra every day.  Life was unpleasant, at first, after my return, but I have had to… deal with it, as they say.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, somewhat listless and disappointed.  “Well, why didn’t you want to go to sleep, then?  Weren’t you tired?  You said you were tired.  You were definitely tired.”

Luna gave a noncommittal shrug, jostling Twilight.  “It would be a sad day indeed were I to leave you to eat alone while I slumber,” she said.

Twilight’s head perked up as a thought occurred to her.  “Wait, don’t tell me you went out with me, fed me and plied me with alcohol all night just so I’d be tired enough to sleep with you?”

Luna considered her response.  “I believe I just did.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, letting her head sag back into Luna’s neck.  “Thanks.”

Celestia had gone through three entire pots of tea, a full four-course meal and half a slice of coffeecake, but eventually she got what she was waiting for; the last ribbon of magic dissolved underneath the pressure from within the vault. There was no great crash or crack to herald the event.  Instead, the first sign that something had changed was in the light shining through the gaps.  First it seemed to shift; it dimmed around the edges of the great patterned doors and grew brighter in the center.  The shaft of light from between the doors grew brighter and brighter and then thicker and thicker as they slowly opened.

Whatever Celestia had expected to emerge from within the vault, it was not a pony.  As the figure took one slow step after another, her assumption was vindicated—it was not a pony.  Standing before Celestia, bathed in a warm, multicolored light, was what looked like a sculpture of golden filigree that gave the barest impression of an alicorn as tall as Celestia herself.  It looked almost… incomplete, as if as little material as possible had been used to hold six lights in place on its head, its heart and the ends of its forehooves and wings, and whatever was left had been used to embellish the remaining figure in halves and quarters.

The elements of harmony—or perhaps just Harmony—took another step forward, and Celestia held out a cup to it.  “Tea?” she offered without getting up.  It was only polite to offer such hospitality; though, she rather doubted the staff who would have to clean the carpets would appreciate the finer points of the gesture if it was accepted.

It was not.

The thing stopped mid-step.  There was so little to its figure that Celestia couldn’t gauge its mood at all.  She was about to set the cup back down, when all of a sudden, the figure of gold and light collapsed, clattering into the ground like the sound of a half-dozen springs down a flight of stairs—only a half-dozen, though, for that was about all there was to it.

The teacup that Celestia dropped made more noise.