Princess Luna’s Unconvincing Disguise

by SockPuppet

Chapter 7: Some ponies best serve the world by leaving it

I took a drink of water, parsing all that Luna had said.

"Luna," Rosie said. "That's a terrible story."

"I am a terrible pony," Luna replied.

"No, you're not!" Rosie snapped. She scooted her chair around next to Luna, threw a wing over Luna's cloaked shoulders, and Rosie hugged Luna around the neck with her forelegs. "It's hardly your fault you grew up in such a time and place. It's not your fault you were given so much alcohol before you could decide for yourself. It's not your fault you were... were... were... raped."

Blizzard Walker nodded her head. "Highness... we know you're a short fuse, ma'am, but we volunteer to serve you anyway. Now that I've heard that story, I respect you even more. We usually move Guards to non-combat positions after two hundred days on operations—a pony has a finite stock of courage and sanity, no matter who they are—and you've spent years on the line. You're as tough as Princess Celestia. I mean, at least she was an adult during your... story."

Luna propped her elbows and the table and covered her eyes with her hooves. "Bah! No one respects me. Your battalion knows my weaknesses. You respect my sister, who deserves such, and you serve her by protecting me."

"Ma'am, Celestia gets more volunteers for your detail than she can accept."

"Nonsense. I choose to believe she has to draft troopers onto my detail."

"No, ma'am. And you did save my life that time. That's embarrassing for a bodyguard to admit."

Luna looked up. "In combat, you are my sister, not my bodyguard. I value you highly and would not trade your life lightly."

I tapped a hoof on the table. "My dad's medically retired from the Guard. He won't tell me what happened, he says it's classified for fifty years. But he does tell me he's proud of whatever it was he was doing when he got wounded. Dad says, 'Sometimes, some ponies best serve the world by leaving it.' I don't think you did anything different."

Luna sipped her mineral water. "You sound much like the castle psychiatrist. She tells me my actions are just, and that some ponies naturally have a killer instinct, and it is commendable that I focus my killing on those who threaten society. She says that the fact that I regret many of my sanctions shows I am not a sociopath."

"Yes!" Rosie said.

"My psychiatrist says my alcoholism is due to exposure before my brain was fully formed, probably combined with a genetic predisposition. She says ponies with intractable pain often become addicted to medicinal substances."

"My dad struggles with his spine injury," I said. "With... his medications."

"My psychiatrist says those who have been in combat often re-experience it for the rest of their lives—think about how horrifying 'the rest of my life' is, given that I might live a million years, with no Princess of the Night for my dreams."

Rosie hugged Luna tighter.

"She says," Luna continued, "sexually abused foals often have esoteric sexuality as adults, through no fault of their own. She says that my past sexual abuse exceeds that of anypony else alive today, in war-free modern Equestria. I say I am a murderer, a drunk, a weakling, and a whore."

Luna picked up her bottle and slammed it down, rattling the table. She snarled, "I have had to go into my psychiatrist's dreams more than once, because treating my mental illness is traumatizing to her."

Blizzard Walker said, "Ms. Bayes, Dr. Pudding, I'm in the Household Battalion. You've heard of it?"

"That's 'Celestia's Own,'" I said.

"Amongst other nicknames."

I nodded. "Dad says he stood for selection to Celestia's Own, but failed the tryouts."

"Less than one pony in a hundred makes the cut. Look, okay? Look. Okay. Our combat tempo is the highest in the entire Guard. Look, usually this isn't a conversation I would have around... civilians... but.... look, okay? Princess... I've dropped the hammer on four ponies. I got sick and puked every time, I pissed myself the first time, and I've regretted that they put themselves in the situation where the Guard had to come down on their heads—but I don't regret that they can't hurt anypony else. Because they would have. They were all that kind of pony. The kind who took you when you were six. The kind the world won't miss."

"I am hungry," Luna said. "My treat, if my foalhood story has not ruined your appetites."

Blizzard Walker looked at us. "Princess Celestia commands us to keep the princess fed. She's still growing, and she seldom remembers to eat on her own. And low blood sugar makes her crabby."

"Slander!" Luna snapped. "I am never crabby."

We summoned the waiter. We ordered.

While we waited for the food, I tried to change the subject. I said, "You're also a Grand Duchess?"

Luna shrugged. "Apparently. I read a list of my titles once and had to take ill to my bed. The thought of exercising civil authority... that is far beyond my skills! Celestia is the most gifted administrator and bureaucrat in history. She employs regents and stewards on my behalf to handle my responsibilities. Once I week I sign a stack of papers, unread. The fucking apparatchiks will even bring that duty to me when I'm hospitalized."

"That's pretty low," Rosie said. “How often are you hospitalized?”

Luna sat silently, and levitated a napkin to wipe a tear from her eye. Instead of answering, she said, “For my recent birthday, Celestia gave me a March on the southern border, facing Klugetown, and named me Marchioness. For her last birthday, I gave her a necromancer's ovaries and eyeballs in a jar of formaldehyde. We are bad at gift-giving. I was gone for so long, we are still re-learning to be sisters, and we both need much practice. Although, last Hearth’s Warming, she gave me a lovely blanket."

That murdered the conversation. The food came and we ate in silence. I tried not to think of formaldehyded ovaries and eyeballs, and only nibbled at my meal. Luna ate my untouched portion, in addition to her own. She paid and left a nine-hundred-percent tip.

"Let us walk," she said. Luna stood and gasped as she put weight on her booted leg. "Earlier, Rosie, Proofie, you promised to attest to my sister I had not consumed alcohol. Let us go to her now. Blizzard Walker, lead off. Please."

Rosie and I looked at each other and we both went pale. We were going to go meet Princess Celestia!

Comments

[ShadowWynters2097]

Omg. This story is so dark. And usually i dont like super dark edgy stories. But this one. I love. And idk
Its just sooooo........ Intriguing. Keep up with the great work!

[SockPuppet]

9534200
Thanks! Dark and pathos is hard to do right. I'm glad someone is enjoying it!

Two confessions:
1. this story actually fell out of my backstory for a Luna novel I'm writing. Call this story set 3 months before that.

2. next chapter is the conclusion; not so dark

[ShadowWynters2097]

9534250
Cool! Cant wait to read it.

[SockPuppet]

9535244
Thanks! I hope the remainder can live up to expectations.

[Little_Draco]

9537541
Hey it works but damn

[SockPuppet]

9537787
I was surprised by it myself

[Little_Draco]

9538434
Hey that is the best kind of work, when you can surprise yourself in ways you don't even know how you did it.

[Heavyhauler75622]

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough ponies stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us."

Or...a Princess...

This is not my headcannon for Luna. Misunderstood, taken for granted, ignored...yes...

The Archangel Michael...???

Perhaps not.

The Luna of "The Ponies in the Caves" may be this one, but it seems to me that version of Luna is more in keeping with the canon one. At least to me.

But this one. Gods...my heart is torn from me. This horrific existence...

It is amazing she didn't fold up and end up in an insane asylum; wing cuffs, medicated to a stupor on antipsychotics, and a binding ring on her horn...

It is a tenent of writing; the more desperate, destroyed, and downtrodden the subject is, the greater their heroism when they surmount it...

By that metric, this lady should be a goddess, if not Goddess...

[nlinzer]

Fuck fuck fuck. Luna's Psychiatrist needs to demand Luna not help her with her nightmares, actually lets be honest she probably does and Luna still helps her, because shes so selfless.