Defining Features

by Ice Star

Chapter 2: The Crown (Atop Your Head)

Celestia:

I do not believe that Luna is fit to rule. Thankfully, I also have no reason to suspect that my sister may know this. This is not because I have some scheme against her, as I am as good as I can be in the words of ponies. That kind of discussion would be embarrassing, at the very least. Most of the things that Luna does are a few steps short of a social scandal, and she really has no right to blame me for being mortified by her conduct or the way that she is spoken about by others. Today, her offense is one against the good and noble concept of the decorum which all ponies must be subjected to.

Luna has chosen to wear the clothing of a stallion. More than that, she has chosen to be seen in public in such attire, no less! She sits across from me, sullen and sulking as the Triarchy’s guards pull our carriage along. The bumps in this dirt road are numerous, but we are lucky that after days we have finally found a path. This young nation of Equestria has little in the way of roads, and what few there are come in the form of worn dirt paths in the earth pony tradition. These, of course, are the major highways of the land.

The foothills immediately west of the lonesome Everfree where Luna and I dwell alone in our castle is hardly that welcome of a sight. While the land is not a rare feral zone like the forest, so filled with ugly, wild things and devoid of anything fit for the aesthetics of civilized creatures, it is unkind and overgrown. Eerie fog lingers too long on a muggy day like this, and has provoked more than a few shudders from me. Mud merges with what we have for a road, with only the imprints of numerous hooves to keep it at bay. The moors are overgrown, and in desperate need of a stone road like those made from by the unicorns to cut across the land instead of just waiting for us when Luna and I reach the start of the range Canterhorn Mountain is a part of. Pegasi and earth ponies are reluctant to traverse land so close to the borders of the Everfree Forest to quell the spirit of this place and put nature where it belongs. I do not blame my little ponies for reacting with such fright, for I have heard the stories told in this part of our young kingdom. Timberwolves have slain travelers by dusk, and those few who have dared request I grant them plots of land in this part of the country thinking they can make it find their humble farms demolished by stray wild weather and other taints of the dreadful magical stronghold where I reside. It is the most vital natural defense this nation could ever have against further inter-tribal war of the races and the southern kingdoms, should they wish to discard all diplomacy and potentially abduct the keepers of the sun and moon.

Perhaps the powers of the Everfree Forest have been enough to drive my sister mad, and that is what drives her to spit upon the blessed state of harmony that is the root of all of our norms. I give her a discreet, disproving sideways glance. Her mane is a bit long for a stallion, but too short for any mare of her station, and both it and her coat have begun to darken. Her thick mane has begun to ripple with the onset of her divinity. Long ago, we claimed our gold-worlds in the frozen north where we found the tribes. I had already been starting to have my mane sparkle and the like, even though I was barely an adolescent and sulky Luna is at the end of it. There is a nagging memory from some time long before, one I should bury rather than touch, that says delayed maturity in proportion to adolescence is a sign of great power amongst our kind. But I bury it to focus on the dark suit she wears, with its ruffled ascot tie, and how big it is on her legs. All of it is cut for a stallion, including the cape she has moodily pulled over her.

She has said nothing to me, and this is not uncommon. I cannot tell why. I cannot get her silence to break and yield anything but disinterest. It sickens me as much as it lingers upon her like a sickness. She will not even converse with our private guards that draw this cart, and they are some rather lovely studs, if I do say so myself. Her eyes are drawn to the land that must be settled, yet she has no want to settle it. My eyes have always been drawn to friends among well-dressed mares and all the ardor a fine stud ought to be associated with. I have worked so hard to get us to where we go tonight: a summit with dear Platinum, Puddinghead, and Hurricane. The whole Triarchy and their three servants have thrown a ball and we narrowly did not get invited and Platinum explicitly cited Luna in the letters as to why. Only my good graces were enough to kindly remind her of our importance... yes 'our' importance. I hoped that if I made Luna sound important too, and got her tickers as well, she would finally be drawn out of her shell and thank me for this.

Instead, I sit here with my expertly sown petticoats in all the palest pastels of spring trying not to sigh. To refrain from doing so is easy for me now, like choking back words. I have enchanted ribbons in orange and gold so that they might contain the way I have netted my mane; this way, none shall see it spill out and how its movements and very nature mark me as apart from them. I have tried to offset the offensive shine with strings of pearls. I know it is odd for me to wear them, for I am not a virgin and my consumption of a good, single stallion at these gatherings is well-known, but at least I merely sample them. Puddinghead is up there in age and has crossed into promiscuity, and if she were anypony else I would not give her the kindness I do. Luna looks out at the lonely land, and I look for something to relieve it. Fair Philomena is not enough of a friend; nopony will live with us. I can find no stallion I can be honest to without being sickened, and yet playing with them as I wish to be seen, as they wish to see me, and then sleeping with them has not sated what I thought it would in me. I need this world, I need this nation of young Equestria to see me, and I need my favors to be stacked well so that one day it might not be a triarchy, but my own.

I have packed Pilomena in a cage strapped to the top of our coach with the rest of my dresses. Luna brought so little luggage. I cannot understand why. When the wine, dining, and trysts are over, the politics may begin. Luna's utter disinterest in the third will certainly limit her usefulness in politics, but I have tried to tout us to the crowd as the two god-sisters, as much as I hate it. As much as I wish to be heir and the spare that is Luna to find her own life. The topic of this summit is the continued spread of the buffalo menace and she has had the most abhorrent things to say about the ways they treat our pony settlers and attempts to create civilized villagers. I have lent my peacekeeping skills to the summit because they have not been forgotten. My aid in the defeat of Tirek is still something that ponies speak of. My status as an Arcane Student and my work with the mares of the Unicorn Court and on the stallions with that I favored there are well-remembered. Everypony alive knows that I have been essential in the reason Equestria exists: I was the one who led the migration southward when it was announced that Clover the Clever and the two other servants found land. Oh, I suppose Luna was there too.

I say this not for my own pride, as that would be a most disgusting thing. Pride is the greatest rot within a pony. I say this because I must milk these heroics for all that they are worth to keep being relevant to the Triarchy who are content to let it be their schemes that run this land and reluctant to let go of every old way of corruption. They would let my sister and I go as unknowns instead of as the Ladies of the Everfree.

My crowns are ornamental now, but I am giving up my life for the good of Equestria that need not the unified tribes to run this nation less than perfectly. I have the idea of a land that will shine like the sun.

Luna is somepony you forget wears a crown at all.