Learning to see Luna, the story of Vivid Colour.

by Hope

Chapter 22. The Rural Vivid

Princess Luna watched carefully as they entered the town of Vivid’s birth and childhood.

She paid careful attention to each glance shot their way, to each expression given when Vivid was spotted. Luna also was careful not to meet the gaze of any pony who looked her way.

In a tiny town such as this, far from her control or influence, she was a myth walking carelessly into a rural story. Her attention, her expression could incite jealousy, fear, or even violence.

It wasn’t all that much different than when she entered a rural town in Equestria, though in that case she could enforce some amount of civility, and trust that the ponies involved had been raised into some degree of skepticism when it came to the myth of Luna. They knew her as a ruler more than an Alicorn.

But the fear in the eyes of these ponies was striking. It didn’t fall below Luna’s notice that Lemon Tart, Vivid’s quiet friend, had fallen well behind the group as to not appear to be with them. When Vivid left, he would still have to live here. He would be asked why he was in the presence of the Night Witch at all.

Luna let the slightest sigh slip her lips, and Vivid quickly turned to her. With such sensitive ears, it was a surprise that the dear pony didn’t hear Luna’s inner monologue, she mused.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, my dear. Just calculating the cost of my visit, on the myths that will be born from it,” Luna said with a slight air of casual amusement.

It helped to sound amused, it encouraged Vivid to forget that Luna had the same emotional troubles and fears that any mortal pony would.

“Myths. Why would anypony develop myths of this? We aren’t fighting a great battle,” Vivid scoffed.

Luna smiled, just a little. The perspective of mortal ponies, and how they took the legends they heard at face value was so fascinating when she'd watched a small party with friends become a storied tale of intrigue and romance among her ponies in decades gone by.

“I could imagine it,” Luna hummed as Vivid led them down a road split off from the main one. “The evil queen of the night is summoned to a small town in Bitain by the vengeance of a former resident once shunned. Her presence alone spelling misfortune and woe for the small place for decades to come.”

Vivid scoffed again, but Luna looked to the two Bitish guards pulling the cart, and they averted their eyes, one flushed with embarrassment.

She'd told a story they were already imagining.

“It's nothing more than visiting my home. We aren't even doing anything to them.”

“Presence alone can do much, Vivid,” Luna insisted gently as they rounded a bend and came into view of a grove of trees that had been hidden by a hill.

The grove was of rough gnarled oaks with thick roots, nearly impossible to remove, the land was useless for farming. But a short dirt path sloped down to a simple gate which guarded a simple home.

Plain wood walls with bark still on the logs, a single window in the front with no glass, but shutters. A chimney, and shingled roof.

But all around it in every direction was a garden to rival the royal ones in Canterlot.

The bushes of roses stretched up over the heads of the average pony, forming arches for Luna to bow under to reach the door. The grasses all around were of an edible sweet variety that had a soft smell and bent easily under hoof before springing back.

Random patches of other flowers huddled around the roots of the trees that hemmed in the home, forming bright splashes of color.

Luna wondered how it was that a mare who could not see had created such a wonderful garden, before she realized that it was all organized by taste.

The sweetest flowers in one bunching, the bitter in another, and so on through to the more savory wheat sprigs sprouting up in one corner with basil clustered round their base.

Luna grinned

It was a restaurant for a single pony, bred for self sufficiency.

“Luna?”

Vivid was looking in her direction with concern, and Luna smiled, showing her that her awestruck contemplation of the place wasn’t a bad sign.

“It’s wonderful, Vivid. Beautiful.”

“Well you haven’t even seen inside it yet,” Vivic said, cheeks darkened as she opened the door.

Luna had expected a small simple place, and she wasn’t wrong. But most surprising was the quality of all the furnishings, and the symbols of the sun hung all around, almost all in wood, some painted yellow or white with rough strokes.

“Bedroom’s through that door,” Vivid said, sitting in the middle of the living room which also contained the wood fired stove and a washing tub.

Luna was careful to duck her head as to not hit her horn on the roof beams, but even the beams looked clean and near the walls they acted as shelves or spots from which to hang things.

“You lived here alone?” Luna asked, walking around the home carefully to peek into the bedroom at the hay stuffed bed and shelves of more sun carvings.

“I did,” Vivid sighed. “Though Lemon visited when he could. Kept me from being too much of a recluse.”

"Sounds like a good friend," Luna said softly, smiling to Vivid's friend who was standing in the doorway of the front door.

Lemon blushed and turned away.

"He is. Lemon, where did you put the moon I carved?"

Lemon trotted over and helped Vivid find the large white painted full moon, with random pockmarked craters in the surface. It was clearly innacurate and she'd probably made it off a rough description of the moon, but Luna teared up a little at the fact that even younger, Vivid had carved her moon in admiration, or possibly in a sense of equality. Vivid took down an ornate metal-decorated sun from the wall and hung the moon in it's place.

"You're far too kind to me, Vivid," Luna mumbled as she walked up next to them to examine it.

"I didn't know you back then," Vivid said simply. "Now I do, and I believe that necessitates a change."

Luna kissed Vivid just below her horn, but out of the corner of her eye she could see the Bitain guards looking away and her own guards shooting them dirty looks. Just another reminder that this was not her land.

“Well, it’s a beautiful ornament. We will have to return here on occasion. It’s an incredible place.”

“It’s a simple cottage with a simple garden,” Vivid scoffed. “You’re simply biased by your feelings.

“Oh woe is me, having feelings and such,” Luna chuckled in response.

Vivid huffed before turning to Lemon. “Would you like to live here? I know your home is small, and you own this one now.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Lemon said timidly.

“Nonsense, you’re the best friend I have, and I insist that you move in. You can put all my things on this side of the living room, and take the bedroom. If Luna and I visit, we can sleep on the couch.”

Lemon turned slowly to look Princess Luna up and down, before turning back to Vivid. “You’ve measured her, yes? No offense to her highness, but the couch is smaller overall.”

Luna tried very hard not to laugh as Vivid just shrugged. “We shall sleep in the garden then, well enough for us. She’s very warm.”

Lemon’s cheeks pinkened as he looked to Luna then back to Vivid.

“I’m quite sure she is, but… Is that proper.”

And there, Luna spotted, was that anxiety of the unknown. This poor stallion would likely never feel comfortable kissing a pony he loved within sight of another pony, just because that love was given to other stallions.

Luna stepped up and placed a hoof on Lemon’s shoulder.

“How would you like to visit Equestria, and see why Vivid is so calm about expressing herself?” she offered gently.

Lemon looked between Luna and Vivid, working his jaw but not quite having anything to say.

“It’d be a good experience for you,” Vivid agreed. “See what it’s like to live in a land where activity is done in the night and sleeping during the day. I’ve come to somewhat prefer it.”

“Wait, Equestria sleeps during the day?” Lemon asked more incredulously than even when he’d been considering Luna trying to lay on a couch smaller than she was.

Luna nodded. “Indeed, I’ve held my court sessions at midnight for more than eight centuries. When my sister fell, I simply added court sessions at Sunset and Dawn for the joint court. The midday court has… not been held in a long time,” she chuckled to herself. “Once Celestia returns, certainly it will resume.”

“So you did not force it, all of your ponies simply chose to follow your preferred sleep schedule because of convenience?” Lemon clarified.

“Well, it certainly helped that I spread the wide usage of magical light crystals, subsidized by the state, and regulated weather so that most rain would fall during the day,” Luna said smugly. “Yes I’ll admit that I have shaped things to my preference, but famers still tend towards sleeping through both midday and midnight, and there is nothing enforcing a nocturnal schedule. Some specialty restaurants stay open throughout the clock in Canterlot.”

Lemon shook his head, wide eyed. “I appreciate the invitation, your highness, but it is too different, I think, for me to easily enjoy the visit. I’ll stay here for now.”

Luna nodded. “Very well then. If you change your mind, a room at the castle will be available.”

“Or perhaps a job…” Vivid murmured as she stepped up to face Lemon. “You wanted to be a scribe in the castle, did you not?”

Lemon shrunk back a little.

“I did, but you do not have to take advantage of your position of power to give me the job I seek, Vivid.”

“But we could bring you to Equestria on the day of the hiring. No pony involved in the hiring will know that we brought you there, or that you know us,” Vivid insisted. “A fair chance in a land where your accent and bearing have no effect on your chances of being hired.”

Lemon hunched his shoulders a bit more and sighed. "Fine, Vivid. If it'll put your mind at ease, when that chance is up, I'll go to Equestria, and see if I can make it there."

"You sound as though I'm sentencing you to the gallows," Vivid said sadly as she stepped closer and touched her cheek to Lemon's, a gentle comforting motion. "Why?"

"Maybe you have the fire in you for this equality, for this new land. I gave up long ago on being anything but a curiosity, Vivid. This all sounds like a false hope, and even if it all turns out to be true, I don't know if I'll ever believe it's really happening, in my heart."

Luna watched the friends comfort eachother, and she knew that she was witnessing the damage of the isolation and shame the queen and her predecessors had been enforcing for so many years. One could say that a society would advance regardless of the pony in charge, but here Luna believed she saw a distinct comparison between the two nations. Her own, led by a pony who demanded acceptance of the marginalized, and Bitain led by one that had swept it all under the rug as though barely even there.

“Maybe someday that can change,” Vivid said softly.

“I don’t see how it can, Vivid. I’ve maintained your garden because I have to eat here. They won’t even sell me food in town anymore,” he sighed.

She patted Lemon gently, and then gestured for Luna to step outside with her, into that beautiful garden.

“What can you do about this?” Vivid asked, pleaded.

Luna feared in that moment that her cynicism and knowledge of the workings of governance would break Vivid’s hopeful tone, so she had to temper it cautiously.

“We’ve begun the path towards healing, Vivid,” Luna insisted, putting a wing over her, a now well practiced motion that brought the smaller pony enough comfort that Luna felt it might help.

“Started… Not being illegal, is hardly healing,” Vivid said bitterly.

“No, but it’s on the path, the first step no matter how small is necessary, and the next may be made,” Luna insisted.

“So negotiate this into trade,” Vivid begged. “How many bushels of wheat or bags of sugar is it worth, the lives of the hurt?”

Luna sighed. The only hope in it was for her to be honest.

“Vivid, what do you think of the state of worshipping my sister? The recent changes?”

“Well, I see a slight parallel in it,” Vivid sighed, rolling her eyes. “But hardly. It’s a law you could have changed at any time.”

“There was never actually a law,” Luna said softly. “Never once did I outlaw worshipping her. I just insinuated it. So, were the laws here to be changed, how much damage could be done by insinuation and by the quiet actions of a populace who feels they are being forced into it?”

Vivid paused, curling in slightly.

Luna embraced her tighter. “These people. The Bitish, they are now exposed. Their leader has made a step on our path, and they have seen a strangeness presented as not so strange. For now, we hope it is enough to change stray minds, to shape the quiet masses. They may all believe that they stand on principled beliefs, but their principles are often ill defined and lacking reflection. They will be swayed by the movement of culture, if fate wills it.”

“I thought once that alicorns… That you and your sister could bend fate to your wills,” Vivid whispered. “Then it thrilled me that you could not… Now, it saddens me. Because I would actually wish for you to have such power.”

“I’m flattered,” Luna said with a bit of a smile. “Truly. But I don’t believe any one creature should wield the power to overtake the minds of others and force them to act as desired. There is no path to that power except for tyranny.”

“No but perhaps you could inspire a love for others in their hearts?” Vivid asked, leaning on her and looking up to her, the slight silvery glow in her eyes showing to Luna that she was using her magical sight to examine her, to see her expression. Her smile grew.

“A shame there’s not another alicorn to take the moon then,” she said with false sorrow. “To be the alicorn of love, now that would be an enviable position, I think.”

Vivid sighed, and nuzzled Luna's side before drying her cheeks. Luna hadn't even noticed she'd been crying while she was pressed against her.

"I suppose we have, truly, done what we can... A sad thing to realize when it seems like so little."

Luna kissed her softly. "We keep pressing, and things will improve. Now come, your friend is likely sitting awkwardly with a large gathering of guards."

"So that we could escape them for a moment," Vivid said wryly.

"I don't mind, overmuch. Time alone with you is precious."

They walked back into the house, and Vivid began a proper tour of her home, culminating in a dinner served from her garden, the last truly calm night they would have in several years.

Comments

[mishun]

Luna had expected a small simple place, and she wasn’t wrong. But most surprising was the quality of all the furnishings, and the symbols of the sun hung all around, almost all in wood, some painted yellow or white with rough strokes.

I'm a bit surprised that thankful population of village didn't torch all that down just after she "departed".

Luna kissed Vivid just below her horn...

Alicorn's eyes are magically enchanted to be poke-proof I guess?

“But we could bring you to Equestria on the day of the hiring. No pony involved in the hiring will know that we brought you there, or that you know us,”

Riiiiiight

“I’m flattered,” Luna said with a bit of a smile. “Truly. But I don’t believe any one creature should wield the power to overtake the minds of others and force them to act as desired. There is no path to that power except for tyranny.”

Well, what's she trying to do as a ruler and what Equestrian political system is?

[LoudThunder]

They walked back into the house, and Vivid began a proper tour of her home, culminating in a dinner served from her garden, the last truly calm night they would have in several years.

Oh no I smell big trouble
Several years could mean that there is a war or some big confilct.
now I want to know what happens. Damm teasers

[Backlash91]

ALICORN of loooove!?!?!?!

Yes pwease^^