//------------------------------// // Waiting for the sunrise by Fuzzyfurvent // Story: Dark Paradise 2: The Twiluna prompt tag collab // by Majora //------------------------------// Luna yawned, her jaw popping loudly. She ruffled her feathers, shifting her weight from one flank to the other on the magically hardened cloudcrete floor. She glanced tiredly toward the east, the glow around her horn growing brighter minisculy. Thousands of leagues above her and the rest of Equus, the Moon slowed its descent a little more. “How much longer, Twilight? The sunrise is fast approaching and waits for no mare...well, except my sister, but that goes without saying.” Luna smirked at the younger alicorn. Twilight was busy scribbling notes on a piece of parchment, her eye glued to the viewfinder of the Archimedes 12 telescope. She watched Twilight flip the page over blindly in her magic, her quill attacking it with tight typeset-worthy penmanship. “I cannot hold the dawn at bay forever, unless you want a visit from Celestia that badly.” “Just keep the light pollution down for another minute. This is the only time we’re going to have a perfect line of sight on the Tia-class star beyond the Minos Cluster for the next six months. I have to get these readings.” Twilight frowned, the quill she was directing picking up enough speed to fan her mane away from her neck. “Almost...done…” Luna nodded to herself, her will tugging the nigh uncountable tons of moon rock back against the planet’s gravity well. The coming sunrise pushed at her metaphysically, and she leaned back into it, her horn glowing brighter with the strain. “Hurry, please. I really don’t want to hold Celestia’s fat Sun back for long. It’s heavy!” Twilight sighed, but she smiled at Luna’s whiny tone. “Big baby. Gimme...just...there! All done!” She pulled back from the telescope, blinking rapidly. “You can let go now! We’ve. Got. Measurements.” Twilight whistled happily and trotted over to the large central table and spread out her pages of notes. Luna groaned with relief, her horn flashing one last time as she shoved the Moon back into its proper position. She stretched, arching her back and spreading her wings out before she stumbled over to the couple’s much abused coffeemaker. Luna pulled the pot off the warmer and poured some into a matching set of mugs. She dropped two packets of sugar into Twilight’s dark blue mug and then another four into her own purple mug. “So...what’s it look like?” Twilight ignored Luna for the moment, her eyes scanning the notes. She arranged the equations in her head, doing rough calculations and comparisons to a similar set of notes from six months earlier. “Well...I think we can confirm that there is and exo-planet orbiting that star...well, one more, at least.” “That brings the total to…” Luna closed her eyes. “A little over a thousand planets we’ve found, right? And six in that system alone.” “Yeah. One thousand and thirty planets, to be exact.” Twilight looked up when her mug set itself down on the table in front of her. “Thank you. But...I think we can safely assume this newest one is a rocky planet, and tiny by general comparison to most we’ve found. Might even be the smallest one we’ve found yet.” The night Princess took a sip of her coffee and took her seat next to her wife, looking over Twilight’s notes. “We’ll have to run all the numbers later to be sure.” She pulled one of the sheets nearer with one hoof. “Is this the orbital distance? If...this is right...then it’s in the habitable zone. Twilight! Do you realize what this means?” Twilight grinned happily, putting a wing around Luna’s shoulder. She nodded. “Hmmm...a planet that’s within the size range of Equus, potentially in the range of a star like ours where there is liquid water. If the numbers play out, we could be looking at the first planet we’ve ever found that has similar enough conditions to our world to support life as we understand it.” “Goddess, I’ve never wanted to math so much!” Luna giggled, leaning against the shorter Princess. “This could be a momentous discovery, Twilight!” “Yeah...but you know what?” Twilight looked up at Luna, her voice growing softer. “The math can wait a while. I think I’d much rather sit outside and watch the sunrise with you.” Luna smiled, leaning forward to kiss Twilight gently. “I think that can be arranged, my little scientist. Afterward, let us make some dinner.” “Then a shower.” “Oh my, yes! Then bed.” “Who knows, we might even sleep in it?” “Anything is possible in this universe.”