1. Date Night
It was a sort of new tradition between the two sisters, one that they’d kept to ever since Luna returned. Canterlot was a busy, beautiful city with a rich theatre scene; not quite at the level of Manehattan, but there were many skilled Canterlot artists plying their craft onstage to see. Given their vaunted position, Celestia and Luna knew their presence would cause such a stir that it would defeat the point of unwinding from their royal duties. The ponies of Canterlot payed very close attention to every personal decision the Princesses made, and judged many artists’ work by whatever the Princesses’ standards appeared to be. Going to see one play might draw so many ponies to it that all other plays currently running opened to an empty house, and neither princess wanted anypony’s career to end because they’d felt like seeing a comedy that night instead of a drama. In the time before Nightmare, they’d never addressed this problem, and resigned themselves to missing out.
But in this new era, one in which they’d resolved to be closer and remember to relax wherever possible, they had come up with a solution. One night of every month they set aside to magically assume disguises of ordinary tourist ponies, and go see a show. For this one night, they shed the burden of being royalty and mingled with their citizens unnoticed. Celestia, with her odd sense of humor, insisted upon referring to it as their ‘date night’.
On one such night, Luna stood in front of the mirror in her bedchamber, half-heartedly appraising the purple pegasus disguise she had selected. She was not exactly excited about it, but it was no surprise: this part of date night didn’t matter much to her. Luna had never experienced, or could not remember experiencing, vanity. The feeling never came to her. She was never quite pleased with her appearance and so trying to find one that she liked was a wasted effort. As such, she did not expect that her disguises would make her happy, but hoped that at least Celestia would like them.
A hoof rapped upon her door, and though the voice was disguised, Luna recognized small affects in the pony’s speech as her sister’s. “Luna, are you ready? We should go now!” Her chosen pitch was unusually deep tonight. Celestia, unlike Luna, loved this part. She was always fussing over small details of her visage until she adored what she saw. Luna occasionally worried they’d be late for a show because her sister wasn’t done putting her disguise on, but the results couldn’t be argued with. Every date night, Tia was practically strutting down the street, her entire demeanor glowing. It felt good just to sit next to her when she was in such an uplifting mood.
Luna wondered sometimes if there was something wrong with her, that she could not feel that way.
“Luna?”
“Oh … Yes, I am ready.” Luna turned away from her underwhelming reflection, considering if the name Purple Prose was realistic enough to be believed, and deciding it would be fine for the night. After all, she’d already put together a parchment cutie mark and they might be late already. Luna opened the door … and blinked, stopping in her tracks.
Her sister had made herself into a stallion. She was a faded blue unicorn, in a severe, silky black suit with a short-cropped white mane and tail. The suit was tailored to expose the diamond cutie mark on the flank. Celestia noticed Luna’s hesitation, and looked uncharacteristically self-conscious, her ears folding back a touch.
“Is this alright? I just felt like trying something different, but if you don’t like it, I can –”
“No, no, Tia, I –” What exactly was her reaction? Seeing this distinguished, well dressed stallion and knowing that her sister was under the magic illusion brought up an odd jumble of emotions that neither heads nor tails could be made of. The best Luna could do was call it ‘fascinating but painful’. It brought a tight ache, just a mild one, to the hollow between her ribs. It wasn’t a new pain; she’d felt it many times before. She didn’t have time to puzzle out why it was happening now, because her sister was still waiting for the rest of her sentence. “I was only surprised. You look … dashing.”
This brought Celestia back to her normal inner glow of pride, and she smiled, straightening to her full height. “Yes, I enjoy being the tall one.”
Luna broke into a grin. Celestia’s stallion character did stand about a half-head taller than Luna’s own pegasus mare – hardly anything compared to their usual difference in height.
“My name is Brilliant Cut, and I’ll be your escort for the evening.” She bowed like a gentlepony. “And your name?”
Mentally, Luna rolled her eyes in amused resignation. The Rising Sun Herself had such fun with the introductions, presenting their characters. Just like the process of picking a disguise, Luna tolerated it, only really finding happiness in how much Celestia enjoyed it. “Purple Prose. A pleasure, sir.”
Celestia leaned down, took Luna’s hoof and kissed it. “The pleasure is all mine, milady.” The ache got momentarily tighter at the word, as it always did, and Luna tried not to cringe. “Shall we depart?”
Luna smiled, keeping her confusing feelings to herself. “We shall.”
As they walked off down the hall, side by side, Celestia asked “What do you think? Does The Magic of Metal still sound good? We have time to change our minds.”
“No, no, I think a comedy would be just the thing. Resolving that land disagreement between the Bluebloods and the Forests was such a frustration.”
“Yes, I agree. I don’t normally indulge in such a predictable comedy of errors, but … oh, this month. I don’t have the energy for anything challenging.”
“I hope it isn’t another Halter and Bit. That was awful.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve read great reviews.”
They stepped out an unnoticeable back door of their palace, on the street level, and set off on their usual route. They would walk down Royal Street until they hit Rhyme Road, then turn a couple of laps around the entertainment district, until anypony who might’ve seen them had forgotten that they had come from the direction of the palace. Then, they would go along Thespian Way until they came to one of their preferred theatres, The Thespian’s House; so named, as one might infer, from its location.
Walking side by side ‘Brilliant Cut’ in the faded light, Luna couldn’t keep her eyes off her sister’s chosen male form. He appeared to be a jeweler by his mark. Though it was only an old ponytale that horn size or shape affected the quality of the magic, Celestia had chosen something shorter and sharper, suggesting that his levitation was a precision instrument. He had a little grey hair in his mane, and a thin streak in his tail, making him appear middle-aged. Her sister would only rarely choose a young pony as her character; she usually stuck with somepony who would not raise eyebrows if they ordered a specific year of wine.
They arrived at the theatre, paid for their tickets, and went in. As usual, Celestia had hurried them out well before the play was supposed to start, and most seats were empty, which allowed them to claim two in the top row. Sitting quietly in the dark, Luna kept sneaking glances at ‘Brilliant Cut’, hoping that Celestia didn’t notice. She still felt the same small turmoil every time she looked at her: fascinated with every detail, but with that familiar pain tugging at her insides. The little ache was a lifelong companion; it had come and gone for as long as she could remember, and she still didn’t know just what exactly it was. It wasn’t quite sadness, nor quite discomfort, nor quite anything; it just hurt. It felt particularly hard and sharp right now, because of Celestia’s handsome disguise.
Luna shut her eyes and lay her head on Celestia’s shoulder, putting one hoof over hers. Celestia returned the gesture, laying her head against Luna’s. “Wish I’d gone as a pegasus.” she whispered, her smooth male voice tweaking that pain in Luna’s chest. “I always forget how strange it feels not to put my wing around you.”
The purple mare breathed deep, hoping that nagging ache would go away if she just focussed on the pleasure of her sister’s company. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
When the show began, it was very shallow and light. Every character acted rather unrealistically, and only the protagonist and his dramatic best friend were somewhat likeable. Act one flew past with enjoyable hamminess, and though Luna seriously questioned the flimsy justification as to why the unicorn protagonist had to paint himself green and perpetrate the ruse that he was an earth pony blacksmith, she couldn’t deny that the ensuing ridiculousness was amusing. Laughter rolled through the theatre when he had to hold his hat on over his horn while being pelted with snowballs. At this, Celestia whispered to Luna “Why doesn’t he just tie the hat on? This has happened at least three times now.” When he tried to lift a suit of armor and succeeded only in sweating and collapsing, nearly everypony in the audience groaned; they may not have earth pony strength, but even a unicorn could lift things. Most of it was enjoyable enough to distract her, but during the boring stretches, that constant sadness sitting heavy in her chest was all Luna could think about.
When the play ended and they started for home, Celestia tried to make light conversation about the show, but Luna was having trouble participating. Every answer she gave was too short and too closed, and she kept promising herself that she’d say more. It was no use, and soon they were walking along in silence.
The quiet continued when they entered their palace, and as they climbed the stairs to their private chambers. They stopped at a fork in the hallway, where they’d have to part ways to go to their own bedrooms. Celestia, still looking like Brilliant Cut, leaned down to nuzzle Luna.
“That was fun.”
“Indeed.” Luna agreed, returning the gesture.
Celestia pulled away to look Luna in the face. “Was something bothering you tonight? I know you said you didn’t mind my character, but you didn’t seem … present.”
Luna privately cursed her sister’s perceptiveness. She’d so hoped she’d managed to act natural. “It’s nothing, Tia. You needn’t worry. I am tired, that’s all.”
Celestia did not look as though she believed her, but she let it rest. “Mmhmm. We should go to bed; I only have time for an hour-long nap before the sun needs raising. Good day, sister.”
That same little twist came again, deep inside. “Good day.”
Back in her bedroom, Luna shed the nondescript purple pegasus image, freeing her navy coat and starry mane. Her horn came into view gleaming with the effort of dismissing the illusion, and Luna caught sight of her restored self in her mirror. Meeting her own eyes out of habit, she stood and stared at herself as her horn dimmed and darkened, finished with its task. Many ponies had called her beautiful, but looking at this reflection, she could objectively see what they liked without being able to feel the same way. What she felt, if anything, was a barely noticeable touch of dismay and surprise every single time she met her reflection. It was as though she could never quite believe what she looked like, always expecting … something else, but she could not have said what. Minutes went by, and Luna now sat in front of the mirror, still staring and wondering. Something terribly familiar had been hurting her all night, was hurting her right now, and it had to do with this. She supposed seeing Celestia get so much joy out of making herself beautiful had always made her jealous. Tia seemed to have something Luna could not see herself ever having. That made sense.
But Luna was not satisfied with that explanation. It didn’t explain why her sister being a stallion had mattered so much. Luna herself hadn’t ever tried a stallion character, not once in the few years they’d been keeping their dates. She supposed that the reason was her worry about whether she was ‘normal enough’. The ponies seemed warmer toward her in this new era, and she was more accepted than she’d ever been, but she had a looming fear that the smallest thing could ruin that. She had been shunned for so long, part of her believed it was a natural state to which their society must eventually return. She was sure that terrible episode with the Tantabus –
Maybe best not to think about that right now.
Allowing herself any strange or potentially distasteful behaviour, even if nopony apart from her sister knew about it, felt like too big of a risk to take. If she kept letting herself act strangely, like speaking in the old dialect which she still preferred, or pretending to be a stallion, she’d never be thought of as normal. Given her nocturnal proclivities, she was strange enough as it was.
Celestia didn’t have that problem, or at least, she didn’t act like she had that problem. She was so at ease that she magically crossdressed, all night, just because she ‘liked being the tall one’. She did not worry about being different as Luna did.
Luna would bet that her sister did not have a constant, nagging sense of doubt and discomfort, an ache, that chose the strangest times to ruin her good mood. When she looked in the mirror, when she picked out something to wear, when anypony called her ‘lady’, ‘princess’, sometimes even when Celestia called her ‘sister’, like in the hallway just then. Her own name might set it off. Anything that made her think about herself, it seemed, and it didn’t answer to reason. Maybe that was why she so often felt like she wasn’t even Princess Luna at all. Was that possible? Could she somehow have no choice in being the Princess Luna, and yet not be herself? Could a pony be trapped in their identity while sometimes not even identifying with it?
A bird trilled loudly outside her window, and Luna started, flicking her head toward the sound. She was shocked to see grey dawn light coming through a crack in the curtains. How long had she spent staring at herself? Celestia had already raised the sun.
And Luna had forgotten to lower the moon. She cursed and illuminated her horn, reaching for the corner of the sky where her charge should be; true, she couldn’t see the sky from in here, but setting the moon could be done by feel in a pinch. Blindly, she grabbed hold of her misplaced light, which she’d left high in the west, and dragged it down. It set a little quicker than usual in her haste. Luna released it once it was below the horizon, and let out a frustrated sigh. How could she have almost neglected her duty just to worry about this? It was not as though it would ever go away, so she should not waste her energy dwelling on it.
“Just go to sleep.” Luna muttered to herself, standing up. She rifled through her record collection, much of it thoughtfully preserved through her long imprisonment on Celestia’s orders. The album she selected had been with her since the early days of their rule, and survived entire eras of Equestrian history; she put it on the player once more. It was quiet and soothing and sad, perfect for getting to sleep. She lay in her bed and listened to the cello.
In conjunction with the music, there was a soothing trick she often employed. She held perfectly still, softened her breath until she couldn’t feel or hear it, and worked to ‘ignore’ her physical form. If she just listened to the music and let that consume her attention, she could forget to feel any part of her, until she couldn’t feel where her body ended and the air began. After a few minutes of this, she couldn’t feel her body at all, as though it had ceased to exist, vanished into the ether. She used this trick almost every day, and she’d become very good at it. There was only cello music and thought, and nopony at all.
I am not Princess Luna.
There was no positive statement, no answer as to what was. There was only what was not.
And at this moment alone, the ache inside eased.
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Well if any of my other comments are any indication brutally honest is my only setting.
alright, well I think this is very accurate. there's not really much else that can be said. It's accurate in the portrayal of the struggle to understand something like this so I think you're doing just fine with this and I would like to see where this goes.
6991064
Thanks for commenting! And for the compliment. It means a lot to me.
I have high hopes for this story; I'm working hard on chapter two. I'll get it out as soon as I'm happy with it.
6993472 wow.
That was like looking into a mirror.
I really do like this story, and I hope to see it finished soon. You seem to have gotten the confusion and pain down perfectly, and this has all the marks of becoming a great story.
Thank you so much for writing this.
6993708
I'm really glad you like it. I tried to be as accurate as possible. I've been frustrated in the past trying to explain what dysphoria feels like, because it doesn't follow logic; it's an entirely emotional thing. I like to be able to be specific and logical when I write, but it just doesn't seem doable when you're writing about your feelings. I think that frustration is going to be more evident in chapter 2, with the way it's shaping up.
Thanks so much for reading, and the encouragement. I'll do my best to see that it stays good as it goes on.
Side note: I want to read EVERYTHING in the similar section for this story. It is in interesting company!
Next chapter???? Great read so far.
7008072
Hey, thanks! I'm so glad you like it!
The next chapter is coming. I'm just worrying about it a lot; I'm an insecure perfectionist at the best of times, and I don't want the second and third chapters to let anyone down, you know? I'll have chapter 2 up soon.
7008457 I'm sure you'll do fine!
Wow ... this is a powerful start to what I hope will be one hell of a story. In a way, I'm not really surprised Luna - I'm using that as a tentative current name, I guess - can't really put what's wrong to words. Goodness knows it took me a few years - this is about where I was during the first or second season.
7016419 I know what you mean sister. It was hell for me growing up. I tell you, when I put out a request for a tans Luna, I never imagined that the result would be like this.
7019956 I bet. Sorry to hear you had a rough go of it too. *hugs* I'm glad in a way that I was well out of high school before realizing I was trans - the kids in my turn-of-the-millennium (yes, I'm old
) rural schools tore me apart bad enough as it was. And I'm kinda surprised that there aren't more Trans!Luna fics out there ... it seems like they're always the queer* one. And I'd really expect Equestria to be more accepting than Earth, though this is not my story.
*I hang around in a lot of circles that have reclaimed the word, but if it bothers anyone here, I will edit it out and refrain from using it.
7020595 oh please, I am SOOO queer, not only am I a trans-girl, but I'm also a lesbian, im about as gay as it gets. Anywho, I was also surprised that there weren't any transLuna fics floating around. I actually got into a discussion with another user about it a while back.
LINK
Of course, the discussion was perfectly reasonable and we spent many calm words exchanging ideas in a open and non hostile environment.
Or at least I did.
7020845 LOL, same, actually. Well, Trans woman ... I'm 31, which is too old to really be a girl. And trying to be an activist for my local community. That said, I know there are still quite a few LGBTQ+ folks who are bothered by the term, and I try to make sure that I'm careful about my language. Don't always succeed, but I try. Most of the times I've seen canon characters written as trans, it's been Rainbow Dash (who is the queerest pony out there by far), Big Mac, Caramel, Scootaloo, and sometimes Rarity. And really sorry you had to deal with the trolls there. It seems like they're getting worse again.
7020979 eh, it was fun
7021003 Cool ... glad someone enjoyed tangling with them. Not looking forward to the backlash I'm going to get when I post a story that I'm working on that'll probably piss on more than one third rail.
I'm fascinated, thus far.
7049647
Well, thanks!
7050316 hows the chapter coming (How do you like my new Avatar/Name?)
7132860
I do like your new stuff; I didn't even know you could do that on this site. That's very good to know.
As to 'When am I going to update this thing?', in a nutshell the reason for the delay is I got more interested in other parts of the story and Chapter 2 was not nearly as engaging in comparison. You know how it is; it isn't as much fun to write or think about the chapters where you're still setting the scene. And beyond that, I was genuinely worried that the whole chapter would come off as boring no matter how necessary it was. But just the other day, I got an idea for how I could make the second chapter a little more interesting.
For most of March, I was writing and tweaking later chapters and kind of forgot to get back to Chapter 2. Then April hit, and the due dates for my essays closed in on me. Those are past, now. All I have left to worry about is my exams.
So, in short, how's Chapter 2 coming along? Not great for a while, but better now. Hopefully now that I'm a little more interested, it'll be more interesting to read. As to later parts, there are plenty of bits I'm proud of; I was rereading and tweaking those all month. When I get to put them up, it'll be great.
7133680 well, I'm looking forward to meeting Artemis.
Just remember that not every chapter has to be gold. Even the best of stories have their weak moments.
I am glad to hear that this isn't doomed to be incomplete. That happens WAY too often on this site.
Rather enjoying this, I certainly hope more is coming (I see the last comment was a worrying three months ago). I love the interactions between Celestia and Luna; I'm a huge fan of non-romantic intimacy, particularly since the default setting of the fandom is 'They looked at each other! Shipping confirmed!'
Of course I say this while being major shipping trash but that's neither here nor thereIt's also kinda nice to see a FtM story, since most trans stories seem to be MtF. Certainly not that I have a problem with that in and of itself, and it does make a good deal of sense given the feminine nature of the source material. But still, it's always nice to see something different.
A few nitpicks, if I may. Your grammar is pretty on point, but the apostrophe before Tia is unnecessary. Nicknames never need apostrophes despite being shortened, because they are treated the same as any other name. Consider the name Zeke, short for Ezekiel. Odd example, but it took me like an hour to even think of one common nickname that didn't include the beginning part of the name
Secondly, and you may well be aware of this, but the convention in fiction is to avoid parentheses. The reason for this is subtle psychology; parentheses are too far removed from the rest of the story and can create a sort of jarring effect to the reader, making them loose track of the sentence the parentheses are part of. I would particularly recommend avoiding long parentheticals, like the two sentence one about the record. Convention is to use dashes instead. Note that 'convention' is certainly different from 'rule'. Your use of parentheses was indeed grammatically sound, so it just depends how close you want to stick to conventual guidelines.
Of course, it's your story and you should do as you will with it. While I am a huge word nerd, I'm hardly an elitist. I only point things out in case you didn't already know, and if you prefer to keep them as they are then that's fine by me. In any case, I hope to see a second chapter soon
7397092
Much as it appears to be, it is not dead; I just have issues with writing consistently. Strangely, it is totally possible to prolong a block by thinking about it too much and getting mad at yourself. 
Who knew? But yes, I do get a little frustrated at the relative smallness of the MtS (Mare to Stallion) folder. It makes sense, I suppose: statistically, there are fewer transmen than transwomen, so decreased representation for the guys is just to be expected. Still, like anyone, I like to see my own experience in a story sometimes.
Heh, yeah, it has been a while since I updated this.
Anyway ... That's a good point you make about the nickname; I only added the apostrophe to be thorough, but if it isn't needed then I will take it out. As to the parentheses, I'm not sure that dashes would read well for those changes in thought, but we can't have anything taking the reader out of the story. I think I'll just remodel those sentences. Honestly I wasn't totally comfortable with the brackets to begin with; it seemed like childish writing, but at the time I couldn't think how else to phrase it.
Er ... *pushes favourite ship under the bed*
Well ... that isn't really important to the story, we don't have to mention that ...
Thanks for the comment!
7397605
If you're the type of person who finds it helpful to talk about ideas and stuff to get creative energy going, my inbox is always open
Is this the statistic in general, or did you mean within the fandom? I'm just curious, I've never actually looked into the numbers on that.
Lol to be honest, I was wondering if it was intended to be shipping, but I assumed not since there's no romance tag on the story. Oh well, it was an adorable scene, one way or the other
7397605 Excellent chapter, friend; I look forward to reading more
Regarding the ratio of transmen to transwomen, here's a point to consider: based on my observations, the vast majority of gender roles (and the ratio of males to females) in Equestria are reversed from our world...
You bang too often on the "for some reason" and "but she didn't understand" drums. Readers can remember; you need not specify it every time.
Else…good chapter. No spelling nor grammar errors detected.
Its interesting, I still don’t agree with the philosophies that can go into transgenderism (for instance, I see no value in being one gender or the other, so I only see the risk involved with changing) but as I speak to you and read your thoughts, I can feel a similar experience boiling to the surface. One I suspect also has to do with how I was born.
Have you ever seen a movie where a man is experiencing something, emotionally speaking, incredibly painful? Often a woman will be placed in a scene with him to “help him cry” (kinda demeaning to have someone refer to it that way, but it’s a practical way of explaining things I suppose, we’re not freaking robots, we cry on our own thank you). Eventually she’ll say “there, now is that so bad? Don’t you feel better now?”. In the movie, he always nods and we look off into a sunset or some other such mood setting nonsense. However, women do that in real life and the answers really are, “yes” and “no”. For many men, crying is, in fact, hard as it is to explain, actually painful and rather useless. Practically, there’s the common excuse for this, “you’re father was cruel, unintentionally, but he was, because he trained you not to cry, so you now being this way only makes sense”. But... well there’s more to it than that. After a certain point, every experience I had crying, save when a woman close to me was around, was negative, including experiences around women or girls who were at least friends and even family members, so no, the gender of the folks around isn’t related, or at least, not tied. Thus, I find pain in crying, a pain I really can’t explain. My father trained me not to do it, because he had had the same experiences. He wasn’t mean about it either, he tried to sit and explain how things were different for me than my sister, but it never sank in until outside the home, everything he said would happen, started to manifest. Try hard as you can to convince me what he taught me “feels” wrong, it factually wasn’t. He explained I had to find a balance in my expression and no, he wasn’t wrong. I imagine women struggle with crying too, but when a woman says “was that so bad?” it’s pretty obvious the process for her isn’t the same, or she probably wouldn’t ask. Also, hey, sometimes it DOES help, so she’s not entirely wrong so... I don’t know. I guess there is no solution to this problem, it just always will be part of me. No one did it to me, I did nothing wrong, but it just is. Expressing myself is hard and that’s just part of what I am. Even typing this... the emotional reactions playing in my mind are hard to explain. Part of me REALLY wants to stop.
8219843
The value is strictly internal; it’s just to ease the pain of not being yourself. It can’t really be explained with external factors. But personally, I think that just because it’s all in someone’s head doesn’t mean it isn’t real. If it’s in your head, you can’t escape it, and it colours every waking moment; to me, that means it’s very real.
Here’s something I didn’t know before I started looking into HRT, but testosterone plays a role in a human’s physical ability to produce tears. Transguys who go on hormones find that very quickly, it’s much harder to cry and takes a lot more mental stress before the tears actually come. I don’t know whether that tells you anything about your own difficulty with crying, but it is true that it’s a different process for ciswomen. It really is just easier to cry with less T in your body.