Live by the sword

by bonamb

Die by the... Wow. Correct, but grim.

Luna sat alone on a throne surrounded by nobility.

This, was boring.

The stallion in front of her was trying to convince her of the benefits of privatizing the railroads, as he and his compatriots had done from various angles, for almost a month now.

Luna had denied his first proposal. And the second, fifth, and sixteenth. The others had been presented by such weak willed nobleponies that they had wilted under her glare. Oh, she knew that they were attempting a monopoly on the market, thus filling their own pockets. That she most certainly understood. What frustrated her, however, was how much she could do about it, as each proposal, as long as it had, ah, 'significant' differences from the last, was allowed to be presented before her in court for potential approval.

She would not be the one to crumble in this pathetic war of attrition, although it was truly amazing how many different ways they had of generating money at the expense of other ponies.

She cast a rememory spell, disguising the flare of her horn behind floating the lengthy document he had been holding over to her, ignoring his startled gasp, and let some of her attention slip away from the present.

She didn’t understand how Celestia had done this alone, every day, for almost a thousand years.

---

Luna pushed the empty coffee mug aside, cursing as it left a ringed stain on the document beneath. It had been but a month since her return from the moon, and she was still familiarising herself with the intricacies of Celestia's government. Her power had not yet returned and as of that moment her hair was a light blue mop, brush discarded in an effort to study.

Despite the benefits of an alicorn's memory, understanding this obscenely complex, layered structure was akin to straightening a string that had been twisted through four dimensions with ones hooves. It may have been straightforward at its genesis, when Celestia and Luna, upon finding themselves with a crown thrust at them, had spent almost a decade researching the most successful societies of both the past and then present. From their combined efforts, they had created a potentially stable structure to last the centuries with the two, eternal alicorn heads of state to guide them, both mares becoming greater in time and accumulating respective centuries of experience - providing a mutual counterbalance.

Of course, then that had happened.

With Celestia having to shoulder the burden alone, and along with many, many unaccounted for factors, concessions had been made, and amendments added. Innovations in technology had led to new departments, and a monarchy instead of a diarchy had led to Celestia putting more power into the ponies' hooves than they had intended. This wasn’t bad in itself, but it had led to the creation of the nobility and the now entitled upper class as they appeared to have become in these more 'civilised' days.

Luna missed the days before the crown. Before royalty and nobility and rule. When they were free to be whoever they wanted to be, without responsibilities and repercussions.

Therefore she was. She refused to be constrained outright by rules and regulations. She was Luna, warden of the moon, former bearer of honesty, laughter and loyalty, and she would dammned before she became disloyal to herself. She would play pranks, laugh loudly, speak however and whenever she wished and never, ever, repeat the mistakes of the past.

She was currently protected somewhat from the repercussions of those mistakes by Celestia's shadow. And a very large shadow it was.

Sometimes, she thought she wished she was a little more like Celestia. Luna may have been herself fully, happy in her body, but she believed her own virtues the stricter to keep to. You didn’t have to be good to be kind, you didn’t have to be well meaning to be generous, and you certainly didn’t have to have another ponies best interests at heart to make friends, though most times her sister embodied the lighter side of all those elements seemingly perfectly.

Put simply, Luna's required an open, vulnerable heart, and Celestia's did not.

Celestia was the chessmistress. She may lose the battle, but never the war, always willing to make sacrifices and concessions for the bigger picture, while Luna settled for nothing less than absolute victory in all aspects of her life.
But for now, she had a government to unravel, and a millenium of political history to sift through to understand the plays, tactical losses and eventual successes her sister had made that had resulted in the bare simplicity of their former diarchy becoming... this.

---

Luna's mind returned to the present, spell ended and eyes flickering as she quickly skimmed the document.

She believed that the true measure of a pony's nature came when under stress, and what better way to provoke a stress induced, instant reaction than with violence?

That was where their differences became apparent.

Despite Celestia lack of practice and relative unfitness, the two were still matched in skill. Celestia had Aurora, her rapier, and she wielded it as she did words. Precisely aimed, each strike carefully measured. But she had disconnected almost entirely from her natural - equine - core, not responding by instinct, but by calculation. It was only in the latter stages of the bout, when her exhaustion had drawn her down, the chains holding back her passion had relaxed, if only slightly. She had very nearly become alive.

That was where Luna wanted her to go. She wanted to draw out the old Celestia, to tear down the walls and formality that she had hidden herself behind, even from her sister. Her needling had worked, poking fun at her sister's pride by attacking her fitness, and how her once spry self had vanished behind a mare sitting on the throne. Her rather one sided 'conversations' with Sabre had also born bounteous fruit. Her sister most certainly had noticed and understood what she was doing, but, Luna hoped, recognized that she was doing it for her benefit, not for any other reason.

Although, the pranks were fun.

Speaking of. Returning her attention to the still blathering stallion in front of her, she grinned. Perhaps with a few too many teeth she realized, as he took a sudden step back before catching himself.

Clearing her throat, she began. "Thine proposal has... some merit, Lord Collar."

He blinked, before smiling and opening his mouth to reply.

"However, I find myself unable to pass a ruling on this exact issue, due to not having all the details at hoof."
He frowned, and began to point at the document she held, before blanching as it burst into flames in her telekinetic grip. Looking from the ashes floating down to the floor and back to Luna's face, he trembled.

"I could, if thou wished, pass a snap judgement on it?" She retrieved Noctem from her room and let it materialize in her magical grip next to the throne, slowly twirling it. She glanced to the hammer then back at him, letting her grin grow a little wider. "We even have our... gavel at hoof."

He made a pathetic squeaking noise, and backed away before bumping into the pensioner behind him, then turning and running for the exit.

Hah. Let Celestia deal with that one. Him and his ilk are obsessively persistent. Though, perhaps she enjoys letting me frighten then.

She wouldn’t have hurt him. Probably. Though, it did help to remind them every now and again who was the immortal who very nearly bought their entire civilisation crashing to the ground a few times, despite having been one of its founders.

Some of those times weren't even her fault.
She reduced her expression to the patented 'Celestia smile', spinning Noctem out of existence and beckoning to the next petitioner to the throne. Perhaps this one wouldn't require intimidating.

This night, fortunately, would soon be over.

Author's Note:

No Luna you can't solve all of your problems with violence.
Just most of them.

This was going to be more hammer swingin' and less talkin', but somehow Luna felt a little bit introspective and it turned into a kinda spiritual second chapter to Sandwiches.

Whoops.
Just wrote itself tbh. I don't necessarily agree with everything she said but eh. Did it quite quickly so there may be a typo.

Anyway, please tell me what you liked and didn't like, so I can continue to improve, accumulate power, and eventually become the memelord supreme.

I lie, that's Aragon.

So yeah criticize and shizzle. You're cool ass ppl. I hope you enjoyed :P
Oh yeah, is anybody but me interested in Moamer's legion of poison and all them other past events? Cuz I'm doing a Sabre background thingy sometime soon maybe, and a more indepth look into their government, buuuuuuut I was thinking about poking a few of the adventures our favorite pony princesses had in their youth with a stick (cause WORLDBUILDIN' YO). Would be a heckin' long story though. What do you think?

So I do have other plans, but this story is out.

Comments

[Gyro Pony]

Love your world building !!
Few writers explore unicorn weaponry in depth. It fit the story and characterization perfectly.

[FanOfMostEverything]

This night, fortunately, would soon be over.

I have to appreciate Luna thinking this.

In any case, lovely slice of royal life and examination of Luna's reaction to modernity. Thank you for this story.

[SoaringJe]

Yay, Luna! I liked the bout of introspectiveness, though the spell she used confused me (I kinda didn't read any other Sandwiches story; is it obvious? xD)

Thanks for touching on Luna's mane change, and I always appreciate writers exploring the complementary aspects of Celestia and Luna: the chessmaster vs the...blunt? xD
However, this chapter had a lot more typos and grammar errors than usual .-.?
The writing was rougher in general: some sentences didn't flow well, some two-word descriptors could have benefited from a hyphen, some phrases should have been set off by commas, titles/epithets should have been capitalized, a few words were misused

Despite the benefits of an alicornian memory, understanding this obscenely complex, layered structure was akin to straightening a string that had been twisted through four dimensions, with only ones hooves. It may have been straightforward at its genesis, when Celestia and Luna*,* upon finding themselves with a crown thrust at them, had spent a year researching the most successful societies of the time.

But now, with Celestia having to shoulder the burden alone, and with many, many unaccounted-for factors, concessions had been made, and amendments added. Innovations in technology had led to new departments, and a monarchy instead of a diarchy had led to Celestia putting more power into the ponies*'* hooves than they had intended, which wasn’t bad in itself, but it had led to the creation of the nobility and the entitled upper class as they appeared to have become in these more 'civilized' days.

Minor issues: lack of hyphens, possessive apostrophes, or capitalization of titles, and some awkward phrasing due to long af sentences that aren't quite formatted correctly
Big issue: The past tense of leading is led.

Thanks for writing though, it's still very enjoyable :)

[bonamb]

8367116
I can't believe I didn't see your comment when it was posted :c I'm blown over by the size of it!

In order:
The "rememory" spell is kinda a daydream style thing. It's basically a way of focusing in on a particular memory and examining it in much more detail than it would otherwise be, uh, remembered. I used it instead of just a bog standard daydream just to kinda poke the idea of exactly how large an alicorn's memory is, and if Luna, who slept on the moon for a millennium needs to use artificial methods to sort through her burdened memory effectively, what exactly must Celestia do?
Yeah I can't do subtlety, but hey, everybody has to start somewhere :3 Fun times!
Also no haven't put it anywhere else in the sandwichverse yet (though I am working on a much, much larger story so it may pop up again). Should have explained it somewhere though but it didn't quite fit with the excessively small size of this story.

Grammar corrections! Thank you! I think I had an exam the next day and kinda whacked this out as a way of winding down, oops.
I've corrected basically everything you've pointed out, might actually have to go find an editor sometime for future projects.
My first drafts have so many more long, rambling sentences. I often cant actually read what I've written when I go back to poke it :P

Leading! Led! English is fun! I can't spell and for a person who enjoys writing occasionally, that's hilariously ironic. Thanks whoevers responsible for spellcheck.

Anyway late night fimfictioning over I'm going to bed. Just saw you and had to reply. Thanks for the comment, criticism and corrections and everything dude/dudette/dudex! /)