Title: Only the Tender Shadows
Pairing: Princess Luna/Nightmare Moon
The shadows were watching her. Sometimes she turned her head to catch them, but they were tricky. They were able to look completely normal until her back was turned, then they arched and curled into terrible shapes that whipped away the moment she tried to look at them. It was enough to render her a trembling wreck beneath her bedclothes.
“Lu-Lu,” they crooned. “Luuu-Luuu…”
“You are not real.” Luna clamped her hooves over her ears. “You are not real!”
“Not real? Well now, is that any way to talk about somepony?”
“You are not a somepony. You are a something!”
“I thought I was not real.” Voluptuous laugher filled the air so loudly, Luna was amazed the guards didn’t come running. “We are all somethings, darling. Some of us are merely more aware of it than others.”
“We do refuse to listen to thee!” Luna buried her head under her pillow.
“You know that will not work.” The words ribboned into her ears even though she held the goosedown so tight she could barely breathe. Still, she heard the voice as clear as a knell. “Thou art my little Lu-Lu, and I do care about thee so very much, daaaaaarling –”
“Cease this!” Luna leapt from the bed, cantered across the floor, wrenched open the door of her chambers and galloped down the hallway to her sister’s room. “Cease thy prattling, foul thing!”
“Thou may run from me, darling, but thou may not hide. Thou art my little Lu-Lu…”
She slewed to a stop in front of Celestia’s chambers. “Sister! We beseech thee, let us in!”
Snowy white guards cantered down the hallway after her. Day guards. Of course. It was daylight. Celestia wouldn’t be in her rooms. Luna took off at a run, opening her wings and soaring faster still. She reached the throne room ahead of the unicorn guards and reared to smash open the doors with her front hooves.
“Sister!”
Only then did she realise what she was doing. Dozens of surprised and confused eyes turned on her. The court was full today. Guards had herded civilians into a long line and were keeping order as they waited for their audiences with the Day Princess. At the other end of the room, Celestia sat, regal as a cat on a velvet cushion. Her head jerked up at the commotion.
“Oh-no,” Luna muttered, shrinking back in a very un-princesslike manner. Her hooves, unclad in their usual silver shoes, clip-clopped far too loudly to her ears.
“Oh yesssss.”
She spun around, looking for the owner of the voice. The guards that had followed her were rounding the corner. They were both male. Neither could have said that. There were shadows on the ceiling. She cowered away from them like a beaten dog.
The crowd inside the throne room murmured. Seeing the Night Princess during the day was strange enough. Seeing her invade the Day Court, wild-eyed and shouting, was another thing altogether. Luna looked behind her, stomach clenching at the frightened expressions beginning to spread from pony to pony.
Beyond them, Celestia stood, her pink mane flowing and her eyes narrowed in … concern? Anger? It was too difficult to tell. Celestia was too good at looking beatific and wise to shed the expression completely when shifting into others. She was a consummate ruler: never crumbling in front of her subjects or hearing voices that couldn’t possibly be there.
“Harmony take it!” Luna cursed under her breath.
She opened her wings and fled.
Celestia cleared her throat delicately. “Do we not deserve an explanation for today’s outburst?”
Luna stared into her soup. Her bread sat untouched beside the gleaming silver bowl.
When she did not answer, Celestia cleared her throat again, as if Luna must not have heard her all of three feet away. “Luna?”
“She speaketh to thee, Luuuuu-Luuuu.”
“Didst thou hear that?”
Celestia blinked at her. “Hear what?”
“We …” Luna started but stopped again immediately. Celestia was looking at her that way again.
“Hmmf, you do not need her pity, nor her chastisements. She is thy sister, not thy mother. What higher authority set her above thee? Thou art her equal in all things, yes? Yet she doth treat thee like a small foal in need of coddling and discipline.”
Luna did not realise she was gritting her teeth until they squeaked.
“Luna? Thou didst thoroughly embarrass us this day,” Celestia said, her tone gentle but reproving. “We would appreciate an explanation. Art thou unwell? Should we send for a physician?”
“Thou doth show a little backbone and thou art labelled a sickling? Such condescension!”
Luna willed the shadows to shut up. The confession that she could hear a voice in her head rose in her throat, eager to expel itself into the air between herself and her sister. Celestia was older than her. She would know what to do. She would know what this was. Celestia always knew what was best. That was why Luna deferred to her so much.
“Is it, Lu-Lu? Is it really?”
She blinked in surprise at the silent question. Of course that was why.
“How dost thou think Celestia would react if thou asked for something extravagant that does not fit in with her views of the world and how it should be run?”
What?
“Ask her for something extravagant. See what she will say.”
That was stupid. She didn’t need to make Celestia prove anything. She needed these stupid shadows to go away!
“Do this thing and if I am wrong, I will leave thee.”
Luna’s eyes widened. Was this truth?
“Absolute truth. For you see, Celestia will fail. She does not respect thee as much as thou doth believe. I know this, but thy denial remains.”
She cleared her throat. “Sister ... dost thou love us?”
Celestia’s neck arched in obvious surprise. “Such a question! What causes it?”
“Please … answer us.”
“Love thee? Why, with all my heart, my dear sister.”
“Therefore … if I did ask a boon of thee … wouldst thou grant it?”
“Indeed. What wouldst thou ask of us?”
Luna bit her lower lip and asked for the most outlandish thing she could think of. “We desire our night to be extended by … b-by one hour.”
Celestia’s ears flicked back. It lasted only a moment but Luna noticed it. “Luna…”
“We ask so very little, sister,” Luna interrupted. “We have never asked anything of thee in over a hundred years. We have followed our duties to the letter. We ask now that thou grant us this boon.”
“Luna, it is too much.” Regret threaded Celestia’s words, but Luna did not hear the tone, just the words themselves.
“A promise given so lightly and as easily taken away,” whispered the shadows. “Truly, thou doth mean the world to her heart, Lu-Lu, just as she says. Or is that a lie also?”
Something like rage flared in Luna’s chest. She had not felt anything like it since the battle over a century before, when she had led troops into battle against the griffin hordes while her sister recuperated from her wounds. The shadows caressed it, twirling around the feeling like bellows pushing a licking flame to greater heights in a half-doused fireplace.
The soup bowl jumped when her hoof struck the table. “It is not too much!” she shouted. “We would accede to such a wish if it was ours to grant!”
“Luna –”
“Mayhap we should raise the moon before thy precious sun is lowered!”
“Luna, thou art aware of why such a request is foolishness. Tides, crops, the natural order: all are ours to maintain. We must remain in balance and follow the rise and fall of the seasons. That was the responsibility we did undertake when we accepted our roles as rulers Day and Night.”
“We see only one ruler here,” Luna hissed, lip half-curved into a snarl. “And it is not us.”
“Luna!” Celestia was aghast.
Luna saw the hurt and outrage on her sister’s face. She watched Celestia rise from her chair. Her chair at the head of the long table. While Luna’s was merely a chair at the side, much smaller than her sister’s. Less ornate too. Plain. Unadorned.
“Finally, you begin to see the world through new eyes,” purred the shadows. “True eyes. Eyes that see the reality of things. The shining fire of the Sun Princess is beloved of your citizens so much more than your own beautiful moonlight. They do frolic and play in her warmth but hide and shiver from away your magnificent stars.”
Luna shoved back her plain, ugly chair so hard that it tipped over. The resultant crash echoed around the dining room.
“Luna, thou art translated!” Celestia cried. “What ails thee?”
“Truth, dear sister!” Luna spat back. “Nothing but ugly truth.”
Celestia’s chair squeaked away from the table, but in a puff of glittering light, Luna was gone.
“Luna?”
Luna refused to listen to the voice or hooves banging on her door.
“Come out. Come out now, Luna!”
“Do not worry, little Lu-Lu. I will look after thee.”
“We do not need to be looked after,” Luna sniffled. “We are strong. We are proud. We are the Princess of the Night!” A tear plopped of her nose. “Harmony damn it!”
“I will remain by thy side regardless.”
Something soft smoothed back her untidy mane. It felt nice; far nicer than Luna could admit. There was a niggling doubt in the back of her mind that she should be questioning this more. She should want to know more about this voice that soothed her now. Yet she could not summon the desire to do more than roll slightly backwards to look up at the curling, vaporous shadows.
“What … art thou?” she asked vaguely. The stroking felt very relaxing. Her eyes began to drift a little. Despite the noise at her door, she felt tired enough to sleep.
“Thy protector.” A set of gleaming turquoise eyes coalesced out of the gloom. “One who doth love thee far more than thy insincere sister.”
“Luna, open this door!”
Luna yawned. “Thou doth … love … us?”
“With all my heart and soul.” The eyes swam closer, shadows beneath them firming into something like a mouth. “After all, I was born from thine.”
“Hm?” Luna prised her lids open.
“Hush. Sleep now. I will keep the sunlit wolf from thy door.” The mouth pressed a kiss to Luna’s forehead. “Soon there shall be only one princess in Equestria.”
“Luna!”
“And it shall be us.”