Of Time Before The Stars

by JinxTJL

Of Quiet Times Spent Together

They were leaving.

Luna's hooves were busily set to wrapping fabric. Kneading it into tight little balls and folding it into neat little squares; some in every kind for every unenviable situation. They had a lot of it in the little space where they kept it, and surely, they would need it.

For gauze. For warmth. For water. For food. It was multipurpose; they could use it to help with anything. Anything that might happen, no matter how long they were gone, they would need to be prepared for. Luna wouldn't accept anything less.

And so, as they'd discussed how best to prepare for a trip outside, Celestia had been the first to suggest a store of cloth. It made Luna a little embarrassed that she hadn't thought of it first, but of course it was a good idea. A great idea, even. As light as it was, cloth scraps were one of the few things they would be able to have an abundance of on the road.

Lest they forget: they'd be hauling whatever they were bringing. The thought was certainly an effective deterrent to any hoarding fantasies, and she'd had more than a few moments of solid regret as she imagined the weight.

Her eye dipped from her work, and her hooves slowed as the sound of a door closing caught her ear. She turned to the kitchen as her sister trot hurriedly through the door, and past where Luna sat.

She followed her path out of the corner of her eye as Celestia silently swept away into their own room, leaving the door behind her open, but then did she turn around fully to stare at the other door on the same wall.

A closed door barring an empty room.

The sound of wood clattering aside and magic shimmering in the air floated out from where her sister had gone, and so Luna only stared for another moment before she turned and focused herself back on her own job.

They'd been told to stay.

But it had been far too long.

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Carrots. Apples. Celery. Barley.

Crops taken from her mother's garden; baskets woven by her mother's hooves. The stems and the roots and the chaff all separated by her own toil. Lines spent sitting in the bushy patches of mulched soil that she'd taken to watering herself, working her hooves over and over the greens and the refuse.

The carrots needed cutting of their stems, but even those she set aside to put into their own basket. Her hooves down low to pull at dirt-covered stalks, and her magic up high to pluck not-so-ripe fruits. The seeds separated from their prickly, pokey chaff, but she'd keep it all anyway.

Her mother had taught her that everything had a use. Nothing wasted for energy spent, and even inedible parts had their place. Weaving. Burning. Maybe even to eat in the absence of something better.

Given a wash first. Maybe two.

The first three baskets were ready, and small enough to carry two at a time on her back. Jostling against each other, but sturdy enough that she didn't have to keep steady balance. Each were as full as she could gather for, and each had taken her the better part of a respective pot.

Oh, a pot as well. They'd need water to travel.

She'd pulled the cart up to the front of the cabin, and she angled herself toward it as she passed through the front door; making a note to herself to begin boiling some water. The smaller-than-her figure of her sister was idling at its back, and for whatever reason, Celestia slowed to a halt at the beaten cart's side.

Just watched her, for a moment. Watched her reared up into the little barrow's space with her hooves shuffling around in a small box placed inside. The only thing there.

She'd not taken long to finish gathering the cloth, had she?

Celestia took a short breath, and bounced the precarious baskets on her back. With all the work she'd done for the pot, her tired, dirt-smeared legs were beginning to cramp, and she didn't want to stand around staring wistfully for longer than she needed to.

She made her way briskly forward, and came up to her sister's side. Let her hip bump against hers, and eyed her back as her attention was caught.

"Hey," she greeted, but it came out quieter than she'd meant. A bit more grim. Celestia tried not to frown too much as her sister stared at her for a moment, before turning back into the cart and closing the woven straw box.

"Hey," came the quiet greeting back, and it was silent for a moment more as Luna stepped backwards out of the open back of the wagon. Her hoof lingered on its side, and she stared down into it, away from where Celestia could see her face.

Luna seemed to hesitate in a jerkish glace to the side, before she sighed in a tired way that she'd heard too much of lately. She turned, and two blue eyes came around to stare at her. "Art thou still... alright with leaving so hastily?" she spoke quietly, almost nervously, but it still brought a slight smile to Celestia's face to hear her sister's odd way of speaking. It always did.

She shook her head, and she felt the worn smile just a little more genuinely to see the concern on her sister's face. "I gathered up all the food, didn't I?" She hopped her back leg a little, making the baskets bounce and drawing her sister's eye behind her.

Luna stepped off and away from the cart and then towards her: Celestia following the motion with her eye as her sister hummed questioningly. Her anxiousness seemingly forgotten in obtrusive curiosity. "Oh? What are these, then?"

She turned her head, and nearly answered fast enough before Luna had leaned up onto her side and lifted up the first basket's top. "Well, that one is..." Her sister grimaced in disgust, and put the basket top down. "...chaff, as you can see," she finished, and hummed a quirked little laugh at her sister's twisted expression.

Luna turned, and her eyes rolled as she lolled her tongue out in a gag to her face, but Celestia only quietly laughed again. After a moment, Luna's sickened face turned up in a grin, and she began to laugh too. A little harder than her, but Luna was always a bit jovial.

Feeling daring: Celestia swung her hip away, and the hoof Luna had been supporting herself with slid with it as she was left grasping at air. She swiped for a hold for a moment as she stumbled, but then Celestia swung her hip back in again with a giggle, and bumped her flank into Luna's dipping face.

Her sister fell onto her butt then her back in sequence, and Celestia almost expected Luna to roll over and start slinging insults as she stood there, hoof to mouth, giggling at what she'd done. But as her sister got her hooves up under her, there was only a smile on her grass-smudged face, and she just snorted, and burst out laughing up at her again.

It was easy in a way she'd not felt for a long time. It was fun. It felt so natural.

It felt...

The soft laugh that she'd barely had time to cherish died in her throat as some sick feeling rose up from her stomach against it, and she looked away as she was left slightly gaping.

It felt... wrong...

All too soon, the moment had crawled up over them again, and it was quiet as Celestia peered back to see her sister staring down at her splayed hooves with lidded eyes and an open frown.

She'd felt it too. As they'd forgotten, even for just that one moment, they'd begun to remember what it was like before.

But they'd had to remember, and then... how could they forget?

Even as they'd laughed, it was still too quiet.

She coughed to clear the uneasy feeling in her chest, and looked away again as she swallowed over the sound of her sister clearing her own throat. Her hoof kicked up against her other, and her eyes fidgeted from one place to another.

"Have we..." Her sister started, then let herself hang as Celestia forced herself to look back. Their eyes met, but then her sister flicked her eyes skittishly to the ground. Swallowed loudly enough to hear, and hesitantly met her eyes again. "Have we enough food? Will we be... okay?"

It was a heavy question, and Celestia felt her jaw tighten with the worry in her sister's voice. "Of... of course," she answered quickly, and her sister looked down again. Maybe too quickly.

Celestia stepped towards her, and offered her a hoof and a smile she didn't really feel. Even if she didn't say it... couldn't, for the tightness in her throat... Luna knew that she...

Didn't she?

Luna stared at her extended hoof with a frown for a long moment, and sighed, before her wings flapped open, and she leaned back into the air. Celestia stepped slightly to the side as Luna settled on her hooves, and though her head hung and her eyes didn't meet hers, she still flashed her a small, tired smile back.

"We've got enough for a while, at least," Celestia murmured to her sister, and stretched her hoof out again. This, thankfully, was not unanswered, and her sister stepped forward into her breast without a word. Her face nestled close as their sides touched, and Celestia shifted around in the locks of blue until her mouth brushed against an ear.

"We won't need that much," she whispered, and her sister fidgeted against her. "There are villages out there we can restock at, surely. If we even need to be out that long."

Her hoof holding blue fuzz rubbed around as comfortingly as she could manage, and she shifted her mouth again as she planted a small kiss into the mess of her sister's soft mane. She felt her begin to pull away, and let her; leaning her head down to meet her sister's downcast eyes.

Luna, staring more at the ground than her, still smiled slightly, and even coughed out a quick hum of a laugh. "Surely..." she echoed through her wistful half-grin, and Celestia's own smile turned slightly sadder.

They both knew.

She took a step forward, and patted her sister on the shoulder, and their eyes met again as Luna raised her head. She tilted her head, and tried to keep her face reassuring.

"Why don't you go get some rest, sister mine?" she murmured, and Luna's furrowed brow lightened a bit. She patted again. "I- we, can take care of most of the rest."

Luna liked it when she talked funny, like her. And, truth be told, she didn't mind all that much.

As Celestia's hoof was on her shoulder, Luna's other hoof rose to rest similarly on her own shoulder. Luna's expression tightened, and something in her eyes lightened a bit as her smile broke into a kind of melancholy. "We believe we shall, sister mine."

They stayed like that for a moment, staring into each other's eyes. She wasn't sure what Luna was looking for in her face, as her eyes lidded and her pupils traveled, but Celestia was just taking the moment to breathe in how pretty she was.

So expressive, her sister was. Those long lashes and the way her expansive eyes just sparkled. The little lines around the curve of her nose left by laughing too much for things that weren't really all that funny. She'd never tell her, and she was sure Luna hadn't noticed, but she'd even begun to freckle slightly as of late.

Just a few darker blue, too-small-to-see spots to see on the rise of her nose and barely about her cheeks. Clear enough to shine through her fur, but if they weren't just bashfully hidden.

It was so adorable.

Her face felt heavy without her realizing the change, and she suddenly wanted very much to reach out and touch upon her cheek, if only for a moment. To feel her flush. To remember again how soft her fur was.

To feel that she was still warm.

Luna ended their staring contest first, and Celestia gasped softly at the movement as she suddenly leaned away. Blinked rapidly as colors besides blue leaked in, and her sister was already walking away and into the house. Off to take a nap, hopefully.

She stared after her for a very long moment of silence, before the weight upon her back resettled with the rustle of a cold breeze, and she remembered what she was doing.

She shook her head, and turned back to their father's cart. She still had a lot to do. Still needed to gather up the rest of the food, and collect some water. Still needed to double-check the things she'd already checked for.

Shame on her for getting so distracted. Luna was fine.

They both were.

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Her sister had told her to get some rest. Truly, Luna felt they could both use some, but Celestia was as like to slow down as Luna was to listen to her.

As her sister fussed with the cart outside, Luna stood not at the door to their room as she likely should've, but at the second door at the same wall. The same door in base appearance, but vastly different for this context.

Luna sighed, and not for the first time in very few seconds, she thought to turn away. To walk away, and just take that tantalizing nap. They'd both promised, in a lovely moment of emotion, to leave their parents' room alone until they were safe at home. Preserve what lay within, until they were all together again.

But her sister had gotten her thinking.

There are villages out there, surely.

Her hoof crept out in slow motion, yet she flinched away just before she met wood. Her head whipped around at the sound of approaching hoofsteps, and her flight instincts kicked in as she scampered as quietly as she could to the door to their room.

She pushed the door open a scant moment before her sister rightfully barged in, and she quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

Her sister had set a brisk trot across the room to the kitchen, but with Luna idling at their open door, she still sent a little smile her way that Luna tried to confidently return. Another moment, and Celestia was gone again. Probably would be for a while, off to their mother's garden.

Yet, seeing her go only filled her again with the sour taste of guilt.

Celestia was doing so much, and all useless little Luna had done was sort fabric and cry.

Luna leaned into her hoof holding her door open, and pressed her head against the doorframe. She cast a leery glance into the dark room inside, to the bed in the corner that sweetly called her name in soft flashes of imagined comfort. How nice it would be to take that nap.

But her sister had gotten her thinking.

If there were villages out there, then they could restock.

But they'd need money to buy things.

It wasn't something she'd thought about often, living in the woods with her family. Barter and trade were... nearly foreign concepts to them. They were entirely self-sufficient out here in the woods, and if their parents kept regular contact with other ponies, then it wasn't something they talked about.

Something they actively avoided talking about, actually, no matter how often their children pestered them.

She understood the give-and-take of commercial trade, of course. Truthfully, she'd always secretly thought she'd excel at talking ponies into lowering their prices if not outright giving her things- but it would still be an entirely novel experience.

It was... still kind of enticing, the thought. Just aside how exciting it would be to meet new ponies- and it was something that hadn't really been able to leave her mind- but to then yell at them? Tower over them in personality if not stature? Force them to see things her way?

Ply her silver tongue at trade so ordinary to be as like with the peasantry? To be... average?

It sounded like so much fun. If the gloom didn't creep back in every time she caught eyes with her sad sack of a sister, then she'd probably be bouncing off the walls right about now.

...But things were still heavy. They hadn't spoken much as of late... but she knew Celestia was trying to do everything all by herself. It was very much like her; shouldering the burden, and suffering through a smile.

That's what she'd done before.

She let the door swing closed as she stepped back, and her face felt rather dim as she turned to make her way to their parents' room. She stopped at the threshold, and placed her hoof once more upon its surface.

She didn't have to take all the weight by herself. If her sister were to just ask... then Luna would be there to carry the slack.

No... she didn't even need to ask.

================================= ☽ ☽ ☽ =================================

This was the final call.

Celestia circled restlessly around the cart their father had once used to carry wood: now full in all its splinter-covered space with brown baskets and boxes woven tightly around everything they'd hopefully need.

She stopped around the lowered latch of the back again, and stepped up into it to see once more that it was all in order.

Five baskets for the plants she'd gathered from their mother's garden arrayed in the corner: all as undisturbed as she'd left them. Her horn alit, and she stretched her head out to count under her breath each type as she lifted their tops to see them.

They probably wouldn't need all that much food; it was more a precaution than anything else. They were just going out to look for their parents a little. Not to travel the world.. Wherever they had gone... it wouldn't take very long to find them. She was... she was sure.

The doubt had crawled up her neck again, and she shivered slightly before she shook it off in a jolt. Then shook her head again for good measure as she closed the baskets again.

The world outside was hardly something so foreign to be so scared of. It was just ponies, living their lives. Ponies were nice. Ponies were friendly. Everything would be okay.

Just next to their stores of food were two small-ish clay pots full to the closed brim with river water. It wouldn't do them any good to carry much more, or to get sick, so she'd settled just for the two small pots to boil. It would take much longer for any more water, and again: they were trying to travel relatively light.

So really, they weren't going to be bringing much else. A small stack of bedding they were going to lay directly across the back once it was shut, as well as their smaller chest of scrap fabrics. Some general oddities as tiny jars of preserve and boxes of needles. One or two personals for the each of them, though Luna had insisted only on one very odd thing to bring.

Celestia frowned as she had the first time she'd seen it; using her magic to lift the grey fabric, hooded cloak out from the pile her sister had tossed it into. She wasn't sure where the silly little filly had gotten it or the idea to wear it, but seeing even such a small reminder brought back-

As she lifted the cloak into the air, a long, polished, dark wood box fell with a clatter out of its fluttering cape, to land and lay plainly halfway onto the raised edge of the cart's open back.

Celestia blinked dumbly; staring at the foreign box with the cloak still hanging limply in her magical hold. She swiveled her head to stare at the boring hood of cloth, then back to the mysterious box, and it wasn't very hard to make the choice.

She threw her sister's odd clothing back into the cart, to instead heft the slightly heavy, much odder box of her sister's up for inspection.

It had landed on its side with its handle up, so it was only marginally disappointing to then see in greater detail the small, off-color lock affixed between the latch's clasps. It was immediately obvious that it didn't fit- the box could actually lift open an odd inch before the closed lock snapped the two edges of the latch together- but it worked as it was.

Aside where her sister had scrounged up the unfitting lock in a bid to keep her out- what was this box?

Her expression was intensely curious as she shook the box in her grip, perking her ear to hear the slight rattle of metal inside- or was that the bouncing lock? She turned it over and over, looking about its plain, albeit polished sides for anything distinctive to give her a clue.

It was very nice- she liked the way its surfaces gleamed in the light- but what was inside?

She'd never seen it before. Her sister had never told her about it. It was obviously important enough not just to bring it along, but also to lock it. What could it be?!

Something valuable. Something precious. Something secret.

She'd been assuming it was her sister's, but there remained the possibility that it belonged to their parents. Though, that would mean that her sister had broken their mutual promise to stay out of their parents' room, and then decided for whatever reason to take the box, and that all just didn't seem her.

Except for maybe breaking promises. She knew for a fact Luna hadn't been keeping her watch, and she was more sure than not that she had gone into their parents' room. Aside from the slight annoyance that she'd kept it from her, it didn't really bug her all that much- that was just the way Luna was.

Yet now, in the moment, Celestia felt more and more frustrated as she roughly shook the box again. No matter how she shook it or glared at it, it only continued to be a very pretty, very closed box.

She wanted to know what was inside.

She huffed, and set it back down into the wagon hard-but-not-too-hard, and worked her tired jaw as she stared down at it.

It was large enough to have... pretty much anything in it, and aside from the fact that it was kind of heavy and sounded like it had something metal inside, there weren't many guesses she could make. Her sister was an strange, enigmatic little filly with a life all her own, and the possibilities were pretty endless.

Something occurred, and she quirked a brow. Hummed, and arched her head a bit.

She... could try to... bust it open?

Her sister would... but then she could... if she could just find out then...

But then, of course, she couldn't.

Celestia shook her head, and sighed. One end of the grey cloak cast aside lifted up into the air, and with a flourish of magic, she lifted the box up into the middle of the shroud and wrapped it around itself. She set the box under the cloak back to where she'd found it, and then took a moment to stare down at it longingly.

It would eat at her a little, to know that her sister was keeping a secret. Something so dear to her that she'd not shared it, and gone so far as to actively hide it; it seemed a rather dire thing of her little sister. Whatever it was, it was important to Luna.

But... she understood why she might keep a secret. Some things...

Red puddles. Broken wings. A chest fallen still.

Stranger.

Some things... were okay to hide.

She'd not pry.

================================= ☼ ☼ ☼ =================================

She'd painted the sky again.

Luna lay on her back in the middle of a large patch of white flowers, in the larger middle of a grassy field that she'd dreamt would go on forever. Staring up, with her hooves over her stomach, at the darkened sky above, which she decided for now would swirl in pretty shades of maroon on lined black, with just little dotted shades of blurry green to accent it in long swipes.

The extremely dark red circled and danced at her command, but no matter how she pulled its strings, as it slid against the static motions of the black, it just...

She just wasn't feeling very creative, right now. It really sucked, considering she was leaving soon.

Do not fret, our Champion.

Luna sighed, and with a lazy blink, the lines of red exploded out and laid in messy, reaching spikes of shapely design across the sky. It would sparkle without her input, and that was good enough for now as she just let her head rest. The white flowers tickling at her cheeks.

For what reason did she not have to fret? She and her sister had spoken, and it was agreed that they would finally take their leave on the fill of next pot. Luna would awake from this dream, and as she left her tree, she'd not be coming back for... a while.

Didn't they realize what that meant? Her body was there now, amidst its branches- but she'd be leaving the tree behind.

Her frown curled on its edges as a familiar sense of jumpy emotion rose in her cheeks, and it was only the strict reminder to herself that she'd cried far too much recently that stopped her.

She'd lose the ability to come here. To dream with them.

Shouldn't she be fretting about that, at least?

Our platitude was meant to assuage, but it was also meant to avail. You should not fret, and you shouldn't, as there is nothing to fret over.

The soft, endlessly loud voice in her head sparked something in her chest. A hope, that she immediately tried to stomp down out of protective cynicism.

They didn't offer platitudes often; their blunt honesty was one of the things she appreciated the most out of them. If they were really, truly, telling her not to worry about it, then that meant...

...But if that were true, then why..?

It is easiest here, that is true. To allow your slumbering mind to roam free as your body rests above is done as a service, and it is a privilege. We would give a thousand thanks for the merest chance of favor.

But you must grow. We have arrived again to a juncture, and you must again find a new path without us.

You must leave, and there is nothing as important as your leave. But we are never separated; our Champion is our link to the land through which the Will is done. It is foregone: we will remain, and as you grow, you will find us.

You will leave. You will grow. You will dream. We will speak.

Their endlessly pitched voice came to its end in a descending chorus of wobbling, fading echoes, and Luna was left with the quiet in her head, and a thousand thoughts to fill it.

Luna felt warm- but she also felt oddly cold, and she held her hooves across her chest. She shivered from a source uncertain, and rolled her head uncertainly across the grass as one word or another caught and played over in her mind.

That was... a lot. And... geez, her head kind of hurt now.

But even with the subtle pounding in her head, and the cold she hadn't imagined biting at her coat, she found herself strangely smiling. Staring up at the sky she'd painted: she began to wonder if it couldn't use something else. An inexplicable feeling of want for something she didn't know.

Her body tensed, and even as she shivered slightly for the cold in her chest, her hoof fell to the side. Gripped aimlessly and tore in its crook the flowers she'd dreamt without a thought.

The sky needed something. It looked... empty.

It lacked.

In a motion: she swiped her hoof up, and in her grasp were bunches of tiny white petals. Ripped from the ground and cast into the air as her hoof reached its apex. Caught on a breeze that she'd never blustered, and floating ever higher.

And then... she closed her eyes.

In a normal field, she'd expect to feel little tickling leaves landing all over her face anytime soon. Petals could only dance about in the air for so long, before they'd eventually have to fall.

But... in a dream...

What may never fall.

She opened her eyes, and the heavens twinkled.

Oracle.

We are never apart.

================================= ☽ ☽ ☽ =================================

This was the last time they'd be doing this.

Their windowless room was dark, even as the sun continued to shine outside. The pot had filled to its barest edge, and as the drips ceased, it had come time for their last slumber in their home. Everything was ready, the cart was full: all that remained was them.

But were they ready?

"Do you think we'll be gone long?" Her sister's quiet voice reverberated out through her chest, and as Celestia stroked her mane, her other hoof trembled on her side. She hoped Luna hadn't felt it too much.

She shifted her head along the pillow it rest on, and leaned towards Luna's flattened ear. "Of course not. We're just going out to find mother and father," she whispered, and took the moment to close her eyes. Let herself enjoy the downy feeling of resting alongside her sister.

It was a question they'd separately asked each other at least once before, and as it had been both times, Celestia felt quietly unsure of the answer.

When Luna had asked her, she'd more or less said what she'd just repeated. But when she'd had her own doubts, and repeated the question to her sister in a moment of weakness...

Luna shifted, and a hoof squirmed its way under her arm. Her sister's chest met her stomach as she pressed herself closer, and spoke again in the same quiet tone. "I know you don't think it'll take long to find them, but I'm... I'm not sure if..."

Luna trailed off, and shifted her face back into Celestia's chest. She sighed, and squeezed her sister tighter as she stroked along her mane again. It was easy to tell when she wasn't feeling right, and she started using the modern vernacular again.

Luna wasn't afraid to cut right to the point. It was obvious from the start that her hopes for the search were low, but still, she'd just... come right out and address her concerns. It was brave. Braver than Celestia.

All she could do was reassure. Even if her words were empty, all she could do was talk back.

"It's okay, Lulu," she murmured reassuringly, as she leaned in closer. Tried to curl herself around as much of her sister as she could reach, and she felt her wiggle in closer in response. "It doesn't matter how long it'll take to find them. We'll just keep going, okay? Together."

Her back leg crept in and folded into the open space of her sister's, and her hoof touched and looped carefully around her sister's wing. She felt the motion of Luna nodding under her chin, and she nodded right along to match her as she hummed something soothing.

It was time for a change of topic.

She tried to smile large enough that her sister would feel the expression, or maybe hear it through her voice. "Talk to me, Luna. I know you've always wanted to go outside, but you haven't talked about it since..."

Celestia trailed off for a moment as her breath caught, and her eyes drifted open to see flashes of a mare with a sad smile.

'Your father's been gone too long, and I'm worried. I'm... going out to find him.'

'Don't worry, girls, I won't be gone long. Just wait here until we're back. And...'

'...take care of each other.'

She quietly gasped in the end of the breath, and blinked as her sister's warmth rushed in again. The next breath came in a rush, and her forced smile was too wide with something she didn't feel as she finished all in a raspy gasp. "...since we've been alone. You must... be pretty excited, in a way."

Celestia was still breathing too fast, and she didn't imagine for a second that Luna hadn't noticed her lapse. Her sister had tensed noticeably, and her head was shifting up, up- and Celestia buried her face into the side of her sister's mane. To hide the expression. The jitter in her jaw.

She needed to get a grip. For Luna. She had to be strong for Luna. Always. Never again.

She swallowed as her throat became too dry to breathe, and Luna was silent for a long moment more. Silent, until she shifted again, and the hoof under her arm came up around the back of her neck.

Their cheeks brushed, and then their positions were suddenly reversed. Luna's leg was between hers, and her head was up at her ear as her hoof rubbed along her neck. Celestia's face was in her neck, and she wasn't sure Luna had ever seemed so big.

What was happening?

"You miss them, don't you?" came the soft murmur into her ear, and Celestia tried not to shake at the breath along her ear. Tried not to let the warm, strained feeling in her eyes overflow even as it begged to be let go. Bit her lip, and told herself to calm down. She couldn't fall apart on her sister. She had to be strong.

But then Luna's voice came again, and her voice was so steady. Quiet, and smooth, yet there was an edge of worn vulnerability below it that made it all the harder to hear. "You've been so wonderful this entire time, and I've done nothing but cry. While you did everything. Had all the bright ideas. Just... let me fall apart."

Luna's next breath was sharp, and then her voice came lower, and faster, like she was trying to get it all out in a breath. Celestia wanted to stop her.

"When father first left and didn't come back, I didn't think anything of it. You were the same as always, and I assumed he'd just show back up eventually, and life would go on. I even welcomed the time away from him. I imagined it'd be such a drag when he finally came back."

Her voice caught- she heard the whimper- but then Luna just continued: something almost incredulous in the way she kept her wet tone light. "And then mother said she was going to look for him. All in a day we were left alone, and you just kept on smiling. When she didn't come back, you just started doing her chores. You didn't complain. You didn't cry.

"But you did cry, didn't you?"

And now, she was.

Luna's voice kept even, as Celestia began to silently shiver and weep. She couldn't help herself; no matter how she tried, the tears simply came. And then, she could hear- Luna began to smile. "I know you've been thinking of everything that could go wrong- and of course you know we could get hurt. When you suggested we bring cloth, you didn't say and I didn't think of it, but..."

Stop. Luna, stop, she wanted to say. She needed... She was supposed to be...

Luna laughed, then, and Celestia couldn't stop her voice from rising in a desperate wail as she clutched at Luna's sides in a useless bid to make her stop talking. "Neither of us have any idea what we're doing at all. We don't know what's out there, and we don't even know where to start looking. Mother and father could be anywhere, and we may never find them."

This was all wrong. Celestia was supposed to be the one talking. Celestia was supposed to be the one comforting.

"But that doesn't matter."

But she was weak, and her sister was strong.

So strong, with her hooves around her. So strong- like steel in her voice.

"Because we're going to find them, sister mine. We're going to come home, and we're going to have so much fun doing it."

And Luna said it all with a smile on her face and joy in her voice, as Celestia muffled the sobbing cries she'd suppressed for too many pots to count. Her sister holding her to her chest like she'd never done before, and squeezing her softly in rhythm as she wailed and shook and choked through tears.

And long after, when Celestia passed out, cheeks dry and eyes red, her last thoughts were of her sister: still continuing to whisper in a low, excited, increasingly raspy tone about everything they were going to do when they left the forest. All the fun they were going to have on the first adventure of their lives.

And as she dreamed of the times yet to come, she had a smile on her face.

Author's Note:

I lied, AGAIN!

SHUT UP! I LIKE THIS STORY AND I LIKE TRUDGING THROUGH THE EMOTIONS!

but fr only one more chapter i swear this time.

Hey, I like taking things from the fandom, can't you tell? Who even knows where 'sister mine' originated from at this point, but using it makes me feel like an old-timey professional horse writer. It's really cute either way, and so's most of what I did in this chapter.

One more chapter- and I mean it this time. The chances of me writing the next chapter and just throwing my ambition to try my second hand at writing my other story out the window are incredibly low. I love this story, but I've got a prior commitment, toots.

Plus, I need the time to draft up story details. I've gotta look at a map- and figure out what Equestria was like back then- and think about the beats and stings- and just a lot of stuff I've been slacking on doing for as long as we've been in these woods.

Next time, on the recalcitrant writer show~

hey, i know ponies don't have breasts to rest abreast, but just imagine it as a synonym for chest, m'kay