If You Would Friend a Tiger...

by Coyote de La Mancha

6) A Lady Visits.

Though the sun was yet unseen, Prince Shining Armor was already awake. He tended meticulously to the early morning affairs of state, guarding his beloved’s rest from bureaucracy’s perils. Their newly-born daughter he had gently moved from their bed, allowing his wife a deeper sleep. At least, for a little while. And he had given strict orders that his lady was not to be disturbed, no matter the cause or time of day.

Meanwhile, in the darkness of the royal nursery, unseen by mortal eyes, something stirred. Something that was dream, yet more than dream.

For a moment, the light from the setting moon wavered as the darkness gathered herself together. Then, she stood by the cradle in physical form, peering into it with an expression born of pure love.

“Hello, little one,” Luna whispered.

In the Night Queen’s shadow, the as-yet nameless weanling yawned, then made a contented noise and snuggled deeper into her covers.

Luna contemplated the youngest alicorn, smiling through slow, gentle tears. Her mind told her firmly that it had been a thousand years since her fall, the Crystal Empire’s banishment through time having been only a few months before. And shortly before that, young Princess Cadence’s own disappearance.

But Luna’s heart insisted that while it had been several years since she had burst forth from her nightmarish prison of armor and rage, it had only been a day before that when she had risen against her sister. Even with Celestia’s songs to comfort her as she’d slept, Luna’s slumber within Nightmare Moon – and Nightmare Moon’s slumber, in turn, within the moon’s essence – had made a mockery of time.

What a short while it had been, her heart therefore whispered, since little Cadence had gotten her cutie mark and been sent hurtling forward through time. What a short time it had been since the Crystal War.

And so it was that Princess Luna stood in the nursery’s silence, looking down over the daughter of her now-grown crystalfoal in a state of joyful wonder.

The weanling burbled and rolled over, clutching something previously concealed by her covers.

For a moment, Luna stared in astonishment. Then, gingerly, she reached down and moved the child’s blanket just enough to confirm the identity of the weanling’s snuggle toy.

“Well, hello, little warrior,” Luna whispered. “Fancy meeting you here.”

She took a moment to consider the stuffed tiger before continuing, “It has been a long time, has it not? I can only imagine how you came to be here, what adventures you must have had along the way.

“I wonder what games you must have played with the foals who friended you. What brave battles you must have fought, your young companions ever by your side.”

For a time, she simply smiled at the two tiny figures in the cradle before her.

“You know, I would never have expected to find you in a pony’s arms, not in a thousand times a thousand years,” she said at last. “But now, I can’t think of any place I would rather find you than precisely where you are.”

Cuddling her toy, the weanling began suckling in her sleep.

With the greatest care, Luna tucked her in a little more snugly, daring to briefly caress her tiny mane lightly as she slept.

“Good night, then,” she said tenderly. “Both of you.”

With a silence that even the shadows would envy, Princess Luna stepped back and dissolved again into a darkling mist. The moonlight wavered once more and then she was gone, her moon sinking slowly below the horizon.